General Notes

Name Prefix:<NPFX> King
After the death of his brothers Pepin and Charles in 810 an
d 811 respectively, Louis was crowned at Aachen on 13 Septe
mber 813, Emperor and heir to all of Charlemagne's lands, b
y Charlemagne himself without any assistance nor even the p
resence of the Pope. All sources, Frankish as well as papal
, refer to Louis as emperor from then on. Charlemagne die
d 5 months later. All of Louis' sisters were required to qu
it the palace and retire to their own estates. His cousins
, the offsprings of Bernard (Pepin III's half brother) wer
e exhiled: Louis forced Count Wala to become a monk at Corb
ie; Adalhard was exhiled to Noirmoutier to be held there i
n custody by the Abbot; Bernhard returned to Lerin and Gund
rada had to retreat to St. Radegund's convent of Sainte Cro
ix in Poitiers. Only Theodrada was left unmolested as abbes
s of Notre Dame at Soissons. Louis I was also known as Loui
s, "Le Pieux". On 27 February 814, upon learning of the dea
th of his father, and at the age of 36 years, he left Doue-
la-Fontaine, in Anjou, to go to Aix-la-Chapelle.
Note:
This new emperor, enterred this capital, and poised himsel
f in front of the tomb of Charlemagne. So oversome with gri
ef, his forehead touched the stone floor of the church. Hen
ce the name "Le Pieux". Since he was kind, relative to hi
s times, he
was also known as "Le Debonnaire". For himself, he preferre
d to adopt the title "by divine Providence, Emperor Augustu
s". When Pope Leo died in May of 816, Stephen IV was electe
d Pope, and crowned Louis the Emperor on Sunday 5 October b
y placing a crown on his head during mass at Rheims. He als
o secured the release of some Roman exhiles in Francia. Thi
s crowning was among the first attempts to integrate the Pa
pacy into the institutional framework of the Empire. Louis
, 'lest he be led astray in satisfying the natural desire
s of the body' married Ermengarde, daughter of Count Ingram
n. Charlemagne established Doue-la-Fontaine, Chasseneuil (L
ouis' birthplace), Angeac and Ebreuil as royal residences t
o maintain Louis and his household. At an assembly in Aache
n in July 817, Louis made provisions for his sons' inherita
nce through the "Ordinatio Imperii". In his preface he stat
es that the unity of the empire preserved for Louis by Go
d should not be destroyed by men. Lothar was given the titl
e of emperor, and as co-ruler with his father at once mad
e heir to the empire, and appointed King of Italy in the ev
ent of his father's death. Bernard, then King of Italy wa
s not mentioned, but the implication is that Bernard woul
d be subordinate to Lothar should Louis die. Pepin was mad
e King of Aquitaine (plus Gascony, Toulouse, Carcassonne, A
utun, Avallon and Nevers) and Louis, The German, was made K
ing of Bavaria (plus Carinthia, Bohemia, the lands of the A
vars and Slavs and the royal manors of Lauterhofen and Ingo
lstadt). Pepin and Louis were to meet on an annual basis wi
th Lothar to consult and together find "measures to take i
n the interest of perpetual peace". They could neither star
t a war nor marry without the approval of their elder broth
er. Lothar even had the right to de-throne them after thre
e warnings. That same year, 817, Stephen IV obtains his pol
itical independence, thus severing the tie between Rome an
d the Frank
Empire as conceived by Charlemagne. The arrangement was nea
t and all contingencies covered except for the one which to
ok place. After his first wife's (Ermengarde) death, Louis
, in 819, married the beautiful Bavarian Judith, daughter o
f Comte Welf of Bavaria. On 13 June 823 she gave birth t
o a son. He was called Charles. In September, 824, forgetti
ng his nickname "Le Debonnaire", Louis totally ravages th
e Bretagne which was rebelling. In 829, at the General Asse
mbly convoked in Worms (Wurm), Louis announces that he is f
orging a Duchy for his son, Charles, and gives him Alamania
, Alsace, Rheti