No More Learning



## p. 140 (#186) ############################################

140
The German protectorate
1
1
tells us,
a
C. The kingdom of Burgundy and its annexation to the Empire.
Rodolph II did not long survive this treaty. He died on 12 or
13 July 937, leaving the government to his young son Conrad, in after
years called the Peaceful, and then aged about fifteen at most.
The youth and weakness of the new king were sure to be a temptation
to his neighbours. Apparently Hugh of Arles, King of Italy, planned
how he might turn the situation to account, for as early as 12 December
937, we find him on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, where he took to
wife Bertha, mother of young Conrad and widow of Rodolph II. Soon
afterwards, he married his son Lothar to Bertha's daughter, Adelaide.
The new King of Germany, Otto I, who in 937 had just succeeded
his father, Henry I, could not look unmoved on these manoeuvres.
Without loss of time he set out for Burgundy, and, as his biographer
“ received into his possession the king and the kingdom. ” In
reality it was a bold and sudden stroke ; Otto, cutting matters short,
had simply made young Conrad prisoner. For about four years he
kept him under a strong guard, taking him about with him on all his
journeys and expeditions, and when he released him, at about the end
of 942, he had made sure of his fidelity.
Thenceforward the king of Burgundy seems to be no more than a vassal
of the German king. When in 946 Otto went to the help of Louis IV
d'Outremer, against the aggressions of Hugh the Great, Conrad with
his contingent of troops accompanied him. In May 960 we find him at
Otto's court at Kloppen in the neighbourhood of Mannheim. Gradually
the bonds that unite the king of Germany and the king of Burgundy
were drawn closer; in 951 Otto married Adelaide, sister of Conrad,
and widow of Lothar, King of Italy; ten years later he was crowned
king of Italy at Pavia, and (2 February 962) received the imperial
crown at Rome. From this time onward, apparently, he looks upon the
kingdom of Burgundy as a sort of appendage to his own dominions ; not
only does he continue to keep Conrad always in his train (we find him
for instance in 967 at Verona), but he makes it his business to expel
the Saracens settled at Le Frainet (Fraxinetum) in the district of
St-Tropez, and in January 968 makes known his intention of going in
person to fight with them in Provence.
Under Rodolph III, son and successor of Conrad, the dependent posi-
tion of the king of Burgundy in relation to the Emperor, becomes more
and more marked. Rodolph III, on whom even during his life-time his
contemporaries chose to bestow the title of the “Sluggard (ignavus)," does
not seem, at least in the early part of his career, to have been lacking
in either energy or decision. Aged about twenty-five at the time of his
accession (993), he attempted to re-establish in his kingdom an authority
1 See supra, Chapter iv.
p. 79.


## p. 141 (#187) ############################################

The Count Otto-William
141
which, owing to the increasing strength of the nobles, was becoming
daily more precarious. A terrible rebellion was the result, against
which all the king's efforts broke helplessly. Incapable of subduing the
revolt, he was obliged to have recourse to the German sovereign. The
aged empress, Adelaide, widow of Otto I and aunt of young Rodolph III,
hastened to him in 999 and journeyed with him through the country,
endeavouring to pacify the nobles.
At the end of the same year, 999, she died, and hardly had two years
passed when the Emperor Otto III followed her to the grave (23 January
1002). Under his successor, Henry II of Bavaria, German policy soon
shewed itself aggressive and encroaching. In 1006 Henry seized the
town of Basle, which he kept for several years; soon afterwards he
exacted from Rodolph an oath that before he died he would name him
his heir, and ten years later events occurred which placed the king of
Burgundy completely at his mercy.
For reasons which are still to some extent obscure, the “ Count of
Burgundy,” Otto-William, and a large group of the lords had just
broken out into revolt against Rodolph. In his character of “count of
Burgundy " Otto-William was master of the whole district correspond-
ing to the diocese of Besançon, and as he held at the same time the
county of Mâcon in the kingdom of France, and was brother-in-law of
the powerful bishop Bruno of Langres, and father-in-law of Landry,
Count of Nevers, of William the Great, Duke of Aquitaine, and of
William II, Count of Provence, he was the most important person in the
kingdom of Burgundy. As a contemporary chronicler Thietmar, Bishop
of Merseburg, says while the events were yet recent, “ Otto-William
though“ nominally a vassal of the king” had a mind to live as "the
sovereign master of his own territories. "
The dispute broke out on the occasion of the nomination of a new
archbishop to the see of Besançon. Archbishop Hector had just died,
and immediately rival claimants had appeared, Rodolph seeking to have
Bertaud, a clerk of his chapel, nominated, and Count Otto-William
opposing this candidature in the interest of a certain Walter. The
real question was, who was to be master in the episcopal city, the
king or his vassal ? Ostensibly the king won the day; Bertaud was
elected, perhaps even consecrated. But Otto-William did not submit.
He drove Bertaud out of Besançon, installed Walter by force, and, as
the same Bishop Thietmar relates, carried his insolence so far as to
have Bertaud hunted by his hounds in order to mark the deep contempt
with which this intruder inspired him. “And,” adds the chronicler, “ as
the prelate, worn out with fatigue, heard them baying at his heels, he
turned round, and making the sign of the cross in the direction in which
he had just left the print of his foot, let himself fall to the ground,
expecting to be torn to pieces by the pack. But those savage dogs, on
sniffing the ground thus hallowed by the sign of the cross, felt them-
99
CH 1.


