Lothar, in alarm, accepted the pardon offered him by his father and
shewed himself at the assembly beside the Emperor in the character of
a dutiful son.
shewed himself at the assembly beside the Emperor in the character of
a dutiful son.
Cambridge Medieval History - v3 - Germany and the Western Empire
As to the Eastern Empire, the Basileis seem always
to have shewn anxiety to keep on good terms with Louis. On various
occasions their ambassadors appeared at the great assemblies held by
him; at Aix (817) to settle a question concerning frontiers in Dalmatia ;
at Rouen in 824 to discuss what measures should be taken in the matter
of the controversy concerning images ; at Compiègne in 827 to renew
their professions of amity. It may be added that it was a Greek, the
priest George, who built for Louis the Pious the first hydraulic organ
ever used in Gaul.
Even from a military point of view, the reign of Louis the Pious
bore at first the appearance of being in some sort a continuation of that
of Charles, under a prince capable of repelling the attacks of his enemies.
In the north, the Danish race were at this time fairly easily held in awe.
One of the rivals then disputing for power, Harold, having been driven
out by his cousins, the sons of Godefrid, came in 814 to take shelter at
the court of Aix. In 815 the Saxon troops with the Obotrite“ friendlies”
made an attempt to restore this ally of the Franks to the throne, under
the leadership of the missus Baldric. Promises of submission were made
by the Danes, and hostages were handed over, but this was the only
result obtained. It was not until about 819 that a revolution recalled
Harold to the throne, whence his rivals had just been driven. He
retained it until a fresh revulsion of feeling forced him again to take
refuge at the court of Louis. On the other hand, in concert with Pope
Paschal, Louis had been endeavouring to convert the Danes to Christianity.
Ebbo, Archbishop of Rheims, was sent on this mission. Setting out in
company with Halitgar, Bishop of Cambrai, he united his labours with
those of Anskar and his companions who were already at work spreading
the Christian Faith in the district around the mouth of the Elbe, where
## p. 7 (#53) ###############################################
Eastern Frontiers
7
Saxons and Scandinavians came into contact with one another. The
monastery of Corvey or New Corbie (822) and the bishopric of Ham-
burg (831) were founded to safeguard Christianity in the country thus
evangelised. When in 826 the Danish prince Harold came to be
baptised at Mayence with several hundreds of his followers, the
ceremony was made the opportunity for splendid entertainments at
which the whole court was present, and was looked upon by the circle
surrounding the Emperor as a triumph. But attacks by way of the sea
were already beginning against the Frankish Empire. In 820 a band of
pirates had attempted to land, first in Frisia, and then on the shores of
the lower Seine, but being beaten off by the inhabitants they had been
forced to content themselves with retiring to pillage the island of Bouin
off the coast of La Vendée. In 829 a Scandinavian invasion of Saxony
had momentarily alarmed Louis, but had led to nothing. In short, it
may be said that for the first part of the reign Louis's dominions had
been exempt from the ravages of the Vikings, but the tempest which was
to rage so furiously a few years later was already seen to be gathering.
The Slavonic populations which bordered Frankish Germany on the
east were also kept within due bounds. In 816 the heorbann of the
Saxons and East Franks, called out against the rebellious Sorbs,
compelled them to renew their oaths of submission. Next year the
Frankish counts in charge of the frontier successfully beat off an attack
by Slavomir, the prince of the Obotrites, who, being made prisoner a
little later and accused before the Emperor by his own subjects, was
deposed, his place being given to his rival Ceadrag (818). The new
prince, however, before long deserted his former allies, joined forces
with the Danes, and unsuccessfully renewed the struggle with the
Franks. The latter found a more formidable opponent in the person of
Liudevit, a prince who had succeeded in reducing to his obedience part
of the population of Pannonia and was menacing the Frankish frontier
between the Drave and the Save. An expedition sent against him
under the Marquess of Friuli, Cadolah, was not successful. Cadolah died
during the campaign, and the Slovenes invaded the imperial territory
(820). It was only through an alliance with one of Liudevit's foes,
Bozna, the Grand Župan of the Croats, that the Franks in their turn
were enabled to spread destruction through the enemy's country, and to
force the tribes of Carniola and Carinthia, who had thrown off their
allegiance, to submit afresh. Liudevit himself made his submission next
year, and peace was maintained upon the eastern frontier till 827-8,
when an irruption of the Bulgarians into Pannonia necessitated another
Frankish expedition, headed this time by the Emperor's son Louis the
German. By way of compensation, unbroken peace reigned on the
extreme southern frontier of the dominions of Louis. The Lombard
populations of the south of Italy continued to be practically independent
of Frankish rule. Louis made no attempt to exert any effective
CH. I.
## p. 8 (#54) ###############################################
8
The Saracens
sovereignty over them. He contented himself with receiving from Prince
Grimoald of Benevento in 814 a promise to pay tribute and assurances
of submission, vague engagements which his successor Sico renewed
more than once without causing any change in the actual situation.
On the south-western frontier of the Empire a state of war, or at
least of perpetual skirmishing, went on between the Franks and either
the Saracens of Spain or the half-subdued inhabitants of the Pyrenees.
In 815 hostilities had broken out anew with the Emir Hakam I,
whom the Frankish historians call Abulaz. The following year the recall
of Séguin (Sigiwin), Duke of Gascony, led to a revolt of the Basques,
but the native chief whom the rebels had placed at their head was de-
feated and killed by the counts in the service of Louis the Pious. Two
years later (818) the Emperor felt himself strong enough to banish
Lupus son of Centullus, the national Duke of the Gascons, and in 819
an expedition under Pepin of Aquitaine resulted in an apparent and
temporary pacification of the province. On the other hand, at the
assembly at Quierzy in 820 it was decided to renew the war with the
Saracens of Spain. But the Frankish annalists mention only a plundering
raid beyond the Segre river (822), and in 824 the defeat of two Frankish
counts in the valley of Roncesvalles, as they were returning from an
expedition against Pampeluna. In 826 the revolt in the Spanish March
of a chief of Gothic extraction gave Louis the Pious graver cause for
disquiet. An army led by the Abbot Elisachar checked the rebels
for the moment, but they appealed to the Emir ‘Abd-ar-Raḥmān, and
the Muslim troops sent under the command of Abū-Marwān penetrated
as far as the walls of Saragossa. At the Compiègne assembly held in
the summer of 827, the Emperor decided on sending a new Frankish
army beyond the Pyrenees, but its leaders, Matfrid, Count of Orleans,
and Hugh, Count of Tours, shewed such an entire lack of zeal and
interposed so many delays, that Abū-Marwān was able to ravage the
districts of Barcelona and Gerona with impunity. The progress of the
invaders was only checked by the energetic resistance of Barcelona, under
Count Bernard of Septimania, but they were able, nevertheless, to with-
draw unhindered with their booty. In 828, in another quarter of the
Frankish Empire, Boniface, Marquess of Tuscany, was taking the offensive.
After having, at the head of his little flotilla, destroyed the pirate
Muslim ships in the neighbourhood of Corsica and Sardinia, he landed
in Africa and ravaged the country round Carthage.
To the extreme west of the Empire, the Bretons, whom even the
great Charles had never been able to subdue completely, continued from
time to time to send out pillaging expeditions into Frankish territory,
chiefly in the direction of Vannes. These were mere raids, up to the
time when their union under the leadership of a chief named Morvan
(Murmannus), to whom they gave the title of king, so far emboldened
the Bretons that they refused to pay homage or the annual tribute to
## p. 9 (#55) ###############################################
The Bretons
9
which they had heretofore been subject. Louis, having attempted in
vain to negotiate with the rebels, made up his mind to act, and
summoned the host of Francia, Burgundy, and even of Saxony and
Alemannia, to gather at Vannes in August 818. The Frankish troops
pushed their way into the enemy's territory without having to fight a
regular battle, as the Bretons, following their customary tactics, preferred
to disappear from sight and merely harass their enemy. The latter
could do no more than ravage the country, but Morvan was killed in a
skirmish. His countrymen then abandoned the struggle, and at the
end of a month the Emperor re-entered Angers, having exacted promises
of submission from the more powerful of the Breton chiefs. Their sub-
mission, however, did not last long. In 822, a certain Wihomarch
repeated Morvan's attempt. The expeditions led against him by the
Frankish counts of the march of Brittany or by the Emperor himself were
marked only by the wasting of the country, and produced no permanent
results. Not until 826 did a new system ensure a measure of tranquillity.
Louis then recognised the authority over the Bretons of a chief of their
own race, Nomenoë, to whom he gave the title of missus and who in
return did homage to him and took the oath of fealty. But the union
of Brittany under a single head was a dangerous measure.
Louis was
blind to its disadvantages, but they were destined to have disastrous
results in the reign of his successor.
Events within the realm were to begin the disorganisation of Louis's
government and ultimately bring about the disruption of the empire
founded by Charlemagne. In July 817 at the assembly of Aix-la-
Chapelle, the Emperor had decided to take measures to establish the
succession, or rather to cause the arrangements already made by himself
and a few of his confidential advisers to be ratified by the lay and
ecclesiastical magnates jointly. The Frankish principle by which the
dominions of a deceased sovereign were divided among his sons, was still
too living a thing (it lasted, indeed, as long as the Carolingian dynasty
itself) to allow of the exclusion of any one of Louis's sons from the suc-
cession. The principle had already been applied in 806, and Louis had
in some sort recognised it afresh by entrusting two of his sons with the
government of two of his kingdoms, while at the same time leaving a third
in the hands of Bernard of Italy. But on the other hand, the Emperor
and his chief advisers were no less firmly attached to the principle of the
unity of the Empire, “by ignoring which we should introduce confusion
into the Church, and offend Him in Whose Hands are the rights of all
kingdoms. ” “Would God, the Almighty,” wrote one of the most
illustrious of the thinkers upholding the system of the unity of the
Empire, Archbishop Agobard of Lyons, “that all men, united under a
single king, were governed by a single law! This would be the best
method of maintaining peace in the City of God and equity among
the nations. " And the wisest and most influential of the clergy in
a
CH. 1.
## p. 10 (#56) ##############################################
1
10
Divisio Imperii
the kingdom thought and spoke with Agobard, because they realised
the advantages which accrued to the Church from the government of a
single emperor in a realm where Church and State were so intimately
connected. Throughout these struggles, which disturbed the whole of
the reign of Louis the Pious, the party in favour of unity counted in its
ranks nearly all the political writers of the time, Agobard, Paschasius
Radbertus, Florus of Lyons. They have been accused of defending their
personal interests under cover of the principle, and it has been pointed
out that often the so-called party of unity was nothing but the coterie
which gathered round Lothar. It is probable enough that the conduct
of the sons of Louis and of the principal counts who took part with
each of them was dictated by motives purely personal, but if the more
important leaders of the ecclesiastical aristocracy are found supporting
Lothar, it must not be forgotten that Lothar stood for the unity of
the Empire for which the Church was working.
However this may be, the arrangements made at Aix, after three
days devoted to fasting and almsgiving in order to call down the
blessing and inspiration of God upon the assembly about to be opened,
might seem of a kind to reconcile diverse principles and interests. The
title of emperor was conferred upon Lothar, who became his father's
colleague in the general administration of the Frankish monarchy. His
coronation took place before the assembly amid the loud applause of the
crowd. The title of king was confirmed to his two brothers, and their
dominions received some augmentation. With Aquitaine, Pepin received
Gascony and the county of Toulouse, as well as the Burgundian counties
of Autun, Avallon and Nevers. Louis took Bavaria which Lothar had
held, with suzerainty over the Carinthians, the Bohemians and the Slavs.
The rest of the Empire was, on the death of Louis, to revert to Lothar,
who alone was to enjoy the title of Emperor. It is somewhat difficult to
say what was to be the position of the young kings with regard to Louis
the Pious. It is probable that in practice it was modified with the
lapse of time and the age of the princes. Indeed Louis, who may from
this time be called Louis the German, the name by which history knows
him, was not put in actual possession of his kingdom until 825. On
the other hand, the act of 817 dealt minutely with the relation in which
the brothers were to stand towards one another after the death of Louis
the Pious. Each was to be sovereign ruler within his own dominions.
