Lambert I: The Sundial Shifts (900-901)
--- Political situation in Europe and the Mediterranean as of 900 ---
To most, the battle of the Tesina river was the last great battle of the High Middle Ages. Many historians found it easy to identify, in a show of supremacy by Latin troops over a raiding nomadic army – in Italy, no less, and by a Roman Emperor! - a clear turning point, marking the definitive end of the Frankish hegemonic experiment and of the perceived ‘dark ages’ of Italy. In turn, many have argued the opposite: that the Tesina was the last vestige of the Carolingian borders holding against Eastern pressure, considering the defeats inflicted on German arms by the voracious Magyars just years later, and that Lambert’s victory was the closing act of Frankish supremacy.
More interpretations put more weight what happened immediately after Gehennae, namely the death of Arnulf of Carinthia – in many ways, the last Carolingian emperor, and the last male-line descendant of Charlemagne to claim that crown – and the Magyar invasion of Germany itself, making it clear that Europe’s next great powers were come from the East rather than the West. Such assessments complied with other movements brewing in and around the continent, especially taking into consideration the wave after wave of Islamic dynasties who took turns owning the most valuable land in the Mediterranean – some as resilient and old as the Umayyads, resisting in Spain, and the Abbasids, who had just recently extricated themselves from a time of extraordinary crisis; others assertive, tenacious opponents of Byzantium like the Ifriqqiyan Aghlabids or the Cretan Hafsids.
In Europe’s own backyard, the ever-growing presence of the Bulgars, led by
Simeon son of Boris, threatened the remains of the battered Eastern Roman Empire; in the Pontic Steppe, the arrival of the Magyars had been followed closely by that of a new presence, the line of the
Pechenegs; just north of the Dnieper, the mighty
Kievan Rus’ overlooked the plains of Sarmatia; even on the islands of Great Britain, king
Edward’s Anglo-Saxons – themselves having come from East – faced off against the invaders from across the sea, the formidable Normans.
Within the Carolingian Empire, the direct inheritance of administrative positions had quickly transformed from a concession by the sovereign to a matter of fact which would have seemed outrageous to suspend. Through these newfound powers, old aristocracies created kingdoms within kingdoms: in France, duke
William of Aquitaine could count on more land and soldiers, than the supposed king,
Charles the Simple, could even dream to muster; similarly, the unity of Germany came down to a silent agreement between the powerful lord of Saxony,
Otto, and his Bavarian counterpart,
Luitpold, wholly unrelated to whatever authority the real king could hope to muster. Middle Francia was the paramount example of this, as in a cruel twist of irony the crowned sovereign of Lotharingia held as much authority as any other duke, being himself a subject of another king, whilst
Rudolph of Transjurania and
Louis of Provence. his supposed vassals in Burgundy, themselves acted as kings, independently of his say.
And though it may seem Italy, by some miracle, was spared this fragmentation, one must remember that most of it came down to the personal charisma of Lambert and the loyalty it inspired; had someone any less politically savvy been wearing the iron crown, it would have been easy for powerful men –
Anscar, margrave of Ivrea and effective ruler of most of Piedmont;
Atenulf, unchallenged in the south as the pre-eminent sovereign of the Lombards;
John IX, who, besides his spiritual leadership over mankind, did hold significant temporal sway over a territory that went from Rome to Ravenna – to subvert his leadership and manoeuvre him like a puppet.
Nevertheless, for the moment, Lambert
did wear the iron crown, and maintained nominal leadership over most of Europe. The immediate ripples of his victory at Tesina were momentous: it was his first triumph on the international stage, and many had taken notice: virtually all correspondence addressed to Lambert from across Catholic Europe, if not referring to him as emperor outright, gave him a label such as ‘Caesar,’ ‘Augustus’ or ‘our shield’ which implied his role. Though the few recorded missives from these years addressed to the Pope by German bishops and abbots are devoid of any such courtesies – with Hermann of Cologne once deliberately referring to Lambert as
regulus, obstinately swearing by Arnulf’s old appellative for him – they would not be able to laugh at his expense for long, as we will later see.
