Everything about Louis The Pious totally explained
Louis the Pious (also known as
Louis I,
Louis the Fair, and
Louis the Debonaire,, or, or, or ) (
778 –
20 June 840) was
Holy Roman Emperor and
King of the Franks from
814 to his death in
840.
Birth and rule in Aquitaine
Louis was born while his father
Charlemagne was on campaign in Spain, at the Carolingian
villa of Cassinogilum, according to
Einhard and the anonymous chronicler called
Astronomus; the place is usually identified with
Chasseneuil, near Poitiers. He was the third son of Charlemagne by his wife
Hildegard.
Louis was crowned
king of Aquitaine as a child in
781 and sent there with
regents and a court. Charlemagne constituted the sub-kingdom in order to secure the border of his kingdom after his devastating defeat at the hands of Basques in
Roncesvalles in (778).
In 794, Charlemagne settled four former
Gallo-Roman villas on Louis, in the thought that he'd take in each in turn as winter residence:
Doué-la-Fontaine in today's
Anjou,
Ebreuil in
Allier,
Angeac-Charente, and the disputed Cassinogilum. Charlemagne's intention was to see all his sons brought up as natives of their given territories, wearing the national costume of the region and ruling by the local customs. Thus were the children sent to their respective realms at so young an age. Each kingdom had its importance in keeping some frontier, Louis's was the
Spanish March. In
797,
Barcelona, the greatest city of the
Marca, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against
Córdoba and, failing, handed it to them. The
Umayyad authority recaptured it in
799. However, Louis marched the entire army of his kingdom, including
Gascons with their duke
Sancho I of Gascony,
Provençals under
Leibulf, and
Goths under
Bera, over the
Pyrenees and besieged it for two years, wintering there from
800 to
801, when it capitulated. The sons were not given independence from central authority, however, and Charlemagne ingrained in them the concepts of empire and unity by sending them on military expeditions far from their home bases. Louis campaigned in the Italian
Mezzogiorno against the
Beneventans at least once.
Louis was one of Charlemagne's three legitimate sons to survive infancy, and, according to Frankish custom, Louis had expected to share his inheritance with his brothers,
Charles the Younger,
King of Neustria, and
Pepin,
King of Italy. In the
Divisio Regnorum of
806, Charlemagne had slated Charles the Younger as his successor as emperor and chief king, ruling over the Frankish heartland of
Neustria and
Austrasia, while giving Pepin the
Iron Crown of Lombardy, which Charlemagne possessed by conquest. To Louis's kingdom of Aquitaine, he added
Septimania,
Provence, and part of
Burgundy.
But in the event, Charlemagne's other legitimate sons died — Pepin in
810 and Charles in
811 — and Louis alone remained to be crowned co-emperor with Charlemagne in
813. On his father's death in
814, he inherited the entire Frankish kingdom and all its possessions (with the sole exception of Italy, which remained within Louis's empire, but under the direct rule of
Bernard, Pepin's son).
Emperor
He was in his villa of
Doué-la-Fontaine,
Anjou, when he received news of his father's passing. Hurrying to
Aachen, he crowned himself and was proclaimed by the nobles with shouts of
Vivat Imperator Ludovicus.
In his first coinage type, minted from the start of his reign, he imitated his father Charlemagne's portrait coinage, giving an image of imperial power and prestige in an echo of Roman glory . He quickly enacted a "moral purge", in which he sent all of his unmarried sisters to nunneries, forgoing their diplomatic use as hostage brides in favour of the security of avoiding the entanglements that powerful brothers-in-law might bring. He spared his illegitimate half-brothers and tonsured his father's cousins,
Adalard and
Wala, shutting them up in
Noirmoutier and
Corbie, respectively, despite the latter's initial loyalty.
His chief councillors were
Bernard, margrave of Septimania, and
Ebbo, whom, born a serf, Louis would raise to the
archbishopric of Rheims but who would ungratefully betray him later. He retained some of his father's ministers, such as
Elisachar, abbot of St Maximin near
Trier, and
Hildebold, Archbishop of Cologne. Later he replaced Elisachar with Hildwin, abbot of many monasteries.
He also used
Benedict of Aniane (the Second Benedict), a Septimanian
Visigoth and monastic founder, to help him reform the Frankish church. One of Benedict's primary reforms was to ensure that all religious houses in Louis' realm adhered to the
Rule of St Benedict, named for its creator, the First Benedict,
Benedict of Nursia (
480–
550).
In
816,
Pope Stephen V, who had succeeded
Leo III, visited
Rheims and again crowned Louis. The Emperor thereby strengthened the papacy by recognising the importance of the pope in imperial coronations.
