79: Louis VII "The Young"

On the 29th of August 1116, King Louis VI and Queen Adélaide welcomed their firstborn son Philippe into the world. As the heir-apparent, Philippe was groomed for the throne from an early age. Four years later, Adélaide gave birth to another son, Louis, called ‘The Younger’ to distinguish him from his father. While Philippe grew up learning how to fight and ride a horse, Louis attended the school of Notre-Dame in Paris where royal advisor Abbot Suger trained him in theology and the classical curriculum. This was all part of the king’s strategy to strengthen the Capetian family: Philippe would take the throne while Louis would serve at the altar, hopefully ascending to the position of archbishop of Reims and advisor to his older brother.

            On 14 April 1129, the twelve-year-old Philippe was coronated and became co-king alongside his father. This Capetian tradition was primarily symbolic, meant to signal to rival lords who would inherit the throne. Everyone knew that a 12-year-old could not be king; he had to be at least 15! Despite having little real power, just the title of ‘king’ made Philippe insufferable. He would not obey his father and demanded subservience from those around him. The inner court watched the little tyrant and worried for the future of France.

            On 12 October 1131, the 15-year-old Philippe was out riding with his friends. He was now an adult, and with his father in regular ill health, he expected to ascend to sole rule at any moment. Suddenly, a pig darted out in front of Philippe’s horse, which tripped and fell on his master. Philippe suffered multiple severe fractures, immediately fell unconscious and died the following day.

            Philippe’s passing grieved an already melancholy king. Louis VI had lost his firstborn son and heir to the throne. Yet, his line had not yet failed. Louis VI pulled his second-born out of the school of Notre-Dame and on 25 October 1131 had him coronated king by Pope Innocent II in Reims Cathedral. Trained for the pulpit, the budding theologian would become Louis VII.

Not long after the boy’s ascension, his perpetually-ill father fell sick and feared that his time had come. The decrepit king instructed Louis VII to be a good ruler, to protect the holy church, provide for the poor, care for orphans and safeguard the rights of his subjects. The instructions could have been notable last words, yet Louis VI The Fat recovered. He lived long enough to secure one of the most important marriage alliances in medieval French history between his son and Aliénor of Aquitaine. Aquitaine was then the largest single region in France. The marriage would bring enormous power to the Capetians, who could expand their influence from the north to encompass the entire kingdom.

On 25 July 1137 the 17-year-old Louis VII wed the 15-year-old Aliénor in the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux. The event was a promising one; while Louis VII would not directly control Aquitaine, any children the two had were entitled to their father and mother’s territory. Thus, any future king the two could produce would lead a stronger, more unified kingdom. At the same time, the ceremony was somber, given that Aliénor’s father had just died and Louis VII’s was on his deathbed. A week later, Louis VI The Fat passed on, and Louis VII The Younger became the sole king of France.

            Louis VII was perhaps not as headstrong as his brother had been, yet the young man acted as nearly all young men do. From the outset he sought to prove his power, particularly in the south. From Hugues Capet through to Louis VI The Fat, the ‘Kings of France’ were northern lords with extremely limited influence in the south. Pierre the Venerable wrote that the south of France was, “Without king, without duke, without prince.” Louis VII aimed to change that.

            First, Louis VII asserted his rights to the land through his wife’s inheritance of Aquitaine. In 1138 the leaders of Poitiers formed a commune. The young king and queen viewed the commune as a threat to their own power over the city and Louis VII besieged it. After taking the city, he seized the children of the rebellious nobles who had formed the commune and held them as pampered hostages, though Louis VII released them after Suger counseled him to show Christian mercy.

In 1141 Louis VII used his wife’s claim to Toulouse to justify an assault on the city, though this proved unsuccessful. Still, it has a lasting place in history due to a gift Aliénor gave her husband as thanks: a rock crystal vase, inlaid with precious stones and pearls and mounted on a golden stand. The gift originated in Sassanid or post-Sassanid Persia and was carried to Hispania. It came into the possession of the Taifa of Saragossa, who gifted it to Aliénor’s grandfather. The vase has lasted for roughly a millennium and a half and can be seen today in the Louvre.

Aside from Louis VII’s political claims, he justified his presence in the south as a defender of church rights. Whenever a noble abused clergy, church lands or peasants residing therein, Louis VII copied his father’s strategy of summoning the errant aristocrat to court. If they refused, the king had pretense to intervene. Finally, Louis VII continued his father’s other strategy of founding communes. These city-based governments depended on the king to protect them from local lords and in turn gave the monarchy political power and a fair amount of cash as well. This is not to say that Louis VII always sided with the communes, as evidenced by the siege of Poitiers. If a commune threatened local lords more than Louis VII, he would grant it a charter, but if the king believed a commune might limit his own power he was ready to go to war. These three strategies of asserting his personal rights, posing as a protector of the church and a protector of communes, meant Louis VII could liberally intervene across the kingdom.

Every intervention made the king stronger. Before, many French people, particularly in the southern half of the kingdom, would not think of calling on the Paris-based king. Yet, Louis VII’s consistent campaigning and touring of his greater realm meant that more people became acquainted with the monarch and even expected him to safeguard their rights. This is not to say that Louis VII was as powerful as say, Louis XIV, who could go anywhere and do as he pleased. Louis VII exercised virtually no influence in Normandy, whose leaders and people were fiercely independent, and his power was limited in the rising County of Anjou. Yet, Louis VII expanded the powers of the king well beyond the Île-de-France.

