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Why did Louis I’s three older sons revolt against him in 830?

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Illuminated manuscript portrait of Louis the Pious as a Christian Roman emperor, holding a staff and shield, with Latin text arranged around and over the figure. — Louis I Louis the Pious as a Christian Roman Emperor, portrait from *De laudibus sanctae crucis* by Rabanus Maurus.

The revolt against Louis I (the Pious) in 830 was primarily driven by family and political tensions surrounding the succession of the empire.12

The conflict was sparked by the birth of Louis’s fourth son, Charles II (the Bald), to his second wife, Judith of Bavaria. This event threatened the Ordinatio Imperii of 817, which had established a clear succession plan intended to maintain imperial unity, with the eldest son, Lothar I, as the primary heir.13

When Louis sought to revise this plan to create a kingdom for Charles, he faced significant opposition from his three older sons—Lothar, Pippin, and Louis the German—as well as from nobles who resented the influence of Judith and the perceived corruption of the imperial court. The rebels, supported by disaffected counts, sought to "free" the emperor from the influence of his wife, whom they disparaged, and to protect their own inheritance rights against the new arrangements for Charles.23