Louis I (1249/50 – 1302) was the Baron 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. When he died, his barony was inherited by his son.