            While Aliénor appreciated her husband’s defense of her rights, the two never liked each other. Aliénor was from the south, which had always been more free-spirited and which was even then going through a romantic period. She had grown up listening to some of the first great troubadours. The troubadours were traveling minstrels who composed and performed emotionally-driven music and poetry in the Occitan language. In stark contrast, the northern French were more reserved. They viewed southern men as effeminate for shaving their beards in the Italian fashion, and their woman as downright whorish. If the queen embodied the Mediterranean South, the king was an extreme version of the Germanic north with more than a pinch of religious puritanism stemming from his theological schooling. In this case, opposites did not attract and the two were vehemently opposed to each other’s demeanors. Aliénor became so exasperated with her husband that at one point she exclaimed, “I thought I was marrying a king, but instead I got a monk!”

            Aliénor was not the only high-profile figure that Louis VII fought with, as he also conflicted with Pope Innocent II. On two separate occasions the Catholic canons chose candidates who Louis VII found intolerable and refused to recognize them. Church officials scoffed at Louis VII’s behavior and criticized him as acting like a child. Innocent II became so frustrated that he placed an interdiction on Louis VII. Interdiction is not as serious as an excommunication, but it was still a major blow to a king who viewed himself as a devout Christian and based his authority to act beyond the royal domain on his role as a defender of the church.

            The only battleground as contentious and nasty as religion and politics is romance. Louis VII’s troubles with the church only worsened due to a romantic liaison between two of his subjects. In 1141 his cousin and seneschal, Raoul of Vermandois, was unhappily married to Aliénor of Blois, not to be confused with Queen Aliénor of Aquitaine. After 21 years of marriage, the lady from Blois had not produced an heir. Meanwhile her husband had a wandering eye; not wandering eyes, as he had lost one of them in battle. One day at court his remaining eye fell upon the 16-year-old Pétronille. It was love at first, which is strange to say given his physical condition.

            Raoul pressured a number of local priests to invalidate his marriage to his first wife. Then Raoul and Pétronille eloped, likely with the support of Queen Aliénor who pushed her husband to accept the union. Yet, hindsight is 20/20, or just 20 if you’re Raoul, as the church immediately condemned the marriage. Innocent II even excommunicated Raoul. Finally, Thibaut II Count of Blois was not happy that a powerful lord would dishonor and dismiss his sister. In outrage, the count rebelled against his king.

            The relatively limited war between Louis VII and Thibaut II would have enormous repercussions for French and world history, though these seeds took some time to bear fruit. With Thibaut II in revolt, Louis VII renounced the count’s claims to Champagne and Troyes, which he decreed should go to one of his allies. The king raised an army and besieged the town of Vitry. When he did, over a thousand of the townsfolk crowded inside the church which the king’s men set on fire killing all those inside. When Louis VII heard about this he broke down and wept, believing he was responsible for his soldiers’ violation of sanctuary. The king no longer had the heart for war, and he negotiated peace with Thibaut. Still, the incident haunted him, and for years afterwards the king contemplated how he could properly do penance for such an act.

In the following years a series of coincidental deaths solved most of Louis VII’s problems. First, one of the bishop-elects who the king had opposed died, ending the controversy over who would inherit the vacancy. On 24 September 1143 Innocent II died. The following year, his successor Celestine II died. Next year, his successor died too, meaning there were four popes in as many years. The relative instability of the papacy, combined with continual pressure from the Holy Roman Empire weakened the central church. For the rest of his reign, Louis VII enjoyed good relations with the popes, at least two of which took refuge in France while the Holy Roman Emperor and his supporters fought in Italy. There were only three major conflicts between throne and altar, far less than the average king had at the time, and king and pope worked hand-in-hand, for the most part.

The final death that greatly aided Louis VII was Aliénor of Blois. With the old wife out of the way Raoul was no longer in a bigamous relationship and Louis VII’s first or second-most powerful official was welcomed back into the church.

By 1144, Louis VII was in a strong, stable position politically. However, he was still tortured by the massacre at Vitry. While many kings practiced piety simply as a pretense to ensure order, Louis VII was a devout Christian, who had spent his childhood preparing for a position in the clergy. He struggled over the role fate had ordained for him, and how it had led him to oversee the killing of so many innocents. During his regular attendance at mass he thought of his brother Philippe. Philippe had told Louis VII that it was his intention to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which had so recently been conquered by French Christian soldiers. Louis VII confided in Bernard of Clairvaux, later known as Saint Bernard, who encouraged him to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

[Sidenote: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux is not where we get the name for the dog breed Saint Bernard; that is from Saint Bernard of Menthon, who lived in the preceding century. There are actually two Saint Bernards from France and one from Italy, though only one got a breed of oversized dogs named after him.]

            Louis VII was in the midst of planning his trip to the Holy Land when news arrived that a Muslim army had taken the city of Edessa and with it the county. The first of the Four Crusader States, it was also the first to fall. This news horrified the Christian world as Islamic forces threatened the Holy Land. In response, Louis VII announced that he would travel to Western Asia with a force and liberate Edessa from the Turkish conquerors. Secular and religious leaders responded with enthusiasm at the prospect of another holy war to unite Christendom, this time led by a king. With papal approval, the Second Crusade commenced.

