From the Crusade to Regicide: The Final Years of Ladislaus IV

Abstract

In 1287, Pope Honorius IV authorized Archbishop Lodomer of Esztergom to force Ladislaus IV to take back his wife and, furthermore, if necessary to initiate a crusade against the pagans. Although Pope Honorius IV, and later Pope Nicholas III, provided the support necessary for the crusade through calling upon the rulers of the neighbouring kingdoms to support the Archbishop of Esztergom, the crusade against the Hungarian king never took place due to his assassination. In my study, through an examination of the final years of Ladislaus IV, I aim to answer a particular question in political, military, and ecclesiastical history: why the planned crusade against Ladislaus IV never took place. The assassination plotted against the king seems to answer the question at first, nevertheless, if we set aside the king’s death, several events occured between 1287 and 1290 that might also explain why the crusade never took place, such as the expansion carried out by Albert of Habsburg in the western regions of the kingdom in 1289, or the fact that Ladislaus IV was the last widely recognized member of the dynasty. In this study, I am to explore and elaborate upon these possible reasons on the basis of the available sources and the most recent scholarly literature published on the subject.