(Son) de ANJOU

Ingelger married Countess Aelinde DE AMBOISE. Aelinde (daughter of Geoffrey D'ORLEANS) was born about 844 in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France; and died. [Group Sheet]

Terulle married Petronilla DE AUXERRE. Petronilla (daughter of Abbot Hugues OF ST. QUENTIN and Regina DE FRANCE) was born about 825 in Anjou, Pays-de-la-Loire, France; and died. [Group Sheet]

Hugues married Regina DE FRANCE. Regina was born about 800; and died. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Charlemagne, in Latin is Carlous Magnus (Charles the Great), King of the Franks (768-814), and Emperor of the Romans (800-814), who led his Frankish armies to victory over numerous other people and established his rule in most of western and central Europe. He was the best-known and most influential king in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Charlemagne, Charles the Great. With the consent of the great nobles, Charlemagne, Charles the Great, became King of France and Holy Roman Emperor of the West from 771 to 814, following the death of his brother. He was born April 2, 742, probably at Aix-La-Chapelle. When only twelve years old we find him commissioned to receive and welcome the pontiff who came to implore his father's aid against the barbarians that threatened Rome. He probably accompanied his father in his campaigns at an early age, but the first time that we really see him in the field, is on the renewal of the war with the rebellious Duke of Aquitaine.

Upon the death of Pepin, in 768, Charlemagne and his younger brother Carloman succeeded to equal portions of one of the most powerful of European kingdoms, bounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, Mediterranean, and the ocean. But this would hardly enabled the monarchs, even had they been united, to resist successfully the incursions of the barbarous tribes on the German frontiers of France, which had commenced with the first establishment of the Frankish dominion in Gaul; and which were kept alive by the constant pouring forth of fresh hordes from the overpopulated north. The situation of Charlemagne was rendered yet more perilous by the massive enmity of his brother, and the rebellion of Hunald, the turbulent Duke of Aquitaine. But fortunately Charlemagne had a genius equal to the difficulties of his situation; though his brother refused to aid him, he defeated Huald; and no less illustrious by his clemency than by his valor and military skill, he forgave the vanquished rebel.

Desiderius, the King of Lombardy, had made large encroachments upon the states of the Roman Pontiff, whose cause was taken up by Charlemagne. This led to feuds, which Bertha, his mother, endeavored to appease by arranging a marriage between her son and the daughter of the Lombard. But Charlemagne soon took a disgust to the wife thus imposed upon him, and repudiated her, that he might marry Hildegarde, the daughter of a noble family in Swabia. Thus he married Hildegarde of Swabia (Linzgau), Countess, born in 757/758, died April 30, 782/3.

In 771 Carloman died, and Charlemagne was elected to the vacant throne, to the exclusion of his nephews, whose extreme youth made then incapable of wearing the crown in such troubled times. Gilberge, the widow of Carloman, immediately fled, and sought refuse with Desiderius, the common retreat for all who were hostile to the Frankish monarch.

From that time, sole ruler during a reign of forty-three years, he waged incessant wars on all his borders, subduing rebellions, extending his domains and at the same time advancing Christianity. In 772 he began a thirty-year war with the determined Saxons, after the successful opening of Charlemagne was called to the assistance of Pope Hadrian I. against Desiderius, King of the Lombards. Charlemagne marched two armies over the Alps and conquered Lombardy in 774; returned and beat the Saxons again and hastened into Spain, in 778, to help the Arabian rulers of that country against the Osman Caliph of Cordova. It was in this war that Roland, the hero of romance, fell in the pass of Roncesvalles.

In 799 the Romans revolted against Pope Leo III., and were again brought into subjection by Charlemagne. In return, while he was praying on the steps of St. Peter's Church, he was crowned by Leo with the iron crown of the Western Empire, successor of the Roman Caesars, unexpectedly to him, as he pretended, on Christmas Day, 800, amidst the popular acclamations, "Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific Emperor of the Romans!"

