The Erfurt Latrine Disaster

In central Germany is the town of Erfurt, the capital of the state of Thuringia. Its first mention is in 742 CE when St. Boniface wrote to Pope Zachary to inform him that Boniface had created three dioceses, one of them "in a place called Erphesfurt." The area had been inhabited at least since neolithic times, according to archaeological evidence.

In 1184, King Henry VI of Germany held an informal assembly in the Petersberg Citadel. Petersberg is one of the largest and best-preserved fortresses in Germany. This particular citadel included St. Peter's Church (colored green in the illustration), which had been rebuilt between 1103 and 1147 after a fire burned it down in 1080.

During the rebuilding, they updated the plumbing for dealing with toilets. Rather than divert human waste to the streets or a river (the River Gera was on the outskirts, not near the citadel), they dug a sufficiently large cesspit below the foundation, suitable for holding all the waste necessary.

Nobles across all of Thuringia were invited to the meeting with Henry, held on the second floor of the deanery on 26 July. Just as the meeting began, the wooden floor collapsed from the weight, plummeting the participants not only to the ground floor but through it into the cesspit beneath. King Henry at the end of the room sat in an alcove with a stone support, so was safe. (Some reports say he clung to the iron railing of a window until he could be rescued.)

The cesspit was deep and full. Ladders were brought to help people out; however, at least 60 German nobles drowned in urine and excrement, although there are estimates that say it was closer to 100 participants. German sources refer to this as the Erfurter Latrinensturz ("Erfurt latrine fall" but usually called the "Erfurt latrine disaster").

From poop to politics: what was the reason Henry gathered them all together? It was a dispute between secular and religious authorities, which I'll explain tomorrow.

Medieval Toilets

Last week, a young co-worker expressed his disbelief that there were ever things like outhouses. I told him that I had used an outhouse many many times in my youth, which my family had built in our camping spot. That outhouse was a luxury: two holes, actual toilet seats, electric light, tissue paper.

Much of human history was not so fortunate.

Lacking indoor plumbing, the "privy" or "garderobe" was no more than a cramped alcove with a hole for straddling that dropped waste either to a deep pit or outside. Many castles built their garderobes to jut out from the exterior walls so that waste dropped into a ditch or moat. King Edward I made garderobes a requirement in his extensive Welsh castle-building program.

This design element for castles had one potential problem: the privy that extended out from the walls so the waste could simply fall outside the castle was a potential access point for invaders. An exposed waste shaft at Chateau Gaillard overlooking the Seine in Normandy (owned by King John of England) was low enough to the ground that it allowed forces of Philip II of France to sneak inside. A stone wall was built around the base to prevent further intrusions.

When Mayor Dick Whittington took office, he constructed a 128-seat public toilet facility called "Whittington's Longhouse" that dumped into the Thames so that high tide would flush the waste away. Many municipalities had public toilets, since health and hygiene were important for everyone's safety. They were often placed on bridges over rivers, as in York over the Ouse.

Whatever innovations were designed to drop waste away or flush it away with rivers or tides, there were still unsavory issues to deal with. The smell was always a problem. Also, in situations where refuse was not dropped into rivers but lay where it fell, paid positions were available for people to remove the waste and clean and fix the latrines. Maintenance was important, because unlike the stone example illustrated above, public latrines were built of wood, and wood needed to be replaced occasionally.

Tomorrow I'll share an incident in which architecture failed regarding a latrine. Prepare yourselves.

What About Soap?

Continuing our discussion about medieval hygeine, let's ask about soap and whence it came. The answer depends on how you define "soap." Technically speaking, "soap" is "material you get when you combine fats or oils with an alkali, such as lye." [FDA link]

Soap-like materials were being made in Babylon around 2800 BCE, in clay cylinders inscribed with the phrase “fats boiled with ashes.” Egyptians in 1500 BCE were combining animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts for cleansing. A Roman legend claims that rainwater running down the slopes of Mount Sapo mixed animal fat and ashes, not only producing soap but giving the substance its name.

Pliny described soap as an invention of the Gauls, made from tallow and ashes. Latin sapo ("soap") may be cognate with Latin sebum ("tallow"). The physician Galen recommends soap for cleaning clothes as well as the body.