## p. 142 (#188) ############################################

142
German intervention
selves suddenly stopped, as if by an irresistible force, and turning back,
left God's true servant to find his way through the woods to a more
hospitable region. ”
Otto-William was triumphant. Rodolph, having exhausted all his
resources, was obliged to ask help of Henry II. An interview took
place at Strasbourg in the early summer of 1016. Rodolph made his
appearance with his wife, Ermengarde, and two of her sons who did
homage to the Emperor. Rodolph himself, not satisfied with renewing
the engagement to which he had already sworn, to leave his kingdom on
his death to Henry, recognised him even then as his successor and swore
not to undertake any business of importance without first consulting him.
As to Otto-William, he was declared to have incurred forfeiture, and
his fiefs were granted by the Emperor to some of the lords about his
court.
Next came the carrying out of this programme, a matter which
bristled with difficulties. The Emperor himself undertook the despoil-
ing of the Count of Burgundy. But entrenched within their fortresses,
Otto-William and his partisans successfully resisted capture. Henry
could only ravage the country, and being recalled by other events to the
northern point of his dominions, was obliged to retreat without having
accomplished anything. Thus the imperial intervention had not availed
to restore Rodolph's authority. Again abandoned to his own resources,
and incapable of making head against the rebels, the king of Burgundy
gave ear to the proposals of the latter, who offered to submit on con-
dition that the engagements of the Treaty of Strasbourg were annulled.
Just at first, Rodolph appeared to yield. But the Emperor certainly
lent no countenance to the expedient, the result of which would be
disastrous to himself, and as early as February 1018 he compelled
the king of Burgundy, his wife, his step-sons and the chief nobles of
his kingdom solemnly to renew the arrangement of Strasbourg? He
then directed a fresh expedition against the county of Burgundy. It
is not known, however, whether its results were any better than those of
the expedition of 1016.
A few years later, when Henry II died (13 July 1024) Rodolph
attempted to shake off the Germanic suzerainty, by claiming that former
agreements were ipso facto invalidated by Henry's death. The latter's
.
successor, Conrad II of Franconia, at once made it his business per-
emptorily to demand what he looked upon as his rights, and Rodolph
1 This account of the years 1016-18, which are of the first importance in the
history of Burgundy, departs very notably from that given by the latest learned
authority who has devoted attention to the question, M. René Poupardin, in his
study, Le royaume de Bourgogne, pp. 126-134. Our account is founded on a fresh
study of the text of Thietmar of Merseburg and of Alpert, whose meaning appears
to us not to have been always clearly brought out till now. The text of Alpert is,
moreover, evidently inexact as to most of the points. Although a contemporary, he
has made himself the echo of loose reports denied by other authors.
#


## p. 143 (#189) ############################################

The succession to Rodolph III
143
was forced to submit. He even went as a docile vassal to Rome, to be
present at the imperial coronation of the new prince (26 March 1027),
and a few months later, at Basle, he solemnly renewed the conventions of
Strasbourg and Mayence.
Rodolph III himself only survived this new treaty a few years. On
5 or 6 Sept. 1032 he died, without legitimate children, after having sent
the insignia of his authority to the Emperor.
It seemed as though the Emperor Conrad had nothing to do but
come and take possession of his new kingdom. The chief opponent
of his policy in Rodolph's lifetime, Otto-William, Count of Burgundy,
had died several years before in 1026, and the principal nobles of the
kingdom had in 1027 come with their king. to Basle to ratify the con-
ventions of Strasbourg and Mayence. The course of events, however,
was not to be so smooth.
Already, for some time Odo II, Count of Chartres, Blois, Tours, Troyes,
Meaux and Provins, the most formidable and turbulent of the king of
France's vassals, had been intriguing with the Burgundian lords to be
recognised as the successor of King Rodolph. He had even attempted,
though without success, to inveigle the latter into naming him as his
heir, to the exclusion of his imperial rival. He put himself forward in
his character of nephew of the king of Burgundy, his mother being
Rodolph's sister, whereas the Emperor Conrad was only the husband of
that king's niece
No sooner had Rodolph closed his eyes, than Odo II, profiting by the
Emperor's detention at the other end of his dominions, owing to a war
against the Poles, promptly crossed the Burgundian frontier, seized upon
several fortresses in the very heart of the kingdom, such as Morat and
Neuchâtel, and thence marching upon Vienne, forced the Archbishop,
Léger, to open the gates and, with a view to being crowned, made sure of
!
!
1
For the sake of greater clearness, a short table of the family of the kings
of Burgundy, so far as they concern our narrative, is subjoined :
Rodolph I
King of Burgundy 888-911 or 912
Rodolph II
King of Burgundy 911 or 912-937
Conrad the Pacific
King of Burgundy
937-993
Adelaide=Otto I
King of Germany
and Emperor
Gisela
= Henry,
Duke of
Bavaria
Rodolph III Bertha (1)=Odo I Gerberga=Herman Otto II
King of Burgundy
Count of
Duke of Swabia Emperor
993–1032
Blois
Henry II
Елmperor
Odo II
Count of Blois
Gisela=Conrad II Otto III
Emperor Emperor
CH, P1,