The extensive domain of Charlemagne was rendered secure only by ceaseless vigilance and warfare. The short intervals of peace which ere allowed him, he employed in endeavoring to educate and civilize his people. He made a tour through his dominions, causing local and general improvement, reforming laws, advancing knowledge, and building churches and monasteries. Christianity being one of the chief means to which he trusted for the attainment of his grand objects. In this he was no less successful than he had before been in war. With exception of the Eastern empire, France was now the most cultivated nation in Europe, even Rome herself sending thither for skillful workmen, while commerce, roads, and mechanics must have been much advanced, as we may infer from the facility with which marble columns and immense stone crosses were often carried through the whole extent of France upon carriages of native construction. Luxury, too, with its attendant arts had made considerable strides. Vases of gold and silver richly carved, silver tables highly wrought, bracelets, rings, and table cloths of fine linen, might be seen in the houses of the nobles. The people must have been dexterous in working iron, for their superiority in this respect is shown by the severe laws forbidding the exportation of arms.

Charlemagne drove back the Arabs, reduced the Huns, and effectually protected his long line of coast from the attempted invasion of the Northmen. It is said, that upon one occasion he arrived at a certain port just as the pirates were preparing to land; but the moment they learned of the presence of the monarch, they immediately fled in great terror at the mere mention of his name.

It was always an object of first importance with Charlemagne to support the papal authority, as holding out the only means of spreading Christianity, which he justly considered the most effectual instrument he could employ to enlighten and civilize the world.

Charlemagne securely laid the foundations of his empire. He was vigilant, judicious, and energetic, both as a ruler and commander. He fostered agriculture, trade, arts, and letters with untiring zeal, clearing forests, draining swamps, founding monasteries and schools, building cities, constructing splendid palaces, as at Aix, Worms, and Ingelheim, and drawing to his court scholars and poets from all nations, being himself proficient in science, as well as all hardy accomplishments.

Charlemagne was tall and a commanding presence, and could speak and write Latin as well as his native German. He fostered all learning and the fine arts, studying rhetoric and astronomy. He reigned over France, half of Germany, and four-fifths of Italy. The Caliph Haroun-al-Rashid sent an embassy to the court of Charlemagne with gifts in token of good will. Attacked with pleurisy he died after a short illness, in the seventy-second year of age, and the forty-seventh of his reign, on January 28, 814. Some years later Charlemagne was canonized by the church.

Charles married Regina. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Pepin (Pippin) II., the Short, King of France from 752 to 768, born in 714, died in 768. He had much to do; the Saxons, Bavarians, and Arabs were all menacing or revolting, and he had to rush from one part of the kingdom to the other, defending its frontiers, and getting no help from the "stupid sluggard king," at Paris. At last, impatient of the farce, he sent this question to the Pope: "Who is king, he who governs or he who wears the crown?" "He who governs, of course," answered the Pope. "That is myself," said the little man with a great will; "so the sluggards shall go to sleep forever," and he sent the last of them, Childeric III., the last of the Merovingians, into a monastery. Then the nobles put their shields together, and the little man was seated on a chair, on their shields, and with him thus, "shouting and raising their shields as high as they could, they marched three times, round the parliament, and then, by St. Boniface, he was anointed Archbishop of Metz, A.D. 752. Pepin did not forget that he owed a debt of gratitude to the Pope for the answer he had given to his question, and when, shortly after, the Pope sent to complain of the trouble occasioned by the Lombards, Pepin crossed the Alps, punished the Lombards, took from them all the territory about Rome and gave it to the Pope "to belong to him and to the bishops of Rome forever. That was the beginning of the Papal sovereignty. The States of the Church, as they were called, remained under the sovereignty of the Popes until 1871." Pepin le Bref, King of France, died in 768. He married Bertha (Bertrada) of Laon. She died in 783.

Pepin married Bartrada DE LEON about 740. Bartrada (daughter of Count Cabaret OF LEON) was born in 720 in Laon (Aisne), France; died on 12 Jul 783. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Latin - Carolus Martellus, German Karl Martell, mayor of the palace of Austrasia (the Eastern part of the Frankish Kingdom) from 715 to 741. He reunited and ruled the entire Frankish realm and stemmed the Muslim invasion in 732. His byname, Martel, means "the hammer". Charles was the illegitimate son of Pepin of Herstal, the mayor of the palace of Austrasia. By this period the Merovingian kings of the Frankish realm were rulers in name only. The burden of rule lay upon the mayors of the palace, who governed Austrasia, the eastern part of the Frankish kingdon, and Neustria, its western portion. Neustria bitterly resented its conquest and annexation in 687 by Pepin, who, acting in the name of the king, had reorganized and reunified the Frankish realm.

