Life
Royal courtier and chaplain
Little is known about William. He or at least his family was presumably from Chartres. He was probably of "lower class non-noble origins". He may be the William of Chartres described as a cleric and scholar at Vercelli who stood as surety for some Frenchmen studying in Italy in 1231. He was employed at the royal court by 1248. At the time, he was a secular cleric. He may have been brought to the king's attention by Robert of Douai, the queen's physician.
William was a part of Louis's inner circle during the Seventh Crusade. He went into captivity along with the king in 1250. In March 1251, Louis provided William's two sisters and their eldest sons with an income from rents. He returned to France with Louis after a period in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1254. That year William became a canon of Saint-Quentin. He is referred to in documents of this time as "Lord William" and was attached to the royal chapel. In 1254–1255, acting as a royal agent, he purchased properties on the left bank of the Seine for the Sorbonne. One of the properties was a house of Robert of Douai. In 1255–1256, he was rewarded with a horse and a cape.
By February 1259, Louis had appointed William treasurer of Saint-Frambourg de Senlis. A document of 1261 calls him a priest. On 6 July 1262, William signed as a witness the treaty of friendship between Louis IX and James I of Aragon on the occasion of the marriage of Louis's son, Philip, and James's daughter, Isabella.
Dominican crusader
According to his own account, William held the office of treasurer for five and a half years. He is last recorded in that capacity in December 1263 and must have entered the Dominican Order the following year. [7] He resided in the Parisian convent of Saint-Jacques on the left bank. In 1269–1270, he took part in the preparations of the Eighth Crusade. He joined the expedition as a royal confessor, took possession of the royal seal after the death of the archdeacon of Paris on 20 August and was at Louis's side when the king died.
Following Louis's death, William was sent back to France by Louis's successor, Philip III, along with two other friars, Geoffrey of Beaulieu and John of Mons. The three carried four letters from Philip dated 12 September 1270 informing the ecclesiastical and lay magnates of the kingdom of Louis's death and confirming Matthew of Vendôme and Simon of Nesle in the regency. They travelled by way of Sicily and Italy, crossing the Alps and arriving at Paris by early October. [10] William remained in Paris for the next three years, working as a parish priest.
Death
William began work on his biography of Louis IX after January 1273, after the death of Geoffrey of Beaulieu, who had written his own biography of Louis, and seemingly while Pope Gregory X was still alive. He was most likely actively writing in 1274–1275. The last record of William is an undated letter he wrote to his brother-in-law, Gilles de la Chaussée, probably in 1277. In it he informs Gilles that he has secured letters from Philip III asking Matthew of Vendôme to receive Gilles's son Matthew into the Abbey of Saint-Denis. William was probably dead by 1282, since he did not testify at the inquiry for Louis's canonization. [13]
Works
Three sermon's preached by William are preserved. These were preached on 2 February 1273 at Saint-Leufroy [ fr ] and on 12 and 19 February at La Madeleine. They are found in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), MS lat. 16481. Pierre Daunou considered them poor sermons and not worth publishing. They are still unedited. In the Archives Nationales, carton J 1030, document no. 59 is the autograph of William's letter to his brother-in-law.
On the Life and Deeds of Louis, King of the Franks of Famous Memory, and on the Miracles That Declare His Sanctity, William's Latin biography of Louis IX, is preserved alongside Geoffrey of Beaulieu's in a single manuscript, BnF, MS lat. 13778, at folios 41v–64v. William's work was never as widely cited as Geoffrey's. It is also shorter and lacks chapter headings. Both works are hagiography, intended to demonstrate Louis's sainthood. Geoffrey's was the first and William's the second biography of Louis IX and both texts have often been printed together.
William wrote his work as a companion piece of Geoffrey's. He enumerated four areas where he intended to complete Geoffrey's biography: "the good days of [Louis's] rule", his imprisonment, his death and the miracles that had occurred at his tomb and through his intercession. It is in the first of these areas that William's biography is most interesting to modern historians. [19] In recounting the justness of Louis's administration—e.g., his suppression of private warfare and trial by battle—On the Life and Deeds reads at times like a mirror of princes. It is the only eyewitness account of Louis's captivity.
Like standard hagiographies of the time, On the Life and Deeds consists of two basic parts: the life (vita) proper and the miracles (miracula). Paragraphs 1–3 of contain metaphors comparing Louis to the sun among stars and the Biblical king Josiah. He also describes Geoffrey's biography and his own purpose and method. Paragraph 4 is a description of Louis's institution of an annual procession of the relic of the crown of thorns at Sainte-Chapelle. Paragraph 5 describes how the king kept the Sabbath (Sunday). Most of the remainder of the work keeps to the themes neglected by Geoffrey. Paragraphs 6–10 cover the Seventh Crusade and Louis's captivity in Egypt; Louis's government of France is covered in paragraphs 12–27; his illness and death in 37–42; and seventeen posthumous miracles in 43–60 (with an introductory paragraph and one paragraph per miracle). William breaks with his declared themes at paragraph 11, where he tells how Louis had predicted that he would become a Dominican, and paragraphs 28–36, which describe Louis's various acts of religious devotion: footwashing, fasting, almsgiving, caring for lepers, building hospitals for the poor and endowing friaries and churches.
