Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498, the seventh from the House of Valois. He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13, his elder sister Anne acted as regent jointly with her husband Peter II, Duke of Bourbon until 1491 when the young king turned 21 years of age. During Anne's regency, the great lords rebelled against royal centralisation efforts in a conflict known as the Mad War, which resulted in a victory for the royal government. In a remarkable stroke of audacity, Charles married Anne of Brittany in 1491 after she had been married by proxy to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in a ceremony of questionable validity. Preoccupied by the problematic succession in the Kingdom of Hungary, Maximilian failed to press his claim. Upon his marriage, Charles became administrator of Brittany and established a personal union that enabled France to avoid total encirclement by Habsburg territories. To secure his rights to the Neapolitan throne that René of Anjou had left to his father, Charles made a series of concessions to neighbouring monarchs and conquered the Italian peninsula without much opposition.
A coalition formed against the French invasion of 1494-98 drove out Charles' army, but Italian Wars would dominate Western European politics for over 50 years. Charles died in 1498 after accidentally striking his head on the lintel of a door at the Château d'Amboise, his place of birth. Since he had no male heir, he was succeeded by his cousin Louis XII of France from the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois. Charles was born at the Château d'Amboise in France, the only surviving son of King Louis XI by his second wife Charlotte of Savoy, his godparents were Charles II, Duke of Bourbon, Joan of Valois, Duchess of Bourbon, the teenage Edward of Westminster, the son of Henry VI of England, living in France since the deposition of his father by Edward IV. Charles succeeded to the throne on 30 August 1483 at the age of 13, his health was poor. He was regarded by his contemporaries as possessing a pleasant disposition, but as foolish and unsuited for the business of the state. In accordance with the wishes of Louis XI, the regency of the kingdom was granted to Charles' elder sister Anne, a formidably intelligent and shrewd woman described by her father as "the least foolish woman in France."
She would rule as regent, together with her husband Peter of Bourbon, until 1491. Charles was betrothed on 22 July 1483 to the 3-year-old Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Mary, Duchess of Burgundy; the marriage was arranged by Louis XI, the Estates of the Low Countries as part of the 1482 Peace of Arras between France and the Duchy of Burgundy. Margaret brought the Counties of Artois and Burgundy to France as her dowry, she was raised in the French court as a prospective Queen consort. In 1488, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, died in a riding accident, leaving his 11-year-old daughter Anne as his heir. Anne, who feared for the independence of her duchy against the ambitions of France, arranged a marriage in 1490 between herself and the widower Maximilian, thus making Anne a stepmother to Margaret of Austria; the regent Anne of France and her husband Peter refused to countenance such a marriage, since it would place Maximilian and his family, the Habsburgs, on two French borders.
The French army invaded Brittany, taking advantage of the preoccupation of Frederick III and his son with the disputed succession to Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary. Anne of Brittany was forced to agree to be married to Charles VIII instead. In December 1491, in an elaborate ceremony at the Château de Langeais and Anne of Brittany were married; the 14-year-old Duchess Anne, not happy with the arranged marriage, arrived for her wedding with her entourage carrying two beds. However, Charles's marriage brought him independence from his relatives and thereafter he managed affairs according to his own inclinations. Queen Anne lived at the Clos Lucé in Amboise. There still remained the matter of the young Margaret of Austria. Although the cancellation of her betrothal meant that she by rights should have been returned to her family, Charles did not do so, intending to marry her usefully elsewhere in France, it was a difficult situation for Margaret, who informed her father in her letters that she was so determined to escape that she would flee Paris in her nightgown if it gave her freedom.
