| Notes |
- Louis IV , called d'Outremer or Transmarinus (both meaning "from overseas"), reigned as king of West Francia from 936 to 954. A member of the Carolingian dynasty, he was the only son of king Charles the Simple and his second wife Eadgifu of Wessex, daughter of King Edward the Elder of Wessex.His reign is mostly known thanks to the Annals of Flodoard and the later Historiae of Richerus.
Louis was born in the heartlands of West Francia's Carolingian lands between Laon and Reims in 920 or 921. From his father's first marriage with Frederuna (d. 917) he had six half-sisters. He was the only male heir to the throne.
After the dethronement and capture of his faher, Charles the Simple, in 923, following his defeat at the Battle of Soissons, queen Eadgifu and her infant son took refuge in Wessex (for this he received the nickname of d'Outremer) at the court of her father King Edward, and after Edward's death, of her brother King Æthelstan. Young Louis was raised in the Anglo-Saxon court until his teens.
Louis became the heir to the western branch of the Carolingian dynasty after the death of his captive father in 929, and in 936, at the age of 15, was recalled from Wessex by the powerful Hugh the Great, Margrave of Neustria, to succeed the Robertian king Rudolph who had died.
Once he took the throne, Louis wanted to free himself from the tutelage of Hugh the Great, who, with his title of Duke of the Franks was the second most powerful man after the King.
In 945, following the death of William I Longsword, Duke of Normandy, Louis tried to conquer his lands, but was kidnapped by the men of Hugh the Great.
The Synod of Ingelheim in 948 allowed the excommunication of Hugh the Great and released Louis from his long tutelage. From 950 Louis gradually imposed his rule in the northeast of the kingdom, building many alliances (especially with the Counts of Vermandois) and under the protection of the Ottonian kingdom of East Francia.
Louis IV was crowned King by Artald, Archbishop of Rheims on Sunday, 19 June 936, probably at the Abbey of Notre-Dame and Saint-Jean in Laon, perhaps at the request of the King since it was a symbolic Carolingian town and he was probably born there.
In 939 Louis IV married Gerberga of Saxony, the widow of Gilbert, Duke of Lorraine. They were parents to eight children:
-Lothair of France (941–986)
-Matilda b. about 943; married Conrad of Burgundy
-Hildegarde b. about 944
-Carloman b. about 945
-Louis b. about 948
-Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine (953–993)
-Alberade b. before 953
-Henry b. about 953
Louis IV died on September 10, 954, after falling from a horse, some records report he died from tuberculosis.
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921 - 954 (33 years)
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