Louis the Great wore two crowns and chased a third in Naples
Hungarian historians long remembered Louis I as their mightiest king, ruler of a realm washed by three seas. He held Hungary and Croatia from 1342, added Poland in 1370, and spent years trying to punish a Neapolitan queen he blamed for his brother's murder.
Born in 1326 to Charles I of Hungary and Elizabeth of Poland, Louis was the third son but the first to survive infancy, becoming heir after his brother Ladislaus died in 1329. He learned French, German and Latin and liked history and astrology. At the age of four he nearly died when Felician Záh tried to kill the royal family at Visegrád in 1330; two tutors saved him and his younger brother Andrew. A 1339 agreement made him heir to his childless maternal uncle, Casimir III of Poland, in return for helping Poland win back lost lands.
He was crowned at Székesfehérvár in July 1342, five days after his father's death, and inherited a centralised kingdom with a full treasury. His devout mother acted almost as co-regent for decades. His brother Andrew, married to Queen Joanna I of Naples, was murdered in 1345; blaming the queen, Louis and led two invasions of her kingdom between 1347 and 1350. He took the Neapolitan royal titles, but the papacy refused to recognise them, his mercenaries' behaviour made him hated, and by 1351 his troops had left.
At home he confirmed the nobles' liberties at the Diet of 1351, stressing that all noblemen held equal status, set a uniform peasant rent and guaranteed peasants' freedom to move. Abroad he forced Venice to give up the Dalmatian towns in 1358 and fought Lithuanians, Serbs and the Golden Horde. His claims over Bosnia, Wallachia and Moldavia, though, stayed mostly nominal, and efforts to convert Orthodox subjects bred resentment. A university he founded at Pécs in 1367 closed within twenty years for lack of funding.
Having no sons, Louis spent his last decade securing his daughters' succession, granting Polish nobles broad liberties in the Privilege of Koszyce in 1374, though his rule there stayed unpopular. Afflicted by a skin disease and increasingly pious, he died in 1382.
Source: Louis I of Hungary