By the 7th century CE, Mediterranean countries were making soap using oil from the abundant olive trees. Naples even had a guild for soap-makers in the late 6th century. Records for Charlemagne's court list soap as a product the stewards had to account for.

Soap-making in England didn't seem to happen until the 12th century, possibly motivated by the introduction of soaps brought back by Crusaders from the Middle East. Syria, for instance, produced Aleppo soap, a green bar infused with laurel oil. This popular soap was milder and more pleasant smelling than other soaps, and inspired soap-makers to add aromatics to the mix.

Soaps are used for cleaning different things. The soaps used in the household for hand washing, etc., are called in the industry "toilet soaps." That term, as you can imagine, makes me think about medieval toilets, a topic I have never tackled (and only mentioned once) in almost 1200 posts. I think it's time to correct that omission. Stay tuned.

Medieval Hygiene

Now that we've talked about rushes on the floors in the Middle Ages and whether they were sanitary, what about attitudes to cleanliness in other parts of day-to-day living? There is an unfortunate tendency to think of our medieval forebears as dirty, which was simply not true.

For example, the Goodman of Paris, a text written in the early 1390s about managing a household (and mentioned in my post on the hourglass), offers this about hand washing:

To make Water for washing hands at table: Boil sage, then strain the water and cool until it is a little more than lukewarm. Or use chamomile, marjoram or rosemary boiled with orange peel. Bay leaves are also good.

A bowl with water was available for washing your hands and face when you awoke, before meals, when arriving home after a long day's work or a long journey (washing the "dust of the road" from you sounds like a quaint saying today, but centuries ago you arrived home likely covered in dust).

Besides the Goodman, another popular text in Western Europe was the Tacuinum sanitatis ("Maintenance of Health"), a Latin work translated from an 11th century Arabic medical treatise. Numerous versions were produced in the 14th and 15th centuries. It discussed the virtues of bathing with Water of A Pleasurable Warmth:

Nature: Warm and humid in the second degree.
Optimum: The kind that opens the pores with moderate heat or with a fever.
Usefulness: For bodies with open pores; furthermore, it lowers the temperature.

There are also many depictions of people in bathing tubs, such as the one above. Of course, not everyone could afford a tub, or to heat water. Lower classes took advantage of streams and ponds or lakes. No one wanted a build-up of grime on their hands or bodies.

Our old friend Hildegard of Bingen offered a recipe for washing:

...one whose face has hard and rough skin, made harsh from the wind, should cook barley in water and, having strained that water through a cloth, should bathe his face gently with the moderately warm water. The skin will become soft and smooth, and will have a beautiful color.

This is a face conditioner; did they have a face cleanser? Grime could be more easily removed if you had soap. Did they have soap? Let's figure that out tomorrow.

Green Grow the Rushes O!

The previous two posts talked about the use of rushes on floors in churches and in dwellings, but raised the question of how messy they could be, especially considering Erasmus' description of English homes.

"Rushes" could come from several different plants, but the fact that the commonly used Sweet Flat (Acorus calamus) grew to more than two meters raises an interesting question: might they have woven the rushes into mats rather than just strew them about?

It's not a crazy hypothesis. Weaving was hardly an unknown practice, and Egyptians used woven mats of rushes thousands of years ago. The argument yesterday about rushes piling up because of long gowns has been countered by arguing that of course women would pick up the hem of their skirt while walking, as you would on stairs. But would you want to do that every time you walked across your living room? On the other hand, the more they were walked on, the flatter they became, so catching on clothing would (I guess) become less a problem over time, until it was time to bring in a new layer.

If loose rushes were used as late as Erasmus' time and beyond, why do no artists' renditions of living situations never show rushes on floors? Does the level surface of the floor mean the rushes were woven into flat matting? Erasmus refers to rushes being "renewed" and the "bottom layer," which could mean fresh woven matting laid on top of previous. Perhaps the goal was to continue to add rather than subtract in order to keep a soft surface for walking; also, removing the previously trodden on matting was perhaps not worth the hassle.

Author Liza Picard, in Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London, says

...the usual floor, especially on the upper stories, was wood, often covered with rushes and sweet-smelling herbs. Woven matting was replacing loose rushes by the end of the century. If you have visited an Elizabethan National Trust house early in the season, you will have noticed two pleasant aspects of the rush matting faithfully reproduced by the Trust. New rushes have a lovely smell, and they are quiet and comfortable to walk on.

