Fredelo (Toulouse)

Fredelo († after 849) was a Frankish nobleman in the 9th century and founded the rule of his family ( Raimundiner ) in the county of Toulouse . He was a son of Fulcoald , the missus in the Rouergue , and the Senegundis.

In 845, Archbishop Hinkmar von Reims wrote to Fredelo ( Frigidolo ) a request that he should spare the property of the Archdiocese of Reims in Aquitaine in the upcoming conflict . The West Frankish King Charles the Bald had been in a power struggle with his nephew, King Pippin II of Aquitaine , for several yearsto rule in Aquitaine, which increasingly turned into armed conflicts. Archbishop Hinkmar was a close confidante and supporter of Charlemagne. His letter in turn allows the conclusion that Fredelon was a supporter of Pippin II, because otherwise his request to him would have been invalid.

What exact function Fredelo had performed in Aquitaine in 845 cannot be inferred from Hinkmar's letter, but probably before this date he would have succeeded his father as the leading great ( comes ?) Of the Rouergue. Whether he was already in office as Count of Toulouse is controversial. In the spring of 844, King Charles the Bald besieged Toulouse unsuccessfully in order to subdue the rebellious Count Bernhard of Septimania . However, in the same year he was handed over to the king and beheaded; but his son Wilhelm of Septimania continued the rebellion with the support of Pippin II of Aquitaine. It is possible that William of Septimania was able to keep the rule in Toulouse as an inheritance from his father.

By 849, Charles the Bald had subjugated western Aquitaine and was able to move personally into Toulouse that year; he made Fredelo ( Fridolo ) his custos (and probably also count) for this city. This act is remarkable in several ways. On the one hand, Fredelo had apparently switched from Pippin II to Charles the Bald's side in time, so that he received the dominant position in Toulouse as a reward, legitimized by the West Frankish king. At the same time, the rulership rights of his family in Toulouse were established, which they would hold for several centuries. On the other hand, this represented the last manorial act of a Frankish king in Toulouse for the next 300 years and thus marked the rise of Toulouse to one of the powerful and virtually independent principalities of the High Middle Ages. It was not until Ludwig VII. In 1159 that a West Franconian / French king was to show personal presence in this city again.

Fredelo died on an unknown date, his brother Raymond I followed him.

literature

• Archibald R. Lewis: The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718-1050 . University of Texas Press: Austin, 1965.
• L. Levillain: Les Nibelungen historiques et leurs alliances de famille. In: Annales du Midi. Volume 50, 1938, pp. 20-21
• Janet L. Nelson: The Frankish world, 750-900. 1996, pp. 165-166

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Flodoard von Reims , Histoira Remensis ecclesiae III , ed. by Martina Stratmann in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH) SS 36 (1998), p. 268
2. ↑ Fragmentum Chronici Fontanellensis , ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH) SS 2 (1829), p. 302

predecessor	Office	successor
William of Septimania	Count of Toulouse 849–?	Raimund I.
Miro Etilius	Count of Carcassonne 850–852	Raimund I.