fme_509952 - LOUIS IX OF FRANCE CALLED SAINT LOUIS Saint Louis et la Sainte Chapelle

LOUIS DIT IX "SAINT LOUIS"

(03/11/1226-25/08/1270)

Son of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile, born at Poissy in 1214, Louis IX ascended the throne in 1226 at the age of twelve. During the first fifteen years of his reign, the government of the kingdom was actually exercised by his mother, who fought successfully against the successive coalitions of feudal lords. By the Treaty of Paris in April 1229, Count Raymond VII of Toulouse finally abandoned the king the seneschal of Beaucaire and Carcassonne. The king of England, Henry III, who gave a hand to the rebellious barons, he was defeated repeatedly. Crusader in 1244, Louis IX left Aigues-Mortes in 1248, wintered in Cyprus and took Damietta in Egypt in 1249. Beat in Mansoura (February 1250), he had to leave Egypt and spent four years in Syria (1250-1254), to organize the struggle against the Turks. The second part of the reign was peaceful. King founded the hospital of Quinze-Vingt, built the Sainte Chapelle, reformed institutions and administration (progressive formation of parliament, creating great bailiwicks). He then took a stature European referee: between the pope and the emperor, among contenders great feudal estates, between the King of England and his vassals. The peace treaty of 1259 put an end to the "first hundred years war" conducted a century against the Plantagenets: Henry III of England renounced Normandy, Anjou, Touraine in, Maine and Poitou. It is recognized for vassal king for Guyenne and provinces were returned to him (Limousin, Périgord, Quercy, Agenois, Saintonge). He met for the second time in 1267 and went to Aigues-Mortes in 1270 to conquer the kingdom of Tunis. It is to this city that he died of the plague, August 25, 1270. Pious prince but imperative mood, St. Louis preserved its authority with him might have been wearing the Holy See. King and saint, he was canonized in 1297 and his century soon appeared as a golden age of medieval France. Under his reign, the University of Paris became the intellectual heart of Christianity, language and French architecture is diffused throughout Europe. While Frederick II, his contemporary, failed to revive the imperial mystique, with St. Louis the French monarchy took a leading position in Europe. "The King of France wrote Mathieu Paris, is the king of kings of the earth. "Now it was more than the Emperor, the image of Prince ultimate. This predominance and prestige would last until the end of the monarchy. Marguerite of Provence, married in 1234, Louis had six son and five daughters. The eldest, Louis, died in 1260, the second Philip, succeeded him under the name of Philip III.