He was, besides, the first Capetian whom the king his father had not considered it necessary to have consecrated during his own life so as to impress upon him in good time the seal of religion.

Louis was consecrated at Rheims no earlier than the 6th of August, 1223, three weeks after the death of Philip Augustus; and his consecration was celebrated, at Paris as well as at Rheims, with rejoicings both popular and magnificent.
But in the condition in which France was during the thirteenth century, amidst a civilization still so imperfect and without the fortifying institutions of a free government, no accidental good fortune could make up for a king's want of personal merit; and Louis VIII.

was a man of downright mediocrity, without foresight, volatile in his resolves and weak and fickle in the execution of them.

He, as well as Philip Augustus, had to make war on the King of England, and negotiate with the pope on the subject of the Albigensians; but at one time he followed, without well understanding it, his father's policy, at another he neglected it for some whim, or under some temporary influence.

Yet he was not unsuccessful in his wax-like enterprises; in his campaign against Henry III., King of England, he took Niort, St.Jean d'Angely, and Rochelle; he accomplished the subjection of Limousin and Perigord; and had he pushed on his victories beyond the Garonne, he might perhaps have deprived the English of Aquitaine, their last possession in France; but at the solicitation of Pope Honorius III., he gave up this war, to resume the crusade against the Albigensians.