Louis IX canonized by Boniface VIII

1297

Twenty-seven years after his death on crusade, the French king was formally declared a saint of the Roman church. The canonization bolstered Capetian prestige and gave Paris a new royal cult centered at the Sainte-Chapelle, which already housed the relic crown of thorns. The process of canonization, which examined Louis's life in meticulous detail, left behind a biographical record unmatched for any medieval monarch.