--- Ludwig IV: Honfoglalás, part 1 (900-901) ---
The proud Magyar people had proven themselves worthy opponents to Europe at their worst and the second coming of Attila at their finest; it’s still entirely questionable whether Lambert would’ve had any luck if he had faced, rather than a relatively small raiding party, what
Ludwig IV, Arnulf’s infant son and his successor in Germany, would have to face in the decade to come. According to Regino of Prüm’s
Chronicon, it took less than a year after the death of the incautious king Arnulf, who had been their ally in the West, for
Árpád and
Kurszán, princes of Hungary, to enact the final phase of the Honfoglalás (from the Hungarian “conquest of the homeland”) and lead his people, numbering tens of thousands, across the Danube.
In truth, what was painted as an unexpected betrayal by the Magyars in German sources was a direct result of the new regency council; Hatto I von Reichenau, archbishop of Mainz and tutor of the child-king Ludwig, had viewed the envoys sent by Árpád to renew the alliance with Germany as nothing more than deceitful spies, and banished them from the realm. This was nowhere close to a declaration of war, of course, but it led the Magyar principality to an inevitable choice: to stick behind the Danube and hope for the best from Germany, or to cross it and claim their due themselves.
Something to note at this stage is Hatto’s personal clash for control of Germany with the king’s half-brother,
Zwentibold: in 895, he had been appointed by his father as a viceroy for the rich region of Lotharingia, as the tumultuous Rhine River shared the same ability as the Alps in preventing who lived on one shore from controlling the other. Now that Arnulf was dead, not only did Zwentibold aspire to become independent, but he also claimed the regency of his younger brother Ludwig for himself – his detractors even speculated that, being Arnulf’s eldest, the ambitious prince desired the throne of East Francia itself. Thus, Hatto’s diplomatic efforts had been devoted to stirring conflict amongst Zwentibold’s disgruntled vassals,
[A] but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The first preparation for an invasion of Pannonia were taken by the same army Gyula had led into Italy; The progressive retreat from Friuli to the Danube doubled as a reconnaissance trip, and the raiders took note of the dilapidated state of the region’s defenses.
[Β] After the attempts to renew the Hungarian alliance with Germany failed, the winter between 899 and 900 was spent preparing for the coming war – forging new weapons, sharpening arrowheads, teaching their young to fight.
Importantly, in lieu of German ties, around this time an alliance was concluded between the Magyars and the principality of Moravia; the Slavic kingdom, at one point the pre-eminent power in Central Europe, had known nothing but a shadow of its former glory since its defeats at the hands of Luitpold, the aforementioned margrave in full control of the old kingdom of Bavaria.
Starting in April of 900, thousands of horse archers crossed the Danube and swarmed the last stretch of the Carpathian basin, overpowering the weak local garrisons. New boundaries were set at the foothills of the Alps and along the Sava River, both of which became hotbeds of fleeing families and nobles. Especially within the duchy of Croatia, led by the noble
Muncimir – already renowned for his hospitality – border cities, notably Sisak, were swarmed by Slavonic refugees whose homes had been ravaged by the nomads from the East. In a matter of mere months, fertile Pannonia was Magyar in its entirety.
As this was happening, Bavarian authorities, personified by Luitpold, desperately put together a punitive force to end the Magyars, but before this army could be ready, the damage was already done. These troops would not go to waste, however: between October and November, high off the conquest, several platoons split off the Hungarian host and took to raiding even further inland, collecting war spoils along the Danube. At this point, Luitpold led a successful rally against the Magyars, defending the city of Passau and routing the raiders – and, by this point, the duke knew better than to pursue.
The Honfoglalás was an unprecedented crisis for East Francia; the Magyar invasion left the kingdom with much of its eastern buffer lost, the lands of Austria and Carinthia now more vulnerable than ever to future expeditions and the tributary in Moravia now a Magyar ally. There was a silver lining to the situation, however. On August 13th, Hatto’s efforts in stirring up conflict within Lotharingia had led to the desired result: the death in battle of the young king Zwentibold, at the hands of his long-time rival
Reginar. After further weeks of filibustering with Charles the Simple’s partisans, the nobles of Lotharingia had finally decided to pass the throne on to Ludwig, reuniting the two regions and rebalancing the situation.
To Árpád and Kurszán, the mission had been a success: the boundaries of his new kingdom had finally been set. It was only poetic that the Avar Khaganate, toppled by the heavy blows of Charlemagne, should be matched and avenged by their kin, at the expense of Charlemagne’s own family. Further expansion was attempted over the course of 901 and 902, but only by individual chieftains, and nevertheless always halted.