As before, the pope declared that all conflict against Muslims to retake Christian territory would guarantee salvation. Eugenius III said this with a mind for the Iberian peninsula, which was in the midst of a centuries-long conflict between Christians in the north and Muslims in the south. Yet, as during the First Crusade, most soldiers wanted to travel east, leaving far fewer to fight in the Reconquista.

            Bernard became the most vocal preacher for the holy war. When he arrived in Vézelay so many came to the field he was speaking in that they ran out of material to stitch crosses onto people’s clothes, prompting Bernard to tear up his own and give it to the would-be crusaders. If Bernard occupied a similar role to Pierre the Hermit from the previous holy war, he was more respectable. As lords prepared for war a French preacher in Germany promoted violence against Jews, which Bernard successfully opposed.

The German situation was at first disappointing, given its potential to descend into anti-Judaic pogroms and the hesitance of Emperor Conrad III to move. Conrad III did not want to fight in a foreign war, though under pressure from his vassals he conceded. Unlike the first holy war, which was primarily a French affair, this time the Germans made up the largest army.

            On 11 June 1147 Louis VII prostrated himself before the altar at Saint-Denis. Pope Eugenius III gave him the pilgrim’s scrip and the oriflamme which would serve as his battle standard. The ceremony left many in tears, as the assembled listened to their pious lord declare that he would deliver their fellow Christians from foreign bondage. That day, Louis VII left with his queen and an army of roughly 15,000. Through the entire ordeal, Louis VII never missed mass or hours.

            Originally, the French planned on taking a sea route with the aid of their Norman cousins who ruled The Kingdom of Sicily. However, the Italo-Normans were then at war with the Byzantine Empire, which made sea travel more dangerous and would make coordination with the Greeks awkward at best, impossible at worst. Instead, Louis VII led his forces eastward along the land route. As they did, they were met with mostly unsympathetic locals who were still recovering from the German host tramping through their lands and were not-at-all pleased that another army had arrived.

            That summer the French arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary to find the Germans waiting for them. There, King Géza II welcomed Louis VII and Aliénor. Géza II was looking for an ally on the Holy Roman Empire’s western flank and the two kings bonded over their mutual hatred of the Germans. They hit it off so well that the Hungarian monarch asked Louis VII to be his son’s godfather. The visit was just one in a pattern of good relations between the French and the Hungarians, which was followed up when Louis VII’s daughter Marguerite later married Géza's son, King Béla III.

            While the French wined and dined with the Hungarians, Conrad III moved on to Byzantium. Shortly after crossing the border, a number of Germans began fighting with the Greek inhabitants over supplies. Tensions were already high between the two emperors, both of whom claimed the title of Emperor of the Romans and denounced the other as a pretender. As the Germans approached Constantinople Emperor Manuel I feared that they would attempt to sack the capital. A brief battle ensued, and the Germans begrudgingly crossed the Hellespont.

            Louis VII’s arrival in the east was far less contentious. The French king marveled at the greatness of the eastern city, its historical churches and the many gifts the Emperor bestowed upon him. If Louis VII acted reverentially towards the Greeks, many French were not as impressed. The king’s chronicler Odo of Deuil wrote that the city was filled with as much vice as grandeur. Moreover, the Greeks had a habit of ceremoniously cleansing their altars once French people used them, which was a not-so-subtle way for the Greeks to say that the French were unclean.

The biggest rift between the French and Greeks was over Manuel I’s recently concluded peace treaty with Turks on his eastern frontiers. The diplomatic move allowed the Greeks to move their forces west to combat the Italo-Normans and protect against crusader attacks. Still, the Westerners were furious that the Greeks had made peace with Muslim powers just before their arrival. Some Westerners accused the Greeks of betraying Christendom and argued that they should take Constantinople…which, in hindsight, completely justifies Manuel I’s reason for making peace in the first place: that he needed troops to defend against crusader attack. Despite all these angry denunciations, Louis VII kept his men focused on their ultimate goal, leading them past Constantinople and into Anatolia. Still, there was no saving relations between the two peoples, and many French denounced the Greeks as false Christians due to their adherence to Eastern Orthodoxy.

            The Second Crusade was doomed even before the French set foot in Asia. Conrad III led his Germans through the mountainous terrain of Anatolia ahead of the other armies. After fifty years of fighting Western Europeans, the Turks had adapted. They had learned that while the Westerners had unbreakable infantry and peerless heavy cavalry, their army was slow-moving. Moreover, the Westerners were unaccustomed to rocky terrain and vast stretches of land with little water. For days Turkish horse archers fired on the German army. Whenever the Germans tried to catch them, the Turks simply slipped away and waited for their next opportunity to harass the interlopers.

            The German army quickly ran out of water and their deaths were mounting. Sensing disaster, Conrad III turned his army around in a full-scale retreat. As he did, the Turks multiplied their attacks. The German army’s discipline completely broke down, as men broke ranks and ran, which made them easy pickings for light cavalry. Within weeks of arriving the vast majority of the German host lay dead, their baggage taken by their enemies.

            When the French ran into retreating Germans they were stunned. Theirs had been the largest of the Christian armies, and now only small remnants remained. Of these, some joined themselves to the French, while many others gave up and took up the long journey home. Conrad III had personally been hit with two arrows and taken a blow to the head, though he survived. Defeated, the Western Emperor returned to Constantinople rather than continue the fight.

