Saturday, August 25, 2012 - Litany Lane Blog:
Tour de force, Ezekiel 43:1-7, Matthew 23,1-12, St Louis King of France, Cathedral Basilica of St Denis, Seventh and Eighth Crusade of St Louis King of France, Fall Series: History of Crusades
Tour de force, Ezekiel 43:1-7, Matthew 23,1-12, St Louis King of France, Cathedral Basilica of St Denis, Seventh and Eighth Crusade of St Louis King of France, Fall Series: History of Crusades
Good Day Bloggers!
Wishing everyone a Blessed Week!
P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Something Happens). It has a remarkable way of producing solace, peace, patience and tranquility and of course resolution...God's always available 24/7..
We are all human. We all experience birth, life and death. We all have
flaws but we also all have the gift knowledge and free will as well,
make the most of it. Life on earth is a stepping to our eternal home in
Heaven. Its your choice whether to rise towards eternal light or lost to
eternal darkness. Material items, though needed for sustenance and
survival on earth are of earthly value only. The only thing that passes
from this earth to Heaven is our Soul, our Spirit...it's God's perpetual
gift to us...Embrace it, treasure it, nurture it, protect it...
"Raise not a hand to another unless it is to offer in peace and goodwill." ~ Zarya Parx 2012
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Today's Word: tour de force [toorz duh fawrs, -fohrs; Fr. toor duh fawrs]
Origin: 1795–1805; < French: feat of strength or skill
1. an exceptional achievement by an artist, author, or the like, that is unlikely to be equaled by that person or anyone else; stroke of genius: Herman Melville's Moby Dick was a tour de force.
2. a particularly adroit maneuver or technique in handling a difficult situation: The way the president got his bill through the Senate was a tour de force.
3. a feat requiring unusual strength, skill, or ingenuity.
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Today's Old Testament Reading - Ezekiel 43-1-7
1 He took me to the gate, the one facing east.
2 I saw the glory of the God of Israel approaching from the east. A sound came with him like the sound of the ocean, and the earth shone with his glory.
3 This vision was like the one I had seen when I had come for the destruction of the city, and like the one I had seen by the River Chebar. Then I fell to the ground.
4 The glory of Yahweh arrived at the Temple by the east gate.
5 The Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; I saw the glory of Yahweh fill the Temple.
6 And I heard someone speaking to me from the Temple while the man stood beside me.
7 He said, 'Son of man, this is the dais of my throne, the step on which I rest my feet. I shall live here among the Israelites for ever; and the House of Israel, they and their kings, will never again defile my holy name with their whorings and the corpses of their kings,
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Today's Gospel Reading - Matthew 23,1-12
Then addressing the
crowds and his disciples Jesus said, 'The scribes and the Pharisees
occupy the chair of Moses. You must therefore do and observe what they
tell you; but do not be guided by what they do, since they do not
practise what they preach. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on
people's shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they!
Everything they do is done to attract attention, like wearing broader
headbands and longer tassels, like wanting to take the place of honour
at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues, being greeted
respectfully in the market squares and having people call them Rabbi.
'You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you
have only one Master, and you are all brothers. You must call no one on
earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven.
Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only
one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant.
Anyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and anyone who humbles
himself will be raised up.
Reflection
• Today’s Gospel is part
of a long criticism of Jesus against the Scribes and the Pharisees (Mt
23, 1-39). Luke and Mark mention only a few lines of this criticism
against the religious heads of the time. It is only the Gospel of
Matthew which has a longer presentation of this. This very severe text
makes us foresee the polemics which existed in the communities of
Matthew with the communities of the Jews of Galilee and Syria of that
time.
• In reading this text, which is strongly contrary to the one of the Pharisees, we have to be very attentive so as not to be unjust against the Jewish People. We Christians, for centuries, have had attitudes against the Jews and, for this reason, against the Christians. What is important in meditating these texts is to discover their objective. Jesus condemns the lack of coherence and of sincerity in the relationship with God and with the neighbour. He is speaking about hypocrisy, that of yesterday as well as that of today, of our hypocrisy!
• Matthew 23, 1-3: The basic error: they say, but they do not do. Jesus addresses himself to the multitude and to the disciples and criticizes the Scribes and the Pharisees. The reason for attacking them is the incoherence between their words and their acts. They speak but they do not do. Jesus recognizes the authority and the knowledge of the Scribes “The Scribes and the Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses! You must, therefore, do and observe what they tell you, but do not be guided by what they do, since they do not practice what they preach”.
• Matthew 23, 4-7: The fundamental error is manifested in diverse ways. The fundamental error is incoherence: “They say, but they do not do”. Jesus enumerates the diverse points which reveal this incoherence. Some Scribes and Pharisees imposed heavy laws upon the people. They knew the Laws well, but they did not practise them; neither did they use their knowledge to lessen the weight imposed upon the people. They did everything possible to be seen and praised, they wore special tunics for prayer and they liked the first places and to be greeted in the public squares. They wanted to be called “Teacher”. They represented a type of community which maintained, legitimized and nourished the difference of social classes. It legitimized the privileges of the great and the inferior position of the little ones. Now, if there is something which displeases Jesus, it is appearances which deceive.
• Matthew 23, 8-12: How to overcome the fundamental error. How should a Christian community be? All the community functions should be assumed as a service: “The greatest among you must be your servant!” You should call nobody Teacher (Rabbi), nor Father, nor Guide; because the community of Jesus has to maintain, legitimize and nourish not the differences, but rather the fraternal spirit. This is the fundamental Law: “You are all brothers and sisters!” The fraternal spirit comes from the experience that Jesus is Father, and makes of all of us brothers and sisters. “Anyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be raised up.”
• The group of the Pharisees! The group of the Pharisees was born in the II century before Christ, with the proposal of a more perfect observance of the Law of God, especially regarding the prescriptions on purity. They were more open to novelty than the Sadducees. For example, they accepted faith in the Resurrection and faith in the angels, something which the Sadducees did not accept. The life of the Pharisees was an exemplary witness: they prayed and studied the Law during eight hours a day; they worked eight hours in order to be able to survive; they dedicated eight hours to rest. This is the reason why people respected them very much. And in this way, they helped people to keep their own identity and not to lose it, in the course of centuries.
• The so-called Pharisaic mentality. With time, the Pharisees took hold of power and no longer listened to the appeals of the people, nor did they allow them to speak. The word “Pharisee” means “separated”. Their observance was so strict and rigorous that they separated themselves from the rest of the people. This is why they were called “separated”. From this comes the expression “pharisaic mentality”. It is typical of the persons who think to obtain justice through the rigid and rigorous observance of the Law. Generally, they are persons who are afraid, who do not have the courage to assume the risk of liberty and of the responsibility. They hide themselves behind the Law and the authority. When these persons obtain an important function, they become harsh and insensitive and indifferent to hide their own imperfection.
• Rabbi, Guide, Teacher, Father. These are four titles that Jesus prohibits people to use. Today, in Church, the priests are called “Father”. Many study in the University of the Church and obtain the title of “Doctor” (Teacher). Many persons receive spiritual direction and take advice from persons who are called “Spiritual directors” (Guides). What is important is to take into account the reason which impelled Jesus to prohibit the use of these titles. If these were used by persons in order to affirm their position of authority and their power, these persons would be in error and would be criticized by Jesus. If these titles were used to nourish and deepen the fraternal spirit and service, they would not be criticized by Jesus.
• In reading this text, which is strongly contrary to the one of the Pharisees, we have to be very attentive so as not to be unjust against the Jewish People. We Christians, for centuries, have had attitudes against the Jews and, for this reason, against the Christians. What is important in meditating these texts is to discover their objective. Jesus condemns the lack of coherence and of sincerity in the relationship with God and with the neighbour. He is speaking about hypocrisy, that of yesterday as well as that of today, of our hypocrisy!
• Matthew 23, 1-3: The basic error: they say, but they do not do. Jesus addresses himself to the multitude and to the disciples and criticizes the Scribes and the Pharisees. The reason for attacking them is the incoherence between their words and their acts. They speak but they do not do. Jesus recognizes the authority and the knowledge of the Scribes “The Scribes and the Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses! You must, therefore, do and observe what they tell you, but do not be guided by what they do, since they do not practice what they preach”.
• Matthew 23, 4-7: The fundamental error is manifested in diverse ways. The fundamental error is incoherence: “They say, but they do not do”. Jesus enumerates the diverse points which reveal this incoherence. Some Scribes and Pharisees imposed heavy laws upon the people. They knew the Laws well, but they did not practise them; neither did they use their knowledge to lessen the weight imposed upon the people. They did everything possible to be seen and praised, they wore special tunics for prayer and they liked the first places and to be greeted in the public squares. They wanted to be called “Teacher”. They represented a type of community which maintained, legitimized and nourished the difference of social classes. It legitimized the privileges of the great and the inferior position of the little ones. Now, if there is something which displeases Jesus, it is appearances which deceive.
