Charles Martel Prince of the Franks Peppinid

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• Reference Number: 8181

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Pippinid-12

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:
Charles Martel ('the Hammer') was born in Herstal (in modern Belgium) on 23 August 688, the son of Pippin II by his mistress Alpais. He was proclaimed Mayor of the Palace and ruled the Franks in the name of a titular king, Clothaire IV. Late in his reign he proclaimed himself duke of the Franks (over the last four years of his reign he did not even bother with the façade of a king) and by any name he was de facto ruler of the Frankish realms. In 739 he was offered an office of Roman consul, which he rejected. He expanded his rule over all three of the Frankish kingdoms: Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy. He was described by Louis Gustave and Charles Strauss, in their book _Muslem and Frank: or Charles Martel and the rescue of Europe,_ as a tall, powerfully built man who was more agile than his size would lead men to believe.

His first battles were with the Saxons, Alemanni and Bavarians. However, his importance was established when he rolled back the Saracens in a desperate battle between Tours and Poitiers in 732. This has traditionally been characterised as an event that halted the Islamic expansion in Europe that had conquered Iberia. Prior to the battle, Abdul Rahman, the Arab governor of Spain, had won a great battle near Bordeaux. This Muslem threat united the Burgundians and the Gauls of Provence, who then acknowledged the sovereignty of Charles Martel, recognising him as their saviour from the Muslem conquests. Charles finished his work by driving the Saracens out of Burgundy and the Languedoc in 737.

In addition to being the leader of the army that prevailed at Tours, Charles Martel was a truly giant figure of the Middle Ages. A brilliant general, he is considered the forefather of western heavy cavalry, chivalry, founder of the Carolingian empire (which was named after him), and a catalyst for the feudal system, which would see Europe through the Middle Ages. Although some recent scholars have suggested he was more of a beneficiary of the feudal system than a knowing agent for social change, others continue to see him as the primary catalyst.

When Charles died on 22 October 741, his sons Carloman and Pippin, still joint mayors of the palace, shared power over the kingdom of the Franks with the Merovingian king, Childeric III of the Franks.

Family/Spouse: Chrodtrudis Pippinid Unknown. Chrodtrudis was born about 690 in Austrasia; died about 725. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Name: //
• Name: Pepin the Short
• Reference Number: 8199

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Pippinid-18

BIOGRAPHY from genealogics.org:

Pippin was born in 714, the son of Charles Martel and Chrodtrud. With his wife Bertrada, daughter of Heribert/Caribert, count of Laon, he had two sons Charles and Carloman, of whom Charles would have progeny.

Pippin inherited the joint right with his brother Carloman to rule the kingdom of the Franks. In 747 he became sole ruler when Carloman retired to the monastery of Monte Casino. In 751 he asked Pope Zacharias to end the nominal rule of the Merovingians and give him sole power, together with the title 'King of the Franks'. The pope agreed and King Childeric III was placed in a monastery.

Boniface, Apostle of the Germans (later canonised as St. Boniface) anointed Pippin as King of The Franks at Soissons, possibly in 751. Two years later Pippin saved the next pope, Stephen II, from the Lombards. The pope himself again anointed Pippin at the Abbey of St. Denis, together with his two young sons. Pippin proved a much more able king than the Merovingian 'Rois faineants' (do nothing kings). The Franks descended on Italy to support the pope, and they defeated Astolfo, king of the Lombards. Pippin was made a senator of Rome though he could neither read nor write.

After the pope was attacked again, Pippin again defeated Astolfo and made a gift to the pope of Lombard lands near Rome. This bequest was the beginning of the pope's status as a temporal sovereign. Pippin died at the Abbey of St. Denis in 768. His sons Charles and Carloman divided the Frank domains. Carloman soon died, leaving Charles, as the sole ruler of the kingdom of the Franks, to become the most important ruler ever to have 'the Great' added to his name. Charles The Great, or Carolus Magnus, became better known as Charlemagne.

Family/Spouse: Bertrada 'au grand pied' Laon. Bertrada was born about 720 in Laon, Austrasia; died on 12 Jul 783 in Choisy-Au-Bac, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 8088

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Carolingian-77

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:
Charles was born about 747, the son of Pippin 'the Short', king of the Franks, and his wife Bertrada. He came to be known as Charles The Great or Charlemagne for good reasons. His long reign changed the face of Europe politically and culturally, and he himself would remain in the minds of people in the Middle Ages as the ideal king. Many historians have taken his reign to be the true beginning of the Middle Ages. Yet in terms of territorial expansion and consolidation, of Church reform and entanglement with Rome, Charlemagne's reign merely brought the policies of his father Pippin to their logical conclusions.

