Pepin 'the Short' King of the Franks Pippinid

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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]

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• 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]

Other Events:

• Name: Bernard of Italy
• Reference Number: 8084

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Carolingian-119

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:
Bernhard was born in Vermandois, Normandy, about 797, the son of Pippin I, king of Italy; some sources indicate that he was illegitimate. When his father died in 810 from an illness contracted at a siege of Venice, his grandfather Charlemagne allowed Bernhard to inherit Italy, but the empire went to Pippin's younger brother Louis 'the Pious'. About 814 Bernhard married Kunigund of Laon. They had a son Pippin, who would have progeny.

Prior to 817 Bernhard was a trusted agent of his grandfather and then of his uncle Louis 'the Pious', emperor from 814. Bernhard's rights to Italy were respected, and he was used as an intermediary to manage events in his sphere of influence - for example, when in 815 Louis received reports that some Roman nobles had conspired to murder Pope Leo III, and that he had responded by butchering the ringleaders, Bernhard was sent to investigate the matter.

A change came in 817, when Louis 'the Pious' drew up an _Ordinatio Imperii_ detailing the future of the Frankish empire. Under this, the bulk of the Frankish territory went to Louis' eldest son Lothar I; Bernhard received no further territory, and although his kingship of Italy was confirmed, he would be a vassal of Lothar. This was, it was later alleged, the work of the empress Irmengard, who wished Bernhard to be displaced in favour of her own sons. Resenting Louis' actions, Bernhard began plotting with a group of magnates: Eggideo, Reginhard and Reginhar, the last the grandson of a Thuringian rebel against Charlemagne, Hardrad. Anselm, bishop of Milan, and Theodulf, bishop of Orléans, were also accused of being involved; there is no evidence either to support or contradict this in the case of Theodulf, while the case for Anselm is murkier.

Bernhard's main complaint was the notion of being a vassal of Lothar. In practical terms his actual position had not been altered at all by the terms of the decree, and he could safely have continued to rule under such a system. Nonetheless, reports came to Louis 'the Pious' that his nephew was planning to set up an independent regime in Italy.

Louis reacted swiftly to the plot, marching south to Châlons. Bernhard and his associates were taken by surprise; Bernhard travelled to Châlons in an attempt to negotiate terms, but he and the ringleaders were forced to surrender to Louis. He had them taken to Aix-la-Chapelle, where they were tried and condemned to death. Louis commuted their sentences to blinding, which would neutralise Bernhard as a threat without actually killing him; however, the process of blinding (carried out by means of pressing a red-hot stiletto to the eyeballs) proved so traumatic that Bernhard died in agony two days later, on 17 April 818. At the same time, Louis also had his half-brothers Drogo, Hugo and Dietrich tonsured and confined to monasteries, to prevent other Carolingian off-shoots challenging the main line. He also treated those guilty or suspected of conspiring with Bernhard harshly: Theodulf, bishop of Orléans, was imprisoned and died soon afterwards; the lay conspirators were blinded, the clerics deposed and imprisoned; all lost lands and honours.

Bernhard's kingdom of Italy was reabsorbed into the Frankish empire, and soon after bestowed upon Louis' eldest son Lothar. In 822 Louis made a display of public penance at Attigny, where he confessed before all the court to having sinfully slain his nephew; he also welcomed his half-brothers back into his favour (Drogo became an archbishop and bishop of Metz; and Hugo became abbot of St. Quentin de Monte near Péronne, and Louis' chancellor). These actions possibly stemmed from guilt over his part in Bernhard's death. It has been argued by some historians that his behaviour left him open to clerical domination, and reduced his prestige and respect among the Frankish nobility. Others, however, point out that Bernhard's plot had been a serious threat to the stability of the kingdom, and the reaction no less a threat; Louis' display of penance, then 'was a well-judged gesture to restore harmony and re-establish his authority.'

Family/Spouse: Cunegonde Unknown. Cunegonde was born about 800; died after 15 Jun 835. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]