Styled as the biography of the saintly king of France Louis IX (r. 1226-1270) who became the author’s friend when the two were on crusade together from 1248 until 1254, the central narrative of the Vie de Saint Louis is in many ways (and may, indeed, have originally been based on) a memoir of the author’s time on crusade. The crusade narrative includes an extensive reminiscence of the four years that the crusaders spent in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem after their release from captivity in Egypt in 1250. The author John (1225-1317) was lord of Joinville and seneschal of Champagne, and completed his work, which he wrote at the request of Joan of Navarre, in 1309.