In the chaos of the birth of Hungary, the principality of Moravia befell a sad fate: following the death of its final ruler, Mojmir, in 901, the entire region was absorbed by Árpád’s principality, while the scraps were picked up by Luitpold – who, in response to this perceived success, was later granted the lofty title of “dux boemannorum” (which makes him the first to bear the title ‘duke of Bohemia’) by a grateful king Ludwig.
While Ludwig’s vassals and regents were able to prevent further Magyar
expansion into Germany, they were never able to prevent incursions, as the reavers consistently and successfully pillaged the vast border region of Carinthia. The child-king had been broken into war immediately, as historians note his presiding over a war council in 901 – at age eight – to effectively respond to the Hungarian threat. This premature introduction to the realities of war is likely part of what led to the king’s later mental health issues, which were likely not helped by the lack of parental figures and his infamously poor physical constitution.
The Magyar invasion and the death of Zwentibold were the final border adjustments for the kingdom of Germany. Under Ludwig’s government, the regional entities within the kingdom developed into the five original duchies, also known as the
Stem duchies: Saxony, Lorraine (originally in one piece, then split into Upper and Lower Lorraine), Franconia, Swabia and Bavaria. The creation of these subdivisions was mired at undoing Charlemagne’s reorganisation of old Germania, indicating that, though Ludwig – who would go on to be the last Carolingian king of Germany – would live on until 911, the Carolingian Empire’s legacy in Germany was buried long before him.
--- Lambert I & Charles IV: Foulques, Robert and the Throne of France (897-901) ---
Foulques the Venerable, archbishop of Reims, was an influential figure in the early history of France. After his succession to the archdiocese of Reims in March of 883, he had consistently maintained correspondence with the rest of the European world, keeping tabs on the happenings of the Papacy and following the political developments of the Carolingian Empire’s collapse; he also notably exchanged letters with Alfred the Great regarding the needs of the English church.
Just as impactful were his contributions to home politics themselves, as it is fair to say that Foulques was king Eudes of France’s most tenacious rival; their conflict, which bloodied the Robertian’s entire rule, simply stemmed from Eudes not belonging to Charlemagne’s kin. The bishop’s obsession with blood purity and the imperial dynasty had led him to support several candidates over the years, the first of which had been Lambert’s father Guy – who was, not-so-coincidentally, Foulques’ cousin. Regrettably, though Guy did obtain the crown of France, he was eventually chased off by Eudes, who had been crowned by Foulques’ rival Walter of Sens, and, as we know, his designs had shifted to the Italian peninsula.
[C]
After Guy was first condemned and then considered deposed by Formosus in 892, Foulques offered the crown of France to the Pope’s new favourite, Arnulf, but when he refused to get involved in French politics, the archbishop’s focus shifted to landing the throne for the young prince Charles: the boy, a posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer and a direct descendant of Charlemagne, was crowned anti-king as early as 893, and Foulques’ partisanship kept the kingdom embroiled in chaos for years on end.
In 897, ultimately, the king chose to make peace with Foulques and adopt Charles as his heir: this was fortuitous for Foulques, seeing as, when Eudes suddenly died the following year, the dead ruler’s declaration made it all the easier to convince the nobles to accept their new king,
Charles IV. It was not as easy to accept for Lambert, though, who – by virtue of being the son of a crowned king of France – believed he had a reasonable claim to the crown.
These calls did not fall entirely on deaf years, as Foulques had not completely forgotten his unsuccessful attempt to land France for his family. He did not, however, deem it wise to stage a complete betrayal of Charles, who now enjoyed the support of the nobility – especially as soon as it became clear that the young king’s approach to ruling was as lax as it was unobtrusive. After all, Lambert was – at that point – not even the only king in his own kingdom, and he was in no position to threaten the French crown. Until he was.
In the span of a single year, Lambert had reaffirmed his authority over Italy, crushed those that defied him, brought the Papal States under his wing, subjugated the Lombard principalities, started the construction of a new imperial residence in Rome(!) and defeated the Magyars themselves in a pitched battle. These feats would have been impressive enough for a whole reign, and the emperor was yet to turn twenty years old.
