Adelheid of Friuli

Adelheid of Friuli in a picture from the 14th century

Adelheid von Friuli (also: Adelheid von Paris ; * around 855; † November 18, 901 in Laon ) was the second wife of King Ludwig II of West Franconia the Stammler .

Life

As Karl Ferdinand Werner has shown, Adelheid was probably born as the daughter of Count Adelhard, Margrave of Friuli . She was therefore a great-granddaughter of Count Beggo of Paris and his wife Alpaïs, an illegitimate daughter of King Louis I the Pious . Other sources, however, consider Alpaïs to be an illegitimate daughter of Charlemagne . Adelheid was thus cousin or aunt of Ludwig II.

Charles the Bald chose Adelheid as the wife of his son Ludwig II, but he had already married Ansgard of Burgundy in 862 in a secret ceremony and against his father's will and had five children with her. However, Karl made sure that his son Ansgard repudiated sometime between 866 and 877. Then the wedding of Ludwig II to Adelheid could be celebrated; but this marriage is only attested for 878. As the account of Hinkmar of Reims in his Annales Bertiniani can be seen, Pope John VIII refused to crown Adelheid in September 878 at the Council of Troyes.

Ludwig II died on April 10, 879 in Compiègne at the age of 32. After his death on September 17, 879, the pregnant Adelheid gave birth to their only son, Karl III. the simple-minded . According to Karl Ferdinand Werner, she and her young son lived in the care of relatives in the first years of their widowhood, namely at the court of Count Ramnulf II of Poitou. The outcast first wife of Ludwig II, Ansgard, and her two sons Ludwig III. and Karlmann II accused Adelheid of adultery, whose son Karl was thus illegitimate.

Ludwig III. and Charles II succeeded their father as kings, but both died after short reigns without leaving an heir. When Charles III. In 893 he was made the West Franconian antagonist and finally became sole king in 898, his mother Adelheid appeared again. She is now repeatedly verifiable in her son's documents, most recently on November 9th, 901. Very shortly afterwards, on November 18th, 901, she died in Laon and was probably buried in the Abbey of Saint-Corneille in Compiègne.

progeny

• Charles III, the simple-minded (879–929)

literature

• Martina Hartmann : The queen in the early Middle Ages. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-17-018473-2 , pp. 135f.
• M. Prevost: Adélaide 7. In: Dictionnaire de Biographie française . Volume 1, (1932), Col. 515f.
• Gerd Hit: The French queens. Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1530-5 , pp. 53-55.

Web links

Commons : Adelheid von Friuli  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Charles Cawley: Medieval Lands , Adelais

Remarks

1. ^ Karl Ferdinand Werner: The descendants of Charlemagne up to around the year 1000 , in: Wolfgang Braunfels , Percy Ernst Schramm (ed.): Karl der Große. Lebenswerk und Nachleben , Vol. 4: Das Nachleben , 1967, pp. 429–441 and 453.
2. ↑ Martina Hartmann, The Queen in the Early Middle Ages , p. 136.

predecessor	Office	Successor
Ansgard of Burgundy	Queen of West Franconia 878–879	Richardis