General Notes

Alias:<ALIA> The /Pious/
REFN: 7076AN
Louis the Pious (also known as Louis I, Louis the Fair, and Louis the Debo
naire, German: Ludwig der Fromme, French: Louis le Pieux or Louis le Débon
naire, Italian: Luigi il Pio or Ludovico il Pio, Spanish: Luis el Piado
so or Ludovico Pío) (June/August, 778 – June 20, 840) was Emperor and Ki
ng of the Franks from 814 to his death 840.
Born in Casseuil-sur-Garonne, in today's Gironde, France, the third s
on of Charlemagne by his third wife, Hildegard, Louis was crowned ki
ng of Aquitaine as a child in 781 and sent there with regents and a cou
rt to rule in order to quiet rebellions which were forming after Charlemag
ne's defeat by the Moors in Spain (778). Charlemagne's intention was to s
ee his all sons brought up as natives of their given territories, weari
ng the national costume of the region and ruling by the local customs. Th
us were the children sent to their respective realms at so young an age. E
ach kingdom had its importance in keeping some frontier, Louis's was the S
panish March. In 797, Barcelona, the greatest city of the Marca, fell to t
he Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against Córdoba and, failin
g, handed it to them. The Umayyad authority recaptured it in 799. Howeve
r, Louis marched the entire army of his kingdom over the Pyrenees and besi
eged it for two years, wintering there from 800 to 801, when it capitulate
d. The sons were not given independence from central authority, however, a
nd Charlemagne ingrained in them the concepts of empire and unity by sendi
ng them on military expeditions far from their home bases. Louis campaign
ed in the Mezzogiorno against the Beneventans at least once.
Louis was one of Charlemagne's four legitimate sons, but the eldest, Pep
in the Hunchback, had consented to a rebellion against his father and w
as banished to a monastery. That left three in active life and, like mo
st Frankish men, Louis had expected to share his inheritance with his brot
hers, Charles the Younger, king in Neustria, and Pepin, king of Ital
y. In the Divisio Regnorum of 806, Charlemagne had slated Charles the Youn
ger as his successor as emperor and chief king, ruling over the Frankish h
eartland of Neustria and Austrasia, while giving Pepin the Iron Crown of L
ombardy, which Charlemagne possessed by conquest. To Louis's kingdom of Aq
uitaine, he added Septimania, Provence, and part of Burgundy.
But in the event, Charlemagne's other legitimate sons died — Pepin in 8
10 and Charles in 811 — and Louis alone remained to be crowned co-emper
or with Charlemagne in 813. On his father's death in 814, he inherited t
he entire Frankish kingdom and all its possessions (with the sole excepti
on of Italy, which remained within Louis' empire, but under the direct ru
le of Bernard, Pepin's son).
He was in Doué, Anjou, when he received news of his father's passing. Hurr
ying to Aachen, he crowned himself and was proclaimed by the nobles with s
houts of Vivat Imperator Ludovicus.
As a motto of his reign, he minted the reverse of his coins with the lege
nd Renovatio Regni Francorum. In this, he intended to signify the renew
al of the empire to a lost moral grandeur. He quickly enacted a "moral pur
ge", in which he sent all of his unmarried sisters to nunneries, forgoi
ng their diplomatic use as hostage brides in favour of the security of avo
iding the entanglements that powerful brothers-in-law might bring. He spar
ed his illegitimate half-brothers and tonsured his father's cousins, Adala
rd and Wala, shutting them up in Noirmoutier and Corbie, respectively, des
pite the latter's initial loyalty.
His chief councillors were Bernat, margrave of Septimania, and Ebbo, who
m, born a serf, Louis would raise to the archbishopric of Rheims but who w
ould ungratefully betray him later. He retained some of his father's minis
ters, such as Elisachar, abbot of St Maximin near Trier, and Hildebold, Ar
chbishop of Cologne. Late