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Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor

Duke of Bavaria and Holy Roman Emperor

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ57161 ↗
Source-derived summary

Louis IV (German: Ludwig; 1 April 1282 – 11 October 1347), called the Bavarian (Ludwig der Bayer, Latin: Ludovicus Bavarus), was King of the Romans from 1314, King of Italy from 1327, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1328 until his death in 1347.

Louis' election as king of Germany in 1314 was controversial, as his Habsburg cousin Frederick the Fair was simultaneously elected king by a separate set of electors. Louis defeated Frederick in the Battle of Mühldorf in 1322, and the two eventually reconciled. Louis was opposed and excommunicated by the French Pope John XXII; Louis in turn attempted to depose the pope and install an anti-pope.

Louis IV was Duke of Upper Bavaria from 1294 to 1301 together with his elder brother Rudolf I, was Margrave of Brandenburg until 1323, and Count Palatine of the Rhine until 1329, and became Duke of Lower Bavaria in 1340. He was the last Bavarian to be a king of Germany until 1742. He became Count of Hainaut, Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland in 1345 when his wife Margaret inherited those domains.

Origins and Youth

Louis was born in Munich, the son of Louis II, Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine, and Matilda, a daughter of King Rudolph I. As a member of the noble house of Wittelsbach, his great-great-grandfather, Otto, was given the duchy of Bavaria for his services to Frederick Barbarossa. As a result, Louis and his family enjoyed a close relationship with the Hohenstaufen dynasty, who not only acted as political allies to the Wittelsbachs, but also as family members through Elizabeth of Bavaria's marriage to Conrad IV of Germany.

Louis's father, Louis the Strict, went to great pains to ensure the Wittelsbach family would be closely intermarried with the other magnates of the empire.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor” as duke of Bavaria and Holy Roman Emperor. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Louis, Holy and Roman.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1282, 1347, 1314, 1327—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1282-04-01, 1286-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Louis, Holy and Roman providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor”, the useful work is to connect “duke of Bavaria and Holy Roman Emperor” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q57161. VIAF identifies the subject as 89641920. The Library of Congress control number is n84208500. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1282, 1347, 1314 and 1327.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.