Quando è nato Carlomanno, re dei Franchi? Quando è nato Carlo il Giovane, figlio di Carlo Magno?

Carloman, king of the Franks (768-771), brother of the celebrated Charlemagne, is traditionally considered a minor figure who has rarely been investigated. He had an independent policy, a chancery that he inherited from his father king Pippin III, and while he lived, he played a central political role in the Frankish kingdom. Recent new evidence suggests that it was Carloman, not Charlemagne, who in Summer 770 married the Lombard princess Gerberga, daughter of king Desiderius and queen Ansa. In that same summer, Charlemagne married the Suebian/ Alemannian princess Hildegard, member of the former ducal Alemannian family. Both kings in Summer 771 had newborn sons: Carloman had Pippin, who was protected by pope Stephen III, Charlemagne had Charles the Younger, who is mentioned for the first time in a royal charter for Saint-Calais in July 771, and who was soon made sub-king of the duchy of Le Mans. The newly discussed evidence states that competition among the two kings was very high especially after they both had new male heirs; the analysis of the first stage of their careers, however, clearly shows that king Pippin III trained his two sons from the early 750s with no apparent preference, and that until 768 they were equally valued and supposed to rule the kingdom of the Franks evenly. This equality depends on the fact that they were born close together: Charlemagne in 748 and Carloman in either 749 or in 747, not in 751 as it is traditionally stated. The last part of the essay finally explores, on the basis of written evidence, the hypothesis that Carloman, not Charlemagne, was Pippin III’s first born, and reassesses some political features that deal with this hypothesis, providing evidence of it.