Louis VII of France

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For other uses, see Louis VII (disambiguation).

Louis VII
Saint-Denis Basilica
Spouses
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(m. 1137; ann. 1152)​
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(m. 1154; died 1160)​
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(m. 1160)​
Issue
Detail...
Capet
FatherLouis VI of France
MotherAdelaide of Maurienne

Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger, or the Young (French: le Jeune), was

Capetian lands to the Pyrenees
.

During his march, as part of the Second Crusade in 1147, Louis stayed at the court of King Géza II of Hungary on the way to Jerusalem. During his stay in the Holy Land disagreements with his wife led to a deterioration in their marriage. She persuaded him to stay in Antioch but Louis instead wanted to fulfil his vows of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was later involved in the failed siege of Damascus and eventually returned to France in 1149.

Louis' reign saw the founding of the University of Paris. He and his counsellor Abbot Suger, pushed for greater centralisation of the state and favoured the development of French Gothic architecture, notably the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris.

Louis' marriage was annulled in 1152 after no male heir was produced. Immediately after their annulment, Eleanor married

Count of Anjou, to whom she conveyed Aquitaine, which following Henry's ascension to the throne created an Angevin Empire. Later, Louis supported Henry's rebellious sons to foment further disunity in the Angevin realms. Louis went on to marry his second cousin, Constance of Castile, but still failed to produce a male heir. Constance died in childbirth with their second daughter. His third marriage to Adela of Champagne, five weeks after Constance's death, was finally able to give him a son, Philip. Louis died in 1180 and was succeeded by his son Philip II
.

Early life and education

Louis was born in 1120,

Philip in 1131, when Louis unexpectedly became the heir to the throne of France.[1] In October 1131, his father had him anointed and crowned by Pope Innocent II in Reims Cathedral.[3][4] He spent much of his youth in Saint-Denis
, where he built a friendship with the abbot Suger, an advisor to his father who also served Louis during his early years as king.

Early reign

Equestrian image of Louis VII on two-sided royal seal. Legend: ET DVX AQVITANORVM.

Following the death of Duke

Alix.[5]

In the first part of his reign, Louis VII was vigorous and zealous in the exercise of his

Pierre de la Chatre, swearing upon relics that so long as he lived, Pierre should never enter Bourges. The pope thus imposed an interdict
upon the king.

Louis VII then became involved in a war with

Vezelay
on Easter 1146.

Géza II of Hungary and Louis VII of France. Image from the Hungarian Chronicon Pictum (1358)

In the meantime,

Angevin
rule.

In June 1147, in fulfillment of his vow to mount the Second Crusade, Louis VII and his queen set out from the Basilica of Saint-Denis, first stopping in Metz on the overland route to Syria. Soon they arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary, where they were welcomed by the king Géza II of Hungary, who was already waiting with King Conrad III of Germany. Due to his good relationships with Louis VII, Géza II asked the French king to be his son Stephen's godfather. Relations between the kingdoms of France and Hungary remained cordial long after this time: decades later, Louis's daughter Margaret was taken as wife by Géza's son Béla III of Hungary.[8] After receiving provisions from Géza, the armies continued the march to the East. Just beyond Laodicea at Honaz, the French army was ambushed by Turks.[9] In the resulting battle of Mount Cadmus, the Turks first bombarded the French with arrows and heavy stones, then swarmed down from the mountains and massacred them. The historian Odo of Deuil gives this account:

During the fighting the King Louis lost his small and famous royal guard, but he remained in good heart and nimbly and courageously scaled the side of the mountain by gripping the tree roots [...] The enemy climbed after him, hoping to capture him, and the enemy in the distance continued to fire arrows at him. But God willed that his cuirass should protect him from the arrows, and to prevent himself from being captured he defended the crag with his bloody sword, cutting off many heads and hands.

