Adalard of Corbie (; c. 751, Huise – 2 January 827) was the son of Bernard who was the son of Charles Martel and half-brother of Pepin; Charlemagne was his cousin. He is recognised as a saint within the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church.
Biography
Adalard received a good education in the Palatine School at the Court of Charlemagne in Aachen, and while still very young was made Count of the Palace. At the age of twenty, he entered the monastery at Corbie in Picardy, a monastery that had been founded by queen Bathild, in 662. As a high court administrator, he attended some meetings that discussed military planning. His De ordine palatinii discusses in some detail a well-developed intelligence system by the end of Pepin's reign. At his death in Milan in 810, Pepin appointed Adalard tutor to his son Bernard of Italy, then but twelve years of age.
When, in 817, Bernard, son of Pepin, aspired to the imperial crown, emperor Louis the Pious suspected Adalard of being in sympathy with Bernard and banished him to Hermoutier, the modern Noirmoutier, on the island of the same name. Adalard's brother Wala was obliged to become a monk at Corbie. After seven years Louis saw his mistake and made Adalard one of his chief advisers. Corvey was an imperial abbey; its territory extended from the bishopric of Paderborn to the duchy of Brunswick. Its abbot was one of the eleven abbots, who sat with twenty-one bishops in the imperial diet at Regensburg. at the age of seventy-three.
Shortly after his death, the Vitae Adalhardi was written by Paschasius Radbertus, who admired Adalhard greatly.
Veneration
Adalard is honoured as patron saint of many churches and towns in France and along the lower Rhine.