            Louis VII wanted to avoid another disaster and so he led his armies along the coast. The march began well, as the army defeated a Turkish force. Yet, the French soon had their own disaster. Near Laodicea the French host split in two. Before those behind could join up with their comrades further along the road a Turkish army occupied the high ground in between them, then turned and crushed the laggards. With one part of the French army destroyed, the Turks then turned on the other. The French soon had to wage a fighting retreat in terrain so rocky that Louis VII had to personally grasp at tree roots to continue along the trail. Four times the Turks attacked and every time the French repulsed them, though their losses were grievous. Soon, hunger set in. The army became so desperate that they began to butcher and eat their own horses, which if you know anything about medieval French that should tell you just how bad things were. Don’t forget that during the First Crusade, as the French were holed up in Antioch, the cavalry chose to starve themselves before sacrificing their horses.

            On 20 January 1148, the French made it to the safety of the Greek-held city of Antalya. There, the war council decided that the Westerners no longer had the strength to fight their way through Turkish lands alone, as the First Crusade had done. Instead, they would take the sea route to Antioch and link up with the armies of the other Crusader States. When the French forces reached the docks, they found out that the Greeks were charging them outrageous prices for transport, further embittering the French towards their eastern allies. Still, they had no option but to pay.

            After making their way across the Eastern Mediterranean and landing on the coastal Levant, the French made their way to Antioch, arriving on the 19 March. The city’s prince, Raymond of Poitiers, greeted them. He was particularly happy to see his niece, Aliénor, and she returned his warm welcome. The road had been hard, and she and her husband had only drifted further apart during the campaign. The royal marriage had already been on the rocks before the Second Crusade; by now it was well past that point.

            Within the palace walls Raymond began explaining to the French monarch how best to assail Edessa. To his surprise, Louis VII announced that he would not march northeast, but south. The pious king primarily wanted to complete his pilgrimage to the sites where Jesus walked the Earth, rather than conquer territory for foreign Christians. Raymond was flabbergasted and he implored Aliénor to convince her husband to attack Edessa.

The growing estrangement between king and queen, combined with her closeness to Raymond led many to whisper about their relationship. Soon, opponents of the queen began saying that she was engaged in an incestuous affair with her uncle. Exasperated by the trials of the journey and his continual conflict with his own wife, Louis VII announced that the army would make for Jerusalem. When he did, Aliénor publicly refused to join him, and he had to force her to come. If Louis VII had wanted to end rumors of his wife’s alleged infidelity and his cuckoldry by leaving Antioch, this most recent fight only made such slander spread further.

            Throughout the Spring, Louis VII toured the holy sites of Jerusalem and its environs, in what must have been a much-needed relief from his disastrous love-life and military campaign. After walking in Christ’s footsteps and kneeling at the place where he died and rose again, the time to restart the Second Crusade arrived. A new force from Provence arrived by sea to bolster the Christian numbers. Even Conrad III made it to the Holy City, ready to take up the cross yet again.

            The Emperor, the kings of France and Jerusalem and a host of notables held council over where to strike next. Rather than move on Edessa and reclaim territory for Christians, they decided to strike at Damascus. In hindsight, this seems like an odd decision, given that it was beyond the boundaries of the Crusader States and its leader had been allied with the Christians against rival Turks. Yet, at the time, this seemed reasonable. Edessa had already fallen, and there was little spoil to be gained from there, while Damascus was an incredibly wealthy city. Edessa was also teeming with Turkish soldiers occupying it, which left far fewer to defend Damascus. Finally, while the emir of Damascus had been an ally to the Christians he was quickly coming under the sway of their enemies. For all these reasons the Christian forces marched on the great Islamic city.

            Unfortunately for the Christian host, they marched much too slow. News spread and the Turks learned about the planned attack well in advance. Reinforcing armies from Mosul and Aleppo arrived in Damascus, ready to defend the former capital of the Caliphate from the invaders.

The Siege of Damascus was a disaster. First, the Christians encamped in orchards and gardens, which provided them with food but also the trees gave Muslim archers cover as they fired upon their foes. Then the Christians moved to an open plain, where they quickly ran out of supplies. After four days, the Christian armies abandoned the siege.

            Defeated and humiliated, the nobles held another council. Those who had settled in the east begged their Western counterparts to join them in assaulting Ascalon. Yet, the Westerners had tired of the campaign. First the German Emperor left, then King Louis VII’s brother Robert. As Louis VII lingered, he received word from Abbot Suger, who begged the king to return: rebellion had broken out across France in part due to the excess taxes raised to fund the war. With no real hope of success, Louis VII admitted that the Second Crusade was a failure. He visited a number of holy sites throughout late 1148 and early 1149. Then he made for the coast and sailed west. Notably, the queen took a separate ship, something which Louis VII accepted, as at this point he was ready to end their unhappy union.

            Louis VII’s trip was largely uneventful, and he arrived in Calabria on 29 July. By contrast, a Byzantine navy captured Aliénor’s vessel, before a Sicilian fleet rescued her and took her to Palermo. The queen left Palermo for the mainland and begrudgingly joined her husband. In a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, Pope Eugenius III encouraged them to share an oversized bed. The results must have been evident on their faces and Eugenius III reportedly wept after they departed, knowing that there was no love left between them.

            Back in France, Louis VII quickly restored order. The great magnates had not dared to start a war while the king was away on a holy mission. Abbot Suger, the king’s brother Henri, Archbishop of Reims, and his cousin Raoul, Count of Vermandois had admirably run the country in his majesty’s absence. The only major problem was Robert’s rebellion, which Louis VII put down with ease.

