Fastrada was the third wife of Charles the Great. She married Charles in 783, was queen for eleven years, had two daughters, and died at 794, when she was in her mid-twenties. Besides that briefest of bios, things get hazy. But let’s see what we can do.
Charles lived in an age when a king could be expected to have several intimate relationships with women, some of whom were wives, and others concubines. The children of wives could inherit titles and lands, while the children of concubines faced more challenges.1.See, for example, Grifo, son of Charles Martel’s last concubine. That did not end well. Wives were taken for political reasons, while concubines (perhaps) had a more personal connection.
Fastrada was a wife taken to cement a political relationship. Pierre Riche notes that of Charles’ four wives, “Desiderata was to have sealed an alliance with the Lombard kingdom; Hildegard, the mother of eight royal children, came from Swabia; Fastrada was the daughter of a count in eastern Francia; and Liutgard, the fourth and last wife, stemmed from a Alemannian family.”2.Riche, The Carolingians, p. 135. The Revised Royal Annals mention that Fastrada was “the daughter of count Radolf.”3.Revised Royal Annals, in King, year 783, p. 118.