Hedwig

Hedwig also Heilwig, the wife of Count Welf, and mother-in-law of Emperor Louis the Pious through his marriage to Judith, her daughter.

Life Hedwig 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 Ecbertiner family, a powerful Franco-Saxon Family. She was the daughter of Count Isambart and Thiedrada.

Upon her daughter's marriage to Louis the Pious, the family began benefiting from royal patronage, with the family possessing the previously royal estate of Schussengau in 819.

In 827, Hedwig's other daughter Hemma married Louis the German, making Hedwig mother-in-law to both Emperor Louis and his Son.

Hedwig was ordained the abbess of Chelles before 825, likely entering upon Welf's death. ancestor of the Welf kings of Burgundy Rudolph, Count of Ponthieu (–866) Hemma (–876); married Louis the German, King of East Francia and son of Louis the Pious 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, Britain and the Bavarian Welfs.

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