In 1493, she was returned to her family, together with her dowry – though the Duchy of Burgundy was retained in the Treaty of Senlis. Around the king there was a circle of court poets, the most memorable being the Italian humanist Publio Fausto Andrelini from Forlì, who spread the New Learning in France. During a pilgrimage to pay respects to his father's remains, Charles observed Mont Aiguille and ordered Antoine de Ville to ascend to the summit in an early technical alpine climb alluded to by Rabelais. To secure France against invasions, Charles made treaties with Maximilian I of Austria and England, buying their neutrality with large concessions; the English monarch Henry VII had forced Charles to abandon his support for the pretender Perkin Warbeck by despatching an expedition which laid siege to Boulogne. He devoted France's resources to building up a large army, including one of Europe's first siege trains with artillery. In 1489, Pope Innocent VIII being at odds with Ferdi
Sacred architecture
Sacred architecture is a religious architectural practice concerned with the design and construction of places of worship or sacred or intentional space, such as churches, stupas and temples. Many cultures devoted considerable resources to places of worship. Religious and sacred spaces are amongst the most impressive and permanent monolithic buildings created by humanity. Conversely, sacred architecture as a locale for meta-intimacy may be non-monolithic and intensely private and non-public. Sacred and holy structures evolved over centuries and were the largest buildings in the world, prior to the modern skyscraper. While the various styles employed in sacred architecture sometimes reflected trends in other structures, these styles remained unique from the contemporary architecture used in other structures. With the rise of Abrahamic monotheisms, religious buildings became centres of worship and meditation; the Western scholarly discipline of the history of architecture itself follows the history of religious architecture from ancient times until the Baroque period, at least.
Sacred geometry and the use of sophisticated semiotics such as signs and religious motifs are endemic to sacred architecture. Sacred or religious architecture is sometimes called sacred space. Architect Norman L. Koonce has suggested that the goal of sacred architecture is to make "transparent the boundary between matter and mind and the spirit." In discussing sacred architecture, Protestant minister Robert Schuller suggested that "to be psychologically healthy, human beings need to experience their natural setting—the setting we were designed for, the garden." Meanwhile, Richard Kieckhefer suggests that entering into a religious building is a metaphor for entering into spiritual relationship. Kieckhefer suggests that sacred space can be analyzed by three factors affecting spiritual process: longitudinal space emphasizes the procession and return of sacramental acts, auditorium space is suggestive of proclamation and response, new forms of communal space designed for gathering and return depend to a great degree on minimized scale to enhance intimacy and participation in worship.
Sacred architecture spans a number of ancient architectural styles including Neolithic architecture, ancient Egyptian architecture and Sumerian architecture. Ancient religious buildings temples, were viewed as the dwelling place, the temenos, of the gods and were used as the site of various kinds of sacrifice. Ancient tombs and burial structures are examples of architectural structures reflecting religious beliefs of their various societies; the Temple of Karnak at Thebes, Egypt was constructed across a period of 1300 years and its numerous temples comprise what may be the largest religious structure built. Ancient Egyptian religious architecture has fascinated archaeologists and captured the public imagination for millennia. Around 600 BCE the wooden columns of the Temple of Hera at Olympia were replaced by stone columns. With the spread of this process to other sanctuary structures a few stone buildings have survived through the ages. Greek architecture preceded Roman periods. Since temples are the only buildings which survive in numbers, most of our concept of classical architecture is based on religious structures.
The Parthenon which served as a treasury building as well as a place for veneration of deity, is regarded as the greatest example of classical architecture. Indian architecture is related to the history and religions of the time periods as well as to the geography and geology of the Indian subcontinent. India was crisscrossed by trading routes of merchants from as far away as Siraf and China as well as weathering invasions by foreigners, resulting in multiple influences of foreign elements on native styles; the diversity of Indian culture is represented in its architecture. Indian architecture comprises a blend of ancient and varied native traditions, with building types and technologies from West, Central Asia, Europe. Buddhist architecture developed in South Asia beginning in the third century BCE. Two types of structures are associated with early Buddhism: stupas. Viharas were temporary shelters used by wandering monks during the rainy season, but these structures developed to accommodate the growing and formalized Buddhist monasticism.
An existing example is at Nalanda. The initial function of the stupa was the safe-guarding of the relics of the Buddha; the earliest existing example of a stupa is in Sanchi. In accordance with changes in religious practice, stupas were incorporated into chaitya-grihas; these reached their highpoint in the first century BCE, exemplified by the cave complexes of Ajanta and Ellora. The pagoda is an evolution of the Indian stupa, marked by a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in China, Korea and other parts of Asia. Buddhist temples were developed rather and outside South Asia, where Buddhism declined from the early centuries CE onwards, though an early example is that of the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya in Bihar; the architectural structure of the stupa spread across Asia, taking on many diverse forms as details specific to different regions were incorporated into the overall design. It was spread to China and the Asian region by Araniko, a Nepali architect in the early 13th century for Kublai Khan.