Ordinatio imperii
On
Maundy Thursday 817, Louis and his court were crossing a wooden gallery from the cathedral to the palace in Aachen when the gallery collapsed, killing many. Louis, having barely survived and feeling the imminent danger of death, began planning for his succession; three months later he issued an
Ordinatio Imperii, an imperial decree that laid out plans for an orderly succession. In
815, he'd already given his two eldest sons a share in the government, when he'd sent his elder sons
Lothair and
Pepin to govern
Bavaria and Aquitaine respectively, though without the royal titles. Now, he proceeded to divide the empire among his three sons and his nephew
Bernard of Italy:
- Lothair was proclaimed and crowned co-emperor in Aix-la-Chapelle by his father. He was promised the succession to most of the Frankish dominions (excluding the exceptions below), and would be the overlord of his brothers and cousin.
- Bernard, the son of Charlemagne's son Pippin of Italy, was confirmed as King of Italy, a title he'd been allowed to inherit from his father by Charlemagne.
- Pepin was proclaimed King of Aquitaine, his territory including Gascony, the march around Toulouse, and the counties of Carcassonnne, Autun, Avallon and Nevers.
- Louis, the youngest son, was proclaimed King of Bavaria and the neighbouring marches.
If one of the subordinate kings died, he was to be succeeded by his sons. If he died childless, Lothar would inherit his kingdom. In the event of Lothar dying without sons, one of Louis the Pious' younger sons would be chosen to replace him by "the people". Above all, the Empire wouldn't be divided: the Emperor would rule supreme over the subordinate kings, whose obedience to him was mandatory.
With this settlement, Louis tried to combine his sense for the Empire's unity, supported by the clergy, while at the same time providing positions for all of his sons. Instead of treating his sons equally in status and land, he elevated his first-born son Lothair above his younger brothers and gave him the largest part of the Empire as his share.
Bernard's rebellion and Louis's penance
The
ordinatio imperii of Aachen left Bernard of Italy in an uncertain and subordinate position as king of Italy, and he began plotting to declare independence upon hearing of it. Louis immediately directed his army towards Italy, and betook himself to
Chalon-sur-Saône. Intimidated by the emperor's swift action, Bernard met his uncle at Chalon, under invitation, and surrendered. He was taken to Aix-la-Chapelle by Louis, who there had him tried and condemned to death for treason. Louis had the sentence commuted to blinding, which was duly carried out; Bernard didn't survive the ordeal, however, dying after two days of agony. Others also suffered:
Theodulf of Orleans, in eclipse since the death of Charlemagne, was accused of having supported the rebellion, and was thrown into a monastic prison, where he died soon after - poisoned, it was rumoured. The fate of his nephew deeply marked Louis's conscience for the rest of his life.
In 822, as a deeply religious man, Louis performed penance for causing Bernard's death, at his palace of
Attigny near Vouziers in the
Ardennes, before
Pope Paschal I, and a council of ecclesiastics and nobles of the realm that had been convened for the reconciliation of Louis with his three younger half-brothers,
Hugo whom he soon made abbot of St-Quentin,
Drogo whom he soon made
Bishop of Metz, and Theodoric. This act of contrition, partly in emulation of
Theodosius I, had the effect of greatly reducing his prestige as a Frankish ruler, for he also recited a list of minor offences about which no secular ruler of the time would have taken any notice. He also made the egregious error of releasing Wala and Adalard from their monastic confinements, placing the former in a position of power in the court of Lothair and the latter in a position in his own house.
Frontier wars
At the start of Louis's reign, the many tribes —
Danes,
Obotrites,
Slovenes,
Bretons,
Basques — which inhabited his frontierlands were still in awe of the Frankish emperor's power and dared not stir up any trouble. In 816, however, the
Sorbs rebelled and were quickly followed by Slavomir, chief of the Obotrites, who was captured and abandoned by his own people, being replaced by Ceadrag in 818. Soon, Ceadrag too had turned against the Franks and allied with the Danes, who were to become the greatest menace of the Franks in a short time.
A greater Slavic menace was gathering on the southeast. There,
Ljudevit Posavski, duke of
Pannonia, was harassing the border at the
Drava and
Sava rivers. The
margrave of Friuli,
Cadolah, was sent out against him, but he died on campaign and, in 820, his margarvate was invaded by Slovenes. In 821, an alliance was made with
Borna, duke of the
Dalmatia, and Ljudevit was brought to heel. Peace continued until 827, when the younger Louis had to deal with a
Bulgar horde descending on Pannonia.
On the far southern edge of his great realm, Louis had to control the Lombard
princes of Benevento whom Charlemagne had never subjugated. He extracted promises from Princes
Grimoald IV and
Sico, but to no effect.