Raymond of Poitiers welcoming Louis VII in Antioch (15th-century illustration)

Louis VII and his army finally reached the Holy Land in 1148. His queen Eleanor supported her uncle, Raymond of Poitiers, and prevailed upon Louis to help Antioch against Aleppo. But Louis VII's interest lay in Jerusalem, and so he slipped out of Antioch in secret.[10] He united with King Conrad III of Germany and King Baldwin III of Jerusalem to lay siege to Damascus; this ended in disaster and the project was abandoned. Louis VII decided to leave the Holy Land, despite the protests of Eleanor, who still wanted to help her doomed uncle Raymond. Louis VII and the French army returned home in 1149.[11]

A shift in the status quo

The expedition to the Holy Land came at a great cost to the royal treasury and military. It also precipitated a conflict with Eleanor that led to the annulment of their marriage.

suzerain. The result was a humiliation for the enemies of Henry and Eleanor, who saw their troops routed, their lands ravaged, and their property stolen.[5]
Louis reacted by coming down with a fever and returned to the Île-de-France.

In 1154, Louis VII married

Alfonso VII of Castile.[13] She also failed to supply him with a son and heir, bearing only two daughters, Margaret[14] and Alys.[15] By 1157, Henry II of England began to believe that Louis might never produce a male heir, and that the succession of France would consequently be left in question. Determined to secure a claim for his family, he sent his chancellor, Thomas Becket, to press for a marriage between Margaret and Henry's heir, Henry the Young King. Louis agreed to this proposal, and by the Treaty of Gisors (1158) betrothed the young pair, giving as a dowry the Norman city of Gisors and the surrounding county of Vexin.[14]

Louis VII receiving clergymen (from the Grandes Chroniques de France, c. 1375–1379)

Louis VII was devastated when Constance died in childbirth on 4 October 1160. As he was desperate for a son, he married

bishop of Le Puy to stop the Viscount of Polignac from attacking travelers through Auvergne.[17] The viscount was besieged by Louis at Nonette and the county was turned into a prévôt.[17]

Diplomacy

Louis' reign saw

papal schism broke out in 1159, Louis VII took the side of Pope Alexander III, the enemy of Frederick I, and after two comical failures of Frederick I to meet Louis VII at Saint-Jean-de-Losne (on 29 August and 22 September 1162), Louis VII definitely gave himself up to the cause of Alexander III, who lived at Sens from 1163 to 1165. In return for his loyal support, the pope bestowed upon Louis the Golden Rose
.

Thomas Becket leaves Louis VII and Henry II in January 1169, illustration from c. 1220–1240, possibly by Matthew Paris

More important for English history would be Louis's support for Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, whom he tried to reconcile with Henry II. Louis sided with Becket as much to damage Henry as out of piety—yet even he grew irritated with the stubbornness of the archbishop, asking when Becket refused Henry's conciliations, "Do you wish to be more than a Saint?"

Louis also tried to weaken Henry by supporting his rebellious sons, and encouraged

Plantagenet disunity by making Henry's sons, rather than Henry himself, the feudal overlords of the Angevin territories in France. But the rivalry among Henry's sons and Louis's own indecisiveness broke up the coalition (1173–1174) between them. Finally, in 1177, the pope intervened to bring the two kings to terms at Vitry-en-Perthois
.

In 1165, Louis's third wife bore him a son and heir, Philip. Louis had him crowned at Reims in 1179,[18] in the Capetian tradition (Philip would in fact be the last king so crowned). Already stricken with paralysis, Louis himself could not be present at the ceremony.[18] He died on 18 September 1180 in Paris and was buried the next day at Barbeau Abbey,[18] which he had founded. His remains were moved to the Basilica of Saint-Denis in 1817.

Marriages and children

Louis' children by his three marriages:

With Eleanor of Aquitaine:[19]

With Constance of Castile:[13]

With Adela of Champagne:[21]

Fictional portrayals

Louis is a character in Jean Anouilh's 1959 play Becket. In the 1964 film adaptation he was portrayed by John Gielgud, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was also portrayed by Charles Kay in the 1978 BBC TV drama series The Devil's Crown. He has a role in Sharon Kay Penman's novels When Christ and His Saints Slept and Devil's Brood. The early part of Norah Lofts' biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine deals considerably with Louis VII, seen through Eleanor's eyes and giving her side in their problematic relationship. Louis is one of the main characters in Elizabeth Chadwick's novel The Summer Queen.

