Odilo | |
---|---|
Duke of Bavaria | |
Reign | 737-748 |
Predecessor | Hugbert |
Successor | Tassilo III |
Died | 18 January 748 |
Spouse | Hiltrud |
Issue | Tassilo III |
House | Agilolfing |
Father | Gotfrid |
Odilo, also Oatilo or Uatilo (died 18 January 748) of the Agilolfing dynasty was Duke of Bavaria from 737 until his death in 748. [1] He had the Lex Baiuvariorum compilation edited, the first ancient Germanic law collection of the Bavarians.
Odilo by his Agilolfing descent was an Alemannic nobleman, a son of Duke Gotfrid (d. 709) whom he succeeded in Thurgau until 737, when with the death of Hugbert of Bavaria the older line of the dynasty became extinct and he inherited the rulership of the Duchy of Bavaria.
Odilo presided over the establishment of bishoprics in Bavaria in 739, when the four dioceses of Regensburg, Freising, Passau, and Salzburg were established by St. Boniface, who in 741 also founded the Diocese of Würzburg in adjacent Franconia. His measures sparked a revolt by Bavarian nobles and the duke temporarily had to seek refuge at the court of the Frankish Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel. In 741, Odilo married Charles Martel's daughter Hiltrud, [2] but upon the death of her father found himself at war with her brothers Carloman and Pepin the Short.
He rebelled to support the Alamans with the support of Hunald I of Aquitaine in 742/43 against Frankish rule after persuading him to attack Neustria to burn down Chartres. [3] He was finally defeated in 743 after a battle at the river Lech, and had to accept Frankish overlordship over Bavaria, but remained duke. [3] He further consolidated his rule, when he came to the aid of Prince Boruth of Carantania against repeated Avar incursions and was able to vassalize the Slavic principality in the southeast.
After his death in 748, Grifo, a younger son of Charles Martel and half-brother of Odilo's widow Hiltrud, sought to establish his own rule in Bavaria and abducted Odilo's son Tassilo III. However, the next year he was defeated by Pepin the Short who installed seven-year-old Tassilo III as Duke of Bavaria. [4]
Odilo is accepted as the founder of the abbeys of Benediktbeuern (in 739), Niederaltaich (741), [5] and Mondsee (748), [6] as well as a number of others. He was buried at Gengenbach Abbey in Alamannia.
Charles Martel was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and Pepin's mistress, a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles, also known as "The Hammer", successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle".
Year 741 (DCCXLI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 741 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Carloman was the eldest son of Charles Martel, majordomo or mayor of the palace and duke of the Franks, and his wife Chrotrud of Treves. On Charles's death (741), Carloman and his brother Pepin the Short succeeded to their father's legal positions, Carloman in Austrasia, and Pepin in Neustria. He was a member of the family later called the Carolingians and it can be argued that he was instrumental in consolidating their power at the expense of the ruling Merovingian kings of the Franks. He withdrew from public life in 747 to take up the monastic habit, "the first of a new type of saintly king," according to Norman Cantor, "more interested in religious devotion than royal power, who frequently appeared in the following three centuries and who was an indication of the growing impact of Christian piety on Germanic society".
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant 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 Germanic 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. 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.
Childeric III was King of Francia from 743 until he was deposed by Pope Zachary in 751 at the instigation of Pepin the Short. Although his parentage is uncertain, he is considered the last Frankish king from the Merovingian dynasty. Once Childeric was deposed, Pepin the Short, who was the father of emperor Charlemagne, was crowned king, initiating the Carolingian dynasty.
Under the Merovingian dynasty, the mayor of the palace was the manager of the household of the Frankish king.
Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks, Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire, 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.
Grifo, Duke of Maine (726–753) was the son of the Frankish major domo Charles Martel and his second wife Swanachild.
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. The Son of Duke Odilo of Bavaria and Hitrud, the Daughter of Charles Martell.
Mondsee Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Mondsee in Upper Austria.
Tassilo II was a ruler in southern Germany.
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.
The Lex Baiuvariorum was a collection of the tribal laws of the Bavarii of the sixth through eighth centuries. The first compilation was edited by Eberswind, first abbot of Niederaltaich, in 741 or 743. Duke Odilo, founder supplemented the code around 748. It is one of the most well documented bodies of Germanic tribal law.
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.
Gotfrid (also Gotefrid, modernized Gottfried; Latin: Gotfridus or Cotefredus; was the Duke of Alemannia in the late 7th century and until his death. He was of the house of the Agilolfing, which was the dominant ruling family in the Frankish Duchy of Bavaria.
Gerold was an Alamannian 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 ally, Eric, Duke of Friuli, through treachery.
Boruth, also Borut or Borouth, was the first documented Slavic prince (Knyaz) of Carantania, ruling from about 740 until his death. He was one of the few pagan leaders of the Carantanians to convert to Christianity.
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.