Louis I of Hungary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Louis I the Great (Hungarian: I. (Nagy) Lajos, Polish: Ludwik Węgierski, Serbian: Lajoš I/Лајош I, Croatian: Ludovik I, Czech: Ludvík I. Veliký, Slovak: Ľudovít I. Veľký) (5 March 1326, Visegrád — 10 September 1382, Nagyszombat/Trnava) was King of Hungary, Croatia, and Dalmatia etc. from 1342 and of Poland from 1370. Louis was the head of the senior branch of the Angevin dynasty. He was one of Hungary's most active and accomplished monarchs of the Late Middle Ages, extending her territory to the Adriatic and securing Dalmatia, with part of Bosnia and Bulgaria, within the Holy Crown of Hungary. He spent much of his reign in wars with the Republic of Venice and in competition for the throne of Naples, the former with some success and the latter with little lasting results.
Louis, named for his uncle, Saint Louis of Toulouse, was the eldest son of Charles I of Hungary and Elisabeth of Poland, daughter of Ladislaus the Short and sister of Casimir III of Poland, the Piasts who reestablished kinship in Poland. He was designated heir of his father at birth. In due time, he became king of Hungary, at the death of his father in 1342. He was crowned only a few days later on 21 July. Louis led armies many times. Besides his best known campaigns, he fought with more or less success in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Wallachia, and against the Golden Horde. The first Ottoman-Hungarian clash occurred during his reign.
Contents |
[edit] Wars with Venice and Naples
Defeated by Venice in an early campaign in Zara (1346), Louis embarked on an expedition against Naples in revenge of the murder of his brother Andrew, Duke of Calabria, husband of Joan I of Naples. The circumstances of his death — in a palace conspiracy — suggested the involvement of the queen. Louis entered Italy on 3 November 1347 and, after obtaining the support of many local princes, he entered Benevento early in 1348 , much to the applause of the Neapolitan baronage. On 15 January, Joan fled Naples by ship for Provence, soon to be followed by her second husband, Louis of Taranto. Having established himself in Naples with little difficulty, Louis was nevertheless forced to withdraw quickly by the arrival of the Black Death. In his rush to leave ravaged Italy, he appointed two Hungarian officials to hold the regency. They soon lost the support of the barons and opened the way for the return of Joan and her husband.
Two years later, early in 1350, Louis landed at Manfredonia and, in next to no time at all, was menacing Naples. However, he soon called of the campaign at the insistence of his exhausted troops and renounced all claims on the Neapolitan crown. Before leaving Italy, he had the papal curia of Avignon begin an inquest into the murder of Andrew, but the papal court found Joan innocent, largely for political reasons, as Joan agreed to ceded her temporal rights over the city of Avignon to the papacy. The conflict with Naples finally settled in 1381 , one year before Louis’ death. The pope stripped the royal title from Joan and authorized king Louis to execute his decision. He was too ill to go personally, but his nephew, Charles of Durazzo aided with Hungarian gold and men seized the throne and killed Joan.
From 1357 to 1358, Louis waged a new war against Venice for the rule of Dalmatia. After successfully organising an anti-Venetian league, Louis put the cities of Dalmatia to fire and the sword, expelling all Venetians. By the Treaty of Zara (1358), all of Louis's demands over the Adriatic region were recognised. He immediately built up an Adriatic fleet.
[edit] Domestic activity
Constitutionally, Louis maintained much of the structure of his father's regime, but introduced several cultural reforms. In 1351 he reissued the Golden Bull of 1222 in a modified form to ensure the rights of the nobility. His other laws introduced the entail system regulating the inheritance of the land-owning class. He founded the first university in Hungary[1] in the city of Pécs and made general efforts at Latinisation in the kingdom.
[edit] Inheritance of Poland and death
In 1370, the Piasts of Poland died out. The last dynast, Casimir the Great, left only female issue and a grandson. Since arrangements had been made for Louis's succession as early as 1355 , he became King of Poland upon his grandfather's death in right of his mother, who held much of the practical power until her death in 1380 .
When Louis died in 1382, the Hungarian throne was inherited by his daughter Mary. In Poland, however, the lords of Lesser Poland did not want to continue the personal union with Hungary, nor to accept Mary's fiancé Sigismund as a regent. They therefore chose Mary's younger sister, Jadwiga of Poland as their new monarch. After two years of negotiations with Louis widow, Queen Elisabeth, who was regent of Hungary, and a civil war in Greater Poland (1383), Jadwiga finally came to Kraków and was crowned "King" (not Queen) of Poland on 16 November 1384. The masculine gender in her title was intended to underline the fact that she was a monarch in her own right and not a queen consort.
[edit] Family
In 1342, Louis married his first wife, Margaret (1335 – 1349), underaged daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, who died while still a minor. He then married his second wife, Elisabeth, daughter of Stephen II of Bosnia, who became Louis's vassal, and Elisabeth of Kuyavia, in 1353 . Her maternal grandfather was Casimir of Kuyavia, son of Ziemomysl of Kuyavia and Salome of Eastern Pomerania.
Louis had four daughters, all born of his second wife:
- Mary (1365 – 1366)
- Catherine (1368 – 1378)
- Mary, his successor in Hungary, who married Sigismund, at that time Margrave of Brandenburg (1371 – 1395)
- Hedwige his successor in Poland, who married Jogaila, then Grand Duke of Lithuania
[edit] Ancestors
| Louis I of Hungary | Father: Charles I of Hungary |
Paternal Grandfather: Charles Martel of Anjou |
Paternal Great-grandfather: Charles II of Naples |
| Paternal Great-grandmother: Maria Arpad of Hungary |
|||
| Paternal Grandmother: Klementia |
Paternal Great-grandfather: Rudolph I of Germany |
||
| Paternal Great-grandmother: Gertrude of Hohenburg |
|||
| Mother: Elisabeth of Poland |
Maternal Grandfather: Władysław I the Elbow-high |
Maternal Great-grandfather: Kazimierz I Kujawski |
|
| Maternal Great-grandmother: Eufrozyna Opolska |
|||
| Maternal Grandmother: Jadwiga Kaliska |
Maternal Great-grandfather: |
||
| Maternal Great-grandmother: |
[edit] References
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2007) |
- Louis the Great, 1326–82 at bartleby.com
| Preceded by Charles I |
King of Hungary, Croatia and Dalmatia 1342–1382 |
Succeeded by Mary |
| Preceded by Casimir III |
King of Poland 1370–1382 |
Succeeded by Jadwiga |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
