No More Learning

Hincmar replied by endeavouring to justify his master, and by
dwelling on the necessity of preserving peace in Lorraine; Charles, for
his part, bestowed fair words and rich gifts on the Pope. As to Louis
the German, he professed himself ready to make over what he had
acquired of Lothar's lands to Louis II. These assurances, however, were
not followed by any practical result, and Charles spent the latter part of
the year in completing the subjection of the southern part of his newly-
acquired dominions. Lyons was occupied without a struggle. Only
Vienne, which was defended by Bertha, wife of Gerard of Roussillon, who
was himself ensconced in a castle in the neighbourhood, made some
resistance, surrendering, however, in the end (24 December 870).
Charles was recalled to Francia by the rebellion of his son Carloman, who
had forsaken his father's expedition in order to collect bands of partisans
and ravage his kingdom. Louis the German was at the same time
engaged in a struggle with his two sons who had risen against him.
Charles confided the government of the Viennois and Provence to his
brother-in-law Boso as duke, and turned homewards.
In the meanwhile, a report spread through Gaul and Germany that
the Emperor Louis II had been taken prisoner and put to death by
Adelchis, Prince of Benevento. In reality the latter had merely subjected
his sovereign to a few days' captivity (August 871). But Louis the
German and Charles the Bald had lost no time in shewing that each
intended to appropriate for himself the inheritance left by the deceased ;
Louis by sending his son Charles the Fat beyond the Alps, in order to
gather adherents, and Charles by setting out himself at the head of an
army. However, he went no farther than Besançon, when the two com-
petitors were stopped by the news that the Emperor was still alive. But
during the three following years we find both brothers bent on eventually
securing the heritage of the king of Italy; Louis the German being
supported, it would seem, by the Empress Engilberga, while Charles the
Bald, who had rid himself of his rebellious son Carloman, whom he had
succeeded in making prisoner and whose eyes he had put out, was trying
to form a party among the Roman nobles and those surrounding the new
Pope, John VIII, who in December 872 had taken the place of Hadrian.
The death of Louis II at Brescia (12 August 875) led to an open
struggle between the two rivals.


## p. 47 (#93) ##############################################

The Emperor Louis II in Italy
47
For a long time the kingdom of Italy had stood considerably apart
from the other Carolingian states. Louis the Pious and Lothar had
already placed it in a somewhat special position by sending as their re-
presentatives there each his eldest son, already associated in the Empire,
and bearing the title of king. Since 855 the Emperor had been restricted
to the possession of Italy, where he had already received the royal title
in 844, and where his coronation as joint-Emperor had taken place
(Rome, April 850). Apart from matters concerning the inheritance of
his brothers, it does not seem that Louis II held that his office imposed
on him the duty of interfering in affairs beyond the Alps. The Emperor
had been obliged to devote his chief attention to his duties as king of
Italy, and the defence of the country entrusted to him against the attacks
of its enemies, particularly the Saracens. But circumstances were too
strong for him, and in spite of his activity and energy, Louis II was
fated to wear himself out in a struggle of thirty years, and yet neither
to leave undisputed authority to his successor, nor finally to expel the
Muslims from Italian soil. The royal power had never been very great
in the peninsula. The Frankish counts
, who had taken the place of the
Lombard lords, had quickly acquired the habit of independence. The
bishops and abbots had seen their temporal power grow in extent,
through numerous grants of lands and immunities. On the other
hand, three strong powers, outside the Papal state, had taken shape out
of the ancient duchies of Friuli and Spoleto, and in Tuscany. The
counts of Frankish origin were reviving the former Lombard title of
duke, or the Frankish one of marquess, and regular dynasties of princes,
by no means very amenable to the orders of the sovereign, were established
at Cividale, Lucca and Spoleto. The March of Friuli, set up between
the Livenza and the Isonzo to ward off the attacks of Slavs and Avars,
athough its ruler, no doubt, had extended his authority over other
countries beyond these limits, had, in the time of Lothar, been bestowed
on a certain Count Everard, husband of Gisela, the youngest daughter of
Louis the Pious. This man, coming originally from the districts along
the Meuse, where his family still remained powerful, was richly endowed
with counties and abbeys, and played a distinguished part in the wars
against the Serbs, dying in 864 or 865. His immediate successor was
his son, Unroch, who died young, and then his second son, Berengar, who
was destined to play a conspicuous part in Italy at the end of the
ninth century, and who seems from an early date to have thrown in his lot
in politics with the partisans of Louis the German and the Empress Engil-
berga. The ducal family established at Spoleto also came from Francia,
from the valley of the Moselle. It was descended from Guy, Count
of the March of Brittany under Louis the Pious. His son Lambert, who
at first bore the same title, derived from the March, was a devoted ad-
herent of Lothar, and, as such, had been banished to Italy where he died '.
I See supra, pp. 15, 19-20.
CH. II.