.
To the king was to belong the proceeds of the revenue and taxes, and
he was to have full right to dispose of the dignities of bishoprics and
abbeys. At the same time the Emperor's supremacy is ensured by a
series of provisions. His two brothers are bound to consult him on all
occasions of importance; they may not make war or conclude treaties
without his consent. His sanction is also required for their marriage,
and they are forbidden to marry foreigners. They are to attend at the
Emperor's court every year to offer their gift, to confer with him on
## p. 11 (#57) ##############################################
Revolt of Bernard of Italy
11
public affairs, and to receive his instructions. Disputes between them
are to be determined by the general assembly of the Empire. This body
is also to pronounce in case of their being guilty of acts of violence or
oppression and having failed to make satisfaction in accordance with the
remonstrances which it shall be the duty of their elder brother to address
to them. If either of the two die leaving several lawful sons, the people
shall make their choice among them, but there shall be no further
division of territory. If, on the contrary, the deceased leave no legiti.
mate son, his apanage shall devolve on one of his brothers. Supplementary
provisions, derived, indeed, from the Divisio of 806, were added, for-
bidding the magnates to possess benefices in several kingdoms at once,
but allowing any free man to settle in any kingdom he chose, and to
marry there.
Such, in its main outlines, was the celebrated Divisio imperii of 817,
which we may fittingly analyse, as its provisions were often to be
appealed to during the struggle between the sons of Louis. Its object
was to avoid every occasion of strife. Yet one of its earliest effects was
to kindle a revolt, that of the young Bernard of Italy. He considered
himself threatened, or his counsellors persuaded him that he was
threatened, by one of the regulations of the act of Aix, laying down that
after the death of Louis, Italy should be subject to Lothar in the same
manner as it had been to Louis himself and to Charles. It is, however,
difficult to see more in this article than a provision for the maintenance
of the actual status quo. All our authorities agree in attributing the
responsibility for the revolt less to Bernard himself than to certain of his
intimates, the count Eggideus, the chamberlain Reginar (Rainier), and
Anselm, Archbishop of Milan. The Bishop of Orleans, the celebrated
poet Theodulf, was also counted among the young prince's partisans.
The rebels' plan, it was said, was to dethrone the Emperor and his
family, perhaps to put them to death, and to make Bernard sole ruler of
the Empire. Ratbold, Bishop of Verona, and Suppo, Count of Brescia,
who were the first to warn Louis of what was being plotted against him,
added that all Italy was ready to uphold Bernard, and that he was
master of the passes of the Alps. In reality, the rebellion seems in no
sense to bear the character of a national movement, which indeed would
hardly have been possible at this stage, and the numerous army, which
the Emperor hastily assembled, found no difficulty in occupying the
passes of Aosta and Susa. Louis in person put himself at the head of
the troops concentrating at Châlon. Bernard was alarmed, and finding
himself ill supported, made his submission, along with his chief partisans,
to the Frankish counts who had pushed on into Italy, and surrendered
himself into their custody. The prisoners were sent to Aix-la-Chapelle,
and the assembly held in that town at the beginning of 818 condemned
them to death. The Emperor granted them their lives, but commuted
their punishment to that of blinding. Bernard and his friend Count
CH. 1.
## p. 12 (#58) ##############################################
12
Penance of Attigny
Reginar died in a few days in consequence of the torture inflicted
(17 April 818). The young prince was not nineteen. Those of his
accomplices who were churchmen were deposed and confined in monasteries.
Theodulf, in particular, was exiled to Angers. It is probable that it
was this rising in favour of a spurious member of his family which led
the Emperor at this time to take precautionary measures against his
own illegitimate brothers, Hugh, Theodoric and Drogo (later, 826,
Archbishop of Metz), whom he compelled to enter monasteries.
The punishment suffered by Bernard, who was hardly more than a
lad, was out of all proportion to the risk which he had caused the
Emperor to run. It was an act of pure cruelty, and was generally and
severely criticised at the time. Louis himself judged that he had shewn
excessive severity. In 821 at the assembly at Thionville which followed
the rejoicings on the marriage of Lothar with Ermengarde, daughter of
Hugh, Count of Tours, he granted an amnesty to Bernard's former
accomplices, and restored their confiscated property. At the same time
he recalled from Aquitaine Adalard, another of the proscribed, and
replaced him at the head of the monastery of Corbie. Next year at
Attigny he took a further step in the same direction. He solemnly
humiliated himself in the presence of the chief clergy of his kingdom,
the Abbot Elisachar, Adalard and Archbishop Agobard, declaring
that he desired to do penance publicly for the cruelty he had shewn
both to Bernard and to Adalard and his brother Wala. The biographer
of Louis the Pious compares this public penance to that of Theodosius.
It was, in reality, extremely impolitic. The Emperor weakened himself
morally by this humiliation before the ecclesiastical aristocracy, who
looked upon the penance of Attigny as a victory won by themselves
over Louis, “who became,” says Paschasius Radbertus triumphantly,
“the humblest of men, he who had been so ill-counselled by his royal
pride, and who now made satisfaction to those whose eyes had been
offended by his crime. " His humiliation was also accompanied by
measures taken to secure the protection of property belonging to the
Church, and Agobard felt so sure of victory for the latter that he even
meditated claiming the restitution of all the ecclesiastical property
which had been usurped in preceding reigns. The penance of Attigny
was one great political mistake of Louis; his re-marriage was another.
Its consequences were to prove disastrous.
Louis's first wife, “his counsellor and helper in his government,” the
devout Empress Ermengarde, had died at Angers, just as her husband
was returning from his expedition into Brittany (3 Oct. 818). The
Emperor for some time gave himself up to despairing grief. It was even
feared that he would abdicate and retire into a monastery. However,
at the earnest request of his confidential advisers he decided on choosing
a second consort " who might be his helper in the government of his
palace and his kingdom. ” In 819 he chose from among his magnates'
## p. 13 (#59) ##############################################
Judith
13
daughters that of Count Welf, a maiden of a very noble Swabian house,
named Judith. Aegilwi, the new Empress's mother, belonged to one of
the great Saxon families which had always shewn itself faithful to Louis.
Contemporaries are unanimous in lauding not only the beauty of Judith,
which seems to have had most weight in determining the Emperor's
choice, but also her qualities of mind, her learning, her gentleness, her
piety, and the charm of her conversation. She seems to have possessed
great ascendancy over all who came in contact with her, especially over
her husband. In 823 she bore him a son who received the name of
Charles, and whom history knows as Charles the Bald. The ordinatio
of 817 had contemplated no such contingency, nor had the confirmation
of it which had been solemnly decreed at Nimeguen in 819. It was
plain, nevertheless, that whether during his father's lifetime or after his
death, the newborn prince would claim a share equal to that of his
brothers. From this point onwards, the history of the reign of Louis
the Pious becomes almost entirely that of the efforts made by him under
the influence of Judith to secure to the latest-born his portion of the
inheritance, and that of the counter-efforts of the three elder sons to
maintain the integrity of their own shares in virtue of the settlement of
817, and of the principle of unity round which the partisans of Lothar
rallied.
For some time events seemed to take the course provided for by the
settlement of 817. Pepin was put in possession of Aquitaine on his
marriage in 822 with Engeltrude, daughter of Theobert, Count of the
pagus Madriacensis, near the lower Seine, and Louis the German
was entrusted in 825 with the actual administration of his Bavarian
kingdom soon after the assembly at Aix. But in 829, after the assembly
of Worms, the Emperor, by an edict“ issued of his own will ” made a
new arrangement by which his youngest son was given part of Alemannia
with Alsace and Rhaetia and a portion of Burgundy, no doubt with the
title only of duke. All these districts formed part of Lothar's portion,
and he, though godfather of his young brother, could not fail to resent
such measures.
It appears probable that it was in order to remove him
from court that at this juncture he was sent on a new mission into
Italy. At the same time in signing charters he ceases to be designated
by his title of Emperor. But it was necessary to provide a protector
for young Charles, and for this office choice was made of Bernard
of Septimania, who also held the Spanish March and received the
title of Chamberlain. Son of a great man canonised by the Church,
William of Gellone, friend of St Benedict of Aniane, great-grandson of
Charles Martel, and defender of Barcelona at the time of the Saracenic
invasion, Bernard was already in right of his birth and his valour as well
as his position one of the chief personages of the Empire. Because he
was chamberlain Bernard was entrusted with the administration of the
palace and of the royal domains in general, and held “the next place
CH, I.
## p. 14 (#60) ##############################################
14
Family disunion; Pepin's revolt
after the Emperor. " His rise to power seems to have been marked, more-
over, by a change in the personnel of Louis's court. His enemies, through
the mouth of Paschasius Radbertus, accuse him of having “ turned the
palace upside down and scattered the imperial council,” and it is true
that Wala and other partisans of Lothar were set aside from the
administration of affairs to make way for new men, Odo, Count of
Orleans, William, Count of Blois, cousin of Bernard, Conrad and
Rudolf, brothers of the new Empress, Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, and Boso,
Abbot of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire (Fleury).
The displeasure of the magnates evicted from power or disappointed
in their ambitions was shewn as early as the following year (830).
Louis, perhaps by the advice of Bernard who was eager to strengthen
his position by military successes, had planned a new expedition against
the Bretons and summoned the host to meet at Rennes at Easter
(14 April). Many of the Franks proved little disposed to enter on a
campaign in spring, at an inclement season of the year. On the other
.
hand, Wala secretly informed Pepin that hostile designs were being
formed against him by Bernard, who under pretext of an expedition
into Brittany meditated nothing less than turning his arms against the
king of Aquitaine and stripping him of his possessions. Pepin was a
man of energy, but also of levity and impetuosity, and under pressure,
perhaps, from the Aquitanian lords who had gradually been substituted
for the Frankish counsellors placed round him by his father, either
believed, or feigned to believe the information, and came to an agree-
ment with his brother Louis and the partisans of Wala and Lothar
to march against the Emperor.
Louis the Pious, who was on his way to Rennes along the coast with
Judith and Bernard, was at Sithiu (Saint-Bertin) when the news of the
revolt reached him. He continued his journey as far as Saint-Riquier.
But the time had gone by for the Breton expedition. The majority of
the fideles who should have gathered at Rennes to take part in it had
met at Paris and made common cause with the rebels. Pepin, after
having occupied Orleans, had joined them at Verberie, N. E. of Senlis.
Louis the German had done likewise. As to Lothar, he was lingering
in Italy, perhaps to watch what turn events would take. But any
resistance was impossible for Louis, because the whole weight of military
force veas on the side of the conspirators. The latter declared that they
had no quarrel with the Emperor, but only with his wife, whom they
accused of a guilty connexion with Bernard. They demanded therefore
that Judith should be exiled and her accomplices punished. Louis,
sending Bernard for refuge to his city of Barcelona, and leaving the
Empress at Aix, went to meet the rebels, who were then at Compiègne
and surrendered himself into their hands. Judith, who had set out to
join him, fearing violence took shelter in the church of Notre-Dame at
Laon. Two of the counts who had espoused Pepin's cause, Warin of
## p. 15 (#61) ##############################################
Disloyalty of Lothar
15
Mâcon and Lambert of Nantes, came up and forcibly removed her.
After having detained her a prisoner for some time with her husband,
they finally shut her up in a convent at Poitiers. Her two brothers,
Conrad and Rudolf, were tonsured and relegated to Aquitanian monas-
teries.
In these circumstances, Lothar, dreading no doubt that he might
be ignored if a division should take place without him, arrived at
Compiègne and at once put himself at the head of the movement, his
first step being to resume his title of joint-Emperor. Louis the Pious
seemed inclined to dismiss Bernard and restore the former government.
