Within the venerable Monumenta Germaniae Historica metaseries, the Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum offer editions or summaries of the legislation, charters and correspondence of the Romano-German kings and emperors. Whereas several earlier medieval monarchs could fit within a single volume, the ever-increasing quantity of surviving evidence has necessitated the splitting of fourteenth-century kings’ and emperors’ documents across multiple volumes and fascicules. Editions for the eventful reign of Ludwig or Louis iv ‘the Bavarian’ (crowned king during a split election in 1314, then proclaimed emperor, in the teeth of papal opposition, in 1328) began as far back as 1909 with a volume covering the years 1313–24. Volume vii, meticulously edited by Michael Menzel and encompassing the last decade of Ludwig's reign (1336–47), has been split into three parts, the first of which went up to 1339 (published in 2013), with this part being the second. The third – which will complete the Constitutiones series’ coverage of Ludwig iv – is forthcoming.

Menzel has tracked down a critical mass of relevant documents surviving in contemporary archives. Almost half of the 501 items included in this volume are published for the first time. Given that Ludwig's Wittelsbach family was anchored firmly in a Bavarian power base, the State Archive in Munich is heavily represented, but some documents are housed as far afield as London, Copenhagen and Rome. The editor adheres to MGH's admirably high standards throughout: succinct source abstracts, archival signatures and previous editions are supplemented with contextualising footnotes and references to the latest relevant secondary literature.

The content of most of Ludwig iv's charters and other documents in the years 1340 to 1343 will come as little surprise to historians familiar with the routines of imperial administrations during the high and late Middle Ages. The monarch's court travelled along itineraries confined to southern Germany (above all his native Bavaria – Munich and Landshut predominate as sites for the datum – as well as Franconia, Swabia and the Rhineland). Most of the items in this volume are reactions of Ludwig's court and chancery to local requests, ranging from (re-)enfeoffments and confirmations of privileges to adjudications in disputes and intervention in the affairs of entities under the emperor's direct oversight (primarily towns and ecclesiastical institutions). A controversial urban topic on which Ludwig ruled repeatedly in these years was that of Pfahlbürgertum (free and imperial cities granting citizenship to groups beyond the jurisdiction of their walls, frequently to the irritation of these groups’ noble lords). Although this had become a common and – from the monarchical perspective – tolerable practice in the earlier decades of the fourteenth century, this volume contains several attempts by Ludwig to crack down on it. The ideal and system of peacekeeping known as Landfrieden also came into its own in the course of Ludwig iv's reign, and there is plentiful evidence here of Landfrieden in action. The monarch approved the creation of regional alliances and leagues of princes, prelates and cities to keep the peace in their respective regions, and we see Ludwig's administration both endorsing and offering advice on the activities of local Landfrieden alliance members.

The tensions among the ruling elites in the Holy Roman Empire stand out in some high-profile disputes, judgements and acquisitions. We see Ludwig seeking to defuse and arbitrate in some long-running feuds between the archbishop of Mainz and much of the Thuringian nobility, for instance. The emperor also mobilised the residual powers of the monarchy to improve his own dynasty's standing. Lower Bavaria – a separate cluster of lands under another branch of the Wittelsbach family – escheated following the death of the infant Duke John i in 1340, and here we see Ludwig reintegrating it and consolidating his power over a newly-enlarged Bavarian duchy. Still more ruthless was the struggle for Tyrol. A member of the rival Luxemburg dynasty had married its countess, Margaret (1335–65), but Ludwig succeeded in forcibly dissolving their union, paving the way for her remarriage to his son and namesake. (The abortive Wittelsbach takeover would founder with the death of the younger Ludwig in 1361, to the benefit of the Habsburgs.)

Wider European diplomatic history has also left its imprint on this corpus of sources, notably with respect to the early Hundred Years’ War. In 1341 Ludwig reversed his policy of close ties to Edward iii of England and allied himself with Philip vi of France. The motives behind this diplomatic flux are hard to discern from the documents themselves, although Ludwig did explicitly request Philip's assistance in reconciling him with Pope Benedict xiii in Avignon. (An interdict within the empire stemming from disputes with the papacy in the late 1330s was still dividing German ecclesiastical loyalties.) Documents from 1343 show that this attempted reconciliation failed, even in the face of entreaties to the dauphin to act as a mediator with the pope.

Finally, many documents shed light on the Romano-German monarchy's relationship with bishops and monasteries, and the everyday operations of the latter. The volume contains dozens of charters of confirmations of privileges for abbeys and convents belonging to various religious orders. These related not only to imperial fiefs and property rights held by these institutions, but also to more esoteric grants, such as the right of the Augustinian friars of Niederviehbach to transport salt through nearby villages toll-free once per year. In another document, Ludwig allowed the city council of Nuremberg to proceed against alleged criminals after three days (or immediately in the case of murderers) if they sought sanctuary in the citadel of Nuremberg (owned by the rival burgraves) or any number of ecclesiastical buildings beyond the city's control, including the Benedictine abbey of St Giles and the house of the Teutonic Order. It is hard to imagine a more succinct illustration of the distinctive multiplicity and overlap of temporal and spiritual jurisdictions and authorities in the late medieval Holy Roman Empire.