## p. 144 (#190) ############################################

144
The rival claimants
his adhesion. The expedition thus rapidly carried out, with a decision
all the more remarkable as Odo II had at that very moment to reckon
with the hostility of the king of France against whom he had rebelled'.
certainly had the result of deciding a large number of the Burgundian
lords, whether willingly or unwillingly, to declare for the Count of Blois.
The Archbishop of Lyons and the Count of Geneva pronounced against
the Emperor. It was high time for the latter to intervene.
Having secured the submission of the Polish duke, Mesco II, Conrad
hastened back and in the depth of winter marched without stopping upon
Basle (January 1033). From thence he quickly reached Soleure and then
the monastery of Payerne, to the east of Lake Neuchâtel. He took ad-
vantage of the Feast of Candlemas (2 February) to have himself solemnly
elected and crowned there as king of Burgundy by the nobles who
favoured his cause and had come to meet him. From thence he ad-
vanced to lay siege to Morat, which was held by the partisans of the
Count of Blois. But the cold was so intense and the resistance of the
besieged so determined that Conrad was forced to abandon the enterprise
and fall back upon Zurich, and from thence return to Swabia until the
season should be more favourable.
Luckily for the Emperor, Odo was obliged during the spring
of 1033 to make head against Henry I, King of France, who for
the second time had made an attempt upon Sens”, and he was for several
months quite unable to follow up his early successes in Burgundy.
Some months later hostilities were resumed between Conrad and his
rival, but already the latter had begun to cherish new projects, and
instead of entering Burgundy he invaded Lorraine and threatened Toul.
Conrad replied by an invasion of Champagne. Both parties, having
.
grown weary of the fruitless struggle, decided on opening negotiations.
A meeting took place; according to the German chroniclers Odo took an
oath to abandon all claims upon Burgundy, to evacuate the fortresses
he still held there, and to give hostages for the fulfilment of these
promises; finally, he undertook to give the nobles of Lorraine, who
had suffered by his ravages, every satisfaction which the imperial court
should require.
These promises, if they were really made, were too specious to be
sincere. As soon as the Emperor had withdrawn in order to suppress
a revolt of the Lyutitzi on the borders of Pomerania, Odo renewed
his destructive expeditions through Lorraine. Conrad realised that he
must first of all make a good ending of his work in Burgundy; he
gained the help of Humbert Whitehands, Count of Aosta; he was there-
fore able in May 1034 to make a junction at Geneva with some Italian
troops brought to him by Boniface, Marquess of Tuscany; without
1 See supra, Chapter v. pp. 106-7, 123.
See supra, Chapter v. pp. 107, 123.


## p. 145 (#191) ############################################

Success of the Emperor Conrad II
145
difficulty he reduced most of the strongholds in the northern part of the
Burgundian kingdom, forced the Count of Geneva and the Archbishop
of Lyons to acknowledge his authority, and again caused the crown to
be placed solemnly upon his head at à curia coronata held at Geneva.
Morat still held out for the Count of Blois ; it was taken by storm and
given up to pillage. The cause of the Count of Blois was now lost beyond
redemption in Burgundy, and Conrad, recognised by all, or practically
all, could promise himself secure possession of his new kingdom.
Meanwhile, Odo, no more successful in his enterprise against
Lorraine than in his Burgundian expedition, was soon to meet his death
before the walls of Bar (15 November 1037).
From the day that the submission of the kingdom of Burgundy to
the Emperor Conrad became an accomplished fact, the history of the
kingdom may be said to come to an end. Yet it is not well to take
literally the assertions of late chroniclers who sum up the course of
events in such terms as these : “ The Burgundians, not departing from
their habitual insolence towards their king, Rodolph, delivered up to
the Emperor Conrad the kingdom of Burgundy, which kingdom had,
from the time of the Emperor Arnulf, for more than 130 years, been
governed by its own kings, and thus Burgundy was again reduced to a
province. ” But there was really a short period of transition; in fact at
an assembly held (1038) at Soleure, Conrad, doubtless feeling the need of
having a permanent representative in the kingdom, decided on handing
it over to his son Henry. Whatever may have been said on the subject,
it appears that Henry was in fact recognised as king of Burgundy;
the great lords took a direct oath of fealty to him, and the Emperor
doubtless granted him the dignity of an under-kingship, with which the
Carolingian sovereigns had so often invested their sons.
But this form of administration did not last long. As early
as 4 June 1039 King Conrad died, and now Henry III, the young
king of Burgundy, found the kingdoms of Germany and Italy added
to his first realm. The title of king of Burgundy was now, however,
only an empty form. The domains which the sovereign had at his
disposal in Burgundy were so insignificant that during the latter years
of Rodolph III the chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg could write in
reference to him : “ There is no other king who governs thus; he
possesses nothing but his title and his crown, and gives away bishoprics
to those who are selected by the nobles. What he possesses for his own
use is of small account, he lives at the expense of the prelates, and
cannot even defend them or others who are in any way oppressed by
their neighbours. Thus they have no resource, if they are to live in
peace, but to come and commend themselves to the lords and serve
them as if they were kings. ”
The very name of “Kingdom of Burgundy” covered a whole series of
territories without unity, without mutual ties, and over which the king's
a
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH, VI.
10


