Louis IX, canonised in 1297, always struck his contemporaries with his great piety and benevolence. As a young king, he was faithful to the promise made to his father Louis VIII to build an abbey dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This was done in 1235 at Royaumont. A very pious sovereign, Louis IX went to the Holy Land for the first time in 1248 with the 7th crusade. During his reign, the kingdom experienced an unprecedented cultural, intellectual, and theological development. Louis IX welcomed St Bonaventure and St Thomas Aquinas to his table. He founded the Sorbonne in 1257. His second crusade was fatal: he died of dysentery in Carthage in 1270.