Louis VI (1 December 1081 – 1 August 1137), called the Fat (French: le Gros), was King of France from 1108 until his death (1137). Chronicles called him "roi de Saint-Denis". The first member of the House of Capet to make a lasting contribution to the centralizing institutions of royal power, Louis was born in Paris, the son of Philip I and his first wife, Bertha of Holland. Almost all of his twenty-nine-year reign was spent fighting either the "...
more
Louis VI (1 December 1081 – 1 August 1137), called the Fat (French: le Gros), was King of France from 1108 until his death (1137). Chronicles called him "roi de Saint-Denis". The first member of the House of Capet to make a lasting contribution to the centralizing institutions of royal power, Louis was born in Paris, the son of Philip I and his first wife, Bertha of Holland. Almost all of his twenty-nine-year reign was spent fighting either the "robber barons" who plagued Paris or the Norman 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 division of the Carolingian Empire. His biography by his constant advisor Abbot Suger of Saint Denis renders him a fully-rounded character to the historian, unlike most of his predecessors.
In his youth, Louis fought the duke of Normandy, Robert Curthose, and the lords of the royal demesne, the Île de France....
less