Lothar's desires went beyond this, and he surrounded his father with
monks instructed to persuade him to embrace the religious life, for which
he had formerly shewn some inclination. But Louis did not fall in with
this project. He was secretly negotiating with Louis the German and
Pepin, promising them an increase of territory if they would abandon
the cause of Lothar. On their side, the two princes were no more
inclined to be Lothar's subjects than their father's. The Emperor and
his supporters succeeded in gathering a new assembly at Nimeguen in
the autumn, at which were present many of the Saxon and German
lords who were always loyal to Louis. The reaction beginning in favour
of the Emperor now shewed itself plainly. Louis was declared to be
re-established in his former authority. It was also decided to recall
Judith. On the other hand, several of the abettors of the revolt were
arrested. Wala was obliged to surrender the abbey of Corbie. The
Arch-Chaplain Hilduin, Abbot of St Denis, was banished to Paderborn.
Lothar, in alarm, accepted the pardon offered him by his father and
shewed himself at the assembly beside the Emperor in the character of
a dutiful son.
The assembly convoked at Aix-la-Chapelle (February 831) to pass
definitive sentence on the rebels, adjudged them the penalty of death,
which Louis the Pious commuted to imprisonment and exile, together
with confiscation of goods. Lothar himself was obliged to subscribe to
the condemnation of his former partisans. Thus Hilduin lost the
abbeys he had possessed and was banished to Corvey, Wala was impris-
oned in the neighbourhood of the Lake of Geneva, Matfrid and Elisachar
exiled. At the same time the Empress, after solemnly clearing herself
by oath from the accusations levelled against her, was declared restored
to her former position. Her brothers, Conrad and Rudolf, quitted the
monasteries in which they had been temporarily confined, and recovered
their dignities. Contrariwise the name of Lothar again disappears from
the parchments containing the imperial diplomas, the eldest son losing
his privileged position as joint-Emperor, and being reduced to that
of king of Italy, while in accordance with the promise he had made
them Louis the Pious increased the shares of his younger sons in the
inheritance. To Pepin's Aquitanian kingdom were annexed the districts
CH. 1.
## p. 16 (#62) ##############################################
16
Revolt of Louis the German
between the Loire and the Seine, and, to the north of the latter river,
the Meaux country, with the Amiénois and Ponthieu as far as the sea.
Louis of Bavaria saw his portion enlarged by the addition of Saxony
and Thuringia and the greater part of the pagi which make up modern
Belgium and the Netherlands. Charles, besides Alemannia, received Bur-
gundy, Provence and Gothia with a slice of Francia, and in particular,
the important province of Rheims. Nevertheless, as these arrangements
had no validity until Louis the Pious should have disappeared from the
scene, they made little or no change in the actual position of the three
princes, especially as the Emperor expressly reserved to himself the
power to give additional advantage to “any one of our three above-
mentioned sons, who, desirous of pleasing in the first place God, and
secondly ourselves, should distinguish himself by his obedience and
zeal” by withdrawing somewhat “from the portion of that one of his
brothers who shall have neglected to please us. " Yet the sentences
pronounced at Aix-la-Chapelle were to be of no lasting effect. At
Ingelheim, in the beginning of May, several of the former partisans of
Lothar were pardoned. Hilduin, in particular, regained his abbey
of St Denis. On the other hand, Bernard, though like Judith he had
purged himself by oath before the assembly at Thionville from the
accusations made against him, had not been reinstated in his office at
court. On the contrary, it would seem that Louis the Pious made
endeavours to reconcile himself with Lothar, perhaps under the influence
of Judith, who was ever ready to cherish the idea that her young son
might find a protector in his eldest brother. The Emperor was, besides,
in a fair way towards a breach with Pepin. The latter being summoned
to the assembly at Thionville (autumn 831) had delayed under various
pretexts to present himself, and when he did resolve to appear before
the Emperor at Aix (end of 831) his father received him with so small
a show of favour that Pepin either feared or pretended to fear for his
safety, and at the end of December secretly betook himself again to
Aquitaine, disregarding the prohibition, which had been laid
upon
him. Louis decided to take strong measures against him and called an
assembly to meet at Orleans in 832, to which Lothar and Louis the
German were both summoned. From Orleans an expedition was to be
sent south of the Loire.
But at the beginning of 832, the Emperor learned that Louis the
German, perhaps fearing to share the fate of Pepin, or instigated by
some of the leaders of the revolt of 830, was in a state of rebellion,
and at the head of his Bavarians, reinforced by a contingent of Slavs,
had invaded Alemannia (the apanage of Charles) where many of the
nobles had ranged themselves on his side. Relinquishing for the moment
his Aquitanian project, Louis summoned the host of the Franks and
Saxons to muster at Mayence. The leudes eagerly responded to his
appeal, and Louis the German, who was encamped at Lorsch, was
## p. 17 (#63) ##############################################
Provisions for Charles the Bald
17
obliged to recognise that he had no means of resisting the superior
forces at his father's disposal. He therefore retreated. The imperial
army slowly followed his line of march, and by the month of May had
reached Augsburg. Here it was that Louis the German came to seek
his father and make his submission to him, swearing never in future to
renew his attempts at revolt.
Louis then turned towards Aquitaine. From Frankfort, where he
was joined by Lothar, he convoked a new host to meet at Orleans on
1 September. Thence he crossed the Loire, and ravaging the country
as he went, reached Limoges. He halted for some time to the north of
this town, at the royal residence of Jonac in La Marche, where Pepin
came to him and in his turn submitted himself to him. But, shewing
more severity in his case than in that of Louis the German, the Emperor,
with the alleged object of reforming his morals, caused him to be arrested
and sent to Trèves. At the same time, disclosing his true purpose, he
annexed Aquitaine to the dominions of young Charles, to whom the
magnates present at the assembly at Jonac were required to swear
fealty. Bernard of Septimania himself, whose influence excited alarm,
was deprived of his honours and benefices, which were given to Berengar,
Count of Toulouse. But the Aquitanians, always jealous of their
independence, would not submit to be deprived of the prince whom they
had come to look upon as their own. They succeeded in liberating him
from the custody of his escort, and the Frankish troops, sent in pursuit
by Louis, were unable to recapture him. The imperial army was obliged
to turn northward, harassed by the Aquitanian insurgents, and their
winter march proved disastrous. When Louis at length reached Francia
again, leaving Aquitaine in arms behind him (January 833), it was only
to learn that his two other sons, Lothar and Louis the German, were
again in rebellion against him.
Lothar and Louis no doubt dreaded lest they should meet with the
same treatment as Pepin. Moreover they could not see without feelings
of jealousy the share of young Charles in the paternal heritage so
disproportionately augmented. Again, Lothar had found a new ally in
the person of the Pope, Gregory IV (elected in 827). The latter,
though hesitating at first, had ended by allowing himself to be caught
by the prospect of bringing peace to the Empire, and of securing for the
Papacy the position of a mediating power. He had therefore decided
on accompanying Lothar when he crossed the Alps to join his brother
of Germany, and had addressed a circular letter to the bishops of Gaul
and Germany, asking them to order fasts and prayers for the success of
his enterprise. This did not hinder the greater number of the prelates
from rallying round Louis who was at Worms where his army was
concentrating. Only a few steadfast partisans of Lothar, such as
Agobard of Lyons, failed to obey the imperial summons. The two
parties seem to have been in no haste to come to blows, and for several
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. I.
2
## p. 18 (#64) ##############################################
18
The Field of Lies
months spent their time in negotiating and in drawing up statements of
the case on one side or the other, the sons persistently professing the
deepest respect for their father, and vowing that all their quarrel was
with his evil counsellors. Things remained in this state until, in the
middle of June, the Emperor resolved to go and seek his sons in order
to have a personal discussion with them.
In company, then, with his supporters, he went up the left bank of
the Rhine towards Alsace where the rebels were posted, and pitched his
camp opposite theirs near Colmar, in the plain known as the Rothfeld.
Brisk negotiations were again opened between the two parties. Pope
Gregory finally went in person to the imperial camp to confer with
Louis and his adherents. Did he exert his influence over the bishops
who up to then had seemed resolved to stand by their Emperor? Or
did the promises made by the sons work upon the magnates who still
gathered round Louis ? Whatever may be the explanation, a general
defection set in. Within a few days the Emperor found himself deserted
by all his followers and left almost alone. The place which was the
scene of this shameful betrayal is traditionally known as the Lügenfeld,
the Field of Lies. Louis was constrained to advise the few prelates who
still kept faith with him, such as Aldric of Le Mans or Moduin of
Autun, to follow the universal example. He himself, with his wife, his
illegitimate brother Drogo and young Charles, surrendered to Lothar.
The latter declared his father deposed from his authority and claimed
the Empire as his own by right. He made use of it to share dignities
and honours among his chief partisans. In order to give some show of
satisfaction to his brothers, he added to Pepin's share the wide duchy
of Maine, and to Louis's Saxony, Thuringia and Alsace. Judith was
sent under a strong guard to Tortona in Italy, and Charles the Bald to
the monastery of Prüm. After this, Pepin and Louis the German
returned to their respective states, while the Pope, perhaps disgusted
by the scenes he had just witnessed, quitted Lothar and betook himself
directly to Rome.
Louis had been temporarily immured in the monastery of St Médard
at Soissons. The assembly held by Lothar at Compiègne was not of
itself competent to decree the deposition of the old Emperor, in spite
of the accusations brought against him by Ebbo, Archbishop of Rheims.
Lothar was forced to confine himself to bringing sufficient pressure to
bear upon his father (through the agency of churchmen of the rebel
party sent to Soissons) to induce him to acknowledge himself guilty of
offences which rendered him unworthy of retaining power. But not
satisfied with his deposition the bishops forced him besides to undergo a
public humiliation. In the church of Notre-Dame at Compiègne in the
presence of the assembled magnates and bishops, Louis, prostrate upon
a hair cloth before the altar, was compelled to read the form of confession
drawn up by his enemies, in which he owned himself guilty of sacrilege,
## p. 19 (#65) ##############################################
Restoration of Louis the Pious
19
as having transgressed the commands of the Church and violated the
oaths that he had sworn; of homicide, as having caused the death of
Bernard; and of perjury, as having broken the pact instituted to preserve
the peace of the Empire and the Church. The document containing the
text of this confession was then laid upon the altar, while the Emperor,
stripped of his baldric, the emblem of the warrior (knight or miles), and
clothed in the garb of a penitent, was removed under close supervision
first to Soissons, then to the neighbourhood of Compiègne, and finally
to Aix where the new Emperor was to spend the winter.
But by the end of 833, dissension was beginning to make itself felt
among the victors. Louis's half-brothers, Hugh and Drogo, who had fled
to Louis the German, were exhorting him to come over to the party of
his father and of Judith, whose sister, Emma, he had married in 827.
Louis the German's first step was to intercede with Lothar to obtain a
mitigation of the treatment meted out to the imprisoned Emperor.
The attempt failed, and only produced a widening of the breach be-
tween the two brothers. A reaction of feeling began in favour of the
captive sovereign. The famous theologian Raban Maur, Abbot of Fulda
and later Archbishop of Mayence (847–56), published an apologia on
his behalf, in answer to a treatise in which Agobard of Lyons had
just refurbished the old calumnies which had been widely circulated
against Judith. Louis the German made overtures to Pepin, who was
no more disposed than himself to recognise any disproportionate authority
in Lothar, and before long the two kings agreed to summon their
followers to march to the help of their father. Lothar, not feeling
himself safe in Austrasia, went to Saint-Denis where he had called upon
his host to assemble. But the nobles of his party deserted him in his
turn. He was compelled to set Louis the Pious and young Charles at
liberty and to retreat upon Vienne on the Rhone, while the bishops and
magnates present at Saint-Denis decreed the restoration of Louis to his
former dignity, reinvesting him with his crown and his weapons, the
insignia of his authority. In charters and documents he now reassumes
the imperial style: Hludowicus, divina repropiciante clementia, imperator
augustus.
