Abbot Suger of Saint Denis

When Louis VI became king of France in 1108, his immediate kingdom stretched from Paris to Orleans. The territory was called the Ile de France and was immeasurably smaller than the France his royal successors would inherit five hundred years later. Louis's greatest accomplishment was to gain complete control of the Ile de France. He did this by humbling and defeating rebellious lords and officials and subjecting them to his authority. His biographer, Suger, was the abbot of Saint Denis, a local monastery. A distinguished scholar, Suger was appointed Louis's tutor and later became his chief minister. Although Suger the biographer always depicted Louis as a monarch who championed the welfare of the church and his people, in reality Louis's principal concern was to increase control of the French monarchy over all of its subjects...