Louis Ix Of France

Information about Louis Ix Of France

Louis IX
King of France (more...)

Representation of Saint Louis considered to be true to life - Early 14th century statue from the church of Mainneville, Eure, France
Reign	8 November 1226 – 25 August 1270
Coronation	29 November 1226, Reims
Full name	Known as Saint Louis
Titles	Count of Artois (1226–37)
Born	25 March 1215(1215--)
	Poissy, France
Died	25 July 1270 (aged 55)
	Tunis, North Africa
Buried	Saint Denis Basilica
Predecessor	Louis VIII
Successor	Philip III
Consort	Marguerite of Provence (1221–95)
Issue	Isabelle, Queen of Navarre (1241–71) Philip III (1245-85) Jean Tristan, Count of Valois (1250–70) Pierre, Count of Perche and AlenÃ§on (1251–84) Blanche, Crown Princess of Castille (1253–1323) Marguerite, Duchess of Brabant (1254–71) Robert, Count of Clermont (1256–1317) Agnes, Duchess of Burgundy (1260–1327)
Royal House	House of Capet
Father	Louis VIII of France
Mother	Blanche of Castile

French Monarchy
Direct Capetians

Louis IX
Philip III
Robert, Count of Clermont
Agnes, Duchess of Burgundy

Louis IX (25 April 1215 – 25 August 1270), commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 to his death. He was also Count of Artois (as Louis II) from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was a member of the House of Capet and the son of King Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile. He is the only canonised king of France and consequently there are many places named after him. He established the Parlement of Paris.

Sources

Much of what is known of Louis's life comes from Jean de Joinville's famous biography of Louis, Life of Saint Louis. Joinville was a close friend, confidant, and counsellor to the king, and also participated as a witness in the papal inquest into Louis' life that ended with his canonization in 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII.

Two other important biographies were written by the king's confessor, Geoffey of Beaulieu, and his chaplain, William of Chartres. The fourth important source of information is William of Saint-Pathus' biography, which he wrote using the papal inquest mentioned above. While several individuals wrote biographies in the decades following the king's death, only Jean of Joinville, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, and William of Chartres wrote from personal knowledge of the king.

Early life

Louis was eleven years old when his father died on November 8, 1226. He was crowned king the same year in the cathedral at Reims.

Assumption of power

Because of Louis's youth, his mother, Blanche of Castile, ruled France as regent during his minority. No date is given for Louis's assumption of the throne as king in his own right. His contemporaries viewed his reign as co-rule between the king and his mother, though historians generally view the year 1234 as the year in which Louis ruled as king with his mother assuming a more advisory role. She continued as an important counsellor to the king until her death in 1252. On May 27, 1234 Louis married Marguerite de Provence (1221 – December 21, 1295), the sister of Eleanor, the wife of Henry III of England.

Louis was the elder brother of Charles I of Sicily (1227–85), whom he created count of Anjou, thus founding the second Angevin dynasty. The horrific fate of that dynasty in Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers evidently did not tarnish Louis's credentials for sainthood.

Crusading

Louis brought an end to the Albigensian Crusade in 1229 after signing an agreement with Count Raymond VII of Toulouse that cleared his father of wrong-doing. Raymond VI had been suspected of murdering a preacher on a mission to convert the Cathars.

Louis's piety and kindness towards the poor was much celebrated. He went on crusade twice, in 1248 (Seventh Crusade) and then in 1270 (Eighth Crusade). Both crusades were complete disasters; after initial success in his first attempt, Louis's army of 15,000 men was met by overwhelming resistance from the Egyptian army and people. Eventually, on April 13 1250, Louis was defeated and taken prisoner in Mansoura, Egypt. Louis and his companions were then released in return for the surrender of the French army and a large ransom of 400,000 livres tournois (at the time France's annual revenue was only about 250,000 livres tournois).