On the southwestern frontier, problems commenced early when, in 815,
Séguin, duke of
Gascony, revolted. He was defeated and replaced by
Lupus III, who was dispossessed in 818 by the emperor. In 820 an assembly at
Quierzy-sur-Oise decided to send an expedition against the Cordoban caliphate. The counts in charge of the army,
Hugh, count of
Tours, and
Matfrid, count of
Orléans, were slow in acting and the expedition came to naught.
First civil war
In 818, as Louis was returning from a campaign to
Brittany, he was greeted by news of the death of his wife,
Ermengarde. Ermengarde was the daughter of
Ingerman, the duke of Hesbaye. Louis had been close to his wife, who had been involved in policymaking. It was rumoured that she'd played a part in her nephew's death and Louis himself believed her own death was divine retribution for that event. It took many months for his courtiers and advisors to convince him to remarry, but eventually he did, in 820, to
Judith, daughter of
Welf, count of
Altdorf. In 823 Judith gave birth to a son, who was named
Charles.
The birth of this son damaged the
Partition of Aachen, as Louis's attempts to provide for his fourth son met with stiff resistance from his older sons, and the last two decades of his reign were marked by civil war.
At
Worms in 829, Louis gave Charles
Alemannia with the title of king or duke (historians differ on this), thus enraging his son and co-emperor Lothair, whose promised share was thereby diminished. An insurrection was soon at hand. With the urging of the vengeful Wala and the cooperation of his brothers, Lothair accused Judith of having committed adultery with Bernard of Septimania, even suggesting Bernard to be the true father of Charles. Ebbo and Hildwin abandoned the emperor at that point, Bernard having risen to greater heights than either of them.
Agobard,
Archbishop of Lyon, and
Jesse,
bishop of Amiens, too, opposed the redivision of the empire and lent their episcopal prestige to the rebels.
In 830, at Wala's insistence that Bernard of Septimania was plotting against him, Pepin of Aquitaine led an army of
Gascons, with the support of the Neustrian magnates, all the way to
Paris. At
Verberie, Louis the German joined him. At that time, the emperor returned from another campaign in Brittany to find his empire at war with itself. He marched as far as
Compiègne, an ancient royal town, before being surrounded by Pepin's forces and captured. Judith was incarcerated at
Poitiers and Bernard fled to Barcelona.
Then Lothair finally set out with a large Lombard army, but Louis had promised his sons Louis the German and Pepin of Aquitaine greater shares of the inheritance, prompting them to shift loyalties in favour of their father. When Lothair tried to call a general council of the realm in
Nijmegen, in the heart of
Austrasia, the Austrasians and Rhinelanders came with a following of armed retainers, and the disloyal sons were forced to free their father and bow at his feet (831). Lothair was pardoned, but disgraced and banished to Italy. Pepin returned to Aquitaine and Judith - after being forced to humiliate herself with a solemn oath of innocence - to Louis's court. Only Wala was severely dealt with, making his way to a secluded monastery on the shores of
Lake Geneva. Though
Hilduin, abbot of
Saint Denis, was exiled to
Paderborn and Elisachar and Matfrid were deprived of their honours north of the Alps; they didn't lose their freedom.
Second civil war
The next revolt occurred a mere two years later (832). The disaffected Pepin was summoned to his father's court, where he was so poorly received he left against his father's orders. Immediately, fearing that Pepin would be stirred up to revolt by his nobles and desiring to reform his morals, Louis the Pious summoned all his forces to meet in Aquitaine in preparation of an uprising, but Louis the German garnered an army of
Slav allies and conquered
Swabia before the emperor could react. Once again the elder Louis divided his vast realm. At
Jonac, he declared Charles king of Aquitaine and deprived Pepin (he was less harsh with the younger Louis), restoring the whole rest of the empire to Lothair, not yet involved in the civil war. Lothair was, however, interested in usurping his father's authority. His ministers had been in contact with Pepin and may have convinced him and Louis the German to rebel, promising him Alemannia, the kingdom of Charles.
Soon Lothair, with the support of
Pope Gregory IV, whom he'd confirmed in office without his father's support, joined the revolt in 833. While Louis was at Worms gathering a new force, Lothair marched north. Louis marched south. The armies met on the plains of the Rothfeld. There, Gregory met the emperor and may have tried to sow dissension amongst his ranks. Soon much of Louis's army had evaporated before his eyes, and he ordered his few remaining followers to go, because "it would be a pity if any man lost his life or limb on my account." The resigned emperor was taken to
Saint Médard at
Soissons, his son Charles to
Prüm, and the queen to
Tortona. The despicable show of disloyalty and disingenuousness earned the site the name Field of Lies, or Lügenfeld, or Campus Mendacii,
ubi plurimorum fidelitas exstincta est
On
November 13 833, Ebbo of Rheims presided over a synod in the Church of Saint Mary in Soissons which deposed Louis and forced him to publicly confess many crimes, none of which he had, in fact, committed. In return, Lothair gave Ebbo the Abbey of Saint Vaast. Men like
Rabanus Maurus, Louis' younger half-brothers Drogo and Hugh, and Emma, Judith's sister and Louis the German's new wife, worked on the younger Louis to make peace with his father, for the sake of unity of the empire. The humiliation to which Louis was then subjected at Notre Dame in Compiègne turned the loyal barons of Austrasia and
