Sons of the Harlot Empress
- Thread starter Carp
- Start date
Well, were the Magyars conquered lands beyond their new homeland which was the Pannonian Basin?
Surprisingly, we're still only 15 years out from the POD. If you mean posting fast, well, the 15 years between Marozia's (third) wedding and Alberic's coronation were the part I had planned out the best. From here on out it's going to be a little more improvisational, and considerably slower.
If you mean whether the Magyars are going to expand beyond their OTL range, probably not. Lombardy and Friuli were full of castles and walled cities and the Magyars had no ability to take them. They can raid the countryside and thereby extract tribute, but that's about it. Actually conquering Italy, even in its present (ITTL) weakened state, isn't within their power.
VIII. The New Regime
VIII. The New Regime
royal centers are marked as yellow dots.
The Sickness of Lombardy
The illness that beset Italy in this period can be best described as the localization of power. Previously, all vassals and holders of benefices from the Carolingian kings had been required to give military service. In the anarchy of this period, however, these obligations had become cut off from the king. The kings of the era could not protect the kingdom from invaders and were frequently occupied fighting civil wars; this caused the local people, both commoners and petty noblemen, to turn to local authorities for protection. The commoners and milites alike pledged themselves to great margraves and dukes, depriving the king of their service. These margraves and dukes, in turn, used their power bases to defend their independence from any royal oversight at all, or to launch their own bids for the throne. Royal weakness and localization thus formed a self-reinforcing cycle, each aggravating the other.
Soon, the only way to rule the kingdom at all was through personal relations. The duty of service to the king had been lost entirely, so only the personal bond between king and vassal could possibly induce the count to do the royal bidding. This, however, put the king in the position of a negotiator, a man with no more power or authority than any of the great margraves. He could only rule by pleasing his vassals, but the things required to please vassals – the cession of land and the granting of privileges and immunities – further weakened the monarchy. Any attempt to claw back these powers and lands or assert too much authority simply induced the magnates to find a new king who would “respect” them by asking nothing of them, or to make a bid for kingship themselves.
Hugh had come to the logical conclusion of this process – if personal relations are the only bonds between king and vassal, then why not further strengthen them by making your vassals your family as well? Unfortunately, even Hugh’s family was not big enough to fill every post, and blood was not always a guarantor of loyalty. So difficult was it to find trustworthy men that Hugh often simply left counties vacant; hardly a single count in the region of Emilia is recorded during his reign.
The clergy of Italy constituted as much of a threat as the lay nobility, if not more so. Their power was to a great extent tied to urbanization, which was always more advanced in Italy than elsewhere in the Latin world. Cities, by their nature, had held out better against the Magyars and Saracens than the ravaged countryside, and it was the bishops who had stepped in as the defenders – and thus rulers – of the cities. In an effort to buy their loyalty, some reguli – Berengar in particular – had also granted tremendous privileges to the bishops of Lombardy, which they jealously guarded. Later reguli tended to favor the counts, but power in Lombardy was a zero-sum game, and this inevitably alienated the bishops. It was no accident that both Bavarian invasions, under Hugh and Anscar, had been precipitated by the invitations of bishops. In fact the prelates of Italy was as frequently involved in the deposing and inviting of kings as the lay nobility.
Anscar had done reasonably well because he himself was a great magnate. His own family had greatly benefited from the localization of power by amassing a strong principality in Ivrea. As king, however, he was scarcely more powerful than he had been as margrave; the army he took with him into battle against the Magyars in 947 was principally an Ivrean army, joined by whatever counts and milites he or his agents could personally convince to join the effort. The last true “Italian army,” in the sense of a force drawn from throughout the kingdom in service of the king, had been raised by Emperor Berengar in 899, only to be smashed to pieces by the Magyars at the Battle of the Brenta. The strength of that army has been estimated at 15,000; almost 50 years later when Anscar rode out against the Magyars, he could muster no more than 5,000.
The Dissolution of the Marches
Alberic, too, was a great magnate; his meteoric career thus far would have been impossible without the profound weakness of the monarchy and the inability of Hugh and Anscar to reduce outlying provinces to obedience. Now, however, he was in command of the same rotten edifice that he had thrived on, and the view from the top was not a pretty sight.