Charlemagne became the subject of the first medieval biography of a layman, written by Einhard, one of his courtiers. Using as his literary model, the word portrait by Suetonius of the Emperor Augustus, Einhard described Charlemagne's appearance, his dress, his eating and drinking habits, his religious practices and intellectual interests, giving us a vivid if not perhaps entirely reliable picture of the Frankish monarch. He was strong, tall, and healthy, and ate moderately. He loved exercise: riding and hunting, and perhaps more surprising, swimming. Einhard tells us that he chose Aachen as the site for his palace because of its hot springs, and that he bathed there with his family, friends and courtiers. He spoke and read Latin as well as his native Frankish, and could understand Greek and even speak it a little. He learned grammar, rhetoric, and mathematics from the learned clerics he gathered around him, but although he kept writing-tablets under his pillow for practice (he used to wake up several times in the night) he never mastered the art of writing. He was able to make such a mark upon European history because he was a tireless and remarkably successful general. He concluded Pippin's wars with Aquitaine, and proclaimed his son Louis king in 781; the one serious defeat he suffered was in these wars, at Roncevaux in the Pyrenees, a defeat one day immortalised in 'The Song of Roland' and later 'chansons de geste'.

He added Saxony to his realm after years of vicious campaigning. Towards the end of his reign he moved against the Danes. He destroyed the kingdom of the Avars in Hungary. He subdued the Bretons, the Bavarians, and various Slav people. In the south he began the reconquest of Spain from the Arabs and established the Spanish March in the northeast of the peninsula.

But perhaps his most significant campaigns were south of the Alps, in Italy. Pope Hadrian appealed to Charlemagne for help against Desiderius of the Lombards. The campaign in the winter of 773-4 was short and decisive. Desiderius was exiled, and Charlemagne, 'King of the Franks', added 'and the Lombards' to his title. Later he appointed his son Pepin as King of Italy.

Popes were still not free of all their enemies. In 799 a rival party of Roman aristocrats ambushed Leo III, intending to gouge out his eyes and cut off his tongue. Leo fled to Charlemagne, who was at Paderborn preparing for another war against the Saxons. Charlemagne ordered Leo III to be restored, and in 800 he came to Rome himself. On Christmas Day 800, in St. Peter's, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans.

Charlemagne married three times. In 769 he married a daughter of Desiderius, king of The Longobards. They had no progeny and were divorced in early 771. On 30 April that year he married Hildegardis, daughter of Gerold I, count in the Kraichgau and Vintzgau, and his wife Imma/Emma. They had nine children, of whom Pippin I, Louis I, Rotrud and Bertha would have progeny. Hildegardis died in 783, and later that year he married Fastrada, with whom he had two daughters of whom Hiltrud would have progeny. He also had children by several mistresses, including Drogo and Hugo by a mistress Regina, who would both become distinguished churchmen, Drogo becoming archbishop and bishop of Metz, and Hugo becoming abbot of St. Quintin and chancellor to his half-brother Emperor Louis 'the Pious'.

Charlemagne died at Aachen on 28 January 814, and was succeeded by his son Louis.

Family/Spouse: Hildegarde Schwaaben von Vinzagu. Hildegarde was born about 758 in Thionville, Moselle, France; died on 30 Apr 783 in Thionville, Moselle, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Name: Pepin of Italy
• Reference Number: 8086

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Carolingian-85

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:
Pippin was born about 777, the second son of Emperor Charlemagne and his wife Hildegarde. He was born Karlmann, but when his half-brother Pippin 'der Bucklige' (the Hunchback) betrayed their father, the royal name Pippin passed to him. He was christened in Rome by Pope Adrian I on 12 April 781, and was made king of Italy after his father's conquest of the Lombards that year, after which Pippin was crowned by Pope Adrian I with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.

He was active as ruler of Italy and worked to expand the Frankish empire. In 791 he marched a Lombard army into the Drava valley and ravaged Pannonia, while his father marched along the Danube into Avar territory. Charlemagne left the campaigning to deal with a Saxon revolt in 792. Pippin and Duke Eric of Friuli continued, however, to assault the Avars' ring-shaped strongholds. The great Ring of the Avars, their capital fortress, was taken twice. The booty was sent to Charlemagne in Aachen and distributed to all his followers and even to foreign rulers, including King Offa of Mercia.

About 795 Pippin married a lady possibly called Bertha, whose ancestry is not known from any reliable source although spuriously she has been called the daughter of St. Guilhem, comte de Toulouse. Pippin and Bertha had five daughters four of whom did not have progeny. The fifth daughter, Adalhaid (Adelaide) married Lambert I of Nantes. He also had a son Bernhard who would have progeny; some sources identify him as illegitimate.

A celebrated poem, _De Pippine regis Victoria Avarica,_ was composed after Pippin forced the Avar Khagan to submit in 796. The poem was composed at Verona, Pippin's capital after 799 and the centre of Carolingian Renaissance literature in Italy. The _Versus de Verona_ (written about 800), a formal eulogy to the city, likewise praises King Pippin.

Pippin's activities included a long siege of Venice in 810. The siege lasted six months and Pippin's army was ravaged by the diseases of the local swamps and was forced to withdraw. A few months later Pippin died on 8 July 810. He was expected to inherit a third of his father's empire, but he predeceased his father. When Pippin died the Italian crown passed to his son Bernhard, but the empire went to Pippin's younger brother Louis 'the Pious'.

Family/Spouse: Chrothais Unknown. Chrothais was born about 782. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]