Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), calledthe Younger orthe Young (French:le Jeune) to differentiate him from his fatherLouis VI, wasKing of France from 1137 to 1180. His first marriage was to DuchessEleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe. The marriage temporarily extended theCapetian lands to thePyrenees.
Louis was the second son of Louis VI of France andAdelaide of Maurienne, and was initially prepared for a career inthe Church. Following the death of his older brother,Philip, in 1131, Louis becameheir apparent to the French throne and was crowned as his father's co-ruler. In 1137, he married Eleanor of Aquitaine and shortly thereafter became sole king following his father's death. During his march, as part of theSecond Crusade in 1147, Louis stayed at the court of KingGéza II of Hungary on the way toJerusalem. During his stay in theHoly Land, disagreements with Eleanor led to a deterioration in their marriage. She persuaded him to stay inAntioch but Louis instead wanted to fulfil his vows ofpilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was later involved in the failedsiege of Damascus and eventually returned to France in 1149. Louis' reign saw the founding of theUniversity of Paris. He and his counsellor, AbbotSuger, pushed for greater centralisation of the state and favoured the development ofFrench Gothic architecture, notably the construction ofNotre-Dame de Paris.
Louis' marriage to Eleanor was annulled in 1152 after the couple had produced two daughters, but no male heir. Immediately after their annulment, Eleanor marriedHenry,Duke of Normandy andCount of Anjou, to whom she conveyedAquitaine. Following Henry's accession as King Henry II of England, these territories formed theAngevin Empire. Later, Louis supported Henry and Eleanor's sons in their rebellion against their father to foment further disunity in the Angevin realms. His second marriage toConstance of Castile also produced two daughters, but his third wife,Adela of Champagne, gave birth to a son,Philip Augustus, in 1165. Louis died in 1180 and was succeeded by his son, Philip II.
Louis was born in 1120,[1] the second son ofLouis VI of France andAdelaide of Maurienne.[2] The early education of the young Louis anticipated an ecclesiastical career. As a result, he became well learned and exceptionally devout, but his life course changed decisively after the accidental death of his older brotherPhilip in 1131, when Louis unexpectedly became the heir to the throne of France.[1] In October 1131, his father had him anointed and crowned byPope Innocent II inReims Cathedral.[3][4] He spent much of his youth inSaint-Denis, where he built a friendship with the abbot Suger, an advisor to his father who also served Louis during his early years as king.
Equestrian image of Louis VII on two-sided royal seal. Legend: ET DVX AQVITANORVM.
Following the death of DukeWilliam X of Aquitaine, Louis VI moved quickly to have his son married toEleanor of Aquitaine (who had inherited William's territory) on 25 July 1137.[5] In this way, Louis VI sought to add the large, sprawling territory of the duchy of Aquitaine to his family's holdings in France. On 1 August 1137, shortly after the marriage, Louis VI died, and Louis became king. The pairing of the monkish Louis and the high-spirited Eleanor was doomed to failure; she reportedly once declared that she had thought to marry a king, only to find she had married a monk.[6] There was a marked difference between the frosty, reserved culture of the northern court in theÎle-de-France, where Louis had been raised, and the rich, free-wheeling court life of the Aquitaine with which Eleanor was familiar.[5] Louis and Eleanor had two daughters,Marie andAlix.[5]
In the first part of his reign, Louis was vigorous and zealous in the exercise of hisprerogatives. His accession was marked by no disturbances other than uprisings by theburgesses ofOrléans andPoitiers, who wished to organisecommunes. He soon came into violent conflict withPope Innocent II, however, when thearchbishopric of Bourges became vacant. The king supported the chancellor Cadurc as a candidate to fill the vacancy against the pope's nomineePierre de la Chatre, swearing upon relics that so long as he lived, Pierre should never enter Bourges. The pope thus imposed aninterdict upon the king.