Alberic did have a great advantage over the reguli that preceded him – he had no magnates to rival him. The great March of Ivrea was on its knees, for the slaughter at Gade had both robbed the clan of its leaders and decimated the ranks of Anscarid loyalists. The Anscarids were now “led” by three boys, the oldest of whom was thirteen.
Shortly after his coronation, Alberic proceeded into the march with his army. Meeting no resistance, he then convened an assembly of the Ivrean lay feudatories at Turin. The counts were called upon to recognize Alberic himself as the Margrave of Ivrea, on the basis that his wife, Queen Gisela, was the last remaining sibling of King Anscar. Initially, this may have been spun as a “regency,” a temporary measure while his Anscarid nephews were too young to rule. It is clear, however, that Alberic had no intention of letting anyone succeed to the march. He took his three Anscarid nephews into his custody and brought them to Lucca, where they were to remain wards of the royal court.
In effect, Alberic had done to Ivrea what Otto had done to the Duchy of Franconia in the previous decade. Otto had succeeded his father as king in 936 and shortly thereafter faced a major rebellion by his dukes. Eberhard, the rebellious Duke of Franconia, was killed at the Battle of Andernach in 939, and Otto had declined to appoint anyone in his place. The duchy became a mere geographic entity, consisting of an assemblage of counts and bishops whose actual superior was the king. Alberic had not left Ivrea vacant per se, but the “personal union” of Ivrea and the Iron Crown accomplished virtually the same thing.
Alberic was not prepared to suppress Friuli as he had done with Ivrea. The march, though massive, was needed as a bulwark against the Magyars (though it had done little to stop them in 947). Its protection was entrusted to Alberic’s cousin, the senator Crescentius, who had a record of accomplishment in Alberic’s service. Crescentius had fought alongside his cousin at Spoleto (938) and Surrecina (945) and had been the architect of Pope Boso’s demise in the aftermath of Hugh’s downfall. In 10th century Italy he seems to have been that rarest of men, a subordinate who was both competent and loyal. The only great feudatory to remain apart from Friuli was Spoleto, which had been held by Duke Constantine, the new king’s brother, since 940 as part of Alberic’s terms with Anscar. For now, he would continue to rule there as dux et marchio.
The March of Tuscany was simply dissolved. Alberic seems to have rarely used marchio as a title for the seven years he had ruled in Tuscany, preferring the general title of princeps Romanorum in all his territories, and abandoned it altogether upon becoming king. Tuscany was now a core part of the royal domain and would no longer constitute a “march” or any kind of autonomous province.
Thus by 948, Alberic had achieved what Hugh had dreamed of and Otto, by 950, would actually accomplish in Germany – a situation in which all great magnates were in fact the immediate kin of the ruler. As long as Crescentius and Constantine remained loyal, there was no plausible rival for power within the kingdom. That did not, however, remove the threat of outside intervention. As Liutprand observed, “the Italians wish always to serve two masters, in order to restrain one by means of the terror with which the other inspires him.” Now for the first time in sixty years there was only one master in Italy, and this could only mean that any counts or bishops who became unsatisfied with this new order would look for new masters elsewhere.
Alberic’s Policy in Lombardy
Alberic could make no sweeping changes in Lombardy. While the nobility for the moment was still shocked into quiescence by the aftermath of the Battle of Gade and two months of savage plundering, they were not about to surrender themselves wholly to the new king. Alberic had come to the fore with a certain expectation that he would be a caretaker of the Anscarid legacy; he claimed the throne by his relation to Anscar, and had taken Anscar’s march as his own and Anscar’s son and nephews as his wards. It was expected that he would stay the course of Anscar, which had been to do very little - Anscar was far too busy defending his crown to remake his kingdom. He had at least resisted the pressures of the counts to recognize hereditary succession, which existed de facto in much of the country but was not a legal principle the kings of Italy had ever admitted.
Anscar, like Hugh, tended to favor the counts of Lombardy over the bishops, which goes a long way towards explaining why it was the bishops who constituted most of the key allies to Duke Berthold in 945. Had Anscar's rule lasted longer, they may have succeeded in bringing him down, but the Magyars accomplished this first.
