Louis IX of France in the context of "St. Louis"

The House of Bourbon (English: /ˈbʊərbən/, also UK: /ˈbɔːrbɒn/; French: [buʁbɔ̃]) is a dynasty that originated in the Kingdom of France as a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. A branch descended from the French Bourbons came to rule Spain in the 18th century and is the current Spanish royal family. Other branches, descended from the Spanish Bourbons, held thrones in Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Today, Spain and Luxembourg have monarchs from the House of Bourbon.

The royal Bourbons originated in 1272, when Robert, the youngest son of King Louis IX of France, married the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon. The house continued for three centuries as a cadet branch, serving as nobles under the direct Capetian and Valois kings.

According to the New Testament, a woven crown of thorns (Ancient Greek: στέφανος ἐξ ἀκανθῶν, romanized: stephanos ex akanthōn or ἀκάνθινος στέφανος, akanthinos stephanos) was placed on the head of Jesus during the events leading up to his crucifixion. It was one of the instruments of the Passion, employed by Jesus' captors both to cause him pain and to mock his claim of authority. It is mentioned in the gospels of Matthew (Matthew 27:29), Mark (Mark 15:17) and John (John 19:2, 19:5), and is often alluded to by the early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen and others, along with being referenced in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter.

Since around 400 AD, a relic has been venerated as the crown of thorns. Louis IX acquired it in 1239 from the emperor Baldwin Il, who was financially in debt due to heavy military expenses. Louis IX built the Sainte-Chapelle as a monumental reliquary to house the relic. Transferred to the French National Library during the Revolution of the 18th century, the crown of thorns has been displayed at Notre-Dame de Paris since 1804. The crown is made of reeds, formed into a circle and attached with reed fasteners. On 15 April 2019, it was rescued from a fire and moved to the Louvre Museum. In December of 2024, a ceremony marking the relic's return to Notre Dame Cathedral was led by a procession attended by members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre. Veneration of the crown of thorns takes place every first Friday of the month from 3 pm to 5 pm.

Charles I (Italian: Carlo; early 1226/1227 – 7 January 1285), commonly called Charles of Anjou or Charles d'Anjou, was King of Sicily from 1266 to 1285. He was a member of the Capetian dynasty and the founder of the House of Anjou-Sicily. Between 1246 and 1285, he was Count of Provence and Forcalquier in the Holy Roman Empire and Count of Anjou and Maine in France. In 1272 he was proclaimed King of Albania, in 1277 he purchased a claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and in 1278 he became Prince of Achaea after the previous ruler, William of Villehardouin, died without heirs.

The youngest son of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile, Charles was destined for a church career until the early 1240s. He acquired Provence and Forcalquier through his marriage to Beatrice. His attempts to restore central authority brought him into conflict with his mother-in-law, Beatrice of Savoy, and the nobility. He relinquished control of Forcalquier to his mother-in-law in 1248, although she returned it to him in 1256. Charles received Anjou and Maine from his brother, Louis IX of France, in appanage. He accompanied Louis during the Seventh Crusade to Egypt. Shortly after he returned to Provence in 1250, Charles forced three wealthy autonomous cities—Marseille, Arles and Avignon—to acknowledge his suzerainty.

The Capetian dynasty (/kəˈpiːʃən/ kə-PEE-shən; French: Capétiens/ka.pe.sjɛ̃/), also known as the House of France (French: La Maison de France), is a dynasty of Frankish origin, and a branch of the Robertians agnatically, and the Carolingians through female lines. It is among the largest and oldest royal houses in Europe and the world, and consists of Hugh Capet, the founder of the dynasty, and his male-line descendants, who ruled in France without interruption from 987 to 1792, and again from 1814 to 1848. The senior line from the House of Capet ruled in France from the election of Hugh Capet in 987 until the death of Charles IV in 1328. That line was succeeded by cadet branches, first the House of Valois, and succeeding them the House of Bourbon, which ruled until the French Revolution abolished the monarchy in 1792 and tried and executed King Louis XVI in 1793. The Bourbons were restored in 1814 in the aftermath of Napoleon's defeat, but had to vacate the throne again in 1830 in favor of the last Capetian monarch of France, Louis Philippe I, who belonged to the House of Orléans, a cadet branch of the Bourbons. Cadet branches of the Capetian House of Bourbon are still reigning over Spain and Luxembourg.

