King Louis VII, called “The Younger,” succeeded his father in 1137. In the first year of his reign, he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, daughter of William X, Duke of Aquitaine. Louis soon aroused the opposition of Pope Innocent II because of his support of a rival to the Pope’s candidate for the Archbishopric of Bourges, and the Pope placed the lands of Louis under Papal interdict. Louis next fought a two-year war and conquered Champagne in 1144. In 1147, he joined the unsuccessful Second Crusade as one of its two chief military leaders (the other being King Conrad III of Germany).

King Louis returned to France two years later, and in 1152 his marriage to Eleanor was annulled. In the same year, she married Henry of Anjou. Louis warred with Henry for the possession of Aquitaine, but renounced all rights to the duchy in 1154, the year Henry became King of England.

Between 1157 and 1180 Louis continued sporadic warfare against Henry, who held many of the French provinces.