Cancor, Count of Hesbaye

Cancor (d. 771), Count of Hesbaye, son of Robert I, Count of Hesbaye, and his wife Williswinda.

In 764, Cancor founded Lorsch Abbey together with his widowed mother Williswinda as a proprietary church and monastery on their estate, Laurissa (Lorsch). They entrusted its government to Cancor's cousin Chrodegang, Archbishop of Metz, son of Cancor's aunt Landrada. Chrodegang dedicated the church and monastery to Saint Peter and became its first abbot. The founders enriched the new abbey later by further donations.

In 766, Chrodegang resigned as Abbot of Lorsch owing to his other important duties as Archbishop of Metz. He then sent his brother Gundeland, another nephew of Cancor, to Lorsch as his successor.

According to one source, Cancor was probably related to the Robertians. His father's name may have been Rodbert, and Robert may have been his brother or his nephew.

In 770, Cancor married a noblewoman Angila, of unknown parentage. Cancer and Angila had five children:

• Heimrich (d. 5 May 795), Count of the Upper Rhiengau, who died in the Battle of Lüne and the Elbe, a campaign in Charlemagne’s Saxon Wars
• Embert (d. 803), Bishop of Worms, 770-803
• Rachilt (d. after 1 November 792), Nun at Lorsch
• Euphemia, Nun at Lorsch.

Through his son Heimrich, Cancor was the great-grandfather of Poppo of Grapfeld, and so an early member to the Frankish House of Babenberg.

Cancor was succeeded as Count of Hesbaye by his brother Thuringbert.

Sources

• Riché, Pierre. The Carolingians, a Family who Forged Europe.
• Medieval Lands Project, Grafen im Wormsgau
• Chrondegand, in The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)