LOUIS IX
(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
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