Following his release from Egyptian captivity, Louis spent four years in the crusader Kingdoms of Acre, Caesarea, and Jaffe. Louis used his wealth to assist the crusaders in rebuilding their defenses and conducting diplomacy with the Islamic powers of Syria and Egypt. Upon his departure from Middle East Louis left a significant garrison in the city of Acre for its defense against Islamic attacks. The historic presence of this French garrison in the Middle East was later used as a justification for the French Mandate following the end of the First World War.

Relations with the Mongols

Statue of Louis IX at the Sainte Chapelle, Paris.

Saint Louis had several epistolar exchanges with Mongol rulers of the period, and organized the dispatch of ambassadors to them. Contacts started in 1248, with Mongolian envoys bearing a letter from Eljigidei, the Mongol ruler of Armenia and Persia, offering a military alliance:^[1] when Louis disembarked in Cyprus in preparation of his first Crusade, he was met in Nicosia with two Nestorians from Mossul named David and Marc, who were envoys of the Mongol ruler Eljigidei. They communicated a proposal to form an alliance with the Mongols against the Ayubids and against the Califat in Baghdad.^[2]

In response, Louis sent AndrÃ© de Longjumeau, a Dominican priest, as an emissary to the Great Khan GÃ¼yÃ¼k in Mongolia. Unfortunately GÃ¼yÃ¼k died before their arrival at his court however, and his embassy was dismissed by his widow, who gave them gift and a letter to Saint Louis.

Eljigidei planned an attack on the Muslims in Baghdad in 1248. This advance was, ideally, to be conducted in alliance with Louis, in concert with the Seventh Crusade. However, GÃ¼yÃ¼k's early death, caused by drink, made Eljigidei postpone operations until after the interregnum, and the successful Siege of Baghdad would not take place until 1258.

In 1253, Saint Louis further dispatched to the Mongol court the Franciscan William of Rubruck, who went to visit the Great Khan MÃ¶ngke in Mongolia. MÃ¶ngke gave a letter to William in 1254, asking for the submission of Saint Louis.^[3]

Full military collaboration would take place in 1259-1260 when the Frank knights of the ruler of Antioch Bohemond VI and his father-in-law Hetoum I allied with the Mongols under Hulagu to conquer Muslim Syria, taking together the city of Alep, and later Damas.^[4] Contacts would further develop under Philip the Fair, leading to a military cooperation between Christian powers and the Mongols against the Mamluks.

See also:

Patron of arts and arbiter of Europe

Wooden statue of Saint Louis (perhaps a copy of the statue at the church of Mainneville?)

Louis' patronage of the arts drove much innovation in Gothic art and architecture, and the style of his court radiated throughout Europe by both the purchase of art objects from Parisian masters for export and by the marriage of the king's daughters and female relatives to foreign husbands and their subsequent introduction of Parisian models elsewhere. Louis' personal chapel, the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, was copied more than once by his descendants elsewhere. Louis most likely ordered the production of the Morgan Bible, a masterpiece of medieval painting.

Saint Louis ruled during the so-called "golden century of Saint Louis", when the kingdom of France was at its height in Europe, both politically and economically. The king of France was regarded as a primus inter pares among the kings and rulers of Europe. He commanded the largest army, and ruled the largest and most wealthy kingdom of Europe, a kingdom which was the European center of arts and intellectual thought (La Sorbonne) at the time. For many, King Louis IX embodied the whole of Christendom in his person. His reputation of saintliness and fairness was already well established while he was alive, and on many occasions he was chosen as an arbiter in the quarrels opposing the rulers of Europe.

The prestige and respect felt in Europe for King Louis IX was due more to the attraction that his benevolent personality created rather than to military domination. For his contemporaries, he was the quintessential example of the Christian prince.

Religious zeal

King Louis IX washing the feet of the poor.