Would it really have taken until the late 1500s for someone to say "Hey! What if we took these long tough leaves that are just like the ones we weave into baskets and weave them into floor coverings?" Were some doing this all along, and were references to "rushes" or "rush" on the floor simply verbal shorthand for "rush matting"?

It is clear that the rushbearing events for churches did not involve weaving the rushes, but that was not for a place that was lived in daily, and so I think matting would not be worth the investment in time. Homes are a different matter, however, if you'll excuse the pun.

It's a puzzle worthy of debate. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

This blog is a journey of discovery for me as I do my research into each topic and find ways to link them to the previous and following topics. I want to acknowledge Julia for her interest in rush floors and knowing more about them, especially since it led me to realize the different ways that "rush floors" could be understood. The truth is, the ordinary practices of day-to-day living are unremarkable to those living through them, and rarely get written about. We are then left to try to interpret from stray references what was actually happening "way back when."

Given Erasmus' condemnation of the English flooring and unhealthy climate, I think medieval hygiene is worth looking at next. Oh, and if you want some rush matting for your own floors, try here.

Rush Floors

We've read about medieval dwellings having rushes on the floors, in order to provide something soft and clean to walk on instead of the compacted earth that would constitute the floor in cottages. The cold stone floors of castles would also benefit from rush flooring. The accounts for King Edward II show a purchase of "a supply of rushes for strewing the King's chamber" from one John de Carlford. It was also used for the floors of churches, and the practice of rushbearing has been adopted as a modern festival at some churches.

Many different plants could provide these rushes, but a common one was the Acorus calamus, pictured here. To the Middle Ages it was "Sweet Flag," although it had many other names (since it grows on every continent except South America and Antarctica). The leaves are flat blades that can grow to a height of 79 inches, and emit a pleasant odor when crushed.

The use of Sweet Flag did not start in the Middle Ages. A papyrus dating to 1300BCE mentions it for use in perfumes. But rushes on the floor are thought of now as a medieval European practice. Was that practical?

Think of a pile of long-bladed plants strewn all over a dirt or stone floor. Sure, when crushed they emit a sweet aroma, but how high-stepping would you have to be in your own home to crush them and not have them catching on your feet and ankles? How deeply were they spread? Wouldn't they also provide an environment for vermin?

In a castle, the situation would be worse: high-born ladies in long gowns walking across rushes "strewn" about? The front of your floor-length gown would create a pile-up of rushes. Where's the sense in that? It's one thing to deal with it in a church which you visit for a short time once or twice each week, but in day-to-day living?

The Dutch philosopher Erasmus (1466 - 1536) makes the perils of rush floors clear. He lived in England for 15 years and complained about his time as a professor at Queens' College, Cambridge, for the lack of good wine. He wrote about England:

The [floors] are, in general, laid with white clay, and are covered with rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for twenty years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned. Whenever the weather changes a vapour is exhaled, which I consider very detrimental to health. I may add that England is not only everywhere surrounded by sea, but is, in many places, swampy and marshy, intersected by salt rivers, to say nothing of salt provisions, in which the common people take so much delight I am confident the island would be much more salubrious if the use of rushes were abandoned, and if the rooms were built in such a way as to be exposed to the sky on two or three sides, and all the windows so built as to be opened or closed at once, and so completely closed as not to admit the foul air through chinks; for as it is beneficial to health to admit the air, so it is equally beneficial at times to exclude it.

I have to assume that his experience of rush floors was limited. Here he describes (I assume) a lower-class household (of which there were many, to be sure), but his rooms at Cambridge would not be like this, nor a well-to-do household that could afford the regular refreshing of rushes. We cannot argue with an eyewitness, but his experience of rushes might not be universal.

There's another theory; I will, however, string this discussion of rushes along to a third day, and present a picture of a much more efficient use of rushes and tell you where you can still get them for your floors today. See you here tomorrow.

Rushbearing

The churches mentioned in this blog have been well-known Anglo-Saxon, Norman, or Gothic edifices, but there were numerous small churches in villages and hamlets, and many of them had something in common: dirt floors.

