Konrad I. (Welfen)

Konrad I († September 21, after 862 ) was a son of Count Welf I and Heilwig, a brother of Empress Judith († 843) and Queen Hemma . Because of this relationship, he became one of the closest confidants of Emperor Ludwig the Pious († 840), who also shared his imprisonment in 833/834, and who succeeded in building up a strong position of power for his family in Upper Swabia .

He was one of the three ambassadors who were given extraordinary powers by Karl the Kahlen and Ludwig the German in 842 to their brother Lothar I , to negotiate the partition of the Frankish empire and to offer Lothar the third part of the empire determined by them . The other two envoys were Seneschal Adalhard and Count Cobbo the Elder .

After the death of Louis the Pious, he was involved in the conclusion of the Treaty of Verdun (843). He was now an advisor to his other brother-in-law, Ludwig the German, until he left him in 859 during a campaign in western France and, together with his sons, joined his half-brother on the opposite side, his biological nephew Karl the Bald . Ten years earlier, after his marriage to Aelis , a daughter of Count Hugo von Tours from the Etichonen family , he was included as Count of Paris in his nephew's kingdom. Because of this change of sides, Konrad lost all offices and counties in eastern Franconia, but was later compensated in the west by the county of Auxerre .

Konrad had the following titles:

• 830 " Dux nobilissimus" (i.e. Duke in Alemannia ),
• 839 - after 849 Graf im Argengau ,
• 839 Graf im Alpgau ,
• 844 Graf im Linzgau ,
• 849 Count of Paris ,
• after 860 Count von Auxerre as a follower of Charles the Bald ;

Konrad and Aelis had at least three sons:

• Conrad II , Margrave of Transjurania
• Hugo Abbas , † May 12, 886
• Rudolf, † before 864, Abbot of Saint-Riquier , 849 Abbot of Jumièges

and probably too

• Welf II (who could also be a son of Konrad's brother Rudolf), 842/850 Graf im Linzgau , 852-858 Graf im Alpgau , the probable progenitor of the Swabian Guelphs.

Aelis married after the death of Conrad in second marriage to 864 robertians Robert the Strong (le Fort), Count of Tours and Paris († 15 September 866), which she Conrad's son Hugo Abbas, less Konrad II., Who with Charles the Bald had fallen out of favor and had left the empire, through the connection to the Robertiner moved again into the center of power of the western France.

literature

• Johann Gottfried Eichhorn: Prehistory of the illustrious house of the Guelphs , Hahn brothers, Hanover 1816.
• Bernd Schneidmüller : The Welfs: Lordship and Memory (819-1252) , Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-17-014999-7