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m. 28 Mar 1115
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m. 22 Jul 1137
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m. 1154
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m. 13 Nov 1160
Facts and Events
Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger, or the Young, was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI (hence the epithet "the Young") and 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. During Louis VII's march in the Second Crusade in 1147, he stayed at the court of King Géza II of Hungary on the way to Jerusalem. During his stay in the Holy Land disagreements with his wife led to a deterioration in their marriage. She persuaded him to stay in Antioch but he instead wanted to fulfil his vows to journey in pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was later involved in the failed siege of Damascus and eventually returned to France in 1149. His marriage was annulled in 1152 after no male heir was produced. Immediately after the annulment, 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, he ruled a string of territories stretching from Scotland to the Pyrenees. Henry's efforts to preserve and expand on this patrimony for the Crown of England marked the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England. Louis VII later supported Henry II's rebellious sons to further disunity in the Angevin realms. Louis VII later re-married to Constance of Castile, daughter of King Alfonso VII of Castile but still failed to have a male heir. His reign saw the founding of the University of Paris. He and his counsellor Abbot Suger, pushed for greater centralisation 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, from his third wife.
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