lxml_moving_tags.py

# say we have a c01 element that looks like this:
'''
<c01>
  [...skipping <did> tag for brevity]
  <c02>
    ...
    <note>This collection is haunted</note>
  </c02>
</c01>
'''

# if we wanted to move the note up to the parent c0x-level element,
# this is how we'd do it

# grab the note element 
# (we're assuming we already have the c01 element assigned to a variable "c01")
>>> note = c01.xpath("//note")[0]

# just appending the note to the end of the c01 element will do the trick:
>>> c01.append(note)
>>> print(etree.tostring(c01))
'''
<c01>
  ...
  <c02>
    ...
  </c02>
  <note>This collection is haunted</note>
</c01>
'''

# if you want more location options than just the end of the element,
# use insert() with the index of the location you want to move things to:
>>> c01.insert(0, note)
>>> print(etree.tostring(c01))
'''
<c01>
  <note>This collection is haunted</note>
  ...
  <c02>
    ...
  </c02>
</c01>
'''