• Matthew 23, 8-12: How to overcome the fundamental error. How should a Christian community be? All the community functions should be assumed as a service: “The greatest among you must be your servant!” You should call nobody Teacher (Rabbi), nor Father, nor Guide; because the community of Jesus has to maintain, legitimize and nourish not the differences, but rather the fraternal spirit. This is the fundamental Law: “You are all brothers and sisters!” The fraternal spirit comes from the experience that Jesus is Father, and makes of all of us brothers and sisters. “Anyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be raised up.”
• The group of the Pharisees! The group of the Pharisees was born in the II century before Christ, with the proposal of a more perfect observance of the Law of God, especially regarding the prescriptions on purity. They were more open to novelty than the Sadducees. For example, they accepted faith in the Resurrection and faith in the angels, something which the Sadducees did not accept. The life of the Pharisees was an exemplary witness: they prayed and studied the Law during eight hours a day; they worked eight hours in order to be able to survive; they dedicated eight hours to rest. This is the reason why people respected them very much. And in this way, they helped people to keep their own identity and not to lose it, in the course of centuries.
• The so-called Pharisaic mentality. With time, the Pharisees took hold of power and no longer listened to the appeals of the people, nor did they allow them to speak. The word “Pharisee” means “separated”. Their observance was so strict and rigorous that they separated themselves from the rest of the people. This is why they were called “separated”. From this comes the expression “pharisaic mentality”. It is typical of the persons who think to obtain justice through the rigid and rigorous observance of the Law. Generally, they are persons who are afraid, who do not have the courage to assume the risk of liberty and of the responsibility. They hide themselves behind the Law and the authority. When these persons obtain an important function, they become harsh and insensitive and indifferent to hide their own imperfection.
• Rabbi, Guide, Teacher, Father. These are four titles that Jesus prohibits people to use. Today, in Church, the priests are called “Father”. Many study in the University of the Church and obtain the title of “Doctor” (Teacher). Many persons receive spiritual direction and take advice from persons who are called “Spiritual directors” (Guides). What is important is to take into account the reason which impelled Jesus to prohibit the use of these titles. If these were used by persons in order to affirm their position of authority and their power, these persons would be in error and would be criticized by Jesus. If these titles were used to nourish and deepen the fraternal spirit and service, they would not be criticized by Jesus.
Personal questions
• Which is my reason for living and working in community?
• How does the community help me to correct and to improve my motivations?
• How does the community help me to correct and to improve my motivations?
Reference: Courtesy of Order of Carmelites, www.ocarm.org.
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Featured Item of the Day from Litany Lane
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Saint of the Day: St Louis King of France
Died: August 25, 1270
Attributes: Depicted as King of France, generally with a crown, holding a sceptre with a fleur-de-lys on the end, possibly with blue clothing with a spread of white fleur-de-lys (coat of arms of the French monarchy)
Patron Saint of : Third Order of St Francis, France, hairdressers, lacemakers
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| St Louis King of France w/page, 1592, EL Greco |
Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile. He worked with the Parliament of Paris in order to improve the professionalism of his legal administration. He is the only canonized king of France; consequently, there are many places named after him, most notably St. Louis, Missouri and Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in the United States, São Luís do Maranhão, Brazil and both the state and city of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. Saint Louis was also a tertiary of the Trinitarians.On 11 June 1256, the General Chapter of the Trinitarian Order formally
affiliated Louis IX at the monastery of Cerfroid, which had been
constructed by Felix of Valois north of Paris.
Much of what is known of Louis's life comes from Jean de Joinville's famous Life of Saint Louis.
Joinville was a close friend, confidant, and counsellor to the king,
and also participated as a witness in the papal inquest into Louis' life
that ended with his canonisation in 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII.
Two other important biographies were written by the king's confessor, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, and his chaplain, William of Chartres. The fourth important source of information is William of Saint-Parthus' biography,
which he wrote using the papal inquest mentioned above. While several
individuals wrote biographies in the decades following the king's death,
only Jean of Joinville, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, and William of Chartres
wrote from personal knowledge of the king.
Early life
Louis was born on 25 April 1214 at Poissy, near Paris, the son of Prince Louis the Lion and Blanche of Castile, and baptised in La Collégiale Notre-Dame church.His grandfather was King Philip II of France. He was 9 years old when his grandfather died and his father ascended as Louis VIII. A member of the House of Capet, Louis was twelve years old when his father died on 8 November 1226. He was crowned king within the month at Reims cathedral. Because of Louis's youth, his mother ruled France as regent during his minority. His younger brother Charles I of Sicily (1227–85) was created count of Anjou, thus founding the second Angevin dynasty. No date is given for the beginning of Louis's personal rule. His
contemporaries viewed his reign as co-rule between the king and his
mother, though historians generally view the year 1234 as the year in
which Louis began ruling personally, with his mother assuming a more
advisory role. She continued as an important counselor to the king until
her death in 1252. On 27 May 1234, Louis married Margaret of Provence (1221 – 21 December 1295), whose sister Eleanor was the wife of Henry III of England.
Crusading
Louis went on two crusades, in his mid-30s in 1248 (Seventh Crusade) and then again in his mid-50s in 1270 (Eighth Crusade). When he was 15, Louis' mother brought an end to the Albigensian Crusade
in 1229 after signing an agreement with Count Raymond VII of Toulouse
that cleared the latter's father of wrongdoing. Raymond VI of Toulouse
had been suspected of murdering a preacher on a mission to convert the
Cathars
He had begun with the rapid capture of the port of Damietta in June 1249,
an attack which did cause some disruption in the Muslim Ayyubid empire,
especially as the current sultan was on his deathbed. But the march
from Damietta toward Cairo through the Nile River Delta went slowly. During this time, the Ayyubid sultan died, and a sudden power shift took place, as the sultan's wife Shajar al-Durr set events in motion which were to make her Queen, and eventually place the Egyptian army of the Mamluks in power. On 6 April 1250 Louis lost his army at the Battle of Fariskur[4] and was captured by the Egyptians. His release was eventually negotiated, in return for a ransom of 400,000 livres tournois (at the time France's annual revenue was only about 1,250,000 livres tournois), and the surrender of the city of Damietta.
Following his release from Egyptian captivity, Louis spent four years in the Crusader kingdoms of Acre, Caesarea, and Jaffa. Louis used his wealth to assist the Crusaders in rebuilding their defences and conducting diplomacy with the Islamic powers of Syria
and Egypt. Upon his departure from the Middle East, Louis left a
significant garrison in the city of Acre for its defence against Islamic
attacks. The historic presence of this French garrison in the Middle
East was later used as a justification for the French Mandate.
Louis exchanged multiple letters and emissaries with Mongol rulers of the period. During his first crusade in 1248, Louis was approached by envoys from Eljigidei, the Mongol ruler of Armenia and Persia.Eljigidei suggested that King Louis should land in Egypt, while
Eljigidei attacked Baghdad, to prevent the Saracens of Egypt and those
of Syria from joining forces. Louis sent André de Longjumeau, a Dominican priest, as an emissary to the Great Khan Güyük Khan
in Mongolia. However, Güyük died before the emissary arrived at his
court, and nothing concrete occurred. Louis dispatched another envoy to
the Mongol court, the Franciscan William of Rubruck, who went to visit the Great Khan Möngke Khan in Mongolia.
Patron of arts and arbiter of Europe
Louis' patronage of the arts drove much innovation in Gothic art and architecture,
and the style of his court radiated throughout Europe by both the
purchase of art objects from Parisian masters for export and by the
marriage of the king's daughters and female relatives to foreign
husbands and their subsequent introduction of Parisian models elsewhere.
Louis' personal chapel, the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, was copied more than once by his descendants elsewhere. Louis most likely ordered the production of the Morgan Bible, a masterpiece of mediaeval painting.
Saint Louis ruled during the so-called "golden century of Saint
Louis", when the kingdom of France was at its height in Europe, both
politically and economically. The king of France was regarded as a primus inter pares
among the kings and rulers of the continent. He commanded the largest
army, and ruled the largest and most wealthy kingdom of Europe, a
kingdom which was the European centre of arts and intellectual thought (La Sorbonne)
at the time. The prestige and respect felt in Europe for King Louis IX
was due more to the attraction that his benevolent personality created
rather than to military domination. For his contemporaries, he was the
quintessential example of the Christian prince, and embodied the whole
of Christendom in his person. His reputation of saintliness and fairness
was already well established while he was alive, and on many occasions
he was chosen as an arbiter in the quarrels opposing the rulers of
Europe.