Not plain dirt: they would be packed down so they were smooth and level. But they were dirt; stone floors were expensive, and wooden planks were also an extravagance in many cases. There was a way to make the compacted earthen floor a little more palatable, and that was through the uses of rushes.

Rushes came from several plants, a common one being the Acorus calamus called "Sweet Flag" (and a dozen other names). It had medical uses according to Dioscorides, but its use to cover floors derived from its sweet aroma. People would use rushes for the floors at home (and I'll talk about that tomorrow), but the use of rushes in churches turned into a festival in its own right that is still celebrated in towns in England today (although the need for rushes on the floor is long past).

Rushbearing was the event when fresh rushes were brought to the church. It developed into a fall celebration, involving the whole town collecting and parading the rushes to the church to be strewn on the floors. Records from the 16th century show that church bells were rung on the day, and wine, ale, and cakes were provided to those bearing the rushes. Townspeople would also dress up in costumes during the celebration:

...some of them putting on womens aparrell, other some of them putting on longe haire & visardes, and others arminge them with the furnyture of souldiers, and being there thus armed and disguysed did that day goe from the Churche, and so went up and downe the towne showinge themselves. [Wilson, Richard; Dutton, Richard; Findlay, Alison (2003). Region, religion and patronage: Lancastrian Shakespeare]

The Puritans outlawed rushbearing festivals because of the absence of decorum and presence of drinking, but in 1617 the "Declaration of Sports" by James I listed rushbearing as one of the pursuits allowed on Sundays and Holy Days.

Sometimes the rushes were carried by townsfolk, sometimes they were brought on a rushcart. Often the festival would take place on the Sunday closest to the feast day of the saint for whom the church was named. In many cases, it was simply a harvest festival, connected with collecting rushes before the cold weather wiped them out.

No churches nowadays need rushes on the floors, but many towns still have (or have revived) the festival. If you want to see how one town celebrates it, check out https://rushbearing.com/, where the town of Sowerby Bridge has surpassed all others by owning the web domain!

But what about non-church use of rushes for floors? Huts and cottages would have surely had earthen floors. And what about castles? Did stone floors need rushes? Were people in the Middle Ages trampling on plants in their own homes? Let's figure this out together ... next time.

York Minster

York was founded in 71 CE as Eboracum, a Roman fortress overseeing the north of Britain. We know that York had a Christian community by 314, because a "bishop of York" was part of the Council of Arles that year. York's Christian history is not well-documented in the early centuries, however. The first church we have records of was built on the spur of the moment in 627 to baptize King Edwin of Northumbria; it was wooden, and didn't last, but Saint Wilfrid rebuilt it in stone, and by the 8th century the school and library were thriving.

That church was destroyed in a fire in 741. Bishop Egbert started the rebuilding, resulting in what Alcuin in his letters described as:

very tall, and held by solid columns which support curved arches; beautiful panels and numerous windows make it shine with brilliance. Its magnificence is increased by its gantries, terraces and thirty altars, decorated with a rare variety.

It was damaged by William the Conqueror in 1069, but then his Norman Archbishop Thomas of Bayeaux in 1070 started rebuilding. It was damaged again in 1075 by Danes, but in 1080 the repairs started. This new large (364 feet long) building was damaged by fire in 1137. The pattern of damage (by fire or attack) and repair has continued, right up to a fire in 1984 when 110 firefighters deliberately dumped enough water on the south transept to crash the roof completely, smothering the blaze and preserving the rest of the minster. Despite these events, York still has some of the oldest stained glass in England.

In 1215, a Gothic church was started, to replace the Norman architecture. Archbishop Walter de Gray also wanted its magnificence to rival Canterbury, since the Archbishops of York resented that the Archbishops of Canterbury were considered to have authority over all England's churches.

The term "minster" is from the Anglo-Saxon period, and denotes a church for teaching missionaries. That is no longer the purpose of York, but the honorific has stuck.

Despite the stone construction of many churches, they could still contain flammable material: carvings, roof beams, furniture, tapestries, etc. Churches in the Middle Ages could also contain flammable material that we never see or think of these days. Tomorrow I want to talk about the medieval event called "rushbearing."

