Grifo

Who is this Pepin?

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Besides having a blog named after him, who was Pepin le Bref?

As with others from the period, we have to clear away some naming confusion. Due to differences in source material and translations, his name is variously rendered Pepin, Pipin, and Pippin. I chose Pepin simply because Tolkien used Pippin (his was a deliberate selection, perhaps because hobbits are short). The nickname “le Bref” is usually translated as “the Short,” but I think it could mean other things, such as short-tempered (as we’ll see), of few words, short haired,1.Unlike the “long-haired” Merovingian kings. or something else. But there’s no way to know one way or another.

Pepin is usually considered a middling figure, sandwiched between the legendary Charles Martel, and the timeless Charlemagne. While there is no dispute with the stature history has afforded Charles the Great, his grandfather’s claim to fame has come under greater scrutiny. Personally I see Martel and Pepin as great figures in an age when only the strongest and most resolute rulers could stay on top, which Pepin did for for twenty-five years.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Unlike the “long-haired” Merovingian kings.

Fastrada, Wife of Charlemagne

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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.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 See, for example, Grifo, son of Charles Martel’s last concubine. That did not end well.
↑2 Riche, The Carolingians, p. 135.
↑3 Revised Royal Annals, in King, year 783, p. 118.

Frankish travelogue: Brittany

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Early medieval Brittany is a difficult place to explore. One scholar has noted “the complete absence of information about Brittany in the first half of the eighth century…”1.Smith, Julia M.H., The Sack of Vannes by Pippin III, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, Number 11, Summer 1986, p.25. With one notable, almost startling exception, which I will get to below, there is almost nothing in the sources about what was going on in Brittany during the eighth century. But let’s see what we can dredge up.

Brittany, for the cartographically challenged, is the peninsula jutting into the Atlantic on France’s north-west coast. It is a region of some 13,000 square miles, a land dominated by the sea, rocky and sparse. The hills reach heights of 1200 feet within just five miles of the coast. There was no traditional physical boundary between Francia and Brittany, although the Vilaine river is definitely Brittany, and the later eighth century Breton March was east of the river. On the other hand, the town of Nantes, just north of the mouth of the river Loire, was also considered part of the region. Other major towns include Rennes, and Vienne, and the monastery of Redon, which was established in 832. These population hubs are all along the Vilaine valley. West of the Vilaine there were only a few minor population centers.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Smith, Julia M.H., The Sack of Vannes by Pippin III, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, Number 11, Summer 1986, p.25.

763: Waifar’s last chance

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After the utter devastation wrought by Pepin’s full-on assault the previous year, in 763 the king was ready to consolidate his gains, both in land and morale, and press home the final blows to break the last Aquitanian resistance.

He decided to hold the annual Frankish Mayfield in the border city of Nevers.1.RFA, 763, p.44. Just a few years ago Nevers had been a frontier town on the Burgundian side of the Loire, the last stop before crossing over to ‘enemy’ territory. Now the town was considered central enough and safe enough a place for the king to hold the Frankish annual assembly there. Waifar, wherever he was, must have gritted his teeth to see the insolence and confidence of Pepin. But that was nothing to what Pepin unleashed next.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 RFA, 763, p.44.

Battles of a troubled soul, part 1

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Pepin le Bref was a man with a conflicted soul. He yearned for God, but was forced to do terrible things in the name of order. When he did retire from worldly concerns he thought he would be done with politics and combat, but before the end he was dragged back into the fray, betrayed by family, and died far from his spiritual home. His story is one of the great epics of the 8th century.

On the death of his father Pepin was one of three sons to inherit the Frankish kingdom. He was immediately faced with two things he had to get done, and one thing he really wanted to get done. He performed all three duties very well, and then, at the peak of power, he put his affairs in order, rejected the secular, and became a monk. How he went about achieving what he did illustrates the man, and opens a window on why he made that last decision.

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