Alberic attempted to maintain an unsatisfying status quo in central Lombardy. There was, in truth, little he could accomplish there – he could not simply root out the nobility, nor could he try to curb the power of the bishops or revoke their costly privileges. Either path would certainly cause them to find a new foreign protector. Alberic was militarily weak and probably fearful of the intervention of Germany, whose king Otto was just now reaching the apex of his considerable power. Appeasement was the only reasonable policy.
The situation was more congenial in Ivrea, where the Battle of Gade had the salutary effect of clearing out much of the pre-existing nobility of the country. Emperor Hugh had taken advantage of the same situation after the Battle of Florentiola, which had eliminated many of the Frankish nobility in the service of Emperor Berengar. Indeed practically every king of Italy, beginning with Charlemagne himself, had flooded the nobility of Italy with his own countrymen upon his arrival. So “foreign” was the character of the Italian nobility that Liutprand complained that by the time of Hugh’s deposition “it was impossible to find an Italian [nobleman] who had not been either driven out or deprived of all his dignities.”
Following in their footsteps, Alberic began immediately to import his own crowd of nobles, mainly into Ivrea. Certainly many of the “new men” were Romans; this is attested not only by chronicles, but by onomastic evidence. Charters begin to appear in Lombardy of the 950s with such comital names as Theodorus, Gregorius, Egidius, Marinus, and others which were previously unheard of among the nobility of 9th and 10th century Lombardy. Also extremely common are Romanized Lombard names like Paldus (Pandulf), Tebaldus (Teobald), and Transamundus (Trasimund), who are likely to have been transplants from Tuscany and Spoleto.
Alberic no doubt hoped that these “indigenous counts” – the phrase, comites indigeni, is used approvingly by Liutprand – would be more loyal. Some certainly were, like Count Boniface of Como, an affinis (distant relation) of Alberic who would very shortly prove his worth. But the new men could not be stopped from integrating themselves into the existing milieu, chiefly by intermarrying and allying with the Frankish and Burgundinian aristocracy. They were, after all, still noblemen, and noblemen were then as ever inclined to look after the interests of their own houses first.
Alberic’s Policy in Tuscany
With his power greatly limited in Lombardy, Alberic relied heavily on Tuscany, which would remain his greatest source of strength during his rule.
Tuscany had been mercifully spared from most of the Magyar ravages, and Saracen piracy had generally prioritized other targets (though the port of Luni had been sacked by them in the 9th century). As a result, it had never been heavily encastellated, with the partial exception of the Diocese of Lucca. The bishops in Tuscany were also less dominant in the cities than they were in Lombardy, and had been granted fewer privileges by the margraves. While the government of recent margraves had often been neglectful, they had not been forced to alienate their lands nearly as much as the kings of Italy, and the public lands in the march were still very extensive.
Tuscany was also rich. The greater Arno valley region was full of rich farmland, sheep-covered uplands, and prosperous and growing cities like Pisa, Lucca, Pistoia, Prato, and Florence. Pisa, though it had not yet risen to the level of southern trading ports like Naples or Amalfi, already boasted a tradition of commerce and a civic fleet that had been strong enough in the 9th century to take a major part in imperial operations as far afield as Tunisia.
Margrave Hubert had held out in the Tuscan Apennines for some time after Hugh’s deposition, and Alberic had used this as an opportunity to root out not only his supporters, but many other Frankish and Burgundinian counts whose only crimes may have been that they did not have Alberic’s trust. Some bishops had also been strong supporters of Hubert, and Alberic deposed them with papal backing. The result was that by the end of hostilities in 954, the march was firmly in Alberic’s hands and his public lands there were larger than they had ever been.
Alberic took a particular interest in Tuscany's cities. Alberic asserted various rights concerning tolls, mints, and tax duties in the cities, some of which had to be wrested from the bishops. To manage these revenues, he appointed castaldi – the word is a variant of the old Lombard term gastald, which in its original sense meant a paid official who managed royal properties. Alberic’s castaldi were similar, but exclusively urban. Though initially created as little more than tax collectors, they soon acquired military powers as well, becoming responsible for organizing the city’s militia and the maintenance of its walls. These officials were in Alberic’s reign sometimes also titled iudex, another throwback to Lombard tradition and an acknowledgement of the judicial powers they were required to have in order to actually defend the king’s pecuniary interests.
