Waifer of Aquitaine

Carolingian thrust into Septimania starting in 752 up to the conquest of Narbonne and Pépin´s advance into Roussillon, with a depiction of major war events.

Waifer (a.k.a. Waifar, Waiofar, Waifre, Guyver or Gaifier) was the Duke of Aquitaine from 748 to 768, succeeding his father, Hunold, after the latter entered a monastery.

When asked by the King Pepin the Short to give up Frankish refugees and seized church lands in 760, Waifer refused. The king in turn, after finishing successfully his military campaign in Septimania, marched against him, ravaging the land of Berry and Auvergne. Two counts of the contumacious Aquitanian Duke retaliated by rampaging through Burgundy and prompting Pepin to come south again in 761. He took Clermont and Auvergne in that year and, in the following years (762/763), Berry and Bourges. According to the continuator of the Chronicle of Fredegar, Waifer opposed Pepin cum exercito magno et plurima Wasconorum qui ultra Garonnam commorantur, quem antiquitus vocati sunt Vaceti: "with a great and large army of Vascones from across the Garonne, who in antiquity were called Vaceti". However, Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria revolted against Frankish overlordship and drew off Pepin's attention, leaving Waifer in place.

Until 766, there was a general impasse after the destructive scorched earth tactics implemented by the Frankish Pepin the Short across Aquitaine, though Waifer continued in his opposition to the king. In that year, Pepin returned a third time and drove Waifer beyond the Garonne. Things began to turn sharply against Waifer at this point and, in 767, his capital, Toulouse, fell. He fled, but his dissastified followers, tired of losing wars, murdered him and pledged loyalty to Pepin.

Sources

• Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages, 476–918. London: Rivingtons, 1914.
• Collins, Roger. The Basques. London: Blackwell Publishing, 1990.
• Collins, Roger. "The Vaccaei, the Vaceti, and the rise of Vasconia. " Studia Historica VI. Salamanca, 1988. Reprinted in Roger Collins, Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain. Variorum, 1992. ISBN 0-86078-308-1.
• Collins, Roger. The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–97. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-631-15923-1.
• Collins, Roger. Visigothic Spain, 409–711. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-631-18185-7.

Notes

Preceded by Hunold

Duke of Aquitaine 748–768

Succeeded by none