Bertha, or Bertrada II of Laon, is known for two things: She was the mother of Charlemagne, and she had a misshapen foot. Exactly how it looked, we do not know, but from her nicknames Greatfoot and Goosefoot we might take a guess.
The Frankish queen married
Pepin the Short in
740 and died in
783. She was the only one to offer their children any
education, thus perhaps raising them from "
barbarism". She tried and failed to reconcile Charlemagne with his brother
Carloman. Apart from that she figures in
Carolingian legend as a special
patron of
children.
Her name and her connection to children has led many to associate her with Old Mother Goose of the nursery rhymes. Scholars, as scholars will, disagree on this theory. Bertrada, if we could ask her, probably would answer with a rhyme or a riddle.