            Despite the abysmal failure of the Second Crusade, Louis VII’s reputation increased because of it. He had kept mass and hours throughout the campaign, prostrated himself before holy places and maintained his Christian morality wherever he went. These actions freed him from the blame of the war’s failure, as theologians claimed that it was the crusaders’ sins that doomed the war. God may have turned against his children in the east, but most clergy agreed that this was the fault of the German Emperor, the Greeks or lesser lords, and not such a pious man as Louis VII. Over the course of his life Louis VII planned on returning for another crusade, but his wars against the Count of Anjou kept him from going.

            By 1152, Louis VII was ready to call it quits with Aliénor. Perhaps he may have tolerated their differences if only she bore him sons, but after 15 years she had only produced two daughters. Not even the pope’s magic love bed could give him the heir he wanted. The king summoned a council at Beaugency where his representatives argued that the marriage must be dissolved on the grounds of consanguinity. King and Queen were cousins in the fourth and fifth degree, having descended from Robert the Pious. The bishops agreed and on 21 March 1152 they annulled the marriage. Their ruling was understandable, though it would prove highly ironic given that Louis VII’s future wives were also his cousins in the fourth degree. With only so many nobles, most lords were related to each other somehow. Another irony was that Louis VII discarded Aliénor because she did not bear him sons, though she would bear her next husband 5 sons and 2 daughters.

            All of this brings us to the rising power in France: the County of Anjou. In medieval Capetian France there were around four or five territories that dominated the political landscape. We’ve already gone into great detail on the Duchy of Normandy, and mentioned the Duchy of Aquitaine. Blois, and at a times Vermandois, were two other powerful counties. Anjou had been a major power for a long time, serving as a regular ally or foe of the monarchy, depending on the situation. During the 12th century it rapidly became the great power in France under its ruling House Plantagenet.

            In 1145, Geoffroi V, Count of Anjou, took advantage of The Anarchy that gripped the Anglo-Norman realm and conquered Normandy. There he installed his son Henri as its duke. The power grab was an alarming change in the power dynamics of northern France, one which could easily trigger a war with the king. To offset a potential conflict, Henri traveled to Paris where he paid homage to Louis VII. Any other vassal kneeling before their king would have been considered normal. Yet, no member of the House of Normandy had done so in Paris, or agreed to vassalage with any duties. The Angevins were not as fiercely independent as the Normans and respected French custom, especially when the King of France was so strong and they were still subduing the Duchy of Normandy. To secure the king’s peace, Geoffroi ceded half of the Vexin, an important border territory between the royal domain and Normandy, which had been the site of constant conflict between the two powers.

            In early September 1151, Geoffroi V caught a fever and died at the age of 38. When he did, his eldest son Henri became Count of Anjou in addition to his title of Duke of Normandy. The following year, Louis VII annulled his marriage to Aliénor. Immediately afterwards, Aliénor fled south, avoiding capture by Thibaut of Blois and Geoffroi, Henri’s younger brother. Safely back in Poitiers, Aliénor sent envoys to Henri, asking him to immediately marry her. Aliénor needed a quick marriage to a powerful lord as she feared that her ex-husband would seize her lands, claiming that they belonged by rights to their offspring. This was a bit of a gray area legally; the two had agreed that any children they had would inherit Aquitaine, though Salic law gave precedence to male children. For Henri, the marriage would add another powerful region to his realm; as lord of Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine and suzerain of Brittany he would effectively rule over half of France! Henri rushed south and the two wed in a humble ceremony on 18 May, just 8 weeks after her annulment to the king of France.

            When Louis VII heard about the marriage he was naturally furious, and not just because he had not been invited. Since medieval marriages between aristocrats were always political alliances, lords demanded the right to approve a marriage between vassals. Not only had Henri defied his lord, he was now just as powerful as the king himself, perhaps moreso! No sooner had their honeymoon ended, Louis VII declared war on the newlyweds, claiming Aquitaine on behalf of his daughters. The invasion failed and Henri held onto the southwest. From then on Louis VII and Henri were near-continuously at war.

            Henri was an ambitious lord who was not satisfied with holding two duchies and a county. After putting down a revolt by his brother, he sailed to England and joined his mother in their war against King Étienne, or Stephen in English. After nearly three decades of war the English people were ready for peace, and pressured Étienne to agree to the Treaty of Wallingford. Étienne formally adopted Henri as his son and heir to the English throne, while rejecting his son Guillaume I’s claim. In exchange, Guillaume I would remain Count of Boulogne and Étienne would continue to rule until his death.

Henri did not have long to wait. Just over a year later, on the 25 October 1154, the king of England died of an illness in his stomach. On 19 December 1154, Henri and Aliénor were crowned king and queen of England at Westminster Abbey. Henri’s rise to power was incredible. In 1150 he was the Duke of Normandy. In 1151 he inherited Anjou. In 1152 he gained Aquitaine through marriage. In 1154 he became Henri II, king of England. In a four-year period he had ascended from being a powerful regional lord to the ruler of a personal empire, one which included half of France and the kingdom of England.

            To say that Louis VII was concerned would be an understatement. The king of France had expanded Capetian power beyond anything which came before. He made the king a real power across the entire country, rather than just a northern lord. Now, half his kingdom was under the control of one man, who was also the king of England. With no other option, Louis VII declared war on Henri II, claiming that the Count of Anjou had violated feudal custom and that his French lands were forfeit.

