them; but the title "Father of the Communes" by which he was known in history is not deserved, though he did grant some privileges to towns on his domains. Neither was Louis the author of the movement for the emancipation of the serfs, as was formerly claimed. His attitude toward the movement was like that of his predecessors and contemporaries, to favour emancipation when it promised greater chance of profit, greater scope for exploitation of the peasants; otherwise to oppose it. He was a great benefactor to the church, aided the new, reformed monastic congregations of Cîteau, Prémontré and Fontevrault, and chose his two chief ministers from the clergy. Étienne de Garlande, whom Louis raised from obscurity to be archdeacon of Notre Dame at Paris, chancellor and seneschal of France, was all-powerful with the king from 1108 to 1127. His relatives monopolized the highest offices of the state. But the queen Adelaide became his enemy; both Ivo of Chartres and St Bernard bitterly attacked him; and the king suddenly stripped him of all his offices and honours. Joining the rebellious barons, Étienne then led a bitter war against the king for three years. When Louis had reduced him to terms he pardoned him and restored him to the chancellorship (1132), but not to his old power. Suger (q.v.), administrator of St Denis, enters the scene toward the close of this reign, but his great work belongs to the next. Louis VI. died on the 1st of August 1137, just a few days after his son, Louis the Young, had set out for the far south-west, the Aquitaine which had been won by the marriage with Eleanor. His wife was Adelaide, or Alice, daughter of Humbert II., count of Savoy, by whom he had seven sons and a daughter. See A. Luchaire, _Louis le Gros, annales de sa vie et son règne_ (1890), and the same writer's volume, _Les Premiers Capétiens_, in E. Lavisse's _Histoire de France._ (J. T. S.*)