Louis VII , 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 his nickname, 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, but was annulled in 1152 after no male heir was produced.
Immediately after the annulment of her marriage, 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, as Henry II, he ruled as king, duke or count over a large empire of kingdoms, duchies and counties that spanned from Scotland to the Pyrenees. Henry's efforts to preserve and expand on this patrimony for the Crown of England would mark the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England.
Louis VII's reign saw the founding of the University of Paris and the disastrous Second Crusade. Louis and his famous counselor, Abbot Suger, pushed for a greater centralization 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.
Wikipedia
“Now in Ireland, now in England, now in Normandy — he must fly rather than go by horse or ship.”
On his enemy, King Henry II of England.
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