Adalard received a good education in the Palatine School at the Court of Charlemagne in Aachen, and while still very young was made Count of the Palace.

At the same time, Charlemagne made him prime minister to his son Pepin, King of Italy, in the Carolingian Empire.

His De ordine palatinii discusses in some detail a well-developed intelligence system by the end of Pepin's reign.

[4] At his death in Milan in 810, Pepin appointed Adalard tutor to his son Bernard of Italy, then but twelve years of age.

[2] Adalard was returning from Corvey to old Corbie when he fell sick three days before Christmas: he died about three in the afternoon, on January 1 in the year 827,[7] at the age of seventy-three.