King Louis FRANCE, VII

   Other names for Louis were "The Young", AQUITAINE Duke and FRANCE King.

   Ancestral File Number: 8XJ2-7B. User ID: 37819518/75639376.

   General Notes:

"The Young", King of FRANCE Reigned 1137-1180, Duke of AQUITAINE Consecrated Poitiers 8 Aug 1137.

Divorced Eleanor of Aquitaine 1152, two children. Not Married Concubine Louis VII King of France.

INTERNET
http://www.findagrave.com/claimtofame/2.html;
Louis, King, VII. [original interment site] b. 1120. d. 1180.
King of France. He was reinterred in 1817 to St Denis Basilique.
Abbaye de Barbeau, Chartrettes, Seine et Marne, France.

BOOKS
Kings and Queens of Europe, Genealogical Chart, Anne Taute and Romilly Squire, Taute 1989: "Constancia, Daughter of Alfonso VII King of Castilla & Leon and Berenguela of Barcelona, Mar Louis VII King of France...Louis VII, Son of Louis VI, King of France 1137-1180, Mar =2 Constancia Castilla, =3 Alice Champagne, Died 1180."

The Political History of England, Vol II, George Burton Adams Longmans Green and Co, 1905, Ch IX
p212: "...When William, Duke of Aquitaine, returned from his expedition with Geoffrey, he seems to have been troubled in his conscience by his heathenish deeds in Normandy, and he made a pilgrimage to St James of Compostella to seek the pardon of heaven. In this he seemed to be successful, and he died there before the altar of the apostle, with all the comforts of religion. When he knew that his end was approaching, he besought his barons to carry out the plan which he had formed of conveying the duchy to the king of France, with the hand of his daughter and heiress Eleanor for his son Louis. The proposition was gladly accepted, the marriage took place in July at Bordeaux, and the young sovereign received the homage of the vassals of a territory more than twice his father's in area, which was thus united with the crown. Before the bridal pair could return to Paris, the reign of Louis VI had ended, and Louis the Young had become king as Louis VII. He was at this time about seventeen years old. His wife was two years younger, and Henry of Anjou, the son of Matilda, whose life was to be even more closely associated with hers, had not yet finished his fifth year..."
Chap XI, p247: [1152] "...Early in 1152 a larger possession than these together, and a most brilliant promise of future power, came to him through no effort of his own. We have seen how at the beginnin of the reign of Stephen, when Henry himself was not yet five years old, Eleanor, heiress of Aquitaine, had been married to young Louis of France, who became in a few weeks, by the death of his father, King Louis VII. Half a lifetime, as men lived in those days, they had spent together as man and wife, with no serious lack of harmony. The marriage, however, could never have been a very happy one. Imcompatibility of temper and tastes must long have made itself felt before the determination to dissolve the marriage was reached. Masculine in character, strong and full of spirit, Eleanor must have looked with some contempt on her husband, who was losing the energy of his younger days and passing more and more under the influenceof the darker and more superstitious elements in the religion of the time, and she probably did not hesitate to let her opinion be known. She said he was a monk and not a king. To this, it is likely, was added the fact- it may very possibly have been the deciding consideration- that during the more than fourteen years of marriage but two daughters had been born, and the Capetian house still lacked an heir. Whatever may have been the reason, a divorce was resolved upon not long aftertheir return in 1149 from the second crusade. The death in January, 1152, of Louis VI's great minister, Suger, whose still powerful influence, for obvious political reasons, had hindered the final steps, made the way clear. In March and assembly of clergy, with many barons in attendance, declared the marriage void on the convenient and easily adjustable principle of too near relationship, and Eleanor received back her great inheritance."
p248: [1152] "...By the end of June theyoung bridegroom was at Barfleur preparing to cross the channel with an invading force. But he was not to be permitted to enjoy his new fortunes unchallenged. Louis VII in particular had reasons for interfering, and the law was on his side. The heiress Eleanor had no right to marry without the consent of her feudal suzerain. A summons, it is said, was at once served on Henry to appear before the king's court and answer for his conduct, and this summons, which Henry refused to obey,was supported by a new coalition. Louis and Eustace were again in alliance, and they were joined by Henry's own brother Geoffrey, who could make considerable trouble in the south of Henry's lands, by Robert of Dreux, Count of Perche, and by Eustace's cousin Henry, Count of Champagne. Stephen's brother Theobald had died at the beginning of the year, and his great dominions had been divided, Champagne and Blois being once more separated, never to be reunited until they were absorbed atdifferent dates into the royal domain..."