York Library

York was an early center of Christianity in Britain, and had its own bishop from at least the 4th century. In 735, Ecgbert of York became its bishop; he is credited with beginning the school and library at the York Minster.

The collection of works there is estimated to be about 100 items—a remarkable number for the time. A poem by Alcuin mentions 40 different titles, including not only works by Bede and the Church Fathers but also by such classical authors as Aristotle, Cicero, and Pliny.

Alcuin's extant letters tell us that he made trips to procure books for the library, and that he brought some with him when he left York to take up his position at Charlemagne's court at Aachen. Despite his new patron's desire to promote learning, however, Alcuin makes clear that he never created a better library than the one in York.

Some of the books were given to Liudger the Frisian, called the "Apostle of Saxony," when he left studying at York to preach on the continent. Liudger founded a monastery at Werden. The monastery is gone, and some buildings are being used by a school, but it is possible that some fragments of York books still exist in southern Germany.

The Alcuin-era library is no more. Danes sacked the area in 866, and it suffered further at the Harrowing of the North by William the Conqueror.

The York Minster library was formally re-founded when John Neuton (c.1350 - 1414), a canon at York, left a bequest of about 70 books to the Minster. (The illustration above is an initial page of a law text that had been part of his collection.) Few of those original books survive, but York Minster has had a library for over 600 years, thanks to Neuton.

Next I'd like to talk about the Minster itself, and why it's called that instead of Cathedral. Stay tuned.

Letters of Alcuin

Alcuin of York (c.735 - 804, seen here receiving the Abbey of Tours from Emperor Charlemagne) was a monk, scholar, lover of puzzles, teacher, poet, and correspondent.

He was so respected—Einhard's Life of Charlemagne calls him "The most learned man anywhere to be found"—that his letters were collected and bound in the early 9th century, not long after his death. The writing is in a script called Carolingian minuscule, designed to make the Bible easy to read.

Alcuin started teaching at York. When he was 46, he journeyed to Rome. On the way back, he met Charlemagne in Parma. Charlemagne invited him to teach at his palace school at Aachen. He became the teacher of Charlemagne, his children, and other nobles. He persuaded Charlemagne to stop executing those who refused to convert to Christianity. In 796, Charlemagne appointed him Abbot of Marmoutier/St. Martin of Tours. While there, he wrote to Charlemagne to describe his work as a teacher and the serious need for books, and his plan to acquire some:

But I ... am doing as you have urged and wished. To some who are beneath the roof of St. Martin I am striving to dispense the honey of Holy Scripture; others I am eager to intoxicate with the of wine of apples of grammatical refinement; and there are some whom I long to adorn with the knowledge of astronomy, as a stately house is adorned with a painted roof. I am made all things to all men that I may instruct many to the profit of God’s Holy Church and to the lustre of you imperial reign. So shall the grace of Almighty God toward me be not in vain and the largess of your bounty be of no avail. But I your servant lack in part the rarer books of scholastic labor of my master and a little also to my own toil. This I tell your excellency on the chance that in your boundless and beloved wisdom you may be pleased to have me send some of our youths to take thence what we need, and return to France with the flowers of Britain; that the garden may not be confined to York only but may bear fruit in Tours, and that the south wind blowing over the gardens of the Loire may be charged with perfume.

What made York an important source of books? That would be the school and cathedral at York, where Alcuin got his start. We haven't talked enough about York, but I'll fix that next time.

Richbod the Monk

Charlemagne prized learning as much as he prized expanding his realm. He brought scholars and artists together and created a Carolingian Renascence. One of the best known scholar-clerics in Charlemagne's court was Alcuin of York, through whose surviving letters we know a lot more about many of the people of the time than we would through public records.

One of Alcuin's correspondents and friends was a monk named Richbod. We first know of him as a document clerk in the Lorsch monastery, whose Annals cover the years 703 to 803 (and were mentioned here). Something about him brought him to the attention of Alcuin, who brought him to Charlemagne's court, where he became an advisor to the king and was awarded the position of Abbot of Lorsch by 784 and Archbishop of Trier by 792.

