(1214–1270). King of France and saint. The son of Louis VIII, Louis IX came to the throne as a child in 1226. He spent his early years as king under the tutelage of his mother, Blanche of Castile. Many northern barons resented the assignment of the regency to a woman, let alone a foreigner. Others resented the growing authoritarianism of the crown during the preceding fifty years, the reigns of Philip II Augustus and Louis VIII. Many baronial families in the west nursed grievances from the period of the conquest of the Plantagenêt fiefs in the early years of the century. And in the south, local notables remained unreconciled to the French regime established in the wake of the Albigensian Crusade. These resentments periodically broke into rebellion: the late 1220s and early 1230s saw the crown confronting shifting alliances of northern barons (including the count of Brittany, Pierre Mauclerc) in defense of aristocratic interests. In the opening years of the 1240s, nobles and townsmen in the southwest and Languedoc banded together with the support of the Plantagenêt king of England to undo the conquests of the previous half-century. The crown defeated all these movements. The credit for the early successes goes largely to Blanche of Castile, but gradually in the 1230s her son became the effective ruler of the kingdom.
Married in 1234 to Marguerite of Provence, who came to dislike his mother, Louis remained devoted to Blanche and responsive to her political advice. Only in one matter is there evidence of political disagreement between mother and son: Louis’s decision in late 1244 to take the crusader’s vow. Despite Blanche’s objections, Louis fulfilled the vow after almost four years of preparation that included commissioning enquêteurs, or special investigators, to identify the perpetrators of injustices in his government. In addition to the goodwill that these investigations produced, the information allowed Louis to improve the machinery of government by retiring or reassigning certain of his administrators. At the same time, he worked hard to encourage national and international support for his venture and to build a port, Aigues-Mortes, in the south of France for the embarkation of his army, estimated at 15,000–25,000 men.
Louis departed for the Seventh Crusade in 1248, leaving his mother as regent; his wife accompanied him on the expedition. After wintering in Cyprus, he began the invasion of Egypt in May 1249. The crusaders captured the coastal city of Damietta, and then, after a considerable respite, they began the invasion of the Egyptian interior late in the year, continuing into the early months of 1250. Daily running up against fiercer opposition, they were decisively defeated in April at Al-Mansura; Louis and the remnants of his army were captured. After difficult negotiations, the king and his men were ransomed, and many, including the king’s two surviving brothers, Alphonse of Poitiers and Charles of Anjou, took ship for Europe. The king and a small group of crusaders, spent the next several years in the Christian states of the Holy Land helping to rebuild fortifications and to formulate effective strategies against the enemy.
The queen-mother died in November 1252. Although he learned of her death in the spring of 1253, it was not until a year later that Louis was persuaded by the steady stream of information that reached him from France that conditions there necessitated his return. Landing at Hyères, not far from Marseille, in July 1254, he began immediately to transform the governance of his realm. Convinced that his failure on crusade was the result of his own sinfulness, and translating this conviction into a decision to live up to his notion of the ideal Christian ruler, he set about restraining the excesses of the Inquisition, reintroducing the enquêteurs, reforming the administration of the city of Paris, and, most far-reaching, undertaking a thorough overhaul of royal administrators in the provinces. Louis ceaselessly traversed the realm to hear petitions and do justice personally. Traditional institutions of rule, like Parlement, were improved in their organization and were leavened by his commitment to equity. He worked hard, too, to execute a severely restrictive policy toward the Jews that was in part intended to encourage them to convert.
In the late 1260s, Louis committed himself to another crusade. After considerable preparations, he departed in 1270. His wife remained in France. Following a brief stop-over in Sardinia, the army, perhaps 5,000–10,000 strong, launched its attack on Tunis. Before the city could be taken—and in the event it never was—the king died (August 25, 1270). He was succeeded by his son, Philip III. As his bones were being transported to their final rest at Saint-Denis, miracles began to be reported. A few years later, the canonization process began in earnest. In 1297, the former king was raised to the catalogue of saints as St. Louis Confessor.
