| Liutperga | |
|---|---|
| Duchess of Bavaria | |
| Reign | c. 770 – c. 788 |
| Born | c. 750 |
| Died | c. 794 |
| Spouse | Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria |
| Issue |
|
| Father | Desiderius, King of the Lombards |
| Mother | Ansa |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Liutperga (Liutpirc) (fl 750 - fl. 793) was a Duchess of Bavaria by marriage to Tassilo III, the last Agilolfing Duke of Bavaria. She was the daughter of Desiderius, King of the Lombards, and Ansa.
She was married to Tassilo at some point prior to 770, possibly in 763, to confirm the traditional alliance between Lombardy and Bavaria. The couple had four sons: Theodo, Cotani, Hrodrud and Theodebert. [1] [2]
It has been argued that Liutperga resented the Frankish king Charlemagne. [1] This argument is based on both the supposed repudiation of his marriage to Liutperga's sister Desiderata and his subsequent destruction of the Kingdom of Lombardy and imprisonment of her parents.
Liutperga played an apparently major role in her husband's opposition to Charlemagne. Frankish annals references to Liutperga suggest this. The Annales Mettense Priores refer to her as Tassilo's "wicked wife" and the Revised Royal Frankish Annals refer to the Liutperga's "urging" of her husband to push the Avars into conflict with Charlemagne. [2]
Liutperga is also referenced in a Freising charter of 804. The charter notes that a 'Bishop Arbeo' had angered Tassilo and Liutperga because of his close relations with the Franks and they had therefore removed churches from his possession. [2]
When, in 788, her husband was deposed and tonsured along with her eldest son Theodo, Liutperga is unaccounted for. However, the Murbach annals state that Charlemagne sent his agents to Bavaria for the wife and children of Tassilo. It was in the 788 trial that the Royal Frankish Annals describe Liutperga’s role in inciting her husband to plot against the Frankish kingdom. [3] That same year, her brother, Adalgis, launched a failed attempt to reclaim the Lombard kingdom via southern Italy with Byzantine assistance and afterward was never mentioned again. [4]
In 794, when Tassilo was placed on trial before the Council of Frankfurt and his dynasty renounced, Liutperga is yet again not mentioned. It has been suggested this could be due to her death. [2]
While in 802-3, years after she was last mentioned, it appears Charlemagne still considered Liutperga’s influence a threat as she is included in his capitularies as one of very few women mentioned. [5]
The Tassilo chalice, a creation of someone with experience in insular craftmanship, somewhen between 770-788, was most likely a gift to the Kremsmünster monastery from Liutperga and Tassilo. [6] The inscriptions at the bottom of the cup read '+ Tassilo Dux fortis + Liutpirc virga regalis'. 'virga regalis' translates to 'the royal rod/branch'. [2]
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800, holding these titles until his death in 814. He united most of Western and Central Europe, and was the first recognised emperor to rule from the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. Charlemagne's reign was marked by political and social changes that had lasting influence on Europe throughout the Middle Ages.
Pope Adrian I was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 772 until his death. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman.
Carloman I, German Karlmann, Karlomann, was king of the Franks from 768 until his death in 771. He was the second surviving son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon and was a younger brother of Charlemagne. His death allowed Charlemagne to take all of Francia.
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. Nearly every monarch of France from Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious until the penultimate monarch of France Louis Philippe have been his descendants. His death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
The Kingdom of the Franks, also known as the Frankish Kingdom, or just Francia, was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages. Francia was among the last surviving Germanic kingdoms from the Migration Period era.
Arnulf II, also known as the Bad, the Evil or the Wicked, a member of the Luitpolding dynasty, held the title of Duke of Bavaria from about 907 until his death in 937. He is numbered in succession to Arnulf of Carinthia, counted as Arnulf I.
The Duchy of Bavaria was a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom from the sixth through the eighth century. It was settled by Bavarian tribes and ruled by dukes (duces) under Frankish overlordship. A new duchy was created from this area during the decline of the Carolingian Empire in the late ninth century. It became one of the stem duchies of the East Frankish realm, which evolved as the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.
The Agilolfings were a noble family that ruled the Duchy of Bavaria on behalf of their Merovingian suzerains from about 550 until 788. A cadet branch of the Agilolfings also ruled the Kingdom of the Lombards intermittently from 616 to 712. They are mentioned as the leading dynasty in the Lex Baiuvariorum. Their Bavarian residence was at Regensburg.