## p. 48 (#94) ##############################################

48
Italian vassals
a
TE
It is this Lambert's son, Guy (Guido) who appears as the first Frankish
Duke of Spoleto. Brother-in-law of Siconolf, Prince of Benevento, he
contrived to interfere skilfully in the wars among the Lombard princes,
betray his allies at well-chosen junctures, and add to his duchy various
cities, Sora, Atino, etc. , the spoil of Siconolf or his rivals. He died
about 858. His son Lambert shewed himself an intractable vassal, some-
times the ally of Louis II, and again at open war with him, or fugitive
at the court of the princes of Benevento. He was even temporarily
deprived of his duchy, which was transferred to a cousin of the Empress
Engilberga, Count Suppo. After the Emperor Louis's death, however,
Lambert is found again in possession of his duchy, and like his brother
Guy, Count of Camerino, is counted among the adherents of Charles the
Bald. In Tuscany the ducal family was of Bavarian origin, tracing its
descent from Count Boniface who, in the beginning of the ninth century
was established at Lucca and was also entrusted with the defence of Corsica.
His grandson, Adalbert, succeeded in consolidating his position by
marrying Rotilda, daughter of Guy of Spoleto. As to Southern Italy,
beyond the Sangro and the Volturno, the Lombard principalities there,
in spite of formal acts of submission, remained, like the Greek territories,
outside the Carolingian Empire. The power of the Princes of Bene-
vento was considerably diminished after the formation of the principality
of Salerno, cut off from the original duchy in 848. From the middle of
the ninth century, the Gastalds of Capua also affected to consider them-
selves independent of the prince reigning at Benevento. The Frankish
sovereign could hardly do otherwise than seek to foment these internal
dissensions and try to obtain from the combatants promises of vassalage
or even the delivery of hostages. But Louis II made no real attempt to
compel the submission of the Lombards of Benevento and Salerno, who
were firmly attached to their local dynasties and to their independence.
If he interfered on several occasions beyond the limits of the States of
the Church and the Duchy of Spoleto, it was not as suzerain, but as the
ally of the inhabitants in their struggle against the common enemies of
all Italy, the Saracens.
These latter, who came from Africa and Spain, were for more than
a hundred years to be to the peninsula nearly as great a scourge as the
Northmen were to Gaul and Germany. In 827 they had gained a foot-
hold in Sicily and four years afterwards (831), taking advantage of the
dissensions between the Byzantine governors, they seized Palermo and
Messina and made themselves masters of the whole island. In 837 the
Duke of Naples, Andrew, set the fatal example of calling them in as
allies in his struggle with Sicard of Benevento, to whom he was refusing
the tribute he had promised. Thenceforward, in spite of engagements
to the contrary, Italian dukes and Greek governors constantly took
Muslim pirates into their pay. Other bands having seized various
Greek cities such as Taranto, we get the pillage of the towns on the
+


## p. 49 (#95) ##############################################

The Saracens sack St Peter's
49
Adriatic, e. g. Ancona (839). In 840 the treachery of the Gastald
Pando handed over to them Bari, where they fixed themselves per-
manently, and it was the Saracens of Bari whom Radelchis of Benevento
employed as auxiliaries during his struggle with Siconolf of Salerno.
Other pirate crews attempted the siege of Naples, but the city offered a
determined resistance, and its duke, Sergius, at the head of a fleet
collected from the Campanian ports, won the naval victory of Licosa
over the invaders in 846. Repulsed from the Campanian shores, the
pirates fell upon the coast nearest to Rome. In order to keep them out
of the Tiber, Pope Gregory IV had built a fortress at its mouth. This
did not prevent the pirates from landing on the right bank of the river
and even pushing their ravages as far as the gates of Rome. Unable to
force their way in, they sacked the basilica of St Peter, which was then
outside the walls, profaning the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles.
This sacrilege created a profound sensation throughout Christendom.
It was, indeed, related that a tempest destroyed the invaders with
the precious booty with which they were laden. But the truth appears
to be that Louis II, as he was advancing to the rescue of the city, met
with a check, and that the Saracens retired unmolested with their spoil.
A great expedition organised against them in the spring of the next
year (847) by Lothar I and Louis II had no important results. Louis,
however, took advantage of being in the south of Italy to put an
end by treaty to the contest between Radelchis and Siconolf, definitively
separating by a precise frontier line the two principalities of Bene-
vento and Salerno, The Roman suburbs had arisen from their ruins, and
Pope Leo IV (847-8) had built a wall round the basilica of St Peter
and the quarter on the right bank of the Tiber, enclosing what became
“the Leonine City. ” In 851-2 the Lombards again appealed to
Louis II. The latter delivered Benevento from the body of Saracens which
had settled down there, but being badly supported by his allies, he was
unable to take Bari, the Muslim garrison of which, as soon as the
Frankish army had withdrawn, re-commenced its devastating raids into
the surrounding country. It was at this time that the Saracens pillaged
the famous abbeys of Monte Cassino and St Vincent of Volturno. In
867 the Emperor made a fresh expedition against them, and laid siege to
Bari. But it was impossible to reduce the town without the help of
a squadron to blockade it from the sea. Louis II, therefore, attempted
to secure the aid of the Greek fleet by an alliance with the Basileus,
arranging for the marriage of his daughter Ermengarde with the son of
Basil, the Eastern Emperor. A Greek fleet did, indeed, appear off
Bari, but the marriage not having taken place, it drew off. Louis
was not discouraged, and made a general appeal to his subjects in the
maritime provinces, even to the half-subjected Slavs to the north of the
Adriatic. After many vicissitudes, the town was carried by assault
(2 February 871). But the Lombards of Benevento cordially detested
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. II,


## p. 50 (#96) ##############################################

50
Pope John VIII
their Frankish deliverers, and their prince, Adelchis, feared that the
Emperor might take advantage of his success to assert his sovereignty
over Southern Italy. In consequence of his hostility, he laid an ambush
which threw the Emperor a prisoner into his hands. Adelchis extorted
from his captive a promise not to re-enter Southern Italy. A report of
the Emperor's death was even current in Gaul and Germany. But
Louis II, being quickly set at liberty, obtained from the Pope a dispen-
sation from the oath he had sworn, and renewed the campaign next year
(873), without however having attained any advantage. On 12 August
875 he was suddenly carried off by death.
Such was the state of affairs in Italy at the moment when Charles
the Bald and Louis the German were preparing to dispute with one
another the heritage left by their nephew. The succession question
which presented itself, was, it is true, a complicated one. The dead
Emperor left only a daughter. The territories which he had ruled, ought,
it would seem, to have been divided by agreement between his two uncles.
But if the imperial dignity had, since the time of Charlemagne, been
considered inalienable from his family, no rule of succession had yet been
established, even by custom, which could be applied to it. In practice,
it seemed to be bound up with the possession of Italy, and to require as
indispensable conditions the election of the candidate, at least in theory,
by the Roman people, and his consecration at the hands of the Pope.
Now Charles the Bald had on his side the sympathy of John VIII, who
claimed that he was only carrying out the wishes already expressed by
Nicholas I himself. Charles has been accused of having entangled the
Pope by means of offerings and grants. In reality, what John VIII
most desired seems to have been a strong and energetic Emperor
capable of taking up the task to which Louis II had devoted himself,
and of defending the Holy See against the Saracens. Rightly or
wrongly, he believed that he had found his ideal in Charles, who was, in
addition, well-educated and a lover of letters, and had besides for a long
time given his attention to Italy, whither he had been summoned by a
party of the magnates at the time of the false report of the death of
Louis II. His possession, too, of Provence and of the Viennois, made it
possible for him to interfere beyond the Alps more readily than his
brother of Germany could do. He took action, besides, with promptness
and decision. Hardly had the news of his nephew's death reached him
at Douzy near Sedan than he summoned an assembly of magnates at
Ponthion near Châlons to nominate his comrades on the expedition. He
crossed the Great St Bernard, and had scarcely arrived in Italy when he
was met by the envoys of the Pope bearing an invitation to him to come
to Rome to be crowned. Louis the German was not inclined to see his
brother go to this length without a protest. He despatched his two
sons in succession beyond the Alps with an army. Charles the Fat was
immediately obliged to beat a retreat. Carloman, more fortunate,


