King Louis I "The Pious" , Emperor of the West ^{1 2}

   Another name for Louis was Hludowic.

  General Notes:

He was King of Aquitaine from 781 and in 814 he, also, became the Holy Roman Emperor of the West from 814 to 840; King of Germany; and King of France to 840.

Louis I 'The Pious', Emperor Of The Holy Roman Empire in 814 succeeded his father Charlemagne. In 817, he arranged for the succession after his death by dividing the empire among his three sons. After his first wife died, Louis married again, and a fourth son, Charles, was born. Louis redivided his empire in 829 in order to give Charles a share. The older sons resented the new division and revolted. Louis was removed from the throne in 833, but was restored the next year. The bitter struggle between his sons continued until Louis died.

The name Louis means 'famous warrier'.

Louis I, byname LOUIS THE PIOUS, or THE DEBONAIR, French LOUIS LE PIEUX, or LE D�BONNAIRE, German LUDWIG DER FROMME (b. 778, Chasseneuil, near Poitiers, Aquitaine--d. June 20, 840, Petersaue, Ger.), son of the Frankish ruler Charlemagne; he was crowned as co-emperor in 813 and became emperor in 814 on his father's death. Twice deprived of his authority by his sons (Lothair, Pepin, Louis, and Charles), he recovered it each time (830 and 834), but at his death the Carolingian empire was in disarray.

Louis was the fifth child of Charlemagne's second wife, Hildegard the Swabian. From 781 until 814 Louis ruled Aquitaine with some success, though largely through counsellors. When Charlemagne died at Aachen in 814 and was succeeded by Louis, by then his only surviving legitimate son, Louis was well experienced in warfare; he was 36, married to Irmengard of Hesbaye, and was the father of three young sons, Lothair, Pepin, and Louis (Louis the German); he had inherited vast lands, which seemed to be under reasonable control; there was no other claimant to the throne; and on Sept. 11, 813, shortly before his father's death, Louis had been crowned in Aachen as heir and co-emperor.

Louis' first task was to carry out the terms of Charlemagne's will. According to the Frankish chronicler Einhard, Louis did this with great scrupulousness, although other contemporary sources tell a different story. Louis next began to allocate parts of the empire to the various members of his family, and here began the difficulties and disasters that were to beset him for the remainder of his life. In August 814 he made Lothair and Pepin nominal kings of Bavaria and Aquitaine. He also confirmed Bernard, the son of his dead brother Pepin, as king of Italy, which position Charlemagne had allowed him to inherit in 813. But when Bernard revolted in 817, Louis had him blinded, and he died as a result of it. Louis sent his sisters and half sisters to nunneries and later put his three illegitimate half brothers--Drogo, Hugo, and Theodoric--into monasteries.

At the assembly of Aachen in July 817, he confirmed Pepin in the possession of Aquitaine and gave Bavaria to Louis the German; Lothair he made his co-emperor and heir. Charlemagne had been in his 70s and within a few months of death before naming his heir, and for Louis to give such premature expectations to a youth of 22 was to ask for trouble. Moreover, Louis did not anticipate that he would become father of another child: the empress Irmengard died in 818; and four months later Louis married Judith of Bavaria, who, in June 823, bore him a son, Charles (Charles the Bald), to whom the Emperor gave Alemannia in 829.

Backed by his two brothers, Lothair rose in revolt and deposed his father. The assembly of Nijmegen in October 830, however, restored Louis to the throne; and, the following February, at the assembly of Aachen, in a second partition, Lothair was given Italy. In 832 Louis took Aquitaine away from Pepin and gave it to Charles. The three brothers revolted a second time, with the support of Pope Gregory IV, and at a meeting near Sigolsheim, in Alsace, once more deposed their father. In March 834 Louis was again restored to the throne and made peace with Pepin and with Louis the German. Later in 834, Lothair rose again, but alone, and had to retreat into Italy. Encouraged by his success, Louis made over more territories to his son Charles at the assemblies of Aachen and Nijmegen (837-838)--a move the three brothers accepted but with bad grace. In 839 Louis the German revolted but was driven back into Bavaria.

