Joinville’s The Life of Saint Louis

An examination of the text The Life of Saint Louis by Joinville (tr. Margaret Shaw), an account of the sixth crusade by a participant.

The paper questions Joinville’s reliability as a source, seeing that the document was written after Louis IX’s death and canonization. It ultimately concludes that, as an account written with an eye to entertainment and based solely on the personal recollections of a soldier, it should be taken with a grain of salt, but that it is a reliable indicator of European thoughts and customs in the 13th century.