Shortly before 1256 Enguerrand IV of Coucy
arrested and without trial hanged three young squires of Laon whom he
accused of poaching in his forest. In 1256 Louis had him arrested and
brought to the Louvre by his sergeants. Enguerrand demanded judgment by
his peers and trial by battle which was refused by the king because
Louis thought it obsolete. Enguerrand was tried, sentenced and ordered
to pay 12,000 livres. Part of the money was to pay for masses in
perpetuity for the men he had hanged.
In 1258, Louis and James I of Aragon signed the Treaty of Corbeil, under which Louis renounced his feudal overlordship over the County of Barcelona,
which was held by the King of Aragon. James in turn renounced his
feudal overlordship over several counties in southern France.
Religious nature
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The Holy Crown of Jesus Christ
purchased by Louis IX of France
from Baldwin II of
Constantinople.
19th C reliquary, Notre Dame de Paris.
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The perception of Louis IX as the exemplary Christian prince was
reinforced by his religious zeal. Louis was a devout Catholic, and he
built the Sainte-Chapelle ("Holy Chapel"), located within the royal palace complex (now the Paris Hall of Justice), on the Île de la Cité in the centre of Paris. The Sainte Chapelle, a perfect example of the Rayonnant style of Gothic architecture, was erected as a shrine for the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the True Cross, precious relics of the Passion of Jesus. Louis purchased these in 1239–41 from Emperor Baldwin II of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, for the exorbitant sum of 135,000 livres (the chapel, on the other hand, cost only 60,000 livres to build).
Louis IX took very seriously his mission as "lieutenant of God on
Earth", with which he had been invested when he was crowned in Rheims. To fulfill his duty, he conducted two crusades,
and even though they were unsuccessful, they contributed to his
prestige. Contemporaries would not have understood if the king of France
did not lead a crusade to the Holy Land. To finance his first crusade Louis ordered the expulsion of all Jews engaged in usury
and the confiscation of their property, for use in his crusade.
However, he did not cancel the debts owed by Christians. One-third of
the debts was forgiven, but the other two thirds were to be remitted to
the royal treasury. Louis also ordered, at the urging of Pope Gregory IX, the burning in Paris in 1243 of some 12,000 manuscript copies of the Talmud
and other Jewish books. Legislation against the Talmud in European
courts resulted from concerns that its circulation would weaken
Christians' faith and threaten the Christian basis of society, the
preservation of which was the monarch's duty.
In addition to Louis' legislation against Jews and usury, he expanded the scope of the Inquisition in France. The area most affected by this expansion was southern France where the Cathar
heresy had been strongest. The rate of these confiscations reached its
highest levels in the years prior to his first crusade, and slowed upon
his return to France in 1254.
In all these deeds, Louis IX tried to fulfill the duty of France, which was seen as "the eldest daughter of the Church" (la fille aînée de l'Église), a tradition of protector of the Church going back to the Franks and Charlemagne, who had been crowned by the Pope in Rome in 800. Indeed, the official Latin title of the kings of France was Rex Francorum, i.e. "king of the Franks" (until Louis' grand-father's reign, Philip II whose seal reads Rex Franciae, i.e. "king of France"), and the kings of France were also known by the title "most Christian king" (Rex Christianissimus).
The relationship between France and the papacy was at its peak in the
12th and 13th centuries, and most of the crusades were actually called
by the popes from French soil. Eventually, in 1309, Pope Clement V even left Rome and relocated to the French city of Avignon, beginning the era known as the Avignon Papacy (or, more disparagingly, the "Babylonian captivity").
Geneology - Children
- Blanche (12 July/4 December1240 – 29 April 1243), died young
- Isabella (2 March 1241 – 28 January 1271), married Theobald II of Navarre
- Louis of France (23 September 1243 or 24 February 1244 – 11 January or 2 February January 1260). Betrothed to Infanta doña Berenguela of Castile in Paris on 20 August 1255.[8]
- Philip III (1 May 1245 – 5 October 1285), married firstly to Isabella of Aragon in 1262 and secondly to Maria of Brabant in 1274
- John (1246/1247–1248), died young
- John Tristan of Valois (1250 – 3 August 1270), married Yolande of Burgundy
- Peter I of Alençon (1251–84), married Joanne of Châtillon
- Blanche of France, Infanta of Castile, married Ferdinand de la Cerda, Infante of Castille
- Margaret of France (1254–71), married John I, Duke of Brabant
- Robert, Count of Clermont (1256 – 7 February 1317), married Beatrice of Burgundy. Henry IV of France was his direct male-line descendant.
- Agnes of France (c. 1260 – 19 December 1327), married Robert II, Duke of Burgundy
Death and legacy
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| Equestrian statue of King Saint Louis, Sacré-Cœur. |
During his second crusade, Louis died at Tunis, 25 August 1270. As Tunis was Muslim territory, his body was subject to the process known as mos Teutonicus (a postmortem funerary custom used in mediæval Europe
whereby the flesh was boiled from the body, so that the bones of the
deceased could be transported hygienically from distant lands back home. for its transportation back to France.He was succeeded by his son, Philip III. Louis was traditionally believed to have died from the bubonic plague but the cause is thought by modern scholars to have been dysentery.
The bubonic plague did not strike Europe until 1348, so the likelihood
of his contracting and ultimately dying from the bubonic plague was very
slim.
Christian tradition states that some of his entrails were buried
directly on the spot in Tunisia, where a Tomb of Saint-Louis can still
be visited today, whereas his heart and other parts of his entrails were sealed in an urn and placed in the Basilica of Monreale, Palermo, where they still remain. (Sicily was at that time ruled by his younger brother, Charles of Anjou,
and the French army returned to France through the Kingdom of Naples
and Sicily.) His corpse was taken, after a short stay at the Basilica of Saint Dominic in Bologna, to the French royal necropolis at Saint-Denis, resting in Lyon
on the way. His tomb at Saint-Denis was a magnificent gilt brass
monument designed in the late 14th century. It was melted down during
the French Wars of Religion, at which time the body of the king disappeared. Only one finger was rescued and is kept at Saint-Denis.
Veneration as a saint
Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the canonization of Louis in 1297; he is the only French monarch to be declared a saint. Louis IX is often considered the model of the ideal Christian monarch. Because of the aura of holiness attached to his memory, many kings of France were called Louis, especially in the Bourbon dynasty, which directly descended from one of his younger sons. The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Louis (Franciscan Sisters of Mary) is a Roman Catholic religious order founded in 1842 and named in his honor. He is also honored as co-patron of the Third Order of St. Francis, which claims him as a member of the Order.
Places named after Saint Louis
The cities of San Luis Potosí in Mexico; St. Louis, Missouri; St. Louis, Michigan; San Luis, Arizona; San Luis, Colorado; Saint-Louis du Sénégal; Saint-Louis in Alsace; as well as Lake Saint-Louis in Quebec, the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in California and rue Saint Louis of Pondicherry are among the many places named after the king and saint. Many places in Brazil called São Luís in Portuguese are named after the French Saint Louis. Port-Louis, the capital city of Mauritius, as well as its cathedral
are also named after St. Louis, who is the patron saint of the island.
The Cathedral Saint-Louis in Versailles; the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, both in St. Louis, Missouri; and the St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans were also named for the king. The French royal Order of Saint Louis (1693–1790 and 1814–1830), the Île Saint-Loui
as well as a hospital in the 10th arrondissement of Paris also bear his
name. The national church of France in Rome also carries his name: San
Luigi dei Francesi in Italian or Saint Louis of France in English.
References:
- Peter Jackson (July 1980). "The Crisis in the Holy Land in 1260". The English Historical Review 95 (376): 481–513. doi:10.1093/ehr/XCV.CCCLXXVI.481. ISSN 0013-8266. JSTOR 568054.
- Jordan, William Chester. Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton, 1979), a highly influential study says Davis (2010)
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Today's Snippets (2) : Cathedral of St Denis and Brief of Seventh & Eighth Crusade of St Louis King of France
Today's Snippet I : Cathedral of St Denis,
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| Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis, Paris |
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis (French: Cathédrale royale de Saint-Denis, or simply Basilique Saint-Denis, previously the Abbaye de Saint-Denis) is a large medieval abbey church in the commune of Saint-Denis, now a northern suburb of Paris. The abbey church was created a cathedral in 1966 and is the seat of the Bishop of Saint-Denis, Pascal Michel Ghislain Delannoy. The building is of unique importance historically and architecturally.
