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Birth:          1119 Reims, Champagne, France
Death:          18 Sep 1180 Paris, France
Burial:         19 Sep 1180 Barbeau, Isle de France, France

Notes
b 1119/20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_VII_of_France
Louis VII (called the Younger or the Young) (French: Louis le Jeune) (1120 – 18 
September 1180) was King of the Franks from 1137 until his death. He was the son 
and successor of King Louis VI of France, hence his nickname, and married Eleanor of 
Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe. Eleanor 
came with the vast Duchy of Aquitaine as a dowry for Louis, thus temporarily 
extending the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees, but their marriage was annulled in 1152 
after no male heir was produced.

Immediately after the annulment of her marriage, Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, 
Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, to whom she conveyed Aquitaine. When Henry 
became King of England in 1154, as Henry II, he ruled over a large empire that 
spanned from Scotland to the Pyrenees. Henry's efforts to preserve and expand on 
this patrimony for the Crown of England would mark the beginning of the long rivalry 
between France and England.

Louis VII's reign saw the founding of the University of Paris and the disastrous Second 
Crusade. Louis and his famous counselor, Abbot Suger, pushed for a greater 
centralization of the state and favoured the development of French Gothic 
architecture, notably the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris.

He died in 1180 and was succeeded by his son Philip II.
Early years[edit]

Louis was born in 1120 in Paris,[citation needed] the second son of Louis VI of France 
and Adelaide of Maurienne. The early education of Prince Louis anticipated an 
ecclesiastical career. As a result, he became well-learned and exceptionally devout, 
but his life course changed decisively after the accidental death of his older brother 
Philip in 1131, when he unexpectedly became the heir to the throne of France. In 
October 1131, his father had him anointed and crowned by Pope Innocent II in Reims 
Cathedral.[1][2] He spent much of his youth in Saint-Denis, where he built a friendship 
with the Abbot Suger, an advisor to his father who also served Louis well during his 
early years as king.

Early reign[edit]

Following the death of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, Louis VI moved quickly to have 
Prince Louis married to Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, heiress of the late duke, on 25 
July 1137.[3] In this way, Louis VI sought to add the large, sprawling territory of the 
Aquitaine to his family's holdings in France. On 1 August 1137, shortly after the 
marriage, Louis VI died, and Prince Louis became king of France, reigning as Louis 
VII. The pairing of the monkish Louis and the high-spirited Eleanor was doomed to 
failure; she reportedly once declared that she had thought to marry a king, only to find 
she had married a monk. There was a marked difference between the frosty, reserved 
culture of the northern court in the Íle de France, where Louis had been raised, and 
the rich, free-wheeling court life of the Aquitaine with which Eleanor was familiar.[3] 
Louis and Eleanor had two daughters, Marie and Alix.[3]

In the first part of his reign, Louis VII was vigorous and zealous in his prerogatives. 
His accession was marked by no disturbances other than uprisings by the burgesses 
of Orléans and Poitiers, who wished to organise communes. He soon came into violent 
conflict with Pope Innocent II, however, when the archbishopric of Bourges became 
vacant. The king supported the chancellor Cadurc as a candidate to fill the vacancy 
against the pope's nominee Pierre de la Chatre, swearing upon relics that so long as 
he lived, Pierre should never enter Bourges. The pope thus imposed an interdict upon 
the king.

Louis VII then became involved in a war with Theobald II of Champagne by permitting 
Raoul I of Vermandois, the seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife, Theobald II's 
niece, and to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of the queen of France. As a result, 
Champagne decided to side with the pope in the dispute over Bourges. The war lasted 
two years (1142–1144) and ended with the occupation of Champagne by the royal 
army. Louis VII was personally involved in the assault and burning of the town of 
Vitry-le-François. More than a thousand people who had sought refuge in the church 
died in the flames. Overcome with guilt and humiliated by ecclesiastical reproach, 
Louis admitted defeat, removed his armies from Champagne and returned them to 
Theobald. He accepted Pierre de la Chatre as archbishop of Bourges and shunned 
Raoul and Petronilla. Desiring to atone for his sins, he declared his intention of 
mounting a crusade on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges. Bernard of Clairvaux assured 
its popularity by his preaching at Vezelay on Easter 1146.

In the meantime, Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, completed his conquest of Normandy in 
1144. In exchange for being recognised as Duke of Normandy by Louis, Geoffrey 
surrendered half of the Vexin — a region vital to Norman security — to Louis. Considered 
a clever move by Louis at the time, it would later prove yet another step towards 
Angevin rule.

