General Notes

Louis, or Ludwig, IV, b.  Apr.  1, 1282, d.  Oct.  11, 1347, overcame a
disputed election to the German kingship and intense papal opposition in the
last major medieval church-state conflict.  When Emperor Henry VII of the
house of Luxemburg died, the German electors sought a king from another
dynasty. They divided, however, between Louis, who was duke of Bavaria and a
member of the Wittelsbach family, and the Habsburg Frederick the Fair of
Austria.  Both were elected king in 1314, and a long war ensued.  Louis
finally won with a decisive victory in the Battle of Muhldorf in 1322.

At this point Pope John XXII, living in Avignon, intervened, claiming the
right to veto Louis's election.  When Louis denied this right, John
excommunicated him.  Supported by philosophers Marsilius of Padua and John of
Jandun, as well as by some disaffected Franciscan friars, Louis entered Italy
in 1327.  He had himself crowned emperor by lay officials in Rome in 1328 and
set up an antipope, Nicholas V.  Most of the German princes came to back Louis
against increasingly fierce papal denunciations, and in 1338, by the
Declaration of Rense, the electors asserted that they alone had the power to
elect the German kings, who automatically became emperors-elect.  Louis's
decree Licet juris enacted that statement as law.

Louis continued to negotiate, to no avail, with John's successors, Benedict
XII and Clement VI.  In the meantime he alienated his German supporters by his
expansion of his family's domains.  To acquire the Tyrol he annulled (1341)
the marriage of its heiress, Margaret Maultasch, by royal decree and induced
her to marry his own son, thus contravening canon law.  In 1346 the electors
finally accepted the papal deposition of Louis and elected Charels IV of the
house of Luxemburg as king.  Louis was preparing to fight when he died while
hunting.