Louis Ix

Louis Ix

(or ST. Louis) OF FRANCE (1226-1270), was born in Poissy, April 25, 1215, and succeeded his father, Louis VIII, when but twelve years of age, his mother, Blanche de Castile, acting as regent. During the minority of the king there was a constant struggle between the crown and the feudal lords, headed by Thibaut, count of Champagne, and the count of Brittany. Amid these troubles queen Blanche displayed great firmness and ability, and Louis, as soon as he was old enough, by the assistance of those who had remained faithful to the crown, made war against Henry III, king of England, who had supported the French refractory nobles, and beat the English in 1242 at Tailleburg, at Saintes, and at Blaye, but finally made a truce of five years with the English sovereigns, at the same time pardoning also his rebellious nobles. During an illness Louis had made a vow to visit the Holy Land, and in June 1248, after having appointed his mother regent, he set out for the East with an army of 40,000 men, to conquer the Holy Sepulchre. He landed first in Egypt and took Damietta, but was made prisoner at the battle of Mansoura, and compelled to pay a heavy ransom. He then sailed, with the remainder of his army, now only 6000 strong, to Acre, and carried on the war in Palestine, but without success. After the death of his mother (November 1252), he made preparations for his return to France. At home in 1254, he now applied himself with great diligence to the interests of his realm. It was Louis IX of France that first gave life to Gallicanism by his "Pragmatic Sanction," which he enacted in 1268. (See Gallilcan Church).

He also published several useful statutes, known as the Etablissements De St. Louis ; established a police in Paris, under the orders of a Prevot ; organized the various trades into companies called confrairies; founded the theological college of La Sorbonne, so called after his confessor; created a French navy, and made an advantageous treaty with the king of Aragon, by which the respective limits and jurisdictions of the two states were defined. The chief and almost the only fault of Louis, which was, however, that of his age, was his religious intolerance; he issued oppressive ordinances against the Jews, had a horror of heretics, and used to say "that a layman ought not to dispute with the unbelievers, but strike them with a good sword across the body." By an ordinance he remitted to his Christian subjects the third of the debts they owed to Jews, and this "for the good of his soul." This same spirit of fanaticism led him (in July 1270) to undertake, against the wishes of his best friends, another crusade-a crusade the most ignoble, and not the least calamitous of all the crusades (q.v.). He sailed for Africa, laid siege to Tunis, and, while there, died in his camp of the plague, August 25, 1270. Pope Boniface VIII canonized him in 1297. See Histoire de St. Louis (edited by Ducange, with notes, Paris, 1668, folio, English trans.); Petitot, Collection compl. des memoires relatifs l'histoire de France (Paris, 1824); Dissertations et reflexions sur l'histoire de St. Louis; Le Nain de Tillemont, Vie de St. Louis (ed. J. de Gaulle, Paris, 1846, 5 volumes); H.L. Scholten, Geschichte Ludwigs IX (Miinster, 1850-1853, 2 volumes); E. Alex. Schmidt, Gesch. v. Frankreich, 1:486 sq.; K. Rosen, Die pragm. Sanktion, welche unter d. Namen Ludwigs IX v. Frankseich auf uns gekommen ist (Munich, 1853); Neander, Church Hist. 4:203 sq.; Reichel, Roman See in the Middle Ages, page 618 sq.; and the works already cited in the article (See Gallican Church). (See Papacy).