Louis I of Vaud

At the time of his birth he was a younger son of the House of Savoy, but through a series of deaths and his own effective military service, he succeeded in creating a semi-independent principality in the pays de Vaud by 1286.

He travelled widely in the highest circles of European nobility (the royal courts of London, Paris and Naples), obtained the right to mint coins from the Holy Roman Emperor, and convoked the first public assembly in the Piedmont to include members of the non-noble classes.

[4] In the fall of 1282, Louis was back in the service of his family, led by Count Philip of Savoy, when a war with Amadeus II of Geneva and his allies broke out.

[4] Louis may have felt underappreciated for his services at home, for Margaret of Provence, queen-mother of France and a Savoyard on her mother's side, tried to mediate between him and his brother and uncle in January 1283, to no effect.

[6] After peace was concluded with the emperor-elect, Savoy was deprived of Payerne and Gümmenen, the protectorates of Morat and Bern, and the dower lands of Louis's aunt Margaret (died 1273), wife of Hartmann the Old, Count of Kyburg.

Louis was promised an apanage, which he did not find sufficient, and the later Savoyard chroniclers Jehan Servion and Jean d'Oronville portray him as fighting his brother for the succession or for a larger share of the inheritance while their uncle was dying.

Servion puts into Philip's mouth the following denunciation of Louis's motives, before he gathered together his barons and made them recognise Amadeus as his successor: "I have bestowed upon you more of my possessions than you deserve, and you are not in the least grateful.

[4] In October Philip wrote to Eleanor of Provence, Margaret's sister and Henry III's wife, and her son, now King Edward, asking them to arbitrate Louis's grievances.

[10] In return for liege homage, Louis received the entire pays de Vaud between the rivers Aubonne and Veveyse, including Moudon and Romont.

[12] Politically, the barony of Vaud under Louis I was divided into ten castellanies centred on Nyon, Rolle, Morges, Moudon, Estavayer, Romont, Rue, Yverdon, Les Clées, and Vaulruz.

[13] On 15 January 1285 Louis, who was at Lyon, sent a summons to the people of the Piedmont ordering all to attend an assembly, of a type usually called a colloquy (colloquium) or parliament (parlamentum), scheduled for 24 May.