Further Reading
Jordan, William C. Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade:
A Study in Rulership. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1979.
Richard, Jean. Saint Louis: Crusader King of France, trans.
by Jean Birrell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992.
Sivéry, Gérard. Saint Louis et son siècle. Paris: Tallandier,
1983.
William Chester Jordan
LOUIS THE PIOUS
(April 16, 778–June 20, 840)
Louis (Hludowicus) and Lothar, a twin who soon died,
were born on April 16, 778, in the palace of Chasseneuil
near Poitiers to Hildegard, the wife of Charles the Great
(Charlemagne). “Pious,” not a contemporary epithet,
was applied to Louis only at the end of the ninth century.
In 781, Charles appointed Louis king of Aquitaine, an
offi ce he would grow into and hold for the next thirty-
three years. In 794, sixteen-year-old Louis, already the
father of two children by concubines, married Irmingard
(d. 818), the daughter of Count Ingram. The royal couple
produced fi ve children within the decade.
Louis, as Charles’s only surviving legitimate son, was
crowned co-emperor at Aachen on September 11, 813.
The implications of the imperial title Charles received
in 800 remained ambiguous during his last years. The
increasing involvement of churchmen in the adminis-
tration of his realm suggests that Charles’s concept of
empire embraced religious as well as political leader-
ship. A capitulary from this period wonders, “Are we
indeed Christians?” One of Louis’s great tasks after his
father’s death in January, 814, was to continue to defi ne
a Christian empire. Under Louis, Aachen became a
beehive of activity. Charles had issued twenty diplomas
during his last thirteen years; Louis nearly doubled that
in his fi rst year as emperor. Louis regarded his empire
as a divine gift for whose welfare and improvement he
was chiefl y responsible. Much of his early legislation
focused on monastic and ecclesiastical reform. With the
help of Benedict of Aniane, a monk who had joined his
inner circle back in Aquitaine and whom he installed at
Inden nearby Aachen, Louis crafted a vision of empire
in which religion, society, and politics coalesced. Con-
cern for the unity of the Christian people animated the
Ordinatio imperii of 817, his attempt to establish the
imperial succession in a manner that would preserve
the integrity of the empire. Lothar (b. 795) became
co-emperor with Louis while his other sons, Pippin (b.
797) and Louis the Younger (b. 806), were assigned sub-
ordinate roles. In placing the unity of the empire before
division among his heirs, Louis proposed a transpersonal
vision of empire that emulated the unity of the church.
Louis saw himself as emperor of the Christian people,
not of various ethnic groups. His reforms and concept
of empire owed nothing to papal guidance or initiative.
The historic Pactum Hludowicianum agreement of 817
for the fi rst time outlined specifi cally the nature of the
papal-imperial relationship, a relationship that Louis
dominated. Elsewhere he referred to the pope as his
helper (adiutor) in caring for God’s people.
Louis was equally forceful in the political realm.
When his nephew, King Bernard of Italy, challenged his
authority in 817 he acted swiftly to quash the rebellion,
blinding Bernard and exiling the conspirators. (When
Bernard died of his injuries, Louis demonstrated the
depth of his commitment to Christian kingship by per-
forming public penance.) To preempt further dynastic
challenges, he had his half-brothers Drogo, Hugo, and
Theodoric tonsured and placed in monasteries. After the
death of Irmingard (October 3, 818), Louis married Ju-
dith, daughter of Count Welf and his wife, Eigilwi, who
bore him two children, Gisela (821) and Charles (June
13, 823). The birth of Louis’s fourth son later triggered
searing confl icts within the family and Carolingian so-
ciety at large. Other problems also challenged his reign
during its second decade. Churchmen such as Bishop
Agobard of Lyon began to complain about rampant
corruption in Carolingian society, including exploita-
tion of church lands and oppression of the poor by the
warrior class. With the expansion of Carolingian hege-
mony at an end, powerful nobles who little understood
the ideals of Louis’s empire ransacked the Christian
people and churches for material gain. The many groups
ranged along the empire’s extensive borders required
continual attention. In the southeast, the Slovenians
proved troublesome, while in the northeast Louis was
able to effectively manage the Danish threat, which was
defused when the Danish king Harald was baptized and
adopted by Louis in 826. In the west, Louis campaigned
personally in Brittany where he established nominal
authority. In Gascony and the Pyrenees borderlands
chronic instability reigned, partly because counts Hugo
and Matfrid failed to support Louis’s military efforts, a
dereliction for which the emperor stripped them of their
positions. Count Bernard of Barcelona was much more
effective and for his efforts was appointed in 829 as the
emperor’s chamberlain, an offi ce that brought him into
intimate contact with the imperial family. Judith saw
Bernard as a protector while Louis regarded him as the
second man in the empire. Louis’s forceful handling
of counts Hugo and Matfrid and the empowerment of
Bernard and Judith combined with the fear that any
provision made for the young Charles would come at the
expense of his half-brothers provoked a palace revolt in- Pippin and the younger Louis, aided by Hugo and
Matfrid, sought to “free” the emperor from the tyrant
Bernard and the Jezebel Judith, but Louis’s supporters,
LOUIS IX