How did Philip IV anger many French people?

Question

anonymous · Answer

Aside from destroying the Knights Templar, he was terrible...TERRIBLE...with money and did a number of things to try and put some into the royal coffers. He expelled thousands of Jews in order to seize their property, for one thing. It's also the real reason why he went after the Templars -- he owed them quite a bit and couldn't pay them back. 

But what probably ticked a lot of people off was that he began debasing his own coinage. 

Back then, the value of money depended quite a bit on what it was made from, like gold. Debasing coinage means that you're replacing a metal that's harder to come by in a coin with something cheaper. So by doing this, he essentially destroyed the value of his own money, but he needed that gold for other things like financing all of the wars he loved to get into. Like I said, he was terrible with money. And apparently, with people, too.