Between 7 May and 19 August 1487, the “Catholic Monarchs” (Los Reyes Católicos) of a unified Aragon and Castile, Ferdinand II and Isabella I, laid siege to the Nasrid city of Málaga and the surrounding terrain. Málaga itself was, next to Granada, among the most important cities culturally, politically, and territorially for the Nasrid kingdom as the growing Crown of Castile and Crown of Aragon continued to conquer territory in the south of Iberia. My latest blog post, “Alfonso ‘the Magnanimous’ of Aragon and the Politics of the ‘Re’conquest of Naples, 1420-1450,” focused on the ways that the theft of the relic of Saint Louis of Toulouse was pivotal in the Aragonese king’s fight to conquer Naples and foster an image that he was a new Italian emperor on the model of Frederick II or Julius Caesar. While Alfonso’s theft of the relic was important for his conquest of Naples, the relic – and its translation (translatio)— similarly shaped the conquest of Málaga and the construction of its cathedral during the early modern period. Louis of Toulouse, then, should be remembered not only for his religious contributions to the Franciscan Order in life, but for the use of his bones as a symbol of Iberian conquest in death.[1]

Prior to its conquest, Málaga (Mālaqa) was among the largest and most important cities in the Emirate of Granada due to its location along the southern coast of Iberia, position in sea trade in the Mediterranean, and strategic position near Christian controlled cities such as Sevilla, Cordoba, Antequera (conquered by Ferdinand I of Aragon in 1410).

(Map of the Emirate of Granada and the nearby Crown of Castile in the early fifteenth century. Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

The siege of Málaga, itself, is an event surrounded in myth. In early modern chronicles and histories, it is linked to the 1492 siege of Granada and the end of the so-called “Reconqusita” (Reconquest). Considering many of the accounts of the sieges of both cities are rife with anti-Islamic racism, violence, and apocalyptic messaging, the association between the fall of Málaga and Saint Louis of Toulouse sticks out in the sources. In one of the first official descriptions of the conquest of the city by its first bishop in 1492, Pedro Díaz of Toledo writes:

Furthermore, we order and command that from now on, a very solemn feast be perpetually celebrated in the city of Malaga and throughout the bishopric on the day of Saint Louis, Bishop, son of the King of Sicily, and that it be observed throughout the city of Malaga and the borders of the seas to it, as the holy day of Sunday from the first vespers until the entire day of Saint Louis, which is celebrated on the nineteenth of August. For which reason and in memory of such great benefits received from God and from Our Lady the Virgin Mary, his blessed mother, we order this day to be observed in this city entirely and we order that a solemn procession be perpetually held with all the clergy of the main church and with all the people of this city until the nineteenth of August. Church of the Alcaçaba which is named after this blessed Saint Louis, bishop, since on his eve and day this city was given.

Otrosi, ordenamos e mandamos que de aqui adelante perpetuamente se faga en la çibdad de Malaga e en todo el obispado fiesta muy solepne el dia de San Luis, Obispo, hijo del Rey de Sicilia, e se guarde por toda la çibdad de Malaga e por los terminos de los mares a ella confines, como el dia santo del domingo desde las visperas primeras fasta el dia todo de San Luis, el cual se çelebra a diez e nueve de agosto [...) Por lo qual y en memoria de tan grandes benefiçios Reçebidos de Dios e de Nuestra Señora la Virgen Maria, su bendita madre, mandamos guardar este dia en esta çibdad todo enteramente y man damos que perpetuamente se haga proçesion solepne con toda la clerezia de la yglesia mayor e con todo el pueblo de esta çibdad fasta la iglesia del alcaçaba que es intitulada a este bienaventurado San Luis, obispo, pues que en su vispera e dia se entrego esta çibdad.[2]

Díaz’s association between the conquest of the city and Saint Louis is the first of many to link veneration of the saint to the city’s Christian origin. Considering Louis was not a saint known to be associated with Málaga or any of the cities of Iberia outside of Valencia, the celebration of his feast in the city for centuries after 1487 speaks to his continued association with conquest. The stark difference here as opposed to his role in the conquest of Naples is the use of Louis of Toulouse as a symbol of Málaga’s newfound Christian and inquisitorial identity.

Recent scholarship by Max Deardorff, David Coleman, and A. Katie Harris has shown that the early modern Spanish monarchy constructed the cities of the former Emirate of Granada into Christian environments in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.[3] These newly Christian cities, of which Málaga was an important part, constructed new churches after models in other Spanish cities such as Valencia, Barcelona, and Madrid. For Louis’s cult to be a prominent piece of this anti-Muslim Christianization of the city allowed for his role as a saint to take on new life outside of its usual veneration in Provence, Naples, and Catalunya.

By 1714, Málaga Cathedral used its association with the feast day of Louis of Toulouse to request that the saint’s relics be translated (translatio) from Valencia Cathedral to Málaga. In a series of exchanges between both religious and secular leaders in Málaga and the Cathedral of Valencia, the argument is made that:

A relic and bone of Mister Saint Louis Bishop of Toulouse, whose entire body is venerated in the said Cathedral of Valencia, to have it in this city [Málaga] for it having been won from the Moors on the eve of the Saint, which is on 18 August of last year of 1487, and to have him [Louis] as co-patron of this city and to have a procession on this day.

Una reliquia y hueso del Señor San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, cuyo cuerpo entero se venera en dicha Iglesia de Valencia, para tenerla en esta ciudad por haberse ganado a los moros la víspera del Santo, que es a 18 de agosto del año pasado de 1487, y tenerle por copatrono de esta ciudad y hacerse procesión en su día.[4]

The association between Louis, his body, and Málaga suggests that for the people of the city, the conquest of Málaga on the feast of Louis of Toulouse makes the event directly associated with his cult and the ongoing colonial project of Christianising the city. Louis, as a relic and a religious symbol, is necessary for bringing the saintly legitimacy that a saint’s body brings to the city of Málaga.