## p. 51 (#97) ##############################################

Imperiul coronation of Charles the Bald
51
a
succeeded in meeting Charles the Bald on the banks of the Brenta, and,
after the Carolingian manner, opened negotiations. Either, as the
German annalists say, his uncle got the better of him by deceitful
promises, or else he felt himself too weak to fight the matter out. He,
therefore, arranged a truce, and returned to Germany without a blow.
Meanwhile Louis the German had made an attack upon Lorraine,
having been called in by a disgraced chamberlain, Enguerand, who
had been deprived of his office for the benefit of the favourite Boso.
Ravaging the country terribly as he went, Louis reached the palace of
Attigny on 25 December 875, where he waited for adherents to come in.
But the defections on which he had counted did not take place, and the
invader, for want of sufficient support, was obliged to retreat and make
his way back to Mayence. Charles, meanwhile, had not allowed himself
to be turned from his object by the news from Lorraine. He was
bent on the Empire. He had reached Rome, and on Christmas Day
875 he received the imperial diadem from the hands of John VIII.
But he did not delay long in Rome, and having obtained from John
the title of Vicar of the Pope in Gaul for Ansegis, Archbishop of Sens,
he began his journey homewards on 5 January 876. On January 31
he was at Pavia, where he had himself solemnly elected and recog-
nised as king of Italy by an assembly of magnates. Leaving Boso
to govern this new kingdom, he again set forward, and was back at
Saint-Denis in time to keep Easter (15 April). In the month of June,
in company with the two papal legates who had come with him from
Italy, John, Bishop of Arezzo, and John, Bishop of Toscanella, he held a
great assembly of nobles and bishops at Ponthion, when he appeared
wearing the imperial ornaments. The council solemnly recognised the
new dignity which the Pope had conferred on the king of the West
Franks. Charles would have wished also to secure its assent to the
grant of the vicariate to Ansegis, but on this point he met with strong
resistance. To the same assembly came envoys from Louis the German,
demanding in his name an equitable partition of the territories formerly
ruled by Louis II. Charles appeared to recognise these pretensions as
well-founded. In his turn he sent an embassy to his brother and opened
negotiations. They were interrupted by the death of Louis the German,
at Frankfort (28 August 876).
The dead king left three sons.
In accordance with arrangements
which had been made beforehand but often modified in detail, the eldest,
Carloman, was to receive Bavaria and the East Mark, the second,
Louis, Saxony and Franconia, and the third, Charles the Fat, Ale-
mannia. These dispositions were according to precedent. It is thus
difficult to conceive by what right Charles the Bald professed to claim that
portion of Lorraine which by the Treaty of Meersen had been allocated
to his brother. None the less, it is certain that he hastened to send off
emissaries to the country, charged with the business of gaining supporters
CH. II.
4-2


## p. 52 (#98) ##############################################

52
Succession to Louis the German
for his cause, and then set out himself for Metz, Aix-la-Chapelle and
Cologne. But Louis the Younger, on his side, had raised an army in
Saxony and Thuringia, and sent deputies, although vainly, to call upon
his uncle to respect his rights. He himself had recourse to the judgment
of God, and when the ordeal proved favourable to his champions, he
crossed the Rhine at Andernach. In the meanwhile, fresh envoys
bearing proposals of peace sought Charles the Bald on his behalf. His
uncle feigned willingness to enter into negotiations. But during the night
of 7–8 October, he suddenly struck his camp and began a forward march,
hoping to surprise his sleeping enemies in the early dawn. The season,
however, was inclement, the roads were soaked with rain, and the
cavalry, which was the principal arm of Carolingian forces, could only
advance with difficulty. Besides this, a faithful adherent of Louis the
Younger in Charles's own camp, had succeeded in warning his master of
the coup-de-main about to be attempted against him. Thus the imperial
army, fatigued by the night march, found the enemy, whom they had
thought to surprise, on his guard. The result was a disastrous defeat
of the troops of Charles. Numerous prisoners and rich spoil fell to the
victor. But it would appear that Louis was not in a position to profit
by his advantage, for almost immediately we find him falling back on
Aix and Frankfort. Charles, for his part, made no second attempt
against him, and shortly afterwards, without any formal treaty having
been concluded, peace was restored between the two kings, marked by the
liberation of the prisoners taken at Andernach.
Charles the Bald was, besides, absorbed by other anxieties. If his
election had been the act of John VIII, the reason was that the Pope
needed his help in Italy against the Saracens. Not satisfied with promises
of troops and missi, he unceasingly demanded Charles's presence in
Italy. Two papal legates again approached Charles at Compiègne at the
beginning of 877, and finally drew from him a pledge that he would
cross the Alps in the course of the summer. The moment, however, was
not favourable, for the Northmen were shewing increased activity. In
876 a hundred of their ships had gone up the Seine and threatened the
rich abbey of St-Denis, driving the monks to flee to a safer retreat on the
banks of the Aisne. Charles the Bald decided to negotiate with them once
more, and on 7 May 877 he ordered the collection of a special impost, a
tributum Normannicum, destined to produce the five thousand pounds of
silver needed to purchase the withdrawal of the Northmen from the Seine.
On 14 June he assembled the magnates at Quierzy (Kiersy), where he
promulgated a celebrated capitulary which has been too long held to be
the charter constituting the feudal system, a legislative measure es-
tablishing the hereditary nature of fiefs, the deliberate completion of a
process of evolution which had been going on from 847, the date at
which the Capitulary of Meersen ordered every free man to choose a
lord for himself. In 847 what was really in question was a measure to
>
a


