Charles V of France
King of France from 1364 to 1380 (1338–1380)
Charles V (21 January 1338 – 16 September 1380), called the Wise (French: le Sage; Latin: Sapiens), was King of France from 1364 to his death in 1380. His reign marked an early high point for France during the Hundred Years' War as his armies recovered much of the territory held by the English and successfully reversed the military losses of his predecessors.
Charles became regent of France when his father John II was captured by the English at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. To pay for the defense of the kingdom, Charles raised taxes. As a result, he faced hostility from the nobility, led by Charles the Bad, King of Navarre; the opposition of the French bourgeoisie, which was channeled through the Estates-General led by Étienne Marcel; and with a peasant revolt known as the Jacquerie. Charles overcame all of these rebellions, but in order to liberate his father, he had to conclude the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, in which he abandoned large portions of south-western France to King Edward III of England and agreed to pay a huge ransom.
Charles became king in 1364. With the help of talented advisers, his skillful management of the kingdom allowed him to replenish the royal treasury and to restore the prestige of the House of Valois. He established the first permanent army paid with regular wages, which liberated the French populace from the companies of routiers who regularly plundered the country when not employed. Led by Bertrand du Guesclin, the French Army was able to turn the tide of the Hundred Years' War to Charles' advantage, and by the end of Charles' reign, they had reconquered almost all the territories ceded to the English in 1360.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Charles V of France” as king of France from 1364 to 1380 (1338–1380). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as king of France from 1364 to 1380 (1338–1380). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q167782. VIAF identifies the subject as 44307104. The Library of Congress control number is n84059149. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1338, 1380, 1364 and 1356.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles V of France” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.