The dynasty had a crucial role in the formation of the French state. From a power base initially confined to their own demesne, the Île-de-France, the Capetian kings slowly but steadily increased their power and influence until it grew to cover the entirety of their realm. For a detailed narration on the growth of French royal power, see Crown lands of France. Members of the dynasty were traditionally Catholic, and the early Capetians had an alliance with the Church. The French were also the most active participants in the Crusades, culminating in a series of five Crusader kings – Louis VII, Philip Augustus, Louis VIII, Louis IX, and Philip III. The Capetian alliance with the papacy suffered a severe blow after the disaster of the Aragonese Crusade. Philip III's son and successor, Philip IV, arrested Pope Boniface VIII and brought the papacy under French control. The later Valois, starting with Francis I, ignored religious differences and allied with the Ottoman sultan to counter the growing power of the Holy Roman Empire. Henry IV was a Protestant at the time of his accession, but realized the necessity of conversion after four years of religious warfare.

Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari (Arabic: الْمَلِك الظَّاهِر رُكْن الدِّين بَيْبَرْس الْبُنْدُقْدَارِيّ; 1223/1228 – 30 June 1277), commonly known as Baibars or Baybars (بَيْبَرْس) and nicknamed Abu al-Futuh (أَبُو الْفُتُوح, lit. 'Father of Conquests'), was the fourth Mamluk sultan of Egypt and Syria, of Turkic Kipchak origin, in the Bahri dynasty, succeeding Qutuz. He was one of the commanders of the Muslim forces that inflicted a defeat on the Seventh Crusade of King Louis IX of France. He also led the vanguard of the Mamluk army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, which marked the first substantial defeat of the Mongol army that is considered a turning point in history.

The reign of Baybars marked the start of an age of Mamluk dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean and solidified the durability of their military system. He managed to pave the way for the end of the Crusader presence in the Levant and reinforced the union of Egypt and Syria as the region's pre-eminent Muslim state, able to fend off threats from both Crusaders and Mongols, and even managed to subdue the kingdom of Makuria, which was famous for being unconquerable by previous Muslim empire invasion attempts. As sultan, Baybars also engaged in a combination of diplomacy and military action, allowing the Mamluks of Egypt to greatly expand their empire.

The term écu (French pronunciation: [eky]) may refer to one of several French coins. The first écu was a gold coin (the écu d'or) minted during the reign of Louis IX of France, in 1266. The value of the écu varied considerably over time, and silver coins (known as écu d'argent) were also introduced.

Écu (from Latin scutum) means shield. The coin was so called because its design included the coat of arms of France. The word is related to the Catalan escut, Italian scudo, or Portuguese and Castilian escudo. In English, the écu was often referred to as the crown, or the French crown in the eras of the English crown, British crown, and other crowns.

During the Middle Ages, the Kingdom of France was a decentralised, feudal monarchy. In Brittany, Normandy, Lorraine, Provence, East Burgundy and Catalonia (the latter now a part of Spain), as well as Aquitaine, the authority of the French king was barely felt. France in the Middle Ages (roughly, from the 10th century to the middle of the 15th century) was marked by the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and West Francia (843–987); the expansion of royal control by the House of Capet (987–1328), including their struggles with the virtually independent principalities (duchies and counties, such as the Norman and Angevin regions), and the creation and extension of administrative and state control (notably under Philip II Augustus and Louis IX) in the 13th century; and the rise of the House of Valois (1328–1589), including the protracted dynastic crisis against the House of Plantagenet and their Angevin Empire, culminating in the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) (compounded by the catastrophic Black Death in 1348), which laid the seeds for a more centralised and expanded state in the early modern period and the creation of a sense of French identity.

Up to the 12th century, the territory experienced an elaboration and extension of the seigneurial economic system (including the attachment of peasants to the land through serfdom); the extension of the feudal system of political rights and obligations between lords and vassals; the so-called "feudal revolution" of the 11th century during which ever smaller lords took control of local lands in many regions; and the appropriation by regional/local seigneurs of various administrative, fiscal and judicial rights for themselves. From the 13th century on, the state slowly regained control of a number of these lost powers. The crises of the 13th and 14th centuries led to the convening of an advisory assembly, the Estates General, and also to an effective end to serfdom. During the 70-year reign of Louis XIV, absolutist policies from Paris tightly constrained the regional nobility, centralising political power at Versailles.

Robert of Clermont (1256 – 7 February 1317) was a French prince du sang who was created Count of Clermont in 1268. He was the sixth and last son of King Louis IX (Saint Louis) and Margaret of Provence.

Although he played a minor role in his lifetime due to a head injury which left him handicapped at a young age, he had an important dynastic position as the founder of the House of Bourbon, to which he passed the rights to the throne of France from his father when all male-line branches descended from his elder brothers died out in 1589, nine generations after him.