Louis then became involved in a war withTheobald II of Champagne by permittingRaoul I of Vermandois, theseneschal of France, to repudiate his wife, Theobald II's sister, and to marryPetronilla of Aquitaine, sister of the queen of France. As a result,Champagne decided to side with the pope in the dispute over Bourges. The war lasted two years (1142–44) and ended with the occupation of Champagne by the royal army. Louis was personally involved in the assault and burning of the town ofVitry-en-Perthois.[7] At least 1,500 people who had sought refuge in the church died in the flames.[7] Condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities, Louis removed his armies from Champagne and returned them to Theobald. He accepted Pierre de la Chatre as archbishop of Bourges and shunned Raoul and Petronilla. Desiring to atone for his sins, he declared his intention of mounting a crusade on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges.Bernard of Clairvaux assured its popularity by his preaching atVezelay on Easter 1146.
In the meantime,Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, completed his conquest ofNormandy in 1144.[8] In exchange for being recognised as Duke of Normandy by Louis, Geoffrey surrendered half of the county of Vexin—a region vital to Norman security—to Louis.[9] Considered a clever move by Louis at the time, it would later prove yet another step towardsAngevin rule.
In June 1147, in fulfillment of his vow to mount theSecond Crusade, Louis and his queen set out from theBasilica of Saint-Denis, first stopping inMetz on the overland route toSyria. Soon they arrived in theKingdom of Hungary, where they were welcomed by the kingGéza II of Hungary, who was already waiting with KingConrad III of Germany. Due to his good relationships with Louis, Géza II asked the French king to be his sonStephen's godfather. Relations between the kingdoms of France and Hungary remained cordial long after this time: decades later, Louis's daughterMargaret was taken as wife by Géza's sonBéla III of Hungary.[10]
After receiving provisions from Géza, the army continued its march toConstantinople.[11] After meeting with Manuel and receiving some supplies, the French crusaders moved to join up with Conrad's army. Louis conferred with Conrad and decided to wait for the Germans to reorganize before joining him at Lopadium.[12] Louis set out on what he assumed would be simpler paths into Philadelphia.[12] Concerned about the winter shortage of supplies in hostile, Seljuk-held central Anatolia, Louis and Conrad made the decision to alter their journey by 11 November.[12] After a month of travel Louis' army arrived at Ephesus.[13] He chose, despite warning from Byzantine messengers, to march inland towards the Maender valley.[13] Just beyondLaodicea, atHonaz, the French army was ambushed by Turks.[14] In the resultingBattle of Mount Cadmus, the Turks first bombarded the French with arrows and heavy stones, then swarmed down from the mountains and massacred them. The historianOdo of Deuil gives this account:
During the fighting the King Louis lost his small and famous royal guard, but he remained in good heart and nimbly and courageously scaled the side of the mountain by gripping the tree roots [...] The enemy climbed after him, hoping to capture him, and the enemy in the distance continued to fire arrows at him. But God willed that hiscuirass should protect him from the arrows, and to prevent himself from being captured he defended the crag with his bloody sword, cutting off many heads and hands.
After this battle, Louis refused to travel by land any further and boarded ships atAntalya. He finally reached Antioch in March 1148. His queen Eleanor supported her uncle,Raymond of Poitiers, and prevailed upon Louis to help Antioch against Aleppo. But Louis' interest lay in Jerusalem, and so he slipped out of Antioch in secret and went toJerusalem.[15] He united with King Conrad III of Germany and KingBaldwin III of Jerusalem to laysiege to Damascus; this ended in disaster and the campaign was abandoned after just four days.[16] Louis decided to leave the Holy Land, despite the protests of Eleanor, who still wanted to help her doomed uncle Raymond, after Easter of 1149. Departing fromAcre, he returned to France via Italy, and after visitingRoger II of Sicily andPope Eugene III,[17] crossed the Alps and reached Paris in November.[18]
The expedition to the Holy Land came at a great cost to the royal treasury and military. It also precipitated a conflict with Eleanor that led to the annulment of their marriage.[19] Perhaps the marriage to Eleanor might have continued if the royal couple had produced a male heir, but this had not occurred.[5] The Council ofBeaugency found an exit clause, declaring that Louis and Eleanor were too closely related for their marriage to be legal,[5] thus the marriage was annulled on 21 March 1152. The pretext of kinship was the basis for annulment, but in fact, it owed more to the state of hostility between Louis and Eleanor, with a decreasing likelihood that their marriage would produce a male heir to the throne of France. On 18 May 1152, Eleanor married the Count of Anjou, the future King Henry II of England. She gave him the duchy of Aquitaine and bore him three daughters and five sons. Louis led an ineffective war against Henry for having married without the authorisation of hissuzerain. The result was a humiliation for the enemies of Henry and Eleanor, who saw their troops routed, their lands ravaged, and their property stolen.[5] Louis reacted by coming down with a fever and returned to the Île-de-France.
