The career of Louis I duke of Bourbon (c. 1280–1342), last surviving grandson of Louis IX in the male line, was primarily distinguished by his intimate engagement over a generation with plans for a new French crusade. While in recent years it has become customary to use the commitment of such individuals to illustrate the continued vibrancy of crusading, it is instructive to follow Maurice Keen's lead, when in pursuit of English fourteenth-century crusaders, and turn the lens the other way, back towards the social, cultural and political contexts of crusade policy and noble life in early fourteenth-century France. This culture can be analysed institutionally but also personally. Louis of Bourbon, prominent from the Flemish wars of the 1290s to those of the 1340s, reveals something of how, in this case, a grand prince of the blood operated, from political ambition, dynastic networking or cultural tastes to relationships with non-noble urban elites and wider political society; and how these circumstances framed an attachment to chivalric and pious causes such as the crusade.

Louis was the son of Robert, count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis (d. 1318), sixth son of Louis IX, an invalid since sustaining severe head injuries at a tournament in 1279. Knighted in 1297 prior to his first major campaign, Louis subsequently fought in Flanders in 1299, 1302 (some accusing him of running away from Courtrai) and 1304. He emerged fully as a political figure with clout in 1310 when he inherited the lordship of Bourbon in central France on the death of his mother (he inherited his father's county of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis in 1318) and was appointed chambrier of France. Although making the Bourbonnais the focus for his territorial ambition, Louis remained close to the royal court and politics, sustained by a capacity for business and his proximity to the crown in blood. His repeatedly proclaimed descent from Louis IX assumed increasing significance as the royal saint's reputation grew in seeming direct proportion to the thinning out of his descendents in the male line between 1314 and 1328. Louis, his brother John (d. 1316) and his aged father Robert were paraded at a cross-taking ceremony in July 1316, where Louis was first declared leader of the French crusade schemes.