Meanwhile, Pepin had died (December 838), and, at the assembly of Worms (May 30, 839), a fourth partition was made, the empire being divided between Lothair and Charles, with Bavaria left in the hands of Louis the German. Toward the end of 839 Louis the German marched his troops for the last time against his father, who once more drove him back. The Emperor called an assembly at Worms on July 1, 840. Before it could meet, however, Louis the Pious died at Petersaue, an island in the Rhine near Ingelheim. He was 62 and had ruled for nearly 27 years. He was buried in the Church of St. Arnulf in Metz by Bishop Drogo, his half brother.

The empire he had inherited in peace, Louis left in disarray. He had engaged in no serious external conflict, although the Danes and others had continued to make inroads into the empire. From 829 his four sons had been a constant source of disruption; the quarrels among Lothair, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald were to continue for decades after his death. In many ways Louis seems to have been an estimable person. He was presumably given the epithet the Pious because of his devoutness, his liberality to the church, his interest in ecclesiastical affairs, and the good education he had received. Contemporary historians vary little in their judgment: the Astronomer of Limousin stresses his continued courage in the face of adversity; Thegan, bishop of Trier, gives a long and admiring description of his person, his talents, his Christian charity, his devoutness, and his skill as a hunter; and the poem of Ermoldus Nigellus is full of adulation. Like his father, Charlemagne, Louis the Pious is depicted in several of the chansons de geste of the 12th century, notably the Chanson de Guillaume, the Couronnement de Louis, and the Charroi de NŒmes: he appears as a kindly ruler but a weak and vacillating one. [Encyclopaedia Britannica CD '97, LOUIS I]

