Liber Manualis

Dhuoda was a Frankish writer, as well as Duchess consort of Septimania and Countess consort of Barcelona. She was the author of the Liber Manualis, a handbook written for her son. Her date of birth and death are unknown but it is circa 803–843.

Dhuoda's parentage is unknown, but her education and her connections indicate that her family was wealthy. She married Bernard, Duke of Septimania, at Aachen on 24 June 824, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Another source specifies the date of the 29th of June, 824. Bernard was the son of William of Gellone, Charlemagne's cousin, who was later named the patron saint of knights.

Their first son, William of Septimania, was born on the 29th of November, 826, and the second, Bernard Plantapilosa, on the 22nd of March, 841. In the interim, the couple probably lived apart most of the time: she in Uzes in the Rhone Valley of Southern France, and he at court in Aachen. Dhuoda herself mentions very little of him during this time. According to Dhuoda, she spent this time struggling to maintain her husband's authority in their land and on the border of Francia. She fulfilled the administrative and military responsibilities of Frankish Septimania of Louis the Pious' behalf. One scholar has suggested that a daughter was born in 844, as one chronicler reports the marriage of William's sister.

What little we know of her life comes from her book, the Liber Manualis, or Manual, which Dhuoda wrote for her elder son, William, between 841 and 843. It is known to have been sent to William in 843. It was a work written when Dhuoda had been separated from both her husband and her two sons, the victim of the conflicting ambitions of Charlemagne's descendants. William had been sent as a hostage to the court of Charles the Bald in order to secure the loyalty of his father; Bernard was taken from her before his baptism and was sent to Aquitaine in order to keep him safe.

The context of the time was a long period of warfare among the Frankish nobility.

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