v48_0060 - LOUIS VIII "THE LION" AND LOUIS IX "SAINT LOUIS" Denier tournois n.d.

LOUIS VIII "THE LION" AND LOUIS IX "SAINT LOUIS"

(14/07/1223-03/11/1226) and (03/11/1226-around 1245-1250)

Son of Philippe Auguste and Isabelle de Hainaut, born in 1187, Louis VIII began to play a political and military role during the reign of his father. In 1213, Louis joined the crusade launched in 1209 by the barons of northern France against the Albigenses, that is to say the Cathars, whose heresy had taken off in the South about fifty years ago. earlier. However, he had to delay his departure to fight against the coalition that had risen against his father: it was during this war that he won the victory of La Roche-au-Moine (July 2, 1214). The following year, the prince finally went down to the South to assist Simon de Montfort in the conquest of the domains of the Count of Toulouse, Raimond VI. In 1216 he landed in England, entered London and prepared to dethrone John Lackland. The death of King John on October 19, 1216 saved his dynasty. After the death of the unpopular monarch, the Church sided with his son, Henry III Plantagenet. Louis was defeated at Lincoln in April 1217 and the French fleet was destroyed in August. After the death of Simon de Montfort, in 1218, Louis returned to Languedoc to rectify the situation and took the lead in the massacres of heretics, but could not take Toulouse. Shortly after, Amauri, heir to Simon de Montfort, abandoned his rights in the South to the king.. When he was crowned king in 1223, Louis VIII therefore had behind him a brilliant past of military campaigns. His short reign was the continuation. In 1224, the new king submitted Poitou and Saintonge. From now on, only Gascony remained in the hands of the English. Finally, in 1226, he took the lead of the ultimate crusade against the Albigenses and made his entry into Languedoc. Two royal seneschalses were created in Beaucaire and Carcassonne. It was on his way back that the king died, struck by dysentery, on November 8, 1226.. Ascended to the throne at the age of thirty-six, he was part of the continuity of the reign of Philippe Auguste and kept the management team in place.. As prince and as king, he was first a warrior, working to submit feudals to royal authority.. By Blanche de Castille, Louis VIII had had eleven children, six of whom survived. The eldest, the future Saint Louis, succeeded him. Alfonse was Count of Poitiers, Robert Count of Artois, Charles Count of Anjou and Provence, King of the Two Sicilies and Titular Emperor of Constantinople.