in.] GROWING IMPORTANCE OF THE KINGS. 21 French Church. He was a great and powerful preacher, and such a writer that he is called the last father of the Church, while he had a wonderful power of swaying the minds of men. These two great men, the champions of the rationalistic and of the traditional views of Chris- tianity, were to hold a debate at Sens in 11 36; but Abailard, though he had refused in private to recant, declined the contest, and appealed to Rome. However his friend, Petei' the Venerable, Abbot of Clitny, persuaded him to submit and be reconciled to the Church, so that he ended his days in peace. 4. Wars with England, 11 19 — 11 28. — Lewis took the part of Robert of Normandy, and afterwards of his son Williaiii against Henry I. of England, and there was along warfare between the two kngs. In short, the wars between France and England had begun. The two armies met suddenly near Noyon, each with ?bout 500 knights, on the 20th of August, 1 1 19, and had a b. itle, in which the French were worsted, and 140 prisoners wei'e made, but only three or four knights killed on either side. It was just after this that Henry lost his only son in the White Ship, and Pope Calixius II. made peace between the kings ; but after three years, Henry's only surviving child, Matilda, was married to the Emperor Heiuy V., and the two Henrys allied themselves against France. But troubles in Ger- many, and the illness and death of Henry V. in 1125, put an end to the danger. Henry I. then gave his daughter to Geoff7-ey Plantagenet, son of Fulk, Count of Anjou. A year later Fulk went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, married the heiress of the Latin kingdom there, and resigned his French county to his son. The strong front which Henry . thus presented, with Anjou in alliance, Britanny as his fief, and Blois owned by his nephew, made Lewis willing to keep the peace towards him in their latter years. 5. Family of Lewis IV., 1131 — 1137. — Lewis VI. had been heart-broken at the death of his eldest son Philip, who was killed in 1131 by the ignoble accident of a pig running between his horse's legs in the unclean streets of Paris. The second son, named Lewis, and called the Voufig, was newly married to Eleanor, daughter and heiress of William, last Duke of Aquitaine (who had died on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compos- tella, in Spain), when Lewis VI. sank under his infirmities in the year 1 137, having been the first king of his line who had really striven to reign.
