Louis VI, king of France (b. 1081)

Louis VI (late 1081 – 1 August 1137), called the Fat (French: le Gros) or the Fighter (French: le Batailleur), was King of the Franks from 1108 to 1137.Chronicles called him "King of Saint-Denis". Louis was the first member of the house of Capet to make a lasting contribution to centralizing the institutions of royal power. He spent almost all of his twenty-nine-year reign fighting either the "robber barons" who plagued Paris or the kings of England for their continental possession of Normandy. Nonetheless, Louis VI managed to reinforce his power considerably and became one of the first strong kings of France since the death of Charlemagne in 814.

Louis was a warrior-king, but by his forties his weight had become so great that it was increasingly difficult for him to lead in the field (hence the epithet "le Gros"). Details about his life and person are preserved in the Vita Ludovici Grossi Regis, a panegyric composed by his loyal advisor, Suger, abbot of Saint Denis.