Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious | |
---|---|
King of the Franks | |
Reign | 814–840 |
Predecessor | Charlemagne |
Successor |
|
Ingelheim | |
Burial | |
Spouses | Ermengarde of Hesbaye Judith of Bavaria |
Issue | |
Carolingian | |
Father | Charlemagne |
Mother | Hildegarde |
Religion | Chalcedonian Christianity |
Carolingian dynasty |
---|
Louis the Pious
During his reign in Aquitaine, Louis was charged with the defence of the empire's southwestern frontier. He conquered Barcelona from the Emirate of Córdoba in 801 and asserted Frankish authority over Pamplona and the Basques south of the Pyrenees in 812. As emperor, he included his adult sons, Lothair, Pepin and Louis, in the government and sought to establish a suitable division of the realm among them. The first decade of his reign was characterised by several tragedies and embarrassments, notably the brutal treatment of his nephew Bernard of Italy for which Louis atoned in a public act of self-debasement.
In the 830s his empire was torn by civil war between his sons that was only exacerbated by Louis's attempts to include his son Charles by his second wife in the succession plans. Though his reign ended on a high note, with order largely restored to his empire, it was followed by three years of civil war. Louis is generally compared unfavourably to his father but faced distinctly different problems.[3]
Birth and rule in Aquitaine
Louis was born in 778 while his father
Louis was crowned
In 794, Charlemagne gave four former
Louis was one of Charlemagne's three legitimate sons to survive infancy. His twin brother, Lothair, died during infancy. According to the Frankish custom of
Reign
While at his palace of Doué, Anjou, Louis received news of his father's death.[12] He rushed to Aachen and crowned himself emperor to shouts of Vivat Imperator Ludovicus by the attending nobles.[12]
Upon arriving at the imperial court in Aachen in an atmosphere of suspicion and anxiety on both sides, Louis's first act was to purge the palace of what he considered undesirable. He destroyed the old Germanic
He quickly sent all of his many unmarried (half-)sisters and nieces to nunneries in order to avoid any possible entanglements from overly powerful brothers-in-law.[12] Sparing his illegitimate half-brothers Drogo, Hugh and Theoderic, he forced his father's cousins, Adalard and Wala to be tonsured, sending them into monastic exile at St-Philibert on the island of Noirmoutier and Corbie, respectively, despite the latter's initial loyalty.[14]
He made
He also employed
Ordinatio imperii
On 9 April 817, Maundy Thursday, 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 among the approval of his Aachen court and the clergy he issued an imperial decree of eighteen chapters, the Ordinatio Imperii, that laid out plans for an orderly dynastic succession. The term Ordinatio Imperii is a modern (19th-century) creation. The decree is called divisio imperii in the only surviving contemporary manuscript.[5]
In 815, Louis had already given his two eldest sons a share in the government, when he had sent his elder sons Lothair and Pepin to govern Bavaria and Aquitaine, respectively, though without the royal titles. He proceeded to divide the empire among his three sons:
- Lothair was proclaimed and crowned co-emperor in Aachen 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.
- Pepin was proclaimed King of Aquitaine, his territory including Gascony, the march around Toulouse, and the counties of Carcassonne, 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, Lothair would inherit his kingdom. In the event of Lothair dying without sons, one of Louis the Pious's younger sons would be chosen to replace him by "the people". Above all, the Empire would not be divided: the Emperor would rule supreme over the subordinate kings, whose obedience to him was mandatory.
With this settlement, Louis attempted 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.
The decree failed to create order as it omitted Bernard, who immediately began to conspire. When Louis began to issue changes in favor of his second wife Judith's son Charles the Bald, his sons Lothar, Pepin and Louis refused to accept. The rule of sons being favoured over brothers in succession remained also untouched.[5]
Bernard's rebellion and Louis's penance
The ordinatio imperii of Aachen left Bernard in Italy in an uncertain and subordinate position as king of Italy, and he began plotting to declare independence. Upon hearing of this, Louis immediately directed his army towards Italy, and headed for Chalon-sur-Saône. Intimidated by the emperor's swift action, Bernard met his uncle at Chalon, under invitation, and surrendered. He was taken to Aachen 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 did not survive the ordeal, however, dying after two days of agony. Others also suffered: Theodulf of Orléans, in eclipse since the death of Charlemagne, was accused of having supported the rebellion, and was thrown into a monastic prison, dying soon afterwards; it was rumored that he had been poisoned.[18] 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
Frontier wars
This section needs additional citations for verification. (June 2020) |
At the start of Louis's reign, the many tribes—
A greater Slavic menace was gathering on the southeast. There,
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 c. 812, Louis the Pious crossed the western Pyrenees 'to settle matters' in Pamplona. The expedition made its way back north, where it narrowly escaped an ambush attempt arranged by the
First civil war
This section needs additional citations for verification. (February 2020) |
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 had 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
With the urging of the vengeful Wala and the cooperation of his brothers, Lothair accused Judith of having committed adultery with
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.[19]
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.[19]
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. Although Hilduin, abbot of Saint Denis, was exiled to Paderborn and Elisachar and Matfrid were deprived of their honours north of the Alps, they did not lose their freedom.[5]
Second civil war
The next revolt occurred a mere two years later, in 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 had 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 de 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.[21]
On 13 November 833,
Men like
On Lothair's return to Italy, Wala, Jesse and Matfrid, formerly count of Orléans, died of a pestilence. On 2 February 835 at the palace
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
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
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. At a final
Death
Louis fell ill soon after his final victorious campaigns and retreated to his summer hunting lodge on an island in the Rhine near his
Soon dispute plunged the surviving brothers into yet another civil war. It lasted until 843 with the signing of the
Louis was buried in the Abbey of Saint-Arnould in Metz.[31]
Marriage and issue
By his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye (married c. 794),[32] he had three sons and three daughters:
- Lothair (795–855), king of Middle Francia
- Pepin (797–838), king of Aquitaine
- Adelaide (b. c. 799)
- Rotrude (b. 800)
- Hildegard (or Matilda) (b. c. 802)
- Louis the German (c. 806 – 876), king of East Francia
By his second wife, Judith of Bavaria, he had a daughter and a son:
- Gisela, married Eberhard of Friuli
- Charles the Bald, king of West Francia
By an unknown concubine (probably Theodelinde of Sens),[citation needed] he had two illegitimate children:
- Arnulf of Sens
- Alpais
References
- ISBN 978-0-14-139410-7.
