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.
William Chester Jordan
[See also: ALPHONSE OF POITIERS; BLANCHE OF CASTILE; CRUSADES;
ENQUÊTEUR; JOINVILLE, JEAN DE; MARGUERITE OF PROVENCE]
Jordan, William C. Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1979.
Richard, Jean. Saint Louis: Crusader King of France, trans. by Jean Birrell. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992.
Sivéry, Gérard. Saint Louis et son siècle. Paris: Tallandier, 1983.
LOUIS X
(1289–1316). King of France. Later known as le Hutin, the Quarrelsome, Louis was the
eldest son of Philip IV the Fair and Jeanne of Champagne and Navarre. Affianced to
Jeanne of Burgundy and Artois before 1300, Louis was married to Marguerite of
Burgundy, a granddaughter of Louis IX, on September 23, 1305. At his mother’s death in
1305, he became count of Champagne and king of Navarre. During Philip’s reign, Louis
was dominated by his father, and his stature was compromised when the adultery scandal
of 1314, shortly before he ascended the throne, resulted in his wife’s imprisonment.
Louis’s desire to secure annulment of his marriage and replace Marguerite with a suitable
wife led him to press for the election of a pope to nullify his marriage. Simultaneously, he
began wooing Clemence of Hungary. Marguerite’s death in April 1315 was suspiciously
fortuitous, and Louis married Clemence on July 31, 1315. Perhaps because of his marital
problems, Louis did not begin using the great seal of France until April 1315, and he was
not crowned until August 3, four days after his marriage to Clemence.
Like his personal problems, the political difficulties that Louis inherited from his
father dominated his brief reign. Confronted by alliances of subjects discontented by the
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