## p. 53 (#99) ##############################################

Assembly of Quierzy
53
facilitate the levy of the host. In 877 at Quierzy, a whole body of very
diverse measures were introduced, their object being to secure the good
government of the kingdom, and the proper administration of the
private property of the king during his absence, or even in case he should
happen to die while on his expedition. The prince, Louis (the Stam-
merer), was to take his father's place with the assistance of counsellors,
the choice of whom shews that the Emperor was not entirely free from
distrust of his heir. An article in the capitulary orders Louis not to
deprive the son of any count who should die during the campaign of the
honours enjoyed by the father. Here we have a seal set upon the custom
which was becoming more and more general, namely that the honours
held by the father should be continued to the son, but at the same time
we get the implicit recognition of the sovereign's right to dispose of the
fiefs which, in principle, he has granted for life only, a right which
Louis might possibly abuse.
Charles, accompanied by Richilda, set out at the end of June. He
brought with him only a small number of his chief vassals; others, of
whom Boso was one, were to join him a little later at the head of an
army which they had received orders to assemble. The Emperor took
the St Bernard route, and met John VIII who had advanced as far
as Vercelli to receive him. But, at the same time as Charles, Car-
loman of Bavaria had been crossing the Alps at the head of a powerful
army, and now made his appearance in the eastern part of Lombardy.
Charles, uneasy at this, hurried on the coronation of Richilda as
Empress, and sent her back to Gaul, demanding the hastening forward
of the reinforcements which he was awaiting. But his presentiments
were realised. The magnates had been irritated to see him depart
thus, giving up the struggle with the Northmen, which in the eyes of
the Frankish aristocracy was more important than the war against
the Saracens. On the other hand they no doubt considered that the
expedition was unlikely to provide them with many fiefs and benefices
to be conquered beyond the Alps. Thus they made no response to the
appeal addressed to them. Boso himself, who the year before, under the
influence of Berengar of Friuli and the German party, had married
Ermengarde, daughter of the late Emperor Louis II, was opposed to a
fresh expedition into Italy, and declined to enter upon the campaign.
Some of the most powerful nobles of the Western Kingdom, chosen by
Charles to command the relieving army, Bernard, Count of Auvergne,
and Bernard, Marquess of Gothia, followed the example set them.
Hincmar himself, discontented that the vicariate should have been
conferred on Ansegis, shewed himself less loyal than usual, and Prince
Louis openly abetted the movement. The one object of the discontented
seems to have been to compel Charles to return, and in this they
succeeded, for the Emperor lost no time in retracing his
Gaul. But on the road he fell sick and on 6 October, in a poor hovel,
way towards
CH. II.


## p. 54 (#100) #############################################

54
Death of Charles the Bald
2
poisoned, it was said, by his Jewish doctor Zedekiah, he ended, miserably
enough, his reign of thirty-seven years.
Historians have often pronounced adversely on the reign, influenced
by chroniclers of Louis the German, who accuse his adversary of cowardice
and incapacity. But it does not in fact appear that Charles was wanting
either in courage or energy. All his contemporaries describe him as a
learned man and a friend to letters. He has been reproached with not
having succeeded in exacting obedience from his vassals, nor in organising
resistance to the Northmen. But it would certainly have been a task
beyond human strength to resist the process of evolution, at once
economic and social, which gave birth to the feudal system and
transformed into hereditary fiefs the benefices which had been granted
for life or during pleasure by the early Carolingians. Where Charles the
Great had had subjects and functionaries, Charles the Bald has already
no more than vassals, and is forced to impoverish himself for their
behoof by incessant grants of honours and benefices, lest he should be
abandoned by nobles ever ready to transfer their oaths of fidelity to a
rival sovereign. Even the bishops, who were usually loyal, had no
scruples in taking Charles to task on various occasions, Hincmar being
first to set the example. Besides this, the civil wars, whether between
the kings or between turbulent counts, and the Northman invasions
compelled the free men to gather in groups around magnates or proceres
strong enough to protect them in time of need. Thus they commend
themselves to these lords, and in their turn become vassals. This
process was at first encouraged by the sovereign, as facilitating the
assembling of the host when necessary, and this it is which explains the
provisions in the capitulary of 847 ordering every free man to choose
himself a lord, the latter being charged with the office of leading his
men to war. But an important transformation had besides taken place
in the host. The infantry, which in the eighth century had formed the
chief strength of the Frankish armies, had given way to cavalry. By
the end of the ninth century, the Carolingian armies are almost wholly
composed of horse-soldiers. But the mounted warrior cannot be a mere
free man, for in order to maintain his steed and his handful of followers
he must hold some land or benefice from his lord. He has become the
knight, the miles, the last rank in the feudal hierarchy. Counts and
knights, however, when summoned by the king, shew no great eagerness
to respond to the appeal. Constantly the attempts made by Charles to
resist the Northmen are brought to nothing by the refusal of his vassals
to follow him. Even when the Frankish force is under arms, it is only a
sort of landwehr or militia, ill-adapted for fighting. The civilised Franks
have lost the warlike qualities of their half-barbarous forefathers.
It is
not with such materials that a king or any other leader could expect to
succeed against the bands of the Scandinavians who were trained to
warfare and made it their habitual occupation.