Louis VII made inroads into Normandy but at too high a cost for him to keep fighting. After two years the two sides made peace. Henri II agreed to pay homage for his French territory in exchange for Louis VII recognizing his rights over them. This was a stark contrast to the behavior of the House of Normandy. Guillaume the Conqueror and his descendants tried to create a cross-Channel polity based upon a Norman ruling elite with lands in Normandy and England. By contrast, Henri II treated each of his realms as separate entities. Thus, the Angevin Empire was more flexible but also less cohesive. While historians refer to the Plantagenet possessions as an ‘Empire’ there was really nothing tying them together other than the personal claims of the ruling house.

One other major disadvantage that Henri II had to deal with was the vastness of his realm. The King of England had to fight against Scots in the far north, Welsh west of England, and constant attacks across his lands in France from Louis VII, rival magnates and rebellious nobles. On paper, Henri II was by far the most powerful man west of the Holy Roman Empire, but in practice he was continually stretched thin. Henri II regularly brought large forces against one enemy, usually Louis VII, repulsed his rival only to have to put down a crisis somewhere else.

The King of France was a constant thorn in Henri II’s side. Shortly after making peace in 1156 the two had another short war, which ended when the kings made a joint pilgrimage to Mont St. Michel, which Henri II heavily patronized.

Given Henri II’s dominance, you might think that Louis VII’s power was in decline, particularly in the south, but the exact opposite happened. The lords of France recognized that Henri II was far too powerful and that their king was their only sure defense against the Count of Anjou. In 1159 when Henri II attempted to take Toulouse, the city’s count Raymond called upon Louis VII for aid. The king of France launched yet another war, ordering his brothers to harass the north while he personally traveled south where he drove out his rival. At Chinon the two agreed to a peace, cemented through the betrothal of Henri II’s eldest son Henri and Louis VII’s daughter Marguerite, both of which were still young children at the time.

            During the rare periods when Louis VII was not fighting against his upstart vassal, he was desperately trying for an heir. In 1154, Louis VII married Constance of Castile, daughter of King Alfonso VII of Castile. Like his previous wife, Constance bore two daughters, and died in childbirth in 1160. Louis VII’s grief was deep but short. He remarried just five weeks later to Adèle of Champagne. In 1165 she gave birth to Philippe; finally, the king had an heir.

            While Louis VII had the one son, Henri II had four that lived to adulthood: Henri, Richard, Geoffroi and Jean. Like any patriarch, the Count of Anjou hoped his sons would be strong warriors and bravely fight the enemies of his house. Henri II got his wish for the former, as his children were all warlike. However, their main opponent was their father. The four brothers all wanted to rule a greater share of Henri II’s vast holdings and regularly joined noble revolts for greater autonomy. Inevitably, they would call upon Louis VII for support. Henri II had one final enemy to contend with: his wife. Aliénor supported her sons against her husband, which ironically put her on the side of her ex. Part soap opera, part Game of Thrones, everyone was ganging up against Henri II.

            Henri II did not just have political enemies but religious ones as well. His most noteworthy critic on that front was Thomas Becket. As King of England, Henri II worked to curtail the independence of the English church and subordinate it to his will. While most bishops feared the king’s wrath, Becket regularly opposed him. As the Archbishop of Canterbury, he was the highest-ranking member of the English church and refused to cede power to Henri II. Moreover, Becket could count on the support of the King of France and not just because they both opposed Henri II. Louis VII was an exceptionally pious king and counted Western Europe’s leading theologians among his greatest friends and correspondents.

            In 1164 Henri II was done with Becket and brought corruption charges against him. In response, Becket fled to the court in Paris where he angrily decried Henri II’s tyrannical overreach. Surprisingly, Becket was not even the highest-ranking member of the Catholic Church seeking refuge in France, as Pope Alexander III lived there while the Holy Roman Emperor supported an antipope in Rome. With the Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope denouncing Henri II’s attempt to appoint his own archbishop, the King of England buckled. In 1170 Becket returned triumphant to England.

            Becket’s victory was brief. Shortly after returning, he excommunicated the king’s eldest son and two of his loyalists. Exasperated, Henri II shouted “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?” though this is often shortened to: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Four knights who heard the king’s tantrum took it as a call to arms. They rode to Canterbury that night and slew Becket in his own church.

            When the King of England heard what had been done, he immediately repented for his ill-spoken words but the damage was done. Henri II’s problems exploded in the Great Revolt of 1173-1174, when he faced invasion by Scotland, noble uprisings and rebellions by his sons, the last of which was supported by his wife and the King of France. As daunting as the multi-pronged assaults were, the aggrieved parties did not coordinate with each other. Thus, Henri II was able to deal with each problem at a time until he defeated all of his enemies. He was bruised and bloodied, yet Henri II had survived this challenge. Louis VII failed to break up his rival’s personal empire, though there was victory in defeat; it was clear to all that only the King of France could hope to challenge the King of England and petty lords across the country rallied behind the royal aegis.

            So far we’ve focused primarily on Louis VII’s military exploits. Yet, he was much more than a warrior. Some of his greatest accomplishments came from his adroit political maneuvering and administrative skills. One of the areas that he was most successful with was the church. It’s too bad that Louis I took the name ‘The Pious,’ because it probably fits Louis VII even more.