On leaving Saint-Denis Louis repaired to Quierzy, where he was
joined by Pepin and Louis the German. Judith, who had been with-
drawn from her prison by the magnates devoted to the Emperor, also
returned to Gaul. Meanwhile Lothar was preparing to carry on the
struggle. Lambert and Matfrid, his most zealous supporters, had raised
an army in his name on the March of Brittany, and defeated and killed
the counts sent against them by the Emperor. Lothar, who had rallied
his partisans, came to join them in the neighbourhood of Orleans.
There he awaited the arrival of the Emperor, who was still in company
with his other two sons. As on similar occasions, no battle was fought.
Lothar, realising the inadequacy of his forces, made his submission and
CH, I.
2-2
## p. 20 (#66) ##############################################
20
Submission of Lothar
4
appeared before his father promising never to offend again. He was
obliged to pledge himself also to be content, for the future, with “ the
kingdom of Italy, such as it had been granted by Charlemagne to
Pepin,” with the obligation of protecting the Holy See. Further, he
was never to cross the Alps again without his father's consent. His
partisans, Lambert and Matfrid, were permitted to follow him into his
new kingdom, forfeiting the benefices they possessed in Gaul.
Next year (835) an assembly at Thionville again solemnly annulled
the decrees of that of Compiègne, and declared Louis to be “ re-established
in the honours of his ancestors, henceforth to be regarded by all
men as their lord and emperor. ” A fresh ceremony took place at Metz,
when the imperial crown was again set upon his head. At the same
time the assembly at Thionville had decreed penalties against the bishops
who had deserted their sovereign. Ebbo of Rheims was compelled to
read publicly a formulary containing the acknowledgment of his treason
and his renunciation of his dignity. He was confined at Fulda.
Agobard of Lyons, Bernard of Vienne, and Bartholomew of Narbonne
were condemned as contumacious and declared deposed. The Emperor
attempted to take advantage of this returning prosperity to restore
some degree of order in the affairs of his kingdoms, after the fiery
trial of several years of civil war. At the assembly of Tramoyes (Ain)
in June 835 he decreed the sending of missi into the different provinces
to suppress acts of pillage. At that of Aix (beginning of 836) measures
were taken to secure the regular exercise of the power of the bishops.
A little earlier an attempt had been made to prevail on Pepin of
Aquitaine to restore the Church property which he and his followers
had usurped. But it is doubtful whether these measures produced any
great effect. On the other hand, a fresh peril became daily more
threatening, namely the incursions of the Scandinavian pirates. In 834
they had ravaged the coasts of Frisia, pillaging the sea-coasts as
they went, and penetrating at least as far as the island of Noirmoutier
on the Atlantic. Henceforth they reappear almost every year, and in
835 they defeated and slew Reginald, Count of Herbauges. In the
same year they plundered the great maritime mart of Dorestad on the
North Sea. Next year, 836, they again visited Frisia, and their king
Horic had even the insolence to demand the wergild of such of his
subjects as had been slain or captured during their piratical operations.
In 837 fresh ravages took place, and the Emperor in vain attempted to
check them by sending out missi charged with the defence of the coasts,
and especially by building ships to pursue the enemy. Horic even
claimed (838) the sovereignty of Frisia, and it was not till 839 that
hostilities were temporarily suspended by a treaty.
Nor was the internal peace of the Empire much more secure. Louis
and Judith appear to have reverted to the idea of a reconciliation with
Lothar, looking upon him as the destined protector of his young brother
## p. 21 (#67) ##############################################
Death of Pepin of Aquitaine
21
a
and godson, Charles. As early as 836 negotiations were begun with a
view to the renewal of amicable relations between the King of Italy and
his father. But sickness prevented Lothar from attending the assembly
at Worms to which he had been summoned. However, at the end of
837 at the assembly held at Aix the Emperor elaborated a new scheme
of division which added to Charles's kingdom the greater part of Belgium
with the country lying between the Meuse and the Seine as far as
Burgundy. This project was certain to alarm Louis the German, whom
we find at the opening of the next year (838) making overtures in his
turn to Lothar with whom he had an interview at Trent. This displeased
the Emperor and, at the Nimeguen assembly, June 838, he punished
Louis by depriving him of part of his territory, leaving him only
Bavaria. On the other hand, in the month of September young Charles
at the age of fifteen had just attained his majority; such was the
law of the Ripuarian Franks followed by the Carolingian family. He
therefore received the baldric of a knight, and was given at Quierzy a
portion of the lands between Loire and Seine. An attempt made by
Louis to regain possession of the lands on the right bank of the Rhine
met with no success. The Emperor in his turn crossed the river and
forced his son to take refuge in Bavaria while he himself after a demon-
stration in Alemannia returned to Worms, where Lothar came from
Pavia to see him and went through a solemn ceremony of reconciliation
with him.
The death of Pepin of Aquitaine (13 December 838) seemed to simplify
the question of division and succession, for the new partition scheme
drawn up at Worms utterly ignored his son, Pepin II. Apart from
Bavaria, which with a few neighbouring pagi was left to Louis the
German, the empire of Charlemagne was cut into two parts. The
dividing line running from north to south followed the Meuse, touched
the Moselle at Toul, crossed Burgundy, and having on the west
Langres, Châlon, Lyons, Geneva, followed the line of the Alps and ended
at the Mediterranean. Lothar, as eldest son, was given the right to
choose, and took for himself the eastern portion; the other fell to Charles,
After his father's death, Lothar was also to bear the title of Emperor,
but apparently without the prerogatives attached to it by the settlement
of 817. It was to be his duty to protect Charles, while the latter was
bound to pay all due honour to his elder brother and godfather. These
obligations once fulfilled, each prince was to be absolute master in his
own kingdom.
Aquitaine was thus in theory vested in Charles the Bald, but several
guerilla bands still held the field in the name of Pepin II. The
Emperor went thither in person to secure the recognition of his son.
Setting out for Châlon where the host had been summoned to meet
(1 September 839) he made his way to Clermont. Here a party of
Aquitanian lords came to make their submission to their new sovereign.
CH. I.
## p. 22 (#68) ##############################################
22
Death of Louis the Pious
This did not, however, imply that the country was pacified, for many of
the counts still maintained their resistance.
But Louis the Pious had now to renew the struggle with the King of
Germany, who as well as Pepin was injured by the partition of 839, and
had invaded Saxony and Thuringia. The Emperor advanced against
him and had no great difficulty in thrusting him back into Bavaria.
But as he was returning to Worms, where his son Lothar, who had gone
back to Italy after the late partition, had been appointed to meet him,
the cough which had long tormented him became worse. Having fallen
dangerously ill at Salz, he had himself moved to an island in the Rhine
opposite the palace of Ingelheim. Here he breathed his last in his tent
on 20 June 840 in the arms of his half-brother, Drogo, sending his
pardon to his son Louis. Before his death he had proclaimed Lothar
Emperor, commending Judith and Charles to his protection and ordering
that the insignia of the imperial authority, the sceptre, crown and sword,
should be sent to him.
The dying Emperor might well have despaired of unity for Charle-
magne's Empire and have foreseen that the civil wars of the last twenty
years would be renewed more fiercely than ever among his sons. As the
outcome of his reign was unfortunate, and as under him the first mani.
festations appeared of the two scourges which were about to destroy the
Frank Empire, the insubordination of the great lords on one side and
the Norman invasions on the other, historians have been too easily led
to accuse Louis the Pious of weakness and incapacity. He was long
known by the somewhat contemptuous epithet of the Debonnaire (the
good-natured, the easy-going). But in truth his life-story shews him to
have been capable of perseverance and at times even of energy and re-
solution, although as a rule the energy was of no long duration. Louis
the Pious found himself confronted by opponents, who took his clemency
for a sign of weakness, and knew how to exploit his humility for
their own profit by making him appear an object of contempt. But
above all, circumstances were adverse to him. He was the loser in the
long struggle with his sons and with the magnates ; this final ill-success
rather than his own character explains the severe judgment so often
passed upon the son of the great Charles.
## p. 23 (#69) ##############################################
23
CHAPTER II.
THE CAROLINGIAN KINGDOMS (840-877).
The death of Louis the Pious and his clearly expressed last wishes
secured the imperial dignity to Lothar. But the situation had not been
defined with any precision. The last partition, decreed in 839, had made
important alterations in the shares assigned to the three brothers. Now
what Lothar hastened to claim was “the empire such as it had formerly
been entrusted to him," namely, the territorial power and the pre-eminent
position secured to him by the Constitutio of 817, with his two brothers
reduced to the position of vassal kinglets. To make good these claims
Lothar had the support of the majority of the prelates, always faithful,
in the main, to the principle of unity. But the great lay lords were
guided only by considerations of self-interest. In a general way, each of
the three brothers had on his side those who had already lived under his
rule, and whom he had succeeded in winning over by grants of honours
and benefices. Louis had thus secured the Germans, Bavarians, Thu-
ringians and Saxons, and Charles the Neustrians, Burgundians, and
such of the Aquitanians as had not espoused the cause of Pepin II.
But it would be a mistake to see in the wars which followed the death
of Louis the Pious a struggle between races. As a contemporary
writes, “the combatants did not differ either in their weapons, their
,
customs, or their race. They fought one another because they belonged
to opposite camps, and these camps stood for nothing but coalitions of
personal interests.
Lothar received the news of his father's death as he was on his
way to Worms. He betook himself to Strasbourg, and in that town
the oath of fealty was sworn to him by many of the magnates of ancient
Francia who were still loyal to the Carolingian family and to the
system of a united empire, being vaguely aware that this system would
secure the predominance of the Austrasians from among whom Charles
and Louis the Pious had drawn almost all the counts of their vast
empire. But Louis the German, on his part, had occupied the country
as far as the Rhine, and Charles the Bald was also making ready for the
struggle. Lothar had not resolution enough to attack his two brothers
one after the other and force them to accept the re-establishment of the
Constitutio of 817. He first had an interview beyond the Rhine with
CH. II.
## p. 24 (#70) ##############################################
24
Battle of Fontenoy
1
a
Louis, concluding a truce with him until a forthcoming assembly should
meet, at which the conditions of a permanent peace were to be discussed.
Then he marched against Charles, many of the magnates of the district
between the Seine and the Loire joining him, among others Gerard,
Count of Paris, and Hilduin, Abbot of Saint-Denis. But Charles, being
skilfully advised by Judith and other counsellors, among them an
illegitimate grandson of Charles the Great, the historian Nithard,
opened negotiations and succeeded in obtaining terms which left him
provisionally in possession of Aquitaine, Septimania, Provence and six
counties between the Loire and the Seine. Lothar, besides, arranged
to meet him at the palace of Attigny in the ensuing May, whither
Louis the German was also summoned to arrange for a definitive peace.
.
The winter of 840–841 was spent by the three brothers in enlisting
partisans and in gathering troops. But when spring came, Lothar
neglected to go to Attigny. Only Louis and Charles met there. An
alliance between these two, both equally threatened by the claims of
their elder brother, was inevitable. Their armies made a junction in
the district of Châlons-sur-Marne, while that of Lothar mustered in the
Auxerrois. Louis and Charles marched together against the Emperor,
proposing terms of agreement as they came, and sending embassy after
embassy to exhort him “to restore peace to the Church of God. ”
Lothar was anxious to spin matters out, for he was expecting the
arrival of Pepin II (who had declared for him) and of his contingent
of Aquitanians, or at least of southern Aquitanians, for those of the
centre and north were induced by Judith to join Charles the Bald.
