The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages - Softcover

Gaposchkin, M. Cecilia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801476259 ISBN 13: 9780801476259

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Canonized in 1297 as Saint Louis, King Louis IX of France (r. 1226–1270) was one of the most important kings of medieval history and also one of the foremost saints of the later Middle Ages. As a saint, Louis became the centerpiece of an ideological program that buttressed the ongoing political consolidation of France and underscored Capetian claims of sacred kingship. M. Cecilia Gaposchkin reconstructs and analyzes the process that led to the monarch's canonization and the consolidation and spread of his cult.

Differing political and religious ideals produced competing images of the sanctity of Louis in late-thirteenth and early fourteenth-century France. Drawing on hagiography, sermons, and liturgical evidence―the latter a rich but little-explored historical source―Gaposchkin shows how various groups (including Dominicans, Cistercians, and Franciscans) and individuals (such as Philip the Fair and Joinville) used commemoration of the saint-king to sanctify their own politics and notions of identity and religious virtue. Louis' cult was disseminated to a wider, nonelite public through sermons in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and then revived by the Bourbon kings in the seventeenth century. In deepening our knowledge of this royal saint, this elegantly written book opens the curtain on the religious sensibilities and secular politics of a transitional period in European history.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"The Making of Saint Louis is one of the most important books on French history in years. It is a brilliant reconstruction and description of the way Louis IX was conceived as a saint in the two centuries after his death--I say brilliant and I mean it. M. Cecilia Gaposchkin exploits her sources with an admirable sophistication and mastery."--William Chester Jordan, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Princeton University

"The Making of Saint Louis is a fine new analysis of one of the most important dynastic cults of the Middle Ages. M. Cecilia Gaposchkin focuses on liturgical sources to provide a new picture of the evolution of the cult of Saint Louis, which is perhaps the most attractive crystallization point of the idea of Christian rulership."--Gábor Klaniczay, Collegium Budapest and Central European University

About the Author:

M. Cecilia Gaposchkin is Assistant Dean of Faculty for Pre-Major Advising and Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at Dartmouth College.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0801476259
• ISBN 13: 9780801476259
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352