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Birth:          Aug  778 Casseneuil, France
Death:          20 Jun  840 nr Ingelheim, Rhinehessen
Burial:         Cathedral D'Aachen, Aachen, Rhineland

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_the_Pious
Louis the Pious (778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire,[1] was 
the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor (as 
Louis I) with his father, Charlemagne, from 813.

As the only surviving adult son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole 
ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position which he held until his 
death, save for the period 833–34, during which he was deposed.

During his reign in Aquitaine, Louis was charged with the defence of the empire's 
southwestern frontier. He conquered Barcelona from the Muslims 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, 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, though the problems he faced were of a distinctly different sort.
Birth and rule in Aquitaine[edit]

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.[2] 
He was the third son of Charlemagne by his wife Hildegard. His grandfather was King 
Pepin the Younger.

Louis was crowned King of Aquitaine as a child in 781[3] and sent there with regents 
and a court. Charlemagne constituted the sub-kingdom in order to secure the border of 
his kingdom after the destructive war against the Aquitanians and Basques under 
Waifer (capitulated c. 768) and later Hunald II, which culminated in the disastrous 
Battle of Roncesvalles (778). Charlemagne wanted his son Louis to grow up in the 
area where he was to reign. However, in 785, wary of the customs his son may have 
been taking in Aquitaine, Charlemagne sent for him to Aquitaine and Louis presented 
himself at the Royal Council of Paderborn dressed up in Basque costumes along with 
other youths in the same garment, which may have made a good impression in 
Toulouse, since the Basques of Vasconia were a mainstay of the Aquitanian army.

In 794, Charlemagne settled four former Gallo-Roman villas on Louis, in the thought 
that he would 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.[4] 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. He had a 
twin brother, Lothair who died during infancy. 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. However, 
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).
Death[edit]

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, 
at the old age of 62, 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 was not fully settled until 860.[citation 
needed]

Louis was buried in the Abbey of Saint-Arnould in Metz.[11]

Marriage and issue[edit]

By his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye (married ca. 794–98), 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), married Gerard, Count of Auvergne, as his first wife
Hildegard (or Matilda) (b. c. 802), married Gerard, Count of Auvergne, as his second 
wife
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 I of Friuli
Charles the Bald, king of West Francia

By Theodelinde of Sens[citation needed], he had two illegitimate children:
Arnulf of Sens
Alpais

Parents
____ Charlemagne (2 Apr  747 - 28 Jan  814)
OF VINZGAU Hildegarde ( 758 - 30 Apr  783)

Siblings
____ Berthe (Bertha) (ABT  772 - ABT  825)
OF ITALY Pepin (Apr  773 - 8 Jul  810)
____ Rotrude (ABT  775 - 6 Jun  810)
____ Louis I "the Pious" "the Fair" (Aug  778 - 20 Jun  840)

Marriage To DE HAYSBE Ermengarde (ABT  778 - 3 Oct  818)
    m.  798 

Notes

Parents
____ Ingerman (Ingeramme) (ABT  753 - )
OF BAVARIA Hedwig ()

Children by DE HAYSBE Ermengarde ABT  778 - 3 Oct  818
____ Lothar (Lothaire) I (ABT  798 - 29 Sep  855)
DE FRANCE Rotrude (ABT  799 -  841)
____ Louis II "the German" ( 806 - 28 Aug  876)

Marriage To OF BAVARIA Judith (ABT  800 - 19 Apr  843)
    m. Feb  819 

Notes

Parents
OF ALEMANNIA Welf (Guelph) (ABT  776 - ABT  825)
OF SAXONY Hedwig (Edith) (Eigilwich) (Heilwig) (ABT  780 - 19 Apr  843)

Children by OF BAVARIA Judith ABT  800 - 19 Apr  843
____ Gisela (ABT  820 - 1 Jul  874)
____ Charles II "the Bald" (13 Jun  823 - 6 Oct  877)

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