Monasteries where documents were painstakingly copied and re-copied did not always confine themselves to religious texts. Richbod would have been exposed to many different pieces of literature. According to one of Alcuin's letters, Richbod was a huge fan of Vergil's Aeneid. Alcuin even teased him about preferring it to the Gospels. Alcuin wrote to him, lamenting that Richbod did not return an earlier letter:

Lo, a whole year has passed, and I have had no letter from you. Ah, if only my name were Vergil, then wouldst thou never forget me, but have my face ever before thee; ... would that the four Gospels rather than the twelve Aeneids filled your heart.

Modern scholars have looked for reasons to make Richbod the author of the Lorsch Annals. Points in favor of this theory are that the Annals show knowledge of the inner workings of the Carolingian court, and that they end the year before Richbod's death. We do not know when Richbod was born, but if his death were from old age, then it is plausible that the Annals end because he can no longer work on them or direct them. An argument against Richbod's authorship is that the Annals contain flaws in Latin, which seem unlikely if actually authored by Richbod. He may, however, have delegated their writing to a scribe whose command of Latin was less than perfect.

Richbod died in October 804, and was buried in Trier. Curiously, a year later, Charlemagne had a son by the concubine Ethelind, whom he name Richbod. This Richbod became the Abbot of Saint-Riquier. The name is virtually unique in historical records. The Dictionary of Medieval Names defines it as from Old High German "ruler" + "messenger."

As mentioned, what we know of him comes largely from the letters written by Alcuin and preserved by chance. I want to talk more about them next time.

The Other Children of Charlemagne

Charlemagne made sure all of his children had decent careers, even those who were illegitimate.

By his concubine Gersuinda, he had a daughter Adaltrude (c.775 - ?). She was made abbess of Faremoutiers, an important Benedictine nunnery in the Seine-et-Marne area of France. Another daughter, Theodrada (b.784), from his third wife Fastrada, became abbess of Argenteuil, in the northwest suburbs of Paris. Fastrada was also the mother of Hiltrude (c.787?), of whom history records nothing.

His next concubine was Regina, who bore him two sons, Drogo (801 - 855) and Hugh (802 - 844). The two were tonsured and forced away from court when Louis the Pious succeeded their father. Drogo became a cleric and Louis eventually named him Bishop of Metz. Hugh was made the abbot of Saint-Quentin, and later also of Lobbes and Saint-Bertin. After the death of Louis, his three heirs fought over the kingdom. Hugh supported Charles the Bald against Louis and Lothair. Hugh was with the army when it was ambushed in June 844; he was killed by a lance.

Drogo rose to the position of Archbishop of Metz. A few months after the death of Hugh, in October 844 at Thionville, Drogo presided over an attempt to unite the three brothers, which came to nothing. Drogo had been active in supporting their father, and was respected by all, even though he changed his support more than once between his nephews. On 8 December 855, he fell into the River Oignon in Bourgogne while fishing, and drowned. He is interred at St. Arnulf in Metz.

Charlemagne's last children were by the concubine Ethelind: Richbod (805 - 844), and Theodoric (b.807). We know nothing of Theodoric, and of Richbod not a lot, except that he became Abbot of Saint-Riquier, in the Somme area of northern France. Richbod was not a common name, but it was shared in history with a monk at Charlemagne's court who died a year before Charlemagne's son of that name was born. Was the son named in memory of the monk? What was the monk like, that he would have made such an impression on Charlemagne?

I'll tell you tomorrow.

The Daughters of Charlemagne

Charlemagne believed strongly in education for all his children; his daughters learned to read and write as well as his sons. He was also close to his children, and kept them close to him, bringing the family with him on travels both military and diplomatic. None of them married, although he did try to arrange a marriage or two. Some did have children, however, after finding relationships of their own.

Some did not live long, however. His first daughter by Hildegarde was Adalhaid, born in 774 while the family was on campaign in Italy. She was sent back home, but died along the way. A final child, named for her mother, was born in 782 but lived only a few months.

Rotrude was born in 775. She was tutored by Alcuin, who called her Columba ("dove") in letters. Marriage to Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI was arranged when she was six and he was ten, but his mother Irene eventually ended the engagement when she decided the Empire should side with the Lombards, whom Charlemagne had conquered. Rotrude had an affair with Charlemagne's retainer Rorgo of Rennes, Count of Maine and of Rennes (who himself was married several times). She had a son by him, Louis (800 - 867) who became Abbot of Saint-Denis and archchancellor under his namesake and uncle, Louis the Pious, emperor after Charlemagne. Rotrude became a nun at Chelles, where she passed away in 810.

