Louis VII of France

Louis VII of France , known as Louis the Young person , born in 1120, died in 1180 with Melun, king of the Francs of 1137 with 1180. He is the son of Louis VI, known as Louis the Large , king of the Francs, and Adèle of Savoy (v. 1100 - 1154).
Sixth sovereign of the dynasty of the direct Capétiens, from his mother it is also a bosonide. He marries successively Aliénor of Aquitaine, Constance of Castille, and Adèle of Champagne. His/her son Philippe Auguste succeeds to him.

Beginning of the reign

He is crowned king and crowned, with Rheims, as of the October 25th 1131, by the pope Innocent II, after the accidental death of his elder Philippe de France (1116-1131) (not to be confused with Philippe, its brother of the same name), died of the continuations of a fall of horse on October 13rd, 1131.
After the death of his/her father Louis the Large occurred following an excess of good expensive, it is again crowned with Bourges, the December 25th 1137.

Before dying, his/her father had organized his marriage with Aliénor of Aquitaine (1122 - 1204), girl of Guillaume X of Poitiers, duke of Aquitaine and Aénor de Châtellerault. The marriage took place with Bordeaux, the July 25th 1137. This fabulous marriage allows the royal Domaine almost to triple, because the young groom brings in her dowry the Guyenne, the Gascogne, the Poitou, the the Limousin, the Angoumois, the Saintonge and the Périgord, i.e. part of the South and West of France, the equivalent of 19 current departments. The character of the king, excessively pious person, ascetic (he would have liked to be a monk), naive and awkward, soft in its decisions, agrees badly with the strong and sensual character of Aliénor, however the first ten years seem to occur without real disagreement.

Louis VII draws aside his mother of the Court, but guard the advisers of his father, of which the abbot of Saint-Denis, Suger. He continues the policy of his father and continues to emphasize the royal field. This same year the building work begins from the Basilique Saint-Denis. It makes multiple concessions at the rural communities, encourages the clearings and supports the emancipation of the serfs. It takes support on the cities by granting charters of middle-class (Étampes, Bourges) and by encouraging them out of its field (Rheims, Sens, Compiegne, Auxerre). It supports finally the election of bishops devoted to the royal capacity.

As of May 1141, Louis VII opposes the count Thibaud II of Champagne and to the pope Innocent II about the nomination for the évêché of Langres, for which he wanted to impose a monk of Cluny and the candidate of Bernard de Clairvaux. He is opposed to the pope again while trying to impose his candidate on the seat of Bourges in 1141 against Pierre of Châtre, supported by the pope Innocent II. The pope finishes by excommunicating Louis VII, and Pierre of Châtre finds Champagne refuge. In December 1142, the king invades the county and at the time of its projection in January 1143 Vitry-en-Perthois and its church sets fire to in which the inhabitants of the village had taken refuge, who found there a death dreadful.

To regulate this history definitively, it signs the Traité of Vitry with the count Thibaud II with the autumn 1143, accepting the election of Pierre of Châtre to make raise the prohibited which weighs on the kingdom. The April 22nd 1144, it takes part in the conference of Saint-Denis definitively to regulate the conflict between the the Holy See and him.

The second crusade

To seal the payment of the conflict, it agrees to take share with the Second crusade preached by holy Bernard, and around Christmas 1145, Louis VII announces his decision to leave to carry help to the Christian States of Palestine, threatened by the Turks who have just invaded the Comté of Édesse where many chrétiensont massacred. About Easter 1146, the king takes the cross at the same time as many barons at the time of the assembly of Vézelay. The June 11th 1147, the king Louis VII and Aliénor leave for the Second crusade, with the head of 300 knights and of many a armée, followed little by little by tens of thousands of pilgrims. Starting itself starting from Metz, they pass by the valley of the the Danube, where they are joined by the army of the emperor Conrad III and envisage to pass to Asia Mineure by Constantinople, where they arrive the October 4th 1147.

Forwarding is marked by the discord between the French and German clans, the inexperience of Louis VII who is weak-willed, and the perfidy of the Byzantines who harm to the Christians more than they do not help them. Misled by those, Louis VII is beaten by the Turks in Asia Mineure and knows several reverses in Syria. He joined with large pains Antioche in March 1148, then with the hands of Raymond of Poitiers, uncle d' Aliénor, who receives the Crusaders with many regards.

