Ludwig IV of Thuringia (1200-1227)

Landgrave of Thuringia, count palatine of Saxony, and count in Hesse (1217-1227).

Ludwig was the eldest son of Hermann I, landgrave of Thuringia (d. 1217), and Sophie, daughter of Otto I, duke of Bavaria. In May 1223 Ludwig was asked to go on crusade by both Pope Honorius III and Emperor Frederick II. He finally took the cross in May 1224 at a meeting of nobles in Frankfurt am Main. In return, the emperor had to make large concessions: a payment of 5,000 marks of silver to the landgrave as well as free transport and provisioning for him and his entourage during the crusade. Further negotiations with the emperor in the summer of 1226 gave the landgrave the chance to enlarge his sphere of influence in eastern Germany: in case of an early death of Ludwig’s nephew Henry, margrave of MeiCen and Lausitz, who was underage at that time, the landgrave was to be granted Henry’s lands. Ludwig thus achieved one of his most important political aims. The negotiations between Frederick II and the landgrave were supported by Hermann von Salza, grand master of the Teutonic Order. The ties between Ludwig and the order became closer in 1222 when he placed all of its estates in Thuringia and Hesse under special protection.

In June 1227 Ludwig set off on crusade with a large entourage. The composition and course of the expedition were described by Berthold, a chaplain of the landgrave. In early September Ludwig arrived at the port of Otranto in Apulia to embark for the passage to Palestine, but on 11 September he died of a heavy fever that proved fatal for many of the German crusaders.

Ludwig was venerated as a saint in thirteenth - and early fourteenth-century Thuringia. His wife Elisabeth, who was on close terms with the Franciscan Order and its ideal of poverty, left the Thuringian court after Ludwig’s death and founded a hospital in Marburg an der Lahn in Hesse. She died in 1231 at the age of twenty-four and was canonized by Pope Gregory IX four years later.

-Stefan Tebruck

See also: Teutonic Order Bibliography

Heinemeyer, Karl, “Landgraf Ludwig IV. von Thuringen, der Gemahl der hl. Elisabeth,” Wartburg-Jahrbuch 2000 (2002), 17-47.

Patze, Hans, Die Entstehung der Landesherrschaft in Thuringen (Koln: Bohlau, 1962).

SanktElisabeth: Furstin—Dienerin—Heilige (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1981).