fellow Christians, but also struggling against
those seen as God’s enemies. Louis would
continue his persecution of the Jews, threat-
ening to arrest all French Jews and confiscate
their property in 1268. This didn’t happen
but Jews were formally segregated from
Christians in 1269, and forced to wear a
yellow or red badge on their clothes.
The world had to be purified.A crusader’s death
It’s also not a coincidence that, in the wake
of the burning of the Talmud, even before
Sainte-Chapelle was consecrated, Louis
resolved to launch a military expedition to
Egypt with the ultimate goal of taking
Jerusalem. It was a disaster, even if it started
auspiciously enough with the capture of
the major port of Damietta in Egypt.
Egypt was hot, and the Chris-
tian army was prone to disease.
Marching up the Nile towards
Cairo, Louis’ army found its
advance hindered by the
annual flood of the great
river. Louis was captured
by the Mamluk general
Baibars and had to pay a
vast ransom, including
the return of Damietta,
for his release. However,
the king would earn no
such reprieve during his
next crusade – launchedMatthew Gabriele is a professor of medieval
studies at Virginia Tech. David M Perry is a
freelance journalist. Their book The Bright Ages:
A New History of Medieval Europe is published
by Harper in January 2022. You can listen to
them discuss the legacy of Louis IX on our
podcast soon: HistoryExtra.com/podcastin 1270 – dying from dysentery shortly after
landing in Tunisia. The sheer force of Louis’
desire to rid the world of heretics had cost
him his life.
The statue of St Louis sited in middle
America – in the heart of the city that was
named in his honour – remembers all parts
of that medieval king. Erected in plaster for
the 1904 World’s Fair, it was recreated in
bronze in 1906 as a gift to the city, perhaps
part of a larger trend of Civil War statuary
being constructed at the same time. But it
wasn’t formally designated a city monument
until 1971, during the creation of a special
cultural district encompassing the zoo and
art museum.
The statue stood, and still stands, as a civic
symbol, a point of pride for many – and,
through the king’s formal canonisation, an
important focal point for parts of the city’s
Catholic community. But everything has a
history. The event that created this particular
statue, the 1904 World’s Fair, was notorious
for its racism against black and Native
Americans. As a monument to civic pride,
an avatar in some ways of the city itself, the
statue carries with it a long history of vio-
lence against black and Native Americans,
most recently the police shootings of Michael
Brown and Anthony Lamar Smith. Monu-
ments, like people, are complicated; what
some see as a point of pride, are to others
sites of great shame.
The legacy of Louis IX helps us under-
stand why that is. His legacy must hold all of
that complexity, all of his humanity – as saint
and monster. Does the fire in the Place de
Grève change how we must see the beauty of
Sante-Chapelle, how we imagine candlelight
and sunlight mixing – as the latter passed
through the glorious coloured glass, the
pinnacle of gothic art? Does Louis’ violence
against minority communities challenge his
sanctity, even as that violence was explicitly
celebrated by the papacy during his canoni-
sation? It must, because the man and his
actions were real.
As writers and historians – one Jewish,
one Catholic – we both find ourselves able
to remember the crackle of burning pages
and wonder at the beauty in the chapel. It’s in
this duality – the messiness of real people
who lived in the past – that we found the
bright ages, illuminating our own study of
the past.The legacy of
Louis IX must
hold all of that
complexity, all of
his humanity – as
saint and monster
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