On 24 June, Pepin effected his junction with the Emperor. The latter
now thought himself strong enough to wish for a battle. He sent a
haughty message to his younger brothers, reminding them that “the
imperial dignity had been committed to him, and that he would know
how to fulfil the duties it laid upon him. ” On the morning of the 25th,
the fight began at Fontenoy in Puisaye, and a desperate struggle it
proved. The centre of the imperial army, where Lothar appeared in
person, stood firm at first against the troops of Louis the German. On
the left wing the Aquitanians of Pepin II long held out, but Charles
the Bald, reinforced by a body of Burgundians who had come up,
under the command of Warin, Count of Mâcon, was victorious against
the right wing, and his success involved the defeat of Lothar's army.
to have shewn anxiety to keep on good terms with Louis. On various
occasions their ambassadors appeared at the great assemblies held by
him; at Aix (817) to settle a question concerning frontiers in Dalmatia ;
at Rouen in 824 to discuss what measures should be taken in the matter
of the controversy concerning images ; at Compiègne in 827 to renew
their professions of amity. It may be added that it was a Greek, the
priest George, who built for Louis the Pious the first hydraulic organ
ever used in Gaul.
Even from a military point of view, the reign of Louis the Pious
bore at first the appearance of being in some sort a continuation of that
of Charles, under a prince capable of repelling the attacks of his enemies.
In the north, the Danish race were at this time fairly easily held in awe.
One of the rivals then disputing for power, Harold, having been driven
out by his cousins, the sons of Godefrid, came in 814 to take shelter at
the court of Aix. In 815 the Saxon troops with the Obotrite“ friendlies”
made an attempt to restore this ally of the Franks to the throne, under
the leadership of the missus Baldric. Promises of submission were made
by the Danes, and hostages were handed over, but this was the only
result obtained. It was not until about 819 that a revolution recalled
Harold to the throne, whence his rivals had just been driven. He
retained it until a fresh revulsion of feeling forced him again to take
refuge at the court of Louis. On the other hand, in concert with Pope
Paschal, Louis had been endeavouring to convert the Danes to Christianity.
Ebbo, Archbishop of Rheims, was sent on this mission. Setting out in
company with Halitgar, Bishop of Cambrai, he united his labours with
those of Anskar and his companions who were already at work spreading
the Christian Faith in the district around the mouth of the Elbe, where
## p. 7 (#53) ###############################################
Eastern Frontiers
7
Saxons and Scandinavians came into contact with one another. The
monastery of Corvey or New Corbie (822) and the bishopric of Ham-
burg (831) were founded to safeguard Christianity in the country thus
evangelised. When in 826 the Danish prince Harold came to be
baptised at Mayence with several hundreds of his followers, the
ceremony was made the opportunity for splendid entertainments at
which the whole court was present, and was looked upon by the circle
surrounding the Emperor as a triumph. But attacks by way of the sea
were already beginning against the Frankish Empire. In 820 a band of
pirates had attempted to land, first in Frisia, and then on the shores of
the lower Seine, but being beaten off by the inhabitants they had been
forced to content themselves with retiring to pillage the island of Bouin
off the coast of La Vendée. In 829 a Scandinavian invasion of Saxony
had momentarily alarmed Louis, but had led to nothing. In short, it
may be said that for the first part of the reign Louis's dominions had
been exempt from the ravages of the Vikings, but the tempest which was
to rage so furiously a few years later was already seen to be gathering.
The Slavonic populations which bordered Frankish Germany on the
east were also kept within due bounds. In 816 the heorbann of the
Saxons and East Franks, called out against the rebellious Sorbs,
compelled them to renew their oaths of submission. Next year the
Frankish counts in charge of the frontier successfully beat off an attack
by Slavomir, the prince of the Obotrites, who, being made prisoner a
little later and accused before the Emperor by his own subjects, was
deposed, his place being given to his rival Ceadrag (818). The new
prince, however, before long deserted his former allies, joined forces
with the Danes, and unsuccessfully renewed the struggle with the
Franks. The latter found a more formidable opponent in the person of
Liudevit, a prince who had succeeded in reducing to his obedience part
of the population of Pannonia and was menacing the Frankish frontier
between the Drave and the Save. An expedition sent against him
under the Marquess of Friuli, Cadolah, was not successful. Cadolah died
during the campaign, and the Slovenes invaded the imperial territory
(820). It was only through an alliance with one of Liudevit's foes,
Bozna, the Grand Župan of the Croats, that the Franks in their turn
were enabled to spread destruction through the enemy's country, and to
force the tribes of Carniola and Carinthia, who had thrown off their
allegiance, to submit afresh. Liudevit himself made his submission next
year, and peace was maintained upon the eastern frontier till 827-8,
when an irruption of the Bulgarians into Pannonia necessitated another
Frankish expedition, headed this time by the Emperor's son Louis the
German. By way of compensation, unbroken peace reigned on the
extreme southern frontier of the dominions of Louis. The Lombard
populations of the south of Italy continued to be practically independent
of Frankish rule. Louis made no attempt to exert any effective
CH. I.
## p. 8 (#54) ###############################################
8
The Saracens
sovereignty over them. He contented himself with receiving from Prince
Grimoald of Benevento in 814 a promise to pay tribute and assurances
of submission, vague engagements which his successor Sico renewed
more than once without causing any change in the actual situation.
On the south-western frontier of the Empire a state of war, or at
least of perpetual skirmishing, went on between the Franks and either
the Saracens of Spain or the half-subdued inhabitants of the Pyrenees.
In 815 hostilities had broken out anew with the Emir Hakam I,
whom the Frankish historians call Abulaz. The following year the recall
of Séguin (Sigiwin), Duke of Gascony, led to a revolt of the Basques,
but the native chief whom the rebels had placed at their head was de-
feated and killed by the counts in the service of Louis the Pious. Two
years later (818) the Emperor felt himself strong enough to banish
Lupus son of Centullus, the national Duke of the Gascons, and in 819
an expedition under Pepin of Aquitaine resulted in an apparent and
temporary pacification of the province. On the other hand, at the
assembly at Quierzy in 820 it was decided to renew the war with the
Saracens of Spain. But the Frankish annalists mention only a plundering
raid beyond the Segre river (822), and in 824 the defeat of two Frankish
counts in the valley of Roncesvalles, as they were returning from an
expedition against Pampeluna. In 826 the revolt in the Spanish March
of a chief of Gothic extraction gave Louis the Pious graver cause for
disquiet. An army led by the Abbot Elisachar checked the rebels
for the moment, but they appealed to the Emir ‘Abd-ar-Raḥmān, and
the Muslim troops sent under the command of Abū-Marwān penetrated
as far as the walls of Saragossa. At the Compiègne assembly held in
the summer of 827, the Emperor decided on sending a new Frankish
army beyond the Pyrenees, but its leaders, Matfrid, Count of Orleans,
and Hugh, Count of Tours, shewed such an entire lack of zeal and
interposed so many delays, that Abū-Marwān was able to ravage the
districts of Barcelona and Gerona with impunity. The progress of the
invaders was only checked by the energetic resistance of Barcelona, under
Count Bernard of Septimania, but they were able, nevertheless, to with-
draw unhindered with their booty. In 828, in another quarter of the
Frankish Empire, Boniface, Marquess of Tuscany, was taking the offensive.
After having, at the head of his little flotilla, destroyed the pirate
Muslim ships in the neighbourhood of Corsica and Sardinia, he landed
in Africa and ravaged the country round Carthage.
To the extreme west of the Empire, the Bretons, whom even the
great Charles had never been able to subdue completely, continued from
time to time to send out pillaging expeditions into Frankish territory,
chiefly in the direction of Vannes. These were mere raids, up to the
time when their union under the leadership of a chief named Morvan
(Murmannus), to whom they gave the title of king, so far emboldened
the Bretons that they refused to pay homage or the annual tribute to
## p. 9 (#55) ###############################################
The Bretons
9
which they had heretofore been subject. Louis, having attempted in
vain to negotiate with the rebels, made up his mind to act, and
summoned the host of Francia, Burgundy, and even of Saxony and
Alemannia, to gather at Vannes in August 818. The Frankish troops
pushed their way into the enemy's territory without having to fight a
regular battle, as the Bretons, following their customary tactics, preferred
to disappear from sight and merely harass their enemy. The latter
could do no more than ravage the country, but Morvan was killed in a
skirmish. His countrymen then abandoned the struggle, and at the
end of a month the Emperor re-entered Angers, having exacted promises
of submission from the more powerful of the Breton chiefs. Their sub-
mission, however, did not last long. In 822, a certain Wihomarch
repeated Morvan's attempt. The expeditions led against him by the
Frankish counts of the march of Brittany or by the Emperor himself were
marked only by the wasting of the country, and produced no permanent
results. Not until 826 did a new system ensure a measure of tranquillity.
Louis then recognised the authority over the Bretons of a chief of their
own race, Nomenoë, to whom he gave the title of missus and who in
return did homage to him and took the oath of fealty. But the union
of Brittany under a single head was a dangerous measure.
Louis was
blind to its disadvantages, but they were destined to have disastrous
results in the reign of his successor.
Events within the realm were to begin the disorganisation of Louis's
government and ultimately bring about the disruption of the empire
founded by Charlemagne. In July 817 at the assembly of Aix-la-
Chapelle, the Emperor had decided to take measures to establish the
succession, or rather to cause the arrangements already made by himself
and a few of his confidential advisers to be ratified by the lay and
ecclesiastical magnates jointly. The Frankish principle by which the
dominions of a deceased sovereign were divided among his sons, was still
too living a thing (it lasted, indeed, as long as the Carolingian dynasty
itself) to allow of the exclusion of any one of Louis's sons from the suc-
cession. The principle had already been applied in 806, and Louis had
in some sort recognised it afresh by entrusting two of his sons with the
government of two of his kingdoms, while at the same time leaving a third
in the hands of Bernard of Italy. But on the other hand, the Emperor
and his chief advisers were no less firmly attached to the principle of the
unity of the Empire, “by ignoring which we should introduce confusion
into the Church, and offend Him in Whose Hands are the rights of all
kingdoms. ” “Would God, the Almighty,” wrote one of the most
illustrious of the thinkers upholding the system of the unity of the
Empire, Archbishop Agobard of Lyons, “that all men, united under a
single king, were governed by a single law! This would be the best
method of maintaining peace in the City of God and equity among
the nations. " And the wisest and most influential of the clergy in
a
CH. 1.
## p. 10 (#56) ##############################################
1
10
Divisio Imperii
the kingdom thought and spoke with Agobard, because they realised
the advantages which accrued to the Church from the government of a
single emperor in a realm where Church and State were so intimately
connected. Throughout these struggles, which disturbed the whole of
the reign of Louis the Pious, the party in favour of unity counted in its
ranks nearly all the political writers of the time, Agobard, Paschasius
Radbertus, Florus of Lyons. They have been accused of defending their
personal interests under cover of the principle, and it has been pointed
out that often the so-called party of unity was nothing but the coterie
which gathered round Lothar. It is probable enough that the conduct
of the sons of Louis and of the principal counts who took part with
each of them was dictated by motives purely personal, but if the more
important leaders of the ecclesiastical aristocracy are found supporting
Lothar, it must not be forgotten that Lothar stood for the unity of
the Empire for which the Church was working.
However this may be, the arrangements made at Aix, after three
days devoted to fasting and almsgiving in order to call down the
blessing and inspiration of God upon the assembly about to be opened,
might seem of a kind to reconcile diverse principles and interests. The
title of emperor was conferred upon Lothar, who became his father's
colleague in the general administration of the Frankish monarchy. His
coronation took place before the assembly amid the loud applause of the
crowd. The title of king was confirmed to his two brothers, and their
dominions received some augmentation. With Aquitaine, Pepin received
Gascony and the county of Toulouse, as well as the Burgundian counties
of Autun, Avallon and Nevers. Louis took Bavaria which Lothar had
held, with suzerainty over the Carinthians, the Bohemians and the Slavs.
The rest of the Empire was, on the death of Louis, to revert to Lothar,
who alone was to enjoy the title of Emperor. It is somewhat difficult to
say what was to be the position of the young kings with regard to Louis
the Pious. It is probable that in practice it was modified with the
lapse of time and the age of the princes. Indeed Louis, who may from
this time be called Louis the German, the name by which history knows
him, was not put in actual possession of his kingdom until 825. On
the other hand, the act of 817 dealt minutely with the relation in which
the brothers were to stand towards one another after the death of Louis
the Pious. Each was to be sovereign ruler within his own dominions.
