Saint Louis IX of France

Saint Louis IX was king of France, a husband, and the father of eleven children. The Roman Martyrology highlights his active faith, his just rule, his love for the poor, and his perseverance in adversity. The Church commemorates him on August 25, the anniversary of his death.

He was born on April 25, 1214, in Poissy, the son of King Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile. He was twelve years old when his father died in 1226. His mother governed in the name of the young king and carefully raised him in the faith. In 1234 Louis married Margaret of Provence. His biographers describe his daily prayer, his attendance at the liturgy, and his fasting.

He wanted to rule justly. Popular memory pictures him settling his subjects’ disputes under an oak at Vincennes. He banned trial by combat, made peace with King Henry III of England, and other rulers of Europe sought his counsel. He seated the poor at his own table, served them, and washed their feet. The bull of canonization describes how at the abbey of Royaumont he himself fed a monk who had leprosy. His reign also had a dark side: after the disputation of 1240 he had the books of the Talmud burned in Paris in 1242, and in 1269 he ordered Jews to wear a distinguishing badge on their clothing.

From the Latin emperor of Constantinople he acquired Christ’s crown of thorns, and for it he built the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, a chapel filled with the light of stained glass. He founded hospitals and monasteries. He welcomed Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas Aquinas to his table, and with his support his chaplain Robert de Sorbon founded in 1257 the college from which the Sorbonne takes its name.

In 1244, during a grave illness, he vowed to go on crusade. In 1248 he set out for Egypt with his wife. After the capture of Damietta, disease decimated the army, and the king was taken prisoner together with most of his troops. According to the bull of canonization, he refused a chance to escape by ship because he did not want to abandon his soldiers, and he would not agree to an oath by which he would have denied Christ. After a ransom was paid, he remained several years in the Holy Land, redeeming captives and strengthening city walls. He returned to France in 1254, after news of his mother’s death.

In 1270 he set out on a second crusade and landed near Tunis. An epidemic broke out in the camp, and the king died of it on August 25, 1270. To his son and successor, Philip, he left written instructions on Christian life and the duties of a ruler. His body was brought back to France and buried in the abbey of Saint-Denis.

Pope Boniface VIII declared him a saint on August 11, 1297, in Orvieto, and in the bull of canonization set his feast on the day after the feast of Saint Bartholomew, the anniversary of his death. Louis was one of the first lay people whom the Church canonized after a process. Secular Franciscans venerate him as their patron.