Ruothild (daughter of Charlemagne)

Ruothild (died 24 March 852) was a Carolingian princess and the abbess of Faremoutiers. She was a daughter of Charlemagne and his concubine Madelgard, who is the first of the concubines listed by Einhard in his Life of Charlemagne.

Ruothild is generally thought to have been born after the death of Charlemagne's last wife, Liutgard, in 800, although it has been suggested that she may be the unnamed daughter mentioned in a poem of Theodulf praising Liutgard's relationship with her stepchildren.

As a daughter of Charlemagne, Ruothild probably received an education. Later legend relates that her father gave her a gilt silver reliquary containing a piece of the True Cross. As abbess, she oversaw the transfer of the relics of Burgundofara, the founder and namesake of Faremoutiers, to a new shrine. She had the body wrapped in a red Byzantine silk decorated with bare-breasted Amazons. Her choice of silk suggests familiarity with Orosius' Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, the standard text on the Amazons at the time.

During her abbacy, Ruothild's half-brother, the Emperor Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), granted the smaller convent at Gy-les-Nonains to Faremoutiers to shore up its economic position (and increase his own family's power). In October 840, the Emperor Lothar I confirmed the grant to his "beloved aunt Rothildis" at her request. By 842, as a result of the Carolingian civil war, Faremoutiers fell under the rule of Lothar's half-brother, Charles the Bald, and Ruothild requested his confirmation of the convent's properties, which he gave.

Ruothild's year of death is indicated by a note added in the margin of the manuscript Reg. lat. 141 next to the year 852 in an Easter table. The manuscript was created at Faremoutiers and the note is contemporary. It reads simply Domna ruothild abb[atiss]a obiit ("Lady Ruothild, abbess, died"). The necrology of Faremoutiers supplies the day of her death, 24 March, without indicating the year. Ruothild was succeeded as abbess by Bertrada, who was probably Lothar's daughter. She had been a nun at Faremoutiers since the 830s.