LUIGI VIII, called the Lion, King of France. — Son of Philip Augustus, born in Paris on 5 Sept. 1187, died during a journey to Paris in 1226. He ruled France for only 40 months (1223–26), yet in that brief period earned the epithet “the Lion”: “he was slow to rouse himself and slow to calm down.” Before his reign he had collaborated in his father Philip Augustus’s work of conquest; once elected king, he continued II.
He nearly conquered England; only the submission of King John to Pope Innocent III (1213) and the latter’s death (1216) saved England from Capetian domination. As king, Louis continued the reconquest of English-held fiefs in France, annexing to the crown Poitou with La Rochelle.
Louis VIII chiefly acted as the “secular arm” in the crusade against the Albigensians after the death of Simon of Montfort. He succeeded in taking Avignon but died before completing the conquest of Languedoc. The acquisition of the viscounty of Beaucaire extended royal dominion, for the first time, to the Mediterranean.
At this moment the Capetians held increasingly extensive interests in the south. On his death, Louis VIII left to his widow, Blanche of Castile, regent for an infant of a few months, a kingdom both enlarged and a power more firmly established.