Tassilo III was the duke of Bavaria from 748 to 788, the last of the house of the Agilolfings. He was the son of Duke Odilo of Bavaria and Hitrud, daughter of Charles Martel.
Desiderata was a queen consort of the Franks. She was one of four daughters of Desiderius, King of the Lombards, and his wife Ansa, Queen of the Lombards. Desiderata was married to Charlemagne in 770 in effort to create a bond between Francia and the Kingdom of the Lombards. The marriage also sought to isolate Charlemagne's brother Carloman I, who ruled over the central territories of Francia. It lasted just one year, and there are no known children.
Theodo, also known as Theodo V and Theodo II, was the Duke of Bavaria from 670 or, more probably, 680 to his death. It is with Theodo that the well-sourced history of Bavaria begins. He strengthened his duchy internally and externally and, according to the medieval chronicler Arbeo of Freising, he was a prince of great power whose fame extended beyond his borders.
Ansa was a noblewoman who became the Queen of the Lombards in 756 and reigned until their fall to the Franks in 774 AD. She, like other Medieval Queens at the time, played a significant role in the stability and preservation of the later Lombard Kingdom, particularly through her religious contributions, donations, and political relationships with neighboring Kingdoms. She reigned alongside her husband, King Desiderius, in Northern Italy. She lived her final years exiled to a monastery until her death.
Garibald II (585–625) was Duke of Bavaria from 610 until his death. He was the son of Tassilo I, and married Geila, daughter of Gisulf II of Friuli and his wife Romilda.
Garibald I was Duke of Bavaria from 555 until 591. He was the head of the Agilolfings, and the ancestor of the Bavarian dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of the Lombards.
The Tassilo Chalice is a bronze chalice, gilded with silver and gold, dating from the 8th century AD. The chalice is of Anglo-Saxon design. It is kept at Kremsmünster Abbey, Austria, where it has probably been since shortly after it was made.
Gerberga was the wife of Carloman I, King of the Franks, and sister-in-law of Charlemagne. Her flight to the Lombard kingdom of Desiderius following Carloman's death precipitated the last Franco-Lombard war, and the end of the independent kingdom of the Lombards in 774.
Adelperga was a Lombard noblewoman, Duchess of Benevento by marriage to Arechis II of Benevento. She acted as regent of Benevento for her son Grimoald in 787-788. She was the third of four daughters of Desiderius, King of the Lombards, and his wife Ansa. Her elder sister Desiderata was a wife of Charlemagne.
The Montpellier Psalter is one of the oldest Psalters from the Carolingian era and was made in the 8th century in the then-Bavarian Mondsee Abbey during the reign of the Agilolfings and was supposedly originally dedicated to the Bavarian ducal family of Tassilo III of Bavaria. The book saw a turbulent history and is now held at the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire in the medicine faculty building at Montpellier, under the shelfmark H. 409.
Gerold was a franconian nobleman who served the Frankish King, Charlemagne, as Margrave of the Avar March and Prefect of Bavaria in what is now South-Eastern Germany. Gerold played a significant role in the integration of Bavaria into the Frankish Kingdom during Carolingian expansion in the late 8th, and early 9th centuries. Gerold both aided the continuity of Agilofing rule of Bavaria, as well as took steps to integrate Bavarians into the wider scope of the Frankish Kingdom. Gerold was related both to the Agilofing family, the ruling class of Bavaria, as well as the Carolingian family. The Agilofings had ruled Bavaria since Duke Garibald I in 548. Gerold was born into the Agilofings, and his sister Hildegard was married to Charlemagne in 771. From these familial connections, he was appointed Prefect of Bavaria following the deposition of Duke Tassilo III in 788. Gerold was heralded as a superb military commander, giving rise to his promotion to Prefect as a defender of the eastern border of the Frankish Kingdom. In 799, Gerold is said to have fallen in battle against the Avars, shortly after the same Avars killed his brother and ally, Eric, Duke of Friuli, through treachery.
The Avar Wars were fought between Francia and the Avar Khaganate in Central Europe from 788 to 803, and ended with the Frankish conquest of the khaganate's western regions. The first conflicts between the Avars and the Franks occurred in the 560s, shortly before the Avar conquest of the Pannonian Basin. Armed conflicts between the two powers were not unusual during the following centuries.
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