(778–840). King of the Franks and emperor. Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s third son by his second wife, Hildegarde, was named king of Aquitaine at the age of three. In 806, the Divisio regnorum arranged for the succession by dividing the empire among Charlemagne’s legitimate sons, Charles the Younger (d. 811), Pepin (d. 810), and Louis. No plan was then announced concerning the imperial title bestowed on Charlemagne in 800, but with the deaths of his brothers, Louis became co-emperor in September 813. He inherited the entire empire upon Charlemagne’s death in January 814.
In ca. 794, Louis married Irmengarde, who bore him Lothair I (795–855), Pepin of Aquitaine (800–838), and Louis the German (804–876). She died in 818, a year after Louis the Pious had proclaimed the terms of his sons’ inheritance in the Ordinatio imperii. An effort to ensure the empire’s unity after his death, the document provided that while each son would exercise royal authority over a portion of the Carolingian territories Lothair I would receive the most important lands, including Aix-la-Chapelle and Rome, and he was immediately named co-emperor. After his father’s death, he would exercise supremacy over his brothers. Bernard, a nephew of Louis the Pious, would retain the throne of Italy given him by Charlemagne, but he, too, would be subject to Lothair.
Tensions among aristocratic groups aroused by Louis’s program of ecclesiastical reforms and disaffection with his plans for the succession underlay the political strife that marked the second half of his reign. The first threat to the emperor’s authority came in 817 with a revolt by Bernard, who died after being blinded as punishment. Lothair I was then given Italy to rule, and Louis did penance for Bernard’s death at Attigny in 822. More significant for the succession, in 823 Louis’s second wife, Judith, gave birth to Charles the Bald (d. 877). In provision for Charles’s inheritance, lands previously assigned to his three half-brothers were designated for him to rule. This revision to the Ordinatio imperii, in addition to tensions among court factions, precipitated rebellions in the early 830s by Lothair I, his supporters, and his brothers. In 833, Louis the Pious was forced from the throne. Although he regained power in 834 and confined his eldest son to Italy, until Louis’s death in 840 the empire remained in turmoil. Its unity survived only until the Treaty of Verdun (843) divided it into separate kingdoms for Lothair I, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald.
Louis the Pious deserves a better reputation than he has generally enjoyed, especially for his efforts to maintain the empire’s unity. More clearly than Charlemagne, who initially made no provisions for the imperial succession, Louis held a vision of the office of emperor as a permanent institution in the West. Moreover, it was during his reign that there occurred the true flowering of the Carolingian renaissance begun by Charlemagne. Under Louis, monastic reform was extended throughout the realm, artistic production surged in volume and quality, and religious thought reached a new, high level in writings by such churchmen as Rabanus Maurus and Amalarius of Metz.
Cabaniss, Allen, trans. Son of Charlemagne: A Contemporary Life of Louis the Pious. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1961.
Ganshof, François L. The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy: Studies in Carolingian History, trans. Janet Sondheimer. London: Longman, 1971, pp. 261–72.
Godman, Peter, and Roger Collins, eds. Charlemagne’s Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840). Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.
McKitterick, Rosamond. The Frankish Kingdoms Under the Carolingians, 751–987. London: Longman, 1983.
Noble, Thomas F.X. “Louis the Pious and His Piety Re-considered.” Revue belge 58 (1980):297–316.
Riché, Pierre. The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe, trans. Michael I.Allen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
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