Holy Roman Emperors #2
1. Judith, Princess of the Franks, Queen of England: Born 844, France; Died after 870; Married Baldwin I, Count of Flanders: Born about 837/840, of Flanders, Nord, France; Married about 859, Flanders, Nord, France; Died 879; (See Counts of Flanders )
2. Charles II "the Bald" Holy Roman Emperor: Born 15 May 823, Frankfurt, Hessen-Nassau, Prussia; Died 6 October 877, Brios, France; Married 14 December 842, Crecy, France; Ermentrude, Queen of the Franks: Born about 825, of Orleans, Loiret, France; Died 6 October 869. Charles II was the son of Emperor Louis I by his second wife. Resented by three older half brothers, Charles became a pawn in the court politics of the Frankish empire, but by the Treaty of Verdun (843) he was recognized as King of the West Franks, the first true King of France. Toward the end of his life he was acknowledged (875) as Emperor with the Pope's support. Throughout his reign, Charles had to struggle against Viking raiders and disloyal magnates as well as with his own relatives. The French bishops helped him repel his brother Louis the German in 859, but ten years later Louis prevented Charles from regaining his family's ancient homeland in Lotharingia. The Treaty of Mersen (870), which established the ultimate boundaries of medieval France, deprived him of most of this disputed territory, and by his death the French monarchy was in serious decline.
Ermentrude's Parents--
3. Eudes, Count of Orleans: Born about 800, Orleans, France; Married Ingeltrude, Countess of Orleans: Born about 805, of Orleans, France.Charles' Parents--
4. Louis I "the Pious" or "the Fair", Holy Roman Emperor: Born August 778, Casseneuil, Lot-et-Garonne, France; Died 20 June 840, near Ingelheim, Rhinehessen, Hesse; Married February 819; Judith, Empress of Holy Roman Empire, Princess of Bavaria: Born about 800, Bavaria; Died 19 April 843, Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France. Louis I (778-840), or Louis the Pious, was King of the Franks and emperor of the West from 814 to 840. The son and successor of Charlemagne, he was the last ruler to maintain the unity of the Carolingian Empire. Born in Aquitaine, Louis I was the third son of Charlemagne and his second wife, Hildegard. Most of his youth was spent in Aquitaine, where he received a clerical education of high quality. In 806 Louis, along with his brothers, Charles and Pepin, was assigned to his inheritance, being designated King of Aquitaine. His brothers received equal territories within the empire. At this time Aquitaine included Burgundy and the Spanish March; however, it was in no sense independent of the overlordship of Charlemagne.
Between 806 and the death of Charlemagne in 874, Charles and Pepin died, leaving Louis, the least aggressive and warlike of the three, as the sole heir to the empire. In 813 Louis was personally crowned by Charlemagne as co-emperor, a practice initiated at the Byzantine court. In the following year Louis succeeded to his full inheritance.
Upon receiving the empire and establishing himself at the imperial court at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), Louis, much inclined toward the asceticism of religious life, immediately purged the court of those whose morals or conduct were in the least suspect. He sent his sisters to convents and banished the women of the palace who had formed part of his father's entourage. In addition to these severe measures, Louis brought in Benedict Aniane as his chief counselor on religious matters and made him the abbot of the nearby monastery of Kornelimunster. At the court itself, Louis's chancellor, the chief official of the palace, was a priest. Aside from his reliance on ecclesiastical advisers, Louis took further steps to place himself under the protection and approval of the Church. In 816 Louis asked the Pope to recrown him as emperor, thus encouraging the principle of papal supremacy and the theory that the Pope must personally bestow the title.
Most of the troubles that beset Louis's well-intentioned reign stemmed from conflicts between the emperor and his sons and the problems of inheritance and imperial succession. Louis had three sons by his first wife, Irmengard. They were Lothair I, Pepin, and Louis (called Louis the German). In 817, following the tradition of his father and ancient Frankish practice, Louis divided his empire among his sons. At the same time, he sought to preserve the unity of the empire by designating his eldest son, Lothair I, as his successor superior to the other two. This solution, however, proved unworkable and initiated a series of conflicts among his sons and other relatives.
