Louis I of Hungary
Louis I the Great (
Hungarian:
I. (Nagy) Lajos,
Polish:
Ludwik Węgierski) (
1326 Visegrád -
1382 Nagyszombat) was a King of Hungary and Poland in the late 14th century. He was named after his uncle,
Saint Louis of ToulouseLouis became king of
Hungary in
1342 at the death of his father. He was the son of
Charles I, King of Hungary, and was the head of the
Angevin minor branch (
Anjou-Sicily) and a member of the
Capetian royal dynasty. Louis' mother was
Elisabeth of Poland, daughter of
Ladislaus the Short, and sister of
Casimir III the Great, King of Poland and the last ruler of Piast dynasty, who died
1370.
|
Anjou-Sicily, Poland, Hungary, Dalmatia |
Louis the Great led armies many times. His best known campaigns are those for the throne of Naples, but he defeated Venice, and fought in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Wallachia etc., and against the Golden Horde. The first Ottoman Hungarian clash was during his reign. Louis I also established an Adriatic fleet.
He found the first university in Hungary in the city of Pécs and made latinization efforts in the Kingdom.
The
Piasts did not die out in 1370, as there were plenty of Piasts princes in
Silesia and in
Masovia; however, Casimir III left only female issue and had only one grandson. Since arrangements had been made for Louis' succession as early as 1355, he became King of Poland upon his grandfather's death in right of (and practically together with) his mother
Elisabeth of Poland, who held much of the practical power until her death in
1380.
In
1342, Louis married his first wife, Margaret of Luxemburg (1335-1349), underaged daughter of
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, who died while still a minor. He then married his second wife,
Elisabeth of Bosnia, daughter of
Stephen II of Bosnia and Elisabeth of Kujavia, in
1353. Her maternal grandfather was Casimir of
Kuyavia, son of Ziemomysl of Kuyavia and Salome of Pomerelia. Ziemomysl, Elisabeth's great-grandfather, was a Polish prince and the brother of
Vladislav I of Poland, Louis's grandfather. Elisabeth's father was Louis's vassal in southern frontiers of Hungary. He died in 1382.
Louis had three daughters, all born of his second wife:
*Catherine (1366-77)
*
Mary, Queen of Hungary, wife of
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, at that time Margrave of
Brandenburg*Hedwig (Queen
Jadwiga of Poland).
When Louis died in
1382, the Hungarian throne was inherited by Mary. In Poland, however, the lords of
Lesser Poland (the virtual rulers of 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, as their new monarch. After two years of negotiations with Jadwiga's mother, Dowager Queen Elisabeth of Hungary (Elisabeth of Bosnia) who was regent of Hungary, and a civil war in
Greater Poland (
1383), Jadwiga finally came to
Kraków and was crowned King (
sic) 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, not a
queen consort.
Names in other languages: Hungarian:
I (Nagy) Lajos, Polish:
Ludwik Węgierski, Slovak:
Ľudovít I (Veľký) *
History of Poland (966-1385)*
Armorial of the House Anjou-Sicily*
House of Anjou-SicilyLuís I da Hungria