While these developments made most of the nobility happier about their mirror image of the late Merovingian do-nothing kings, as opposed to the active volcano erupting at their doorstep, it also brought concern to those who saw Lambert as a legitimate menace to their Charles’ continued government. By extension, Charles – possibly inspired by his other advisors – came to view his ally Foulques as just an ally of the Carolingian dynasty, which Lambert was a part of. In his moment of weakness, the king suspected the archbishop could be the young emperor’s ticket to Paris; though the prelate held on to his official position as the king’s chancellor, his place at court grew precarious with every one of Lambert’s successes.
[1]
An opposite attitude was reserved for Lambert himself; in fact, Charles was one of the first monarchs to recognise him as the emperor in Italy, almost immediately after the battle at the Tesina. The idea there was to convince the sovereign across the Alps to
stay across the Alps, while also maintaining the sovereignty of France in the process.
As he slowly pushed Foulques away, Charles fell more and more under the influence of Odo’s brother:
Robert, duke of the Franks
[D] and count of Paris. Robert was far more sympathetic towards Lambert than Foulques was, but for a very different reason. The count of Paris had designs on the crown – his choice to shift the votes directed at him to Charles was coloured by the prospect of a war within the kingdom if the election were to have a contested results; he viewed a potential imperial expedition into France as a way to receive the crown from Lambert’s hands, acting as his regent in West Francia.
With time, it was becoming apparent that Charles would have much preferred being king in Lorraine; since the death of Zwentibold, the king had tried to mount attempts to conquer Lotharingia and claim it as his own, but the steep resistance encountered in trying to rally troops from his vassals had forced him to reconsider. He had also attempted to impose his authority on the petty kings in Burgundy but had obtained no results, seeing as both had already pledged allegiance to Lambert unofficially.
To make up for this, Charles looked to the north, where the disloyal count of Flanders,
Baldwin II, had been expanding his personal dominions at the expense of the crownlands and his feudal neighbourhood since the rule of Charles the Bald. Particular enmity was reserved for the county of Vermandois, where the Flemish nobleman had been conducting an on-and-off campaign since 893.
Duke Robert, who was married to the Vermandois count’s sister, was quick to point to Baldwin’s act as needless aggression against the crown, and friction rose until, in early 900, an assassination attempt was staged on the duke of the Franks. Though he seemed doomed, unfortunately for Baldwin, Robert managed to evade his assailant. A murder attempt on Robert, Charles’ most powerful ally, could not be tolerated; the king authorised the Robertian to lead a punitive expedition against Baldwin, who was forced to concede the pas-de-Calais to the French crown.
[2]
Since he had left the kingdom in the nick of time – he is reported at the court of his brother-in-law king
Edward ‘the Elder’ of England in 907 – Baldwin couldn’t be condemned directly, but he was prosecuted
in absentia, and his holdings were split; the bulk of his powerbase, Flanders, passed on to his son
Arnulf, while the county of Cambrai went to Baldwin’s second son,
Aethelwulf. Both were children, obviously too young to rule on their own; in the absence of their mother, who had followed Baldwin into exile, they were placed under Robert’s regency. Baldwin’s defeat marked the temporary end of Flemish supremacy over northern France and what is perceived as the peak of Charles’ power.
--- Quick Friulian detour ---
Before we can get back to Lambert, we must discuss an important development in the region of Friuli, which will have bearing on the rest of the timeline, but not this particular episode. As we hinted at in previous chapters, the Magyarok raid was the end of Friuli’s enduring military power. During Lambert’s stay at Pavia in November of 899, one of his stipulations was the division of the March in two.
The eastern half, which included Friuli proper, the metropolitan of Aquileia and the Istrian peninsula, was turned into separate, heavily fortified rural counties of Friuli and Istria; both were placed under the suzerainty of one
Milo, son of Manfred – by some identified with a son of count Manfred I of Milan, as such an uncle of
his grandson, count Hugh. The west, between the Po, the Mincio (including Mantova) and the Sea, was reorganised into a new March of Verona.
This western March is deemed as the true successor state of the old Friuli; Lambert likely recognised the necessity of a second border in case the Alpine defences were broken through too early. Many more nobles from Berengar’s old court can be found in Veronese
beneficia as opposed to those granted by Milo.