The site originated as a Gallo-Roman cemetery, in late Roman times -
the archeological remains still lie beneath the cathedral; the people
buried there seem to have had a faith that was a mix of Christian and
pre-Christian beliefs and practices. Around 475 St. Genevieve
purchased some of the land and built a church. In the 7th century, the
church was replaced by a much grander construction, on the orders of Dagobert I; it is claimed that Dagobert also moved the body of Saint Denis, a patron saint of France, to the building.
The church became a place of pilgrimage
and the burial place of the French Kings, with nearly every king from
the 10th to the 18th centuries being buried there, as well as many from
previous centuries. (It was not used for the coronations of kings, that
function being reserved for the Cathedral of Reims;
however, queens were commonly crowned there.) "Saint-Denis" soon became
the abbey church of a growing monastic complex. In the 12th century the
Abbot Suger
rebuilt portions of the abbey church using innovative structural and
decorative features that were drawn from a number of other sources. In
doing so, he is said to have created the first truly Gothic building. The basilica's 13th century nave is also the prototype for the Rayonnant Gothic style, and provided an architectural model for cathedrals and abbeys of northern France, England and other countries.
Background
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| Beheading of Denis, north portal, Basilica of St Denis. |
Saint Denis is a patron saint of France and, according to legend, was the first bishop of Paris. Legend relates that he was decapitated on the Hill of Montmartre, and subsequently carried his head to the site of the current church, indicating where he wanted to be buried. According to related legends a martyrium was erected on the site of his grave. The high altars
of the churches later built on the site were said to stand immediately
above the martyrium of St. Denis. Archeological excavations have
revealed a very large pit immediately under the altar, rather than a
tomb; in the pit were animal bones and Roman pot fragments, but no human
body. The pit is on public display in the crypt.
Dagobert's church
Dagobert, the king of the Franks (reigned 628 to 637), refounded the church as the Abbey of Saint Denis, a Benedictine monastery. Dagobert also commissioned a new shrine to house the saint's remains, which was created by his chief councillor, Eligius, a goldsmith by training. It was described in an early vita of Saint Eligius:
- Above all, Eligius fabricated a mausoleum for the holy martyr Denis in the city of Paris with a wonderful marble ciborium over it marvelously decorated with gold and gems. He composed a crest [at the top of a tomb] and a magnificent frontal and surrounded the throne of the altar with golden axes in a circle. He placed golden apples there, round and jeweled. He made a pulpit and a gate of silver and a roof for the throne of the altar on silver axes. He made a covering in the place before the tomb and fabricated an outside altar at the feet of the holy martyr. So much industry did he lavish there, at the king's request, and poured out so much that scarcely a single ornament was left in Gaul and it is the greatest wonder of all to this very day.
None of this work survived.
Architecture
The Basilica of St Denis is an architectural landmark as it was the
first major structure of which a substantial part was designed and built
in the Gothic style. Both stylistically and structurally it heralded
the change from Romanesque architecture to Gothic architecture. Before the term "Gothic" came into common use, it was known as the "French Style" (Opus Francigenum).
As it now stands, the church is a large cruciform building of
"basilica" form, that is, it has a central nave with lower aisles and clerestory
windows. It has an additional aisle on the northern side formed of a
row of chapels. The west front has three portals, a rose window and one
tower, on the southern side. The eastern end, which is built over a
crypt, is apsidal, surrounded by an ambulatory and a chevet
of nine radiating chapels. The basilica retains stained glass of many
periods (although most of the panels from Suger's time have been removed
for long-term conservation and replaced with photographic
transparencies), including exceptional modern glass, and a set of twelve
misericords.
The Carolingian church
Little is known about the earliest buildings on the site. The first church mentioned in the chronicles was begun in 754 under Pepin the Short and completed under Charlemagne,
who was present at its consecration in 775. Most of what is now known
about the Carolingian church at St Denis resulted from a lengthy series
of excavations begun under the American art historian Sumner McKnight Crosby in 1937. The building was about 60m long, with a monumental westwork,
single transepts, a crossing tower and a lengthy eastern apse over a
large crypt (parts of which survive). According to one of the Abbey's
many foundation myths
a leper, who was sleeping in the nearly-completed church the night
before its planned consecration, witnessed a blaze of light from which
Christ, accompanied by St Denis and a host of angels emerged to conduct
the consecration ceremony himself. Before leaving, Christ healed the
leper, tearing off his diseased skin to reveal a perfect complexion
underneath. A mishapen patch on a marble column was said to be the
leper's former skin, which stuck there when Christ discarded it.
Fantastical though they may seem now, the popularity of such myths in
medieval accounts go some way to explaining why any redevelopment of the
original church was a sensitive matter and why Suger found it necessary
to go to such lengths to justify his changes. Having been consecrated
by Christ, the fabric of the building was itself regarded as sacred.
The Early Gothic rebuilding
Abbot Suger
(circa 1081-1151), friend and confidant of French kings and Abbot of St
Denis from 1122, began work around 1135 on the rebuilding and enlarging
of the abbey to which he had been given as an oblate
at the age of 10. In his famous account of the work undertaken during
his administration, Suger was careful to explain and justify his
decision to rebuild the church, complaining at length about the parlous
state of the old structure and its inability to cope with the crowds of
pilgrims visiting the shrine of St Denis, particularly
...on special days such as the feast of the blessed Denis [...] when the narrowness of the place forced women to run to the altar on the heads of men as on a pavement with great anguish and confusion.
It is important to emphasise that Suger was the patron of the
rebuilding of St Denis but not the architect, as was often assumed in
the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In fact it appears that two distinct architects, or master masons, were
involved in the 12th century changes. Both remain anonymous but their
work can be distinguished on stylistic grounds. The first, who was
responsible for the initial work at the western end, favoured
conventional Romanesque capitals and moulding profiles with rich and
individualised detailing. His successor, who completed the western
facade and upper stories of the narthex, before going on to build the
new choir, displayed a more restrained approach to decorative effects,
relying on a simple repertoire of motifs, which may have proved more
suitable for the lighter Gothic style that he helped to create.
First phase - the westwork, c.1135-40
Suger began his rebuilding project at the western end of St Denis, demolishing the old Carolingian westwork,
with its single, centrally located door. He extended the old nave
westwards by an additional four bays and added a massive western narthex,
incorporating a new façade and three chapels on the first floor level.
This new westwork, 34m wide and 20m deep, has three portals, the central
one larger than those either side, reflecting the relative width of the
central nave and lateral aisles. This tripartite arrangement was
clearly influenced by the late 11th century façades of the abbey
churches of St Etienne and La Trinité, Caen,
with which it also shared a three story elevation and flanking towers.
Only the south tower survives, its partner having been dismantled
following clumsy repairs in the 1840s.
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| Rose Window |
The major innovation in the façade at St Denis is the way the unknown
architects have chosen to emphasise the divisions between the different
parts with massive vertical buttresses separating the three doorways
and horizontal string-courses and window arcades clearly marking out the
divisions. This clear delineation of parts was to influence subsequent
west façade designs as a common theme in the development of Gothic
architecture and a marked departure from the Romanesque. The rose window
at the centre of the upper story of the west portal was also innovative
and influential. Although small circular windows (oculi) within
triangular tympana were common on the west facades of Italian Romanesque
churches, this was probably the first example of a rose window within a
square frame, which was to become a dominant feature of the Gothic
facades of northern France (soon to be imitated at Chartres Cathedral and many others).
The overall design of the façade has an obvious resemblance to a Roman
city gatehouse (an impression strengthened by the buttresses and by the crenellations around the top), which helps to emphasise the traditional notion of great churches as earthly embodiments of the Heavenly City, as described in the Book of Ezekiel.
Among the many influential features of the new façade were the tall,
thin statues of Old Testament prophets and kings attached to columns (jamb figures) flanking the portals (destroyed in 1771 but recorded in Montfaucon's
drawings). These were also adopted at the cathedrals of Paris and
Chartres, constructed a few years later, and became a feature of almost
every Gothic portal thereafter. Above the doorways, the central tympanum was carved with Christ in Majesty
displaying his wounds with the dead emerging from their tombs below.
Scenes from the martyrdom of St Denis were carved above the south (right
hand) portal, while above the north portal was a mosaic (lost), even
though this was, as Suger put it 'contrary to the modern custom'. Of the
original sculpture, very little remains, most of what is now visible
being the result of rather clumsy restoration work in 1839. Some fragments of the original sculptures survive in the collection of the Musée de Cluny.
The portals themselves were sealed by gilded bronze doors, ornamented
with scenes from Christ's Passion and clearly recording Suger's
patronage with the following inscription;
For the glory of the church which nurtured and raised him, Suger strove for the glory of the church, Sharing with you what is yours, oh martyr Denis. He prays that by your prayers he should become a sharer in Paradise. The year when it was consecrated was the one thousand, one hundred and fortieth year of the Word.