A History of the Plantagenets, Vol I, The Conquering Family, Thomas B Costain, Doubleday & Co, Garden City, 1949, p38:
"...Louis the Fat was King of France at this juncture, and his avoirdupois made it impossible for him to be lifted out of bed. The mind functioning in this mass of fatty degeneration was keen, nonetheless, and fully conscious fo the necessity of finding a French husband for the vivacious Eleanor. He finally decided tomarry her to his own son, who was to rule after him as Louis VII.
"This Louis was a nice young prince with a great reputation for saintliness, although in reality his piety was more a love of ordered ritual. He had enough of worldly appetites to become enamoured of the dark-eyed, long-lashed Eleanor...and so on August 1, 1137, the marriage took place.
"It was not a success, not even at the start. A saint in the nuptial couch was not Eleanor's idea of a marriage. To make matters worse, her sister Petronille, who took after that philandering old grandfather even more than Eleanor, fell in love with a married man, the Count of Vermandois. He secured a divorce and married Petronille, and this led to a war in the course of which Louis led some troops against the family of the set-aside wife, on Eleanor's urging, and it happened that more than a thousand innocent people were burned to death in a church. Louis, who was a man of much fine feeling, never did escape the sense of guilt which possessed him because of this. His persistent melancholy made him less and less a suitable match for Eleanor. She had borne him two daughters, however, when the saintly firebrand, Bernard of Clairvaux, began to preach the need for another crusade..."

