LOUIS IX, King of France, Saint. - B. April 25, 1214, perhaps at Poissy, d. near Tunis on Aug. 25, 1270.
Raised by his mother Blanche of Castile, rigidly Catholic, St. Louis had as his characteristics the cult of justice and respect for the rights of others.
His fairness earned him such a reputation that his contemporaries sought his arbitration in the disputes that divided them. The arbitration of Péronne (Sept. 24, 1256) restored peace between Hainaut and Flanders. The arbitration of Amiens (Jan. 24, 1264) constitutes the most famous judgment pronounced in the conflict between Henry III of England and his barons.
In France the Parlement began, under the reign of St. Louis, to render judgments in particularly difficult cases brought on appeal. The prince, seated in the shade of a chestnut tree at Vincennes, loved to hear the arguments of the litigants and to decide their controversies. Trusted men of the king, chosen for their probity, were sent throughout France to discover and repress the abuses committed by the officers of the crown. The accounts of the treasury were severely audited at the "Temple." Good coinage was put into circulation which in a short time supplanted all the others minted by the various feudal lords. As for his charity and goodness, it suffices to cite the care he took for plague victims and for lepers, the foundation of the Filles-Dieu for fallen women, of the Quinze-Vingts for the unfortunate afflicted with blindness, the hospitals founded by him at Pontoise, at Compiègne, etc. The king's piety was further manifested in that admirable jewel which is the Ste-Chapelle, built in honor of the crown of thorns of the Savior.
In foreign policy Louis IX strove to eliminate - once and for all - the causes of friction between France and the neighboring countries. The Treaty of Corbeil (May 11, 1258) assured the house of Aragon possession of Catalonia, in exchange for the renunciation of all rights in Provence and Languedoc. The Treaty of Paris of May 28, 1258, ratified in Dec. 1259, which was much criticized in his time, ceded to the king of England Guiana, the dioceses of Limoges, Cahors and Périgueux, in exchange for the king of England's renunciation of Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, Maine and Poitou.
The appeal addressed by Innocent IV to Christendom in favor of the Crusade was taken up by the king of France. On June 7, 1249 an army entered Damietta. Instead of awaiting the arrival of the bulk of the troops, Robert of Artois attacked the enemy at al-Mansurah. St. Louis rushed to the aid of his brother in danger, but after a furious combat he fell prisoner into the hands of the Saracens (April 5-6, 1250) and had to pay a very considerable sum for his ransom.
On July 17 the king landed again on the African coast with the intention of joining the bands of the Sultan of Tunis, ready, it was said, to burst into Egypt. But the deadly climate decimated the forces of the Christians and St. Louis himself, struck by the plague, lost his life there. He was canonized by Boniface VIII, on Aug. 11, 1297. He is venerated as principal patron of the Franciscan Third Order.
Bibliography4 works
Guglielmo Mollat