Louis VI of France

Louis VI took the throne in 1108 and spent the better part of three decades at war — first breaking the lawless knights who terrorized the Ile de France, then battling Henry I of England over Normandy. He used force to drag order from chaos and became the first Capet king to issue laws that applied across the entire kingdom of France, pushing royal power outward from Paris. By his forties, his weight had grown so severe he could barely mount a horse, let alone lead men in the field. He died in August 1137, his reign preserved in a biography by Suger, the abbot who served him and called him "th…