Hugh II OF TOURS (780?-837)

Individual Events and Attributes

Marriage

Individual Note

Hugh (or Hugo) (c. 780 – 20 October 837) was the count of Tours and Sens during the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, until his disgrace in February 828. He was probably a son of Count Haicho of the House of the Etichonen.

Hugh had many possessions in Alsace, including the Sens. He also held the convent of St-Julien-d'Auxerre. He appeared in 811 as an envoy or ambasciator to Constantinople with Haido, Bishop of Basel, and Aio, Duke of Friuli, to renew the Pax Nicephori. In 821, he allied himself by marriage to the royal family; his daughter Ermengard married Louis' son Lothair. In 824, he took part in an expedition in Brittany and, in 826, he accompanied the Empress Judith to the baptism of Harald Klak in Ingelheim. His other daughter, Adelaide, married Conrad I, Count of Auxerre (died 862).[1] She is sometimes said to have taken as her second husband Robert the Strong. She was dead by 886, when Walahfrid Strabo included her epitaph in a poem of his.

In 827, Hugh, along with Matfrid of Orléans, was commissioned by Louis to recruit an army with his son Pepin I of Aquitaine and repel the invasion of the Marca Hispanica by the Moslem general Abu Marwan. Hugh and Matfrid delayed until the threat had passed. For this he was given the nickname Timidus or the Timid. Barcelona being the greatest military accomplishment of Louis' career, the Spanish March meant much to him and Hugh and Matfrid found themselves greatly disfavoured at court. They were deposed in February of the next year.

He remained very influential as the father-in-law of Lothair. He joined Matfrid in inciting Lothair to rebellion and had all his lands confiscated in Gaul. He remained highly influential in Italy, where Lothair created him "duke of Locate" (dux de Locate).

SOURCES:

Lexikon des Mittelalters.

FMG on the family of Hugh of Tours²

Sources