Death of Emperor Louis on a Rhine island
The annals state that Emperor Louis died on 20 June 840 on a Rhine island below Mainz, within sight of Ingelheim palace.
What this does and does not establish
Prudentius section, pinned Wikisource revision 228344. The excerpt follows the account of his return from pursuing his son; the following passage treats Lothar's response to his father's death.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Region
- Europe
- Theme
- Politics and institutions
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- 840, XII Kalendas Julii
- How we use it
- Year-level placement is limited to the dated source entry.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
Examined bert2.wikitext: 839 heading at line 40 and closing narrative at 54; 840 heading at 56, dated sequence at 59 and aftermath at 62; 841 heading at 64. Line 59 proceeds from the winter feasts through Easter and a May eclipse to the death. Inclusive Roman reckoning converts XII Kalendas Julii to 20 June, securely within Julian AD 840. Original quotation begins at line 59, character 44383.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Annales Bertiniani
Prudentius, bishop of Troyes (second part of the Annales Bertiniani)
The credit or link shown here was corrected after an audit of the retained source.
Quoted text (Latin)
Imperator vero a persequendo filio rediens, correptus morbo, in insulā Rheni infra Maguntiam ad prospectum Ingulenheim palatii sitā, 12. Kalendas Julii defunctus est.AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
The emperor, however, returning from pursuing his son, was seized by illness and died on the twelfth day before the Kalends of July, on an island of the Rhine situated below Mainz within sight of Ingelheim palace.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Annales Bertiniani /Pars Secunda Auctore Prudentio, Trecensi Episcopo https://la.wikisource.org/w/index.php?oldid=228344 Public-domain historical original. Wikisource contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Attribute the fixed transcription and share adapted excerpts alike. Project working translation.
Exact source version
7326a35765ceeb8004c02d56f5ab81cb85d826d6abe938c6d29bf568b1e24a9dChecks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-06. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
No correction has been made to this record’s statement or limits.
Revision s801_west_839_840_1
Exact revision fingerprint
cad1c517836acd65bcbf5236ba844242a02e3f3025952011a42a0e47dc5dd022