Another daughter of Hildegarde was Bertha (c.779 - 826). Offa of Mercia wanted to marry his son Ecgfrith to her, an offer which Charlemagne felt was an insult. As a result, he broke off diplomatic relations with Mercia and forbade English ships from his ports. Bertha had a long-term relationship with a secretary named Angilbert. They had three children, one of whom was Nithard.

The third daughter of Charlemagne and Hildegarde who survived to adulthood was Gisela (c.781 - c.808). We know she was baptized at the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio by the Archbishop of Milan while the family was in Italy. Her tutor Alcuin, who in his writings remarked that she had an interest in astronomy, nicknamed her "Delia." She never married, and some sources say she died in 808, while others say she was sent to a convent when her brother Louis came to power. The latter may just be an assumption based on Louis sending away as many potential sources of claimants to the throne as possible.

Next we will look at the children from Charlemagne's other wives.

Louis the Pious

Charlemagne's fourth son, his third by his wife Hildegarde, was Louis, called "the Pious" in later life. He was born 16 April 778 while his father (who liked to bring his family along when he traveled) campaigned in Spain. He had a twin named Lothair, who died while still a babe.

When he was three years old, he was named King of Aquitaine, giving him rule (with regents) of the southwestern part of the Frankish empire. Charlemagne sent his sons to their respective territories at a young age (as with Pepin in Italy) so that they would grow up intimately connected with the customs of the people over whom they had control. When in 785 Charlemagne sent for his son to see how things were going, Louis showed up with a retinue all wearing Basque garb (Basques were a chief part of the army in Aquitaine).

Louis did expand the boundaries of the empire into the Iberian Peninsula, crossing the Pyrenees with a large army and capturing Barcelona in 797.

When Charlemagne was ailing in 813, with Louis' brothers Charles the Younger and Pepin of Italy having recently passed away, he called Louis to his side at Aachen and named him co-emperor in the presence of several nobles, who agreed to the choice. In 814, hearing that his father had died, Louis immediately went to Aachen and crowned himself emperor. His first act was to purge members of the court he did not trust fully. He eliminated pagan symbols. He sent his sisters to nunneries, and forced his father's cousins to be tonsured and sent to monasteries. He wanted to ensure there would be no potential claimants to the throne.

Then he embarked on one of the longest reigns in that part of the world, but since Louis' actions have been mentioned many places, such as here, we will move on to Charlemagne's other children, starting with the daughters of Hildegarde. Stay tuned.

Pepin of Italy

Dynasties, royal or otherwise, often re-use names of ancestors. Charlemagne's second son by his wife Hildegarde was named Carloman (777 - 810) after Charlemagne's brother (even though the brothers did not necessarily get along).

About 781, while on a trip to Rome, Charlemagne had Carloman baptized by the pope and re-named Pepin. This was a slap in the face to Pepin the Hunchback, Charlemagne's oldest son by his concubine Himiltrude, who was now effectively "replaced" by another heir who carried a dynastically important name (Charlemagne's father was Pepin the Short).

On this occasion of his re-christening he also was crowned by Pope Adrian I with the Iron Crown of Lombardy, and made King of Italy by his father. Although still a child, his reign was aided by those allies wishing to please Charlemagne. With Duke Eric of Friuli (the brother of Pepin's mother), he prevailed against the Avars (Eurasian nomads inhabiting the areas northeast of Italy), taking their capital fortress, the Ring of the Avars.

Several poems praising him and his conquests were composed during his lifetime. After 799 his capital was Verona, and it became a center of literature and the Carolingian Renascence. An unsuccessful siege of Venice might have contributed to his death. Six months of hanging around the swamps outside Venice created disease in the army. Pepin died a few months later, on 8 July 810.

Pepin had five daughters and a son, Bernard, who became King of Italy after him. Because Pepin pre-deceased his father, however, the third of the Frankish kingdom that he would have inherited was up for grabs. Since his brother Charles the Younger, a co-inheritor, died a year and a half later, also prior to Charlemagne's death, there was one option left for Charlemagne's empire: Louis, who will (finally) get his own entry (after numerous mentions in this blog) tomorrow.