Saxony against Lothair, and the usurper fled to
Burgundy, skirmishing with loyalists near
Châlons-sur-Saône. Louis was restored the next year, on
1 March 834.
On Lothair's return to Italy, Wala, Jesse, and Matfrid,
formerly count of Orléans, died of a pestilence and, on
2 February 835, the
Synod of Thionville deposed Ebbo, Agobard,
Bernard,
Bishop of Vienne, and
Bartholomew,
Archbishop of Narbonne. Lothair himself fell ill; events had turned completely in Louis favour once again.
In 836, however, the family made peace and Louis restored Pepin and Louis, deprived Lothair of all save Italy, and gave it to Charles in a new division, given at the diet of
Crémieux. At about that time, the
Vikings terrorised and sacked
Utrecht and
Antwerp. In 837, they went up the
Rhine as far as Nijmegen, and their king,
Rorik, demanded the
wergild of some of his followers killed on previous expeditions before Louis the Pious mustered a massive force and marched against them. They fled, but it wouldn't be the last time they harried the northern coasts. In 838, they even claimed sovereignty over
Frisia, but a treaty was confirmed between them and the Franks in 839. Louis the Pious ordered the construction of a North Sea fleet and the sending of
missi dominici into Frisia to establish Frankish sovereignty there.
Third civil war
In 837, Louis crowned Charles king over all of Alemannia and Burgundy and gave him a portion of his brother Louis's land. Louis the German promptly rose in revolt, and the emperor redivided his realm again at
Quierzy-sur-Oise, giving all of the young king of Bavaria's lands, save Bavaria itself, to Charles. Emperor Louis didn't stop there, however. His devotion to Charles knew no bounds. When Pepin died in 838, Louis declared Charles the new king of Aquitaine. The nobles, however, elected Pepin's son
Pepin II. When Louis threatened invasion, the third great civil war of his reign broke out. In the spring of 839, Louis the German invaded Swabia, Pepin II and his Gascon subjects fought all the way to the
Loire, and the Danes returned to ravage the
Frisian coast (sacking Dorstad for a second time).
Lothair, for the first time in a long time, allied with his father and pledged support at Worms in exchange for a redivision of the inheritance. By a final
placitum issued there, Louis gave Bavaria to Louis the German and disinherited Pepin II, leaving the entire remainder of the empire to be divided roughly into an eastern part and a western. Lothair was given the choice of which partition he'd inherit and he chose the eastern, including Italy, leaving the western for Charles. The emperor quickly subjugated Aquitaine and had Charles recognised by the nobles and clergy at
Clermont-en-Auvergne in 840. Louis then, in a final flash of glory, rushed into Bavaria and forced the younger Louis into the
Ostmark. The empire now settled as he'd declared it at Worms, he returned in July to
Frankfurt am Main, where he disbanded the army. The final civil war of his reign was over.
Death
Louis fell ill soon after his final victorious campaigns and went to his summer hunting lodge on an island in the Rhine, by his palace at
Ingelheim. On
20 June 840, he died, in the presence of many bishops and clerics and in the arms of his half-brother Drogo, though Charles and Judith were absent in Poitiers. Soon dispute plunged the surviving brothers into a civil war that was only settled in 843 by the
Treaty of Verdun, which split the Frankish realm into three parts, to become the kernels of
France and
Germany, with
Burgundy and the
Low Countries between them. The dispute over the kingship of Aquitaine wasn't fully settled until 860.
Louis the Pious, along with his half-brother Drogo, were buried in
Saint Pierre aux Nonnains Basilica in
Metz.
Marriage and issue
By his first wife,
Ermengarde of Hesbaye (married ca 794-98), he'd three sons and three daughters:
Lothair (795–855), king of Middle Francia
Pepin (797–838), king of Aquitaine
Adelaide (b. c. 799), perhaps married Robert the Strong
Rotrude (b. 800), married Gerard
Hildegard (or Matilda) (b. c. 802), married Gerard, Count of Auvergne
Louis the German (c. 805–875), king of East Francia
By his second wife, Judith of Bavaria, he'd a daughter and a son:
Gisela, married Eberhard I of Friuli
Charles the Bald, king of West Francia
By Theodelinde of Sens, he'd two illegitimate children:
Arnulf of Sens
AlpaisFurther Information
Get more info on 'Louis The Pious'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://louis_the_pious.totallyexplained.com">Louis the Pious Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
