Rotruda (daughter of Lothair I)
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Rotruda[1] (also Rotrude,[2] Ruotrud[3] or Rotrudis)[4] was the daughter of the Emperor Lothair I and Empress Ermengarde. She was baptized sometime between 837 and 839.[5] An account of her baptism is provided by a participant, Andreas Agnellus, who assisted Archbishop George of Ravenna.[6] According to him, George paid Lothair for the privilege of sponsoring Rotruda as godfather at her baptism and becoming Lothair's compater, a spiritual co-father connected to the emperor by reciprocal obligations.[7][8] The ceremony took place in San Michele Maggiore in Pavia and the baptismal vestments were purchased from the royal palace.[9] Agnellus describes how George
received the daughter of the said emperor, by the name of Rotruda, whom he handed to me, and with my hands I clothed her and decorated her feet with shoes ornate with gold and jacinth, and afterward he celebrated mass for the emperor. Likewise, the Empress Ermengard, attended by her maids, wearing a shining robe, surrounded by a gold fringe, hair bound with fillets, with blue gems, her face veiled, her appearance dripping with sard, emeralds, and gold.[9]
According to Deborah Deliyannis, nothing else is known of Rotruda beyond what Agnellus writes.[10] She is not mentioned in any other narrative source.[11] She may be the Rotruda listed with other women of Lothair II's family in the Liber memorialis of Remiremont sometime after 861. She would have been Lothair II's sister.[2] In 889, the Emperor Arnulf made a donation to the abbey of Saint-Arnould at the request of his relative, Rotruda, and a certain Otto. This may be Lothair I's daughter and Otto her husband.[12] According to another theory, she was the mother of Count Witbert, who in 870 made a donation to the abbey of Saint-Philibert de Tournus for the souls of his parents, Lambert and Rotrudis. The former has been identified as Count Lambert III of Nantes.[13]