Louis III

▪ Holy Roman emperor

byname  Louis The Blind,  French  Louis L'aveugle 

born c. 880, /882, Autun?, Fr.

died September 928, Arles, Fr.

      king of Provence and, from 901 to 905, Frankish emperor whose short-lived tenure marked the failure to restore the Carolingian dynasty to power in Italy.

      Louis was a son of Boso, king of Provence, and Irmingard, daughter of the Frankish emperor Louis II, the last of the elder male line of the Carolingian dynasty. The emperor Charles III the Fat took Louis under his protection on Boso's death in 887, and, although Charles was deposed that same year, Louis was recognized as king of Provence in 890. In 900 Louis was called to Italy by a group of nobles who were opposed to the rule of the Italian king Berengar of Friuli; in October, Louis was elected king of the Lombards at Pavia and, a few months later, in February 901, received the imperial crown from Pope Benedict IV at Rome. In 902, however, Berengar captured Louis, who was forced to leave the country.

      Louis attempted to reconquer Italy in 904. He secured the submission of Lombardy but in July 905 was captured at Verona by Berengar, who blinded him and sent him back to Provence, where he remained until his death.

▪ king of Bavaria

German  in full Ludwig Leopold Joseph Maria Aloys Alfred  

born Jan. 7, 1845, Munich

died Oct. 18, 1921, Sárvár, Hung.

      last king of Bavaria, from 1913 to 1918, when the revolution of November 7–8 brought the rule of the Wittelsbach dynasty to an end.

      In 1868 he married Maria Theresa, daughter of the archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este. In December 1912, on the death of his father, the regent Luitpold, Louis took over the regency for his insane cousin, King Otto I. On Nov. 5, 1913, although Otto was still alive, Louis assumed the royal title himself.

      The new king was interested chiefly in improving agriculture and transportation but also continued the traditional Wittelsbach patronage of the arts. In World War I he took as little part as was possible, though from 1917 he opposed the military policies of Erich Ludendorff, de facto head of the imperial German army.

      The Bavarian revolution, led by the Socialist Kurt Eisner, was a complete surprise to Louis. Although he did not abdicate, he released his civil and military officers from their oath of loyalty on Nov. 13, 1918. Greatly embittered, he died in exile.

▪ king of France

born 863

died Aug. 5, 882, Saint-Denis, Fr.

      king of France (i.e., Francia Occidentalis, the West Frankish kingdom) from 879 to 882, whose decisive victory over the Northmen in August 881, at Saucourt, Ponthieu, briefly stemmed the incursions of the Scandinavian invaders into northern France.

      After the death of their father, Louis II the Stammerer, on April 10, 879, Louis and his brother Carloman agreed at Amiens in 880 to a partition of the kingdom, by which Louis received Francia and Neustria. Invasions instigated by dissident West Frankish nobles and by Louis the Younger, one of the East Frankish kings, were bought off by the cession of western Lotharingia (Treaties of Verdun, 879, and of Ribémont, 880). In 880–881 Louis and his brother made a concerted but unsuccessful campaign against the usurper Boso of Provence.

      The pagan Northmen, whose frequent raids had turned to conquest, were the greatest menace faced by Louis III; Amiens, Arras, Cambrai, and the famous monasteries of Saint-Bertin and Corbie were all sacked in 880–881. Louis's victory at Saucourt (the memory of which was preserved in the chanson de geste called Gormont et Isembart) inflicted heavy losses on the Vikings, but the able and energetic king, not yet 20, died in the following year.

▪ king of Naples and Sicily

born Sept. 25, 1403, Anjou, Fr.

died Nov. 15, 1434, Cosenza, Italy

      duke of Anjou and Touraine, count of Maine and Provence, and titular king of Naples and Sicily (1417–34). Advancing Angevin claims to the throne of Naples, Louis struggled with the Aragonese claimant Alfonso V, sometimes supported, sometimes opposed by the childless Queen Joan II of Naples (ruled 1414–35).

      Succeeding his father, Louis II of Anjou, as claimant to the Neapolitan throne, Louis was crowned king of Naples by Pope Martin V in September 1419. Louis gathered a considerable army, including the famed condottiere (mercenary commander) Muzio Attendola Sforza, and sailed to Naples to conquer the kingdom. Joan, however, recognized as her heir Alfonso V of Aragon (1421), who arrived to defend Naples against Louis.

      Alfonso prevented Louis from taking the whole kingdom. When he also usurped some of the royal power from Joan, however, she renounced him and adopted Louis (1423), naming him governor of the duchy of Calabria. Later, in April 1433, the capricious Joan disinherited Louis, only to readopt him in June. Louis' forces had nevertheless gained most of the kingdom and were about to drive out Alfonso when Louis died suddenly, leaving his brother René of Anjou as his successor.

▪ king of the East Franks

byname  Louis the Younger , German  Ludwig der Jüngere 

born c. 830

died Jan. 20, 882, Frankfurt

      king of part of the East Frankish realm who, by acquiring western Lotharingia (Lorraine) from the West Franks, helped to establish German influence in that area.

      A son of Louis II the German (Louis II), king of the East Franks, Louis the Younger invaded Aquitaine on his father's orders in 854. For some time Charles the Bald (Charles II), Louis the German's half brother and king of the West Franks, had been attempting to conquer the Aquitanian kingdom, and in 852 he imprisoned Pippin II of Aquitaine, his nephew. In the following year the Aquitanian magnates sent envoys to Louis the German, offering the crown either to him or to one of his sons. It was at that time that Louis agreed to send Louis the Younger to Aquitaine with an army. The expedition was, however, unsuccessful. Pippin escaped from prison, and upon his return the Aquitanians abandoned the cause of Louis the Younger, who was forced to return to Bavaria.

      Under arrangements made by his father in 865 and 872, Louis the Younger received Franconia, Thuringia, and Saxony after his father's death (August 876). When Charles the Bald attempted to seize eastern Lotharingia (i.e., that part of Lotharingia that had belonged to Louis the German), Louis the Younger defeated him at Andernach (October 876) and incorporated it into his own dominions. By invading the West Frankish kingdom, he acquired western Lotharingia in the treaties of Verdun (Verdun, Treaty of) (879) and Ribémont (880).

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