The Sodales
The partially-emptied lowlands of the Arno plain became the foundation of Alberic’s “royal” army. To create and maintain a new fighting force, this land was parceled out to new milites (knights), in a manner not dissimilar to Carolingian milites elsewhere. The feudalism of the late Carolingian world, however, had been implemented only imperfectly in Italy. In Rome and the southern Lombard states, the fief as a concept was nonexistent. Alberic had been familiarized with the post-Carolingian system as a magnate of Italy, and had even given himself in homage to Hugh in the classically Frankish ceremony of the taking of hands after Hugh’s siege of Rome in 938. He was, however, still an outsider to that system, and Tuscany became the cradle of a Roman variant of the post-Carolingian system.
The Roman nobility was dependent not so much on landed estates but rather on the largesse and power of the church, the star around which everything in Rome orbited. It was no accident that Theophylact counted sacri palatii vestararius, Treasurer of the Sacred (i.e. Papal) Palace, as one of his principal titles, so much so that his wife Theodora assumed the unheard-of title serenissima vestaratrix (“Most Serene Treasuress”). Thus Roman noble families of prominence took on a distinctly bureaucratic character – lay offices of the Church might be passed from father to son when a family was strong enough to ensure it, but they were not by their nature heritable. Roman families also had an urban character, for the only way to gain profitable offices and remain engaged with the politics of Rome and the church was to actually live in the city. The Counts of Tusculum had ruled from Rome, not Tusculum itself.
Alberic had no interest in filling Tuscany with castles, which had made Lombardy nearly ungovernable. Instead, he applied Roman traditions to the new milites – they would reside not in countryside estates, but in the major cities and towns, where royal authority was strong. This, of course, meant that the miles was not always able to personally supervise his land as much as might be desirable, so it soon became common practice for the milites to entrust these day-to-day duties to a steward of common rank. This, in turn, freed them not only to dwell in the cities, but in theory to go wherever they might be required, which Alberic took advantage of to require that the milites – or at least a rotating subset of them – travel with the itinerant royal court as it moved between Lucca, Rome, Pavia, Mantua, and other locations in Lombardy.
Likely because of this habit, by the 960s these men were frequently referred to as milites sodalium, or in time simply sodales (from the Latin sodalis, meaning a follower or companion). The term may also have come from southern Lombard usage, where sodalis referred usually to a paid soldier. The first of these grants seem to have been established around 945 to 946, after the pacification of Tuscany and possibly as a reaction to the poor performance of Alberic’s infantry forces at Surrecina.
Although the sodales were mainly a Tuscan phenomenon, equivalent grants were also made later on in smaller numbers in Emilia, which had before 940 been part of the Tuscan march and had many vacant counties. Grants were also eventually established in Tuscia, the northern part of Latium bordering on Tuscany. Elsewhere, however, the propagation of the system was both difficult and undesirable; in the absence of strong royal authority, the sodales were preserved best in their original role when they were close at hand, residing in cities ruled directly by Alberic’s administrators under close royal supervision.
The milites sodalium did not represent a perfect solution to the military conundrum, and were not uniquely immune to the issues that beset vassal relations and state institutions all over the post-Carolingian world. Problems would become more evident during the reign of Octavian, who complained that city living made the men “soft.” It was indeed true that the sodales integrated with urban society as the cities grew in wealth and power, eventually intermarrying with prominent burghers, becoming involved in urban politics, and even entering business. In the reign of Alberic, however, when the men were newly established, it was an expedient way of producing a moderately effective force of cavalrymen that depended directly on the monarch.
Alberic’s Policy Elsewhere
Reforms in Latium were minimal compared to those in Tuscany. The Roman nobility was well-established there, unlike the nobles of Tuscany who had been in large part dislocated. Some parts of Tuscia (northern Latium) were eventually included within the range of sodales grants, but most of the Roman hinterland was ruled by the traditional Roman noble families, the great monasteries, or the large estates of surburbican bishops.
