Louis IX, crusade and the promise of Joshua in the Holy Land M.C. Gaposchkin Department of History, 6107 Carson Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH 03755, USA Abstract Joshua, the Old Testament patriarch who led the Israelite army into the Holy Land, was seen as a type for the crusader in ways that informed Louis IX’s crusading ideology and his kingship. The parallel between Joshua’s divinely sanctioned wars and Louis’ own crusading ambitions structured a teleology that incorporated Louis into salvation history. The story of Joshua lent Louis exalted expectations for his first crusade. After the failure of Louis’ first crusade, the story of Joshua provided a scriptural lens through which Louis could interpret those events and moulded his reaction as king and military leader. An episode from Josh. 7 d the sins of Achan d spoke to Louis’ concern with personal sin and the purity of the political community, gave Louis a way to understand the failure, and suggested guidance for how, as king, Louis could redress himself before God in preparation for his crusade of 1270. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Louis IX; Saint Louis; Crusades; Joshua; Typology; Ste-Chapelle In the 1240s Louis IX had as a model of Holy War the biblical figure of Joshua, whose taking of Jericho as the leader of the divinely ordained Israelites, the chosen people, is recounted in the book of Joshua, the sixth book of the Hebrew Scriptures. 1 The figure of Joshua thus offered an explicit model of conquest, holy war, and the promise of military victory that resonated at the Capetian court as Louis prepared for his first crusade. The biblical story also provided an object lesson in E-mail address: m.c.gaposchkin@Dartmouth.edu 1 In citations, the abbreviation RHF stands in for Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. Martin Bou- quet, 24 vols. (Paris, 1738; repr. Farnborough,1967). I thank Meredith Cohen, Sean Field, Gerald Guest, Laura Hollen- green, Alyce Jordan, William Jordan, Geoffrey Koziol, Richard Leson, and John Zaleski for reading early drafts of this paper. All errors are my own. 0304-4181/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2007.10.007 Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 245e274 www.elsevier.com/locate/jmedhist