Baybars, Louis IX, and the Battle for Syria

In the middle of the thirteenth century, two powerful rulers waged a battle for Syria. King Louis IX of France was one of the greatest kings of the medieval west. Baybars was a former slave who rose to become sultan of Egypt. Despite their different backgrounds, Louis and Baybars shared a powerful commitment to religious confrontation. For Baybars, the battle for Syria would bring religious legitimation to his fledgling regime and a bulwark against a powerful external threat, the Mongols. For Louis, it offered self‐sanctification and the potential re‐Christianization of sacred space. This chapter explores how each tried to define the looming struggle in absolute terms, as a contest pitting a unified, purified community against a religious other.