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Gisela was born in 757 AD in Aachen, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and was the daughter of Pepin the Short and his wife Bertrada (Broadfoot) of Laon. She was the sister of Charlemagne and Carloman.[1] She was betrothed to Leo, the son of Byzantine Emperor Constantine V (the future Emperor Leo IV) but the contract was broken. The specific year of her death is unknown, but she died between 810-11 AD in Chelles, Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France, in the convent she had served for most of her life, aged between 53 and 54.

Charlemagne's biographer Einhard states that Gisela had been dedicated to religion since her childhood. She became a nun at Chelles Abbey, where she was eventually made abbess.[1] As the abbess at Chelles Abbey, Gisela oversaw one of the most prolific nuns' scriptoria active in the 8th and 9th centuries.[2] According to Einhard she had good relations with her brother Charlemagne, who "treated her with the same respect which he showed his mother."

Alcuin was a close friend. Where he wrote personal poem's for each of the king's [Charlemagne's] children, he also wrote one for Gisela, in which "Alcuin hailed her as a noble sister in the bond of sweet love, assuring her of her prayers of the brethren at Tours." Other correspondence which hints at a friendly relationship is a letter written to Gisela between 793 and 796, where he thanked her warmly for the gift of a hat. In September 798, he writes to her from his monastery at St. Loup de Troyes, where he laments that an acute fever has stopped him from travelling to see her. In this same letter, he thanks her for the gift of a cross, apparently made at her monastery, and he bade her farewell as a most beloved sister. Along wth this, he dedicated the last two books of his commentary on John's gospel to her and her niece, Rotrudis.[3]

Life and work: In Alcuin's letters, there is brief mention of his encourgament for her leaderdhip in the task of rebuiding the church of St. Mary at Chelles, as well as building up the library. Alcuin stated he would send pupil and friend Fredegisus to assist her.

Charlemagne and his wife Hildegard also named a daughter Gisela. Gisela the Younger lived from about 781 to after at least 808, but little else is known of her life.

Various headings probs: early life, family genealogy, relationship with Alcuin, life and works, death.

Family genealogy : Other siblings, F Adelheid Rothaid of the Franks 740/- M Rothaid III of the Franks 740/- M King Charlemagne of the Franks, Holy Roman Emperor 742..747-814 F Princess Bertbelle of the Franks ca 745- M King Carlomann II of the Franks ca 751-771 M Charles of the Franks 759-761 Reign of Louis the Pious and the civil war (814–843)

Louis the Pious’ reign as Emperor was unexpected, to say the least; as the third son of Charlemagne, he was originally crowned King of Aquitaine at three years old. (1) With the deaths of his older siblings, he went from ‘a boy who became a king to a man who would be emperor’. (1) Although his reign was mostly overshadowed by the dynastic struggle and resultant civil war, as his epithet states, he was highly interested in matters of religion. One of the first things he did was ‘ruling the people by law and with the wealth of his piety’(2), namely by restoring churches. The Astronomer stated that, during his kingship of Aquitaine, he ‘built up the study of reading and singing, and also the understanding of divine and worldly letters, more quickly than one would believe.’(3) He also made significant effort to restore many monasteries that had disappeared prior to his reign, as well as sponsoring new ones. (1)

Louis the Pious’ reign lacked security; he often had to struggle to maintain control of the Empire. As soon as he heard of the death of Charlemagne, he hurried to Aachen, where he exiled many of Charlemagne’s trusted advisors, such as Wala. Wala and his siblings were children of the youngest son of Charles Martel, and so was a threat as a potential alternative ruling family(4p. 20) Monastic exile was a tactic Louis used heavily in his early reign to strengthen his position and remove potential rivals. (4p. 21) In 817 his nephew, King Bernard of Italy, rebelled against him due to discontent with being the vassal of Lothar, Louis’ eldest son. (5) Bernard of Italy died in 818 after the punishment of death was commuted to blinding – but the trauma of the procedure ending up killing him two days later. (6) Italy was brought back into Imperial control. In 822, Louis' show of penance for Bernard's death greatly reduced his prestige as Emperor to the nobility – some suggest it opened him up to ‘clerical domination’. (7) Nonetheless, in 817 Louis followed his father’s model for succession, and established three new Carolingian Kingships for his sons from his first marriage: Lothar was made King of Italy and co-Emperor, Pepin was made King of Aquitaine, and Louis the German was made King of Bavaria. His attempts in 823 to bring his fourth son (from his second marriage), Charles the Bald into the will was marked by the resistance of his eldest sons. Whilst this was part of the reason for strife amongst Louis’ sons, some suggest that it was the appointment of Bernard of Septimania as chamberlain which caused discontent with Lothar, as he was stripped of his co-Emperorship in 829[ why?] and was banished to Italy, and Bernard assumed his place as second in command to the emperor.(4p. 41) With Bernard’s influence over not only the emperor, but the empress as well, this sowed further discord amongst prominent nobility. Pippin, Louis’ second son, too, was disgruntled; he had been implicated in a failed military campaign in 827, and he was tired of his fathers overbearing involvement in the ruling of Aquitaine.(4p. 42). As such, the angry nobility supported Pepin, and civil war broke out during Lent in 830, and the last years of his reign were plagued by civil war.

Shortly after Easter, his sons attacked Louis' empire and dethroned him in favour of Lothar. The Astronomer stated Louis spent the summer in the custody of his son, ‘an emperor in name only’. (4p. 43) The following year Louis attacked his sons' Kingdoms by drafting new plans for succession. Louis gave Neustria to Pepin, stripped Lothar of his Imperial title and granted the Kingdom of Italy to Charles. Another partition in 832 completely excluded Pepin and Louis the German, making Lothar and Charles the sole benefactors of the kingdom, which precipitated Pepin and Louis the German revolting in the same year(4p. 45), followed by Lothar in 833 and together they imprisoned Louis the Pious and Charles. Lothar brought Pope Gregory IV from Rome under the guise of mediation, but his true role was to legitimise Lothar and his brothers’ rule by deposing and excommunicating Louis.(4p. 47)  In 835, peace was made within the family, and Louis was restored to the Imperial throne at the church of St. Stephen in Metz. When Pepin died in 838, Louis crowned Charles king of Aquitaine, whilst the nobility elected Pepin's son Pepin II, a conflict which was not resolved until 860 with Pepin's death. When Louis the Pious finally died in 840, Lothar claimed the entire empire irrespective of the partitions.

As a result, Charles and Louis the German went to war against Lothar. After losing the Battle of Fontenay, Lothar fled to his capital at Aachen and raised a new army, which was inferior to that of the younger brothers. In the Oaths of Strasbourg, in 842, Charles and Louis agreed to declare Lothar unfit for the imperial throne. This marked the East-West division of the Empire between Louis and Charles until the Verdun Treaty. Considered a milestone in European history, the Oaths of Strasbourg symbolize the birth of both France and Germany. The partition of Carolingian Empire was finally settled in 843 by and between Louis the Pious' three sons in the Treaty of Verdun.

(1)  Rutger Kramer, Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019), pp. 31-4.

(2)  Ernold, Carmen, lib. I, 11, 85-91, pp. 10-11.

(3)  Astronumus, Vita Hludowici, c. 19, p. 336.

(4)  The Penitential State

(5)   "Revolt of Bernard of Italy", The Cambridge Medieval History Series volumes 1-5, Plantagenet Publishing

(6)  McKitterick, Rosamond, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians

(7)  Knechtges, David R. and Vance, Eugene. Rhetoric and the Discourses of Power in Court Culture, University of Washington Press, 2012, ISBN 9780295802367