## p. 146 (#192) ############################################

146
Independence of great vassals
a
6
8
control was quite illusory. Rodolph III, in his latter years, hardly ever
so much as shewed himself outside the districts bounded by the valleys
of the Saône and the Doubs and between the Jura and the upper course
of the Rhône. The greater part of the lords, shutting themselves up
within their own domains, made a show of ignoring the king's authority,
or else merely deferred their revolt because, knowing the king near
at hand, they might fear being constrained by him. “O king! ” ex-
claimed the Chancellor Wipo to Henry III a few years later, “ Bur-
gundy demands thee; arise and come quickly. When the master tarries
long absent, the fidelity of new subjects is apt to waver. The old
proverb is profoundly true 'Out of sight, out of mind. ' Although
Burgundy is now, thanks to thee, at peace, she desires to view in thy
person the author of this peace and to feast her eyes upon the counten-
ance of her king. Appear, and let thy presence bring back serenity to
this kingdom. Formerly, thou didst with difficulty subdue it; profit
now by its readiness to serve thee. ”
As a matter of fact, Burgundy could spare her king very well,
and the efforts made by Henry III to render his government in these
parts a little more effective were to be unavailing. Despite his frequent
visits, and the attempts that he made to reduce to obedience his rebel-
lious vassals, notably the Counts of Burgundy and Genevois, Henry III
accomplished nothing lasting. On his death (1056), his widow, the
Empress Agnes, tried as fruitlessly to restore the royal power by sending
Rudolf of Rheinfelden, Duke of Swabia, to represent her in the kingdom.
Later on, Henry IV, when he had attained his majority, and after him
Henry V in his struggle with the Papacy, met with hardly anything but
indifference or hostility in Burgundy as a whole. Henry V's successor,
Lothar of Supplinburg, himself supplies the proof of the purely
nominal character of his authority in these distant provinces, when, on
summoning the lords of Burgundy and Provence to join an expedition
which he was preparing for Italy, he exclaims: “At sundry times we
have written to you to demand the tribute of your homage and sub-
mission. But you paid no heed, thus emphasizing in an indecorous
manner your contempt for our supreme power. We intend to labour
henceforward to restore in your country our authority, which has been
so much diminished among you as to be almost completely forgotten. . . .
Thus we command you to appear at Piacenza, on the Feast of
St Michael, with your contingent of armed men. '
This summons was to produce no result. The Emperors tried by every
means to make their power a reality. Following the example of the
Empress Agnes, who had sent Rudolf of Rheinfelden to represent her,
Lothar of Supplinburg, and afterwards Frederick Barbarossa were to
try the experiment of delegating their authority to various princes
of the Swiss house of Zähringen whom they appointed “rectors” or
viceroys. This rectorate, soon to be called the Duchy of Burgundia


## p. 147 (#193) ############################################

Later history
147
Minor (lesser Burgundy), was, however, only effective to the east of the
Jura, that is, practically over modern Switzerland, and it disappeared in
1217 on the extinction of the elder line of Zähringen. In 1215
Frederick II was to try a return to the same policy, making choice of
William of Baux, Prince of Orange, then in 1220 of William, Marquess
of Montferrat; from 1237 onwards, he was to be represented by im-
perial vicars. We shall see the Emperors make an appearance, in an
intermittent fashion, in the kingdom and sometimes seeming to re-possess
themselves of a more or less real authority in this or that district.
Frederick Barbarossa, in particular, after his marriage with Beatrice,
the heiress of the county of Burgundy, will appear as unquestioned
master in the diocese of Besançon, and be crowned king of Arles in
1178; Frederick II will for a time recover a real power of action in
Provence and the Lyonnais; and again in the fourteenth century,
Henry VII, strong in the support of the princes of Savoy, will rally to
his standard large numbers of the nobles of the kingdom. Charles IV
will characteristically go through the empty form of coronation in 1365,
But these will be isolated exceptions, leading to nothing.
Incapable of enforcing their authority, the Emperors, from the latter
part of the twelfth century onwards, more than once will even meditate
restoring the kingdom of Arles, as it is now most frequently called, to
its former independence,' reserving the right to exact from its new king
the recognition of their suzerainty. Henry VI will offer it to his prisoner,
Richard Cæur de Lion in 1193 ; Philip of Swabia to his competitor,
Otto of Brunswick in 1207; Rudolf of Habsburg will consider en-
trusting it in 1274 to a prince of his family, and later on to an Angevin
prince, an idea to be revived by Henry VII in 1310.
But all these efforts prove vain. For long centuries the kingdom of
Arles remains in theory attached to the Empire, but little by little, this
kingdom, over which the German sovereigns could never secure effective
control, will crumble to pieces in their hands. Out of its eastern
portion the Swiss confederation and the duchy of Savoy will be formed ;
the kings of France, in the course of the fourteenth century, will succeed
in regaining their authority over the Vivarais, the Lyonnais, the Valen-
tinois and Diois, and Dauphiné, successively. To these, a century later,
will be added Provence, which had already been long in French hands.
CH. VI.
10_2


## p. 148 (#194) ############################################

148
CHAPTER VII.
ITALY IN THE TENTH CENTURY.
The death of the Emperor Lambert in October 898 dealt a blow to
the royal power in North Italy, the Regnum Italicum of the tenth century.
In place of the born ruler, who had mastered his own vassals and made
himself protector of the Papacy, there succeeded Berengar, mild and
cheatable. Berengar, too, was weak in resources. His own domains lay
awkwardly in the extreme north-east, in Friuli and the modern Veneto, not
like Lambert's in the centre; and he had not like Lambert the support
of a large group of the great nobles and bishops who formed the real
source of power in Italy. Two magnates in especial were equally faith-
less and formidable, Adalbert the Rich, Marquess of Tuscany, in the
centre, and Adalbert, Marquess of Ivrea, on the western frontier. In vain
did Berengar marry his daughter Gisela to Adalbert of Ivrea and give
the Tuscan his freedom from the prison to which Lambert had consigned
him for revolt. A plot was hatching, when disaster befel king and
kingdom.
Already in 898 the Hungarians, or Magyars', had raided the present
Veneto from their newly-won settlements on the river Theiss. In 899 a
larger swarm made its way from Aquileia to Pavia. Berengar, always a
gallant warrior, strove to rise to the occasion. From the whole Regnum
Italicum his vassals came to the number of 15,000 men-at-arms. Before
them the outnumbered Magyars fled back, but were overtaken at the
river Brenta. Their horses were worn out, they could not escape,
and the
tradition, perhaps influenced by a sense of tragedy, tells of their proffers
refused by the haughty Christians. Yet on 24 September they surprised
their heedless foes and scattered them with fearful slaughter. For nearly
a year the Lombard plain lay at their mercy, though few fortified cities
were taken and they did not cross the Apennines. Amid his faithless
vassals, with his land desolated, Berengar submitted to pay blackmail,
which at least kept the Magyars his friends if it did not save Lombardy
from occasional incursions. The only mitigation of the calamity was
the defeat of the Hungarians on the water when in 900 they assaulted
Venice under her doge Pietro Tribuno.
i See Vol. 1. Chapter xu. (A).


