Grifo (c. 726–753) was the son of the Frankish Mayor of the Palace and de facto ruler of the Franks Charles Martel and his second wife Swanachild.
After the death of Charles Martel, power may well have been intended to be divided among Grifo and his half-brothers Pepin the Short and Carloman. Grifo, who was considered illegitimate by Pepin and Carloman, was besieged in Laon by his half-brothers, captured, and imprisoned in a monastery.
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Pepin the Short (Latin: Pipinus; French: Pépin le Bref; German: Pippin der Kurze; c. 714 – 24 September 768) was King of the Franks from 751 until his death in 768. He was the first Carolingian to become king.
Pepin was the son of the Frankish prince Charles Martel and his wife Rotrude. Pepin's upbringing was distinguished by the ecclesiastical education he had received from the Christian monks of the Abbey Church of St. Denis, near Paris. In 741, after Pepin and his older brother Carloman besieged their half-brother Grifo (who did not accept their father's plans for succession) at Laon and imprisoned him in a monastery, he and Carloman succeeded their father as the Mayor of the Palace; In effect, Pepin reigned over Francia jointly with his elder brother, Carloman. Pepin ruled in Neustria, Burgundy, and Provence, while his older brother Carloman established himself in Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia. The brothers were active in suppressing revolts led by the Bavarians, Aquitanians, Saxons, and the Alemanni in the early years of their reign. In 743, they ended the Frankish Interregnum by choosing Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian monarch, as figurehead King of the Franks.
The siege of Laon was a Frankish siege of the rebel Grifo's fortified city of Laon in 741. The Frankish army under the Mayors of the Palace, the brothers Carloman and Pepin the Short, besieged the fortress and took Grifo, the Mayors' half-brother, captive.
The County of Maurienne (Latin: Comitatus Maurianensis; Arpitan: Comtât de Moryèna; French: Comté de Maurienne; Italian: Contea di Moriana) was a county in the Maurienne Valley of Upper Burgundy during the Middle Ages. Its seat was Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.
In the 6th century, King Guntram raised the church of Maurienne into an episcopal see. In 753, Grifo was defeated by the forces of Pepin the Short in the valley on his way to Italy. The county was bestowed upon Humbert the White-Handed in 1032 for his assistance in Conrad the Salian's Italian campaigns against Aribert, archbishop of Milan. He was buried in Saint-Jean's cathedral. Along with Savoy proper (Sapaudia), this formed the nucleus of the county of Savoy which developed into the kingdoms of Sardinia and Italy under Humbert's dynasty. Maurienne continued to be noted in the formal titles of the Sardinian and Italian kings. During the unification of Italy, however, the Maurienne Valley itself was ceded to Napoleon III's France, where it now forms the commune of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.