.
To the king was to belong the proceeds of the revenue and taxes, and
he was to have full right to dispose of the dignities of bishoprics and
abbeys. At the same time the Emperor's supremacy is ensured by a
series of provisions. His two brothers are bound to consult him on all
occasions of importance; they may not make war or conclude treaties
without his consent. His sanction is also required for their marriage,
and they are forbidden to marry foreigners. They are to attend at the
Emperor's court every year to offer their gift, to confer with him on
## p. 11 (#57) ##############################################
Revolt of Bernard of Italy
11
public affairs, and to receive his instructions. Disputes between them
are to be determined by the general assembly of the Empire. This body
is also to pronounce in case of their being guilty of acts of violence or
oppression and having failed to make satisfaction in accordance with the
remonstrances which it shall be the duty of their elder brother to address
to them. If either of the two die leaving several lawful sons, the people
shall make their choice among them, but there shall be no further
division of territory. If, on the contrary, the deceased leave no legiti.
mate son, his apanage shall devolve on one of his brothers. Supplementary
provisions, derived, indeed, from the Divisio of 806, were added, for-
bidding the magnates to possess benefices in several kingdoms at once,
but allowing any free man to settle in any kingdom he chose, and to
marry there.
Such, in its main outlines, was the celebrated Divisio imperii of 817,
which we may fittingly analyse, as its provisions were often to be
appealed to during the struggle between the sons of Louis. Its object
was to avoid every occasion of strife. Yet one of its earliest effects was
to kindle a revolt, that of the young Bernard of Italy. He considered
himself threatened, or his counsellors persuaded him that he was
threatened, by one of the regulations of the act of Aix, laying down that
after the death of Louis, Italy should be subject to Lothar in the same
manner as it had been to Louis himself and to Charles. It is, however,
difficult to see more in this article than a provision for the maintenance
of the actual status quo. All our authorities agree in attributing the
responsibility for the revolt less to Bernard himself than to certain of his
intimates, the count Eggideus, the chamberlain Reginar (Rainier), and
Anselm, Archbishop of Milan. The Bishop of Orleans, the celebrated
poet Theodulf, was also counted among the young prince's partisans.
The rebels' plan, it was said, was to dethrone the Emperor and his
family, perhaps to put them to death, and to make Bernard sole ruler of
the Empire. Ratbold, Bishop of Verona, and Suppo, Count of Brescia,
who were the first to warn Louis of what was being plotted against him,
added that all Italy was ready to uphold Bernard, and that he was
master of the passes of the Alps. In reality, the rebellion seems in no
sense to bear the character of a national movement, which indeed would
hardly have been possible at this stage, and the numerous army, which
the Emperor hastily assembled, found no difficulty in occupying the
passes of Aosta and Susa. Louis in person put himself at the head of
the troops concentrating at Châlon. Bernard was alarmed, and finding
himself ill supported, made his submission, along with his chief partisans,
to the Frankish counts who had pushed on into Italy, and surrendered
himself into their custody. The prisoners were sent to Aix-la-Chapelle,
and the assembly held in that town at the beginning of 818 condemned
them to death. The Emperor granted them their lives, but commuted
their punishment to that of blinding. Bernard and his friend Count
CH. 1.
## p. 12 (#58) ##############################################
12
Penance of Attigny
Reginar died in a few days in consequence of the torture inflicted
(17 April 818). The young prince was not nineteen. Those of his
accomplices who were churchmen were deposed and confined in monasteries.
Theodulf, in particular, was exiled to Angers. It is probable that it
was this rising in favour of a spurious member of his family which led
the Emperor at this time to take precautionary measures against his
own illegitimate brothers, Hugh, Theodoric and Drogo (later, 826,
Archbishop of Metz), whom he compelled to enter monasteries.
The punishment suffered by Bernard, who was hardly more than a
lad, was out of all proportion to the risk which he had caused the
Emperor to run. It was an act of pure cruelty, and was generally and
severely criticised at the time. Louis himself judged that he had shewn
excessive severity. In 821 at the assembly at Thionville which followed
the rejoicings on the marriage of Lothar with Ermengarde, daughter of
Hugh, Count of Tours, he granted an amnesty to Bernard's former
accomplices, and restored their confiscated property. At the same time
he recalled from Aquitaine Adalard, another of the proscribed, and
replaced him at the head of the monastery of Corbie. Next year at
Attigny he took a further step in the same direction. He solemnly
humiliated himself in the presence of the chief clergy of his kingdom,
the Abbot Elisachar, Adalard and Archbishop Agobard, declaring
that he desired to do penance publicly for the cruelty he had shewn
both to Bernard and to Adalard and his brother Wala. The biographer
of Louis the Pious compares this public penance to that of Theodosius.
It was, in reality, extremely impolitic. The Emperor weakened himself
morally by this humiliation before the ecclesiastical aristocracy, who
looked upon the penance of Attigny as a victory won by themselves
over Louis, “who became,” says Paschasius Radbertus triumphantly,
“the humblest of men, he who had been so ill-counselled by his royal
pride, and who now made satisfaction to those whose eyes had been
offended by his crime. " His humiliation was also accompanied by
measures taken to secure the protection of property belonging to the
Church, and Agobard felt so sure of victory for the latter that he even
meditated claiming the restitution of all the ecclesiastical property
which had been usurped in preceding reigns. The penance of Attigny
was one great political mistake of Louis; his re-marriage was another.
Its consequences were to prove disastrous.
Louis's first wife, “his counsellor and helper in his government,” the
devout Empress Ermengarde, had died at Angers, just as her husband
was returning from his expedition into Brittany (3 Oct. 818). The
Emperor for some time gave himself up to despairing grief. It was even
feared that he would abdicate and retire into a monastery. However,
at the earnest request of his confidential advisers he decided on choosing
a second consort " who might be his helper in the government of his
palace and his kingdom. ” In 819 he chose from among his magnates'
## p. 13 (#59) ##############################################
Judith
13
daughters that of Count Welf, a maiden of a very noble Swabian house,
named Judith. Aegilwi, the new Empress's mother, belonged to one of
the great Saxon families which had always shewn itself faithful to Louis.
Contemporaries are unanimous in lauding not only the beauty of Judith,
which seems to have had most weight in determining the Emperor's
choice, but also her qualities of mind, her learning, her gentleness, her
piety, and the charm of her conversation. She seems to have possessed
great ascendancy over all who came in contact with her, especially over
her husband. In 823 she bore him a son who received the name of
Charles, and whom history knows as Charles the Bald. The ordinatio
of 817 had contemplated no such contingency, nor had the confirmation
of it which had been solemnly decreed at Nimeguen in 819. It was
plain, nevertheless, that whether during his father's lifetime or after his
death, the newborn prince would claim a share equal to that of his
brothers. From this point onwards, the history of the reign of Louis
the Pious becomes almost entirely that of the efforts made by him under
the influence of Judith to secure to the latest-born his portion of the
inheritance, and that of the counter-efforts of the three elder sons to
maintain the integrity of their own shares in virtue of the settlement of
817, and of the principle of unity round which the partisans of Lothar
rallied.
For some time events seemed to take the course provided for by the
settlement of 817. Pepin was put in possession of Aquitaine on his
marriage in 822 with Engeltrude, daughter of Theobert, Count of the
pagus Madriacensis, near the lower Seine, and Louis the German
was entrusted in 825 with the actual administration of his Bavarian
kingdom soon after the assembly at Aix. But in 829, after the assembly
of Worms, the Emperor, by an edict“ issued of his own will ” made a
new arrangement by which his youngest son was given part of Alemannia
with Alsace and Rhaetia and a portion of Burgundy, no doubt with the
title only of duke. All these districts formed part of Lothar's portion,
and he, though godfather of his young brother, could not fail to resent
such measures.
It appears probable that it was in order to remove him
from court that at this juncture he was sent on a new mission into
Italy. At the same time in signing charters he ceases to be designated
by his title of Emperor. But it was necessary to provide a protector
for young Charles, and for this office choice was made of Bernard
of Septimania, who also held the Spanish March and received the
title of Chamberlain. Son of a great man canonised by the Church,
William of Gellone, friend of St Benedict of Aniane, great-grandson of
Charles Martel, and defender of Barcelona at the time of the Saracenic
invasion, Bernard was already in right of his birth and his valour as well
as his position one of the chief personages of the Empire. Because he
was chamberlain Bernard was entrusted with the administration of the
palace and of the royal domains in general, and held “the next place
CH, I.
## p. 14 (#60) ##############################################
14
Family disunion; Pepin's revolt
after the Emperor. " His rise to power seems to have been marked, more-
over, by a change in the personnel of Louis's court. His enemies, through
the mouth of Paschasius Radbertus, accuse him of having “ turned the
palace upside down and scattered the imperial council,” and it is true
that Wala and other partisans of Lothar were set aside from the
administration of affairs to make way for new men, Odo, Count of
Orleans, William, Count of Blois, cousin of Bernard, Conrad and
Rudolf, brothers of the new Empress, Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, and Boso,
Abbot of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire (Fleury).
The displeasure of the magnates evicted from power or disappointed
in their ambitions was shewn as early as the following year (830).
Louis, perhaps by the advice of Bernard who was eager to strengthen
his position by military successes, had planned a new expedition against
the Bretons and summoned the host to meet at Rennes at Easter
(14 April). Many of the Franks proved little disposed to enter on a
campaign in spring, at an inclement season of the year. On the other
.
hand, Wala secretly informed Pepin that hostile designs were being
formed against him by Bernard, who under pretext of an expedition
into Brittany meditated nothing less than turning his arms against the
king of Aquitaine and stripping him of his possessions. Pepin was a
man of energy, but also of levity and impetuosity, and under pressure,
perhaps, from the Aquitanian lords who had gradually been substituted
for the Frankish counsellors placed round him by his father, either
believed, or feigned to believe the information, and came to an agree-
ment with his brother Louis and the partisans of Wala and Lothar
to march against the Emperor.
Louis the Pious, who was on his way to Rennes along the coast with
Judith and Bernard, was at Sithiu (Saint-Bertin) when the news of the
revolt reached him. He continued his journey as far as Saint-Riquier.
But the time had gone by for the Breton expedition. The majority of
the fideles who should have gathered at Rennes to take part in it had
met at Paris and made common cause with the rebels. Pepin, after
having occupied Orleans, had joined them at Verberie, N. E. of Senlis.
Louis the German had done likewise. As to Lothar, he was lingering
in Italy, perhaps to watch what turn events would take. But any
resistance was impossible for Louis, because the whole weight of military
force veas on the side of the conspirators. The latter declared that they
had no quarrel with the Emperor, but only with his wife, whom they
accused of a guilty connexion with Bernard. They demanded therefore
that Judith should be exiled and her accomplices punished. Louis,
sending Bernard for refuge to his city of Barcelona, and leaving the
Empress at Aix, went to meet the rebels, who were then at Compiègne
and surrendered himself into their hands. Judith, who had set out to
join him, fearing violence took shelter in the church of Notre-Dame at
Laon. Two of the counts who had espoused Pepin's cause, Warin of
## p. 15 (#61) ##############################################
Disloyalty of Lothar
15
Mâcon and Lambert of Nantes, came up and forcibly removed her.
After having detained her a prisoner for some time with her husband,
they finally shut her up in a convent at Poitiers. Her two brothers,
Conrad and Rudolf, were tonsured and relegated to Aquitanian monas-
teries.
In these circumstances, Lothar, dreading no doubt that he might
be ignored if a division should take place without him, arrived at
Compiègne and at once put himself at the head of the movement, his
first step being to resume his title of joint-Emperor. Louis the Pious
seemed inclined to dismiss Bernard and restore the former government.