Crucially, the March of Verona was awarded to one of Lambert’s right-hand men:
Roger the Brave, who had been part of the emperor’s inner circle, reportedly bearer of the title due to the bravery he showed at the battle of Tesina. For the sake of dynastic continuity, both men married one of Berengar of Friuli’s unwed daughters.
--- End of Quick Friulian detour ---
--- Lambert I: Holding Court in Rome (899-900) ---
Lambert’s presence in Rome is nowhere more emblematic today than in his imperial palace. When Lambert returned to Rome after his victory, this growing symbol of his rule was still slowly taking shape at the outskirts of the city. The prestige accrued at Tesina did not make negotiations with the Roman aristocrats easy, but it did somewhat speed the process along, especially since we are told by
Lambert’s biographer, the regrettably anonymous author of the
Gesta Lamberti, who will be hereafter referred to as L.b., that the emperor was “tardy to disband his host, or dismiss the Lombard nobility, before Christmas.”
In this circumstance, it is worth mentioning the degree of sway and influence held in Rome by
Ageltrudis, the empress-mother, even from her seat as Lambert’s regent in Spoleto: she is said to have convinced the vestararius
Theophylact, a character of pre-eminent importance in the city and who particularly opposed Lambert settling down in the city. According to L.b., “after the
Augusta mater spoke with him, Theophylact’s horses,” previously kept in a section of the structure adapted as a stable, “would never graze the grounds of Diocletian’s palace
[E] again”.
The transformation Diocletian’s baths into a proper Imperial Residence, thereafter noted in sources as the quintessential
Palatium, took up the rough decade between 899 and 910. While himself and many of his successors made modifications to the structure, the core plan of the Roman building is still recognisable today.
(see image)
The primary concern for Lambert, once his position in Rome was ensured, was his succession. The emperor, as he knew well himself, was the last of his line, and had no direct heir. His closest advisors, most distant cousins, all hoped that it would remain that way, since, whether secretly or not, most of them hoped they would be adopted by him and be able to succeed him.
[F]
Lambert broached age twenty early in 900, meaning he was in the prime age to seek out a bride – some may argue he was even a little late. Fortunately for the emperor, he wouldn’t have to search far: Europe was riddled with crowns, lesser, ducal and royal, who would all stand to gain from having their scion partake in the glorious history of the new Roman Empire from the front seat.
Before 898, Lambert is said to have been betrothed to Gisla, the aforementioned daughter of Berengar of Friuli, but the marriage proposal had come to nothing after Berengar’s condemnation by Pope John. It is rumoured that the emperor had also been promised the hand of senator Theophylact’s infant daughter, the later greatly influential and enterprising
Maria de’ Tusculani, but Lambert had rejected her due to her young age and the pressing matter of issue.
The search for a bride would be temporarily cut short by the unforeseen death of Pope
John IX, who succumbed to an illness in January of 900, after a relatively brief biennial pontificate. As stipulated at the council of Ravenna, the emperor couldn’t mourn him long, as almost immediately the procedure of re-election began. Lambert’s choice fell on cardinal Leone, an Ardeatine canon of reportedly great spiritual repute.
This unorthodox pick makes sense in its historical context, as Rome was still occasionally bloodied by internal conflicts of the Formosian faction, who had shifted their support to either the child-king Ludwig, as Arnulf’s legitimate heir, or to
Louis I, the ambitious sovereign of Provence, whose mires on the Iron Crown were no secret; selecting a Pope from outside the city meant selecting someone not as easily swayed by this ongoing power struggle, but more importantly someone who could only view Lambert as the legitimate sovereign of Italy.
Though notably Theophylact would have preferred to rehabilitate his kinsman
Sergio, a cardinal who had ran against John IX and attempted to take power by force in 898, only to be excommunicated and exiled, the rest of the Roman élites, headed by Giovanni
Crescenzi, the only magistrate in Rome with enough clout to match Theophylact, recognised Leo was a worthy compromise. Another proposed candidate, cardinal Benedetto, was reportedly ‘compensated’ by the imperial family.
By May, Leone was finally consecrated as
Leo V; the Roman people cheered, as Lambert accompanied the Pope’s horse to the Tibur while holding his bridle.
[G] By the time the pontifical ordination was in order and Leo – by pure, yet necessary formality – confirmed his approval for Lambert to rule Italy “in his stead,” a triple opportunity to forge a new alliance, find a suitable bride and, most importantly, vanquish saracens in the name of the Lord, would come knocking in the south.