Hindu temple architecture is based on Sthapatya Veda and many other ancient religio
Archibald Douglas, 4th Earl of Douglas
Archibald Douglas, Duke of Touraine, Earl of Douglas, Earl of Wigtown, Lord of Annandale, Lord of Galloway, Lord of Bothwell, 13th Lord of Douglas, was a Scottish nobleman and warlord. He is sometimes given the epithet "Tyneman", but this may be a reference to his great-uncle Sir Archibald Douglas; the eldest legitimate son of Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas and Joanna de Moravia of Bothwell, he was born either at Threave Castle or at Bothwell Castle c.1372 and was known as the Master of Douglas until his accession. By 1390 he had married the Princess Margaret of a daughter of King Robert III of Scotland. Around this time, his father bestowed upon him the regalities of the Ettrick Forest and Romannobridge, Peeblesshire. On 4 June 1400, King Robert appointed him Keeper of Edinburgh Castle for life, on a pension of 200 merks a year. At Candlemas 1400 George I, Earl of March and Henry'Hotspur' Percy had entered Scotland and laid waste as far as Papple in East Lothian; the villages of Traprain and Hailes were burnt and two unsuccessful attempts were made to invest Hailes Castle.
The Master of Douglas, who held the office of Lord Warden of the Marches, surprised them by night at their camp near East Linton and defeated the English Force. The Douglases chased the enemy away as far as Berwick upon Tweed, slaughtering many stragglers in the woods near Cockburnspath; that summer Douglas was second in command to David Stewart, Duke of Rothesay, the lieutenant of the Kingdom, during the siege of Edinburgh Castle by Henry IV. Henry was unsuccessful in his endeavours and with Owain Glyndŵr's rebellion gathering apace in Wales, he became the last English monarch to invade Scotland in person. Archibald, the 3rd Earl died at Christmas 1400, the new 4th Earl became the largest and most powerful magnate in the realm, his father's vast lordships stretched from Galloway Douglasdale, Clydesdale to the shires of Stirling and Selkirk. These were augmented by the forfeited lands of the Earl of Dunbar in the Merse. In 1402 Douglas' brother-in-law, the heir to the throne, David Stewart, Duke of Rothesay was held in close arrest, first at the Bishop's Palace at St Andrews at the Royal Palace of Falkland.
At Falkland, Duke David died on 27 March, in. The Duke was 24 years old and in good health prior to his arrest, rumours abounded that he had been starved to death in Falkland's pit prison. Prince David had been arrested under a warrant issued in the name of his father the decrepit Robert III, by his uncle, Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany and Douglas. Both Albany and Douglas, were rumoured to have been the authors of any foul play suspected; this can be shewn by the fact. However, on 16 March, both men were acquitted when Parliament passed an act stating that the Prince had: "departed this life through Divine Providence, not otherwise", clearing both of High Treason, any other crime, forbidding any of the King's subjects to make the slightest imputation on their fame; this can be considered a whitewash, as the Kingdom of Scots could not afford to lose its two most powerful men due to renewed English hostility. Douglas and Albany were considered to be the only fit antidote to the traitorous Earl of March and his English allies.
On 22 June the same year, a small Scots force was beaten by George Dunbar, the Earl of March's son, at the Battle of Nesbit Moor. Douglas led a punitive raid with Murdoch of Fife, Albany's son, as far as Newcastle to avenge the battle. At the head of 10,000 men he laid waste to the whole of Northumberland. March persuaded Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, his son Harry "Hotspur" Percy to lie in wait for the returning Scots at Wooler. Once Douglas' men had made camp at Millfield low ground, the English army rushed to attack; the Scots did however have keen sentries and the army was able to retreat to the higher ground of Homildon hill, organised into traditional Schiltron formations. Douglas had not learnt the lessons that had defeated his great uncle at the Battle of Halidon Hill seventy years previously; the Schiltrons presented a large target for the English Longbowmen, the formations started to break. A hundred men, under Sir John Swinton of the Swintons of that Ilk, chose to charge the enemy saying: "Better to die in the mellay than be shot down like deer".
All perished. It has been suggested that Douglas hesitated to signal the advance of his main force, when he did, it was too little too late. Douglas' mauled army met the as yet unbloodied English men at arms, were routed. Many of Douglas' leading captains were captured, including his kinsman George Douglas, 1st Earl of Angus, Thomas Dunbar, 5th Earl of Moray and Murdoch of Fife. Douglas himself was captured having been wounded five times, including the loss of an eye; this wounding was despite the fact that it is alleged Douglas' armour had taken three years in its construction. If the Percys and the other English knights thought they had gained great immediate riches from ransoms, they were to be disappointed, they received a message from King Henry congratulating them their victory but forbidding the release of any of their prisoners. By 1403, Hotspur was in open rebellion against his King, joining with his kinsman Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, whilst Owain Glyndŵr, was undertaking a campaign against English rule in Wales.
