The Ahalolfings or Alaholfings were a noble family

Nobility

Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

 of Alemannia in the Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

. The family rose in the Carolingian Empire

Carolingian Empire

Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...

 to possess lands in not only Alemannia, but Bavaria

Duchy of Bavaria

The Duchy of Bavaria was the only one of the stem duchies from the earliest days of East Francia and the Kingdom of Germany to preserve both its name and most of its territorial extent....

, Franconia

Franconia

Franconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a small part of southern Thuringia, and a region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Tauberfranken...

, and Italy. Their original power base was around the upper Neckar

Neckar

The Neckar is a long river, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, but also a short section through Hesse, in Germany. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the River Rhine...

 and Danube

Danube

The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

 rivers.

The Ahalolfings are divided into two groups, the older and the younger. It is not certain how the two groups are related. The older group descends from a Berthold who was the joint founder, with Hnabi

Hnabi

Hnabi or Nebi was an Alemannic duke in the eighth century. He was a son of Huoching and perhaps a grandson of the duke Gotfrid, which would make him a scion of the Agilolfing dynasty of Bavaria. He was the founder of the "old" line of the Ahalolfings...

, of Reichenau Abbey in 724. His most famous descendant was Cadolah

Cadolah of Friuli

Cadolah was the Duke of Friuli from 817 to his death. He was a son of Count Berthold and an Ahalolfinger....

, Duke of Friuli

Duke of Friuli

The dukes and margraves of Friuli were the rulers of the Duchy and March of Friuli in the Middle Ages.The dates given below, when contentious, are discussed in the articles of the respective dukes.-Lombard dukes:* 568–c.584 Grasulf I...

, who defended the Pannonia

Pannonia

Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....

n plains into Italy from the Avars

Eurasian Avars

The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...

.

The younger branch of the family itself contains two branches. Richardis

Richardis

Saint Richardis, also known as Richgard and Richardis of Swabia , was the Holy Roman Empress as the wife of Charles the Fat. She was renowned for her piety.-Life:...

, the empress of Charles the Fat

Charles the Fat

Charles the Fat was the King of Alemannia from 876, King of Italy from 879, western Emperor from 881, King of East Francia from 882, and King of West Francia from 884. In 887, he was deposed in East Francia, Lotharingia, and possibly Italy, where the records are not clear...

, descends from Erchanger. Her sister married Berthold I and was the mother of the other branch of the family, which included the famous Erchanger, Duke of Swabia

Erchanger, Duke of Swabia

Erchanger was the duke of Swabia from September 915 to his death. He was the son of Berthold I, count palatine of Swabia, who is sometimes called Erchanger as well, in which case the duke is Erchanger II...

, and his brother Berthold II. The Ahalolfings died out when Berthold III died in 973, though the Zähringen

Zähringen

Zähringen is the name of an old German family that founded a large number of cities in what are today Switzerland and Baden-Württemberg. While the junior line that first assumed the title Duke of Zähringen, a cadet branch of the House of Baden, became extinct in 1218, the senior line persists and...

 may be descended from them.

Sources

• Reuter, Timothy
  Timothy Reuter
  Timothy Alan Reuter , grandson of the former mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter, was a German-British historian who specialized in the study of medieval Germany, particularly the social, military and ecclesiastical institutions of the Ottonian and Salian periods .Reuter received his D.phil from Oxford in...
  
  . Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.