page_title: Pepin the Hunchback
section_title: Discovery of the plot
hierarchical_section_title: Pepin the Hunchback / Revolt / Discovery of the plot
caption_attribution_description: English: Princely Abbey of Prüm, cropped from a late 19th century map of the Holy Roman Empire showing Prüm as at 1400. The largest neighbours are the Duchy of Jülich (blue-green, north), the Bishopric of Liège (purple, northwest), the Duchy of Luxembourg (orange, south, labelled Herzogtum Lützelburg) and the Electorate of Trier (purple, west). Also visible is the large Electorate of the Palatinate in yellowish green at the southeast of the map (labelled Kurpfalz) and the Rhine — the bold black line running north–south in the east of the map. Deutsch: Fürstabtei Prüm, vom Karte des HRR im 1400 Français&#160;: Abbaye impériale de Prüm, d'une carte du Saint-Empire à 1400
context_page_description: Pepin, or Pippin the Hunchback was a Frankish prince. He was the eldest son of Charlemagne and noblewoman Himiltrude. He developed a humped back after birth, leading early medieval historians to give him the epithet "hunchback". He lived with his father's court 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.
context_section_description: With Charles away, Pepin and his fellow discontented nobles plotted his assassination.  The Poeta Saxo offers a particularly damning account of Pepin and the other rebels, reporting:
  [W]icked men conceived a great crime which almost blotted out forever the shining light of the Franks, for they busied themselves in many ways plotting to put the king to death.  For this purpose a cruel conspiracy is said to have been formed among the Frankish nobles.  Conspicuous among them, the king’s oldest son madly offered himself as the author of this crime, being more ignoble in his own worthless character than in his birth.
  — Poeta Saxo, Year 792
  However, a Lombard named Fardulf exposed the plot and reported it to Charles.  He was later made abbot of the Abbey at St. Denis in thanks for his service to the throne in this event.  When the co-conspirators were captured and accused of breaking their holy oaths (i.e. as mentioned above), they professed a technical innocence against the charge of oath-breaking, claiming they had never actually taken the oath in question (a claim that seems unlikely). This is a rather weak defense, as it doesn't actually do anything to mitigate the charge of attempted regicide.
  The court and king found all of the conspirators guilty, confiscated their lands and condemned them to death as punishment.  However, some of the conspirators walked away with their lives, Pepin included.  Charles was likely unwilling to put to death his first-born son, who still seemed to hold some of his father's affection.  As historian Pierre Riché suggests, "The revolt in 792 of his bastard son Pippin the Hunchback especially distressed him," no doubt as a result of their kinship.  Nonetheless, punishment was still necessary, so Pepin was tonsured and took up the habit of monkhood.  As Einhard describes, "When his [Pepin's] deceit was discovered and the conspirators were punished, his head was shaved, and he was suffered, in accordance with his wishes, to devote himself to a religious life in the monastery of Prüm."
  In Joanna Story's book Charlemagne: Empire and Society, historian Stewart Airlie points out a possible upshot of Pepin's revolt (from Charles' point of view).  He suggests that "Pippin's conspiracy was the last rising against Charlemagne and its suppression permitted the king to slim the royal family down further: only the sons of Hildegard were to inherit..." However, Airlie also points out that the cost of the revolt to Charles was more expansive than the mere insult and threat of death. The Lorsch Annals' entry for 793, the year after the revolt, writes that Charlemagne's loyal retainers were "rewarded abundantly." Charles could not merely punish the members of his court who had been conspirators, "but he also had to reward those who had taken no part in it with gold, silver and silks. Their loyalty could not be taken for granted."
caption: Imperial Abbey of Prüm, cropped from a map of the Holy Roman Empire as at 1400.
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