The problems caused by the division of 817 were further complicated by Louis's second marriage, to Judith, a noblewoman of Bavaria, and by the birth of a fourth son, Charles (later known as Charles the Bald). At the request of Judith, Louis was persuaded to redivide his empire in order to provide for his infant son. In 829 the reapportionment took place, and Charles, often favored by Louis received a kingdom that comprised much of Germany. The other sons, particularly Lothair, angered by this decision, rose in revolt. Captured by his sons at Compeigne, Louis was forced to surrender the empire to Lothair. Because of disunity among his sons, Louis soon resigned his crown, but a second revolt occurred in 832. The Pope joined forces with Lothair, and Louis was again obliged to submit to his eldest son. At a council at Soissons, made up primarily of bishops who supported Lothair and the principle of imperial unity, Louis was thoroughly humiliated. His other sons, however, came to his defense, and Louis was once again reinstated as emperor.
Despite his efforts to appease his sons and to reapportion his realm again in 838 after the death of Pepin, internal strife and shifting allegiances continued throughout this reign and into subsequent generations.
The major achievements of Louis's reign centered on his program of Church reform and in the expansion of the Carolingian intellectual revival initiated a generation earlier. The monastic schools, the most notable of which was Fulda, produced a series of important scholars. Like his predecessors, Louis frequently intervened in ecclesiastical affairs, but his reforms were not only more extensive but different in nature. Earlier Carolingian reforms dealing with the Church had been primarily educational and institutional. Louis's reforms, largely inspired by Benedict of Aniane, aimed at a revival of the inner spiritual and moral life of the clergy. In order to achieve this goal, Louis called two councils at Aachen,
the first in 816 and the second in 817.
At the first council Louis and his advisers presented a complete program of reform and clarification of Church discipline. Of particular importance, because it was later
widely enforced, was the legislation concerning canonical life, the Canones, or Instituta patrum. These laws reinstated a common life for cathedral and collegiate chapters and ensured the independence and safety of the temporal possessions of churches.
The second council devoted itself to the reform of the regular clergy, issuing the first general code for monastic life, the Capitulare Institutum. Primarily inspired by Benedict of Aniane, this code stressed a strict observance of the Benedictine Rule. These religious reforms had special significance because of the collapse of political unity due to the partition of the empire. The ecclesiastical sphere maintained the ideology and the unity of the Carolingian Empire for a long period after its political demise.
In 838 Louis made a new partition much to the favor of Charles and at the expense of Louis the German, the latter receiving only Bavaria as his inheritance. The remainder of the empire was divided equally between Charles, who received the western lands of France, and Lothair, who received Italy and the lands immediately east of the Rhone-Saone valley. In the following summer Louis settled Charles' claim to the kingdom of Aquitaine and attempted to counteract a rebellion of Louis the German. During his campaign against Louis, with whom he was never reconciled, the Emperor was overtaken by illness and died in Germany at Ingelheimon 20 June, 840. (P. 576)
Although Louis I was an able ruler and energetic military commander, his reputation has suffered because he was not as successful as his father, Charlemagne. Louis was crowned King of Aquitaine at the age of three. In this capacity, after reaching his majority, he established a vigorous Carolingian presence in Spain. His brothers having died, he was crowned co-emperor in 813, and in 814 he succeeded Charlemagne as sole ruler of the Frankish empire.
Louis sought to develop the imperial ideal, working closely with the church. However, squabbles among his sons for greater shares in what was to be their inheritance led to civil war. In 817, Louis made his eldest son, Lothair I, co-emperor and allocated parts of the empire to his other sons, Louis the German and Pepin. The birth of another son, the future Emperor Charles II, to Louis's second wife, Judith of Bavaria, started the trouble. Louis's attempts to provide for Charles precipitated a series of revolts by the older sons. The invasions of Vikings and Muslims further weakened Carolingian power. By the time of Louis's death the empire was in serious decline.
Judith's Parents--
Louis' Parents--
5. Charlemagne, Emperor of Holy Roman Empire, King of the Franks: (See La Zouche) Married 771, Aachen, Rhineland, Prussia; Hildegarde, Empress of Swabia: Born 758, of Aachen, Rhineland, Prussia; Died 30 April 783, Thionville, Moselle, France.
Hildegarde's Parents--
6. Gerold I, Duke of Swabia, Count in the Anglachau: Born 710, of Aichen, Rhineland, Prussia; Died 798; Married 779; Imma or Emma, Duchess of Swabia: Born about 736, of Aachen, Rhineland, Prussia.
7. Hnabi, Duke of Alamania, Count in the Linzgau: Born before 709; Died after 724.
8. Houching, Duke of Alamania: Born before 708/709; Died after 726. His brothers were: Lentfroy, Duke of Alamania; Thibaud, Duke of Alamania; and Oatillo, Count of Thurgau.
9. Godefrey, Duke of Alamania: Born before 678; Died 708/709.