Biography
Louis, named for his great uncle, Saint Louis of Toulouse. Louis acquired the seven liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy). When he was sixteen, Louis understood Latin, German and Italian as well as his mother tongue. He owed his excellent education to the care of his mother, a woman of profound political sagacity, who was his chief counsellor in diplomatic affairs during the greater part of his long reign.
In 1342, at the age of sixteen, he succeeded his father as king of Hungary and was crowned at Székesfehérvár on the 21st of July with great enthusiasm. Louis led his armies many times in person. Besides his best known campaigns, he fought in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Wallachia Serbia, Lithuania and against the Golden Horde. The first Ottoman Hungarian clash occurred during his reign.
He led assaults personally and climbed city walls together with his soldiers. He shared the privations and hardships of camp life with his soldiers. Although a few legends were woven around his name, one incident casts light on his courage. When one of his soldiers who had been ordered to explore a ford was carried away by the current, the King plunged into the torrent without hesitation and saved the man from drowning. Louis liked warfare – he came close to losing his life in several battles -, tournaments and hunts. Similarly to his mother he was deeply religious. As an excellent commander and a gallant fighter, Louis resembled his exemplar, King Saint Ladislaus.
Under his reign lived the most famous epic hero of Hungarian literature and warfare, the king's Champion: Nicolas Toldi. John de Cardailhac, patriarch of Alexandria and envoy of the Vatican,(who visited the utmost European countries and monarchs) wrote: "I call God as my witness that I have never seen a monarch more majestic and more powerful... or one who desires peace and calm as much as he."
Read more about this topic: Louis I Of Hungary
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, memoirs to serve for a history, which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every mans life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (174095)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (18921983)