Lothar's desires went beyond this, and he surrounded his father with
monks instructed to persuade him to embrace the religious life, for which
he had formerly shewn some inclination. But Louis did not fall in with
this project. He was secretly negotiating with Louis the German and
Pepin, promising them an increase of territory if they would abandon
the cause of Lothar. On their side, the two princes were no more
inclined to be Lothar's subjects than their father's. The Emperor and
his supporters succeeded in gathering a new assembly at Nimeguen in
the autumn, at which were present many of the Saxon and German
lords who were always loyal to Louis. The reaction beginning in favour
of the Emperor now shewed itself plainly. Louis was declared to be
re-established in his former authority. It was also decided to recall
Judith. On the other hand, several of the abettors of the revolt were
arrested. Wala was obliged to surrender the abbey of Corbie. The
Arch-Chaplain Hilduin, Abbot of St Denis, was banished to Paderborn.
Lothar, in alarm, accepted the pardon offered him by his father and
shewed himself at the assembly beside the Emperor in the character of
a dutiful son.
The assembly convoked at Aix-la-Chapelle (February 831) to pass
definitive sentence on the rebels, adjudged them the penalty of death,
which Louis the Pious commuted to imprisonment and exile, together
with confiscation of goods. Lothar himself was obliged to subscribe to
the condemnation of his former partisans. Thus Hilduin lost the
abbeys he had possessed and was banished to Corvey, Wala was impris-
oned in the neighbourhood of the Lake of Geneva, Matfrid and Elisachar
exiled. At the same time the Empress, after solemnly clearing herself
by oath from the accusations levelled against her, was declared restored
to her former position. Her brothers, Conrad and Rudolf, quitted the
monasteries in which they had been temporarily confined, and recovered
their dignities. Contrariwise the name of Lothar again disappears from
the parchments containing the imperial diplomas, the eldest son losing
his privileged position as joint-Emperor, and being reduced to that
of king of Italy, while in accordance with the promise he had made
them Louis the Pious increased the shares of his younger sons in the
inheritance. To Pepin's Aquitanian kingdom were annexed the districts
CH. 1.
## p. 16 (#62) ##############################################
16
Revolt of Louis the German
between the Loire and the Seine, and, to the north of the latter river,
the Meaux country, with the Amiénois and Ponthieu as far as the sea.
Louis of Bavaria saw his portion enlarged by the addition of Saxony
and Thuringia and the greater part of the pagi which make up modern
Belgium and the Netherlands. Charles, besides Alemannia, received Bur-
gundy, Provence and Gothia with a slice of Francia, and in particular,
the important province of Rheims. Nevertheless, as these arrangements
had no validity until Louis the Pious should have disappeared from the
scene, they made little or no change in the actual position of the three
princes, especially as the Emperor expressly reserved to himself the
power to give additional advantage to “any one of our three above-
mentioned sons, who, desirous of pleasing in the first place God, and
secondly ourselves, should distinguish himself by his obedience and
zeal” by withdrawing somewhat “from the portion of that one of his
brothers who shall have neglected to please us. " Yet the sentences
pronounced at Aix-la-Chapelle were to be of no lasting effect. At
Ingelheim, in the beginning of May, several of the former partisans of
Lothar were pardoned. Hilduin, in particular, regained his abbey
of St Denis. On the other hand, Bernard, though like Judith he had
purged himself by oath before the assembly at Thionville from the
accusations made against him, had not been reinstated in his office at
court. On the contrary, it would seem that Louis the Pious made
endeavours to reconcile himself with Lothar, perhaps under the influence
of Judith, who was ever ready to cherish the idea that her young son
might find a protector in his eldest brother. The Emperor was, besides,
in a fair way towards a breach with Pepin. The latter being summoned
to the assembly at Thionville (autumn 831) had delayed under various
pretexts to present himself, and when he did resolve to appear before
the Emperor at Aix (end of 831) his father received him with so small
a show of favour that Pepin either feared or pretended to fear for his
safety, and at the end of December secretly betook himself again to
Aquitaine, disregarding the prohibition, which had been laid
upon
him. Louis decided to take strong measures against him and called an
assembly to meet at Orleans in 832, to which Lothar and Louis the
German were both summoned. From Orleans an expedition was to be
sent south of the Loire.
But at the beginning of 832, the Emperor learned that Louis the
German, perhaps fearing to share the fate of Pepin, or instigated by
some of the leaders of the revolt of 830, was in a state of rebellion,
and at the head of his Bavarians, reinforced by a contingent of Slavs,
had invaded Alemannia (the apanage of Charles) where many of the
nobles had ranged themselves on his side. Relinquishing for the moment
his Aquitanian project, Louis summoned the host of the Franks and
Saxons to muster at Mayence. The leudes eagerly responded to his
appeal, and Louis the German, who was encamped at Lorsch, was
## p. 17 (#63) ##############################################
Provisions for Charles the Bald
17
obliged to recognise that he had no means of resisting the superior
forces at his father's disposal. He therefore retreated. The imperial
army slowly followed his line of march, and by the month of May had
reached Augsburg. Here it was that Louis the German came to seek
his father and make his submission to him, swearing never in future to
renew his attempts at revolt.
Louis then turned towards Aquitaine. From Frankfort, where he
was joined by Lothar, he convoked a new host to meet at Orleans on
1 September. Thence he crossed the Loire, and ravaging the country
as he went, reached Limoges. He halted for some time to the north of
this town, at the royal residence of Jonac in La Marche, where Pepin
came to him and in his turn submitted himself to him. But, shewing
more severity in his case than in that of Louis the German, the Emperor,
with the alleged object of reforming his morals, caused him to be arrested
and sent to Trèves. At the same time, disclosing his true purpose, he
annexed Aquitaine to the dominions of young Charles, to whom the
magnates present at the assembly at Jonac were required to swear
fealty. Bernard of Septimania himself, whose influence excited alarm,
was deprived of his honours and benefices, which were given to Berengar,
Count of Toulouse. But the Aquitanians, always jealous of their
independence, would not submit to be deprived of the prince whom they
had come to look upon as their own. They succeeded in liberating him
from the custody of his escort, and the Frankish troops, sent in pursuit
by Louis, were unable to recapture him. The imperial army was obliged
to turn northward, harassed by the Aquitanian insurgents, and their
winter march proved disastrous. When Louis at length reached Francia
again, leaving Aquitaine in arms behind him (January 833), it was only
to learn that his two other sons, Lothar and Louis the German, were
again in rebellion against him.
Lothar and Louis no doubt dreaded lest they should meet with the
same treatment as Pepin. Moreover they could not see without feelings
of jealousy the share of young Charles in the paternal heritage so
disproportionately augmented. Again, Lothar had found a new ally in
the person of the Pope, Gregory IV (elected in 827). The latter,
though hesitating at first, had ended by allowing himself to be caught
by the prospect of bringing peace to the Empire, and of securing for the
Papacy the position of a mediating power. He had therefore decided
on accompanying Lothar when he crossed the Alps to join his brother
of Germany, and had addressed a circular letter to the bishops of Gaul
and Germany, asking them to order fasts and prayers for the success of
his enterprise. This did not hinder the greater number of the prelates
from rallying round Louis who was at Worms where his army was
concentrating. Only a few steadfast partisans of Lothar, such as
Agobard of Lyons, failed to obey the imperial summons. The two
parties seem to have been in no haste to come to blows, and for several
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. I.
2
## p. 18 (#64) ##############################################
18
The Field of Lies
months spent their time in negotiating and in drawing up statements of
the case on one side or the other, the sons persistently professing the
deepest respect for their father, and vowing that all their quarrel was
with his evil counsellors. Things remained in this state until, in the
middle of June, the Emperor resolved to go and seek his sons in order
to have a personal discussion with them.
In company, then, with his supporters, he went up the left bank of
the Rhine towards Alsace where the rebels were posted, and pitched his
camp opposite theirs near Colmar, in the plain known as the Rothfeld.
Brisk negotiations were again opened between the two parties. Pope
Gregory finally went in person to the imperial camp to confer with
Louis and his adherents. Did he exert his influence over the bishops
who up to then had seemed resolved to stand by their Emperor? Or
did the promises made by the sons work upon the magnates who still
gathered round Louis ? Whatever may be the explanation, a general
defection set in. Within a few days the Emperor found himself deserted
by all his followers and left almost alone. The place which was the
scene of this shameful betrayal is traditionally known as the Lügenfeld,
the Field of Lies. Louis was constrained to advise the few prelates who
still kept faith with him, such as Aldric of Le Mans or Moduin of
Autun, to follow the universal example. He himself, with his wife, his
illegitimate brother Drogo and young Charles, surrendered to Lothar.
The latter declared his father deposed from his authority and claimed
the Empire as his own by right. He made use of it to share dignities
and honours among his chief partisans. In order to give some show of
satisfaction to his brothers, he added to Pepin's share the wide duchy
of Maine, and to Louis's Saxony, Thuringia and Alsace. Judith was
sent under a strong guard to Tortona in Italy, and Charles the Bald to
the monastery of Prüm. After this, Pepin and Louis the German
returned to their respective states, while the Pope, perhaps disgusted
by the scenes he had just witnessed, quitted Lothar and betook himself
directly to Rome.
Louis had been temporarily immured in the monastery of St Médard
at Soissons. The assembly held by Lothar at Compiègne was not of
itself competent to decree the deposition of the old Emperor, in spite
of the accusations brought against him by Ebbo, Archbishop of Rheims.
Lothar was forced to confine himself to bringing sufficient pressure to
bear upon his father (through the agency of churchmen of the rebel
party sent to Soissons) to induce him to acknowledge himself guilty of
offences which rendered him unworthy of retaining power. But not
satisfied with his deposition the bishops forced him besides to undergo a
public humiliation. In the church of Notre-Dame at Compiègne in the
presence of the assembled magnates and bishops, Louis, prostrate upon
a hair cloth before the altar, was compelled to read the form of confession
drawn up by his enemies, in which he owned himself guilty of sacrilege,
## p. 19 (#65) ##############################################
Restoration of Louis the Pious
19
as having transgressed the commands of the Church and violated the
oaths that he had sworn; of homicide, as having caused the death of
Bernard; and of perjury, as having broken the pact instituted to preserve
the peace of the Empire and the Church. The document containing the
text of this confession was then laid upon the altar, while the Emperor,
stripped of his baldric, the emblem of the warrior (knight or miles), and
clothed in the garb of a penitent, was removed under close supervision
first to Soissons, then to the neighbourhood of Compiègne, and finally
to Aix where the new Emperor was to spend the winter.
But by the end of 833, dissension was beginning to make itself felt
among the victors. Louis's half-brothers, Hugh and Drogo, who had fled
to Louis the German, were exhorting him to come over to the party of
his father and of Judith, whose sister, Emma, he had married in 827.
Louis the German's first step was to intercede with Lothar to obtain a
mitigation of the treatment meted out to the imprisoned Emperor.
The attempt failed, and only produced a widening of the breach be-
tween the two brothers. A reaction of feeling began in favour of the
captive sovereign. The famous theologian Raban Maur, Abbot of Fulda
and later Archbishop of Mayence (847–56), published an apologia on
his behalf, in answer to a treatise in which Agobard of Lyons had
just refurbished the old calumnies which had been widely circulated
against Judith. Louis the German made overtures to Pepin, who was
no more disposed than himself to recognise any disproportionate authority
in Lothar, and before long the two kings agreed to summon their
followers to march to the help of their father. Lothar, not feeling
himself safe in Austrasia, went to Saint-Denis where he had called upon
his host to assemble. But the nobles of his party deserted him in his
turn. He was compelled to set Louis the Pious and young Charles at
liberty and to retreat upon Vienne on the Rhone, while the bishops and
magnates present at Saint-Denis decreed the restoration of Louis to his
former dignity, reinvesting him with his crown and his weapons, the
insignia of his authority. In charters and documents he now reassumes
the imperial style: Hludowicus, divina repropiciante clementia, imperator
augustus.