## p. 55 (#101) #############################################

55
CHAPTER III.
THE CAROLINGIAN KINGDOMS (877-918).
The death of Charles the Bald did not ensure the triumph of Carlo-
man, who was soon forced by an epidemic which broke out in his army
to make the best of his way back to Germany. It seemed, however,
as if it would be the signal for renewed civil discord in Gaul. When Louis
the Stammerer received news at Orville near Laon of the pitiable end of
his father, he hastened, without the assent of the magnates, to distribute
to such of his partisans as happened to be around him, “honours,"
counties, estates and abbeys, thus violating an engagement made at
Quierzy. Accordingly, when he was about to go into Francia to receive
the oath of fidelity from his new subjects, he learned that the magnates,
rallying round Boso and the Abbot Hugh, and supported by the
widowed Empress Richilda, refused him obedience, and, as a sign of
their displeasure, were ravaging the country. Nevertheless, thanks,
no doubt, to the mediation of Hincmar, and after some time had been
spent in arranging terms, the rebels agreed to a settlement. Richilda
was reconciled to her step-son, handing over to him the royal insignia
and the deed by which Charles the Bald before his death had nominated
his heir. The magnates, whose rights the king promised to recognise,
all made their submission. The Abbot Hugh even became one of the
most influential counsellors of Louis the Stammerer. On 8 December,
after having sternly exhorted the new sovereign to respect the rights
of his vassals, Hincmar crowned him King of the West-Franks in the
church of Compiègne.
Louis, however, was not the man to carry out his father's imperialist
policy, in spite of the opportunity which occurred for it the next year.
Anarchy set in more fiercely than ever in Italy. Carloman had obtained
from his brothers the cession of their rights over the peninsula, in
exchange for those which he possessed over Lorraine in virtue of a
partition treaty concluded the year before (877), but he was in no
plight to attempt another expedition. Lambert, Duke of Spoleto,
and his brother-in-law Adalbert, Duke or Marquess of Tuscany, were
making open war upon John VIII, and plainly intended to bring back
сн. ПІ,


## p. 56 (#102) #############################################

56
Death of Louis the Stammerer
to Rome the political opponents whom the Pope had formerly expelled,
particularly the celebrated Formosus, Bishop of Porto. So John VIII
decided upon another attempt to make the Western Kingdom his ally.
After having bought a peace from the Saracens, who were still a menace
to the Papal States, he embarked on a Neapolitan vessel and landed at
Arles, where Boso, who had returned to his former duchy, and his wife
Ermengarde, welcomed him with assurances of devotion and in company
with him ascended the Rhone as far as Lyons. After somewhat laborious
negotiations with Louis the Stammerer, a council presided over by the
Pope met at Troyes, at the beginning of autumn. But there were
few practical results attained from the assembly; little was settled,
except a few points relating to discipline, and the confirmation of the
sentence of excommunication against Lambert, Adalbert, and their
supporters. John VIII would have wished to see Louis put himself
at the head of another expedition against the enemies of the Holy See,
whether rebel counts or Saracens: the king, however, seems not to
have had the least inclination for such a course, and John VIII was
forced to turn to that one among the magnates who, if only by his
connexion with Italy, seemed best fitted to take up the task which the
Carolingians refused to accept, namely Boso. It was in his company
that the Pope re-crossed the Alps, at the end of the year, calling a
great meeting of the bishops and lay lords of Northern Italy to assemble
at Pavia. In a letter which he addressed at this time to Engilberga,
widow of Louis II, he anticipated for her son-in-law the most brilliant
prospects. Ermengarde's husband might look forward to the Lombard
crown, perhaps even to the imperial one. But Boso himself did nothing
to forward the ambitious views of the Pontiff on his behalf. At Pavia,
under one pretext or another, he quitted John VIII and made his way
back to Gaul.
Louis the Stammerer, who had concluded a treaty at Fouron' with
his cousins of Germany for the partition of Louis II's inheritance, and
being free from anxiety in that quarter, had just resolved upon an
expedition against Bernard, Marquess of Gothia, who had not made his
submission at the beginning of the reign and still remained contumacious.
But a change came over the situation with the death of King Louis on
10 April 879. The leaders of the party, opposed to the Abbot Hugh
and to the magnates actually in power, made use of the event to appeal
for aid to the foreigner. At the instigation of one of the Welfs,
Conrad, Count of Paris, and of Joscelin, Abbot of Saint-Germain-des-
Prés, Louis of Saxony entered the kingdom from the west to dispute
possession of their father's inheritance with Louis III and Carloman,
the two young sons of Louis the Stammerer. He penetrated as far as
1 Three places in Belgium, in the province of Liège, bear the name of Fouron.
It cannot be positively ascertained at which of them the conferences took place which
led up to the treaty.


## p. 57 (#103) #############################################

Boso, King of Provence
57
a
Verdun, ravaging the country as he went. But those who took up
his cause were few in number. Envoys from the Abbot Hugh, from
Boso, and Theodoric, Count of Autun, who were at the head of affairs
in the Western Kingdom, had no great difficulty in persuading the king
of Germany to abandon his enterprise in return for a promise of the
cession of that part of Lorraine which by the Treaty of Meersen fell
to the share of Charles the Bald. In the month of September the
coronation of the two sons of Louis the Stammerer by his marriage
with Ansgarde, took place quietly at Ferrières. But Ansgarde had
been afterwards repudiated by her husband, who had taken a second
wife named Adelaide, the mother of his son Charles the Simple. The
legitimacy of Louis III and Carloman was not universally admitted,
discontent still existed, and before the end of 879 the Frankish kingdom
was threatened by a new danger. Boso, at the instance of his wife,
Ermengarde, who, by birth the daughter of an emperor, was dissatisfied
with her position as the wife of a duke, took advantage of the weakness
of the kings to re-establish for his own benefit the former kingdom
of Charles of Provence (that is, the counties of Lyons and Vienne with
Provence) and to have himself proclaimed king of it at an assembly of
bishops held at Mantaille, near Vienne. little later he was solemnly
crowned by the Archbishop, Aurelian, at Lyons (autumn of 879).
In the spring of 880 Conrad and Joscelin again called in Louis
of Saxony. This second attempt had no better success than the first,
and Louis was obliged to return to his own dominions after having
. concluded with his cousins the Treaty of Ribemont, which again
confirmed him in possession of the former kingdom of Lothar II. His
tenure of it, however, was somewhat insecure, since the Lyons and
Vienne districts were under Boso's control. The Archbishop of Besançon
appears to have recognised the usurper. In the north, Hugh, an
illegitimate son of Lothar II, had taken up arms and was also en-
deavouring to make himself independent. Confronted with these dangers,
and also with incessant attacks by the Danish pirates, the Carolingian
kings felt the necessity for union. By a treaty agreed to at Amiens
in the beginning of 880, Louis III was to have Francia and Neustria,
Carloman taking Aquitaine and Burgundy, with the task of making head
against Boso. None the less, the two kings were agreed in desiring an
interview at Gondreville with one of their cousins from Germany, and
taking concerted measures against the rebels. It was Charles the Fat,
the ruler of Alemannia, who, on his return from Italy whither he had
gone to secure his proclamation as king by an assembly of magnates
held at Ravenna, met Louis III and Carloman at this last fraternal
colloquium in June 880. The three sovereigns began by joining forces
against Hugh of Lorraine, whose brother-in-law, Count Theobald, was
defeated and compelled to take refuge in Provence. The allies then
directed their efforts against the latter country. The Count of
CH. INI.


