Nagy Lajos
1342-1382
"Lajos (Louis) is the only king in Hungarian history upon whom the adjective "The Great" (Nagy) was bestowed by posterity. This does not imply that he was the greatest king of all (King Mátyás would certainly get the majority vote on this account), but rather that during Lajos' reign, the King of Hungary ruled over a veritable empire.
But Lajos qualifies as a great king on other accounts as well. He was an admirer of King Saint László and emulated him as a Christian ruler. After his coronation, he promptly undertook a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint László at Nagyvárad, and there made a vow to model his conduct on that of his idol.
It was a role difficult to fulfill. In physical appearance, he was a far cry from his model: while Saint László was a giant of a man, Lajos was uneven-shouldered and lacking the physical attributes of the ideal knight. But in Christian piety, humanity and courage he was, among the kings of Hungary, the most worthy of being Saint László's successor.
'There was no other known to be as kind and noble, moral and lofty-spirited, friendly and straightforward as he," noted a contemporary writer.
Although he was a peaceful man by nature, circumstances compelled him to fight many wars. His longest war was fought against Venice to recapture Dalmatia, the possession of which meant an outlet to the sea for Hungary. Since the reign of Kálmán the Booklover, Dalmatia had been the object of seesawing warfare between the two powers until 1381, when Venice finally surrendered to Lajos and pledged to pay Hungary an annual tribute.
His campaigns in the Balkans were aimed not so much at conquest and subjugation as at drawing the Serbs, Bosnians, Wallachians and Bulgarians into the fold of the Roman Catholic faith and at forming a united front against the looming Turkish menace. It was relatively easy to subdue them by arms, but to convert them was a different matter. Despite Lajos' efforts, the peoples of the Balkans remained faithful to the Eastern Orthodox Church and their attitude toward Hungary remained ambiguous. They regarded powerful Hungary as a potential menace to their national identity. For this reason, Hungary could never regard the Serbs and Wallachians as reliable allies in her subsequent wars against the Turks. However Lajos defeated the Turks when Hungarian and Turkish troops clashed for the first time in history at Nicapoli in 1366. The Hungarian Chapel in the Cathedral at Aachen was built to commemorate this victory.
In the North Lajos assisted his ally, King Casimir, in his wars against the pagan Lithuanians and Tartars, and against Bohemia. After Casimir's death in 1370, the Poles elected Lajos King of Poland in compliance with the agreement made in Visegrád during his father's reign."
"Some Hungarian historians do not count the two Angevin as foreign kings at all, and it is true that both of them, especially Louis, who was born and bred in Hungary, regarded themselves completely as Hungarians. Charles Robert had no other throne, and did not try to acquire another for himself. Louis treated all his acquisitions, except perhaps that of Poland, as appendices to Hungary, and even Poland he ruled through Hungarians. But it is easily arguable that his Balkan enterprises brought Hungary, on balance, more loss than profit, even if the large expense of them be left out of account, for few of the vassals proved loyal when a crisis came. Rather they regarded Hungary as an oppressor and hastened to make common cause with her enemies."