The main innovation in Rome itself was the theft of the office of praefectus urbi from the Pope. The title of “urban prefect” was ancient in its lineage, and in previous centuries it had been irregularly used to denote a papal official in charge of managing Rome itself. The position had been eroded by the rise of the vestararii beginning with Theophylact. Alberic reinvented it as a title for his viceroy in Rome, who would from that point forward report to the king in his capacity as sacri palatii vestararius. Crescentius may have held this position de facto before being moved to Friuli, but the first true holder was one Demetrius, described as a cognatus (kinsman) of Alberic.[1] It does not seem to have been an easy post; the prefect was required to be the enforcer of the king’s law over the restive Roman populace, the mediator of feuds between the equally hot-blooded Roman noble families, and the pope’s minder, in addition to the usual duties of a castaldus to collect revenues, organize the militia, and maintain the walls (which in Rome was a massive task in itself).
As the milites sodalium continued to develop in Tuscany, Alberic gradually seems to have depended less and less on the Roman nobility that had once provided him with the core of his forces. He preferred the services of the “new men” whom he had personally raised to prominence from obscurity; Roman families, in contrast, claimed ancient consuls and even emperors in their lineages. Alberic continued to export individual Romans to fill comital and official posts elsewhere in the kingdom, but the Roman aristocracy as a whole was increasingly left to remain in Rome. This change in the status and importance of the Roman nobility would eventually cause serious unrest.
Sources for governance in Spoleto and Romagna are rare in this period, but in both provinces the cities had not been so effectively conquered by the bishops as in Lombardy, and the noblemen still retained substantial power. Hugh had made attempts at bringing Romagna proper under his control, while the Pentapolis region in the south had been incorporated into Alberic’s principality starting as early as the late 930s; as far as we know, organizational reform in these provinces under Alberic was not major.
Looking Onwards
Alberic’s reign was quite peaceful at the end of the 940s, giving him some small breathing space to stabilize his position and effect some changes in policy. He was not, however, a magician; the problems of the kingdom which had grown and festered over sixty years could not be undone overnight, or even in a few years. Given the tendency for kings of Italy to lose their kingdom and occasionally their lives, Alberic’s “reforms” were by necessity short-term and pragmatic rather than the expression of long-term plans for the future. In the heart of the kingdom in Lombardy, Alberic was a weak, conciliatory king in the model of his predecessors, who could hope only by appeasement to remain tolerable; where circumstances allowed him to claw back power or create new clients and structures, like in Tuscany and Ivrea, he did so with all deliberate haste.
Speed was important, for the peace of the late 940s would not continue long into the 950s. In that tumultuous decade, Alberic would have to contend with Byzantine interventions to his south, Magyar raids from the east, and the emergence of his neighbor to the north as the dominant figure in Christendom – Otto, King of the Germans.
Next Time: Alberic and the Germans (for real this time) [A]
Footnotes (In Character)
[1] The relationship of Alberic to Demetrius is unclear. It is known that John, Alberic’s uncle, had a brother named Demetrius, and on this sole piece of evidence historians have tended to assume that the urban prefect of that name was either the very same Demetrius or another member of the same family. This would make the prefect related to Alberic only by marriage and not by blood, unless John’s family shared an ancestor with Theophylact (which is not a terribly remote possibility).
Timeline Notes (Out of Character)
[A] I promised “Alberic and the Germans” would be next in the last update, but when I got down to writing it I realized that a little more needed to be said about the problems Alberic faced as king and the administrative trajectory of his reign. It turned into a bit of an infodump, unfortunately - I prefer to write narratives - but to me the most critical issue for any timeline involving an independent medieval Italy is to establish just how a plausible path to strength from its abysmal state in the early 10th century could exist. As an aside, it’s really difficult to strike a balance between an effective king and an unrealistically effective king; real men like Charlemagne and Otto the Great often seem like miracle-workers who we would scoff at were they fictional characters in an alternate history. Every dynasty needs a capable founder, but with Alberic I wanted to try and paint a believable picture of a man who, while highly capable, is also severely limited by the profound infirmity of his kingdom.
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Enjoying the update.
Understandable. It's worth noting that as kings recede into history their deeds became proportionally greater and mythic. So Charlemagne and Otto seem so much greater because their deeds have been enlarged upon and would contemporaneously have had smaller effect than that later attributed.
Understandable. It's worth noting that as kings recede into history their deeds became proportionally greater and mythic. So Charlemagne and Otto seem so much greater because their deeds have been enlarged upon and would contemporaneously have had smaller effect than that later attributed.