The assination of Pepin's only surviving legitimate son in 714 was followed a few months later by the death of Pepin himself. Pepin left as heirs three grandsons, and until they came of age, Plectrude, Pepin's widow, was to hold power. As an illegitimate son, Charled Martel was entirely neglected in the will. But he was young, strong and determined, and an intense struggle for power at once broke out in the Frankish kingdom.

Both Charles and Plectrude face rebellion througout the Frankish kingdom when Pepin's will was made known. The king, Chilperic II, was in the power of Ragenfried, mayor of the palace of Neustria, who joined forces with the Frisians in Holland in order to eliminate Charles. Plectrude imprisoned Charles and tried to govern in the name of her grandchildren, but Charles escaped, gathered an army, and defeated the Neustrians in battles at Ambleve near Liege (716) and at Vincy near Cambrai (717). His success made resistance by Plectrude and the Austrasians useless; they submitted, and by 719 Charles alone governed the Franks as mayor.

Assured of Austrasia, Charles now attacked Neustria itself, finally subduing it in 724. This freed Charles to deal with hostile elements elsewhere. He attacked Aquitaine, whose ruler, Eudes (Odo), had been an ally of Ragenfrid, but Charles did not gain effective countrol of southern France until late in his reign. He also conducted long campaigns, some as late as the 730s, against the Frisians, Saxons, and Bavarians, whose brigandage endangered the eastern frontiers of his kingdom. In order to consolidate his military gains, Charles supported St. Boniface and other missionaries in their efforts to convert tribes on the eastern frontier to Christianity.

Ever since their arrival in Spain from Africa in 711, the Muslims had raided Frankish territory, threatening Gaul and on one occasion (725) reaching Burgundy and sacking Autun. In 732 Abd ar-Rahman, the govenor of Cordoba, marched to Bordeaux and defeated Eudes. The Muslims then proceeded north across Aqutaine to the city of Poitiers. Eudes appealed to Charles for assistance, and Charles' cavalry managed to turn back the Muslim onslaught at the Battle of Poitiers. The battle itself may have been only a series of small engagements, but after it there were no more great Muslim invasions of Frankish territory.

In 733, Charles began his campaign to force Burgundy to yield to his rule. In 735 word arrived that Eudes was dead, and Charles marched rapidly across the Loire River in order to make his power felt around Bordeaux. By 739, he had completely subdued the petty chieftains of Burgundy, and he continued to fend off Muslim advances into Gaul during the decade. Charles' health began to fail in the late 730s, and in 741 he retired to his palace at Quierzy-sur-Oise, where he died soon after. Before his death he divided the Merovingian kingdom between his two legitimate sons, Pepin and Carloman. He continued to maintain the fiction of Merovingian rule, refraining from transferring the royal title to his own dynasty.

Charles married Duchess Rotrude de Moselle OF AUSTRASIA about 710 in Liege, Belgium. Rotrude (daughter of Leutwinus OF AUSTRASIA) was born in 690 in Moselle, Lorraine, France; died in 724. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Pepin of Heristal, Carolingian mayor of the palace, who reunited the Frankish realms in the late Merovingian period. A grandson of Pepin the Elder, he succeeded to his position in the kingdom of Austrasia around 680. In 687, he extended Carolingian rule to the other Frankish kingdoms, Neustria and Bourgoyne, but retained members of the Merovingian dynasty as figurehead monarchs in all three. Two years later he extended his control over the Frisians, a pagan people living on the North Sea coast. Pepin's death was followed by a civil war and succession of his illegitimate son Charles Martel.

Pepin married Aupaide OF SACHSEN in Mistress. Aupaide was born in 654 in Austrasia, France; died in 748. [Group Sheet]

Herbert married Bertrada I. [Group Sheet]