The perception of Louis IX as the exemplary Christian prince was reinforced by his religious zeal. Saint Louis was a devout Catholic, and he built the Sainte Chapelle ("Holy Chapel"), located within the royal palace complex (now the Paris Hall of Justice), on the Ãle de la CitÃ© in the centre of Paris. The Sainte Chapelle, a perfect example of the Rayonnant style of Gothic architecture, was erected as a shrine for the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the True Cross, precious relics of the Passion of Jesus. Louis purchased these in 1239–41 from Emperor Baldwin II of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, for the exorbitant sum of 135,000 livres (the chapel, on the other hand, cost only 60,000 livres to build). This purchase should be understood in the context of the extreme religious fervor that existed in Europe in the 13th century. The purchase contributed greatly to reinforcing the central position of the king of France in western Christendom, as well as to increasing the renown of Paris, then the largest city of western Europe. During a time when cities and rulers vied for relics, trying to increase their reputation and fame, Louis IX had succeeded in securing the most prized of all relics in his capital. The purchase was thus not only an act of devotion, but also a political gesture: the French monarchy was trying to establish the kingdom of France as the "new Jerusalem."

Louis IX took very seriously his mission as "lieutenant of God on Earth," with which he had been invested when he had been crowned in Rheims. Thus, in order to fulfill his duty, he conducted two crusades, and even though they were unsuccessful, they contributed to his prestige. Contemporaries would not have understood if the king of France did not lead a crusade to the Holy Land. In order to finance his first crusade Louis ordered the expulsion of all Jews engaged in usury. This action enabled Louis to confiscate the property of expelled Jews for use in his crusade. However, he did not eliminate the debts incurred by Christians. One-third of the debt was forgiven, but the other two-thirds was to be remitted to the royal treasury. Louis also ordered, at the urging of Pope Gregory IX, the burning of some 12,000 copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1243. Such legislation against the Talmud, not uncommon in the history of Christendom, was due to medieval courts' concerns that its production and circulation might weaken the faith of Christian individuals and threaten the Christian basis of society, the protection of which was the duty of any Christian monarch.^[5]

Tunique and cilice of Louis IX. Treasure of Notre-Dame de Paris.

In addition to Louis's legislation against Jews and usury, he expanded the scope of the Inquisition in France. The area most affected by this expansion was southern France where the Cathar heresy had been strongest. The rate of these confiscations reached its highest levels in the years prior to his first crusade, and slowed upon his return to France in 1254.

In all these deeds, Louis IX tried to fulfill the duty of France, which was seen as "the eldest daughter of the Church" (la fille aÃ®nÃ©e de l'Ã‰glise), a tradition of protector of the Church going back to the Franks and Charlemagne, who had been crowned by the Pope in Rome in 800. Indeed, the official Latin title of the kings of France was Rex Francorum, i.e. "king of the Franks," and the kings of France were also known by the title "most Christian king" (Rex Christianissimus). The relationship between France and the papacy was at its peak in the 12th and 13th centuries, and most of the crusades were actually called by the popes from French soil. Eventually, in 1309, Pope Clement V even left Rome and relocated to the French city of Avignon, beginning the era known as the Avignon Papacy (or, more disparagingly, the "Babylonian captivity").

Ancestors

**Louis IX's ancestors in three generations**
Louis IX of France	Father: Louis VIII of France	Paternal Grandfather: Philip II of France	Paternal Great-grandfather: Louis VII of France
			Paternal Great-grandmother: AdÃ¨le of Champagne
		Paternal Grandmother: Isabelle of Hainaut	Paternal Great-grandfather: Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Margaret I, Countess of Flanders
	Mother: Blanche of Castile	Maternal Grandfather: Alfonso VIII of Castile	Maternal Great-grandfather: Sancho III of Castile
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Blanca of Navarre
		Maternal Grandmother: Leonora of England	Maternal Great-grandfather: Henry II of England
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Eleanor of Aquitaine