Raymond hoped that Louis VII was going to help it to fight the enemy who had stripped it some of his territories, but the king thought only of going to Jerusalem. Aliénor in vain tried to convince her husband to help his uncle Raymond of Poitiers. The king preferred to take council of the Templier eunuque Thierry de Galeran. Afterwards, the chroniclers of the time broke out and showed it Adultère: Guillaume de Tyr showed it even Inceste with his/her own uncle.

Louis VII forcing Aliénor to follow it, leaves Antioche and gains Jerusalem where it achieves the pilgrimage that it had been necessary. In June 1148, it tries to take Damas, in front of which its army is pushed back. The royal couple still remains a year in Holy Land before returning separately towards the France, by sea. The king is even made prisoner by the Byzantines before being delivered by Norman the Roger of Sicily.

With final the participation of Louis VII in this Second crusade is heavily prejudicial in the future kingdom, because forwarding showed a very heavy failure on all the plans:

  • Financial, because this forwarding impoverishes the royal treasure considerably;
  • Political, because the king did not deal directly with the kingdom during his two years of absence, and by consequence, its power slackened on the large feudal ones;
  • Military, because the crusade is a succession of military failures and part of its knighthood and an large army were sacrificed;
  • Dynastic and patrimonial, because this crusade will cause the rupture of the king with Aliénor;
  • Territorial, because during separation, Aliénor will recover the Fief S which it had brought in its dowry;
  • Strategic, because Aliénor by marrying future king d' Angleterre will bring immense territories to the crown of England, thus allowing the presence on the continent of a frightening competitor to king de France. By this marriage, the king Henri II of England reign on a territory which extends from the Scotland to the the Pyrenees, including/understanding the England, the Anjou, the Maine, the Normandy, the Aquitaine and the Brittany.

Separation with Aliénor

As of the return voyage in France, in November 1149, Louis VII thinks of separating from Aliénor. But the pope Eugene III, at the time of a stop to the Mount-Cassin, then the abbot Suger succeed in reconciling them, and in 1150, Alix of France (1150-1195), second girl of the royal couple, comes in the world.

However, after the death of Suger, in 1151, the king always wishing separation, the Concile of Beaugency finds finally a fault, with the reason that the great-grandmother of Aliénor, Audéarde of Burgundy, was the grand-daughter of Robert the Piles, grandfather of the king (cousinage with the 9th civil degree, but with the 5th canonical degree), and of this fact pronounces the cancellation of the marriage the March 18th 1152. Aliénor takes again its dowry, and the May 18th 1152, it marries in second weddings the count d' Anjou Henri II Plantagenêt, which becomes king d' Angleterre in 1154. It has 19 years and it, 30 years.

This political fault is the beginning of a continual competition between the kingdom of France and the kingdom of England, which will last until the middle of the 13th century. Louis VII supports the revolts of Brittany and the Poitou against England, and that of wire of Henri II against their father. He is helped in that:

  • by the despotism of Henri II Plantagenêt which pushes with the revolt its large vassal,
  • by the support of the clergy for king de France, because of the piety of Louis VII and the close historical links between the episcopate and the royalty capétienne,
  • and by the revolt of the wire of Henri II which require Apanage S and find refuge and protection at Louis VII, and which are supported by their mother, Aliénor of Aquitaine.

Remarriages

In spring 1154, Louis VII marries in second weddings Constance of Castille (1140-1160), which gives him two girls, Marguerite de France (1158-1197), and Adélaïde or Alix, future countess of Vexin

In 1158, Louis VII and Henri II Plantagenêt reconcile and are made the promise of a marriage between Marguerite de France and Henri the Young person. Appeasing of short duration, as of March 1159, Henri II is caught some with the Comté of Toulouse, and during the summer, constrained Louis VII the king of England to raising the seat of the town of Toulouse.

In 1160:

  • the queen Constance of Castille dies the October 4th while being confined of a girl, Alix or Adèle, not to confuse with Alix of France, born into 1150 of its first marriage.
  • Henri II returns to homage to Louis VII for the Normandy in the name of his/her Henri son the Young person.
  • Louis VII fact alliance with the counts of Flanders and Champagne, and marries, the November 13rd, in third weddings, Adèle of Champagne (or Adele of Blois), future mother:
    • of the king Philippe Auguste (1165-1223);
    • of Agnes or Anne of France (1171-1207 or afterwards), Byzantine empress.

