Louis VII of France

Louis VII was King of France from 1137 to 1180. His first marriage was to Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe, and the marriage temporarily extended the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees. Louis was the second son of Louis VI of France and was initially prepared for a career in the Church, becoming heir apparent only after his older brother Philip died in 1131. During the Second Crusade in 1147 he led an army toward Jerusalem, and his marriage to Eleanor deteriorated during the campaign; it was annulled in 1152 after producing two daughters but no male heir, after which Eleanor married Henry, Duke of Normandy, whose accession as King Henry II of England joined her lands to the Angevin Empire. Louis' reign also saw the founding of the University of Paris and, with his counsellor Abbot Suger, the promotion of French Gothic architecture, including the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris; he died in 1180 and was succeeded by his son Philip Augustus.