Hotspur set free his Scots captives and Douglas with his co-prisoners decided to fight alongside their former captors. In the chivalric spirit of the time, Douglas marched with his former enemy Hotspur, his forces to the meet with King Henry IV at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Fighting on the English king's side was George
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style that flourished in Europe during the High and Late Middle Ages. It was succeeded by Renaissance architecture. Originating in 12th-century France, it was used for cathedrals and churches, until the 16th century, its most prominent features included the use of the rib vault and the flying buttress, which allowed the weight of the roof to be counterbalanced by buttresses outside the building, giving greater height and more space for windows. Another important feature was the extensive use of stained glass, the rose window, to bring light and color to the interior. Another feature was the use of realistic statuary on the exterior over the portals, to illustrate biblical stories for the illiterate parishioners; these technologies had all existed in Romanesque architecture, but they were used in more innovative ways and more extensively in Gothic architecture to make buildings taller and stronger. The first notable example is considered to be the Abbey of Saint-Denis, near Paris, whose choir and facade were reconstructed with Gothic features.
The choir was completed in 1144. The style appeared in some civic architecture in northern Europe, notably in town halls and university buildings. A Gothic revival began in mid-18th-century England, spread through 19th century Europe and continued for ecclesiastical and university structures, into the 20th century. Gothic architecture was known during the period as opus francigenum, The term "Gothic architecture" originated in the 16th century, was very negative, suggesting barbaric. Giorgio Vasari used the term "barbarous German style" in his 1550 Lives of the Artists to describe what is now considered the Gothic style, in the introduction to the Lives he attributed various architectural features to "the Goths" whom he held responsible for destroying the ancient buildings after they conquered Rome, erecting new ones in this style; the Gothic style originated in the Ile-de-France region of northern France in the first half of the 12th century. A new dynasty of French Kings, the Capetians, had subdued the feudal lords, had become the most powerful rulers in France, with their capital in Paris.
They allied themselves with the bishops of the major cities of northern France, reduced the power of the feudal abbots and monasteries. Their rise coincided with an enormous growth of the population and prosperity of the cities of northern France; the Capetian Kings and their bishops wished to build new cathedrals as monuments of their power and religious faith. The church which served as the primary model for the style was the Abbey of St-Denis, which underwent reconstruction by the Abbot Suger, first in the choir and the facade, Suger was a close ally and biographer of the French King, Louis VII, a fervent Catholic and builder, the founder of the University of Paris. Suger remodeled the ambulatory of the Abbey, removed the enclosures that separated the chapels, replaced the existing structure with imposing pillars and rib vaults; this created higher and wider bays, into which he installed larger windows, which filled the end of the church with light. Soon afterwards he rebuilt the facade, adding three deep portals, each with a tympanum, an arch filled with sculpture illustrating biblical stories.
The new facade was flanked by two towers. He installed a small circular rose window over the central portal; this design became the prototype for a series of new French cathedrals. Sens Cathedral was the first Cathedral to be built in the new style. Other versions of the new style soon appeared in Noyon Cathedral; the Gothic style was adapted by some French monastic orders, notably the Cistercian order under Saint Bernard of Clairvaux It was used in an austere form without ornament at the new Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay and the church of Clairvaux Abbey, whose site is now occupied by a French prison. The new style was copied outside the Kingdom of France in the Duchy of Normandy. Early examples of Norman Gothic included Coutances Cathedral. Through the rule of the Angevin dynasty, the new style was introduced to England and spread from there to Low Countries, Spain, northern Italy and Sicily; the Gothic style did not replace the Romanesque everywhere in Europe. The Late Romanesque continued to flourish in the Holy Roman Empire under the Hohenstaufens and Rhineland.
