Louis II German

Section of the Succession of Louis I the Pious

Coin with a portrait of Louis II of Germany.

Louis, grandson of Charlemagne , was the third son of Emperor Louis I the Pious and Irmengard of Hespengau .

In 817, the emperor divided his possessions between his three sons, Lothar , Pepin and Louis, with Bavaria and the surrounding land went to Louis (nicknamed German in this connection).

In 824, together with his father and brother Pepin, Louis the German participated in a campaign in Brittany to crush the rebellion raised by Viomark .

In 826, he began to independently rule over the estates allocated to him by his father. The subsequent years of the reign of Louis the German were marked by his participation in the rebellion of the three elder sons of Louis the Pious ( 830 - 834 ), who opposed the attempts of the emperor to ensure at their expense the rights of their half-brother Karl .

Verdun Treaty

When Louis the Pious died in 840 , Charles II (nicknamed Lysy) became king of the Western Francs and teamed up with Louis the German against Lothar I (Pepin died in 838 ), who got northern Italy and the title of emperor. Having defeated Lotar at Fontaine (near Auxerre ) in 841 , in 842 Karl Lysy and Louis reaffirmed their obligations to each other, taking the famous oath in Strasbourg , with Louis taking it “in a romance” and Karl “in a Teutonic way ". On August 11, 843, the Verdun treaty was concluded between the brothers, according to which all the lands of Charlemagne east of the Rhine , with the exception of Frisia, entered the kingdom of Louis. The kingdom of Charles increased (the entire western part of modern France and the area south of the Pyrenees ). Lothar again inherited the northern part of Italy and a vaguely defined borderland between the West Frankish lands of Charles and the East Frankish lands of Louis. Louis now owned Saxony , Franconia , Swabia , Bavaria and its dependent regions.

The struggle for control over the regions of the middle kingdom

After the emperor Lothar I died in 855 , his lands were divided between his three sons. Soon between the western and eastern kings, a long struggle began for control over the regions of the middle kingdom. In 858, Louis invaded France, but the next year was forced to retreat, and in 860, according to an agreement concluded in Koblenz , the former state of things was restored. Lothar II , the son of Lothar I, had no legitimate children, and Karl and Louis the German agreed that he would divide the Lorraine he had inherited after his death, however, when he died in 869 , Karl violated the agreement and occupied his entire area . Then Louis invaded Lorraine, and his brother had to make concessions. According to the Mersensky Treaty in 870 , Louis received Frisia and significantly increased its territory west of the Rhine. Louis the German also tried to push the limits of his possessions to the east, capturing the Slavic lands: in 844 he attacked the Bodriches , sought to influence the affairs of the Great Moravian state . In addition, he constantly had to pay attention to the internecine struggle of his three sons ( Karloman , Louis the Younger and Karl Tolstoy ), between whom Louis divided his possessions back in 865 .

The Death of Louis the German

In 875 , after the death of Emperor Louis II (son of Lothar I), Louis of Germany tried to secure the imperial title and possession of Italy. But despite the fact that shortly before his death, Louis II spoke in favor of Carloman as the future emperor, Karl Lysy quickly captured Italy and was crowned as emperor under the name of Charles II, with which Louis the German did not want to come to terms. During preparations for a new campaign, he died in Frankfurt on August 28, 876 , after which Karl Lysy tried to seize his kingdom, but was repulsed by Louis the Younger.

Marriage and children

• Spouse: (since 827 ) Emma of Bavaria (c. 808 - January 31, 876 ), daughter of Count Altdorf Welf I. Children:
  • Hildegard ( December 828 - December 23, 856 ) - abbess of the monastery in Schwarzach am Main after 844 - 853 , abbess of the monastery in Zurich from July 21, 853
  • Karloman (c. 830 - March 22 / September 22, 880 ) - king of the East Frankish kingdom in Bavaria, Pannonia, Carinthia, Czech Republic and Moravia from 876
  • Irmengard (between 831 and 833 - July 16, 866 ) - abbess in Buchau and Chiemsee
  • Gisela - the only time mentioned in the "Libri confraternitatum Sancti Galli" among members of the family of Louis II of Germany ^[2] . Fate is not exactly known: according to some assumptions - she died in her youth, according to others - she could have been married to a representative of the Akhalolfing clan (possibly the Palatine of Swabia, ) ^[3]
  • Louis III the Younger ( 835 - January 20 / September 882 ) - King of the East Frankish Kingdom in Franconia, Thuringia, Saxony and Frisia since 876
  • Berta (until 839 - March 26, 877 ) - abbess of the monastery in Schwarzach am Main with 853 , abbess of the monastery in Zurich since 856
  • Charles III Tolstoy ( 839 - January 13, 888 ) - king of the East Frankish kingdom 876 - 887 (until 882 in Alemania and Recy), king of the West Frankish kingdom 884 - 887 , king of Italy 879 - 887 , king of Lorraine (Charles II) 882 - 887 , emperor of the West 881 - 887

• Louis I German // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Boris Bigott . Ludwig der Deutsche und die Reichskirche im Ostfränkischen Reich: (826-876). - Husum, 2002. - ISBN 3-7868-1470-8 . ( Rezension (inaccessible link) ) (German)
• Ernst Dümmler . Geschichte des Ostfränkischen Reiches. Erster Band. Ludwig der Deutsche bis zum Frieden vom Koblenz 860: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. - Darm. 1960 (Nachdruck der 2. Auflage von 1887; alte, aber grundlegende Darstellung). (German)
• Ernst Dümmler . Geschichte des Ostfränkischen Reiches. Zweiter Band. Ludwig der Deutsche vom Koblenzer Frieden bis zu seinem Tode (860-876): Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. - Darm. 1960 (Nachdruck der 2. Auflage von 1887; alte, aber grundlegende Darstellung). (German)
• Eric J. Goldberg . Struggle for Empire. Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German. 817-876. - Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006 .-- ISBN 0-8014-3890-X ( Rezension) (German)
• Wilfried Hartmann . Ludwig der Deutsche. - Darm. : Primus Verlag, 2002. - ISBN 3-89678-452-8 ( Rezension ). (German)
• Wilfried Hartmann (Hrsg.). Ludwig der Deutsche und seine Zeit. - Darm. 2004 (Aufsatzsammlung mit 11 Beiträgen renommierter Mediävisten, Ergänzung zur Biographie von Wilfried Hartmann von 2002), ISBN 3-534-17308-2 ( Rezension) . (German)