On the lintel below the great tympanum showing the Last Judgement,
beneath a carved figure of the kneeling Abbot, was inscribed the more
modest plea;
Receive, stern Judge, the prayers of your Suger, Let me be mercifully numbered among your sheep.
Suger's western extension was completed in 1140 and the three new
chapels in the narthex were consecrated on 9th June of that year.
Second phase - the new choir, 1140-44
On completion of the west front, Abbot Suger moved on to the
reconstruction of the eastern end, leaving the Carolingian nave in use.
He wanted a choir (chancel) that would be suffused with light. To
achieve his aims, Suger's masons drew on the several new elements which
evolved or had been introduced to Romanesque architecture: the pointed
arch, the ribbed vault, the ambulatory with radiating chapels, the clustered columns supporting ribs springing in different directions and the flying buttresses which enabled the insertion of large clerestory windows. It was the first time that these features had all been drawn together. Erwin Panofsky argued that Suger was inspired to create a physical representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem,
however the extent to which Suger had any aims higher than aesthetic
pleasure has been called into doubt by more recent art historians on the
basis of Suger's own writings. The new structure was finished and dedicated on June 11, 1144, in the presence of the King.
The Abbey of St Denis thus became the prototype for further building in
the royal domain of northern France. Through the rule of the Angevin dynasty, the style was introduced to England and spread throughout France, the Low Countries, Germany, Spain, northern Italy and Sicily.
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| The nave, St Denis, Paris |
In 1231, Abbot Odo Clement began work on the rebuilding of the
Carolingian nave, which remained sandwiched incongruously between
Suger's far more up-to-date Gothic works to the east and west. From the
start it appears that Abbot Odo, with the approval of the Regent Blanche of Castille and her son, the young King Louis IX,
planned for the new nave and its large crossing to have a much clearer
focus as the French 'royal necropolis'. That plan was fulfilled in 1264
when the bones of 16 former kings and queens were relocated to new tombs
arranged around the crossing - 8 Carolingian monarchs to the south and 8
Capetians the north. These tombs, featuring life-like carved recumbent effigies or gisants
lying on raised bases, were badly damaged during the French revolution
though all but two were subsequently restored by Viollet le Duc in 1860.
The dark Romanesque nave, with its thick walls and small window
openings, was rebuilt using the very latest techniques, in what is now
known as Rayonnant Gothic.
This new style, which differed from Suger's earlier works as much as
they had differed from their Romanesque precursors, reduced the wall
area to an absolute minimum. Solid masonry was replaced with vast window
openings filled with brilliant stained glass (all destroyed in the
Revolution) and interrupted only by the most slender of bar tracery - not only in the clerestory but also, perhaps for the first time, in the normally dark triforium level. The upper facades of the two much-enlarged transepts were filled with two spectacular 12m-wide rose windows.
As with Suger's earlier rebuilding work, the identity of the architect
or master mason is unknown. Although often attributed to Pierre de Montreuil, the only evidence for his involvement is an unrelated document of 1247 which refers to him as 'a mason from Saint-Denis'.
Burial site
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| Memorial King Louis XVI ,Queen Marie Antoinette |
The abbey is where the kings of France and their families were buried
for centuries and is therefore often referred to as the "royal necropolis of France". All but three of the monarchs of France from the 10th century until 1789 have their remains here. Some monarchs, like Clovis I (465-511), were not originally buried at this site. The remains of Clovis I were exhumed from the despoiled Abbey of St Genevieve which he founded.
The abbey church contains some fine examples of cadaver tombs. The effigies of many of the kings and queens are on their tombs, but during the French Revolution,
these tombs were opened by workers under orders from revolutionary
officials. The bodies were removed and dumped in two large pits nearby
and dissolved with lime. Archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir saved many of the monuments from the same revolutionary officials by claiming them as artworks for his Museum of French Monuments.
The bodies of the beheaded King Louis XVI, his wife Marie Antoinette of Austria, and his sister Madame Élisabeth were not initially buried in Saint-Denis, but rather in the churchyard of the Madeleine, where they were covered with quicklime. The body of the Dauphin, who died of an illness, was buried in an unmarked grave in a Parisian churchyard near the Temple.
Napoleon Bonaparte reopened the church in 1806, but allowed the royal remains to be left in their mass graves. During Napoleon's exile in Elba, the restored Bourbons
ordered a search for the corpses of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The
few remains, a few bones that were presumably the king's and a clump of
greyish matter containing a lady's garter, were found on January 21,
1815, brought to Saint-Denis and buried in the crypt.
In 1817 the mass graves containing all the other remains were opened,
but it was impossible to distinguish any individual in the collection of
bones. The remains were therefore placed in an ossuary
in the crypt of the church, behind two marble plates bearing the names
of the hundreds of members of successive royal dynasties interred in the
church.
King Louis XVIII,
upon his death in 1824, was buried in the center of the crypt, near the
graves of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The coffins of royal family
members who died between 1815 and 1830 were also placed in the vaults.
Under the direction of architect Viollet-le-Duc, famous for his work on Notre-Dame de Paris, church monuments that had been taken to the Museum of French Monuments were returned to the church. The corpse of King Louis VII,
who had been buried at the Abbey at Saint-Pont and whose tomb had not
been touched by the revolutionaries, was brought to Saint-Denis and
buried in the crypt. In 2004 the mummified heart of the Dauphin, the boy
who would have been Louis XVII, was sealed into the wall of the crypt.
References:
- Félibien, Michel. 1973. Histoire de l'abbaye royale de Saint-Denys en France: Lettre-préf. de M. le Duc de Bauffremont. Introd. de Hervé Pinoteau. 1. [Nachdr. d. Ausg. Paris, 1706]. - 1973. - 524 S. Paris: Éd. du Palais Royal.
- Saint-Denis Cathedral, Alain Erlande-Brandenburg, Editions Ouest-France, Rennes
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Seventh Crusade of St Louis IX King of France
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| Louis IX during the Seventh Crusade. |
The Seventh Crusade was a crusade led by Louis IX of France from 1248 to 1254. Approximately 800,000 bezants
were paid in ransom for King Louis who, along with thousands of his
troops, was captured and defeated by the Egyptian army led by the
Ayyubid Sultan Turanshah supported by the Bahariyya Mamluks led by Faris ad-Din Aktai, Baibars al-Bunduqdari, Qutuz, Aybak and Qalawun.
In 1244, the Khwarezmians, recently displaced by the advance of the Mongols, took Jerusalem on their way to ally with the Egyptian Mamluks. This returned Jerusalem to Muslim control, but the fall of Jerusalem was no longer an earth-shattering event to European Christians, who had seen the city pass from Christian to Muslim
control numerous times in the past two centuries. This time, despite
calls from the Pope, there was no popular enthusiasm for a new crusade.
Pope Innocent IV and Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor continued the papal-imperial struggle. Frederick had captured and imprisoned clerics on their way to the First Council of Lyon, and in 1245 he was formally deposed by Innocent IV. Pope Gregory IX had also earlier offered King Louis' brother, count Robert of Artois, the German throne, but Louis had refused. Thus, the Holy Roman Emperor was in no position to crusade. Béla IV of Hungary was rebuilding his kingdom from the ashes after the devastating Mongol invasion of 1241. Henry III of England was still struggling with Simon de Montfort and other problems in England. Henry and Louis were not on the best of terms, being engaged in the Capetian-Plantagenet
struggle, and while Louis was away on crusade the English king signed a
truce promising not to attack French lands. Louis IX had also invited
King Haakon IV of Norway to crusade, sending the English chronicler Matthew Paris
as an ambassador, but again was unsuccessful. The only man interested
in beginning another crusade therefore was Louis IX, who declared his
intent to go East in 1245.
Fighting
France was perhaps the strongest state in Europe at the time, as the Albigensian Crusade had brought Provence into Parisian control. Poitou was ruled by Louis IX's brother Alphonse of Poitiers, who joined him on his crusade in 1245. Another brother, Charles I of Anjou, also joined Louis. For the next three years Louis collected an ecclesiastical tenth (mostly from church tithes),
and in 1248 he and his approximately 15,000-strong army that included
3,000 knights, and 5,000 crossbowmen sailed on 36 ships from the ports
of Aigues-Mortes, which had been specifically built to prepare for the crusade, and Marseille.
Louis IX's financial preparations for this expedition were
comparatively well organized, and he was able to raise approximately
1,500,000 livres tournois. However, many nobles who joined Louis
on the expedition had to borrow money from the royal treasury, and the
crusade turned out to be very expensive.
