Death of Louis IX in Tunis

Timeline

1. 1270Aigues-Mortes · LanguedocOn 1 July 1270 King Louis IX of France set sail from the Mediterranean port of Aigues-Mortes with a large crusader army, bound for Tunis. Louis hoped both that the ruler of Tunis would convert to Christianity, paving the way for a later attack on Egypt, and, at the request of his brother Charles of Anjou, to strengthen Angevin interests in Sicily and southern Italy.
2. 1270Carthage (Tunisian coast) · TunisiaIn mid-July 1270 the crusader fleet reached the Tunisian coast and landed and camped near the ruins of Carthage. The North African summer heat was brutal, and dysentery and other diseases soon broke out in the camp, killing large numbers of soldiers and nobles. Louis IX's son Jean Tristan also died of illness around this time, badly damaging morale. Though the crusaders held some strategic points, they were unable to launch an effective assault on the city of Tunis.
3. 1270Tunis (Carthage camp) · TunisiaOn 25 August 1270 King Louis IX of France died of dysentery at the Carthage camp in Tunis, aged about fifty-six. His son Philip III immediately succeeded him in the field. When Charles of Anjou arrived with reinforcements, he signed a truce with the Hafsid dynasty of Tunis on favorable terms, and the crusaders withdrew, ending the Eighth Crusade. Louis IX's bones were sent to France and Sicily, and his heart was interred at the Church of Saint-Louis in Paris. In 1297 Pope Boniface VIII canonized Louis IX as "Saint Louis", one of the few reigning monarchs canonized in the Middle Ages.