Eleanor of Aquitaine the Mother Queen, Desmond Seward, 1978, Dorset Press, p20:
"Understandably, `Louis le gros' cast greedy eyes on Aquitaine and its heiress. With such a king, Eleanor would have togive priority to a Capetian suitor. In any case, should her father die, the wardship of herself and of her fief would fall to the king.
"On Good Friday 1137, despite his strength, duke William X died at Compostella...Eleanor had no other course than to turn to king Louis. Although a woman could inherit a fief, receive homage from its vassals, and lead them to war, it was also true that under feudal law any ruthless suitor might seize her, force her to marry him, and enjoy her inheritance. It is not known whether William had expressed any wish that his daughter should marry Louis's son but it is more than likely that he had recognized Louis's right to be her guardian. Eleanor was speedily betrothed to `Louis le jeune',who was Louis VI's only surviving son. Even before the marriage, the fat monarch made his son formally claim Poitiers and Aquitaine and receive the homage of his new vassals at Limoges on 29 June 1137.
"The future Louis VII was now sixteen. Originally he had been destined for the cloister and had spent his early years as a `child monk' at the monastery of Saint-Denis under the benevolent eye of abbot Suger. However, when he was nine his elder brother Philip's horse had been frightened by a runaway pig, giving its rider a fatal fall, whereupon Louis became heir to the throne and was crowned joint-king according to Capetian custom (to ensure an undisputed succession). But the memory of his pious childhood and his affection for monks never left him; he continued his sacred studies and sometimes wore a coarse grey gown and dandals like a simple brother. In appearance he was well built, but not overweight like his father, with long yellow hair and mild blue eyes. His strangest characteristic was his humble, unworldly manner, which none the less gave him a naive charm. Yet he was more intelligent than he seemed at first, and far from ineffectual. His worst faults were an appallingly violent temper- his rages were terrible- and a paralysing sense of sin and guilt."
p22: "On Sunday 25 July 1137 the couple were married in the cathedral of Saint Andre at Bordeaux, by archbishop Geoffrey of Loroux, in the presence of the lords spiritual andtemporal of Gascony, Poitou, and the Saintonge. Afterwards, at the nuptial banquet in the Ombriere palace, Louis wore the ducal coronet of Aquitaine. Then they went on progress, the wedding night being spent at the castle of Taillebourg. "A fortnight later another ceremony took place in the cathedral at Poitiers. On 8 August Eleanor and Louis were consecrated duke and duchess of Aquitaine with a sacramental rite modelled on that of the service for crowning a king of France. During the banquet in the Maubergeon that followed, abbot Suger brought them the news that Louis VI had died a week earlier, killed by gluttony..."
p41: "On Christmas Eve 1144, Edessa (the capital of a Latin county on the far side of the Euphrates) fell to the Saracens. Christendom was appalled; it seemed that the Holy Land, won back at so much cost only a generation before, might again be lost. After much though the new pope, Eugenius III, decided that the only way to save it wasby a second crusade. In December 1145 he sent a bull to Louis VII, calling upon the king and his vassals to launch an expedition with every resource at their command; in return they would receive forgiveness for all their sins. Later the popesent a similar bull to the emperor in Germany, Conrad III.
"Louis was delighted by the idea. No doubt he sincerely believed that every Christian had a duty to save the land of Christ and His mother from the infidel; and he continued to feel guilty about the holocaust at Vitry, whcih still had to be expiated by a suitable penance..."
p57: "The end of Louis and Eleanor's marriage was plainly in sight. The king had been so affected by his experiences during the crusade that he spent even longer hours at prayer, and cropped his head and shaved his beard like a priest. Eleanor's comment was `I married a monk, not a king'. He no longer slept with her, although, given the mediaeval Christian's distrust of physical love, it is unlikely that he had ever spent much time in her bed. (This is probably the reason why she had borne only one child; later she presented a more virile husband with five sons and three daughters)...
"The atmosphere must have been tense with misery. Louis was obsessed by the consanguinity Eleanor had raised so furiously at Antioch. Even during the Champagne war St Bernard had asked why the king could take such exception to the consanguinity of Raoul of Vermandois and his wife when Louis and Eleanor were themselves related within the fourth, forbidden degree. Moreover, the pope had eventually accepted Raoul's plea and recognized the annulment. As the king always had a most delicate conscience and was a martyr toscruples, he was tormented by guilt. His anguish was made worse by the fact that despite all their quarrels he was still passionately in love with Eleanor.
"The unhappy pair reached Tusculum on 9 Oct 1149. Here the papal court was in residence...Eugenius III gave them a warm welcom, as we know from the history of John of Salisbury, then a papal secretary, who was present. Louis took the opportunity to confess his misgivings about the validity of his marriage. The pope told him to ignore them, to forget the very word consanguinity; if necessary, a dispensation could be provided by the Church. John noted that despite his scruples the king loved Eleanor with an almost childish love. He also observed that one of Louis's confidants- presumably Thierry Galeran- was constantly trying to poison his mind against the queen. Eugenius tried hard to reconcile the couple. He forced them to sleep together, personally conducting them to a guest room furnished with splendidsilk hangings but with only one bed. This austere pontiff- originally a Cistercian monk- was obviously moved by their predicament. When they left, Eugenius could not keep back his tears as he blessed both them and France...
"In the summerof 1150 Eleanor bore her second child- not an heir, but another daughter (Alice, who would one day be countess of Blois), whose birth did nothing to reconcile her parents...
"According to an English chronicler, after Louis and Eleanor returned to France they began to quarrel over everything. It was now that she took such offence at his habits and began to grumble again about being married to a monk...
"For the time being, however, the king was too busy with a feudal dispute to worry about his marriage. He found himself at war with one of the most formidable of French vassals- Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou..."
p62: "Constance of CASTILE Mar (2) Louis VII King of FRANCE 1154..."