--- Ibrahim II and Lambert I: The Matter of Sicily (900-May 901) ---
To fully understand the that which would unfold around the island of Sicily, the pearl of the Mediterranean, we once again must take a step back, and discuss arguably the savviest political force at play around these years:
Ibrahim II ibn Ahmad, Emir of Ifriqqiya and sovereign of the
Aghlabid dynasty.
In summation, Ibrahim’s rule – starting in 875, before Lambert was even born – was one of commercial development, centralisation and lofty public works: his the construction of a royal palace in Raqqada, which would be the seat of power in the region for generations, his the stunning campaigns against the Tulunid amirs, his the guarantee to all his subjects that any harm to one of them was harm to him.
This attitude was not based in a respect of the peasantry as much as it was borne from his antagonism towards the established order: his taxation policy had brought the old estate-based aristocracy of Ifriqqiya, whom the emir particularly mistrusted, to their knees, while militarily the
junds, semi-autonomous Arab regiments, were progressively replaced by Sudanese slave-soldiers of tested loyalty. Besides these feats, however, Ibrahim is remembered today for his cruelty, and the pleasure he took in punishing his opponents himself. Notably, when his palace in Raqqada was complete, he had the entire personal guard, which he inherited from his brother, brutally massacred and replaced with his own Sudanese sentries.
In spite of the growing power of the emirate under his watch, Ibrahim’s unquestionable tyranny and his murder-prone tendencies had also led to several revolts, notably in Sicily, where, due to the emir’s maneuvering, no governor lasted more than one year, lest they grew a powerbase. As a result, where the mainland continued to centralise, the island had become disunited and restless.
Sicily was primarily used as a raiding outpost, a purpose for which it was extremely suitable: the Aghlabid fleet, having destroyed most Byzantine sea-resistance at the naval battle of Milazzo in 888, could easily access all of the coastal Mezzogiorno, and sparingly conducted raids as far as the very shores of Greece. In 896, however, due to internal conflicts within the island and for fear of Roman intervention Ibrahim concluded a lengthy truce with Leo VI.
After several rebellions, inconclusive battles and failed attempts to restore order, in the summer of 900, Ibrahim’s son
Abdallah finally led a successful expedition to the heart of Sicily, where Arab and Berber governors had created a coalition to stand up against Raqqada; in September, at the battle of Palermo, the Sicilians were ultimately defeated and their resistance voided, just as Ifriqqiya’s forty-month truce with the Romans was running out. In October Abdallah harassed the confines of Demona, in what was left of Byzantine Sicily, but – either of personal initiative or summoned by his father – returned to Palermo for the winter.
Between 900 and early 901, likely due to these developments and after a series of exchanges –most of which we are not privy to – the Eastern autokrator Leo VI ultimately accepted Lambert’s proposal for a betrothal to Leo’s daughter,
Anna Makedoneia. In exchange, Leo requested Italian aid in the event of an Agarene invasion of the Italian south. The wedding would be celebrated as soon as Anna could be considered of age, but it is the general understanding that an alliance existed between East and West immediately upon the betrothal.
In March of 901, this alliance was immediately proven invaluable when Abdallah, still at the head of the Ifriqqiyan army, once again besieged Demona and dispatched his fleet towards the all-important fortress of Messina, indicating that once he was finished in Sicily, the general would cross the straits. Calls for aid from the desperate stronghold of Reggio, primary theatre of this war, reached Rome by April, as local Byzantine authorities assembled an army in Calabria.
The emperor departed from Rome the day after Easter, on April 13th, at the head of a small host of élite knights; he was in Benevento by the twentieth, where he once again rallied support from
Atenulf, by then something of a viceroy for the south – he could (and did, across most documents pertaining to him) boast the title “princeps Langobardorum,” allegedly by imperial investiture – and by the end of the month he was in proximity of the village of Tursikon, a fortified outpost in Lucania reconquered Nikephoros Phokas the Elder just years prior,.
