court, perhaps people associated with Emperor Louis' rebellious sons. After he committed said foul deeds towards Louis, he was sent to exile at the church of St. Mary in Strasbourg. Being exiled at a church was commonly a punishment doled out to "criminal clerics" which is another reason many scholars are led to believe his status as a monk or priest. Nigellus describes his time in Strasbourg as an unhappy one, but it seems that his exile was actually rather pleasant and as some evidence shows Nigellus may not have even been under house arrest but actually under protective custody. Fleiner believes that Nigellus was placed under protective custody because he was placed in territory belonging to Emperor Louis' wife Judith who Nigellus admired very much. If the associates who had gotten Ermoldus exiled were planning treason against the royal family, then the emperor may well have been simply removing Ermoldus from the situation. On the other hand, Boutelle believes that Ermoldus may have been exiled for letting his men plunder a church during Pippin's Brittany campaign against Louis' orders as quoted in In Honorem Hludowici: "Save the churches, men, and do not touch the sacred buildings". Overall the reason for his exile remains an unresolved mystery to scholars since we do not have any other primary sources that refer to Ermoldus Nigellus except what is written in his own works. Return to court The ending of Ermoldus' story is ultimately unknown, he could have been reinstated at court but we have little evidence to conclude that. The only suggestion of Ermoldus' return to court is the possibility that he could have been one of Pippin's chancellors (Hermoldus) as documented in three of Pippin's charters issued in the mid-830s. He produced no other surviving works and there are no references of him in any other literature of the time period. Poetry Epistolae After Ermoldus Nigellus was exiled by Emperor Louis, he wrote two poems for King Pippin whose court he had been living at and whom he had fought for in Brittany in 824. It is still unclear when Nigellus' epistles, or letters, to King Pippin were written, but Peter Godman argues that the first letter (Ad Pippinum regem) was written before In honorem Hludowici, and the second letter (Ad eundem Pippinum) was written afterwards in an attempt by Nigellus to form a "series of complementary appeals to the patronage