Title: Saint Louis
First published: 1996
Description: "Armed with the considerable resources of the nouvel historien, Jacques Le Goff mines existing materials about Saint Louis to forge a new historical biography of the king. Part of his ambitious project is to reconstruct the mental universe of the thirteenth century: Le Goff describes the scholastic and intellectual background of Louis' reign and, most importantly, he discusses methodology and the interpretation of written sources - their composition, provenance, and reliability." "Questioning whether Saint Louis was merely the invention of his eulogists, Le Goff penetrates beyond the literary and hagiographical evidence to the human behind the legend. He brilliantly analyzes Louis' progress toward his unique self-creation and its subsequent mythologizing. In the third part, Le Goff highlights the contradictions within Louis and his historical image that previous chroniclers have elided or overlooked. In the end, he leaves us with the saint, rather than the king, with all the paradoxes embedded in that role."--Jacket.
Subjects: Biography, Christian saints, Kings and rulers, Louis ix, king of france, 1214-1270, Saints, biography, France, biography
Places: France
People: Louis IX King of France (1214-1270)