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Birth:           806 
Death:          28 Aug  876 

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_the_German
Louis (also Ludwig or Lewis) "the German" (c. 802-876), also known as Louis II, was 
the first king of East Francia. Grandson of emperor Charlemagne and the third son of 
emperor of Francia, Louis the Pious and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye, he 
received the appellation Germanicus shortly after his death in recognition of the fact 
that the bulk of his kingdom was in the former Germania.
Early life[edit]

His early years were partly spent at the court of his grandfather, Charlemagne, whose 
special affection he is said to have won. When the emperor Louis the Pious divided 
his dominions between his sons in 817, Louis was made the ruler of Duchy of Bavaria, 
following the practice of emperor Charlemagne of bestowing a local kingdom to a 
close family member who then would serve as his lieutenant and local governor. Louis 
ruled from Regensburg, the old capital of the Bavarii. In 825 he became involved in 
wars with the Wends and Sorbs on his eastern frontier. In 827 he married Hemma, 
sister of his stepmother Judith of Bavaria, both daughters of Welf, whose possessions 
ranged from Alsace to Bavaria. Louis soon began to interfere in the quarrels arising 
from Judith's efforts to secure a kingdom for her son Charles the Bald and the 
consequent struggles of his brothers with their father.

Rebellious son[edit]

His involvement in the first civil war against his father's reign was limited, but in the 
second his elder brothers, Lothair I, then King of Italy, and Pepin I, Duke of Aquitaine, 
persuaded him to invade Alamannia which their father had given to their young half-
brother Charles the Bald; by promising to give him the land in the new partition they 
would make after a victory. In 832 he led an army of Slavs into Alamannia and 
completely subjugated it. Louis the Pious disinherited him, but to no effect; the 
emperor was soon captured by his own rebellious sons and deposed. Upon his swift 
reinstatement, however, the emperor Louis made peace with his son Louis and legally 
restored Bavaria (never actually lost) to him in 836.

Louis was the instigator of the third civil war, which began in 839. A strip of his land 
having been given to the young haf-brother Charles, Louis invaded Alamannia again. 
This time emperor Louis responded quickly, and soon the younger Louis was forced 
into the far southeastern corner of his realm, the March of Pannonia. Peace was then 
made by force of arms.

Civil war, 840-843[edit]

After the civil war which followed the death of emperor Louis the Pious, the empire 
was divided in 843 by the Treaty of Verdun in three parts, with Louis becoming the 
King of East Francia, a region that spanned the Elbe drainage basin from Jutland 
southeasterly through the Thuringian Forest into modern Bavaria.

When the emperor Louis died in 840, and Lothair I claimed the whole Empire, Louis 
allied with Charles the Bald, and defeated Lothair I and their nephew Pepin II of 
Aquitaine, son of Pepin, at the Battle of Fontenoy in June 841.

In June 842 the three brothers met on an island in the river Saône to negotiate a 
peace, and each appointed forty representatives to arrange the boundaries of their 
respective kingdoms. This developed into the Treaty of Verdun, concluded in August 
843, by which Louis received the bulk of the lands lying east of the Rhine (East 
Francia), together with a district around Speyer, Worms, and Mainz, on the left bank 
of the river (see also Oaths of Strasbourg 842). His territories included Bavaria (where 
he made Regensburg the centre of his government), Thuringia, Franconia, and 
Saxony.

Louis may be called the founder of the German kingdom, though his attempts to 
maintain the unity of the Empire proved futile. Having in 842 crushed the Stellinga 
rising in Saxony, in 844 he compelled the Obotrites to own his authority and put their 
prince, Gozzmovil, to death. Thachulf, Duke of Thuringia, then undertook campaigns 
against the Bohemians, Moravians, and other tribes, but was not very successful in 
resisting the ravaging Vikings.

Conflicts with Charles the Bald[edit]

In 852 Louis sent his son Louis the Younger to Aquitaine, where nobles had grown 
resentful of Charles the Bald's rule. The younger Louis did not set out until 854, and 
returned the following year.

