'Pepin I' (
797 – November 13 or December 13,
838) was
King of Aquitaine. He was the second son of
Emperor Louis the Pious and his first wife,
Ermengarde of Hesbaye.
When his father assigned to each of his sons a kingdom (within the
Empire) in August
817, he received Aquitaine, which had been Louis's own subkingdom during ''his'' father Charlemagne's reign.
Ermoldus Nigellus was his court poet and accompanied him on a campaign into
Brittany in
824.
Pepin rebelled in
830 at the insistence of his brother
Lothair's advisor
Wala. He took an army of
Gascons with him and marched all the way to
Paris, with the support of the
Neustrians. His father marched back from a campaign in
Brittany all the way to
Compiègne, where Pepin surrounded and captured him. The rebellion, however, broke up.
In
832, Pepin rebelled again and his brother
Louis the German soon followed. Louis the Pious was in Aquitaine to subdue any revolt, but the younger Louis'
Bavarian insurrection drew him off. Pepin took
Limoges and other Imperial territories. The next year, Lothair joined the rebellion and, with the assistance of
Ebbo,
archbishop of Rheims, they deposed their father in
833. Lothair's later behaviour alienated him and he was on his father's side when Louis the Pious was reinstated on
1 March 834. Pepin was restored to his former status.
Pepin died scarcely four years later and was buried in
Sainte-Croix in
Poitiers. Louis the Pious named Charles, his son by a second wife, king. The Aquitainians, however, elected Pepin's son,
Pepin II.
In
822, he married Ingeltrude,
[1] daughter of Theodobert, count of
Madrie, with whom he had two sons:
Pepin, his successor in Aquitaine,
and
Charles, who became
archbishop of Mainz and briefly claimed the kingdom. Both died childless.
Notes
1. Also called Engelberga, Rigarde, Hringard, or Ringart.