Pepin the Hunchback

Pepin the Hunchback
Charlemagne (left) and Pepin. Tenth-century copy of a lost original from about 830
Born	769
Died	811 (aged 42) Prüm
Father	Charlemagne
Mother	Himiltrude

Pepin, or Pippin, the Hunchback (French: Pépin le Bossu, German: Pippin der Buckelige; c. 769 – 811) was the eldest son of Charlemagne. Born to the Frankish noblewoman Himiltrude, Pepin probably developed kyphosis after birth, leading early medieval historians to give him the epithet "hunchback". He lived with his father's court even after Charlemagne dismissed his mother and took another wife, Hildegard. Around 781, Pepin's half brother Carloman was rechristened as "Pepin of Italy"—a step that may have signaled Charlemagne's decision to disinherit the elder Pepin, for a variety of possible reasons. In 792, Pepin the Hunchback revolted against his father with a group of leading Frankish nobles, but the plot was discovered and put down before the conspiracy could put it into action. Charlemagne commuted Pepin's death sentence, having him tonsured and exiled to the monastery of Prüm instead. Since his death in 811, Pepin has been the subject of numerous works of historical fiction.

The circumstances of Pepin's birth remain unclear to modern scholars, especially regarding the legitimacy of his mother's union to Charles. Most Carolingian-era sources dismiss Charles's first union as illegitimate. The contemporary historian Einhard writes merely that Pepin was born to a "concubine", and he does not list him among Charlemagne's legitimate offspring. Although it is possible that Pepin was born to a now-forgotten concubine, Einhard is probably referring to Himiltrude—the first child-bearing partner of Charlemagne, about whom little is now known. However, Einhard and most other Carolingian historians worked in the courts of Charlemagne's successors, and had a vested interest in undermining the legitimacy of the claims of other potential royal lines. These writers may have maligned Charles's union to Himiltrude after the fact, in order to lend a post facto justification to Pepin's later disinheritance.

It is possible that the union of Charlemagne and Himiltrude was a Germanic form of marriage with fewer obligations than the sacramental marriage of the Church—what some medievalists have called Friedelehe—although the concept is controversial.Paul the Deacon writes in his Gesta Episcoporum Mettensium that Pepin was born ante legale connubium or "before legal marriage", but his precise meaning is unclear: he does not specify as to whether Charles and Himiltrude were not fully, legally married by the church, or if they simply got married after Pepin was born. In a letter to Charlemagne, Pope Stephen III described the relationship as a legitimate marriage, but he had a vested interest in preventing Charlemagne from taking a new wife—the daughter of the Lombard king Desiderius, who was a major political enemy of the papacy.