References

  1. ^ a b Bardot & Marvin 2018, p. 2.
  2. ^ Dunbabin 1985, p. 383.
  3. ^ Robinson 1996, p. 22.
  4. ^ Brown 1992, p. 43.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Jones 2012, pp. 31–33.
  6. ^ Turner 2009, p. 47.
  7. ^ a b Kaeuper 2016, p. 202.
  8. ^ Laszlovszky 2016, p. 84.
  9. ^ Baldwin & Setton 1969, pp. 499, 624, 634.
  10. ^ Hodgson 2007, pp. 131–134.
  11. ^ Foulet 1922, p. 289.
  12. ^ Petit-Dutaillis 1999, p. 107.
  13. ^ a b Bisson 2009, p. 294.
  14. ^ a b c d Baldwin 2005, p. 9.
  15. ^ a b Warren 1978, p. 26.
  16. ^ Dunbabin 2007, pp. 53–54.
  17. ^ a b Wolfe 2009, p. 20.
  18. ^ a b c Bradbury 2007, p. 168.
  19. ^ Kelly 1991, pp. 7–8.
  20. ^ a b Kelly 1991, p. 126.
  21. ^ Spiegel 1997, p. 121.
  22. ^ Warren 1977, p. 222.
  23. ^ Gislebertus of Mons 2005, p. 52.
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Sources

  • Baldwin, John W. (2005). "Chrétien in History". In Lacy, Norris J.; Grimbert, Joan Tasker (eds.). A Companion to Chrétien de Troyes. DS Brewer.
  • Baldwin, Marshall W.; Setton, Kenneth M., eds. (1969). A History of the Crusades. Vol. One, The First Hundred Years. University of Wisconsin Press.
  • Bardot, Michael L.; Marvin, Laurence W., eds. (2018). Louis VII and his World. Brill.
  • Bisson, Thomas N. (2009). The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government. Princeton University Press.
  • Bradbury, Jim (2007). The Capetians: Kings of France 987–1328. Hambledon Continuum.
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  • Dunbabin, Jean (1985). France in the Making, 943–1180. Oxford University Press.
  • Dunbabin, Jean (2007). "Henry II and Louis VII". In Harper-Bill, Christopher; Vincent, Nicholas (eds.). Henry II: New Interpretations. The Boydell Press.
  • Foulet, Lucien (1922). "Chapter VIII: Literature". In Tilley, Arthur Augustus (ed.). Medieval France: A Companion to French Studies. Cambridge University Press. pp. 275–329.
  • Gislebertus of Mons (2005). Chronicle of Hainaut. Translated by Napran, Laura. The Boydell Press.
  • Hodgson, Natasha (2007). Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative. Boydell.
    ISBN 978-1-84383-332-1
    .
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  • Kaeuper, Richard W. (2016). Medieval Chivalry. Cambridge University Press.
  • Kelly, Amy Ruth (1991). Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings. Harvard University Press.
  • Laszlovszky, Jozsef (2016). "Local Tradition or European Patterns? The grave of Gertrude in the Pilis Cistercian Abbey". In Jaritz, Gerhard; Szende, Katalin (eds.). Medieval East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective. Routledge.
  • Petit-Dutaillis, Charles (1999). The Feudal Monarchy in France and England. Translated by Hunt, E. David. Routledge.
  • Robinson, Ian Stuart (1996). The Papacy, 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation. Cambridge University Press.
  • Spiegel, Gabrielle M. (1997). The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Turner, Ralph V. (2009). Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France, Queen of England. Yale University Press.
  • Warren, Wilfred Lewis (1977). Henry II. University of California Press.
    • —— (1978). King John. University of California Press.
  • Wolfe, Michael (2009). Walled Towns and the Shaping of France: From the Medieval to the Early Modern Era. Palgrave Macmillan.
Louis VII of France
Born: 1120 Died: 18 September 1180
Regnal titles
Preceded by
King of France
1131–1180
with Louis VI (1131–1137)
Philip II
(1179–1180) 		Succeeded by
French nobility
Preceded byas sole ruler Duke of Aquitaine
1137–1152
with Eleanor 		Succeeded byas sole ruler
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