Louis IV of France

Louis IV
A denier from the reign of Louis IV, minted at Chinon
King of West Francia
Reign	936–954
Coronation	936 in Laon
Predecessor	Rudolph of France
Successor	Lothair
Born	September 920 / September 921 Laon
Died	10 September 954 (aged 33-34) Reims
Burial	Saint-Remi Abbey, Reims, France
Spouse	Gerberga of Saxony
Issue Detail	Lothair, King of West Francia Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine Matilda, Queen of Burgundy
House	Carolingian
Father	Charles the Simple
Mother	Eadgifu of Wessex

Louis IV (September 920 / September 921 – 10 September 954), 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 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.

The only child of king Charles the Simple and his second wife Eadgifu of Wessex, 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 and was the only male heir to the throne.

After the dethronement and capture of Charles the Simple in 923, 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. During this time he enjoyed legendary stories about Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia, an ancestor of his maternal family who had heroically fought against the Vikings.

Louis became the heir to the western branch of the Carolingian dynasty after the death of his captive father in 929, and in 936 was recalled from Wessex by the powerful Hugh the Great, Margrave of Neustria, to succeed the Robertian king Rudolph who had died.