JOINVILLE'8 BISTORT OF 8AINT LOUIS. DEDICATION. Ta the moti noble, matt excellent, and matt potent primée, lamie, eon to the King St. Louie, qfmoet renowned and holy memory, by the croce of God, King of France and Naoarre, and Count Palatine of Champagne and Brie, John Lord of Joinville, Seneechal of Champagne, sends health, wishing that, at hie prayer, Jeeue may anoint him with holy love. MAT it please you to know, most noble and potent lord, that m y late moat excellent lady, your mother, whose soul may God pardon, from the (treat affection she bore me, and from her knowing with how much loyalty and Ιοτβ I had served and attended the deceased king, St. Louis, her spouse, in several countries, had most earnestly entreated me, that in honour to God, I would collect and write a small book or treatise of the holy actions and sayings of the above-mentioned King St. Louis. This I very humbly promised her to execute to the best of my power ; and because you, my most excellent and potent lord, are his eldest son and heir, and have succeeded to the crown and kingdom of our late lord and king. Sc. Louis, I send this book to you, not knowing any one living to whom it can more properly belong, in order that you and all others who may read it, or hear it read, may profit by imitating the examples and deeds which it contains, and may God our Father and Creator be worshipped and honoured by it. JOINYILLE'S PREFACE. IN the name of the most holy and most sovereign Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, John lord of Joinville, high steward of Champagne, do indite and cause to be formed into a book, the life and most pious acta and sayings of my Iste lord, St, Louis, king of France, from what I personally saw or heard during the apace of six whole years that I was in his compsny, as well in the holy expedition and pilgrimage beyond pea as since our return thence. This book will be divided into two parts. The first will shew how the above-mentioned king, St Louis, governed himself according to the precepts of God sud of our holy mother the church, to the profit and advancement of this kingdom. The second part will speak of his gallant chivalry and deeds of arms, that the one may follow the other, to enlighten and exalt the understandings of such as shall read or hear it. The contents of both parts will shew plainly that no man of his time, from the beginning of bis reign unto the end of it, ever lived a more godly or conscientious life than he did. It seems however to me, that sufficient respect has not been shewn him, inasmuch as he has not been ranked among the martyrs, for the great vexations he suffered on his pilgrimage for the honour of the cross during the six years that I attended him ; for, as our Lord God died for the human race on the cross, so in like manner died the good king St. Louis, at Tunis, with the cross on his breast. Because nothing is to be preferred to the salvation of the soul, I shall begin this first part which speaks of his righteous doctrine and holy conversation, which is food for the souL