Hedwig, Duchess of Bavaria
Abbess of Chelles
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Biography
Hedwig (c. 778 – after 833) was a Saxon noble woman, the wife of Count Welf I and mother-in-law of Emperor Louis the Pious through his marriage to Judith, her daughter.
Life
She was possibly born at Altdorf in the Frankish lands of Alamannia (present-day Germany). According to Bishop Thegan of Trier, she was a member of the Saxon high nobility, the daughter of Count Isambart. She had a sister, Adalung des Franken, half-brother Hunfrid I de Recia e de Istria, and a brother Guelph, Count of Andech.
In her later life (about 826) she appears as abbess of Chelles near Paris, however, it is uncertain if she had already become a widow by then.
Family
Hedwig married Count Welf I and together 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.
- Mathilda d'Andech von Altdorf
Through her marriage to Welf she is the matriarch of the Dynastic Welf Family and is an ancestor of the Carolingian dynasty, the Kings of Italy, Russia, Brittan, the Hagenéter rulers of Piedmont and the Bavarian Welfs.
Hedwig died 19 April 843 in Bayern, Frankish Empire (present Germany) and was buried in Bayern Lande.