Pepin II of Aquitaine
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Pepin II, called the Younger (823 – after 864 in Senlis), was King of Aquitaine from 838 as the successor upon the death of his father, Pepin I. Pepin II was eldest son of Pepin I and Ingeltrude,[1] daughter of the count of Madrie, Theodobert. He was grandson of the Emperor Louis the Pious.
Pepin was elected king upon his father's death by the nobles of Aquitaine who were keen to establish their independence from the Empire. Louis the Pious however had appointed Charles the Bald as King of Aquitaine in 832 when he (nominally) dispossessed Pepin I. Pepin had thereafter been at war with his Uncle Charles. Louis the Pious fully disinherited him at Crémieux and then at Worms in two subsequent divisions of the empire.
Louis demanded the Aquitainians send Pepin to Aachen to learn the ways of good governance however they refused. Pepin was in total control of Aquitaine until 841 when he went to his uncle Lothair I's aid at the Battle of Fontenay. Pepin's contingent faced the troops of Charles the Bald and defeated him. However elswhere on the battlefield Lothair was routed by the forces of Louis the German, Charles' brother. Pepin returned to Aquitaine and continued war with Charles the Bald.
In 844 Pepin made the fatal error of asking the Viking Adventurer Jarl Oscar for military assistance. He guided the Viking force up the Garonne to Toulouse, giving them an opportunity to scout the land for plundering. In 845 Pepin welcomed Seguin of Bordeaux who had defected from the Emperors side and made him dux Wasconum, to help his fight against Sans II Sancion, leader of the Gascons.
In 847 Oscar was given control of Bordeaux, the largest city in Aquitaine and then controlled by Charles, by disaffected citizens: either Jews or partisans of Pepin. This loss of the City to a heathen pirate, coupled with Pepin's penchant for the bottle and loose living, eroded his support in the nobility until 848 he was left with no support. His brother, Charles then left Aachen to claim the Aquitainian Kingdom for himself.
Pepin II's rule finally ended in 851 or 852 when he was captured by Sans II Sancion, who had been at war with his father Pepin I, and handed over to Charles. He was detained in the monastery of Saint Médard in Soissons. As reward Sans was awarded the status of Duke.
Meanwhile Louis the Younger, a cousin, was sent by his father Louis the German who was at war with Charles the Bald, to rule Aquitaine. He marched as far as Limoges in 855 before returning east.
However Pepin escaped and recovered some of his old authority and lands in 854. The Vikings now established in the Loire Valley ravaged Poitiers, Angoulême, Périgueux, Limoges, Clermont, and Bourges while Charles the Bald was busy trying to subdue Pepin. In 864 Pepin joined the Vikings and is rumoured to have turned from Christianity to worship Woden and "lived like one of them [the Vikings]".[2] He took part with the Vikings on an attack on Toulouse. He was captured again later in 864 and deposed by the Edict of Pistres, and imprisoned in Senlis, where he eventually died.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Also called Engelberga, Rigarde, Hringard, or Ringart.
- ^ "Pepin II of Aquitaine," The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare, Jim Bradbury, ed. (Routledge, 2004), 72. Archibald Ross Lewis (1965), The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718–1050 (Austin: University of Texas Press), 100–101, mentions Pepin's Viking alliance without reference to paganism. Edward Peters (1970), The Shadow King: Rex inutilis in Medieval Law and Literature, 751–1327 (New Haven: Yale University Press), 67–8, cites criticism of Pepin from the Annales Bertiniani under the year 843.
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Pepin II of Aquitaine
Born: 823 Died: 864 |
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| Preceded by Pepin I |
King of Aquitaine 838–864 in contest with Charles the Bald and Charles the Child 838-864 |
Succeeded by Charles the Child |
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