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, at the age of 15, was recalled from Wessex by the powerful Hugh the Great,