Louis V of France

Louis V
King of West Francia
Coronation of Louis V the 14th-century Grandes chroniques de France
Reign	2 March 986 – 21 May 987
Coronation	8 June 979 Saint-Corneille Abbey, Compiègne
Predecessor	Lothair
Successor	Hugh Capet
Born	966/67
Died	21 May 987 (aged 20-21)
Spouse	Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou
House	Carolingian
Father	Lothair
Mother	Emma of Italy

Louis V,(c. 966/67 – 21 May 987), was the king of West Francia from 986 until his premature death a year later. He died childless and was the last monarch in the Carolingian line in West Francia.

The eldest son of King Lothair and his wife Emma of Italy, daughter of Lothair II of Italy, Louis was born c. 966–67. His father associated him to the government in 978 and had him officially crowned as co-king on 8 June 979 at the Abbey of Saint-Corneille in Compiègne by Archbishop Adalbero of Reims; and he assumed full power after Lothair's death in 986. Louis V was the last Carolingian King of West Francia and reigned in Laon from 2 March, 986 until his death, at the age of 20, in 21 May, 987.

In 982 at Vieille-Brioude, Haute-Loire, the fifteen year old Louis was married to the forty year old Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou, sister of Count Geoffrey I and twice a widow from her previous marriage with Count Stephen of Gévaudan and Count Raymond of Toulouse, Prince of Gothia. This union was purely political and arranged by the king – following the advices of Queen Emma and Count Geoffrey I – with the double purpose of restoring the Carolingian royal power in the south of the kingdom, and (according to Richerus) to obtain the support of the local southern lords in his fight against the Robertians: being now related by marriage with two of the most powerful southern comital families of the Kingdom, Lothair believed that he could confront the power of Hugh Capet.