Pepin I was King of Aquitaine.

Biography

He was the second son of Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

 Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious , also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813...

 and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye

Ermengarde of Hesbaye

Ermengarde of Hesbaye was Queen of the Franks and Holy Roman Empress as the wife of Emperor Louis I. She was Frankish, the daughter of Ingeram, count of Hesbaye, and Hedwig of Bavaria...

.

When his father assigned to each of his sons a kingdom (within the 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...

) in August 817, he received Aquitaine, which had been Louis's own subkingdom during his father Charlemagne's reign. Ermoldus Nigellus

Ermoldus Nigellus

Ermoldus Nigellus or Niger, translated Ermold the Black, also Ermoald, was a monk of Aquitaine, who accompanied King Pippin, son of the Emperor Louis I, on a campaign into Brittany in 824....

 was his court poet and accompanied him on a campaign into Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

 in 824.

Pepin rebelled in 830 at the insistence of his brother Lothair

Lothair I

Lothair I or Lothar I was the Emperor of the Romans , co-ruling with his father until 840, and the King of Bavaria , Italy and Middle Francia...

's advisor Wala

Wala of Corbie

Wala of Corbie was the son of Bernard, son of Charles Martel, and one of the principal advisers of his cousin Charlemagne, Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious, and his son Lothair I...

. He took an army of Gascon

Duchy of Vasconia

The Duchy of Vasconia , or Wasconia, was originally a Frankish march formed by 602 to keep the Basques in check. It comprised the former Roman province of Novempopulania and, at least in some periods, also the lands south of the Pyrenees centred on Pamplona.In the ninth century, civil war within...

s with him and marched all the way to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, with the support of the Neustria

Neustria

The territory of Neustria or Neustrasia, meaning "new [western] land", originated in 511, made up of the regions from Aquitaine to the English Channel, approximating most of the north of present-day France, with Paris and Soissons as its main cities...

ns. His father marched back from a campaign in Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

 all the way to Compiègne

Compiègne

Compiègne is a city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.The city is located along the Oise River...

, where Pepin surrounded and captured him. The rebellion, however, broke up.

In 832, Pepin rebelled again and his brother Louis the German

Louis the German

Louis the German , also known as Louis II or Louis the Bavarian, was a grandson of Charlemagne and the third son of the succeeding Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye.He received the appellation 'Germanicus' shortly after his death in recognition of the fact...

 soon followed. Louis the Pious was in Aquitaine to subdue any revolt, but was drawn off by the Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

n insurrection of younger Louis. Pepin took Limoges

Limoges

Limoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France....

 and other Imperial territories. The next year, Lothair joined the rebellion and, with the assistance of Ebbo, archbishop of Reims

Archbishop of Reims

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reims is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Erected as a diocese around 250 by St. Sixtus, the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese around 750...

, the rebel sons deposed their father in 833. Lothair's later behaviour alienated Pepin, and he was at his father's side when Louis the Pious was reinstated on 1 March 834. Pepin was restored to his former status.

Pepin died scarcely four years later and was buried in Sainte-Croix in Poitiers

Poitiers

Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and of the Poitou-Charentes region. The centre is picturesque and its streets are interesting for predominant remains of historical architecture, especially from the Romanesque...

.

In 822, he had married Ingeltrude, daughter of Theodobert, count of Madrie, with whom he had two sons: Pepin

Pepin II of Aquitaine

Pepin II, called the Younger , was King of Aquitaine from 838 as the successor upon the death of his father, Pepin I. Pepin II was eldest son of Pepin I and Ingeltrude, daughter of Theodobert, count of Madrie...

 (823-after 864), and Charles (825-830 - 4 June 863), who became archbishop of Mainz.

Both were minors when Pepin died, so Louis the Pious awarded Aquitaine his own youngest son, Pepin's half-brother Charles the Bald

Charles the Bald

Charles the Bald , Holy Roman Emperor and King of West Francia , was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.-Struggle against his brothers:He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder...

. The Aquitainians, however, elected Pepin's son as Pepin II. Charles also briefly claimed the kingdom. Both died childless.

Ancestry

Sources

• Collins, Roger. "Pippin I and the Kingdom of Aquitaine." Charlemagne's Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious, edd. P. Godman and Roger Collins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Reprinted in Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain. Variorum, 1992. ISBN 0-86078-308-1.

External links