Everything about Louis The Bavarian totally explained
Louis IV of Bavaria (also known as
Ludwig the Bavarian) of the House of
Wittelsbach (
April 11282 –
October 11 1347) was duke of
Bavaria from
1294/
1301 together with his brother
Rudolf I, also count of the
Palatinate until
1329 and,
German king since
1314 and crowned as
Holy Roman Emperor in
1328. Louis died on
October 11,
1347 when he suffered a
stroke during a bear-hunt in Puch near
Fürstenfeldbruck. He is buried in the
Frauenkirche in
Munich.
Louis was a son of
Louis II, Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine, and Mechthild (Matilda), a daughter of King
Rudolph I.
Early reign as Duke of Upper Bavaria
Though Louis was partly educated in
Vienna and became co-regent of his brother
Rudolf I in
Upper Bavaria in 1301 with the support of his
Habsburg mother Mechthild and her brother King
Albert I, he quarrelled with the Habsburgs from 1307 over possessions in
Lower Bavaria. A civil war against his brother Rudolf due to new disputes on the partition of their lands was ended in 1313, when peace was made at
Munich.
In the same year Louis defeated his Habsburg cousin
Frederick the Handsome. Originally, he was a friend of Frederick, with whom he'd been raised. However, armed conflict arose when the tutelage over the young Dukes of
Lower Bavaria (
Henry XIV,
Otto IV and
Henry XV) was entrusted to Frederick.
On
November 9,
1313, Frederick was beaten by Louis in the
Battle of Gamelsdorf and had to renounce the tutelage.
Election as German King and conflict with Habsburg
After the death of Holy Roman Emperor
Henry VII, the
Luxemburg party among the
prince electors set aside Henry's son, the Bohemian king
John of Luxemburg, because of his youth and chose Louis as rival king to Frederick the Handsome. Louis was elected in October 1314 upon the instigation of
Peter of Aspelt, the
Archbishop of Mainz, with four of the seven votes. Louis then was quickly crowned by the
Archbishop of Cologne, in
Bonn instead of
Aachen.
In the following conflict between both kings Louis recognized in 1316 the independence of
Switzerland from Habsburg.
After several years of bloody war, victory finally seemed within the grasp of Frederick, who was strongly supported by his brother
Leopold. However, Frederick's army was in the end decisively beaten in the
Battle of Mühldorf on
September 28,
1322 on the Ampfing Heath, where Frederick and 1300 nobles from Austria and
Salzburg were captured.
Louis held Frederick captive in Trausnitz Castle for three years, but the determined resistance by Frederick's brother Leopold, the retreat of the King of
Bohemia John of Luxembourg from his alliance, and the
Pope's
ban induced Louis to release Frederick in the Treaty of Trausnitz of
March 13,
1325. In this agreement, Frederick finally recognized Louis as legitimate ruler and undertook to return to captivity if he didn't succeed in convincing his brothers to submit to Louis.
As he didn't manage to overcome Leopold's obstinacy, Frederick returned to
Munich as a prisoner, even though the Pope had released him from his
oath. Louis, who was impressed by such nobility, renewed the old friendship with
Frederick and they both agreed to rule the
Empire jointly.
Since the Pope and the
electors strongly objected to this agreement, another treaty was signed at
Ulm on
January 7,
1326, according to which Frederick would administer
Germany as
King of the Romans, while Louis would be crowned as
Holy Roman Emperor in
Italy.
However, after Leopold's death in 1326, Frederick withdrew from the regency of the Empire and returned to rule only Austria. He died on
January 13 1330.
Coronation as Holy Roman Emperor and conflict with the Pope
Despite Louis' victory,
Pope John XXII still refused to ratify his election, and in 1324 he
excommunicated Louis, but the sanction had less effect than in earlier disputes between emperors and the papacy.
After the reconciliation with Habsburg in 1326, Louis marched to Italy and was crowned King of Italy in
Milan in 1327. Already in 1323 Louis had sent an army to Italy to protect Milan against the
Kingdom of Naples which was together with France the strongest ally of the papacy.
In January 1328 Louis entered
Rome and had himself crowned emperor by the aged senator
Sciarra Colonna, called
captain of the Roman people. Three months later Louis published a decree declaring "Jacque de Cahors" (Pope John XXII) deposed on grounds of
heresy. He then installed a Spiritual
Franciscan, Pietro Rainalducci as
Antipope Nicholas V, who was deposed after Louis had left Rome in early 1329. In fulfilment of an oath, on his return from Italy Louis founded
Ettal Abbey on
April 28,
1330.
Philosophers such as
Michael of Cesena,
Marsilius of Padua and
William of Ockham were now protected at the emperor's
court in
Munich.
The failure of later negotiations with the papacy led in 1338 to the
declaration at Rhense by six electors to the effect that election by all or the majority of the electors automatically conferred the royal title and rule over the empire, without papal confirmation.