Children

Blanche (1240 – April 29, 1243)
Isabelle (March 2, 1241 – January 28, 1271), married Theobald V of Champagne
Louis (February 25, 1244 – January 1260)
Philippe III (May 1, 1245 – October 5, 1285)
Jean (born and died in 1248)
Jean Tristan (1250 – August 3, 1270), married Yolande of Burgundy
Pierre (1251–84), Count of Perche and AlenÃ§on; Count of Blois and Chartres in right of his wife, Joanne of ChÃ¢tillon
Blanche (1253–1323), married Ferdinand de la Cerda, Infante of Castille
Marguerite (1254–71), married John I, Duke of Brabant
Robert, Count of Clermont (1256 – February 7, 1317). He was the ancestor of King Henry IV of France.
Agnes of France (ca 1260 – December 19, 1327), married Robert II, Duke of Burgundy

Death and legacy

Reliquary of Saint Louis (end 13th c.) Basilica of Saint Dominic, Bologna, Italy

During his second crusade, Louis died at Tunis, August 25, 1270, from what was traditionally believed to be bubonic plague but is thought by modern scholars to be dysentery. The local tradition of Sidi Bou Said claims that the future Saint Louis did not die in 1270, but converted to Islam under the name of Sidi Bou Said, died at the end of the 13th century, and was buried as a saint of Islam in Djebel-Marsa.

Christian tradition states that some of his entrails were buried directly on the spot in Tunisia, where a Tomb of Saint-Louis can still be visited today, whereas other parts of his entrails were sealed in an urn and placed in the Basilica of Monreale, Palermo, where they still remain. His corpse was taken, after a short stay at the Basilica of Saint Dominic in Bologna, to the French royal necropolis at Saint-Denis, resting in Lyon on the way. His tomb at Saint-Denis was a magnificent gilt brass monument designed in the late 14th century. It was melted down during the French Wars of Religion, at which time the body of the king disappeared. Only one finger was rescued and is kept at Saint-Denis. Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the canonization of Louis in 1297; he is the only French monarch ever to be made a saint.

Louis IX was succeeded by his son, Philippe III.

Veneration as a saint

Saint Louis
Louis IX of France was revered as a saint and painted in portraiture well after his death (such portraits may not accurately reflect his appearance). This portrait was painted by El Greco ca 1592–95.
King of France, Confessor
Born	25 March 1214(1214--)/1215, Poissy, France
Died	25 July 1270 (aged 56), Tunis in what is now Tunisia
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized	1297 by Pope Boniface VIII
Feast	25 August
Attributes	Depicted as King of France, generally with a crown, holding a sceptre with a fleur-de-lys on the end, possibly with blue clothing with a spread of white fleur-de-lys (coat of arms of the French monarchy)
Patronage	France, French monarchy; hairdressers; passementiers (lacemakers)

Louis IX is often considered the model of the ideal Christian monarch. Because of the aura of holiness attached to the memory of Louis IX, many Kings of France were called Louis, especially in the Bourbon dynasty (Louis XIII to Louis XVIII).

The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Louis is a Roman Catholic religious order founded in 1842 and named in his honour.

Places named after Saint Louis

The cities of San Luis PotosÃ in Mexico, Saint Louis, Missouri, Saint-Louis du SÃ©nÃ©gal in Senegal, Saint-Louis in Alsace, as well as Lake Saint-Louis in Quebec, and the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in California are among the many places named after the king.

The Cathedral Saint-Louis in Versailles, Basilica of St. Louis, King of France in St. Louis, Missouri, the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis in St. Louis, Missouri, and the French royal Order of Saint Louis (1693–1790 and 1814–30) were also created after the king. The Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans is also named after the king.

Many places in Brazil called SÃ£o LuÃs in Portuguese are named after Saint Louis.

Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia is said to have been named for this very Catholic French king [1]. Tunisian legend tells the story of King Louis falling in love with a Berber princess, changing his name to Abou Said ibn Khalef ibn Yahia Ettamini el Beji (nicknamed "Sidi Bou Said") for which a quaint town on the Tunisian coast is named. He became, according to this legend, an Islamic saint.

