Sale: CNG 60, Lot: 2088. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 22 May 2002.  Sold For $1800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

FRANCE. Philip VI of Valois. 1328-1350. Lead Seal - 44mm (46.11 gm). +PHILIPPVS REX FRANCOR:, arms of France Ancient / +S....REGIS: FRANCORV: COMITIS.ANDECAVIE: ET PROVI, +ET CICILÆ: ChIONIS: ET COMITIS FVLQAL 'IVERIT, lambel over arms of France Ancient. EF. Exceptional quality and extremely rare. ($2000)

From the direct administration of the king of France over the domains of the House of Anjou (inlcuding Provence, Sicily, Naples, and Forcalquier), circa 1328-1332.

Charles, the youngest of the sons of Louis VIII, in the spring of 1245 recieved from his brother Louis IX the counties of Anjou and Maine as a fiefdom. With his marriage to Beatrice, the daughter of Count Raymond Berenger of Provence, Philip took possession of that state which he extended considerably into the Piedmont and southern Italy, thereby establishing French control in Italy. Nevertheless, the dynasty of Anjou was put in check by a naval defeat by the kings of Aragon, allies of the Sicilians, which took place while the Angevins and Capetians were conducting the final chapters of the Crusades. The French flight from Sicily is documented better by the change in its coins than by extant seals.

Poey d'Avant gives specific dates for the provisional reunification of Anjou with Angoulême, accompanied by the return of the appanage. Between 1328 and 1332 the king exercised direct authority over this territory, and probably those in Italy, as count. This seal is that of France-Anjou, and its heraldry places it in that brief period of restored control over the fiefdoms originally belonging to Charles. The later formal reunification of these areas in the period 1350-1356 corresponds to the reign of Jean II le Bon.