His mother, Blanche of Castile, effectively ruled the kingdom as regent until he came of age, and continued to serve as his trusted adviser until her death.

During his formative years, Blanche successfully confronted rebellious vassals and championed the Capetian cause in the Albigensian Crusade, which had been ongoing for the past two decades.

As an adult, Louis IX grappled with persistent conflicts involving some of the most influential nobles in his kingdom, including Hugh X of Lusignan and Peter I of Brittany.

Concurrently, England's Henry III sought to reclaim the Angevin continental holdings, only to be decisively defeated at the Battle of Taillebourg.

Keeping a promise he made while praying for recovery from a grave illness, Louis led the ill-fated Seventh and Eighth Crusades against the Muslim dynasties that controlled North Africa, Egypt, and the Holy Land.

Louis instigated significant reforms in the French legal system, creating a royal justice mechanism that allowed petitioners to appeal judgments directly to the monarch.

Louis IX's reign is often marked as an economic and political zenith for medieval France, and he held immense respect throughout Christendom.

He enacted harsh laws against blasphemy,[4] and he also launched actions against France's Jewish population, including ordering them to wear a yellow badge of shame, as well as the notorious burning of the Talmud following the Disputation of Paris.

Raymond VI of Toulouse had been suspected of ordering the assassination of Pierre de Castelnau, a Roman Catholic preacher who attempted to convert the Cathars.

The new queen's religious zeal made her a well-suited partner for the king, and they are attested to have gotten along well, enjoying riding together, reading, and listening to music.

The style of his court was influential throughout Europe, both because of artwork purchased from Parisian masters for export, and by the marriage of the king's daughters and other female relatives to foreigners.

[17] The prestige and respect felt by Europeans for King Louis IX were due more to the appeal of his personality than to military domination.

[1] Shortly before 1256, Enguerrand IV, Lord of Coucy, arrested and without trial hanged three young squires of Laon, whom he accused of poaching in his forest.

The Sainte Chapelle, a prime 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 Christ.

[18] Louis IX paid the exorbitant sum of 135,000 livres to clear the debt.In 1230, the King forbade all forms of usury, defined at the time as any taking of interest and therefore covering most banking activities.

Louis used these anti-usury laws to extract funds from Jewish and Lombard moneylenders, with the hopes that it would help pay for a future crusade.

In his spiritual testament he wrote, "My dearest son, you should permit yourself to be tormented by every kind of martyrdom before you would allow yourself to commit a mortal sin.

[23][24] This attack caused some disruption in the Muslim Ayyubid empire, especially as the current sultan, Al-Malik as-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub, was on his deathbed.

His release was eventually negotiated in return for a ransom of 400,000 livres tournois (roughly US$80 million today) and the surrender of the city of Damietta.

[25] Upon his liberation from captivity in Egypt, Louis IX devoted four years to fortifying the Kingdom of Jerusalem, focusing his efforts in Acre, Caesarea, and Jaffa.

However, Güyük's death preceded the arrival of the emissary, and his widow and acting regent, Oghul Qaimish, rejected the diplomatic proposition.

On hearing the reports of the missionaries, Louis resolved to land at Tunis, and he ordered his younger brother, Charles of Anjou, to join him there.

Louis's younger brother, Charles I of Naples, preserved his heart and intestines, and conveyed them for burial in the Cathedral of Monreale near Palermo.

[35]Louis's bones were carried overland in a lengthy processional across Sicily, Italy, the Alps, and France, until they were interred in the royal necropolis at Saint-Denis in May 1271.

[41] Named in his honour, the Sisters of Charity of St. Louis is a Roman Catholic religious order founded in Vannes, France, in 1803.

[46][47] Many countries in which French speakers and Catholicism were prevalent named places after King Louis: France United States