## p. 149 (#195) ############################################

Berengar I and Louis III
149
a
Berengar had lost men, wealth and prestige, he was too clearly
profitless for his subjects, and the death at Hungarian hands of many
bishops and counts left the greatest magnates greater than ever. The
plot against him, already begun, gathered strength. It was headed by
Adalbert II the Rich of Tuscany, whose wife Bertha, the widow of a Pro-
vençal count, was daughter of Lothar II of Lorraine and thus grand-
daughter of the Emperor Lothar I; and its object was to restore
Lothar I's line to Italy in the person of Louis of Provence, grandson of
the Emperor Louis II. The Spoletan party, the Empress Ageltrude, and
Pope John IX, the old partisan of Lambert, were, it seems, won to the
plan, and the hand of the Byzantine princess Anna, daughter of Leo VI,
was obtained for the pretender. When Louis came to Italy in Sep-
tember 900, Berengar, faced by a general defection, could only retreat
beyond the Mincio, while his rival, surrounded by the magnates, pro-
ceeded to Rome to receive the imperial crown in February 901 from the
new Pope Benedict IV. But Louis had no great capacity, and the
magnates were fickle of set purpose, for, says the chronicler Liudprand
in a classic passage, they preferred two kings to play off one against the
other. In 902 a counter-change was brought about. Berengar advanced
to Pavia, and Loạis, who had been unable to get away quickly enough,
was allowed to withdraw on taking an oath never to return. Within
three years (905), however, Bertha once more tempted her kinsman to
invade Italy.
He was to be furnished, perhaps, with a Byzantine subsidy'.
Once more Berengar fled east, this time to Bavaria, for Adalard, Bishop
of Verona, his chief stronghold, called in his rival. Louis heedlessly
thought himself secure and was surprised and captured (21 July) by
Berengar to whom the Veronese citizens, though not their bishop, were
always loyal. No risks were taken by the victor, and Louis was sent
back to Provence blind and helpless. By an atrocity unlike his usual
dealings Berengar at last secured an undisputed throne. Real control .
over great nobles and bishops he was never to obtain.
While the Regnum Italicum lay invertebrate in the hands of the
magnates, South Italy was even more disordered and tormented. For
sixty years the land had suffered from the intolerable scourge of Saracen
ravages. While a robber colony, established almost impregnably on the
river Garigliano, spread desolation in the heart of Italy over the Terra
di Lavoro and the Roman Campagna, the true base of the Muslims lay
in Sicily. There the mixed Berber and Arab population, who had
swarmed in under the Aghlabid dynasty of ķairawān, were on the point
of completing the conquest of the Christian and Greek eastern portion of
>
At least the Pseudo-Symeon Magister states (Ann. Leon. Basil. fil. cap. 14) that
the eunuch Rhodophylus in 904 was taking 100 lbs. of gold “to the Franks. ”
But
the other narrators, e. g. John Cameniates, De excidio Thessalonicae, cap. 59, state that
this sum was for the Byzantine army then fighting “the Africans," and in any case
it was diverted to ransom the walls of Thessalonica from destruction by the Moslems.
CH. VII.