Louis VII was someone who practiced what he preached. He adhered to a simple life, absconding from excessive luxury. He fasted every Friday, taking only bread and water. During a siege of the city of Nonette, Louis VII fell ill and his commanders suggested that he take a young girl with him to bed to keep him warm and speed his recovery, to which he responded, “better to die ill and chaste than live as an adulterer.” Unlike nearly every king and great magnate of his time he did not take mistresses and remained faithful to each of his wives. His adherence to Christian principle was perhaps best summed up when one of his vassals rebuked him while on campaign. At one point the Count of Blois went looking for the king throughout the army’s camp. Instead of resting in a large, furnished tent as so many monarchs were accustomed to doing, Thibaut found the king in a wooded area with only two guards to protect him. The Count of Blois scolded his sovereign for being so careless and risking his life, to which Louis VII replied that no one would kill him because, “no one envies me.” Unlike so many kings who chose luxury and vice, Louis VII truly believed he had been called to serve, and his spartan lifestyle made being king seem far less enjoyable.

Louis VII followed his fathers’ last commandment to protect the rights of his people. With encouragement from the church, he regularly freed serfs. He went so far as to declare in a royal charter: “All men, having a common origin, were endowed from birth with a kind of natural liberty. It is given to our royal majesty to raise them anew to this liberty.” Aside from appeals to royalism the words are almost the same as the opening of the United States’ Declaration of Independence and was an incredible statement for its time. It was also a statement rooted in early church belief. The early Christians accepted inequality between the sexes, culture and origin in a temporal sense; that is a healthy man would be physically stronger than a sick old woman. Yet, the early Christians held that all peoples’ souls were fundamentally equal, a radical belief that flew in the face of the hierarchical Roman political-religious system. This unusual egalitarianism of the spirit appealed to all peoples and ensured Christianity’s rapid spread in the empire. We may view Louis VII’s declaration of inalienable rights for all people as radically progressive for its time, though likely from his perspective he was acting in a conservative manner, appealing to Christianity’s religious roots.

Another thing that set him apart from most monarchs at the time was his tolerance for Jews. I know…usually when I mention Jews in a medieval context it’s because something horrible happened. This is a rare and welcome exception. Louis VII created an official position, the Praepositus Judaeorum, responsible for collecting taxes from Jews but also protecting their rights from abuse.

Louis VII upheld the Peace of God and Truce of God movements, both as a means of bringing tranquility to his people and because it kept his nobles in line. In 1155 at the Council of Soissons he proclaimed he would enforce a nationwide peace, protecting churches, peasants and merchants. He further forced the other princes and prelates to take an oath for a ten-year peace. While his efforts met with mixed success, he showed his commitment to his father’s command to defend the poor and orphans.

            Like all prior kings he donated to the church, notably to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and Notre-Dame in Paris. Both of these churches became monumentally important in European history as they and a handful of other constructions embodied the Gothic style of architecture, typified by high ceilings. The high-vaulted ceilings created a beautiful echo for singers and speakers within. Light filtered through stain-glass windows gave the cathedrals an ethereal character and created an other-worldly experience, such that some theologians claimed that the presence of God was manifest in the colored light. Thus, Louis VII promoted the new Gothic architectural style, which supplanted the earlier Romanesque. Over the centuries, Saint-Denis became the resting place of most of the French monarchs, while Notre Dame de Paris is, well…Notre Dame de Paris.

            Louis VII went on a number of notable pilgrimages during his life including to the Holy Land, to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Iberia and to Canterbury Cathedral near the end of his life.

Louis VII was also close friends with leading theologians, among them Thomas Becket and John Salisbury. He was furthermore a protector of Popes, sheltering both Eugenius III and Alexander III during their conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor. For his support, in 1163 Alexander III rewarded Louis VII with a golden rose and the title ‘Most Christian King,’ which the Capetians held onto. This is not to say he always got along with the Popes; at one point, after Henri II seized his daughter Marguerite, Alexander III took no action against the English king. In response, Louis VII sent envoys to the Holy Roman Emperor, telling him that maybe they should be on better terms. The pope took the hint and sided with the King of France, at which point Louis VII left the Emperor’s messages on ‘read.’

            Throughout his life, Louis VII continued his father’s policy of responding to church calls for royal protection. This was simultaneously because he was a devout man who believed it was his duty to defend the church from abusive lords and an excuse for him to assert his power across the country.

The division of power was such that whenever an episcopal seat opened the local clergy elected someone, the central church consecrated them, and the king bestowed upon them their regalia. Through this ceremonial agreement the local church, the papacy and the secular monarch approved new religious leaders who occupied both religious and secular functions…though let’s not kid ourselves, it was usually never this smooth. Yet, during the time of pope Alexander III, the papacy waited until the king selected a candidate before making their own decision, which was a far cry from Louis VII’s early reign when the papacy rebuked the young king’s picks and punished him for not following their designs.

Technically all churches in France were under the king’s power, though in practice churches within the territory of powerful lords were under their control. Due to the unofficial nature of the political-religious arrangement of churches it is hard to say how many churches were truly under the king’s power, though by one estimate Louis VII expanded his influence from 16 episcopal sees to 26 throughout his reign.

            As an administrator, Louis VII continued his father’s work of transforming the government from an informal group of the king’s servants to a professional, meritocratic bureaucracy. He appointed lesser nobility to head his household and never let a single person dominate. In fact, the king sometimes let an office remain vacant for extended periods just to show that he did not need anyone. Louis VII made hereditary passing of offices forbidden. Under his reign, the government became more meritocratic, and thus more effective. Crucially, he rewarded office-holders with promotions, not land, thus making them perpetually dependent on him. He also kept legal specialists and trained lawyers in his entourage, as formal education blossomed in Paris.