Starting from 853 Louis made repeated attempts to gain the throne of West Francia, 
which, according to the Annals of Fulda (Annales Fuldenses), the people of that 
country offered him in their disgust with the cruel misrule of Charles the Bald. 
Encouraged by his nephews Pepin of Herstal and Charles of Provence, Louis invaded 
in West Francia in 858. Charles the Bald could not even raise an army to resist the 
invasion and fled to Burgundy. Later that year Louis issued a charter dated "the first 
year of the reign in West Francia." However, treachery and desertion in his army, and 
the continued loyalty of the Aquitanian bishops to Charles the Bald, brought about the 
failure of the whole enterprise, which Louis renounced by a treaty signed at Koblenz 
on June 7, 860.[citation needed]

After the emperor Lothair I died in 855, Louis and Charles for a time cooperated in 
plans to divide Lothair's possessions among themselves, the only impediments to this 
being Lothair's sons and heirs - Lothair II (who received Lotharingia), Louis II of Italy 
(who held the imperial title and the Iron Crown of Lombardy) and Charles of Provence. 
In 868 at Metz Louis and Charles agreed to partition Lotharingia. When Lothair II died 
in 869, Louis was lying seriously ill, and his armies were engaged in a war with the 
Moravians. Charles the Bald quickly seized Lothair's lands; but Louis, having 
recovered, compelled him by a threat of war to agree to the Treaty of Meerssen, which 
divided Lothair's lands between all the claimants.[citation needed]

Divisio regni among the sons[edit]

The later years of Louis the German were troubled by rebellions of his sons. The 
eldest, Carloman of Bavaria, revolted in 861 and again two years later. This was 
followed by the second son Louis the Younger, who was joined by his brother Charles 
the Fat. In 864 Louis was forced to grant Carloman the kingdom of Bavaria, which he 
himself had once held under his father. In 865 he divided the remainder of his lands - 
Saxony with Franconia and Thuringia went to Louis the Younger and Swabia with 
Raetia to Charles the Fat.

A report that the emperor Louis II of Italy had died led to a peace between father and 
sons and attempts by Louis the German to gain the imperial crown for his oldest son 
Carloman. These efforts were thwarted by Louis II of Italy who was in fact not dead, 
and Louis' old adversary, Charles the Bald.

Louis was preparing for a new war when he died on August 28, 876 in Frankfurt. He 
was buried at the abbey of Lorsch, leaving three sons and three daughters. His sons, 
unusually for their earlier behaviour, respected the divisions made a decade earlier 
and each contented himself with his own kingdom.

Louis is considered by many to be the most competent of the grandsons of 
Charlemagne. He obtained for his kingdom a certain degree of security in face of the 
attacks of Vikings, Hungarians, Slavs, and others. He lived in close alliance with the 
Church, to which he was very generous, and entered eagerly into schemes for the 
conversion of his heathen neighbours.[citation needed]

Marriage and children[edit]

Louis was married to Hemma (died 31 January 876).,[1] and they had seven children:
Hildegard, (828–856)
Carloman of Bavaria, (829–880),[2] King of Bavaria
Irmgard of Chiemsee also known as Ermengard, (died 866) (Louis, having established 
two of his other daughters as abbesses of convents, appointed Irmgard (also known 
as Ermengard) to govern first the monastery of Buchau and then the royal abbey of 
Chiemsee in Bavaria. She is commemorated as a saint on 16 July.[3])
Gisela, married to Berthold I, Count Palatine of Swabia, and mother of Cunigunde of 
Swabia, wife of Conrad I of Germany.
Louis the Younger, (835–882)
Bertha, (died 877)
Charles the Fat, (839–888)

Parents
____ Louis I "the Pious" "the Fair" (Aug  778 - 20 Jun  840)
DE HAYSBE Ermengarde (ABT  778 - 3 Oct  818)

Siblings
____ 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 Emma (ABT  806 - 31 Jan  876)
    m.  

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 Emma ABT  806 - 31 Jan  876
____ Gisela ()

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