THE REIGN OF LOUIS VIII

WHEN he came to the throne in 1223 Louis VIII was confronted immediately with the need to secure the western territories which his father Philip Augustus had conquered from the English and to decide on a course of action with regard to the failing Albigensian Crusade. The first necessitated that he renew truces with barons who possessed fiefs on the March between French- and English-dominated territories in the south-west, including the count of La Marche, Hugues de Lusignan, and his wife Isabelle, the countess of Angoulême. Isabelle was also the widow of King John of England and the mother of the reigning king, Henry III. An alliance between Hugues, the most powerful baron in Poitou, and King Henry might have been expected except that the new French king tempted the count’s wife with the possibility of compensation for the valuable lands once promised to her as her marriage gift by John, but conquered by Philip Augustus. Although Louis VIII’s successful appeal to the self-interest of Hugues and Isabelle only briefly and tentatively secured their support, it deprived England of needed backing when the truce between the two kingdoms broke down and war resumed on 5 May 1224.

Louis pursued the war vigorously. By 15 July French troops under his command were besieging La Rochelle, although a quarrel with the count palatine of Champagne, Thibaut IV, over the wisdom of the siege threatened to undermine the French effort. The dispute between Louis and Thibaut was the latest of a series. Earlier differences about Jewish policy had already soured relations. On 1 November 1223 as his first major act of state Louis had issued an ordinance that prohibited his officials from recording debts owed to Jews and from allowing royal offices to be used for striking deals between potential debtors (Christians) and potential creditors (Jewish).