Ermengarde (aft852-bef897)

Individual Events and Attributes

Marriage

	Boso of Provence		Fragment of a fresco at Charlieu Abbey, depicting Boso and the Protomartyr Stephen

Individual Note 1

Ermengard (also Ermengarda, Ermengarde, or Irmingard) was the only surviving daughter of Louis II, Holy Roman Emperor. In 876, she married Boso, from the Bosonid, Count of Vienne, who declared himself King of Provence in 879.

In May 878, she and her husband sheltered Pope John VIII, who was taking refuge from the Saracens, in Arles. After her husband's coup d'état in October 879, she helped defend his cities from her Carolingian relatives. In 880, she successfully defended Vienne itself, the capital, from the combined forces of Charles the Fat and the co-ruling kings of France, Louis III and Carloman. In August 881, the newly-crowned Emperor Charles the Fat pillaged and burned Vienne, focing Ermengard and her children to take refuge in Autun with her brother-in-law Richard, Duke of Burgundy. Meanwhile, Boso fled into Provence.

On Boso's death in January 887, the Provençal barons elected Ermengard to act as his regent, with the support of Richard. In May, Ermengard travelled with her son Louis to the court of Charles the Fat, and received his recognition of the young Louis as king. Charles adopted Louis as his son and put both mother and son under his protection. In May 889, she travelled to Charles' successor, Arnulf, to make submission anew.

Through her marriage to Boso, Ermengard also had two daughters and one son:[1]

Ermengard (c.877-917), who married Manasses, Count of Chalon

Engelberga, who married William the Pious, Count of Auvergne.

Louis the Blind

NOTES:

1 Ermengardis on FMG site

SOURCES:

Riché, Pierr. Les Carolingiens: Une famille qui fit l'Europe, genealogical table XII (Bosonides).²

Individual Note 2

Said to be the mistress of "an Emperor of Byzantium" prior to 866.

Sources