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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.
Life
Louis 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 *, and a member of the Capetian royal family. 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. 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.
Children
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).
Legacy
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)
See also
References
1326 births | 1382 deaths | House of Valois | Hungarian monarchs | Polish monarchs
Людвік I Вялікі | Ludwig I. (Ungarn) | Louis Ier de Hongrie | Luigi I d'Ungheria | לאיוש הראשון מלך הונגריה | Lajošs I | I. Lajos | Lodewijk I van Hongarije | ラヨシュ1世 | Ludwik Węgierski | Ludovic I al Ungariei | Людовик I Великий | Ľudovít I. (Uhorsko) | Лудовик I Анжујски | Ludvig I av Ungern | Людвік І Великий | 拉约什一世
"Louis I of Hungary"