Saint Louis

Louis IX was born in 1214 and became king of France at twelve, in 1226, with his mother Blanche of Castile as regent. His friend and biographer Jean de Joinville remembered him sitting under an oak at Vincennes to hear anyone who brought a complaint. He reformed royal justice, fed many poor people at his table, founded hospitals, and built the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris to house the Crown of Thorns. In 1248 he led a crusade to Egypt, was captured at Mansurah in 1250 and ransomed, and stayed in the Holy Land until 1254. In 1270 he set out on a second crusade and died of disease in his camp near Tunis on 25 August. He was canonized in 1297.