From the end of the 12th century until the middle of the 13th century, the gothic style spread from the Île-de-France to appear in other cities of northern France. New structures in the style included Chartres Cathedral; the early type of rib vault used of Saint Denis and Notre Dame, with six parts, was modified to four parts, making it simpler and stronger. Amiens and Chartres were among the first to use the flying buttress. At Reims, the buttresses were given greater weight and strength by the addition of heavy stone pinnacles on top; these were decorated with statues of ange
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this date being the most held. In the 12th century it developed into the Gothic style, marked by pointed arches. Examples of Romanesque architecture can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture; the Romanesque style in England is traditionally referred to as Norman architecture. Combining features of ancient Roman and Byzantine buildings and other local traditions, Romanesque architecture is known by its massive quality, thick walls, round arches, sturdy pillars, barrel vaults, large towers and decorative arcading; each building has defined forms of regular, symmetrical plan. The style can be identified right across Europe, despite regional characteristics and different materials. Many castles were built during this period, but they are outnumbered by churches.
The most significant are the great abbey churches, many of which are still standing, more or less complete and in use. The enormous quantity of churches built in the Romanesque period was succeeded by the still busier period of Gothic architecture, which or rebuilt most Romanesque churches in prosperous areas like England and Portugal; the largest groups of Romanesque survivors are in areas that were less prosperous in subsequent periods, including parts of southern France, rural Spain and rural Italy. Survivals of unfortified Romanesque secular houses and palaces, the domestic quarters of monasteries are far rarer, but these used and adapted the features found in church buildings, on a domestic scale. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "Romanesque" means "descended from Roman" and was first used in English to designate what are now called Romance languages; the French term "romane" was first used in the architectural sense by archaeologist Charles de Gerville in a letter of 18 December 1818 to Auguste Le Prévost to describe what Gerville sees as a debased Roman architecture.
In 1824 Gerville's friend Arcisse de Caumont adopted the label "roman" to describe the "degraded" European architecture from the 5th to the 13th centuries, in his Essai sur l'architecture religieuse du moyen-âge, particulièrement en Normandie, at a time when the actual dates of many of the buildings so described had not been ascertained: The name Roman we give to this architecture, which should be universal as it is the same everywhere with slight local differences has the merit of indicating its origin and is not new since it is used to describe the language of the same period. Romance language is degenerated Latin language. Romanesque architecture is debased Roman architecture; the first use in a published work is in William Gunn's An Inquiry into the Origin and Influence of Gothic Architecture. The word was used by Gunn to describe the style, identifiably Medieval and prefigured the Gothic, yet maintained the rounded Roman arch and thus appeared to be a continuation of the Roman tradition of building.
The term is now used for the more restricted period from the late 10th to 12th centuries. The term "Pre-romanesque" is sometimes applied to architecture in Germany of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods and Visigothic and Asturian constructions between the 8th and the 10th centuries in the Iberian Peninsula while "First Romanesque" is applied to buildings in north of Italy and Spain and parts of France that have Romanesque features but pre-date the influence of the Abbey of Cluny. Typical Romanesque architectural forms Buildings of every type were constructed in the Romanesque style, with evidence remaining of simple domestic buildings, elegant town houses, grand palaces, commercial premises, civic buildings, city walls, village churches, abbey churches, abbey complexes and large cathedrals. Of these types of buildings and commercial buildings are the most rare, with only a handful of survivors in the United Kingdom, several clusters in France, isolated buildings across Europe and by far the largest number unidentified and altered over the centuries, in Italy.
Many castles exist, the foundations of. Most have been altered, many are in ruins. By far the greatest number of surviving Romanesque buildings are churches; these range from tiny chapels to large cathedrals. Although many have been extended and altered in different styles, a large number remain either intact or sympathetically restored, demonstrating the form and decoration of Romanesque church architecture; the scope of Romanesque architecture Romanesque architecture was the first distinctive style to spread across Europe since the Roman Empire. With the decline of Rome, Roman building methods survived to an extent in Western Europe, where successive Merovingian and Ottonian architects continued to build large stone buildings such as monastery churches and palaces. In the more northern countries, Roman building styles and techniques had never been adopted except for official buildings, while in Scandinavia they were unknown. Although the round arch continued in use, the engineering skills required to vault large spaces and build large domes were lost.