In June 1147, in fulfilment of his vow to mount the Second Crusade, Louis VII and his 
queen set out from the Basilica of St Denis, first stopping in Metz on the overland 
route to Syria. Soon they arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary, where they were 
welcomed by the king Géza II of Hungary, who was already waiting with King Conrad 
III of Germany. Due to his good relationships with Louis VII, Géza II asked the French 
king to be his son Stephen's baptism godfather. Good relationships between the 
kingdoms of France and Hungary continued to remain cordial long after this time: 
decades later, Louis's daughter Margaret was taken as wife by Géza's son Béla III of 
Hungary.[4] After receiving provisions from Géza, the armies continued the march to 
the East. Just beyond Laodicea, the French army was ambushed by Turks. The French 
were bombarded by arrows and heavy stones, and the Turks swarmed down from the 
mountains. Then a massacre began. The historian Odo of Deuil reported:

During the fighting the King Louis lost his small and famous royal guard, but he 
remained in good heart and nimbly and courageously scaled the side of the mountain 
by gripping the tree roots … The enemy climbed after him, hoping to capture him, and 
the enemy in the distance continued to fire arrows at him. But God willed that his 
cuirass should protect him from the arrows, and to prevent himself from being captured 
he defended the crag with his bloody sword, cutting off many heads and hands.

Louis VII and his army finally reached the Holy Land in 1148. His queen Eleanor 
supported her uncle, Raymond of Antioch, and prevailed upon Louis to help Antioch 
against Aleppo. But Louis VII's interest lay in Jerusalem, and so he slipped out of 
Antioch in secret. He united with King Conrad III of Germany and King Baldwin III of 
Jerusalem to lay siege to Damascus; this ended in disaster and the project was 
abandoned. Louis VII decided to leave the Holy Land, despite the protests of Eleanor, 
who still wanted to help her doomed uncle Raymond. Louis VII and the French army 
returned home in 1149.

A shift in the status quo[edit]

The expedition to the Holy Land came at a great cost to the royal treasury and 
military. It also precipitated a conflict with Eleanor that lead to the annulment of their 
marriage.[5] Perhaps the marriage to Eleanor might have continued if the royal couple 
had produced a male heir, but this had not occurred.[3] The Council of Beaugency 
declared that Louis VII and Eleanor were too closely related for their marriage to be 
legal,[3] thus the marriage was annulled on 21 March 1152. The pretext of kinship was 
the basis for annulment, but in fact, it owed more to the state of hostility between 
Louis and Eleanor, the decreasing likelihood that their marriage would produce a male 
heir to the throne of France. On 18 May 1152, Eleanor married the Count of Anjou, the 
future King Henry II of England. She gave him the duchy of Aquitaine and bore him 
three daughters and five sons. Louis VII led an ineffective war against Henry for 
having married without the authorization of his suzerain. The result was a humiliation 
for the enemies of Henry and Eleanor, who saw their troops routed, their lands 
ravaged, and their property stolen.[3] Louis reacted by coming down with a fever and 
returned to the Ile-de France.

In 1154, Louis VII married Constance of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VII of Castile. 
She also failed to supply him with a son and heir, bearing only two daughters, 
Marguerite and Alys. By 1157, Henry II of England began to believe that Louis might 
never produce a male heir, and that the succession of France would consequently be 
left in question. Determined to secure a claim for his family, he sent the Chancellor, 
Thomas Becket, to press for a marriage between Princess Marguerite and Henry's heir, 
also called Henry (later Henry the Young King). Louis, surprisingly, agreed to this 
proposal, and by the Treaty of Gisors (1158), betrothed the young pair, giving as a 
dowry the Norman Vexin and Gisors.

Constance died in childbirth on 4 October 1160, and five weeks later, Louis VII 
married Adèle of Champagne. To counterbalance the advantage this would give the 
king of France, Henry II had the marriage of their children (Henry "the Young King" 
and Marguerite) celebrated at once. Louis understood the danger of the growing 
Angevin power; however, through indecision and a lack of fiscal and military 
resources in comparison to Henry II, he failed to oppose Angevin hegemony 
effectively. One of his few successes was a trip to Toulouse in 1159 to aid Raymond 
V, Count of Toulouse, who had been attacked by Henry II: after he entered into the 
city with a small escort, claiming to be visiting his sister, the Countess, Henry declared 
that he could not attack the city while his liege lord was inside, and went home.

Diplomacy[edit]
At the same time, Emperor Frederick I of Germany in the east was making good the 
imperial claims on Arles in the east. When a papal schism broke out in 1159, Louis VII 
took the part of Pope Alexander III, the enemy of Frederick I, and after two comical 
failures of Frederick I to meet Louis VII at Saint Jean de Losne (on 29 August and 22 
September 1162), Louis VII definitely gave himself up to the cause of Alexander III, 
who lived at Sens from 1163 to 1165. In return for his loyal support, Alexander III gave 
Louis the golden rose.

More importantly for French—and English—history would be Louis's support for Thomas 
Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, whom he tried to reconcile with Henry II. Louis 
sided with Becket as much to damage Henry as out of piousness – yet even he grew 
irritated with the stubbornness of the archbishop, asking when Becket refused Henry's 
conciliations, "Do you wish to be more than a Saint?"