Famous portraits

A portrait of St. Louis hangs in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives.

Saint Louis is also portrayed on a frieze depicting a timeline of important lawgivers throughout world history in the Courtroom at the Supreme Court of the United States.

External links

Bibliography

Joinville, Jean de, The History of St. Louis (Trans. Joan Evans).

References

1. ^ The Crisis in the Holy Land in 1260 Peter Jackson The English Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 376 (Jul., 1980), pp. 481-513 [2]
2. ^ "Histoire des Croisades", Rene Grousset, p.523, ISBN 226202569X
3. ^ J. Richard, 1970, p. 202., Encyclopedia Iranica, [3]
4. ^ "Histoire des Croisades", RenÃ© Grousset, p581, ISBN 226202569X
5. ^ Gigot, Francis E. (1910), "Judaism", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. VIII, New York: Robert Appleton Company, <[4] (retrieved on 2007-08-13)

External links

id="CITEREFGoyau1910">Goyau, Georges (1910), "St. Louis IX", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. IX, New York: Robert Appleton Company, <[5] (retrieved on 2007-08-13)

Louis IX of France House of Capet Born: The Catholic Encyclopedia 1215 Died: 25 August 1270
Preceded by Louis VIII of France	King of France 8 November, 1226 – 25 August, 1270	Succeeded by Philip III

Count of Artois 8 November, 1226 – 1237	Succeeded by Robert I

Chronology of French monarchs from 987 to 1870
Medieval France House of Capet	Hugues (987-996) • Robert II (996-1031) • Henri I (1031-1060) • Philippe I (1060-1108) • Louis VI (1108-1137) • Louis VII (1137-1180) • Philippe II (1180-1223) • Louis VIII (1223-1226) • Louis IX (1226-1270) • Philippe III (1270-1285) • Philippe IV (1285-1314) • Louis X (1314-1316) • Jean I (1316) • Philippe V (1316-1322) • Charles IV (1322-1328) • Philippe VI (1328-1350) • Jean II (1350-1364) • Charles V (1364-1380) • Charles VI (1380-1422) • Charles VII (1422-1461) • Louis XI (1461-1483) • Charles VIII (1483-1498)
Early Modern France House of Valois	Louis XII (1498-1515) • Franois I (1515-1547) • Henri II (1547-1559) • Franois II (1559-1560) • Charles IX (1560-1574) • Henri III (1574-1589)
Early Modern France House of Bourbon	Henri IV (1589-1610) • Louis XIII (1610-1643) • Louis XIV (1643-1715) • Louis XV (1715-1774) • Louis XVI (1774-1792)
— First Republic —
First Empire House of Bonaparte	Napolon I (1804-1814)
Bourbon Restoration I House of Bourbon	Louis XVIII (1814-1815)
Hundred Days House of Bonaparte	Napolon I (1815) • Napolon II (1815)
Bourbon Restoration II House of Bourbon	Louis XVIII (1815-1824) • Charles X (1824-1830) • Louis XIX (1830) • Henri V (1830)
July Monarchy House of Orlans	Louis-Philippe (1830-1848)
— Second Republic —
Second Empire House of Bonaparte	Napolon III (1852-1870)
— Third, Fourth and Fifth Republic —
List of French monarchs — List of Queens and Empresses of France — History of France

Persondata
NAME	Louis IX
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Saint Louis
SHORT DESCRIPTION	King of France
DATE OF BIRTH	25 March 1215(1215--)
PLACE OF BIRTH	Poissy, France
DATE OF DEATH	25 July 1270
PLACE OF DEATH	Tunis, North Africa

Eure

Coat of arms of the Eure department
Location

Administration
Department number: 27
Region: Haute-Normandie
Prefecture: Ã‰vreux
Subprefectures: Les Andelys
Bernay
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Motto
LibertÃ©, Ã‰galitÃ©, FraternitÃ©
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
Anthem
"La Marseillaise"