LOUIS VIII. (1187-1226), king of France, eldest son of Philip Augustus and of Isabella of Hainaut, was born in Paris on Sept. 5, 1187. Louis left the reputation of a saint, but was also a warrior prince. In 1213 he led the campaign against Ferrand, count of Flanders; in 1214, while Philip Augustus was winning the victory of Bouvines, he held John of England in check, and was victorious at La Roche-aux-Moines. In the autumn of 1215 Louis received from a group of English barons, headed by Geoffrey de Mandeville, a request to "pluck them out of the hand of this tyrant" (John). Louis himself prepared to invade England. The expedition was forbidden by the papal legate, but Louis landed. at Stonor on May 22, 1216. (See ENGLISH HISTORY.) The pre texts on which he claimed the English crown were set down in a memorandum drawn up by French lawyers in 1215. These claims—that John had forfeited the crown by the murder of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, and that the English barons had the right to dispose of the vacant throne—lost their plausibility on the death of King John and the accession of his infant son as Henry III. in October 1216. The papal legate, Gualo, arrived in England at the same time as Louis. He excommunicated the French troops and the English rebels, and, after the "Fair of Lincoln," in which his army was defeated, Louis resigned his pretensions, though by a secret article of the treaty of Lambeth (September 1217) he secured a small war indemnity.
Louis had assisted Simon de Montfort in his war against the Albigenses in 1215, and after his return to France he again joined the crusade. With Simon's son and successor, Amauri de Mont fort, he directed the brutal massacre which followed the capture of Marmande. Philip Augustus dying on July 14, 1223, Louis VIII. was anointed at Reims on Aug. 6. He continued his father's Viii. was anointed at Reims on Aug. 6. He continued his father's policy. His reign was taken up with two great designs : to destroy the power of the Plantagenets, and to conquer the heretical south of France. An expedition conquered Poitou and Saintonge (I ; in 1226 he led the crusade against the Albigenses in the south, forced Avignon to capitulate and received the submission of Languedoc. While passing the Auvergne on his return to Paris, he died at Montpensier on Nov. 8, 1226. His reign, short as it was, brought gains both to the royal domains and to the power of the crown over the feudal lords. He had married in 1200 Blanche of Castile, daughter of Alphonso IX. of Castile and
granddaughter of Henry II. of England, who bore him twelve children; his eldest surviving son was his successor, Louis IX.
See C. Petit-Dutaillis, Etude sur la vie et le regne de Louis VIII. (2894) ; and E. Lavisse, Histoire de France, tome iii. (1901).
At the end of 1244, during an illness, Louis took the cross. He had • already been much distressed by the plight of John of Brienne, emperor at Constantinople, and bought from him the crown of thorns, parts of the true cross, the holy lance and the holy sponge. The Sainte Chapelle in Paris still stands as a monument to the value of these relics to the saintly king. But the quarrel between the papacy and the emperor Frederick II., in which Louis maintained a watchful neutrality—only interfer ing to prevent the capture of Innocent IV., at Lyons—and the difficulties of preparation, delayed the embarkation until August 1248. His defeat and capture at Mansura, in February 125o, the next four years spent in Syria in captivity, in diplomatic intrigues, and finally in raising the fortifications of Caesarea and Joppa,—these events belong to the history of the crusades (q.v.). His return to France was urgently needed, as Blanche of Castile, whom he had left as regent, had died in November 1252, and upon the removal of her strong hand feudal turbulence had begun to show itself.