Desiderata (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

771) was a queen consort of the Franks. She was one of four daughters of

Desiderius Desiderius, also known as Daufer or Dauferius (born – died ), was king of the Lombards in northern Italy, ruling from 756 to 774. The Frankish king of renown, Charlemagne, married Desiderius's daughter and subsequently conquered his realm. De ...

, King of the

Lombards The Lombards () or Longobards () were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written betwee ...

, and his wife Ansa, Queen of the Lombards. Desiderata was married to

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 ...

in 770 in effort to create a bond between

Francia The Kingdom of the Franks (), also known as the Frankish Kingdom, or just Francia, was the largest History of the Roman Empire, post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks, Frankish Merovingian dynasty, Merovingi ...

and the

Kingdom of the Lombards The Kingdom of the Lombards, also known as the Lombard Kingdom and later as the Kingdom of all Italy (), was an Early Middle Ages, early medieval state established by the Lombards, a Germanic people, on the Italian Peninsula in the latter part ...

. The marriage also sought to isolate Charlemagne's brother

Carloman I Carloman I (28 June 751 – 4 December 771), German Karlmann, Karlomann, was king of the Franks from 768 until his death in 771. He was the second surviving son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon and was a younger brother of Charlemagne. ...

, who ruled over the central territories of Francia. It lasted just one year, and there are no known children.

Marriage to Charlemagne

Desiderata was the first (or possibly second) wife of Charlemagne. (There are questions about the nature of Charlemagne's relationship to Himiltrude, who may have been his first wife.) Carolingian historian Janet Nelson writes that the alliance between the Franks and Lombards arising out of the marriage to Desiderata was directed against Charlemagne's brother Carloman, whose territory it encircled. The marriage was opposed by

Pope Stephen III Pope Stephen III (; 720 – 24 January 772) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 7 August 768 to his death on 24 January 772. Stephen was a Benedictine monk who worked in the Lateran Palace during the reign of Pope Zachary. ...

, who in the summer of 770 wrote to Charlemagne and Carloman bemoaning the union between "the most notable race of the Franks and that fetid brood of the Lombard's that had brought leprosy into the land." There is no mention of this marriage in the

Royal Frankish Annals The ''Royal Frankish Annals'' (Latin: ''Annales regni Francorum''), also called the ''Annales Laurissenses maiores'' ('Greater Lorsch Annals'), are a series of annals composed in Latin in Carolingian Francia, recording year-by-year the state of ...

or their revised version. However, it is mentioned briefly in chapter 18 of

Einhard Einhard (also Eginhard or Einhart; ; 775 – 14 March 840) was a Franks, Frankish scholar and courtier. Einhard was a dedicated servant of Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious; his main work is a biography of Charlemagne, the ''Vita Karoli M ...

's Life of Charlemagne, which records that "at the urging of his mother, harlemagnemarried a daughter of Desiderius."

Debate surrounding her name

Although she is commonly referred to by the name ''Desiderata'' there is some debate surrounding her name. One school of thought is that the name derives from an editorial error in a 19th-century copy of the ''

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The (Latin for "Historical Monuments of Germany"), frequently abbreviated MGH, is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of parts of Northwestern, Central and Souther ...

'' which capitalized the 'D' in ''desideratam filiam'' (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for 'desired daughter'). Janet Nelson argues that it is far more likely that Desiderata's name is actually 'Gerperga.' Nelson provides multiple reasons as to why this is the case, firstly, the name fits in with the names of Desiderius' other daughters, all of which end in the suffix 'perga.' Secondly, Carloman's wife was called Gerberga, and this, Nelson believes, explains why when Gerberga fled to Desiderius after Carloman's death, the ''Annals of Lobbes'' believed that she was fleeing to her father, due to confusion over the similarities of their names. Additionally, in Pope Stephen III's letter to Charlemagne and Carloman, he is not sure of which brother is marrying Gerperga, Nelson argues that this confusion is also caused by the similarity in the names of Desiderius' daughter and Carloman's wife. The Italian writer

Alessandro Manzoni Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (, , ; 7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet, novelist and philosopher. He is famous for the novel ''The Betrothed (Manzoni novel), The Betrothed'' (orig. ) (1827), generally ranked among ...

in his tragedy Adelchi gave her the name Ermengarda.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Desiderata of the Lombards 8th-century births Wives of Charlemagne Repudiated queens Lombard women Year of death unknown Carolingian dynasty 8th-century Lombard people