Suger was a French abbot and statesman. He was a key advisor to king Louis VI and his son Louis VII, acting as his regent during the Second Crusade, with his writings remaining seminal texts for early twelfth-century Capetian history. His supervision of the rebuilding of the Basilica of Saint-Denis where he was abbot, was instrumental in the creation of Gothic architecture.

Louis VI, called the Fat or the Fighter, was King of the Franks from 1108 to 1137. Chronicles called him "King of Saint-Denis". Louis was the first member of the house of Capet to make a lasting contribution to centralizing the institutions of royal power. He spent almost all of his twenty-nine-year reign fighting either the "robber barons" who plagued Paris or the kings of England for their continental possession of Normandy. Nonetheless, Louis VI managed to reinforce his power considerably and became one of the first strong kings of France since the death of Charlemagne in 814.