Eadgifu of Wessex

Eadgifu was one of three West Saxon sisters married to Continental rulers: the others were Eadgyth, who married Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor and Eadhild, who married Hugh the Great. Eadgifu became the second wife of Charles, King of the West Franks,[1] whom she married in 919 after the death of his first wife, Frederonne. Eadgifu was mother to Louis IV of France.

In 922 Charles III was deposed and, after being defeated at the Battle of Soissons in 923, he was taken prisoner by Count Herbert II of Vermandois, an ally of the then current king. To protect her son's safety, Eadgifu took Louis to England in 923 to the court of her half-brother, King Æthelstan of England.[2] Because of this, Louis IV of France became known as Louis d'Outremer of France. He stayed there until 936, when he was called back to France to be crowned King. Eadgifu accompanied him.

She retired to a convent in Laon.[3] In 951, Heribert the Old, Count of Omois, abducted and married her, to the great anger of her son.[4]

• Dunbabin, Jean (1999). "West Francia: The Kingdom". In Reuter, Timothy (ed.). The New Cambridge Medieval History. III. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36447-7.
• Lappenberg, Johann (1845). A History of England Under the Anglo-Saxon Kings. Benjamin Thorpe, translator. J. Murray.
• Schwennicke, Detlev (1984) Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band III Teilband 1 (Marburg, Germany: J. A. Stargardt), Tafel 49
• Williams, Ann; Smyth, Alfred P.; Kirby, D. P. (1991). A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain: England, Scotland, and Wales. Routledge. ISBN 1-85264-047-2.

• Eadgifu 3 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England