Louis also allied in 1337 with
Edward III of
England against
Philip VI of
France, the protector of the new Pope
Benedict XII in
Avignon. Philip had prevented any agreement between the emperor and the pope. In 1338 Edward III was the emperor's guest at the
Imperial Diet in the Kastorkirche at
Coblence. In 1341 Louis deserted Edward but came only temporarily to terms with Philip. The expected English payments were missing and Louis intended to reach an agreement with the pope one more time.
Imperial privileges
Louis IV was a protector of the
Teutonic Knights. In 1337 he allegedly bestowed upon the Teutonic Order a privilege to conquer
Lithuania and
Russia, although the Order had only petitioned for three small territories. Later he forbade the Order to stand trial before foreign courts in their territorial conflicts with foreign rulers.
Louis concentrated his energies also on the economic development of the cities of the empire, so his name can be found in many city chronicles for the privileges he granted.
Dynastic policy
In 1323 Louis gave
Brandenburg as a fiefdom to his eldest son
Louis V. With the
Treaty of Pavia the emperor returned the
Palatinate to his nephews
Rudolf and
Rupert in 1329. The duchy of
Carinthia was released as an imperial
fief on
May 2,
1335 in
Linz to his Habsburg relatives
Albert II, Duke of Austria and
Otto, Duke of Austria.
With the death of duke
John I in 1340 Louis inherited Lower Bavaria and then reunited the duchy of Bavaria. John's mother, a member of the Luxemburg dynasty, had to return to Bohemia. In 1342 Louis also acquired
Tyrol for the Wittelsbach by voiding the first marriage of
Margarete Maultasch with
John Henry of Bohemia and marrying her to his own son Louis V, thus alienating the house of Luxemburg even more.
In 1345 the emperor further antagonized the lay princes by conferring
Hainaut,
Holland,
Zeeland and
Friesland upon his wife
Margaret of Holland. The hereditary titles of Magaret's sisters,
one of them was the queen of England, were ignored. Due to the dangerous hostility of the Luxemburg Louis had increased his power base ruthlessly.
Conflict with Luxemburg
The acquisition of these territories and his restless foreign policy had earned Louis many enemies among the German princes. In the summer of 1346 the
Luxemburg Charles IV was elected rival king, with the support of Pope
Clement VI. Louis himself obtained much support from the
Imperial Free Cities and the
knighthood and successfully resisted Charles, who was widely regarded as a papal puppet ("rex clericorum" as William of Ockham called him). Also the Habsburg dukes stayed loyal to Louis. In the
Battle of Crécy Charles' father
John of Luxemburg was killed; Charles himself also took part in the battle but escaped.
Louis' sudden death in October 1347 avoided a longer civil war. The sons of Louis supported
Günther von Schwarzburg as new rival king to Charles but finally joined the Luxemburg party after Günther's early death in 1349 and divided the Wittelsbach possessions among each other again.
Family and children
He was first married to
Beatrix of Silesia-Glogau. Their children were:
- Mathilde (aft. June 21, 1313 – July 2, 1346, Meißen), married at Nürnberg July 1, 1329 Friedrich II, Markgraf of Meißen (d. 1349)
- a child (b. September 1314)
- Anna (c. 1316 – January 29, 1319, Kastl)
- Louis V the Brandenburger (1316–1361), duke of Upper Bavaria, margrave of Brandenburg, count of Tyrol
- Agnes (b. c. 1318)
- Stephen II (1319–1375), duke of Lower Bavaria
In 1324 he married
Margaret of Holland, countess of
Hainaut and
Holland.
Their children were:
Margarete (1325–1374), married:
- in 1351 in Ofen Stephen, Duke of Slavonia (d. 1354);
- 1357/58 Gerlach von Hohenlohe.
Anna (c. 1326 – June 3, 1361, Fontenelles) married John I of Lower Bavaria (d. 1340)
Louis VI the Roman (1328–1365), duke of Upper Bavaria, elector of Brandenburg.
Elisabeth (1329 – August 2, 1402, Stuttgart), married with:
- Cangrande II della Scala, Lord of Verona (d. 1359) in Verona on November 22, 1350;
- Count Ulrich of Württemberg (died 1388 in the Battle of Döffingen) in 1362.
William V of Holland (1330–1389), as William I duke of Lower Bavaria, as William III count of Hainaut
Albert I of Holland (1336–1404), duke of Lower Bavaria, count of Hainaut and Holland
Otto V the Bavarian (1340–1379), duke of Upper Bavaria, elector of Brandenburg
Beatrix of Bavaria (1344 – December 25, 1359), married bef. October 25, 1356 Eric XII of Sweden
Agnes (Munich, 1345 – November 11, 1352, Munich)
Louis (October 1347 – 1348)
Ancestors
Map
The Holy Roman Empire 1347
Further Information
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