Count Emmo, Immo or Emmon (d. before 17 Jan 1078) is one of the first known
counts of Loon
The County of Loon ( , ) was a county in the Holy Roman Empire, which corresponded approximately with the modern Belgian province of Limburg. It was named after the original seat of its count, Loon, which is today called Borgloon. During the middl ...
(or Looz) in the region of modern
Belgian Limburg
Limburg (, ; or ; , ), also known as Belgian Limburg, is a province in Belgium. It is the easternmost of the five Dutch-speaking provinces that together form the Region of Flanders, which is one of the three main political and cultural sub-d ...
. Before him one more count is known with confidence,
Count Giselbert (or Gilbert), but it is not certain that Giselbert was Emmo's father. Verhelst for example has proposed that he was his uncle, and that Giselbert's brother Count Arnulf was father of Emmo and also a count of Loon.
His mother is named clearly as Ludgarde of Namur, a sister of Albert the count of Namur, in a work about the life of her cousin, Bishop Arnulf of Soissons.
On several occasions, Emmo and his brother
Otto
Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants '' Audo'', '' Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity".
The name is recorded fr ...
were jointly referred to as counts of Loon, though Otto's descendants became counts of the neighbouring castle of Duras. Emmo's family was probably descended from the 10th century families who, like them, had the rank of count in the local
Hesbaye
The Hesbaye ( French, ), or Haspengouw ( Dutch and Limburgish, ), is a traditional cultural and geophysical region in eastern Belgium. It is a loamy plateau region which forms a watershed between the Meuse and Scheldt drainage basins. It has b ...
region. In 966 the lord of Gelmen was also named
Count Immo.
As shown by Verdonk, Emmo married Suanhildis, who was probably the daughter of
Dirk III Hierosolymita, a count in West Frisia, and an ancestor of the counts of Holland. Emmo and Suanhildis had four children:
*
Sophie
Sophie is a feminine given name, another version of Sophia, from the Greek word for "wisdom".
People with the name Born in the Middle Ages
* Sophie, Countess of Bar (c. 1004 or 1018–1093), sovereign Countess of Bar and lady of Mousson
* Soph ...
(d. 1065) married
Géza I, King of Hungary. It is uncertain whether the subsequent dynasty of Kings of Hungary were the descendants of Sophie or Géza’s second wife.
*
Arnold I, Count of Looz
* Thierry (Dirk) de Looz (d. after April 1125), Count of Horn.
* Mechthilde, Abbess of
Munsterbilzen
Bilzen () is a former municipality and city located in the Belgian province of Limburg.
In 2021, Bilzen had a total population of 32,536. The total area is 75.90 km2 which gives a population density of 426 inhabitants per km2.
Bilzen consi ...
[See pedigree p.149 ]
Emmo was succeeded as Count of Loon by his son Arnold.
References
Sources
*Jean Baerten, Het graafschap Loon (11de-14de eeuw), Assen,1969
link
*Souvereyns; Bijsterveld (2008), "Deel 1: De graven van Loon", Limburg - Het Oude Land van Loon
link
*Vanderkindere, Léon (1902), La formation territoriale des principautés belges au Moyen Age
link, Vol.2, Ch. 9, p. 128
*Verdonk, "De herkomst van de heren van Herlaer
link*
1078 deaths
Year of birth unknown
Emmo
{{Belgium-bio-stub