They sailed first to Cyprus and spent the winter on the island, negotiating with various other powers in the east; the Latin Empire set up after the Fourth Crusade asked for his help against the Byzantine Empire of Nicaea, and the Principality of Antioch and the Knights Templar wanted his help in Syria, where the Muslims had recently captured Sidon.
Nonetheless, Egypt was the object of his crusade, and he landed in 1249 at Damietta on the Nile.
Egypt would, Louis thought, provide a base from which to attack
Jerusalem, and its wealth and supply of grain would keep the crusaders
fed and equipped.
On June 6 Damietta was taken with little resistance from the Egyptians, who withdrew further up the Nile.
The flooding of the Nile had not been taken into account, however, and
it soon grounded Louis and his army at Damietta for six months, where
the knights sat back and enjoyed the spoils of war. Louis ignored the
agreement made during the Fifth Crusade that Damietta should be given to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, now a rump state in Acre, but he did set up an archbishopric there (under the authority of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem)
and used the city as a base to direct military operations against the
Muslims of Syria. The fifteenth century Muslim historian al-Maqrizi portrays Louis IX as sending a letter to as-Salih Ayyub that said :
| “ | As you know that I am the ruler of the Christian nation I do know you are the ruler of the Muhammadan nation. The people of Andalusia give me money and gifts while we drive them like cattle. We kill their men and we make their women widows. We take the boys and the girls as prisoners and we make houses empty. I have told you enough and I have advised you to the end, so now if you make the strongest oath to me and if you go to Christian priests and monks and if you carry kindles before my eyes as a sign of obeying the cross, all these will not persuade me from reaching you and killing you at your dearest spot on earth. If the land will be mine then it is a gift to me. If the land will be yours and you defeat me then you will have the upper hand. I have told you and I have warned you about my soldiers who obey me. They can fill open fields and mountains, their number like pebbles. They will be sent to you with swords of destruction. | ” |
In November, Louis marched towards Cairo, and almost at the same time, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, as-Salih Ayyub, died. A force led by Robert of Artois and the Templars attacked the Egyptian camp at Gideila and advanced to Al Mansurah where they were defeated at the Battle of Al Mansurah, and Robert was killed. Meanwhile, Louis' main force was attacked by the Mameluk Baibars,
the commander of the army and a future sultan himself. Louis was
defeated as well, but he did not withdraw to Damietta for months,
preferring to besiege Mansourah, which ended in starvation and death for
the crusaders rather than the Muslims. In showing utter agony, a
Templar knight lamented :
| “ | Rage and sorrow are seated in my heart...so firmly that I scarce dare to stay alive. It seems that God wishes to support the Turks to our loss...ah, lord God...alas, the realm of the East has lost so much that it will never be able to rise up again. They will make a Mosque of Holy Mary's convent, and since the theft pleases her Son, who should weep at this, we are forced to comply as well...Anyone who wishes to fight the Turks is mad, for Jesus Christ does not fight them any more. They have conquered, they will conquer. For every day they drive us down, knowing that God, who was awake, sleeps now, and Muhammad waxes powerful. | ” |
In March 1250 Louis finally tried to return to Damietta, but he was taken captive at the of Battle of Fariskur
where his army was annihilated. Louis fell ill with dysentery, and was
cured by an Arab physician. In May he was ransomed for 800,000 bezants,
half of which was to be paid before the King left Egypt, with Damietta
also being surrendered as a term in the agreement. Upon this, he
immediately left Egypt for Acre, one of few remaining crusader possessions in Syria.
Aftermath
Louis made an alliance with the Mamluks, who at the time were rivals of the Sultan of Damascus, and from his new base in Acre began to rebuild the other crusader cities, particularly Jaffa and Saida. Although the Kingdom of Cyprus claimed authority there, Louis was the de facto ruler. In 1254 Louis' money ran out, and his presence was needed in France where his mother and regent Blanche of Castile
had recently died. Before leaving he established a standing French
garrison at Acre, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the loss
of Jerusalem, at the expense of the French crown, it remained there
until the fall of Acre in 1291.[11] His crusade was a failure, but he was considered a saint by many, and his fame gave him an even greater authority in Europe than the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1270 he attempted another crusade, though it too would end in failure. The history of the Seventh Crusade was written by Jean de Joinville, who was also a participant, Matthew Paris and many Muslim historians.
Literary response
The failure of the Seventh Crusade engendered several poetic responses from the Occitan troubadours. Austorc d'Aorlhac, composing shortly after the Crusade, was surprised that God would allow Louis IX to be defeated, but not surprised that some Christians would therefore convert to Islam. In a slightly later poem, D'un sirventes m'es gran voluntatz preza, Bernart de Rovenac attacks both James I of Aragon and Henry III of England for neglecting to defend "their fiefs" that the rei que conquer Suria
("king who conquered Syria") had possessed. The "king who conquered
Syria" is a mocking reference to Louis, who was still in Syria (1254)
when Bernart was writing, probably in hopes that the English and
Aragonese kings would take advantage of the French monarch's absence. Bertran d'Alamanon criticized Charles of Anjou's neglect of Provence
in favor of crusading. He wrote one of his last works, which bemoans
Christendom's decline overseas, between the Seventh and Eighth Crusades
(1260–1265).
References
- Abu al-Fida, The Concise History of Humanity.
- Al-Maqrizi, Al Selouk Leme'refatt Dewall al-Melouk, Dar al-kotob, 1997. In English: Bohn, Henry G., The Road to Knowledge of the Return of Kings, Chronicles of the Crusades, AMS Press, 1969
- Ibn Taghri, al-Nujum al-Zahirah Fi Milook Misr wa al-Qahirah, al-Hay'ah al-Misreyah 1968
- Jean de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, 1309
- Keen, Maurice (editor). Medieval Warfare. Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-820639-9
- Konstam, Angus (2002). Historical Atlas of The Crusades. Thalamus Publishing
Eighth Crusade and Death of St Louis King of France
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| Death of Louis IX during the siege of Tuni |
The Eighth Crusade was a crusade launched by Louis IX, King of France, in 1270. The Eighth Crusade is sometimes counted as the Seventh, if the Fifth and Sixth Crusades of Frederick II are counted as a single crusade. The Ninth Crusade is sometimes also counted as part of the Eighth.
Louis was disturbed by events in Syria, where the Mamluk sultan Baibars had been attacking the remnant of the Crusader states. Baibars had seized the opportunity after a war pitting the cities of Venice and Genoa against each other (1256–1260) had exhausted the Syrian ports that the two cities controlled. By 1265 Baibars had captured Nazareth, Haifa, Toron, and Arsuf. Hugh III of Cyprus, nominal king of Jerusalem, landed in Acre to defend that city, while Baibars marched as far north as Armenia, which was at that time under Mongol control.
These events led to Louis' call for a new crusade in 1267, although there was little support this time; Jean de Joinville, the chronicler who accompanied Louis on the Seventh Crusade, refused to go. Louis was soon convinced by his brother Charles of Anjou to attack Tunis first, which would give them a strong base for attacking Egypt, the focus of Louis' previous crusade as well as the Fifth Crusade before him, both of which had been defeated there. Charles, as King of Sicily, also had his own interests in this area of the Mediterranean. The Khalif of Tunis, Muhammad I al-Mustansir,
also had connections with Christian Spain and was considered a good
candidate for conversion. In 1270 Louis landed on the African coast in
July, a very unfavourable season for landing. Much of the army became
sick because of poor drinking water, his Damietta born son John Sorrow died on August 3 and on August 25
Louis himself died from a "flux in the stomach", one day after the
arrival of Charles. His dying word was "Jerusalem." Charles proclaimed
Louis' son Philip III the new king, but because of his youth Charles became the actual leader of the crusade.
Because of further diseases the siege of Tunis was abandoned on
October 30 by an agreement with the sultan. In this agreement the
Christians gained free trade with Tunis, and residence for monks and
priests in the city was guaranteed, so the crusade could be regarded as a
partial success. After hearing of the death of Louis and the evacuation
of the crusaders from Tunis, Sultan Baibars of Egypt cancelled his plan to send Egyptian troops to fight Louis in Tunis. Charles now allied himself with Prince Edward of England, who had arrived in the meantime. When Charles called off the attack on Tunis, Edward continued on to Acre, the last crusader outpost in Syria. His time spent there is often called the Ninth Crusade.
Attendant literature
Bertran d'Alamanon, a diplomat in the service of Charles of Anjou, and Ricaut Bonomel,
a Templar in the Holy Land, both composed songs around 1265. Bertran
criticised the decline of Christianity in Outremer, while Bonomel
criticised the Papal policy of pursuing wars in Italy with money that
should have gone overseas.
The failure of the Eighth Crusade, like those of its predecessors, caused a response to be crafted in Occitan poetry by the troubadours.
