Louis was born at
Creuzburg Castle, the second son of Landgrave
Hermann I of Thuringia, from his marriage with
Sophia, a daughter of the
Wittelsbach duke
Otto I of Bavaria. During the
German throne quarrel between the
Hohenstaufen ruler
Philip of Swabia and his
Welf rival
Otto IV, his father switched sides several times and tried to expand his own influence by betrothing his eldest son Hermann to the
Hungarian princess
Elizabeth, daughter of King
Andrew II. The young girl arrived in
Thuringia in 1211 to be raised at the Ludovingian court, then a venue for poets and
minnesingers like
Walther von der Vogelweide or
Wolfram von Eschenbach. Louis elder brother died in 1216, therefore he himself, upon his father's death on 25 April 1217, ascended the Thuringian throne at the age of sixteen. In 1218, on the Feast of St.
Kilian, at age eighteen, he was armed as a knight in the Church of St. George in
Eisenach. At
Wartburg Castle in 1220 at age twenty, Louis married 14-year-old Elizabeth of Hungary, with whom he had three children:
Hermann II,
Sophie, and
Gertrude, later abbess at Altenberg. He set up his court at
Wartburg Castle near
Eisenach. When in 1221 Louis'
Wettin brother-in-law, Margrave
Theodoric I of Meissen died, he acted as a guardian for Theodoric's minor son
Henry III. However, his attempts to occupy the
Meissen and
Lusatian lands were rejected by his sister
Jutta. Like his father, Louis was in close contact with the Hohenstaufen emperor
Frederick II, who appointed him a
Marshal of the
Holy Roman Empire and confirmed his rights in the Margraviate of Meissen. Louis came to consider it a religious duty to restrain his nobles from oppressing the poor, and would lay siege to their castles if necessary. In 1226, Louis was called to the
Diet in
Cremona, where he promised Emperor Frederick II to take up the cross and accompany him to the
Holy Land. He embarked for the
Sixth Crusade in 1227, partly inspired also by the tales of his uncle, who had been to the
Levant with the Holy Roman Emperor. Fellow-travellers were five counts, Louis von Wartburg, Gunther von Kefernberg, Meinrad von Mühlberg, Heinrich von
Stolberg, and Burkhard von Brandenberg; Louis left his pregnant wife behind, He received
extreme unction from the
Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Bishop of Santa Croce. He died before reaching Otranto in 1227. A few days after his death, his daughter Gertrude was born. Louis's remains were buried in
Reinhardsbrunn Abbey in 1228. He was succeeded by his five-year-old son Hermann II, under the tutelage of his uncle
Henry Raspe. After his death, Elizabeth left the court, made arrangements for the care of her children, and in 1228, renounced the world, becoming a
tertiary of
St. Francis of Assisi. She built the Franciscan hospital at Marburg and devoted herself to the care of the sick until her death at the age of 24 in 1231. She was officially proclaimed a saint only four years after her death. While Louis was never formally canonized, he became known among the German people as Louis the saint (). He is known elsewhere as Blessed Louis of Thuringia. ==Family and children==