There was a loss of stylistic continuity apparent in the decline of the formal vocabulary of the Classical Orders. In Rome several great Constantinian basilicas continued in use as an inspiration to builders; some traditions of Rom
Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of the area, referred to as Gaul by the Romans. He was born Georgius Florentius and added the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather, he is the primary contemporary source for Merovingian history. His most notable work was his Decem Libri Historiarum, better known as the Historia Francorum, a title that chroniclers gave to it, but he is known for his accounts of the miracles of saints four books of the miracles of Martin of Tours. St. Martin's tomb was a major pilgrimage destination in the 6th century, St. Gregory's writings had the practical effect of promoting this organized devotion. Gregory was born in the Auvergne region of central Gaul, he was born into the upper stratum of Gallo-Roman society as the son of Florentius, Senator of Clermont, by his wife Armentaria II, niece of Bishop Nicetius of Lyons and granddaughter of both Florentinus, Senator of Geneva, Saint Gregory of Langres.
Gregory had several noted bishops and saints as close relatives, according to Gregory, he was connected to thirteen of the eighteen bishops of Tours preceding him by ties of kinship. Gregory's paternal grandmother, descended from Vettius Epagatus, the illustrious martyr of Lyons, his father evidently died while Gregory was young and his widowed mother moved to Burgundy where she had property. Gregory went to live with his paternal uncle St. Gallus, Bishop of Clermont), under whom, his successor St. Avitus, Gregory had his education. Gregory received the clerical tonsure from Gallus. Having contracted a serious illness, he made a visit of devotion to the tomb of St. Martin at Tours. Upon his recovery, he was ordained deacon by Avitus. Upon the death of St. Euphronius, he was chosen as bishop by the clergy and people, charmed with his piety and humility, their deputies overtook him at the court of King Sigebert of Austrasia, being compelled to acquiesce, though much against his will, Gregory was consecrated by Giles, Bishop of Rheims, on 22 August 573, at the age of thirty-four.
He spent most of his career at Tours, although he assisted at the council of Paris in 577. The rough world he lived in was on the cusp of the dying world of Antiquity and the new culture of early medieval Europe. Gregory lived on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Gallo-Roman culture of the south of Gaul. At Tours, Gregory could not have been better placed to hear everything and meet everyone of influence in Merovingian culture. Tours lay on the watery highway of the navigable Loire. Five Roman roads radiated from Tours, which lay on the main thoroughfare between the Frankish north and Aquitania, with Spain beyond. At Tours the Frankish influences of the north and the Gallo-Roman influences of the south had their chief contact; as the center for the popular cult of St Martin, Tours was a pilgrimage site, a political sanctuary to which important leaders fled during periods of violence and turmoil in Merovingian politics. Gregory struggled through personal relations with four Frankish kings, Sigebert I, Chilperic I, Childebert II and he knew most of the leading Franks.
Gregory wrote in Late Latin which departed from classical usage in syntax and spelling with few changes in inflection. The Historia Francorum is in ten books. Books I to IV recount the world's history from the Creation but move to the Christianization of Gaul, the life and times of Saint Martin of Tours, the conversion of the Franks and the conquest of Gaul under Clovis, the more detailed history of the Frankish kings down to the death of Sigebert I in 575. At this date Gregory had been bishop of Tours for two years; the second part, books V and VI, closes with Chilperic I's death in 584. During the years that Chilperic held Tours, relations between him and Gregory were tense. After hearing rumours that the Bishop of Tours had slandered his wife, Chilperic had Gregory arrested and tried for treason—a charge which threatened both Gregory's bishopric and his life; the most eloquent passage in the Historia is the closing chapter of book VI, in which Chilperic's character is summed up unsympathetically through the use of an invective.
The third part, comprising books VII to X, takes his personal account to the year 591. An epilogue was written in 594, the year of Gregory's death. Readers of the Historia Francorum must decide whether this is a royal history and whether Gregory was writing to please his patrons, it is that one royal Frankish house is more generously treated than others. Gregory was a Catholic bishop, his writing reveals views typical of someone in his position, his views on perceived dangers of Arianism led him to preface the Historia with a detailed expression of his orthodoxy on the nature of Christ. In addition, his ridiculing of pagans and Jews reflected how his works were used to spread the Christian faith. For example, in book 2, chapters 28-31, he describes the pagans as incestuous and weak and describes the process by which newly converted King Clovis leads a much better life than that of a pagan and is healed of all the conundrums he experienced as a pagan. Gregory's education was the standard Latin one of Late Antiquity, focusing on Virgil's Aeneid and Martianus Capella's Liber de Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, but other key texts such as Orosius' Chronicle
Louis VII of France
Louis VII, called the Younger or the Young, was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180, the sixth from the House of Capet. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI, hence his nickname, married Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe; the marriage temporarily extended the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees, but was annulled in 1152 after no male heir was produced. After the annulment of her marriage, Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, to whom she conveyed Aquitaine and produced five male heirs; when Henry became King of England in 1154, as Henry II, he ruled as king, duke or count over a large empire of kingdoms and counties that spanned from Scotland to the Pyrenees. Henry's efforts to preserve and expand on this patrimony for the Crown of England would mark the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England. Louis VII's reign saw the founding of the disastrous Second Crusade. Louis and his famous counselor, Abbot Suger, pushed for a greater centralization of the state and favoured the development of French Gothic architecture, notably the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris.