On leaving Saint-Denis Louis repaired to Quierzy, where he was
joined by Pepin and Louis the German. Judith, who had been with-
drawn from her prison by the magnates devoted to the Emperor, also
returned to Gaul. Meanwhile Lothar was preparing to carry on the
struggle. Lambert and Matfrid, his most zealous supporters, had raised
an army in his name on the March of Brittany, and defeated and killed
the counts sent against them by the Emperor. Lothar, who had rallied
his partisans, came to join them in the neighbourhood of Orleans.
There he awaited the arrival of the Emperor, who was still in company
with his other two sons. As on similar occasions, no battle was fought.
Lothar, realising the inadequacy of his forces, made his submission and
CH, I.
2-2
## p. 20 (#66) ##############################################
20
Submission of Lothar
4
appeared before his father promising never to offend again. He was
obliged to pledge himself also to be content, for the future, with “ the
kingdom of Italy, such as it had been granted by Charlemagne to
Pepin,” with the obligation of protecting the Holy See. Further, he
was never to cross the Alps again without his father's consent. His
partisans, Lambert and Matfrid, were permitted to follow him into his
new kingdom, forfeiting the benefices they possessed in Gaul.
Next year (835) an assembly at Thionville again solemnly annulled
the decrees of that of Compiègne, and declared Louis to be “ re-established
in the honours of his ancestors, henceforth to be regarded by all
men as their lord and emperor. ” A fresh ceremony took place at Metz,
when the imperial crown was again set upon his head. At the same
time the assembly at Thionville had decreed penalties against the bishops
who had deserted their sovereign. Ebbo of Rheims was compelled to
read publicly a formulary containing the acknowledgment of his treason
and his renunciation of his dignity. He was confined at Fulda.
Agobard of Lyons, Bernard of Vienne, and Bartholomew of Narbonne
were condemned as contumacious and declared deposed. The Emperor
attempted to take advantage of this returning prosperity to restore
some degree of order in the affairs of his kingdoms, after the fiery
trial of several years of civil war. At the assembly of Tramoyes (Ain)
in June 835 he decreed the sending of missi into the different provinces
to suppress acts of pillage. At that of Aix (beginning of 836) measures
were taken to secure the regular exercise of the power of the bishops.
A little earlier an attempt had been made to prevail on Pepin of
Aquitaine to restore the Church property which he and his followers
had usurped. But it is doubtful whether these measures produced any
great effect. On the other hand, a fresh peril became daily more
threatening, namely the incursions of the Scandinavian pirates. In 834
they had ravaged the coasts of Frisia, pillaging the sea-coasts as
they went, and penetrating at least as far as the island of Noirmoutier
on the Atlantic. Henceforth they reappear almost every year, and in
835 they defeated and slew Reginald, Count of Herbauges. In the
same year they plundered the great maritime mart of Dorestad on the
North Sea. Next year, 836, they again visited Frisia, and their king
Horic had even the insolence to demand the wergild of such of his
subjects as had been slain or captured during their piratical operations.
In 837 fresh ravages took place, and the Emperor in vain attempted to
check them by sending out missi charged with the defence of the coasts,
and especially by building ships to pursue the enemy. Horic even
claimed (838) the sovereignty of Frisia, and it was not till 839 that
hostilities were temporarily suspended by a treaty.
Nor was the internal peace of the Empire much more secure. Louis
and Judith appear to have reverted to the idea of a reconciliation with
Lothar, looking upon him as the destined protector of his young brother
## p. 21 (#67) ##############################################
Death of Pepin of Aquitaine
21
a
and godson, Charles. As early as 836 negotiations were begun with a
view to the renewal of amicable relations between the King of Italy and
his father. But sickness prevented Lothar from attending the assembly
at Worms to which he had been summoned. However, at the end of
837 at the assembly held at Aix the Emperor elaborated a new scheme
of division which added to Charles's kingdom the greater part of Belgium
with the country lying between the Meuse and the Seine as far as
Burgundy. This project was certain to alarm Louis the German, whom
we find at the opening of the next year (838) making overtures in his
turn to Lothar with whom he had an interview at Trent. This displeased
the Emperor and, at the Nimeguen assembly, June 838, he punished
Louis by depriving him of part of his territory, leaving him only
Bavaria. On the other hand, in the month of September young Charles
at the age of fifteen had just attained his majority; such was the
law of the Ripuarian Franks followed by the Carolingian family. He
therefore received the baldric of a knight, and was given at Quierzy a
portion of the lands between Loire and Seine. An attempt made by
Louis to regain possession of the lands on the right bank of the Rhine
met with no success. The Emperor in his turn crossed the river and
forced his son to take refuge in Bavaria while he himself after a demon-
stration in Alemannia returned to Worms, where Lothar came from
Pavia to see him and went through a solemn ceremony of reconciliation
with him.
The death of Pepin of Aquitaine (13 December 838) seemed to simplify
the question of division and succession, for the new partition scheme
drawn up at Worms utterly ignored his son, Pepin II. Apart from
Bavaria, which with a few neighbouring pagi was left to Louis the
German, the empire of Charlemagne was cut into two parts. The
dividing line running from north to south followed the Meuse, touched
the Moselle at Toul, crossed Burgundy, and having on the west
Langres, Châlon, Lyons, Geneva, followed the line of the Alps and ended
at the Mediterranean. Lothar, as eldest son, was given the right to
choose, and took for himself the eastern portion; the other fell to Charles,
After his father's death, Lothar was also to bear the title of Emperor,
but apparently without the prerogatives attached to it by the settlement
of 817. It was to be his duty to protect Charles, while the latter was
bound to pay all due honour to his elder brother and godfather. These
obligations once fulfilled, each prince was to be absolute master in his
own kingdom.
Aquitaine was thus in theory vested in Charles the Bald, but several
guerilla bands still held the field in the name of Pepin II. The
Emperor went thither in person to secure the recognition of his son.
Setting out for Châlon where the host had been summoned to meet
(1 September 839) he made his way to Clermont. Here a party of
Aquitanian lords came to make their submission to their new sovereign.
CH. I.
## p. 22 (#68) ##############################################
22
Death of Louis the Pious
This did not, however, imply that the country was pacified, for many of
the counts still maintained their resistance.
But Louis the Pious had now to renew the struggle with the King of
Germany, who as well as Pepin was injured by the partition of 839, and
had invaded Saxony and Thuringia. The Emperor advanced against
him and had no great difficulty in thrusting him back into Bavaria.
But as he was returning to Worms, where his son Lothar, who had gone
back to Italy after the late partition, had been appointed to meet him,
the cough which had long tormented him became worse. Having fallen
dangerously ill at Salz, he had himself moved to an island in the Rhine
opposite the palace of Ingelheim. Here he breathed his last in his tent
on 20 June 840 in the arms of his half-brother, Drogo, sending his
pardon to his son Louis. Before his death he had proclaimed Lothar
Emperor, commending Judith and Charles to his protection and ordering
that the insignia of the imperial authority, the sceptre, crown and sword,
should be sent to him.
The dying Emperor might well have despaired of unity for Charle-
magne's Empire and have foreseen that the civil wars of the last twenty
years would be renewed more fiercely than ever among his sons. As the
outcome of his reign was unfortunate, and as under him the first mani.
festations appeared of the two scourges which were about to destroy the
Frank Empire, the insubordination of the great lords on one side and
the Norman invasions on the other, historians have been too easily led
to accuse Louis the Pious of weakness and incapacity. He was long
known by the somewhat contemptuous epithet of the Debonnaire (the
good-natured, the easy-going). But in truth his life-story shews him to
have been capable of perseverance and at times even of energy and re-
solution, although as a rule the energy was of no long duration. Louis
the Pious found himself confronted by opponents, who took his clemency
for a sign of weakness, and knew how to exploit his humility for
their own profit by making him appear an object of contempt. But
above all, circumstances were adverse to him. He was the loser in the
long struggle with his sons and with the magnates ; this final ill-success
rather than his own character explains the severe judgment so often
passed upon the son of the great Charles.
## p. 23 (#69) ##############################################
23
CHAPTER II.
THE CAROLINGIAN KINGDOMS (840-877).
The death of Louis the Pious and his clearly expressed last wishes
secured the imperial dignity to Lothar. But the situation had not been
defined with any precision. The last partition, decreed in 839, had made
important alterations in the shares assigned to the three brothers. Now
what Lothar hastened to claim was “the empire such as it had formerly
been entrusted to him," namely, the territorial power and the pre-eminent
position secured to him by the Constitutio of 817, with his two brothers
reduced to the position of vassal kinglets. To make good these claims
Lothar had the support of the majority of the prelates, always faithful,
in the main, to the principle of unity. But the great lay lords were
guided only by considerations of self-interest. In a general way, each of
the three brothers had on his side those who had already lived under his
rule, and whom he had succeeded in winning over by grants of honours
and benefices. Louis had thus secured the Germans, Bavarians, Thu-
ringians and Saxons, and Charles the Neustrians, Burgundians, and
such of the Aquitanians as had not espoused the cause of Pepin II.
But it would be a mistake to see in the wars which followed the death
of Louis the Pious a struggle between races. As a contemporary
writes, “the combatants did not differ either in their weapons, their
,
customs, or their race. They fought one another because they belonged
to opposite camps, and these camps stood for nothing but coalitions of
personal interests.
Lothar received the news of his father's death as he was on his
way to Worms. He betook himself to Strasbourg, and in that town
the oath of fealty was sworn to him by many of the magnates of ancient
Francia who were still loyal to the Carolingian family and to the
system of a united empire, being vaguely aware that this system would
secure the predominance of the Austrasians from among whom Charles
and Louis the Pious had drawn almost all the counts of their vast
empire. But Louis the German, on his part, had occupied the country
as far as the Rhine, and Charles the Bald was also making ready for the
struggle. Lothar had not resolution enough to attack his two brothers
one after the other and force them to accept the re-establishment of the
Constitutio of 817. He first had an interview beyond the Rhine with
CH. II.
## p. 24 (#70) ##############################################
24
Battle of Fontenoy
1
a
Louis, concluding a truce with him until a forthcoming assembly should
meet, at which the conditions of a permanent peace were to be discussed.
Then he marched against Charles, many of the magnates of the district
between the Seine and the Loire joining him, among others Gerard,
Count of Paris, and Hilduin, Abbot of Saint-Denis. But Charles, being
skilfully advised by Judith and other counsellors, among them an
illegitimate grandson of Charles the Great, the historian Nithard,
opened negotiations and succeeded in obtaining terms which left him
provisionally in possession of Aquitaine, Septimania, Provence and six
counties between the Loire and the Seine. Lothar, besides, arranged
to meet him at the palace of Attigny in the ensuing May, whither
Louis the German was also summoned to arrange for a definitive peace.
.
The winter of 840–841 was spent by the three brothers in enlisting
partisans and in gathering troops. But when spring came, Lothar
neglected to go to Attigny. Only Louis and Charles met there. An
alliance between these two, both equally threatened by the claims of
their elder brother, was inevitable. Their armies made a junction in
the district of Châlons-sur-Marne, while that of Lothar mustered in the
Auxerrois. Louis and Charles marched together against the Emperor,
proposing terms of agreement as they came, and sending embassy after
embassy to exhort him “to restore peace to the Church of God. ”
Lothar was anxious to spin matters out, for he was expecting the
arrival of Pepin II (who had declared for him) and of his contingent
of Aquitanians, or at least of southern Aquitanians, for those of the
centre and north were induced by Judith to join Charles the Bald.
On 24 June, Pepin effected his junction with the Emperor. The latter
now thought himself strong enough to wish for a battle. He sent a
haughty message to his younger brothers, reminding them that “the
imperial dignity had been committed to him, and that he would know
how to fulfil the duties it laid upon him. ” On the morning of the 25th,
the fight began at Fontenoy in Puisaye, and a desperate struggle it
proved. The centre of the imperial army, where Lothar appeared in
person, stood firm at first against the troops of Louis the German. On
the left wing the Aquitanians of Pepin II long held out, but Charles
the Bald, reinforced by a body of Burgundians who had come up,
under the command of Warin, Count of Mâcon, was victorious against
the right wing, and his success involved the defeat of Lothar's army.
