Louis IX’s letter to the French of August 1250 (Part 1): a new edition and translation

Abstract

Louis IX’s letter to the French, written from Acre in 1250 upon the king’s decision to delay his return to France, is one of our key sources for the events of Louis’ crusade to Egypt in 1249-1250. The received text of the letter goes back to a mid-thirteenth-century manuscript (Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 22) in Jacques Bongars’ personal library, which he published in his Gesta Dei per Francos of 1611. A new edition and translation of the letter are occasioned by the availability of a second exemplum copied into Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 8865, dated very close to 1250 and based on a copy released for dissemination by Louis’ mother Blanche of Castile. The new edition is accompanied by an English translation.