Louis also supported Henry's rebellious sons, and encouraged Plantagenet disunity by 
making Henry's sons, rather than Henry himself, the feudal overlords of the Angevin 
territories in France. But the rivalry among Henry's sons and Louis's own 
indecisiveness broke up the coalition (1173–1174) between them. Finally, in 1177, the 
pope intervened to bring the two kings to terms at Vitry-le-François.

In 1165, Louis' third wife bore him a son and heir, Philip II Augustus. Louis had him 
crowned at Reims in 1179,[6] in the Capetian tradition (Philip would in fact be the last 
king so crowned). Already stricken with paralysis, Louis himself could not be present 
at the ceremony.[6] He died on 18 September 1180 in Paris and was buried the next 
day at Barbeau Abbey,[6] which he had founded. His remains were moved to the 
Basilica of Saint-Denis in 1817.

Marriages and children[edit]

Louis' children by his three marriages:

with Eleanor of Aquitaine:[7]
Marie (1145 – 11 March 1198), married Henry I of Champagne[8]
Alix (1151–1197/1198), married Theobald V of Blois[8]

with Constance of Castile:[9]
Margaret (1158 – August/September 1197), married (1) Henry the Young King; (2) King 
Béla III of Hungary
Alys (4 October 1160 – ca. 1220),[10] engaged to Richard I of England; she married 
William IV, Count of Ponthieu

with Adele of Champagne:[11]
Philip II Augustus (22 August 1165 – 1223)
Agnes (1171 – after 1204),[12] married 1) Alexius II Comnenus (1180–1183), 2) 
Andronicus I Comnenus (1183–1185), then 3) Theodore Branas (1204)[13]

Legacy[edit]

From the point of view of the preservation and expansion of the French royal domains, 
the reign of Louis VII was a difficult and unfortunate one. Yet royal authority was more 
strongly felt in the parts of France distant from these domains: more direct and more 
frequent connections were made with distant vassals, a result largely due to an 
alliance between the clergy with the crown. Louis VII thus reaped the reward for 
services rendered the church during the least successful portions of his reign. His 
greater accomplishments lie in the development of agriculture, population, commerce, 
the building of stone fortresses, as well as an intellectual renaissance. Considering the 
significant disparity of political leverage and financial resources between Louis VII 
and his Angevin rival Henry II, not to mention Henry's superior military skills, Louis VII 
should be credited with helping to preserve the Capetian dynasty.

Fictional portrayals[edit]

Louis is a character in Jean Anouilh's play Becket. In the 1964 film adaptation he was 
portrayed by John Gielgud, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best 
Supporting Actor. He was also portrayed by Charles Kay in the 1978 BBC TV drama 
series The Devil's Crown. He has a role in Sharon Kay Penman's novels When Christ 
and His Saints Slept and Devil's Brood. The early part of Norah Lofts' biography of 
Eleanor of Aquitaine deals considerably with Louis VII, seen through Eleanor's eyes 
and giving her side in their problematic relationship. Louis is one of the main 
characters in Elizabeth Chadwick's latest novel The Summer Queen.

Parents
____ Louis VI "le Gros" ("the Fat") (1 Dec 1081 - 1 Aug 1137)
OF MAURIENNE (OF SAVOY) Adelaide (Alix) (ABT 1092 - 18 Nov 1154)

Siblings
____ Louis VII "the Young" (1119 - 18 Sep 1180)
____ Robert I (1123 - 11 Oct 1185)
____ Peter I (Pierre) (Sep 1126 - 10 Apr 1183)

Marriage To D'AQUITAINE ET POITOU Eleonore (ABT 1121 - 31 Mar 1204)
    m. 25 Jul 1137 dv. 18 Mar 1152 his first

Notes

Parents
____ William (Guillaume) VIII (X) (1099 - 19 Apr 1137)
DE CHATELLERAULT Aenor (Eleanor) (ABT 1103 - AFT 1133)

Children by D'AQUITAINE ET POITOU Eleonore ABT 1121 - 31 Mar 1204
OF FRANCE Marie (1145 - 11 Mar 1198)

Marriage To OF CASTILE Constance (ABT 1140 - 4 Oct 1160)
    m.  

Notes

Parents
____ Alfonso VII "Pierre-Raimund" (1 Mar 1105 - 21 Aug 1157)
DE BARCELONA Berengaria (Berenguela) Raimundo (ABT 1116 - 2 Feb 1149)

Children by OF CASTILE Constance ABT 1140 - 4 Oct 1160
OF FRANCE Alice (Alix) (4 Oct 1160 - 1221)

Marriage To OF BLOIS Adelaide (Adele) (Alix) (ABT 1140 - 4 Jun 1206)
    m. 18 Oct 1160 his third

Notes

Parents
OF BLOIS Theobald (Thibaud) IV (II) "the Great" (1090 - 8 Jan 1152)
VON SPONHEIM Mathilde (Maud) (ABT 1097 - 13 Dec 1160)

Children by OF BLOIS Adelaide (Adele) (Alix) ABT 1140 - 4 Jun 1206
____ Philippe Auguste II (22 Aug 1165 - 14 Jul 1223)

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