William's seventeen miracles form the earliest collection of miracles attributed to Louis. All took place between October 1270 and August 1271. [23] William presents all the miracles as properly authenticated, usually dated, and apparently collected many of the accounts himself. He may have had access to the list of miracles kept at Saint-Denis by Thomas Hauxton on Philip III's orders. All seventeen recorded by William were later included in the Beatus Ludovicus , which assured them a wider audience than On the Life and Deeds received.
Alphonse or Alfonso was the count of Poitou from 1225 and count of Toulouse from 1249. As count of Toulouse, he also governed the Marquisate of Provence.
Louis IX, commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the death of his father Louis VIII. His mother, Blanche of Castile, ruled the kingdom as regent until he reached maturity, and then remained his valued adviser until her death. During Louis' childhood, Blanche dealt with the opposition of rebellious vassals and secured Capetian success in the Albigensian Crusade, which had started 20 years earlier.
Year 1270 (MCCLXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1270th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 270th year of the 2nd millennium, the 70th year of the 13th century, and the 1st year of the 1270s decade.
Philip III, called the Bold, was King of France from 1270 until his death in 1285. His father, Louis IX, died in Tunis during the Eighth Crusade. Philip, who was accompanying him, returned to France and was anointed king at Reims in 1271.
Louis VIII, nicknamed The Lion, was King of France from 1223 to 1226. As prince, he invaded England on 21 May 1216 and was excommunicated by a papal legate on 29 May 1216. On 2 June 1216, Louis was proclaimed "King of England" by rebellious barons in London, though never crowned. He soon seized half the English kingdom but was eventually defeated by the English and after the Treaty of Lambeth, was paid 10,000 marks, pledged never to invade England again, and was absolved of his excommunication.
The Eighth Crusade was the second Crusade launched by Louis IX of France, this one against the Hafsid dynasty in Tunisia in 1270. It is also known as the Crusade of Louis IX against Tunis or the Second Crusade of Louis. The Crusade did not see any significant fighting as King Louis died of dysentery shortly after arriving on the shores of Tunisia. The Treaty of Tunis was negotiated between the Crusaders and the Hafsids. No changes in territory occurred, though there were commercial and some political rights granted to the Christians. The latter withdrew back to Europe soon after.
Jean de Joinville was one of the great chroniclers of medieval France. He is most famous for writing the Life of Saint Louis, a biography of Louis IX of France that chronicled the Seventh Crusade.
The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was the first of the two Crusades led by Louis IX of France. Also known as the Crusade of Louis IX to the Holy Land, it aimed to reclaim the Holy Land by attacking Egypt, the main seat of Muslim power in the Near East. The Crusade initially met with success but ended in defeat, with most of the army – including the king – captured by the Muslims.
William of Villehardouin was the fourth prince of Achaea in Frankish Greece, from 1246 to 1278. The younger son of Prince Geoffrey I, he held the Barony of Kalamata in fief during the reign of his elder brother Geoffrey II. William ruled Achaea as regent for his brother during Geoffrey's military campaigns against the Greeks of Nicaea, who were the principal enemies of his overlord, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople Baldwin II. William succeeded his childless brother in the summer of 1246. Conflicts between Nicaea and Epirus enabled him to complete the conquest of the Morea in about three years. He captured Monemvasia and built three new fortresses, forcing two previously autonomous tribes, the Tzakones and Melingoi, into submission. He participated in the unsuccessful Egyptian crusade of Louis IX of France, who rewarded him with the right to issue currency in the style of French royal coins.
Amaury de Montfort, Lord of Montfort-l'Amaury, was the son of Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester and Alix de Montmorency, and the older brother of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester. Amaury inherited his father's French properties while his brother Simon inherited the English title of Earl of Leicester.
William I of Champlitte (1160s-1209) was a French knight who joined the Fourth Crusade and became the first prince of Achaea (1205–1209).
The Saintonge War was a feudal dynastic conflict that occurred between 1242 and 1243. It opposed Capetian forces supportive of King Louis IX's brother Alphonse, Count of Poitiers and those of Hugh X of Lusignan, Raymond VII of Toulouse and Henry III of England. The last hoped to regain the Angevin possessions lost during his father's reign. Saintonge is the region around Saintes in the centre-west of France and is the place where most of fighting occurred.
Two lavishly illustrated illuminated manuscript psalters are known as the Psalter of Saint Louis as they belonged to the canonized King Louis IX of France. They are now in Paris and Leiden, and are respectively good examples of French Gothic and English Romanesque illumination.
Geoffrey of Beaulieu, from Évreux in Normandy, was a French biographer.
Peter I of Alençon was the son of Louis IX of France and Margaret of Provence.
Louis of France was the eldest son of King Louis IX of France and his wife Margaret of Provence. As heir apparent to the throne, he served as regent for a brief period.
Milo of Nanteuil was a French cleric and crusader. He served as the provost of the cathedral of Reims from 1207 to 1217 and then as bishop Beauvais from 1218 until his death in September 1234.
Matthew of Vendôme was the abbot of Saint-Denis from 1258 until 1286 and one of the regents of France from 1270 until 1271.
Saint Louis is a 1996 biography of Louis IX of France by historian Jacques Le Goff. The book received positive reviews for its historical detail, and was awarded the 1996 Grand prix Gobert by the French Academy. It was also a best-seller.
The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages is a 2010 book by historian M. Cecilia Gaposchkin. Gaposchkin draws on hagiographical, visual, and narrative material, as well as little-used liturgical sources and sermons, to discuss the process by which Louis was canonized and made a saint in the eyes of a large public. The book was praised by other scholars.