In 1154, Louis marriedConstance of Castile, daughter of KingAlfonso VII of Castile.[20] She also failed to supply him with a son and heir, bearing only two daughters,Margaret[21] andAlys.[22] By 1157, Henry II of England began to believe that Louis might never produce a male heir, and that the succession of France would consequently be left in question. Determined to secure a claim for his family, he sent his chancellor,Thomas Becket, to press for a marriage between Margaret and Henry's heir,Henry the Young King. Louis agreed to this proposal, and by the Treaty of Gisors (1158) betrothed the young pair, giving as adowry the Norman city ofGisors and the surrounding county ofVexin.[21]
Louis was devastated when Constance died in childbirth on 4 October 1160. As he was desperate for a son, he marriedAdela of Champagne just five weeks later. To counterbalance the advantage this would give the king of France, Henry II had the marriage of their children (Henry "the Young King" and Margaret) celebrated at once. Louis understood the danger of the growing Angevin power; however, through indecision and a lack of fiscal and military resources in comparison to Henry II, he failed to oppose Angevin hegemony effectively. One of his few successes was a trip toToulouse in 1159 to aidRaymond V, Count of Toulouse, who had been attacked by Henry II: Louis entered into the city with a small escort, claiming to be visiting his sister, the countess. Henry declared that he could not attack the city while hisliege lord was inside, and went home.[23] In 1169, Louis was petitioned by thebishop of Le Puy to stop the Viscount of Polignac from attacking travelers throughAuvergne.[24] The viscount was besieged by Louis at Nonette and the county was turned into aprévôt.[24]
Louis' reign sawHoly Roman EmperorFrederick I press his claims toArles, in southeastern France. When apapal schism broke out in 1159, Louis took the side ofPope Alexander III, the enemy of Frederick I, and after two comical failures of Frederick I to meet Louis atSaint-Jean-de-Losne (on 29 August and 22 September 1162), Louis definitely gave himself up to the cause of Alexander III, who lived atSens from 1163 to 1165. In return for his loyal support, the pope bestowed upon Louis theGolden Rose.
Thomas Becket leaves Louis VII and Henry II in January 1169, illustration from c. 1220–1240, possibly byMatthew Paris
More important for English history would be Louis's support for Thomas Becket,Archbishop of Canterbury, whom he tried to reconcile with Henry II. Louis sided with Becket as much to damage Henry as out of piety—yet even he grew irritated with the stubbornness of the archbishop, asking when Becket refused Henry's conciliations, "Do you wish to be more than a Saint?"
Louis also tried to weaken Henry by supporting his rebellious sons, and encouragedPlantagenet disunity by making Henry's sons, rather than Henry himself, the feudal overlords of the Angevin territories in France. But the rivalry among Henry's sons and Louis's own indecisiveness broke up the coalition (1173–1174) between them. Finally, in 1177, the pope intervened to bring the two kings to terms atVitry-en-Perthois.
In 1165, Louis's third wife bore him a son and heir,Philip. Louis had him crowned atReims in 1179,[25] in the Capetian tradition (Philip would in fact be the last king so crowned). Already stricken with paralysis, Louis himself could not be present at the ceremony.[25] He died on 18 September 1180 in Paris and was buried the next day atBarbeau Abbey,[25] which he had founded. His remains were moved to theBasilica of Saint-Denis in 1817.
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