Editing Louis the Pious (section)

==Birth and rule in Aquitaine==
Louis was born in 778, while his father [[Charlemagne]] was on campaign through the [[Pyrenees]], at the Carolingian [[Roman villa|villa]] of Cassinogilum, according to [[Einhard]] and the anonymous chronicler called [[Astronomus]]; the place is usually identified with [[Chasseneuil-du-Poitou|Chasseneuil]], near [[Poitiers]].<ref>Einhard gives the name of his birthplace as ''Cassanoilum''. In addition to Chasseneuil near Poitiers, scholars have suggested that Louis may have been born at Casseneuil (Lot et Garonne) or at Casseuil on the [[Garonne]] near La Réole, where the Dropt flows into the Garonne.</ref> He was the third son of Charlemagne by his wife [[Hildegard (queen)|Hildegard]].<ref name=jong>{{cite web |url= https://www.academia.edu/15388945 |title= The Penitential State. Authority and Atonement in the Ages of Louis the Pious (814–840) – 1. Louis the Pious – A boy who became a king|publisher=  Academia | author=Mayke de Jong | access-date= 25 January 2020 }}</ref> He had a twin brother named Lothair, who died young. Louis and Lothair were given names from the old [[Merovingian dynasty]], possibly to suggest a connection.<ref>{{citation |first=Richard E. |last=Sullivan |title="The Gentle Voices of Teachers": Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age |year=1995 |publisher=Ohio State University Press |page=64 n39}}, suggests that Charlemagne may have been influenced by the letter he received in about 775 from [[Cathwulf]], who worries that "you [Charles] have few firm columns, I fear, on which to sustain the fortress of God."</ref>

Louis was crowned [[King of Aquitaine]] as a three-year-old child in 781.<ref>[[Pierre Riché|Riché, Pierre]] (1993), ''The Carolingians: The Family who Forged Europe'', transl. Michael Idomir Allen, (University of Pennsylvania Press), 116.</ref> In the following year he was sent to Aquitaine accompanied by [[regent]]s and a court. Charlemagne constituted this sub-kingdom in order to secure the border of his realm after the destructive war against the Aquitanians and Basques under [[Waiofar|Waifar]] (capitulated {{c.}} 768) and later [[Hunald II]], which culminated in the disastrous [[Battle of Roncesvalles]] (778). Charlemagne wanted Louis to grow up in the area where he was to reign. However, wary of the customs his son may have been assimilating into in Aquitaine, Charlemagne, who had remarried to Fastrada after the death of Hildegard, sent for Louis in 785. Louis presented himself in Saxony at the royal [[Council of Paderborn]] dressed in Basque costumes along with other youths in the same garment, which may have made a good impression in Toulouse, since the Basques of [[Duchy of Gascony|Vasconia]] were a mainstay of the Aquitanian army.<ref name=jong/>

In 794, Charlemagne gave four former [[Gallo-Roman]] villas to Louis, in the thought that he would take in each in turn as winter residence: [[Doué-la-Fontaine|Doué]], [[Ebreuil]], [[Angeac-Charente|Angeac]] and the [[Chasseneuil]]. Charlemagne's intention was to see all his sons brought up as natives of their given territories, wearing the national costume of the region and ruling by the local customs. Thus were the children sent to their respective realms at a young age. The marches—peripheral principalities—played a vital role as bulwarks against exterior threats to the empire. Louis reigned over the [[Spanish March]]. In 797, [[Barcelona]], the largest city of the ''Marca'', fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against [[Córdoba (Spain)|Córdoba]] and, failing, handed it to them. The Córdoban authority recaptured it in 799. However, Louis marched the entire army of his kingdom, including [[Gascons]] with their duke [[Sancho I of Gascony]], [[Provence|Provençals]] under [[Leibulf of Provence|Leibulf]], and [[Visigoths|Goths]] under [[Bera, Count of Barcelona|Bera]], over the [[Pyrenees]] and [[Siege of Barcelona (801)|besieged it for seven months]], wintering there from 800 to 801, when it capitulated.<ref name="Lewis2009">{{cite book|author-link=David Levering Lewis|first=David Levering |last=Lewis|title=God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570–1215|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zxuar_ISdcUC&pg=PA312|year=2009|publisher=W. W. Norton|isbn=978-0-393-06790-3|pages=312–}}</ref><ref>Riché (1993), ''The Carolingians:The Family who Forged Europe'', 94.</ref> King Louis was formally invested with his armour in 791 at the age of fourteen. However, the princes were not given independence from central authority as Charlemagne wished to implant in them the concepts of empire and unity by sending them on remote military expeditions. Louis joined his brother Pippin at the [[Mezzogiorno]] campaign in Italy against the Duke Grimoald of [[Duchy of Benevento|Benevento]] at least once.<ref name=jong/>

[[File:Charlemagne et Louis le Pieux.jpg|thumb|left|[[Charlemagne]] crowns Louis the Pious]]
Louis was one of Charlemagne's three legitimate sons to survive infancy. His twin brother, Lothair, died during infancy. According to the Frankish custom of [[partible inheritance]], Louis had expected to share his inheritance with his brothers, [[Charles the Younger]], [[King of Neustria]], and [[Pepin of Italy|Pepin]], [[King of Italy]]. In the ''Divisio Regnorum'' of 806, Charlemagne had slated Charles the Younger as his successor as ruler of the Frankish heartland of [[Neustria]] and [[Austrasia]], while giving Pepin the [[Iron Crown of Lombardy]], which Charlemagne possessed by conquest. To Louis's kingdom of Aquitaine, he added [[Septimania]], Provence, and part of [[Burgundy]]. However, Charlemagne's other legitimate sons died—Pepin in 810 and Charles in 811—and Louis was crowned co-emperor with an already ailing Charlemagne in Aachen on 11 September 813. On his father's death in 814, he inherited the entire Carolingian Empire and all its possessions (with the sole exception of the kingdom of Italy; although within Louis's empire, in 813 Charlemagne had ordered that [[Bernard of Italy|Bernard]], Pepin's son, be made and called king).<ref name=B>{{Cite web|last=Contreni|first=John|date=2021|title=Louis I, Holy Roman emperor|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-I-Holy-Roman-emperor|website=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]]}}</ref><ref name=jong/><ref>{{cite book |chapter-url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvd1c74c.6 |title=Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |first=Rutger |last=Kramer |chapter= Framing the Carolingian Reforms: The Early Years of Louis the Pious|year= 2019|pages= 31–58|doi= 10.2307/j.ctvd1c74c.6|jstor= j.ctvd1c74c.6|isbn= 9789462982642| access-date= 27 January 2020 }}</ref>