Search
Last Name:
First Name:
    

Home Search  
Share Print Bookmark

Louis IV

Male 1282 - 1347  (65 years)


Personal Information    |    Sources    |    Event Map    |    All    |    PDF

  • Name Louis IV   [1, 2] 
    Birth 1282  [1, 2] 
    Gender Male 
    Fact Known as Ludwig the Bavarian Find all individuals with events at this location  [1] 
    Fact 1 Duke of Bavaria in Upper Bavaria Find all individuals with events at this location  [2] 
    Fact 2 Count Palatine of the Rhine Find all individuals with events at this location  [2] 
    Fact 4 King of Italy Find all individuals with events at this location  [2] 
    Fact 5 Holy Roman Emperor Find all individuals with events at this location  [2] 
    Name LewisLudwig IV Emperor Of Bavaria  [2, 3] 
    Death 11 Oct 1347  [1, 2] 
    Notes 
    • Louis IV of Bavaria (also known as Ludwig the Bavarian) of the House of Wittelsbach (born 1282; died 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 F¸rstenfeldbruck. 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.

      [edit] 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 had 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.

      [edit] 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, John of Luxembourg, because of his youth and chose Louis as rival king to Frederick the Handsome. Louis was elected in October 1314 upon the instigation of 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 M¸hldorf 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 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 did not succeed in convincing his brothers to submit to Louis.

      As he did not 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.

      [edit] Coronation as Holy Roman Emperor and conflict with the Pope

      Golden Bull of Louis IV 1326Despite 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 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. But 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.[1] 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 in 1329. The duchy of Carinthia was released as an imperial fief on May 2, 1335 in Linz to his Habsburg relative Albert II, Duke of Austria. In 1340 Louis inherited Lower Bavaria and then reunited the duchy of Bavaria. The mother of the last duke of Lower Bavaria, a member of the Luxemburg dynasty, had to return to Bohemia.

      In 1342 Louis also acquired Tyrol 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 two sisters, one of them 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"). Also the Habsburg dukes stayed loyal to Louis. In the Battle of CrÈcy Charles' father John of Luxemburg was killed; Charles himself also took part in the battle but escaped.

      Louis' sudden death the following year avoided a longer civil war. The sons of Louis supported G¸nther von Schwarzburg as new rival king to Charles but finally joined the Luxemburg party after G¸nther's early death in 1349 and divided the Wittelsbach possesions among each other again.
    Person ID I21223  Main Tree
    Last Modified 22 Feb 2016 

    Father Louis II,   b. 12/13 Apr 1229, Heidelberg Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 02 Feb 1294 (Age 64 years) 
    Relationship Birth 
    Mother Mechtild Of HABSBURG,   b. 1253, Rheinfelden Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1304, Munich Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 51 years) 
    Relationship Birth 
    Marriage 1273  Aachen Find all individuals with events at this location  [1] 
    Family ID F18548  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 Beatrix of POLAND   d. 1322 
    Marriage 1308/11  [2] 
    Children 
     1. Mathilde Of BAVARIA,   b. Aft 21 Jun 1313   d. 02 Jul 1346, Meiben Find all individuals with events at this location (Age < 32 years)  [Natural]
     2. Child Of BAVARIA,   b. Sep 1314  [Natural]
     3. Anna Of BAVARIA,   b. Abt 1316   d. 29 Jan 1319, Kastl Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 3 years)  [Natural]
     4. Margrave of Brandenburg Louis V The Brandenburger Duke Of Upper BAVARIA,   b. 1316   d. 1361 (Age 45 years)  [Natural]
     5. Agnes Of BAVARIA,   b. Abt 1318  [Natural]
    +6. Stephen II,   b. 1319   d. 13 May 1375, Landshut Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 56 years)  [Birth]
    Family ID F17657  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 22 Feb 2016 

    Family 2 Margarete Countess Of HOLLAND,   b. 1311, Le Quesnoy, Nord, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 23 Jun 1356, Le Quesnoy, Nord, France Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 45 years) 
    Marriage 1324  [1] 
    Children 
     1. Louis Of BAVARIA,   b. 1347   d. 1348 (Age 1 year)  [Natural]
     2. William I Duke Of BAVARIA,   b. 1330   d. Apr 1389 (Age 59 years)  [Birth]
     3. Anna Of BAVARIA,   b. Abt 1326   d. 03 Jun 1361, Fontenelles Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 35 years)  [Natural]
     4. Margaret Of BAVARIA,   b. 1325   d. 1374 (Age 49 years)  [Natural]
     5. Elisabeth Of BAVARIA,   b. 1329   d. 02 Aug 1402, Stuttgart Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 73 years)  [Natural]
     6. Louis VI The Roman Duke Of Upper BAVARIA,   b. 1328   d. 1365 (Age 37 years)  [Natural]
     7. Otto V The Bavarian Duke Of Upper BAVARIA,   b. 1340   d. 1379 (Age 39 years)  [Natural]
     8. Beatrix Of BAVARIA,   b. 1344   d. 25 Dec 1359 (Age 15 years)  [Natural]
     9. Count of Hainaut Albert I Duke Of BAVARIA,   b. 25 Jul 1336, Munich Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 13 Dec 1404, The Hague Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 68 years)  [Natural]
     10. Agnes Of BAVARIA,   b. 1345, Munich Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 11 Nov 1352, Munich Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 7 years)  [Natural]
    Family ID F17659  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsFact 4 - - King Of Italy Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 

  • Sources 
    1. [S03581] Wikipedia Encyclopedia.

    2. [S5840] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonist Who Came to America before 1700.

    3. [S01910] Blood Royal, Issue of the Kings and Queens of Medieval England 1066-1399 by. T. Anna Leese.


  

Web Hosting Administration and Support by DCP Partners LLC This site powered by The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding ©, written by Darrin Lythgoe 2001-2024.