The Italian and imperial forces together were roughly equal in numbers to Abdallah’s army, which at the time of their consolidation was rapidly crossing into Calabria. On May 11th, Lambert’s troops were stationed near a small village five miles short of Reggio, where an Arab siege was brewing. According to L.b., the Saracen army “saw the tall flames set by the Italian army for their camp and, believing themselves lost, immediately set sail again for Africa.” Reggine chronicles, however, tell a different story: “The two armies exchanged emissaries, who met in the church of Saint Mary” – the city’s cathedral, arguably the most important place of worship in Byzantine Italy – “and the Saracen emissary, who was Greek by birth, was tamed with the help of our pastor (archbishop) John.”
Chronicler’s bias aside, what we can gather from these conflicting sources is that there was almost certainly no pitched battle between the two armies and that the Ifriqqiyan host – possibly behind payment of a congruous tribute – departed the Italian mainland without a fight. The day after, Lambert was appropriately welcomed by the citizens of Reggio, stayed in the city for three days and left again for Rome, prepared to celebrate a second and, for once, bloodless success. For the moment, the coastlines of the south were safe and sound.
Peace, however, was not to last. When mounting reports of Ibrahim’s atrocities reached Baghdad, a dismayed Caliph
al-Mu’tadid dispatched a messenger who was to bear a doomed missive to the palace of Raqqada. The message was one of deposition, citing the untolerable mistreatment of his subjects as the reason why; its messenger would reach Africa in the final months of 901, prompting a scheme of unparalleled ambition. If the Caliph wanted him in Baghdad, Baghdad is exactly where Ibrahim would go.
Footnotes
Canon
[A]: This, in fairness, was not exceedingly difficult, considering most of them had wanted him dead for years already, since he had the unusual tendency to get in the way whenever they committed abuses against his lowborn subjects.
[Β]: Considering the expedition must have taken place months before Arnulf’s death in December, it is arguable whether this lends creditability to the German view of the Magyars as backstabbers or not.
[C]: When Eudes forced him out of France and he resorted to conquering Italy instead, Guy created the march of Ivrea, Italy’s bastion against the French, for Foulques’ brother Anscar, who had followed him from Langres.
[D]: Dux et princeps Francorum was a title invented around the halfway point of the 7th century, bestowed upon mayors of the palace in Merovingian times; Robert had received the title from his older brother, and the title would continue to be used for imperial regents in France.
[E]: In an act of historical fraud comparable to the Donation of Constantine, Lambert’s biographer was compelled (likely encouraged by the emperor) to add a panegyric about Diocletian’s baths and their “rich history”, where the building was identified first as Diocletian’s own imperial palace, then anointed by Pope Sylvester as a cathedral until its destruction by the Vandals in 455, where its past glory was lost to history. These historical misconceptions, relayed for centuries by scholars, never completely left Roman folklore – indicating they had been promoted amongst the people, possibly while Lambert was still alive – and was only definitively disproven by fifteenth century humanist Guarino Fondeferra.
[F]: Such hopes were allegedly fuelled by the rumours surrounding the emperor’s relationship with Hugh, count of Milan.
Hugh remains a contentious figure even in modern scholarly circles: where detractory sources describe him as a malevolent influence on Lambert’s rule, even making hyperbolic claims of his supposed ill-government in Lombardy, others – including Lambert’s own biographer – assert that he and the emperor were “like brothers, gifted with a bond unlike any other.” Complete agreement on the subject will likely never be found, as to this day there is an ongoing debate regarding Hugh and Lambert's sexuality, but we can say with certainty that the two were at least close.
[G]: This ritual, inaugurated by Charlemagne, was replicated between all emperors upon the accession of a new pope, symbolising both the pontiff’s superiority compared to the emperor and the sovereign’s leadership of the Catholic world.
Non-canon
[1]: This mistrust of Foulques by the king, ironically, prevents the archbishop’s murder and saves his life. IOTL, Charles bestowed him with the abbey of St. Vaast in Flanders so that he could keep tabs on Baldwin of Flanders; Baldwin, who had been the previous owner of the abbey and was apparently not over murder, decided being dispossessed of one holding was enough of an excuse to have Foulques killed.
[2]: There is another, drastically different version of this timeline in which Baldwin’s murder attempt on future king Robert I succeeds, but, where preventing the murder of Foulques or breaking Baldwin’s power early don’t have major short-term ripples, removing Robert from the equation this early – and, by extension, his son-in-law Rudolph – would mean changing the history of France in a radical way without even involving Lambert. For the sake of keeping things grounded and predictable – at least for the moment – I thought it best to keep Robert alive in this instance.