Hmm... these sodales do prevent noble insurrections in Tuscany to an extent, but Machiavelli's lament about urban nobles and clerics being unable to withstand foreign invasion seems prescient.
Without the Iron Crown, it'll be interesting to see how the Ottonian realm develops. Of course, without having to be drawn into Italy nearly as much, perhaps Germany will be able to consolidate better and/or conquer east, pre-empting the formation of Poland et. al.
Without the Iron Crown, it'll be interesting to see how the Ottonian realm develops. Of course, without having to be drawn into Italy nearly as much, perhaps Germany will be able to consolidate better and/or conquer east, pre-empting the formation of Poland et. al.
Like the last post, a bunch of ad hoc jury rigging makes a lot more sense than an organized and systematic program of reform.
Also one thing I noticed studying Venice is how rich they got BEFORE they started to throw their weight around politically. Which makes sense, the sort of colonial expansion Venice engaged in is generally more of a consequence than a cause of commercial wealth. This means you could have the towns being a good poltical counterweight to the old rural nobility relatively soon.
Oh and in the last post I meant the volume of posts not the number of years. Enjoying this a lot so far, only quibble would be a bit more prologue before the POD might`ve been helpful as I know so little about the period from the fall of the Carolingians to the POD.
Also one thing I noticed studying Venice is how rich they got BEFORE they started to throw their weight around politically. Which makes sense, the sort of colonial expansion Venice engaged in is generally more of a consequence than a cause of commercial wealth. This means you could have the towns being a good poltical counterweight to the old rural nobility relatively soon.
Oh and in the last post I meant the volume of posts not the number of years. Enjoying this a lot so far, only quibble would be a bit more prologue before the POD might`ve been helpful as I know so little about the period from the fall of the Carolingians to the POD.
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Interlude: The 45-year Clusterf***
Let me see if I can help with that. I'll keep this as concise as possible.
The 45-year Clusterf***: An Abbreviated History of the Kings of Italy, 887-932
Berengar of Friuli was the hereditary Margrave of Friuli, a large territory in northeastern Italy. His family, the Unruochings, were Franks who had been installed in Friuli in the early 9th century. Berengar was himself a Carolingian in the distaff line, as his mother was a daughter of Louis the Pious. Berengar was a participant in the Carolingian civil wars, siding with Carloman of Bavaria against Charles the Bald in their contest over Italy. One claim is that Berengar was angling to be named as the heir to Charles the Fat, the last sole ruler of all Charlemagne's empire, but if so this came to nothing. When Charles was deposed in 887, Berengar proclaimed himself King of Italy.
His initial rival was Guy of Spoleto, another Frank with Carolingian blood who ruled as Duke of Spoleto. Guy had attempted to get himself the crown of France after the deposition of Charles, but was frustrated in that attempt and resolved to get Italy from Berengar instead. Guy had the support of the Pope, got himself crowned both king of Italy and emperor, and defeated Berengar in 889 at the Battle of the Trebbia, but he couldn't dislodge Berengar from Friuli.
A new pope, however, turned against Guy, and both the pope and Berengar appealed to Arnulf of Carinthia, the Carolingian king who had overthrown Charles the Fat in East Francia, for help. In 894 Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy and took control of Italy north of the Po. Guy retreated and planned a counterattack, but then he abruptly died of some illness, and was succeeded by his son Lambert of Spoleto.
Arnulf had been prevented from pressing further into Italy in 894 due to an outbreak of disease and a war with Rudolph I of Burgundy, who was Guy's ally. Lambert made an attempt at a recovery, allied with Margrave Adalbert II of Tuscany (the father of Guy of Tuscany, Marozia's second husband), and was able to retake Pavia. In 896, however, Arnulf launched another campaign into Italy, which met with great success. Pavia fell, Margrave Adalbert switched sides, and Arnulf took Rome and freed the pope, who had been imprisoned by the late Guy of Spoleto for favoring Arnulf. The Pope, Formosus (who would later be the posthumous defendant in the infamous Cadaver Synod), crowned Arnulf as emperor.
Arnulf then marched on Spoleto, Lambert's last possession, but on the way he suffered a stroke. He did not die, but was forced to return north; on the way he had his young son Ratold crowned co-king of Italy, but Ratold never ruled in his own right. As soon as Arnulf returned to Germany, his power in Italy was lost, and he eventually died in 899.
