Emmo of Loon


Count Emmo or Emmon is one of the first known Counts of Loon. Before him one more count is known with confidence, Giselbert of Loon, but it is not certain that Giselbert was his father. Verhelst for example has proposed that he was his uncle, and that Giselbert's brother Count Arnulf was father of Emmo and also a count of Loon.
More securely, his mother is named clearly as Luitgarde of Namur, a sister of Count Albert of Namur, in a work about the life of her cousin, Bishop Arnulf of Soissons.
Unusually, Emmo and his brother Otto were sometimes jointly referred to as Counts of Loon, though Otto's descendants became Counts of neighboring Duras, perhaps through his marriage to the heiress. Emmo's family was probably descended from the 10th century families who held counties in the local Hesbaye region, which were eventually replaced by Loon and Duras. In 966 the lord of Gelmen was a Count Immo.
Emmo married Suanhildis, who was possibly the daughter of Dirk III Hierosolymita, Count of Holland, and Othelandis of Nordmarck. Emmo and Suanhildis had four children:
Emmo was succeeded as Count of Looz by his son Arnold upon his death.