## p. 58 (#104) #############################################

58
Charles the Fat in Rome
Mâcon, who adhered to Boso, was forced to surrender, and the Caro-
lingian kings, pursuing their advance without encountering any resistance, ,
laid siege to Vienne where the usurper had fortified himself. The
unlooked for defection of Charles the Fat put a stop to the campaign.
For a long time John VIII, compelled by the desertion of Boso to go
back to the policy of an alliance with Germany, had been demanding
the return of Charles to Italy. Suddenly abandoning the siege, the
king again crossed the Alps in order to go to Rome and there to receive
the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope (February 881) while his
cousins, unable to subdue Boso at once, returned to their dominions,
leaving the task of blockading Vienne to the Duke of Burgundy, Richard
the Justiciar, who was own brother, as it happened, to the rebel king of
Provence. Queen Ermengarde, who was defending the place, was obliged
to surrender a few months later (September 882).
Charles the Fat made no long stay at Rome. As early as February 881
he took the road leading northwards. It is true that the new Emperor
made a fresh expedition into Italy at the end of the same year, though
he got no farther than Ravenna. Here the Pope came to meet him
in order to try and obtain from him measures likely to protect the
patrimony of St Peter from the attacks of the dukes of Spoleto. But
the death of Louis of Saxony (20 January 882) now recalled the Emperor
to Germany. This event made Charles master of the whole Eastern
Kingdom, for Carloman of Bavaria, who by an agreement made in
879 with Louis had secured to the latter his whole inheritance, had
died in 880. Carloman's illegitimate son Arnulf had been by the terms
of the same treaty forced to content himself with the duchy of Carinthia.
Hugh of Lorraine, who still under pretext of claiming his paternal
heritage had again been indulging in acts of brigandage, had been
defeated by Louis some time before his death and constrained to take
refuge in Burgundy.
In the Western Kingdom, Louis III of France had died of a fall
from his horse on 5 August 882. Carloman, summoned from Burgundy,
received the magnates' oaths of fidelity at Quierzy and thus became
the sole sovereign of the Western Kingdom. His brief reign is wholly
taken up with fruitless struggles against the Northmen. On 12 December
884 he also was carried off by an accident while out hunting. Louis
the Stammerer's posthumous son, Charles, known later as the Simple,
was by reason of his youth unfit to reign. Thus the Frankish nobles
appealed to Charles the Fat, in whose hands were thus concentrated
all the kingdoms which had gone to make up the empire of Charles the
Great. But the Emperor, though a man of piety and learning, was very
far from possessing the activity and vigour demanded by a position
now more difficult than ever. For the ravages of the Northmen had re-
doubled in violence during the preceding years. Established permanently
in Flanders, they took advantage of their situation to ravage at once what


## p. 59 (#105) #############################################

The Northmen
59
was formerly Lorraine and the kingdoms of the East and West. A victory
gained over them at Thion on the Sambre by Louis of Saxony in 880,
had led to no results, for in the same year they burnt Nimeguen, while
another band made their way into Saxony. The Abbot Joscelin had in
vain attempted to drive out those on the Scheldt, who from their fortified
camp at Courtrai made perpetual raids for pillage into the Western King-
dom. Nevertheless, King Louis III won over then at Saucourt in Ponthieu
a renowned victory, commemorated by a cantilène, a popular song in cele-
bration of it, in the German language which has come down to us. Yet
it did not hinder the Danes settled at Ghent from reaching the valley of
the Meuse and forming a new entrenched camp at Elsloo. During the
winter of 881-882 they burnt Liège, Tongres, Cologne, Bonn, Stavelot,
Prüm and Aix, and took possession of Trèves. Walo, the Bishop of
Metz, who with Bertulf, Archbishop of Trèves, had put himself at the
head of the defenders, was defeated and killed in April 882. At the
assembly held at Worms (May 882), Charles the Fat, who was returning
from Italy, determined to act with vigour, and gathered a numerous
army at the head of which he placed to second his efforts two tried
warriors, Arnulf of Carinthia, and Henry, Count or Duke of Thuringia.
But on the point of attacking the camp at Elsloo his courage failed.
He fell back on the dangerous method, already too often practised by
the Carolingians, of negotiating with the invaders. Of their leaders
Godefrid (Guðröðr) obtained Frisia as a fief on condition of receiving
baptism, and Sigefrid (Sigröðr) was paid to withdraw.
The chief part of the great Northman army then turned to attack
the Western Kingdom. By the autumn they were ravaging it up to
the gates of Rheims. The aged archbishop, Hincmar, was forced to
leave his metropolitan city and flee for refuge to Epernay, where he died
on 21 December 882. Carloman succeeded in checking the Danes more
than once on the banks of the Aisne and of the Vicogne, but the
invasion was not beaten off. Another fortified camp was formed by
the Northmen at Condé on the Scheldt. The bands which came forth
from it next year seized Amiens, and ravaged the district between the
Seine and the Oise without meeting with resistance. Carloman was
obliged to negotiate with them, and, thanks to the intervention of
Sigefrid, he obtained a pledge that the band in cantonments near
Amiens should evacuate the Western Kingdom in consideration of the
enormous sum of 12,000 pounds of silver (884). The engagement,
moreover, was respected. The main part of the great Northman army
crossed over to England, but other bands passed into the kingdom of
Lorraine, and a party among them settled down behind the woods and
marshes which covered the site of the present town of Louvain.
Such was the position of things at the time when Charles the Fat
became sole ruler of the Frankish Empire and the magnates of France
and Lorraine came to do homage to their new sovereign at Gondreville
CH, 111.


