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Conversion and St Louis's Last Crusade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2007

MICHAEL LOWER
MICHAEL LOWER
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Minnesota, 614 Social Sciences Building, 267–19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA; e-mail: mlower@umn.edu
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Abstract

Arguments as to why St Louis diverted his 1270 crusade to Tunis from Jerusalem have been raging ever since the expedition returned to France. Although historians have recently agreed that the diversion was the decision of Louis himself, this consensus has not led to exploration of his reasons for crusading to a north African port city. This essay argues that the diversion to Tunis is best understood in terms of Louis's ideas about conversion in general and his policy towards the Jews of his land in particular. The close parallels between Louis's Jewish policy and the Tunisian strategy suggest that these conversion policies led Louis to Tunis.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 211 - 231
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I would like to thank David Abulafia, Lianna Farber and Jonathan Riley-Smith for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this essay. I would also like to thank the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto for a travel grant that facilitated research in their library on this project.