Welf (father of Judith)
Encyclopedia
Welf I of Altorf
Altorf
Altorf is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.The town has a long history. Its most interesting monument is the part-Romanesque, part-Baroque church of St. Cyriaque, which until the French revolution belonged to a Benedictine Abbey.-See also:*Welf, count of...

 (died 825) was the son of the 9th century Frankish count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...

 Rothard of Metz, to whom the sons of Charles Martel
Charles Martel
Charles Martel , also known as Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the...

 entrusted half of Alemannia. Welf was master of several counties in the southern Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....

 & 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...

. His family became politically powerful when 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...

 chose his oldest daughter as his 2nd wife. Though Welf himself never became publicly prominent, his family became interwoven with the Carolingian dynasty.

He is the oldest known member of the Elder House of Welf
Elder House of Welf
The Elder House of Welf was a dynasty of European rulers in the 9th through 11th centuries to 1055. It consisted of two groups, a Burgundian group and a Swabian group. It is disputed whether the two groups formed one dynasty or whether they shared the same name by coincidence only.-Burgundian...

. Welf is mentioned only once: on the occasion of the wedding of his daughter Judith
Judith, daughter of Welf
Queen Judith , also known as Judith of Bavaria, was the daughter of Count Welf and a Saxon noblewoman named Hedwig, Duchess of Bavaria...

 with Emperor 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...

 in 819.

Marriage and issue

Welf married Hedwig, Duchess of Bavaria, daughter of the Saxon
Duchy of Saxony
The medieval Duchy of Saxony was a late Early Middle Ages "Carolingian stem duchy" covering the greater part of Northern Germany. It covered the area of the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt and most of Schleswig-Holstein...

 count Isanbart; Hedwig was abbess
Abbess
An abbess is the female superior, or mother superior, of a community of nuns, often an abbey....

 of Chelles
Chelles, Seine-et-Marne
Chelles is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region from the center of Paris....

. They had the following:
  • Judith
    Judith, daughter of Welf
    Queen Judith , also known as Judith of Bavaria, was the daughter of Count Welf and a Saxon noblewoman named Hedwig, Duchess of Bavaria...

    , Roman Empress and Frankish Queen, died 843;
  • Rudolph
    Rudolph, Count of Ponthieu (son of Welf)
    Count Rudolph of Ponthieu was son of Welf and brother of Judith of Bavaria, wife of Emperor Louis the Pious...

    , died 866;
  • Conrad, Count of Paris, ancestor of the Welf kings of Burgundy
    Kingdom of Burgundy
    Burgundy is a historic region in Western Europe that has existed as a political entity in a number of forms with very different boundaries. Two of these entities - the first around the 6th century, the second around the 11th century - have been called the Kingdom of Burgundy; a third was very...

    ;
  • Hemma
    Hemma
    Emma of Altdorf, also known as Hemma was the wife of Louis the German, and Queen consort of Eastern Francia.Her father was Welf, Count of Altorf; her mother was Heilwig of Saxony , the daughter of Count Isanbart...

    , Frankish Queen, married to 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...

    , son of 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...

    , died 876.

Sources

Pierre Riche, The Carolingians, A family who Forged Europe (translated by Michael Idomir Allen; University of Philadelphia Press, 1993), pp. 52, 149, T5
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