## p. 60 (#106) #############################################

60
Union under Charles the Fat
1
near Toul and Ponthion. The beginning of the reign was marked, besides,
by several victories gained over the Northmen who had penetrated into
Saxony. Other bands were defeated by Count Henry of Alemannia
and Liutbert, Archbishop of Mayence. But Hugh of Lorraine had
decided that the occasion was a good one for again putting forward
his claim to his father's kingdom, with the support of his brother-in-law,
the Northman Godefrid. Count Henry, whose task it was to resist them,
chose to employ treachery. Godefrid was imprudent enough to consent
to an interview in the course of which he was assassinated, and the
Franks succeeded in inflicting a check on his leaderless troops. Hugh,
being allured to Gondreville under pretext of negotiations, also fell into
an ambush. He was blinded, tonsured, and immured in the Abbey
of Prüm. His sister, Gisela, Godefrid's widow, was a little later to
die as Abbess of the Convent of Nivelles. This partial success was,
however, balanced by the defeat suffered in front of Louvain by the
army raised in Lorraine and in the Western Kingdom. Charles seemed
indeed to be losing his interest in this unceasing war. At the assembly
which he held at Frankfort at the beginning of the year 885, his only
care seemed to be to procure the recognition of his illegitimate son
Bernard's right to succeed him. His wishes, however, were opposed
by the magnates. Charles counted on the support of Pope Hadrian III,
the successor of John VIII who had been assassinated in 884, but
Hadrian died 8 July 885, and this event forced the Emperor finally
to give up his project. The successor of the dead Pope, Stephen V,.
had been elected without consulting Charles the Fat, and so much
was the Emperor displeased that he thought it necessary to cross the
Alps yet again. But he lingered in the north of the peninsula while
his confidential agent, the Arch-Chancellor Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli,
went to Rome to negotiate with the Pope. An outbreak of sedition
at Pavia nearly cost the Emperor his life, and he decided not to advance
farther, but to take the road for Gaul once more, whither he was recalled
by the imperious necessity of resisting the Northmen.
Carloman's death had liberated the bands with whom he had treated
at Amiens from their pledge to respect the Western Kingdom. Large
numbers of the Northmen who had crossed over into England came back
during the summer of 885 to rejoin their compatriots at Louvain who,
for their part, had got as far as the mouth of the Seine. Other com-
panies, coming from the Lower Scheldt, joined them there. On 25 July
they entered Rouen, and their feet, three hundred strong, carrying
some forty thousand men, began to push up the Seine. A Neustrian
army which attempted to bar the way to the invaders was obliged to
beat a retreat without having succeeded in defending the fortified bridge
which Charles the Bald had built at Pitres, and the great viking fleet,
reinforced by Danes from the Loire, arrived before Paris on 24 Novem-
ber, covering the river's surface for more than two leagues. The city


## p. 61 (#107) #############################################

Siege of Paris
61
а
of Paris at this time did not extend beyond the island of the Cité.
On
the right bank, however, and especially on the left, lay the suburbs with
their churches and abbeys, Saint-Merri and Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois
to the north, Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Sainte-Geneviève to the south,
with the houses, gardens and vineyards surrounding them.
Of course
no wall enclosed these suburbs. The city itself had been without a ram-
part in the days of Charles the Bald, since the Roman fortifications there
as elsewhere had for long centuries fallen into ruins. Thus the Danes
had on several occasions descended on the town and pillaged it without
let or hindrance. The last of their incursions dated from 866. But
since then Paris had made preparation for resistance. Under the super-
intendence of Odo, the count, son of Robert the Strong, helped by
Bishop Joscelin, the old wall had been rebuilt. Two bridges establishing
communication between the island and both banks of the Seine barred
the way to the viking ships. One Sigefrid, who seems to have been in
command of the expedition, made a demand for himself and his
followers of free access to the upper valley of the Seine. Odo and
Joscelin refused. A general assault next morning was repulsed with loss,
and the Northmen were obliged to undertake a formal siege.
This lasted for long months, varied by attacks upon the bridges and
the works defending them on both banks of the river, and also by
pillaging expeditions into the neighbouring districts. But the Parisians
met the efforts of their assailants with indomitable energy and endurance.
On 16 April 886 Joscelin was carried off by sickness. Odo tried a
sortie in order to seek for reinforcements; it proved successful, and
he made use of his opportunity to send pressing appeals to the Emperor
and his counsellors. He then for the second time traversed the enemy
lines to re-enter the besieged city. Meanwhile, Charles, on his return
from Italy, had held a great assembly at Metz, and had then set out,
at a deliberate rate, to go to the succour of the Parisians. Having
reached Quierzy he sent forward his best warrior Count Henry of
Alemannia, at the head of a detachment of his men. But in attempting
to reconnoitre the enemy's camp, Henry fell, with his horse, into one
of the fosses dug by the besiegers, and was killed (28 August). His
death threw a gloom over his followers, and the relieving detachment
which he had been leading fell back. On 28 October the Emperor came
up in person before Paris, and the inhabitants could see his army on
the heights of Montmartre. But instead of crushing the heathen between
his troops and the city walls, Charles once more began negotiations with
them. Sigefrid consented to raise the siege, in return for a sum of
seven hundred pounds in silver, and permission for his followers to go
and winter in Burgundy, with the right to go up the Seine freely. The
At the end of the ninth century a fairly general movement took place to
restore the walls of cities so as to ensure them against a coup-de-main of the Northman
bands.
>
CH. III.


