Louis IX (1214–1270), king of France. Later known as St. Louis, he was born in Poissy on April 25, 1214, the oldest son of the future Louis VIII and of Blanche of Castile. Often acclaimed as the monarch who most closely approached the medieval ideal of chivalric kingship, Louis has been the subject of a certain amount of historical controversy. Some have claimed that he was successful only because his father and his grandfather, Philip II Augustus, had made the monarchy so strong that it could afford the luxury of a pious and pacific king. Yet it has also been argued convincingly that his conception of kingship as a religious office led him to policies that advanced royal absolutism.
Early Reign
Louis IX was only 12 when he succeeded his father in 1226. The early years of the reign were dominated by his mother, an able, strong-willed woman who played a vital role in the history of the 13th century French monarchy. For eight years she acted as regent. She remained influential thereafter and again was regent when Louis departed on a Crusade in 1248. Only in his last 16 years did he rule without her guidance. Yet his own personality was strong, and he was able to cooperate with her without being dominated by her.
The reign began with a rebellion by the great feudal lords. Supported by the papal legate, Blanche skillfully defended royal power against the hostile coalition. In 1229, Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, had to sign a treaty that gave the crown a foothold on the Mediterranean. A new coalition of rebellious lords was dispersed in 1234, and in 1242 Louis IX himself defeated King Henry III of England at Taillebourg in Poitou, ending the final threat to his power.
In December 1244, Louis fell seriously ill and vowed to go on a Crusade if he recovered. A man of unusual piety, Louis believed in peace among Christians, but he was bitterly intolerant of Jews, Muslims, and heretics. He busily assembled a large Crusading army. Before departing, he assigned roving commissioners, called enquêteurs, to travel through the kingdom hearing complaints against royal officials.
Among those accompanying Louis when he left for the east in 1248 was Jean, Sire de Joinville, whose famous biography of St. Louis tells about the unsuccessful Crusade. Having captured the Egyptian port of Damietta, the French then suffered defeat at Mansura in 1250. The King was captured and had to pay a heavy ransom for his release. Louis then spent several years in Syria organizing the defenses of the Crusader kingdoms there. He finally returned to France in 1254, two years after Blanche's death.
Later Years
Louis now devoted his attention to ruling France. He was a passionate believer in peace, and he tried to prohibit or severely limit the practice of dueling and private warfare among the nobility. His Treaty of Corbeil with Aragón in 1258 and Treaty of Paris with England in 1259 were criticized by his more aggressive advisers and by nationalistic modern historians because he surrendered some of his rights in order to purchase peace with weaker neighbors.
Joinville has left a particularly striking image of the King dispensing justice. To Louis, "justice" was a conservative concept—the protection of every person's rights, whatever his social rank. He tried to restrain his zealous officials from encroaching unduly on aristocratic rights. In 1254 he regulated the conduct of royal officers in response to the complaints that his enquêteurs had collected. The judicial specialists of the royal court began to meet as a separate body, the Parlement of Paris, hearing appeals from all over France. The great extension of royal justice, the encouragement of appeals, and the discouragement of trial by combat all made royal courts stronger and weakened those of the great lords.
Louis IX sometimes was asked to arbitrate international disputes, such as the Flemish succession crisis in 1246 and the quarrel between Henry III and his barons in 1264. His decisions were not impartial but reflected Louis' conceptions of sacred kingship and royal majesty. He disapproved of the long struggle between the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor and tried to stay aloof from it. While the contestants discredited themselves, Louis appeared to set a better example of Christian leadership than either of them. In time, however, he became more sympathetic towards the papacy, and he allowed his brother Charles of Anjou (Charles I of Naples) to conquer Sicily as the papal champion in 1266.
Four years later Louis undertook a new Crusade, this time against Tunis. But on Aug. 25, 1270, he died before Tunis of the fever that had afflicted the Crusading army. He was succeeded by his son, Philip III.
Even in his own lifetime, Louis IX was regarded as a saint by many contemporaries. In 1297, he was canonized. His sanctity and devotion to the ideal of Christian kingship caused later generations to look back upon his reign as a golden age. His moral prestige was also a political asset to later French kings (Henneman, John B. "Louis IX (France) (1214–1270)." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 31 Jan. 2012)