The Story of Civilization,Will Durant, Volume IV, The Age of Faith, Book V, The Climax of Christianity, Chapter XXIII, The Crusades, Sec IV, The Second Crusade, p594: "St. Bernard went directly to King Louis VII, and persuaded him to take the Cross. With the King at his side he spoke to a multitude at Vezelay (1146); when he had finished, the crowd enlisted en masse...At Pentecost Louis and the French followed [Emperor Conrad III of Germany] at a cautious distance...The Greeks were frightened by the statureand armor of the Western knights, and amused by their feminine entourage. His troublesome Eleanor accompanied Louis, and troubadours accompanied the Queen...and the baggage train of the French was heavy with trunks and boxes of apparel and cosmetics designed to ensure the beauty of these ladies against all the vicissitudes of climate, war, and time...Reaching Attalia, Louis bargained with Greek ship captains to transport his army by sea to Christian Tarsus or Antioch; the captainsdemanded an impossible fee per passenger; Louis and several nobles, Eleanor and several ladies, took passage to Antioch, leaving the French army in Attalia. Mohammedan forces swept down upon the city, and slaughtered nearly every Frenchman init (1148). Louis reached Jerusalem with ladies but no army...The Christian army broke into fragments, and fled...Eleanor and most of the French knights returned to France. Louis remained another year in Palestine, making pilgrimages to sacredshrines."
Chap XXV, The Recovery of Europe, Sec XI, France, p689: "Louis VII (1137-80) was the man of whom Eleanor of Aquitaine said that she had married a king only to find him a monk. He labored conscientiously at his royal tasks, but his virtues ruined him. His devotion to government appeared to Eleanor as marital neglect; his patience with her amours added insult to negligence; she divorced him, and gave her hand and her duchy of Aquitaine to Henry II of England. Disillusioned with life, Louis turned to piety, and left to his son [Philip II Augustus] the task of building a strong France."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981, Micropaedia, Vol VI, p343, Louis VII: "Some- times called `Le Jeune' (The Young), Born Abt 1120, Died 18 Sep 1180 Paris, Capetian King of France who pursued a long rivalry, marked by recurrent warfare and continuous intrigue with Henry II of England.
"In 1131 Louis was anointed as successor to his father, Louis VI, and in 1137 he became the sole ruler at his father's death. Louis married Eleanor, daughter of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, in 1137, a few days before his effective rule behan, and he thus temporarily extended the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees. Louis continued his father's pacification program by building the prestige of the kingship through an administrative government based on trustworthy men of humble origin and by consolidating his rule over his royal domains rather than by adding new acquisitions. From 1141 to 1143 he was involved in a fruitless conflict with Count Thibaut of Champagne. But the major threat to his reign came from Geoffrey, count of Anjou, and his son Henry, who later became King Henry II of England as well as ruler ofboth Anjou and Normandy. Louis' first error was to allow Geoffrey to increase his power unchecked, thereby being forced to inbest him in 1145 with Normandy. In 1151 Louis signed a brief peace with Geoffrey and Henry; but after Louis repudiated his wife Eleanor for misconduct on March 21, 1152, she married Henry, who then took over control of Aquitaine. Ironically, this act was probably to Capetian advantage because Aquitaine might have drained the resources of Louis' kingdom while bringing him little revenue.
"Louis might have defeated Henry if he had made concerted attacks rather than weak assaults on Normandy in 1152. Anglo-Norman family disputes saved Louis' kingdom from severe incursions during the many conflictsthat Louis had with Henry between 1152 and 1174. Louis was helped by the quarrel (1164-1170) between Henry and Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and a revolt (1173- 1174) of Henry's sons. Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis, who acted as regentin 1147-1149 while Louis was in the Holy Land, is the primary historian for Louis' reign."

The Wall Chart of World History, Edward Hull, 1988, Studio Editions, France 1137: "Louis VII, `The Young', Son of Louis VI, King of France 1137-1180, Second Crusade 1147 by St Bernard..."

Europe in the Middle Ages, Robert S Hoyt, 1957, Harcourt Brace & Co, p623: "Genealogical Table III, The Capetian Dynasty, Louis VII (1137-1180), Mar (1) Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mar (2) Constance of Castile, Mar (3) Alice of Champagne..."

ANCESTRAL FILE
EofA Mar Sun 25 Jul 1137, Ancestral File Ver 4.11 8XJ2-7B Mar 22 Jul 1137.

   Marriage Information:

Louis married Queen Eleanor Aquitaine ENGLAND, daughter of Duke William VIII AQUITAINE and Aenor De CHATELLERAULT, on 22 Jul 1137 in Cathedral, Saint Andre, Bordeaux, France. The marriage ended in divorce. (Queen Eleanor Aquitaine ENGLAND was born about 1121-1122 in Chateau, DE Belin, Gironde, France, christened in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France, died on 31 Mar 1204 in Fontevrault L'abbaye, Maine-Et-Loire, France and was buried in Abbey, Fontevrault, Maine-Et-Loire, France.)

   Marriage Information:

Louis also married Queen Constance Castile FRANCE, daughter of King Alfonso CASTILE, VII and Berenguela BARCELONA, in 1154 in , Castile, Spain. (Queen Constance Castile FRANCE was born about 1133-1140 in , Castile, Spain, died on 4 Oct 1160 in , Castile, Spain and was buried in St Denis, Aude, Paris, Seine, France.)

   Marriage Information:

Louis also married Countess Alice De CHAMPAGNE, daughter of Count Theobald Champagne BLOIS, IV and Princess Mathilde CARINTHIA, on 13 Nov 1160. (Countess Alice De CHAMPAGNE was born about 1140 in Blois, Loir-Et-Cher, France, died on 4 Jun 1206 in Paris, Seine, France and was buried in Abbey, Pontigny, France.)

   Marriage Information:

Louis also married Concubine France Louis VII.