            Louis VII used his political presence to expand his reach across the country. He held regular national assemblies of notables. He also promoted the peers of the realm to copy Charlemagne’s system of 12 great ruling lords (though in Charlemagne’s case this was mostly a literary invention). Finally, his strong grasp on the church meant that he could regularly appoint his own favorites to top positions, and even instructed some bishops to inform him of new vacancies so he could place his clerks in prominent roles within the episcopate.

            One final arena that owes much to King Louis VII is the growth of urban spaces. The population of France was growing steadily. Relative stability meant more people lived in cities or towns. Trade became more frequent, infrastructure developed and wealth increased. Louis VII took an active role in supporting urban growth, chartering communes that were favorable to him and sponsoring building projects. He also chartered guilds as tradesmen formed official organizations to protect their craft and promote their interests. This period saw the blossoming of literature and music, most notably at the school of Notre-Dame de Paris, though this was not the only important school at the time. In 1150 the University of Paris first opened its doors, though it only received its official charter in 1200 from Louis VII’s son and successor. When Aliénor moved up north, she brought with her many attendants and likely spread troubadour music and culture. Northern cities began to take on a whole new character as Gothic architecture reinvented the houses of worship.

            By 1177 the kings of France and England had been at war for 25 years. After another round of fighting, they agreed to yet another peace and even discussed jointly leading a crusade. Any contemporary observer would have predicted that this was a temporary truce which would crumble at the first imagined offense, but they would be wrong. This was the last war between the two monarchs.

            Two years later, Louis VII prepared a coronation ceremony for his 14-year-old son Philippe as part of the Capetian tradition of royal association when news arrived that the boy had fallen gravely ill. Louis VII wept, fearing that his only son would pass on. Day and night he prayed for his son’s recovery. In the midst of his despair, he claimed to have seen a vision of Thomas Becket who told him that the only way to save his son was to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. The aged king immediately set out for the coast and set foot in England shortly thereafter, the first French king to do so. There Henri II received him and left him at Canterbury Cathedral where Louis VII prayed for two days.

            Louis VII then sailed back to France but fell ill along the way. He suffered a stroke that paralyzed his right side and left him unable to speak. When he returned he was relieved to discover that Philippe had indeed recovered, and took up the mantle of kingship as his father was incapacitated. A year later, on 18 September 1180, Louis VII passed away at the age of 59 or 60. Louis VII chose not to be buried in Saint-Denis but at Barbeau Abbey, which he founded.

            Louis VII’s legacy has long been debated by historians. For a long time the consensus was that he was a weak and timid king. He was controlled by the church and factions at court. He instigated the disastrous Second Crusade. His decision to annul his marriage to Aliénor allowed Henri II to take Aquitaine and create a personal empire.

Contemporary historians have been much kinder to Louis VII. First, many of the sources are Anglo-Norman and naturally biased against their great rival. Second, many of Louis VII’s mistakes were actually based on logical decision-making, which just happened not to work out. Furthermore, the Second Crusade’s failure was hardly Louis VII’s fault; if anything, Conrad III’s utter defeat at Dorylaeum doomed the holy war before it began.

The most frequent criticism of Louis VII was the annulment of his marriage to Aliénor. At the time, this was quite understandable: Aliénor had failed to provide the kingdom with an heir, which was crucial to the maintenance of House Capet and the stability of France. Furthermore, no one could have predicted that Henri II would inherit Anjou and win the English throne in the space of a few years. The rapid sequence of events which saw Henri II move from being the Duke of Normandy to Count of Anjou, Duke of Aquitaine and King of England caught everyone by surprise. Yet, when Henri II did seize unprecedented power, Louis VII responded vigorously and intelligently. Granted, he never defeated Henri II and instead fought him to a standstill. But he held his ground against a foe far greater than any other Capetian had been up against.

            So often rulers are judged by their military exploits and political power, when most of their job is the boring work of administration. Louis VII excelled in this. Under his reign France blossomed culturally, its cities expanded and its wealth grew. He furthered learning and sponsored early Gothic architecture. He brought the government firmly under the control of the monarch, increased its size and efficiency. There can be no doubt that Louis VII left a legacy on France. It was he, who first adopted the fleur-de-lys as the symbol of House Capet, though this is now one of the most important symbols of France itself.

            Louis VII was a man of profound vision. He understood that he was part of a long tradition of French kings. All of his forebears going back to Hugues Capet struggled to defend their legitimacy against enemies who derided them as pretenders, and establish their power in faraway regions whose lords refused to be ruled by some northern dignitary. As Louis VII lay dying, he understood that the project Hugues Capet began, of creating a new dynasty that ruled over an independent Kingdom of France, was not yet completed. Moreover, defeating the Angevin Empire would be the greatest challenge any French king had yet faced. It is for this reason that he made his tomb’s inscription a message to his young son. It read, “You who survive him are the successor to his dignity; you diminish his line if you diminish his renown.” Little did Louis VII know that his son would be the greatest of all Capetian kings and complete the project they began two centuries before.

Sources:

 Encyclopedia Britannica

Jim Bradbury, The Capetians: Kings of France 987-1328, 2007.