## p. 62 (#108) #############################################

62
Deposition of Charles the Fat
Parisians, however, refused to agree to this last condition and to allow
the viking vessels to pass under the fortified bridges which they had
defended with so much valour. The Danes were obliged to draw their
boats to land to get them above the city by the river bank, but, none
the less, they reached Burgundy, which they ravaged. Sens, in particular,
stood a siege of six months.
In the meanwhile the Emperor fell sick and returned to Alsace. During
the Easter season he held an assembly at Waiblingen near Stuttgart, at
which was present, among others, Berengar, Marquess of Friuli. From
thence he went to Kirchen in the Breisgau, where he was sought out by
Ermengarde, widow of Boso, with her young son Louis. Boso, in spite
of the capture of Vienne and the efforts of the Carolingian kings and their
lieutenants, had succeeded in maintaining his ground in the kingdom he
had created for himself, and died unsubdued (11 January 887). The son
whom he left, Louis, was still almost a child when his mother brought
him to the Emperor. Charles the Fat received him kindly, recognised his
right to succeed his father, and even went through some kind of ceremony
of adopting him. But the young prince was not long to be benefited
by his protection. The discontent of the magnates with the Emperor,
whom they accused of weakness and incapacity, and with the counsellor
by whom he was chiefly guided, his chancellor Liutward, Bishop of
Vercelli, grew greater every day. Charles endeavoured to placate them
by dismissing his chancellor, but their dissatisfaction still continued
undiminished, and at the end of 887 a revolt broke out, facilitated by
Charles's illness and physical incapacity. The rebels, in an assembly
held at Tribur near Darmstadt, formally deposed the Emperor. He
returned to Neidingen on the Danube near Constance, where he made
a pitiable end on 13 January 888, while his former vassals proclaimed in
his room Arnulf of Carinthia, son of Carloman of Bavaria, of illegitimate
birth, it is true, but well known for his warlike qualities, and, in the
eyes of the magnates, the only prince capable of defending the Empire,
or at least the kingdom of Germany, against the enemies threatening it
on every side.
The deposition of Charles the Fat marks the epoch of the final
dismemberment of the Empire of Charlemagne. Even contemporaries
were conscious of this. “Then,” said the Lotharingian chronicler,
Regino of Prüm, in a justly famous passage, “the kingdoms which had
been subject to the government of Charles split up into fragments,
breaking the bond which united them, and without waiting for their
natural lord, each one sought to create a king of its own, drawn from
within itself; which thing was the cause of long wars, not that there
were lacking Frankish princes worthy of empire by their noble birth,
their courage, and their wisdom, but because their equality in origin,
dignity and power was a fresh cause for discord. None of them in fact
was sufficiently raised above the rest to make them willing to submit


## p. 63 (#109) #############################################

Final division of the Empire
63
to his authority. " The West Franks elected as king Odo, the valiant de-
fender of Paris. In Italy Berengar, Marquess of Friuli, and Guy (Guido),
Duke of Spoleto, contended for the crown. Louis of Provence held the
valley of the Rhone as far as Lyons. Finally, a new claimant, the Welf
Rodolph, son of Conrad, Count of Auxerre, already duke of “the duchy
beyond the Jura” comprising the dioceses of Geneva, Lausanne and Sion,
claimed the ancient kingdom of Lorraine, without, however, succeeding
in building up more than a “ kingdom of Burgundy,” restricted to the
Helvetian pagi and the countries which formed the ancient diocese of
Besançon.
The expressions used by Regino must not, however, be understood
too literally. The kings whom the new nations “ drew from within
themselves were all of the Austrasian race and had their origin in
Francia, their families having been for hardly more than two or three
generations settled in their new counties. The dismemberment, which
began under Louis the Pious and was finally consummated in 888, was
by no means caused by a reaction of the different nations within the
Carolingian Empire against the political and administrative unity im-
posed by Charles the Great. The building up of new nationalities may
have been largely the work of the chances of the various partitions which
had taken place since the Treaty of Verdun. Nevertheless the fact that
Louis the German and his heirs had as their portion the populations
of Teutonic speech, and Charles the Bald and his successors those of the
Romance language, no doubt accentuated such consciousness as these
peoples might have of their individuality, a consciousness further
strengthened by the antagonism between the sovereigns. Italy, on
the other hand, had long been accustomed to live under a king of its
own, a little outside the sphere of the other Frankish kingdoms. Besides
these more remote causes, we must bear in mind the need which each
fraction of the Empire felt of having a protector, an effective head to
organise resistance against the Slavs, the Saracens or the Northmen. A
single Emperor must often be at too great a distance from the point
at which danger threatened. “ The idea of the Empire, the idea of the
Frankish kingdom recedes into the background, and gives place to an
attachment to the more restricted country of one's birth, to the race
to which one belongs? . ” Under the influence of geographical situation
and of language, or even through the chances of political alliances, new
groups had been formed, and each of these placed at its head the man
best fitted to defend it against the innumerable enemies who for half
a century had been devastating all parts of the Empire.
In spite of this separatist movement, the kinglets (reguli) set up in
888 still attributed a certain supremacy to Arnulf as the last representa-
tive of the Carolingian family. Odo sought his presence at Worms in
.
1 G. Monod. Du rôle de l'opposition des races dans la dissolution de l'Empire
carolingien, p. 13.
CH. III.


## p. 64 (#110) #############################################

64
Arnulf
order to place himself under his protection (August 888) before going
to Rheims to receive the crown of Western Francia. At Trent,
Berengar also took up the attitude of a vassal in order to obtain from
Arnulf the recognition of his Italian kingship. Rodolph of Burgundy
yielded to the threat of an expedition to be sent against him, and came
and made his submission at Ratisbon.