Emperor Louis "The Pious" I (or Louis "the Fair") was born in Aug 778 in Chasseneuil, near Poitiers, Aquitaine, France.(3) (4) He died on 20 Jun 840 in Petersaue, an
island in the Rhine near Ingelheim, Germany.
"Also known as Louis the Pious, or the Debonair, French Louis le Pieux, or le Daebonnaire, German Ludwig der Fromme, son of the Frankish
ruler Charlemagne; he was crowned as co-emperor in 813 and became emperor in 814 on his father's death. Twice deprived of his authority by
his sons (Lothair, Pepin, Louis, and Charles), he recovered it each time (830 and 834), but at his death the Carolingian empire was in disarray.
Louis was the fifth child of Charlemagne's second wife, Hildegard the Swabian. From 781 until 814 Louis ruled Aquitaine with some success, though
largely through counselors. When Charlemagne died at Aachen in 814 and was succeeded by Louis, by then his only surviving legitimate son,
Louis was well experienced in warfare; he was 36, married to Irmengard of Hesbaye, and was the father of three young sons, Lothair, Pepin,
and Louis (Louis the German); he had inherited vast lands, which seemed to be under reasonable control; there was no other claimant to
the throne; and on Sept. 11, 813, shortly before his father's death, Louis had been crowned in Aachen as heir and co-emperor.
Louis' first task was to carry out the terms of Charlemagne's will. According to the Frankish chronicler Einhard, Louis did this with
great scrupulousness, although other contemporary sources tell a different story.
Louis next began to allocate parts of the empire to the various members of his family, and here began the difficulties and disasters that
were to beset him for the remainder of his life. In August 814 he made Lothair and Pepin nominal kings of Bavaria and Aquitaine. He also
confirmed Bernard, the son of his dead brother Pepin, as king of Italy, which position Charlemagne had allowed him to inherit
in 813. But when Bernard revolted in 817, Louis had him blinded, and he died as a result of it. Louis sent his sisters and half sisters
to nunneries and later put his three illegitimate half brothers--Drogo, Hugo, and Theodoric--into monasteries.
At the assembly of Aachen in July 817, he confirmed Pepin in the possession of Aquitaine and gave Bavaria to Louis the German; Lothair
he made his co-emperor and heir. Charlemagne had been in his 70s and within a few months of death before naming his heir, and for
Louis to give such premature expectations to a youth of 22 was to ask for trouble. Moreover, Louis did not anticipate that he would
become father of another child: the empress Irmengard died in 818; and four months later Louis married Judith of Bavaria, who, in
June 823, bore him a son, Charles (Charles the Bald), to whom the Emperor gave Alemannia in 829.
Backed by his two brothers, Lothair rose in revolt and deposed his father. The assembly of Nijmegen in October 830, however, restored Louis
to the throne; and, the following February, at the assembly of Aachen, in a second partition, Lothair was given Italy. In 832 Louis took
Aquitaine away from Pepin and gave it to Charles. The three brothers revolted a second time, with the support of Pope Gregory IV, and
at a meeting near Sigolsheim, in Alsace, once more deposed their father. In March 834 Louis was again restored to the throne and
made peace with Pepin and with Louis the German. Later in 834, Lothair rose again, but alone, and had to retreat into Italy. Encouraged by
his success, Louis made over more territories to his son Charles at the assemblies of Aachen and Nijmegen (837-838)--a move the three brothers
accepted but with bad grace. In 839 Louis the German revolted but was driven back into Bavaria.
Meanwhile, Pepin had died (December 838), and, at the assembly of Worms (May 30, 839), a fourth partition was made, the empire being divided
between Lothair and Charles, with Bavaria left in the hands of Louis the German. Toward the end of 839 Louis the German marched his troops
for the last time against his father, who once more drove him back. The Emperor called an assembly at Worms on July 1, 840. Before it
could meet, however, Louis the Pious died at Petersaue, an island in the Rhine near Ingelheim. He was 62 and had ruled for nearly
27 years. He was buried in the Church of St. Arnulf in Metz by Bishop Drogo, his half brother.
The empire he had inherited in peace, Louis left in disarray. He had engaged in no serious external conflict, although the Danes and others
had continued to make inroads into the empire. From 829 his four sons had been a constant source of disruption; the quarrels among
Lothair, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald were to continue for decades after his death. In many ways Louis seems to have been an
estimable person. He was presumably given the epithet the Pious because of his devoutness, his liberality to the church, his interest
in ecclesiastical affairs, and the good education he had received. Contemporary historians vary little in their judgment: the
Astronomer of Limousin stresses his continued courage in the face of adversity; Thegan, bishop of Trier, gives a long and admiring description
of his person, his talents, his Christian charity, his devoutness, and his skill as a hunter; and the poem of Ermoldus Nigellus is
full of adulation.He was the Emperor of the West.