In Valencia, however, the request to receive a piece of the body was denied on the grounds that a translation of any relic required papal authorisation. The Cathedral of Valencia also had political reasons for wanting to keep the full relic in Valencia – the fifteenth century efforts of Alfonso Borja (Pope Calixtus III, 1455-1458), Rodrigo Borja (Pope Alexander VI, 1492-1503), and King Alfonso “the Magnanimous” of Aragon (r. 1416-1458) made the Cathedral of Valencia a royal – and papal – site for the relics of the Crown of Aragon well into early modernity.[5] The association between the Cathedral and the protection of holy bodies was later supported by the papacy in 1569 when Pope Sixtus V declared that relics could not be removed from the Cathedral without the express written permission of the Pope.[6] Once papal permission was granted, a small portion of the relic was moved to the Cathedral of Málaga in 1721 (where it now remains).[7]

(The full relic in the Chapel of Saint Louis in Valencia Cathedral. This relic includes the skull, leg bones, arm bones, ribs, and other small body parts. Photo taken by the author.)

Between Louis of Toulouse’s use in Alfonso V’s campaign to conquer Naples (2 June 1442) and Ferdinand II and Isabella I’s conquest of Málaga, it is evident that his body and its use was important for Christian monarchs to lay claim to territory outside their domain – both Muslim and Christian. While Louis was not associated with Iberia – except for his own time as an Aragonese captive during the War of the Sicilian Vespers – prior to his death, the rise of his cult in Iberian lands after 1423 speaks to the role that saints played in the conquest, colonisation, and subjugation of territories inside and outside of Iberia during the beginnings of what became the Spanish Empire.[8] Málaga, a city that Louis never set foot in while he weas alive, still remains a city that celebrates his cult, his life, and his broader meanings for the Franciscan Order and the Spanish Empire in the Iberian Peninsula.

(A view of the modern Cathedral of Málaga. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Bibliography and Further Reading:

Primary Sources:

Archivo Catedral de Málaga

ACM, leg. 1041, Actas Capitulares, book 42

ACM, Leg., 35, folio 72

Secondary Sources:

Brunner, Melanie. "Poverty and Charity: Pope John XXII and the canonization of Louis of Anjou." Franciscan Studies 69, no. 1 (2012): 231-256.

Caldi, L. “The King and his Brother: Simone Martini’s ‘Louis of Toulouse Crowning Robert of Naples’ and the Visual Language of Power.” Doctor dissertation, Rutgers University, 2002.

Coleman, David. Creating Christian Granada: Society and Religious Culture in an Old World Frontier City, 1492-1600. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.

Deardorff, Max. A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568-1668. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Garcia Mota, Francisco. “San Luis Obispo de Tolosa Patrón de Málaga” Memoria ecclesiae (25): 99-110

Grieco, Holly J. “‘In Some Ways More than Before’: Approaches to Understanding St. Louis of Anjou, Franciscan Bishop of Toulouse” in Center and Periphery: Studies on Power in the Medieval World in Honor of William Chester Jordan edited by Katherine L. Jansen, G. Geltner, and Anne E. Lester (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 135-156.

Harris, A. Katie. From Muslim to Christian Granada: Inventing a City’s Past in Early Modern Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.

Rowe, Saint and Nation: Santiago, Teresa Avila, and Plural Identities in Early Modern Spain. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.

Toynbee, Margaret S. S. Louis of Toulouse and the Process of Canonisation in the Fourteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1929.

[1] Louis of Toulouse has been the subject of many French, Italian, English, and Spanish language studies since his 1297 death. For more on his biography during his lifetime (1274-1297) see: Holly J. Grieco, “‘In Some Ways More than Before’: Approaches to Understanding St. Louis of Anjou, Franciscan Bishop of Toulouse” in Center and Periphery: Studies on Power in the Medieval World in Honor of William Chester Jordan edited by Katherine L. Jansen, G. Geltner, and Anne E. Lester (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 135-156; Margaret S. Toynbee, S. Louis of Toulouse and the Process of Canonisation in the Fourteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1929); Melanie Brunner, "Poverty and Charity: Pope John XXII and the canonization of Louis of Anjou." Franciscan Studies 69, no. 1 (2012): 231-256; L. Caldi, “The King and his Brother: Simone Martini’s ‘Louis of Toulouse Crowning Robert of Naples’ and the Visual Language of Power” (Doctor dissertation, Rutgers University, 2002).

[2] Printed in Francisco Garcia Mota, “San Luis Obispo de Tolosa Patrón de Málaga” Memoria ecclesiae (25): 101.

[3] Max Deardorff, A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568-1668 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023); David Coleman, Creating Christian Granada: Society and Religious Culture in an Old World Frontier City, 1492-1600 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013); A. Katie Harris, From Muslim to Christian Granada: Inventing a City’s Past in Early Modern Spain (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

[4] Archivo Catedral de Málaga (hereafter, ACM) leg. 1041, Actas Capitulares, book 42, f. 342 r. Printed in Francisco Garcia Mota, 105.

[5] For more on the long history of relics in the Cathedral of Valencia see:

[6] ACM, Leg., 35, folio 72.

[7] It is worth noting that Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Toulouse was also successful in obtaining a small portion of the relic from Valencia in 1862.

[8] Louis and his brothers, Robert “the Wise” of Naples and Charles Martel, were held as prisoners of Alfonso III and James II in castles in Catalunya. During this seven year period of captivity, Louis decided to renounce his own places as his father’s heir in Naples and join the Franciscan Order. This is the only period that Louis was in Iberia when he was alive.