## p. 150 (#196) ############################################

150
South Italy and the Saracens
the island, and the brief cessation of their direct raids on the mainland
which began c. 889 did not last long.
Subdivision and intestine wars for independence and predominance
paralysed South Italy in its struggle against the Saracens. The greatest
power there was the Byzantine Empire, after Basil I and his general
Nicephorus Phocas had revived its power in the West. Two themes
were set up in Italy, each under its strutegos or general', that of
Longobardia with its capital at Bari which included Apulia and Lucania
from the river Trigno on the Adriatic to the Gulf of Taranto, and that
of Calabria with its capital at Reggio which represented the vanished
theme of Sicily. These detached and frontier provinces, usually scantily
supplied with troops and money owing to the greater needs of the core
of the Empire, were beset with difficulties occasioned by the hostility of
the Italians to the corrupt and foreign Greek officials. The Lombard
subjects in Apulia were actively or potentially disloyal; and a long strip
of debateable land formed the western part of the Longobardic theme,
which was always claimed by the Lombard principality of Benevento, its
ancient possessor. Then there were the native Italian states, all con-
sidered as its vassals by Byzantium in spite of the competing pretensions
of the Western Empire. Three of these, Gaeta, Naples and Amalfi,
were coast towns, never conquered by the Lombards, and, like Venice,
had long enjoyed a complete autonomy without formally denying their
allegiance to East Rome. They were all now monarchies, all trading,
and all inclined to ally with the Saracens, who were at once their
customers and their principal dread. The three remaining states were
Lombard, the principalities of Benevento and Salerno and the county
of Capua. The prince of Salerno acknowledged Byzantine suzerainty.
Benevento had been conquered by the Greeks in 891, only to be
recovered by the native dynasty under the auspices of the Spoletan
Emperors of the West, and then conquered by Atenolf I of Capua in
899. This union of Capua and Benevento was the beginning of some
kind of order in a troubled land, hitherto torn by the struggle of furious
competitors.
It was the Saracen plague, however, which at length brought the
petty states to act together. If the invasion of Calabria by the half-mad
Aghlabid Ibrāhīm who had conquered Taormina, the last Byzantine
stronghold of Sicily, and threatened to destroy in his holy war Rome
itself, “ the city of the dotard Peter,” ended in his death before Cosenza
in 902, and civil wars distracted Sicily till she submitted to the new
Fatimite Caliphate at ķairawān; the Moslems of the Garigliano still
ate like an ulcer into the land. The countryside was depopulated, the
great abbeys, Monte Cassino, Farfa, Subiaco and Volturno, were destroyed
and deserted. At last the warring Christians were so dismayed as to be
reconciled, and Atenolf of Capua turned to the one strong power which
1 See for the system of themes Vol. iv. and its maps.
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Victory of the Garigliano
151
could intervene and professed himself a Byzantine vassal. Help was long
in coming when a warrior Pope stepped in to consolidate and enlarge
the Christian league.
Rome had undergone strange vicissitudes since the death of Emperor
Lambert, but they had had a clear outcome, the victory of the land-
owning barbarised aristocracy over the bureaucratic priestly elements of
the Curia. After the death of Benedict IV (903) the revolutions of
a year brought to the papal throne its old claimant, the fierce anti-
Formosan Sergius III (904–11), over two imprisoned and perhaps
murdered predecessors. Sergius owed his victory to “Frankish” help,
possibly that of Adalbert the Rich of Tuscany, but he was also the ally
of the strongest Roman faction. Theophylact, vesterarius of the Sacred
Palace and Senator of the Romans, was the founder of a dynasty. He
was chief of the Roman nobles; to his wife, the Senatrix Theodora,
tradition attributed both the influence of an Empress Ageltrude and,
without real ground, the vices of a Messalina; his daughter Marozia was
only too probably the mistress of Pope Sergius and by him the mother
of a future Pontiff, John XI, and finally married the new Marquess of
Spoleto, the adventurer Alberic. The power of these and of other great
ladies, which is a characteristic of the tenth century, and sometimes their
vices, too, won for them the hatred of opposing factions whose virulent
report of them has fixed the name of the “ Pornocracy” on the debased
papal government of that unhallowed day. Two inconspicuous successors
of Sergius III were followed, doubtless through Theophylact's and Theo-
dora's choice, by the elevation of the Archbishop of Ravenna to the
papal see as John X (914-28). This much-hated pontiff, who like
Formosus had been translated to the indignation of the strict canonists,
was no mere instrument in his maker's hands. He at once took the lead
in the war with the Saracens. The Byzantine regent Zoë was sending
a new strategos, the patrician Nicholas Picingli, with reinforcements to
Bari. From the south Picingli marched in 915 up to Campania, adding the
troops of Atenolf's successor at Capua, Landolf I, and of Guaimar of
Salerno to his army. Even the rulers of the sea-ports, Gaeta and
Naples, appeared in his camp decorated with Byzantine titles. From
the north came Pope John and his Romans accompanied by the Spoletan
levies under Marquess Alberic. A Byzantine fleet occupied the mouth
of the Garigliano, and after a three months' blockade the starving Saracens
burst out to be hunted down by the victors among the mountains.
This decisive victory began an era of revival in Southern Italy.
Though Calabria and even Apulia remained open to Saracen raids, which
recommenced when the Fatimite Caliph Mahdi conquered Sicily in 917;
though from c. 922 onwards Hungarian bands now and again worked
their way south; a comparative security was restored. The deserted
champaign could be slowly repopulated, the monasteries could claim
once more their ravaged possessions and, as the century wore on, be
a
CH. VII.


## p. 152 (#198) ############################################

152
Anarchy of North Italy
rebuilt. Not a little of this wanly dawning prosperity was due to the
stability which was at last acquired by the princely houses. The rulers
of Capua-Benevento, Salerno and the rest reigned long and transmitted
an assured, if not unharassed, dominion to their heirs. Their thriving
was soon shewn in hostility to their Byzantine suzerain. Picingli's
victory had not ameliorated the government of the Italian themes.
Calabria, the Greek character of which was being accentuated by the
inrush of refugees from Sicily, might only be restive at exactions due to
blackmail paid to the Fatimite Caliph for respite from his subjects'
raids; but the Lombards, who were predominant in Apulia, hankered for
autonomy, and in spite of bribes in cash and titles, were inclined to side
with the aggressive prince of Capua. Landolf I took advantage of the
Apulians' discontent and the weakness of the strategoi, with their in-
sufficient means and their coast harried by Saracen and Slav pirates. In
concert with Guaimar II of Salerno and the Marquess Theobald I of
Spoleto he overran c. 927 the greater part of Longobardia and held it
some seven years. Not till the Eastern Empire could ally with a strong
a
king of the Regnum Italicum was it possible to oust Landolf and his
allies.
The strong king was long in coming. Berengar indeed received in
December 915 the imperial crown from John X, in disregard of Louis the
Blind's rights, perhaps in reward for his concurrence in Alberic's assistance
at the Garigliano, perhaps to counterbalance the then dangerous might
of the Eastern Emperor in the south. But Berengar was no whit more
powerful thereby. Hungarian raids still occurred and a more persistent
enemy began to trouble western Lombardy. At the close of the ninth
century bands of Saracen pirates coming from Spain had established
themselves in a fortified settlement on the coast of Provence, on the Golfe
du St Tropez, called Fraxinetum, the name of which is preserved in Garde-
Freinet. Thence, as their numbers grew, they conducted terrible raids
on the surrounding territory. Provence was the worst sufferer, but, since
the Saracens made the Alps their favourite plundering centre, Italy too
was a victim. The Alpine valleys were desolated, the great roadside
abbeys, such as Novalesa, were destroyed. Bands of pilgrims to the
graves of the Apostles at Rome were robbed and massacred, till the
intercourse of Italy with the north-west was in danger of ceasing. Here
again the magnates fought in isolation when only a combined effort could
root out the evil. Berengar seems to have done nothing, perhaps he
could do nothing, but his discredit naturally increased.
The fickle magnates meanwhile were looking out for another rival
king. Bertha of Tuscany, whose husband Adalbert II was dead, again
worked for the restoration of the line of Lothar I and brought in her
son by her first marriage, Hugh, Duke of Provence, who ruled his native
country during Louis the Blind's incapacity. This first attempt failed
(c. 920) and then a group of northern magnates headed by Adalbert of