He died in 1180 and was succeeded by his son Philip II. Louis was born in the second son of Louis VI of France and Adelaide of Maurienne; the early education of Prince Louis anticipated an ecclesiastical career. As a result, he became well-learned and exceptionally devout, but his life course changed decisively after the accidental death of his older brother Philip in 1131, when he unexpectedly became the heir to the throne of France. In October 1131, his father had him crowned by Pope Innocent II in Reims Cathedral, he spent much of his youth in Saint-Denis, where he built a friendship with the Abbot Suger, an advisor to his father who served Louis well during his early years as king. Following the death of Duke William X of Aquitaine, Louis VI moved to have his son married to the newly ascended Duchess Eleanor, William X's successor, on 25 July 1137. In this way, Louis VI sought to add the large, sprawling territory of the duchy of Aquitaine to his family's holdings in France. On 1 August 1137, shortly after the marriage, Louis VI died, Louis VII became king.
The pairing of the monkish Louis and the high-spirited Eleanor was doomed to failure. There was a marked difference between the frosty, reserved culture of the northern court in the Íle de France, where Louis had been raised, the rich, free-wheeling court life of the Aquitaine with which Eleanor was familiar. Louis and Eleanor had two daughters and Alix. In the first part of his reign, Louis VII was zealous in his prerogatives, his accession was marked by no disturbances other than uprisings by the burgesses of Orléans and Poitiers, who wished to organise communes. He soon came into violent conflict with Pope Innocent II, when the archbishopric of Bourges became vacant; the king supported the chancellor Cadurc as a candidate to fill the vacancy against the pope's nominee Pierre de la Chatre, swearing upon relics that so long as he lived, Pierre should never enter Bourges. The pope thus imposed an interdict upon the king. Louis VII became involved in a war with Theobald II of Champagne by permitting Raoul I of Vermandois, the seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife, Theobald II's niece, to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of the queen of France.
As a result, Champagne decided to side with the pope in the dispute over Bourges. The war ended with the occupation of Champagne by the royal army. Louis VII was involved in the assault and burning of the town of Vitry-le-François. At least 1500 people who had sought refuge in the church died in the flames. Overcome with guilt and humiliated by ecclesiastical reproach, Louis admitted defeat, removed his armies from Champagne and returned them to Theobald, he shunned Raoul and Petronilla. Desiring to atone for his sins, he declared his intention of mounting a crusade on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges. Bernard of Clairvaux assured its popularity by his preaching at Vezelay on Easter 1146. In the meantime, Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, completed his conquest of Normandy in 1144. In exchange for being recognised as Duke of Normandy by Louis, Geoffrey surrendered half of the county of Vexin — a region vital to Norman security — to Louis. Considered a clever move by Louis at the time, it would prove yet another step towards Angevin rule.
In June 1147, in fulfillment of his vow to mount the Second Crusade, Louis VII and his queen set out from the Basilica of St Denis, first stopping in Metz on the overland route to Syria. Soon they arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary, where they were welcomed by the king Géza II of Hungary, waiting with King Conrad III of Germany. Due to his good relationships with Louis VII, Géza II asked the French king to be his son Stephen's baptism godfather. Relations between the kingdoms of France and Hungary continued to remain cordial long after this time: decades Louis's daughter Margaret was taken as wife by Géza's son Béla III of Hungary. After receiving provisions from Géza, the armies continued the march to the East. Just beyond Laodicea, the French army was ambushed by Turks; the French were bombarded by arrows and heavy stones, the Turks swarmed down from the mountains. A massacre began; the historian Odo of Deuil reported: During the fighting the King Louis lost his small and famous royal guard, but he remained in good heart and nimbly and courageously scaled the si
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