This period between his first and second crusades (1254-1269) is the
real age of Saint Louis in the history of France. He imposed peace
between warring factions of his nobility by mere moral force, backed up
by something like an awakened public opinion. His nobles often chafed
under his unrelenting justice but never dared rebel. The most famous of
his settlements was the treaty of Paris, drawn up in May 1258 and
ratified in December 1259, by which the claims of Henry III. of England
were adjusted. Henry renounced absolutely Normandy, Anjou, Touraine,
Maine and Poitou, and received, on condition of recognizing Louis as
liege suzerain, all the fiefs and domains of the king of France in the
dioceses of Limoges, Cahors and Perigueux, and the expectation of
Saintonge south of the Charente, and Agenais, if they should fall to the
crown of France by the death of Alphonse of Poitiers. In addition, Louis
promised to provide Henry with sufficient money to maintain 500 knights
for two years. This treaty was very unpopular in France, since the king
surrendered a large part of France that Henry had not won; but Louis was
satisfied that the absolute sovereignty over the northern provinces more
than equalled the loss in the south. Historians still disagree as to its
wisdom. Louis made a similar compromise with the king of Aragon in the
treaty of Corbeil, 1258, whereby he gave up the claims of kings of
France to Roussillon and Barcelona, which went back to the conquest of
Charlemagne. The king of Aragon in his turn gave up his claims to part
of Provence and Languedoc, with the exception of Narbonne. Louis's
position was strikingly shown in 1264 when the English barons submitted
their attempt to bind Henry III. by the Provisions of Oxford to his
arbitration. His reply in the "Dit" or Mise of Amiens was a flat denial
of all the claims of the barons and failed to avert the civil war. Louis
was more successful in preventing feuds between his own nobles: between
the counts of Brittany and Champagne over the succession to Navarre; the
dauphin of Vienne (Guigues VII.) and Charles of Anjou; the count of
Burgundy and the count of Châlons; Henry of Luxemburg and the duke of
Lorraine with the count of Bar. Upon the whole he maintained peace with
his neighbours, although both Germany and England were torn with civil
wars. He reluctantly consented to sanction the conquest of Naples by his
brother, Charles, duke of Anjou, and it is possible that he yielded here
in the belief that it was a step toward another crusade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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