Philip V of France
Philip V ruled France from 1316 to 1322 and took the throne in circumstances that produced the rule barring women from the French succession. Born around 1293, he was the second son of Philip IV and was Count of Poitiers. His elder brother Louis X died in June 1316 leaving a pregnant widow and a four-year-old daughter, Joan. Philip had himself made regent, and when the posthumous child, John I, lived only five days, he moved with speed: he was crowned at Reims in January 1317 while Joan's supporters were excluded, and had an assembly of nobles, clergy and burgesses declare that a woman could not succeed to the French crown. That declaration, later attached to the ancient Salic law of the Franks, governed the French succession thereafter and supplied the legal argument used against Edward III of England's claim in 1328. His wife Joan of Burgundy had been implicated in the Tour de Nesle scandal of 1314 and imprisoned; unlike her sister-in-law she was acquitted of adultery and restored. He governed more energetically than his short reign suggests. He attempted to standardise weights, measures and coinage across the kingdom, reformed the royal household and the chamber of accounts, and issued ordinances on the administration of justice and the collection of revenue. Most were resisted by provincial leagues of nobles and abandoned. His reign saw the Pastoureaux movement of 1320, in which bands of shepherds and poor moved south attacking Jewish communities, and the lepers' plot panic of 1321, in which lepers were accused of poisoning wells and many were burned. He died of dysentery in January 1322, leaving only daughters.
- Lived: 1293 CE – 1322 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: king, head_of_state
