Louis V of France

Who was Louis V of France?

Louis V was the King of Western Francia from 986 until his premature death. He died childless and was the last monarch in the Carolingian line.

The son of King Lothair and his wife Emma, a daughter of Lothair II of Italy, Louis was born c. 966–67. Louis was crowned in June 978 but did not actually assume power until Lothair's death in 986. Louis V was the last Carolingian King of Western Francia and reigned in Laon from 2 March 986 until his own death, at the age of 20, in 987. It may be because he reigned for only one year that medieval biographers awarded him the title qui nihil fecit — "who did nothing".

He married Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou in 982 in Brioude, where they were immediately crowned King and Queen of Aquitaine. The couple was mismatched and they had no children together. In less than a year, the marriage had ended.

He inherited a battle between his father's line of elected kings, which had been interrupted twice by the Robertian kings, and the house of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I. As defender of Rome, Otto had the power to name the clergy in Carolingian territory, and the clergy he had named were not supporting the Carolingians.