In 1163:

  • Installation of the first stone of the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris by the pope Alexandre III. Louis VII offers the sum of two hundred books for the construction directed by Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris.
  • Confrontation between Henri II Plantagenêt and Thomas Becket the archbishop of Canterbury, supported by Louis VII. Finally four faithful knights of Henri II kill the archbishop.

The August 21st 1165, birth of Philippe Auguste, single male heir to Louis VII.

In 1169: treaty of marriage of Adele and Richard Lion-hearted.

In 1172 and 1173, Louis VII pushes Henri and Richard, the children of Henri II Plantagenêt, to enter in conflict with their father. End 1173, Louis VII and Henri II conclude with Caen a provisional truce and reaffirm about spring 1174 the intention to marry their children Adèle and Richard.

In 1177, the pope imposes on Henri II the conclusion of the Traité of Ivry, signed the September 21st, and by which the two kings swear friendship; followed treaty, the June 22nd 1180 by the signature of a non-aggression pact.

November 1st 1179, it made crown his/her son Philippe Auguste, and exhausted by the disease, it gave up the capacity to him the year according to.

In 1180:

  • engagement of Agnes and Alexis II Comnène
  • the Traité of Gisors of the June 28th 1180 marked the end of this series of continual wars between France and England.
  • the September 18th 1180, Louis VII dies in Melun of paralytic cachexy. The following day, it is buried with the royal abbey Saint-Port of Barbel which it founded close to Fountain-the-Port, in edge of the Seine between Melun and Fontainebleau. His/her son Philippe Auguste succeeds to him. This last exerted in fact the power since the June 28th 1180, day when his/her father gave up the capacity to him.

Assessment of the reign

Although educated to be a clerk or monk rather than king, Louis VII played a big role in the French history:
  • It consolidates the royal capacity in the provinces which were under its influence and fought the feudal capacity;
  • It is surrounded advisers of great quality and publishes important ordinances for the management of the kingdom;
  • the kingdom of France grows rich under its reign, agriculture is transformed and gained into productivity, the population increases, the trade and industry develops, a true intellectual rebirth appears, and the territory broods strong castles built out of stone.

However, the Second crusade was calamitous, and the separation of with Aliénor of Aquitaine is a heavy error, which provides to a vassal minor the means of being essential, while placing the king of France in territorial inferiority during nearly one half-century. One needed the action of three large kings, Philippe Auguste, Louis VIII '' the Lion '' and Louis IX, to rectify the situation and to manage to reduce the consequences of this heavy decision.

Monarchy, up to that point itinerant, was fixed at Paris because the presence of the king in all his field is not necessary any more. An embryo of central administration and local was formed. Around him, the familiar ones gave him political councils, and will form the Conseil of the king, the central services of monarchy gather the chiefs of the domestic services of the palate. In province, provosts were charged by the king with collecting the incomes, of raising military quotas and returning justice. Like his father, the king has to support the movement of emancipation of the communes, will grant privileges to the rural communities and émanciper of the serfs.

Children

  • With Aliénor of Aquitaine:
  • With Constancy of Castille, (1140 - 1160) girl of Alphonse VII of Castille.
    • Marguerite de France (1158 - 1197), wife in 1172 the prince of England Henry Short - Mantel, duke of Normandy (death in 1183), and in 1186, the king of Hungary Bleated III.
    • Adele of France (1160-1221) (or Alix, countess of Vexin) (1160 - 1218 or 1221, wife in 1195, Guillaume III of Ponthieu (or of Montgomery).
  • With Adele of Champagne (or Adele of Blois):
    • Philippe Auguste (1165 - 1223), king de France.
    • Agnes or Anne of France (1171 - 1240, Byzantine empress by her marriage with Alexis II Comnène in 1180, emperor of Constantinople (1169-1183). Then by another marriage in 1183 with Andronic Ier Comnène, emperor of Constantinople (1110-1185). About 1204 she marries Theodore Branas, lord of Turkey-red cotton.
  • Philippe de France (1161), illegitimate.

Random links:Kino (movement) | Kota Kinabalu | Sigil (Planescape) | Run (Snow Patrol) | Guardiagrele