Ludwig IV, Landgrave of Thuringia

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Ludwig IV or Louis IV (28 October 1200 – 11 September 1227) was the Landgrave of Thuringia from 1217 to 1227.

Ludwig was born in Creuzburg to Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia, and Duchess Sophia, daughter of Otto of Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria. Upon his father's death in 1216, Ludwig ascended the Thuringian throne at the age of 16. On the Feast of St. Kilian in 1218 at age 18, he was armed as a knight in the Church of St. George in Eisenach.

At Wartburg Castle in 1220 at age 20, Ludwig married 13-year-old Elisabeth of Hungary, with whom he had two children, Hermann II, Landgrave of Thuringia and Sophie of Thuringia. He set up court in Eisenach.

In 1227, Ludwig was inspired to go on the Sixth Crusade by the tales of his uncle, who had been to the Levant with the Holy Roman Emperor. He embarked on a journey to the Holy Land with five counts, Louis von Wartburg, Gunther von Kefernberg, Meinrad von Mühlberg, Heinrich von Stolberg, and Burkhard von Brandenberg, leaving his pregnant wife behind. She had a premonition that they would never meet again.

In August 1227 Ludwig transversed the mountains between Thuringia and Upper Franconia, through Swabia and Bavaria, crossing the Tyrolian Alps. He fell ill of a fever after reaching Brindisi and Otranto. He received Extreme Unction from the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Bishop of Sante Croce. He died in Otranto in 1227. A few days after his death, his daughter Gertrud was born. Ludwig's remains were buried in Germany in 1228.

Ludwig's wife Elisabeth died young only a few years later, at the age of 24, after establishing the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Eisenach. She was officially proclaimed a saint only four years after her death. While Ludwig was never formally canonized, he became known among the German people as St. Ludwig (German: Ludwig der Heilige).