The Hattonids were an important imperial noble family in the first half of the 9th century, during the reigns of the

Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...

kings

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...

and

Louis the Pious Louis the Pious (; ; ; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only ...

. They lost their position under

Louis the German Louis the German (German language, German: ''Ludwig der Deutsche''; c. 806/810 – 28 August 876), also known as Louis II of Germany (German language, German: ''Ludwig II. von Deutschland''), was the first king of East Francia, and ruled from 8 ...

. They were patronised by the emperors and were enfeoffed with

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

s on imperial estates. They attended empire-wide councils and were given military commands on the borders to defend the empire from Danish

Vikings Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

and

Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...

. Hailing from

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

and

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

, where they had many lands and ''honores'', the Hattonids were appointed to

prefecture A prefecture (from the Latin word, "''praefectura"'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain inter ...

s and

counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in East Franconia and the central

Rhineland The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...

from an early date. One of their family,

Banzleib Banzleibs was a mid-ninth-century Frankish magnate of the Hattonid family in the Carolingian Empire. He was the Count of Maine in 832. By 838, when he was still at Le Mans, he had been appointed by the emperor, Louis the Pious, as ''comes et Saxo ...

, was both

Count of Maine The capital of Maine was Le Mans. In the thirteenth century it was annexed by France to the royal domain. Dukes of Maine (''duces Cenomannici'') * Charivius (fl. 723) – appears as ''dux'' in a document of 723. Controlled twelve counties and ...

in 832 and, by 838, ''comes et Saxoniae patriae marchio'' ("count and margrave of the Saxon fatherland") under Louis the Pious. The Hattonids more or less controlled Saxony in the last years of Louis the Pious' reign. The Hattonids were staunch supporters of Louis the Pious and the unity of the Frankish Empire. After Louis's death in 840, Banzleib and his brothers, Adalbert, Count of Metz, and Hatto, Count of Nassau, supported Lothair in the subsequent

civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

which arose between Louis's sons and opposed

and the creation of an

East Frankish kingdom East Francia (Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the East Franks () was a successor state of Charlemagne's Carolingian Empire, empire created in 843 and ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911. It was established through the Treaty of Verdun (843) w ...

. On 14 December 840 at , Louis dispossessed Banzleib of his benefices and public offices and granted them to Warin, Abbot of

Corvey The Princely Abbey of Corvey ( or ) is a former Benedictine abbey and ecclesiastical principality now in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was one of the half-dozen self-ruling '' princely abbeys'' of the Holy Roman Empire from the Late Middl ...

. In the Battle of Wörnitz (13 May 841), Adalbert, Count of Metz and possibly also Banzleib fell. Their brother Hatto lost his county of Nassau, too, but he maintained his possessions in Alemannia until at least 857.

Stammliste

#NN ## Hatto (Ato, Uto), 831-841 Count of Nassau, 831-854/857 Count in Alemannia ### Lambert, Abbot of the Schienen monastery ( Öhningen) ## Banzleib, 832

, 838 Count and Margrave in Saxony ## Adalbert (d. 841), 825 attested, Count of Metz,

dux ''Dux'' (, : ''ducēs'') is Latin for "leader" (from the noun ''dux, ducis'', "leader, general") and later for duke and its variant forms (doge, duce, etc.). During the Roman Republic and for the first centuries of the Roman Empire, ''dux'' coul ...

Austrasiorum, fell in the Battle of Wörnitz ## ? daughter, married to Poppo I., Count in the GrabfeldJackman, S. 64/65

References

{{Reflist

Sources

Lexikon des Mittelalters: Seite 104.
* Gerd Althoff: ''Über die von Erzbischof Liutbert auf die Reichenau übersandten Namen.'' in: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Bd. 14 (1980) S. 219–242, hier S. 233–235 u. 237–23
PDF
* Michael Borgolte: ''Die Grafen Alemanniens.'', 1986, S. 60–62 * Alfred Friese: ''Studien zur Herrschaftsgeschichte des fränkischen Adels. Der mainländisch-thüringische Raum vom 7. bis 11. Jahrhundert.'' 1979 *Goldberg, Eric J
"Popular Revolt, Dynastic Politics, and Aristocratic Factionalism in the Early Middle Ages: The Saxon Stellinga Reconsidered."
'' Speculum'', Vol. 70, No. 3. (Jul., 1995), pp 467–501. * Donald C. Jackman: ''Die Ahnentafeln der frühesten deutschen Könige.'' In: ''Herold-Jahrbuch.'' Neue Folge, 15. Band, 2010, S. 47ff * Walther Kienast: ''Die fränkische Vasallität von den Hausmeiern bis zu Ludwig dem Kind und Karl dem Einfältigen.'' 1990 * Karl Schmidt: ''Kloster Schienen.'' S. 282–303 Counts of Maine