Welf (father of Judith)

Welf (or Hwelf) I of Altdorf (died 825) was master of several counties in the southern Rhineland & Bavaria. His family became politically powerful when Louis the Pious chose his oldest daughter as his 2nd wife. Though Welf himself never became publicly prominent, his family became interwoven with the Carolingian dynasty.

He is the oldest known member of the Elder House of Welf. Welf is mentioned only once: on the occasion of the wedding of his daughter Judith with Emperor Louis the Pious in 819.^[1]

Marriage and issue

Welf married Hedwig, Duchess of Bavaria, daughter of the Saxon count Isambart; Hedwig was abbess of Chelles. They had the following children:

• Judith, Roman Empress and Frankish Queen, died 843;
• Rudolph, died 866;
• Conrad, Count of Paris, ancestor of the Welf kings of Burgundy;
• Hemma, Frankish Queen, married to Louis the German, son of Louis the Pious, died 876.

Sources

Pierre Riche, The Carolingians, A family who Forged Europe (translated by Michael Idomir Allen; University of Philadelphia Press, 1993), pp. 52, 149, T5

Notes

References

• Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands Project on Welf, the Margrave of Swabia, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, retrieved August 2012 ,