The death of Louis of France especially sparked their creative output,
notable considering the hostility which the troubadours had had towards
the French monarchy during the Albigensian Crusade. Three planhs, songs of lament, were composed for the death of Louis IX.
Guilhem d'Autpol composed Fortz tristors es e salvaj'a retraire for Louis. Raimon Gaucelm de Bezers composed Qui vol aver complida amistansa to celebrate the preparations of the Crusade in 1268, but in 1270 he had to compose Ab grans trebalhs et ab grans marrimens in commemoration of the French king. Austorc de Segret composed No sai quim so, tan sui desconoissens, a more general Crusading song,
that laments Louis but also that either God or the Satan is misleading
Christians. He also attacks Louis's brother Charles, whom he calls the caps e guitz (head and guide) of the infidels, because he convinced Louis to attack Tunis and not the Holy Land, and he immediately negotiated a peace with the Muslims after Louis's death.
After the Crusade, the aged troubadour Peire Cardenal wrote a song, Totz lo mons es vestitiz et abrazatz, encouraging Louis's heir, Philip III, to go to the Holy Land to aid Edward Longshanks. Satiric verses were composed in Tunis about Louis new plan to invade
Tunis: "O Louis, Tunis is the sister of Egypt! thus expect your ordeal!
you will find your tomb here instead of the house of Ibn Lokman; and the
eunuch Sobih will be here replaced by Munkir and Nakir."
Notes
- John Sorrow (in French Jean Tristan) was born in Damietta, Egypt on April 8, 1250 during the Seventh Crusade.
- Al-Maqrizi, p. 69/vol.2
- Verses by a contemporary Tunesian named Ahmad Ismail Alzayat (Al-Maqrizi, p.462/vol.1) – House of Ibn Lokman was the house in Al Mansurah where Louis was imprisoned in chains after he was captured in Fariskur during the 7th crusade he was under the guard of a eunuch named Sobih. According to Muslim creed Munkir and Nakir are two angels who interrogate the dead.
References
- Al-Maqrizi, Al Selouk Leme'refatt Dewall al-Melouk, Dar al-kotob, Cairo 1997.
- Idem in English: Bohn, Henry G., The Road to Knowledge of the Return of Kings, Chronicles of the Crusades, AMS Press, 1969.
- Richard, Jean: The Crusades, C.1071-c.1291, Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-62566-1
- Throop, Palmer A., "Criticism of Papal Crusade Policy in Old French and Provençal." Speculum, Vol. 13, No. 4. (Oct., 1938), pp. 379–412.
- Lyric allusions to the crusades and the Holy Land
- Beebe, Bruce, "The English Baronage and the Crusade of 1270," in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. xlviii (118), November 1975, pp. 127–148.
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Fall Topic Series (Aug/September): History of Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious expeditionary wars blessed by Pope Urban II and the Catholic Church, with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. Jerusalem was and is a sacred city and symbol of all three major Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). The background to the Crusades was set when the Seljuk Turks decisively defeated the Byzantine army in 1071 and cut off Christian access to Jerusalem. The Byzantine emperor, Alexis I
feared that all Asia Minor would be overrun. He called on western
Christian leaders and the papacy to come to the aid of Constantinople by
undertaking a pilgrimage or a crusade that would free Jerusalem from
Muslim rule. Another cause was the destruction of many Christian sacred sites and the persecution of Christians under the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim.
The crusaders comprised military units of Roman Catholics from all
over western Europe, and were not under unified command. The main series
of Crusades, primarily against Muslims
in the Levant, occurred between 1095 and 1291. Historians have given
many of the earlier crusades numbers. After some early successes, the
later crusades failed and the crusaders were defeated and forced to
return home. Several hundred thousand soldiers became Crusaders by
taking vows; the Pope granted them plenary indulgence.
Their emblem was the cross — the term "crusade" is derived from the
French term for taking up the cross. Many were from France and called
themselves "Franks," which became the common term used by Muslims.
The term "crusade" is also used to describe religiously motivated
campaigns conducted between 1100 and 1600 in territories outside the Levant usually against pagans, heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons.
Rivalries among both Christian and Muslim powers led also to alliances
between religious factions against their opponents, such as the
Christian alliance with the Islamic Sultanate of Rûm during the Fifth Crusade.
The Crusades had major political, economic, and social impact on
western Europe. It resulted in a substantial weakening of the Christian Byzantine Empire, which fell several centuries later to the Muslim Turks. The Reconquista, a long period of wars in Spain and Portugal (Iberia), where Christian forces reconquered the peninsula from Muslims, is closely tied to the Crusades.
Background
Middle Eastern situation
In 636 CE, Muslim forces led by the Arab Rashidun Caliphs defeated the Eastern Roman/Byzantines at the Battle of Yarmouk, conquering Palestine. Jerusalem fell to Caliph Omar's forces in February 638. The Umayyad Dynasty was inaugurated by Muawiyah I, sole caliph from 661, who made his capital in Damascus. In 750 the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasid Dynasty of Baghdad and from 878 Palestine was ruled by semi-autonomous governors in Egypt until the Fatimids conquered it in 969.
The Fatimids, whose empire stretched to Morocco and centered on Egypt,
were tolerant for the times and had many trade and political
relationships with the Christian states of Europe. In 1072 the Fatimids
lost control of Palestine to the rapidly expanding Great Seljuq Empire.
They regained control of it in 1098, but their control was shaky, with
the countryside subject to raids by Bedouin nomads and Turkish
mercenaries.
One factor that may have contributed to Western interest in Palestine came during the reign of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah who ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1039 his successor permitted the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it. Pilgrimages had been allowed by Christians to the holy sites in Palestine from soon after their conquest by the Muslims.
However, under the Seljuqs pilgrimage routes were disrupted and the
unsettled conditions in Palestine were not conducive to either pilgrims
or merchants.
The Muslims realized that much of the wealth of Jerusalem came from the
pilgrims; for this reason and others, the persecution of pilgrims
eventually stopped. However, the damage was already done, and the
violence of the conquering Seljuk Turks became part of the concern that
spread support for the Crusades across the Christian world.
Western European situation
The western European idea of the Crusades came in response to the deterioration of the Byzantine Empire caused by a new wave of Turkish Muslim attacks. The Byzantine emperors in the east, now threatened by the Seljuks, sent emissaries to the papacy asking for aid in their struggles with the Seljuk Turks. In 1074, Emperor Michael VII sent a request for aid to Pope Gregory VII and in 1095, from Emperor Alexios I Komnenos asked Pope Urban II
for help; the latter eventually blessed Christian armies who fought to
reclaim lands lost to Muslim invaders in previous centuries.
The Crusades were, in part, an outlet for an intense religious piety
which rose up in the late 11th century among the lay public. A crusader
would, after pronouncing a solemn vow, receive a cross from the hands of
the pope or his legates, and was thenceforth considered a "soldier of the Church". This was partly because of the Investiture Controversy, which had started around 1075 and was still on-going during the First Crusade.
As both sides of the Investiture Controversy tried to marshal public
opinion in their favor, people became personally engaged in a dramatic
religious controversy. The result was an awakening of intense Christian
piety and public interest in religious affairs, and was further
strengthened by religious propaganda, which advocated Just War
in order to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Holy Land
included Jerusalem (where the death and resurrection of Jesus had taken
place according to Christian history and the Bible) and Antioch
(the first Christian city). Further, the remission of sin was a driving
factor and provided any God-fearing man who had committed sins with an
irresistible way out of eternal damnation in hell.
It was a hotly debated issue throughout the Crusades as what exactly
"remission of sin" meant. Most believed that by retaking Jerusalem they
would go straight to heaven after death. However, much controversy
surrounds exactly what was promised by the popes of the time. One theory
was that one had to die fighting for Jerusalem for the remission to
apply, which would hew more closely to what Pope Urban II
said in his speeches. This meant that if the crusaders were successful,
and retook Jerusalem, the survivors would not be given remission.
Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula
When the First Crusade was preached in 1095, the Christian princes of
northern Iberia had been fighting their way out of the mountains of Galicia and Asturias, the Basque Country and Navarre, with increasing success, for about a hundred years. The fall of Moorish Toledo to the Kingdom of León in 1085 was a major victory, but the turning points of the Reconquista still lay in the future. The disunity of Muslim emirs was an essential factor.
While the Reconquista was the most prominent example of European reactions against Muslim conquests, it is not the only such example. The Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard had conquered Calabria in 1057 and was holding what had traditionally been Byzantine territory against the Muslims of Sicily. The maritime states of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia were all actively fighting Islamic strongholds in Majorca, freeing the coasts of Italy and Catalonia from Muslim raids. Much earlier, the Christian homelands of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt,
and so on had been conquered by Muslim armies. This long history of
losing territories to a religious enemy created a powerful motive to
respond to Byzantine Emperor Alexius I's call for holy war to defend
Christendom, and to recapture the lost lands starting with Jerusalem.