SOURCES:
!Called The Pious (778-840), Holy Roman emperor (814-40), king of France (814-40), king of Germany (814-40), and king of Aquitaine (781-840). He was the son of Charlemagne, king of the Franks. In 817 Louis made plans providing for the posthumous division of the Carolingian Empire among his three surviving sons, Lothair I, Holy Roman emperor, Louis II, king of Germany, and Charles II, Holy Roman emperor. His reign, however, was troubled by quarrels with his sons, who were dissatisfied with his arrangements for the succession. Louis was physically strong but was easily influenced and was unequal to administering the large empire that he inherited from his father. Note:
!In 781, at age 2, Louis I, "Le Pieux", was crowned and anointed King of Aquitaine by Pope Hadrian I, at the same time as his older brother Pepin was made King of Italy. Louis, whose twin brother had died at birth, was the third of Charlemagne's sons by his wife Hildegard. The Diviso Regni of 806 indicates that Louis was to have Aquitaine as an independent Kingdom upon his father's death. Aquitaine was in effect a March; for much of Louis' reign as sub-king he and his officials were occupied in quelling Gascon revolts and launching offensives into Spain. Unrest had never completely died out in the Pyrenees since the annexation of Aquitaine in 768, and more especially after the disastrous ambush of the Frankish vanguard in Roncesvalles in 778. In about 788, Chorso, Duke of Toulouse was captured by a Gascon named Adelric, and then released after being forced to swear an oath of allegiance to the Gascon or Basque leader. In 793, the Sarracens invaded Septimania, burned the suburbs of Narbonne and marched on Carcassonne, but in 795 Bahlul-ben-Machluc sued with Louis for peace. In 800, he successfully laid siege to Barcelona and subsequently captured Tortosa, Huesca and Pamplona and formed links with the Kingdom of the Asturias. Baptized: on 15 Apr 781; On 15 April 781, Louis was baptized by Pope Hadrian I in Rome. The next day, Easter Sunday, he was confirmed in his title of King of Aquitaine. Married in 794: Ermengarde d'Esbay, daughter of Engueran=Ingram, Count d'Esbay. Note - between 800 and 837: Louis I established monasteries in Nouaille (a cell of St. Hilaire of Poitiers), Gellone and St. Martin-de-Tours. After the death of his brothers Pepin and Charles in 810 and 811 respectively, Louis was crowned at Aachen on 13 September 813, Emperor and heir to all of Charlemagne's lands, by Charlemagne himself without any assistance nor even the presence of the Pope. All sources, Frankish as well as papal, refer to Louis as emperor from then on. Charlemagne died 5 months later. All of Louis' sisters were required to quit the palace and retire to their own estates. His cousins, the offsprings of Bernard (Pepin III's half brother) were exhiled: Louis forced Count Wala to become a monk at Corbie; Adalhard was exhiled to Noirmoutier to be held there in custody by the Abbot; Bernhard returned to Lerin and Gundrada had to retreat to St. Radegund's convent of Sainte Croix in Poitiers. Only Theodrada was left unmolested as abbess of Notre Dame at Soissons. Louis I was also known as Louis, "Le Pieux". On 27 February 814, upon learning of the death of his father, and at the age of 36 years, he left Doue-la-Fontaine, in Anjou, to go to Aix-la-Chapelle. This new emperor, enterred this capital, and poised himself in front of the tomb of Charlemagne. So oversome with grief, his forehead touched the stone floor of the church. Hence the name "Le Pieux". Since he was kind, relative to his times, he was also known as "Le Debonnaire". For himself, he preferred to adopt the title "by divine Providence, Emperor Augustus". When Pope Leo died in May of 816, Stephen IV was elected Pope, and crowned Louis the Emperor on Sunday 5 October by placing a crown on his head during mass at Rheims. He also secured the release of some Roman exhiles in Francia. This crowning was among the first attempts to integrate the Papacy into the institutional framework of the Empire. Louis, 'lest he be led astray in satisfying the natural desires of the body' married Ermengarde, daughter of Count Ingramn. Charlemagne established Doue-la-Fontaine, Chasseneuil (Louis' birthplace), Angeac and Ebreuil as royal residences to maintain Louis and his household. At an assembly in Aachen in July 817, Louis made provisions for his sons' inheritance through the "Ordinatio Imperii". In his preface he states that the unity of the empire preserved for Louis by God should not be destroyed by men. Lothar was given the title of emperor, and as co-ruler with his father at once made heir to the empire, and appointed King of Italy in the event of his father's death. Bernard, then King of Italy was not mentioned, but the implication is that Bernard would be subordinate to Lothar should Louis die. Pepin was made King of Aquitaine (plus Gascony, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Autun, Avallon and Nevers) and Louis, The German, was made King of Bavaria (plus Carinthia, Bohemia, the lands of the Avars and Slavs and the royal manors of Lauterhofen and Ingolstadt). Pepin and Louis were to meet on an annual basis with Lothar to consult and together find "measures to take in the interest of perpetual peace". They could neither start a war nor marry without the approval of