LOUIS III. (c. 863-882), king of France, was a son of Louis II. and with his brother Carloman succeeded his father as king in April 879. A strong party, however, cast some doubts upon the legitimacy of the young princes, as the marriage of their parents had not been recognized by the emperor Charles the Bald; consequently it was proposed to offer the crown to the East Frankish ruler Louis, a son of Louis the German. But this plan came to nothing, and in September 879 the brothers were crowned at Ferrières by Ansègisus, archbishop of Sens. A few months later they divided their kingdom, Louis receiving the part of France north of the Loire. They acted together against the Northmen, over whom in August 881 they gained a memorable victory. They also turned against Boso who had been set up as king in Burgundy and Provence. On the 5th of August 882 Louis died at St Denis. He left no sons and Carloman became sole king.
(A. W. H.*)
LOUIS IV. (921-954), king of France, surnamed “d’Outremer” (Transmarinus), was the son of Charles III. the Simple. In consequence of the imprisonment of his father in 922, his mother Odgiva (Eadgyfu), sister of the English king Æthelstan, fled to England with the young Louis—a circumstance to which he owes his surname. On the death of the usurper Rudolph (Raoul), Ralph of Burgundy, Hugh the Great, count of Paris, and the other nobles between whom France was divided, chose Louis for their king, and the lad was brought over from England and consecrated at Laon on the 19th of June 936. Although his de facto sovereignty was confined to the town of Laon and to some places in the north of France, Louis displayed a zeal beyond his years in procuring the recognition of his authority by his turbulent vassals. The beginning of his reign was marked by a disastrous irruption of the Hungarians into Burgundy and Aquitaine (937). In 939 Louis became involved in a struggle with the emperor Otto the Great on the question of Lorraine, the nobles of which district had sworn an oath of fidelity to the king of France. When Louis married Gerberga, sister of Otto, and widow of Giselbert, duke of Lorraine, there seemed to be a fair prospect of peace; but the war was resumed, Otto supporting the rebel lords of the kingdom of France, and peace was not declared until 942, at the treaty of Visé-sur-Meuse. On the death of William Longsword, duke of Normandy, who had been assassinated by Arnulf, count of Flanders, in December 942, Louis endeavoured to obtain possession of the person of Richard, the young son and heir of the late duke. After an unsuccessful expedition into Normandy, Louis fell into the hands of his adversaries, and was for some time kept prisoner at Rouen (945), and subsequently handed over to Hugh the Great, who only consented to release him on condition that he should surrender Laon. Menaced, however, by Louis’ brother-in-law, Otto the Great, and excommunicated by the council of Ingelheim (948), the powerful vassal was forced to make submission and to restore Laon to his sovereign. The last years of the reign were troubled by fresh difficulties with Hugh the Great and also by an irruption of the Hungarians into the south of France. Louis died on the 10th of September 954, and was succeeded by his son Lothair.
The chief authority for the reign is the chronicler Flodoard. See also Ph. Lauer, La Règne de Louis IV d’Outre-Mer (Paris, 1900); and A. Heil, Die politischen Beziehungen zwischen Otto dem Grossen und Ludwig IV. von Frankreich (Berlin, 1904).
(R. Po.)
LOUIS V. (967-987), king of France, succeeded his father Lothair in March 986 at the age of nineteen, and finally embroiled the Carolingian dynasty with Hugh Capet and Adalberon, archbishop of Reims. From the absence of any important event in his one year’s reign the medieval chroniclers designated him by the words “qui nihil fecit,” i.e. “le Fainéant” or “do-nothing.” Louis died in May 987, his mother Emma being accused of having poisoned him. He had married Adelaide, sister of Geoffrey Grisegonelle, count of Anjou, but had no issue. His heir by blood was Charles, duke of Lower Lorraine, son of Louis IV., but the defection of the bishops and the treason of Adalberon (Ascelinus), bishop of Laon, assured the success of Hugh Capet.
See F. Lot, Les Derniers Carolingiens (Paris, 1891); and the Recueil des actes de Lothaire et de Louis V, edited by L. Halphen and F. Lot (1908).
(R. Po.)