secure the southwest. The birth of a son in 1470 (the future Charles VIII), the death of his
brother Charles in 1472, the destruction of remaining Armagnac strongholds in 1473, the
execution of the count of Saint-Pol in 1475—all these combined to secure Louis’s
domestic authority.
Thereafter, Louis concentrated on Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, who, at
Péronne in 1468, had humiliated him by extorting a guarantee of the independence of
Flanders. Charles’s death in 1477 was Louis’s greatest stroke of good fortune. The
remaining years of the reign were devoted to the acquisition of Burgundian territories. In
these same years, Louis’s annexation of Anjou and inheritance of Maine and Provence
virtually completed the territorial unification of modern France before his death.
Louis’s successes came as a fulfillment of his predecessors’ policies. Ugly and
socially isolated from his peers, Louis’s rejection of medieval courtly behavior, dress,
and ritual later endeared him to 19th-century romantics but in his own day alienated
many whose help he needed. Louis was not some sort of “New Monarch” but rather an
idiosyncratic medieval king whose breaches with convention often proved self-defeating
and whose greatest successes came through the traditional means of diplomacy and
warfare made possible by the military and fiscal reforms of his less colorful father.
Paul D.Solon
[See also: ARISTOCRATIC REVOLT; CHARLES THE BOLD; CHARLOTTE OF
SAVOY; CONCORDAT OF AMBOISE]
Bittmann, Karl. Ludwig XI. und Karl der Kuhne: Die Memoiren des Phillipe des Commynes als
historische Quelle. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1964.
Champion, Pierre. Louis XI. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1929.
Kendall, Paul M. Louis XI: The Universal Spider. New York: Norton, 1970.
Lewis, Peter S. Later Medieval France: The Polity. New York: St. Martin, 1968.
Tyrell, Joseph M. Louis XI. Boston: Twayne, 1980.
LOUVIERS
. Called Loveris in the 9th century, Louviers (Eure) became the seat of the dukes of
Normandy; in 1197, it was ceded to the archbishopric of Rouen. The church of Notre-
Dame, begun in the late 12th or early 13th century, was extensively remodeled in the
15th. The choir with its flat east end, the nave, and side aisles with triforium and
clerestory reflect the original design. A second pair of aisles was added in the 15th
century, along with the Flamboyant south porch and north tower (unfinished). The
exquisite lacework carving of the porch, with its pinnacles and pendant keys, is more
reminiscent of goldsmith’s work than of
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