their elder brother. Lothar even had the right to de-throne them after three warnings. That same year, 817, Stephen IV obtains his political independence, thus severing the tie between Rome and the Frank Empire as conceived by Charlemagne. The arrangement was neat and all contingencies covered except for the one which took place. After his first wife's (Ermengarde) death, Louis, in 819, married the beautiful Bavarian Judith, daughter of Comte Welf of Bavaria. On 13 June 823 she gave birth to a son. He was called Charles. In September, 824, forgetting his nickname "Le Debonnaire", Louis totally ravages the Bretagne which was rebelling. In 829, at the General Assembly convoked in Worms (Wurm), Louis announces that he is forging a Duchy for his son, Charles, and gives him Alamania, Alsace, Rhetia, and part of Burgundy. The Co-Emperor Lothar, disagrees and has his name removed from imperial decrees and diplomas. Toward the end of 829, the political scene gets very complicated with allegations that Judith had intimate rapports with Bernard, Count of Barcelone, and ultimately desiring the death of the three sons of Hirmingarde. In Mai of 830, in Compiegne, Lothar and Pepin of Aquitaine lead a revolt. Louis is forced to cede on every point of contention. The apanage of the young Charles is eliminated, Judith is locked up in Poitiers at the Monastery of Sainte-Radegonde. In 831, the bishops would note how she had a talent for converting men's hearts and souls, and would allow her to rejoin her husband. In 832, Pepin and Louis revolt against their father. On 24 June 833, the Army of Louis Le Pieux faces those of the rebels. The field of battle in Rothfeld would be named the Field of the Lie (Lugenfeld). The Emperor and his sons begin negotiations. The night of 29 to 30 June, it is clear that the supporters of Louis would be influenced by his three sons. On the morning of 30 June, Louis would have to surrender. It would not be until 1 October that Louis would be deposed by the Assembly led by Agobard, Archbishop of Lyon and Eblon, Archbishop of Reims. On 7 October, Judith is sent to the Monastery of Tortone, Bernard to Prum, and Louis to the Monastery of Saint-Medard-de-Soissons, where in public ceremony, he is forced to lay down his sword, stripped of royal vestments, he is made to don the coarse cloth of a penitent. In 834, Louis and Pepin, tired of being under the control of their brother Lothar, decide to free their father. On 28 February, they succeed in freeing their father and in August in Blois, Lothar swears to Louis Le Pieux, that he would never leave Italy except by his direct command. Throughout 834, the Normands -- Danes, Swedes and Norwegians -- resume their raids. On 28 February 835, the General Assembly proclaims that Louis was innocent of all previous accusations thus clearing the way for him to be re-established as Emperor on the Throne at Saint-Stephen of Metz. In 837, thanks to the intercessions of Judith, Charles "Le Chauve", receives a Kingdom composed of Frisia, between the Seine, the Meuse and the sea and in September 838, he receives the crown at Quierzy-sur-Oise. In 838, Marseille is devastated by the Sarrasins. On 30 May 839, the Empire is divided in half, with Lothar taking the East, and Charles' lands extend through Provence, Lyon, Toul and Geneva and all the lands of the West. Louis "the German", gets to keep only Bavaria. Married in 819: Judith de Baviere (3628), daughter of Welf II, Count de Baviere and Egilwich=Heilwig, Abbess de Challes ; Louis married Judith upon the death of his first wife, Ermengarde. She bore him a son named Charles in 823. It is clear that Louis was as fond of Charles as Jacob was of his Benjamin. Died: on 22 Jun 840 in Ingelheim, Germany, at age 61 In 840, while attempting to keep Louis "the German" in line, Louis "Le Pieux" is taken ill in Salz. Feeling near death, he sends Lothar his sword and the crown on the condition that he would be loyal to Judith and abide by the lands division agreed to in Worms in 839. He died on an island, near Ingelheim on 22 June. 309. Judith de Baviere (Andre Roux: Scrolls, 191.) (Stuart, Royalty for Commoners, Page 130, Line 171-40.) (Rosamond, Frankish kingdom under Carolingians, Page 136). Married Name: de France. Born: circa 800 in Altdorf, Bavaria, daughter of Welf II, Count de Baviere (3626) and Egilwich=Heilwig, Abbess de Challes . Married in 819: Louis I, King de France , son of Charlemagne, Rex Francorum et Langobardorum and Hildegard, Countess de Linzgau ; Louis married Judith upon the death of his first wife, Ermengarde. She bore him a son named Charles in 823. It is clear that Louis was as fond of Charles as Jacob was of his Benjamin. Died: on 19 Apr 843 in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, Touraine, France. ^{1 3 4 5}

  Research Notes:

My information and source can be found at Foundation for Medieval Genealogy

Louis married Princess Ermengrade de Hesbaye, daughter of Ingeramne de Hesbaye, Duke & Count of Hesbaye, in 798. (Princess Ermengrade de Hesbaye was born about 778 in Hesbaye, Liege, Belgium and died about 3 Oct 818 in Angers, France ^{1 3}.)

Louis next married Judith Von Andech, Queen of the Franks in Feb 819. (Judith Von Andech, Queen of the Franks was born about 800 in Bavaria and died on 19 Apr 843 in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France ³.)