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Rodolph II and Hugh of Provence
153
Ivrea, now husband of Bertha's Tuscan daughter Ermingarde, invited
Rodolph II, King of Jurane Burgundy. The accustomed tragicomedy
followed. Rodolph came in 922 and was recognised north of the
Apennines, while Berengar held out in Verona and won infamy by
letting in his Hungarian allies who this time penetrated to Campania.
Next year the rivals fought one of the rare pitched battles of the time
at Fiorenzuola near Piacenza where Berengar had the worse and the death
of 1500 men depleted the scanty ranks of the kingdom's military caste.
Thenceforth Berengar vegetated, seemingly under truce, at Verona till his
murder by one of his vassals on 7 April 924. He had watched, rather than
caused, the anarchy of the realm, just as his lavish grants to the prelates
registered rather than caused the cessation of a central government.
Rodolph was not more fortunate. He had two kingdoms, and while
he was in Burgundy the Magyars laid Lombardy waste. They burnt
Pavia itself in 924 and only left Italy to pass over the Alps and be
exterminated by pestilence in Languedoc. The hopes of the house of
Lothar revived. Adalbert of Ivrea was dead, and his widow Ermingarde
joined with her brother Guido of Tuscany and Lampert, Archbishop of
Milan, in calling in once more her half-brother Hugh of Provence. In
925 they revolted, twice repelled Rodolph's efforts at reconquest, and on
6 July 926 elevated Hugh to the throne. In him a strong king had coine.
Hugh, wily and voluptuous, had his domains and vassals in Provence
behind him and a group of magnates in his favour in Italy. He set
himself to increase the latter by endowing his Provençal kindred. One
nephew, Theobald I, was given the march of Spoleto, another, Manasse,
Archbishop of Arles, was later put in charge of three sees in commendam.
A Provençal immigration set in to the disgust of the Italian nobles.
Hugh, who no more than his contemporaries ventured to reconstitute
the ancient royal government or to recall the alienations of revenue and
administrative functions, did succeed in making the great vassals, as
well as the bishops, his nominees.
To be crowned Emperor was the natural goal of Hugh's ambition.
Without the protectorate over the Papacy an Italian king had but a
maimed dominion in central Italy, and to a mere protection of the
Papacy the functions of the Emperor had been reduced since the time
of Lambert. Indeed it seems that Hugh came into Italy with the
Pope's approval and struck a bargain with him at Mantua in 926.
John X was in a dangerous plight. Theophylact was dead, Marquess
Alberic was dead, their daughter and widow, the sinister Marozia, led
their Roman faction, and had become hostile to the self-willed Pope.
If John X probably strengthened himself by obtaining the Spoletan
march, which Alberic had held, for his own brother Peter, perhaps in
return for Berengar l's coronation, Marozia gained far more power by
her marriage to Marquess Guido of Tuscany. In the faction-fighting
Marquess Peter was driven from Rome c. 927, but a terrible Hungarian
>
CH. VII.


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154
Alberic of Rome
way thus
raid which lacerated Italy from Friuli to Campania enabled him to re-
enter the city. Tradition charged on him an alliance with the raiders.
In any case he was slaughtered by the Romans in 928 and his brother
the Pope was thrust into prison to die or be murdered without much
delay. Marozia now was supreme: “Rome was subdued by might under
a woman's hand,” says the wrathful local chronicler! . Two Popes, so
shadowy that they were forgotten in a few years, wore the tiara in turn
till in 931 she raised her own son, probably by Sergius III, to the
pontificate as John XI. But Marozia was weakened by the death of
Guido and looked around her for a potent consort. She found one in
Guido's half-brother, Hugh of Italy, then a widower. King Hugh may
a
have been baffled in his original scheme of becoming Emperor by the
fall of John X; he had also been drawn off by the Hungarians and a
revolt at Pavia. Now, however, he was so firm on his throne as to
secure the election of his boy son Lothar II as co-regent. His contract
with Marozia is the ugliest episode of the time. He feared his half-
brother Marquess Lambert of Tuscany, himself a descendant of Lothar I
and a possible rival; and he could not marry his half-brother Guido's
widow. Therefore he seized and blinded Lambert, and announced that
his two half-brothers were not true sons of Bertha. With the
cleared he entered Rome in 932 and married Marozia. But the senatrix
and her husband miscalculated and did no more than garrison the castle
of Sant' Angelo. Before Hugh was crowned the Romans rose against
the hated Burgundian foreigner. Their leader was Marozia's own son
Alberic, whom she had borne to Alberic of Spoleto, a youth who knew
Hugh's treatment of inconvenient relatives. Sant'Angelo was besieged
and taken, and although Hugh made his escape Marozia and John XI
were imprisoned. Of Marozia no more is said.
The rule of Alberic marks the open and complete triumph of the
Roman landed aristocracy over the bureaucratic clerical government of
the Papacy. His state resembled the city monarchies of Naples or
Gaeta. On him as “prince and senator of all the Romans”
ferred, it seems by popular election, the exercise of the Pope's secular
power in Rome and its duchy. Though the act was revolutionary and
ultra vires, no denial of the Pope's sovereignty was made. It was enough
that John XI and his four successors were docile instruments of the
prince. Perhaps Alberic dreamed of further change, of reviving a
miniature Western Empire, for he tried to win a Byzantine bride, and,
even when baffled, surnamed his son Octavian. “His face was bright
like his father's and he had old-time worth. For he was exceedingly
terrible, and his yoke was heavy on the Romans and on the holy
Apostolic See? . ” His stern domination seems to have been a blessing to
a
Rome and its duchy, which he secured, while King Hugh about 938 seized
on Ravenna and the Pentapolis which had indeed been ruled by the
1 Benedict. S. Andreae, c. 30.
; Ibid. c. 32.
was con-


