On July 27, 1214, the French king Philip II Augustus achieved a decisive victory over a coalition of forces led by Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV and King John of England at the Battle of Bouvines in Flanders. This battle was one of the most significant of the Middle Ages, solidifying Philip's control over his French territories and breaking the power of the Angevin Empire. The defeat forced King John to accept the terms of Magna Carta in England, while Otto's loss weakened the Holy Roman Empire and bolstered the authority of the French crown.

The Battle of Bouvines was celebrated in contemporary and later French chronicles and poems as a national triumph, reinforcing the image of the Capetian kings as divinely ordained rulers. The battle's prominence in historical narratives, such as the Grandes Chroniques de France, helped to forge a sense of French national identity and provided a rich source of heroic material for epic poetry and historical romance throughout the medieval period.