Just war doctrine
The papacy of Pope Gregory VII
had struggled with reservations about the doctrinal validity of a holy
war and the shedding of blood for the Lord and had, with difficulty,
resolved the question in favour of justified violence. More importantly
to the Pope, the Christians who made pilgrimages to the Holy Land were
being persecuted. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Gregory's intellectual model, had justified the use of force in the service of Christ in The City of God, and a Christian "Just War" might enhance the wider standing of an aggressively ambitious leader of Europe, as Gregory saw himself.
The northerners would be cemented to Rome, and their troublesome
knights could see the only kind of action that suited them. Previous
attempts by the church to stem such violence, such as the concept of the
"Peace of God", were not as successful as hoped. To the south of Rome,
Normans were showing how such energies might be unleashed against both
Arabs (in Sicily) and Byzantines (on the mainland). A Latin hegemony in
the Levant would provide leverage in resolving the Papacy's claims of supremacy over the Patriarch of Constantinople, which had resulted in the Great Schism of 1054, a rift that might yet be resolved through the force of Frankish arms.
Great Schism
The East–West Schism, sometimes known as the Great Schism, is the medieval division of Chalcedonian Christianity into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively. Relations between East and West had long been embittered by political and ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes. Prominent among these were the issues of "filioque", whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, the Pope's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of Constantinople in relation to the Pentarchy.
Pope Leo IX and Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius heightened the conflict by suppressing Greek and Latin in their respective domains. In 1054, Roman legates traveled to Cerularius to deny him the title Ecumenical Patriarch and to insist that he recognize the Church of Rome's claim to be the head and mother of the churches. Cerularius refused. The leader of the Latin contingent, Cardinal Humbert, excommunicated Cerularius, while Cerularius in return excommunicated Cardinal Humbert and other legates. This was only the first act in a centuries-long process that eventually became a complete schism.
The validity of the Western legates' act is doubtful, since Pope Leo
had died, while Cerularius's excommunication applied only to the legates
personally. Still, the Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographical lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed, with each side accusing the other of having fallen into heresy and of having initiated the division. The Crusades, the Massacre of the Latins in 1182, the capture and sack of Constantinople in 1204, and the imposition of Latin Patriarchs made reconciliation more difficult. This included the taking of many precious religious artifacts and the destruction of the Library of Constantinople.
Efforts were made to reunite the two churches in 1274 (by the Second Council of Lyon) and in 1439 (by the Council of Florence).
However, despite the formal reunification embodied by the acts of these
councils, no effective reconciliation was realized since the Orthodox
believe that the acts of councils must be ratified by the wider Church
and the acts of these councils never attained widespread acceptance
among Orthodox churches. In 1484, 31 years after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks,
a Synod of Constantinople repudiated the Union of Florence, making
official the position that had already been taken by Orthodox in
general.
In 1965, the Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras I nullified the anathemas of 1054,
although this nullification of measures taken against a few individuals
was essentially a goodwill gesture and did not constitute any sort of
reunion between churches.
Contacts between the two sides continue: Every year a delegation from
each joins in the other's celebration of its patronal feast, Saints Peter and Paul (29 June) for Rome and Saint Andrew
(30 November) for Constantinople, and there have been a number of
visits by the head of each to the other. The efforts of the Ecumenical
Patriarchs towards reconciliation with the Catholic Church have often
been the target of sharp criticism from fellow Orthodox.
Byzantine weakness
In the Byzantine homelands, the Eastern Emperor's weakness was revealed by the stinging defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, which reduced the Empire's Asian territory to a region in western Anatolia and around Constantinople.
The Empire was on the verge of collapse, with its treasury bankrupt,
its armies poorly deployed, and its aged emperor ineffective. A sure sign of Byzantine desperation was the appeal of Alexios I to his enemy, the Pope, for aid. But Gregory was occupied with the Investiture Controversy and could not call on the German emperor, so a crusade never took shape.
For Gregory's more moderate successor, Pope Urban II,
a crusade would serve to reunite Christendom, bolster the Papacy, and
perhaps bring the East under his control. The disaffected Germans and
the Normans were not to be counted on, but the heart and backbone of a
crusade could be found in Urban's own homeland among the northern
French.
Pope Urban II
 |
| Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, |
The immediate cause of the First Crusade was the Byzantine emperor Alexios I's appeal to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to help him resist Muslim advances into territory of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071, at the Battle of Manzikert,
the Byzantine Empire was defeated, which led to the loss of all of Asia
Minor (modern Turkey) save the coastlands. Although attempts at
reconciliation after the East–West Schism between the Catholic Church in western Europe and the Eastern Orthodox Church had failed, Alexius I hoped for a positive response from Urban II.
Pope Urban II defined and launched the crusades at the Council of Clermont
in 1095. He was a reformer worried about the evils which had hindered
the spiritual success of the church and its clergy and the need for a
revival of religiosity. He was moved by the urgent appeal for help from
Byzantine Emperor Alexius I. Urban's solution was announced on the last
day of the council when the pope suddenly proclaimed the Crusade against
the infidel Muslims. He called for Christian princes across Europe to
launch a holy war in the Holy Land. He contrasted the sanctity of
Jerusalem and the holy places with the plunder and desecration by the
infidel Turks. He caused outrage by vividly describing attacks upon the
Christian pilgrims. He also noted the military threat to the fellow
Christians of Byzantium. He charged Christians to take up the holy
cause, promising to all those who went remission of sins and to all who
died in the expedition immediate entry into heaven.
Then Urban raised secular motives, talking of the feudal love of
tournaments and warfare. He urged the barons to give up their
fratricidal and unrighteous wars in the West for the holy war in the
East. He also suggested material rewards, regarding feudal fiefdoms,
land ownership, wealth, power, and prestige, all at the expense of the
Arabs and Turks. He said they could be defeated very easily by the
Christian forces. When he finished, his listeners chanted "Deus vult"
(God wills it). This became the battle cry of the crusaders. Urban put
the bishop of Le Puy in charge of encouraging prelates and priests to
join the cause.
Word spread rapidly that war against unbelief would be fused with the
practice of pilgrimage to holy sites, and the pilgrims' reward would be
great on earth, as in heaven. Immediately thousands pledged themselves
to go on the first crusade. Pope Urban's speech ranks as one of the most
influential speeches ever made: it launched the holy wars which
occupied the minds and forces of western Europe for two hundred years.
Schism of the First Crusade
On a popular level, the first crusades unleashed a wave of
impassioned, personally felt pious Christian fury that was expressed in
the massacres of Jews that accompanied the movement of the Crusader mobs through Europe, as well as the violent treatment of "schismatic" Orthodox Christians of the east.
In the 13th century, Crusades never expressed such a popular fever, and after Acre fell for the last time in 1291 and the Occitan Cathars were exterminated during the Albigensian Crusade, the crusading ideal became devalued by Papal justifications of political and territorial aggressions within Catholic Europe.
The last crusading order of knights to hold territory were the Knights Hospitaller. After the final fall of Acre, they took control of the island of Rhodes, and in the 16th century were driven to Malta, before being finally unseated by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.
References
- Hindley, Geoffrey. The Crusades: Islam and Christianity in the Struggle for World Supremacy. New York: Carrol & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1344-5.
- Lock, Peter (2006). Routledge Companion to the Crusades. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-39312-4.
- Madden, Thomas F. (2005). The New Concise History of the Crusades. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742538221.
- Pringle, Denys (1999). "Architecture in Latin East". In Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Oxford History of the Crusades. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 155-175. ISBN 0-19-280312-3.
- Riley-Smith, Jonathan (2005). The Crusades: A Short History (Second ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10128-7.
- Wickham, Chris (2009). The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400–1000. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-311742-1.
...Tomorrow: The First Crusade and the Byzantine Empire
Recommended Reading
- Andrea, Alfred J. Encyclopedia of the Crusades. (2003).
- Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam (2005) excerpt and text search
- Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land (2011) excerpt and text search
- France, John. Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 (1999) online edition
- Hillenbrand, Carole. The Crusades, Islamic Perspectives. (2000). excerpt and text search
- Holt, P.M. The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. (1986).
- Phillips, Jonathan. Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades (2010)
- Riley-Smith, Jonathan, ed. The Atlas of the Crusades (1991)
- Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades, Volume I: The First Crusade and the Foundations of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.; Volume II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East 1100-1187. and Volume III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (1951–53), the classic narrative history; hostile toward the crusaders
- Tyerman, Christopher. God's War: A New History of the Crusades (2006)
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