## p. 155 (#201) ############################################

Hugh's alliance with Byzantium
155
a
Italian emperors since the days of Guy (Guido). The turbulent Roman
)
nobles and his own treacherous kindred were kept in order, the submissive
churchmen protected by a pious usurper who favoured monastic reform
and was the friend of St Odo of Cluny. It was all Alberic could do,
however, to maintain himself against the persistent efforts of King Hugh
to conquer Rome. A first siege of the city in 933 was a failure, a second
in 936 ended in a treaty by which Alberic married Hugh's legitimate
daughter Alda. This pacification did not last, although negotiated by
St Odo, and in 941 Hugh by bribes and warfare was so successful as just
to enter Rome. Somehow he was expelled, "by the hidden judgement
of God” according to our only narrator? . Yet he would not give up the
war until 946 when he had become a king under tutelage. Alberic
thenceforth ruled unchallenged till his death in August 954.
Hugh and Alberic had been rival suitors for the alliance of the
Eastern Emperor Romanus I Lecapenus, and in 935 Hugh had won the
prize, partly through the pressure he could exercise in the south, partly
no doubt through an eligibility to which the isolated prince of the
Romans could lay no claim. Hugh, by calling off Theobald I of
Spoleto, enabled the Byzantines to recover the lost districts of Apulia,
and eventually the alliance was sealed by the marriage of Hugh's illegiti-
mate daughter to a Byzantine prince, the future Emperor Romanus II.
The two powers suffered in common from the Hungarians and Saracens.
Against the Magyars little was done save to pay blackmail, although
in 938 some raiding bands as they retreated from Campania, were ex-
terminated by the Abruzzans. Common action was, however, attempted
against the Saracens of Fraxinetum, who, besides their formidable
brigandage on the West Alpine passes, raided even as far as Swabia
and by sea must have troubled the Byzantines. In 931 the Greeks
attacked them and, landing at Fraxinetum, made a slaughter, while it
may be that at the same time Hugh's vassals revenged the destruction
of Acqui by cutting to pieces the Saracen raiders and occupying for a
moment the passes? But no permanent result was obtained. Rather
the ravage of the Fraxinetan Saracens grew worse, and in 935 the
Fatimites sent a fleet from Africa which stormed Genoa. At last
Hugh and Romanus I were roused to a joint campaign. In 942 a
Byzantine fleet burnt the Saracens' ships with Greek fire, and blockaded
Fraxinetum by sea, while Hugh with his army invested it by land. The
Saracens could have been rooted out, when Hugh made a treaty with
them : they were to hold the Swabian passes against any attempted
invasion by Hugh's exiled nephew Berengar of Ivrea. Perhaps Italy
was somewhat spared in consequence, but the Alps continued the scene
of their brigandage.
1 Liudprand, Antapodosis, v. 3.
? So we can reconstruct from Flodoard an. 931 and Liudprand, Antapodosis, iv. 4,
which may well refer to the same year.
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156
Relations with Burgundy and Germany
The fear of invasion had been with Hugh since the beginning of his
reign, and in his western policy it was obscurely entangled with his
desire to retain Provence. He evidently wished to consider the kingdom
of Provence as annexed to his Italian crown after the death of the
Emperor Louis the Blind in 928, but in spite of his wide lands and
numerous relatives there he could not obtain recognition as sovereign.
King Raoul of France also nourished ambitions to rule on the Rhone,
and it may be that Hugh hoped to block his way, as well as to buy
off an invasion threatened by Rodolph II of Jurane Burgundy, when
c. 931 he made, on the evidence of Liudprand, a treaty with Rodolph II
by which there was ceded to Rodolph II “all the territory Hugh had
held in Gaul before he became king of Italy. " We may doubt whether
this ineffective treaty referred to more than one or two districts; in any
case Rodolph II lost them again, and his death in 937 opened out a new
prospect? . Hugh contrived to marry Rodolph II's widow Bertha hiinself
and to betroth Rodolph's daughter Adelaide to his own son Lothar II.
Though the rights of Rodolph's young son Conrad were not disputed,
Hugh probably hoped to be the real ruler of Jurane Burgundy, when a
greater competitor appeared on the scene.
The German princes had by no means abandoned hopes of Italian
conquest since the Emperor Arnulf's death, although the internal troubles
of Germany, seconded by Hugh's gifts and embassies, precluded a royal
campaign. Duke Burchard of Swabia had aided his son-in-law Rodolph II;
in 934 Duke Arnulf of Bavaria suffered defeat in an invasion of the
Veneto. But now the German king, Otto the Great, was strong; he
was determined to secure his south-western frontier, and perhaps already
dreamed of reasserting Arnulf's position and taking the imperial crown.
In some way he gained possession of young Conrad and controlled the
government of Jurane Burgundy. All that Hugh seems to have kept
was the Valley of Aosta, and his lands in Provence.
The perpetual danger of an invasion was increased by the readiness
of the magnates to call in a foreign king at any discontent.