- Latin: Ludovicus or Hludowicus Pius, German: Ludwig der Fromme, French: Louis le Pieux or Louis le Débonnaire, Italian: Ludovico il Pio, Spanish: Luis el Piadoso or Ludovico Pío.
- JSTOR 24403332.
- ^ Einhard gives the name of his birthplace as Cassanoilum. In addition to Chasseneuil near Poitiers, scholars have suggested that Louis may have been born at Casseneuil (Lot et Garonne) or at Casseuil on the Garonne near La Réole, where the Dropt flows into the Garonne.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mayke de Jong. "The Penitential State. Authority and Atonement in the Ages of Louis the Pious (814–840) – 1. Louis the Pious – A boy who became a king". Academia. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
- ^ Richard E. Sullivan (1995), "The Gentle Voices of Teachers": Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age, Ohio State University Press, p. 64 n39, suggests that Charlemagne may have been influenced by the letter he received in about 775 from Cathwulf, who worries that "you [Charles] have few firm columns, I fear, on which to sustain the fortress of God."
- ^ Pierre Riche, The Carolingians: The Family who Forged Europe, transl. Michael Idomir Allen, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 116.
- ISBN 978-0-393-06790-3.
- ^ Pierre Riche, The Carolingians:The Family who Forged Europe, 94.
- Encyclopedia Britannica.
- JSTOR j.ctvd1c74c.6. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ a b c d Church Architecture and Liturgy in the Carolingian Era, Michael S. Driscoll, A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, ed. Ian Levy, Gary Macy, Kristen Van Ausdall, (Brill, 2012), 194.
- ISBN 978-0-8122-0138-3.
- ^ Church Architecture and Liturgy in the Carolingian Era, Michael S. Driscoll, A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, 195.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-5378-0424-8.
- ISBN 9780198269069.
- ISBN 90-04-09449-0.
- ^ The Frankish Kingdoms, 814–898: The West, Janet L. Nelson, The New Cambridge Medieval History, 700–900, Vol. II, ed. Rosamond McKitterick, (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 114.
- ^ a b c Collins, Roger (1991). Early Medieval Europe 300–1000. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 318–330.
- ^ Paired gold medallions of father and son had been struck on the occasion of the synod of Paris (825) that asserted Frankish claims as emperor, recently denigrated by the Byzantines; see Karl F. Morrison, "The Gold Medallions of Louis the Pious and Lothaire I and the Synod of Paris (825)" Speculum 36.4 (October 1961:592–599).
- ^ "Vita Hludowici imperatoris: Text - IntraText CT".
- ^ Medieval European Coinage by Philip Grierson, Mark Blackburn, Lucia Travaini, p. 329 [1]
- ^ Mayke De Jong, "Power and Humility in Carolingian society: the Public Penance of Louis the Pious", Early Medieval Europe 1 (1992). p. 29.
- ^ Agobard, "Personal Attestation to the Penance of Louis the Pious" in Lievan Van Acker (ed.) Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis , trans. Courtney M. Booker (Turnhout, 1981). p. 324.
- ^ Mayke De Jong, The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814–840 (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 1–3.
- ^ The Astronomer, The Life of Emperor Louis, trans. Thomas F.X. Noble (Pennsylvania, 2009), p. 282.
- ^ The Annals of Saint Bertin, trans. Janet L. Nelson (Manchester, 1991), pp. 32–33.
- ^ ISBN 0-8122-1342-4.
- ISBN 978-0-7425-5409-2.
- ISBN 978-0-521-56366-6.
- ^ Metz, Steven Fanning, Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, Ed. William W. Kibler and Grover A. Zinn, (Routledge, 1995), p. 615.
- ^ McKitterick, Rosamond (2008). Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity. Cambridge University Press. p. 93.
Notes
- Archbishop of Rheims, between 13 November 833 and 1 March 834.[1]
- ^ Crowned by his father at Aachen.
- ^ Papal coronation by Stephen IV in Reims
- ^ Counted as Louis I in the lists of both French and German monarchs.
Sources
- Vita Hludovici Imperatoris, the main source for his reign, written c. 840 by an unknown author usually called "the Astronomer"
- Gesta Hludowici Imperatoris by Thegan of Trier on-line Latin text
Further reading
- Booker, Courtney M. Past Convictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8122-4168-6
- De Jong, Mayke. The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814–840. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- Depreux, Philippe. Prosopographie de l'entourage de Louis le Pieux (781–840). Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1997. A useful prosopographicaloverview of Louis's household, court and other subordinates.
- Eichler, Daniel. Fränkische Reichsversammlungen unter Ludwig dem Frommen. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2007 (Monumenta Germaniae Historica Studien und Texte, 45).
- Ganshof, François-LouisThe Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy. 1971.
- Godman, Peter, and Roger Collins (eds.). Charlemagne's Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840). Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, 1990.
- Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages 476–918. London, 1914.
- Fischer Drew, Katherine. The Laws of the Salian Franks, University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1322-X
- Noble, Thomas F. X. Louis the Pious and his piety re-reconsidered Link