LOUIS I. (1326-82), called "the great," king of Hungary and Poland, was the third son of Charles Robert, king of Hun gary, and Elizabeth, daughter of the Polish king, Ladislaus Lokietek. On July 21, 1362, he was crowned king of Hungary in succession to his father. He engaged in a prolonged struggle against Venice for the Adriatic sea-board. On July 1, 1346, he was defeated by the Venetians at Zara, which had placed itself under the protection of Hungary. The battle has been immortalized by Tintoretto. In 1357, however, Louis formed a league of all the enemies of Venice, including the emperor, the Habsburgs, Genoa and other Italian towns, and forced her to cede most of the Dal matian towns and renounce the title of duke of Dalmatia and Croatia, hitherto borne by the doge. (Treaty of Zara, Feb. 18, 1358.) In the same year the republic of Ragusa voluntarily sub mitted to him, Louis undertaking its defence against an annual tribute. The third Venetian War (1378-81), where Louis was again helped by Genoa, was ended by the congress of Turin (1381), Venice virtually surrendering Dalmatia to Louis and undertaking to pay him an annual tribute of 7,000 ducats. The persistent hostility of Venice is partially attributable to her constant fear lest Louis should inherit the crown of Naples and thus threaten her trade and her sea-power from two sides.
Louis's younger brother Andrew had wedded Joanna, grand daughter and heiress of old King Robert of Naples, on whose death, in 1343, she reigned in her own right, and is strongly suspected of having secured her consort's assassination in Although Louis claimed the throne, and twice occupied Naples, he could never secure the crown. At last in 1378 Joanna, having
made the mistake of recognizing the antipope Clement VII., was promptly deposed and excommunicated in favour of Prince Charles of Durazzo, who had been brought up at the Hungarian court. With the Habsburgs, Louis generally maintained friendly relations, and his differences with Rudolph of Habsburg were com posed without war at the peace congresses of Nagyszombat (5360) and of Pressburg (1360). On the death of his uncle, the childless Casimir the Great of Poland, who had been Louis's lifelong friend, and had appointed him his successor, Louis was crowned king of Poland (Nov. 17, 137o). This personal union of the two countries was more glorious than profitable. Louis was never able to establish real authority over his Polish subjects although in 1374 he compelled them by force to recog nize his daughter Maria and her affianced husband, Count Sigis mund of Brandenburg, as their future king and queen. Against the Turks, who were now beginning to threaten Europe, Louis took little or no action. He died suddenly at Nagyszombat, Sept. o, 1382. He left two daughters Maria and Jadwiga (the latter he destined for the throne of Hungary) under the guardianship of his widow. She was the daughter of the valiant ban of Bosnia, Stephen Kotromaric, and she was married in 1353.
See Rations Collectorum Pontif. Hungaria, 1281-1375 pest, 1887) ; Dano Gruber, The Struggle of Louis I. with the Venetians for Dalmatia (Croat.) (Agram, 1903) ; Antal Life of Louis the Great (Hung.) (Budapest, 1892) ; and History of the Hungarian Nation (Hung.) (vol. iii., Budapest, 1895).