Ludwig IV. (Thuringia)

Ludwig IV. (Liber depictus)

Ludwig IV, the saint or Ludwig of Thuringia (born October 28, 1200 in Creuzburg , † September 11, 1227 in Otranto ) was Landgrave of Thuringia and Count Palatine of Saxony from 1217 to 1227. Under his rule, the ludowingian rule continued continued in Thuringia, at the same time its decline was initiated by his early death.

Life

Ludwig was born in 1200 as the second of four sons of Landgrave Hermann I at Creuzburg Castle in the town of the same name on the Werra .

After the death of his father in 1217, Ludwig took office. He soon got into serious conflicts with the Archbishop of Mainz , which were settled by Emperor Friedrich II .

Since 1221 Ludwig was married to Elisabeth , the daughter of the Hungarian King Andreas II . Elisabeth came to the Wartburg as the bride for Ludwig's deceased brother Hermann in 1211 and spent almost her entire childhood at the Landgrafenhof. She later went down in history as Saint Elizabeth. In 1221 Ludwig's brother-in-law, Margrave Dietrich von Meißen, died . Ludwig received guardianship over his nephew, Heinrich the Illustrious . This seemed to offer the possibility of territorial expansion. Ludwig used military force as far as Lower Lusatia , but met resistance from his sister Jutta , Heinrich's mother. Ludwig IV maintained good relations with Emperor Friedrich II, who appointed Ludwig Marshal and from whom he obtained the contingent mortgage of the Margraviate of Meissen in 1226 . In return, Ludwig joined Frederick II's crusade to Jerusalem .

Gravestone for Landgrave Ludwig IV., Since 1952 in the Eisenach Georgenkirche

On June 24, 1227 Ludwig set out with his army from the Creuzburg . He crossed the Alps and joined the main imperial army in southern Italy with his contingent. Even before the journey by sea to the Kingdom of Jerusalem was continued, he died of a fever in the camp near Otranto . He was buried in the Reinhardsbrunn Monastery , the home monastery of the Ludowingers . The Reinhardsbrunn figure grave plate with his portrait, which was created posthumously (after the monastery fire in 1292) and based on the representation can be dated to the time after 1350, has been installed in the Georgenkirche Eisenach since 1952 .

Ludwig's successor as Landgrave of Thuringia was officially his five-year-old son Hermann II , albeit under the tutelage and regency of his brother Heinrich Raspe .

Marriage and offspring

Ludwig IV married Elisabeth of Hungary in 1221 . He had three children with her:

• Hermann II. (1222–1241) ∞ Helene von Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1239)
• Sophie (1224–1275) ∞ Henry II , Duke of Brabant
• Gertrud (1227–1297) Abbess in the Premonstratensian Convent Altenberg (Hesse)

Adoration of saints

While the veneration of Ludwig's wife Elisabeth spread rapidly and was promoted by the church, the veneration of Ludwig was limited to Thuringia and died out in the 14th century without a church canonization.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Wäß 2006, Vol. 2, Fig. 799
2. ^ Matthias Werner: Ludwig IV. The saint . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 6 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1997, Sp. 1103 .

literature

• Karl Heinemeyer: Landgrave Ludwig IV of Thuringia, the consort of St. Elisabeth, in: Wartburg-Jahrbuch 2000, pp. 17–47, Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2002
• Walter Heinemeyer:  Ludwig IV. The saint, Landgrave of Thuringia and Count Palatine of Saxony. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 422 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Helga Wäß: Ludwig IV., The saint , in: Form and perception of Central German memory sculpture in the 14th century. A contribution to medieval grave monuments, epitaphs and curiosities in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, North Hesse, East Westphalia and South Lower Saxony. Volume 2. Catalog of selected objects from the High Middle Ages to the beginning of the 15th century. Tenea Verlag, Berlin 2006, p. 538 f. with ill. 799 f. ISBN 3-86504-159-0
• Karl Robert Wenck:  Ludwig IV., The saint, Landgrave of Thuringia . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 594-597.
• Steffen Raßloff , Lutz Gebhardt : The Thuringian Landgraves. History and legends . Rhino Verlag, Ilmenau 2017, ISBN 978-3-95560-055-6 .

Web links

• Ludwig IV. The saint at genealogie-mittelalter.de
• Ludwig IV the Saint at heiligenlexikon.de (Ecumenical Saint Lexicon)

predecessor	Office	successor
Hermann I.	Landgrave of Thuringia 1217–1227	Hermann II.
Hermann I.	Count Palatine of Saxony 1217–1227	Heinrich Raspe