At some point in 896 Berengar, once Arnulf's supporter and ally, had fallen out with him, and had been removed from Friuli. In the wake of Arnulf's retreat, however, Berengar regained his territory. This left Berengar and Lambert in Italy together. Initially they agreed to split the country, Berengar ruling north of the Po and Lambert to the south. This truce lasted only a short time, and in 898 Berengar and Lambert went to war again. At the Battle of Marengo, Lambert defeated Berengar, but then Lambert abruptly died a few days later, either because of a fall from his horse or because he was assassinated.
Finally, Berengar was sole ruler. The very next year, however, the Magyars arrived in Italy. Berengar rallied the armies of Italy against them, and at the Battle of Brenta in 899 he was completely and utterly defeated. He allegedly escaped only by swapping clothes with one of his soldiers.
This defeat caused the nobles of Lombardy to look for an alternative king. In 900 they invited in Louis of Provence, a Bosonid with Carolingian blood. Louis invaded Italy, defeated Berengar, and was crowned king and emperor, but in 902 Berengar turned the tables and defeated Louis. He forced Louis to return to Provence and made him promise that he would never return to Italy.
The Italian nobles did not give up, however, and in 905 they managed to convince Louis to invade again. Among the most prominent of anti-Berengar nobles was Adalbert of Ivrea (the father of Berengar of Ivrea and his brother Anscar). Ivrea had been created by Guy of Spoleto as a reward for Anscar, Adalbert's father, and so the Margraves of Ivrea had always been enemies of Berengar. Even with Ivrean support, however, Louis was defeated (again) and captured. For breaking his oath never to return, Berengar had him blinded, and thereafter he was known as Louis the Blind.
For the next dozen years or so, Berengar was the sole and uncontested king of Italy. He attempted to reconcile with the Anscarids by marrying his daughter Gisela to Margrave Adalbert, but Gisela died in 913 and Adalbert was never truly his supporter. In 915 he managed to get the imperial title from the Pope, who hoped to gain his support against the Saracens; Berengar didn't actually help, but the Saracens were still defeated at the Battle of the Garigliano and Berengar got his crown regardless. Berengar was never able to do much about the Magyar raids, and instead paid them tribute to act as his enforcers in Italy, which caused great resentment against him.
Between 917 and 920, Adalbert and other nobles invited Hugh of Arles, the cousin and regent of Louis the Blind in Provence, to take the throne. He made an attempt, but upon reaching Pavia he was trapped by Berengar, and eventually agreed to leave the country. The nobles tried again in 922, this time inviting in Rudolph II, King of Burgundy, the son of the earlier Rudolph who had been the ally of Guy of Spoleto. Rudolph was more successful than Hugh, forcing Berengar to retreat to Friuli and eventually gaining a decisive victory over him at the Battle of Firenzuola (referred to ITTL by its Latin name of Florentiola). Berengar fled to Verona only to be murdered by one of his own men. As these two sides fought, the Magyars freely ravaged the country, and even sacked the capital Pavia in 924.
Rudolph was now king, but he didn't even have time to gain the imperial crown before the Italian nobles decided they didn't much like him either. They invited Hugh in a second time, and this time he was more successful. Rudolph fled back to Upper Burgundy, and Hugh became king. Hugh eventually attempted to gain the imperial crown with his marriage to Marozia, but was thwarted by the rebellion of her son Alberic, who drove Hugh out, imprisoned Marozia, and proclaimed himself "Prince of All the Romans."
And there you have our POD.
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So it appears we may see a future conflict between Otto and Alberic. So I have to say I love this timeline and that you have new subscriber.
So what is the general situation for all of the neighbors of 'Italy' at this point of time? How stable are they at this period and how stable are they compare to OTL? I know that ITTL Providence is relatively stable thanks to the update on Providence and the fate of Alberic's mother, but I don't really know much about it OTL so I really can't properly compare their relative positions in Europe.
So what is the general situation for all of the neighbors of 'Italy' at this point of time? How stable are they at this period and how stable are they compare to OTL? I know that ITTL Providence is relatively stable thanks to the update on Providence and the fate of Alberic's mother, but I don't really know much about it OTL so I really can't properly compare their relative positions in Europe.
So far all the major regional changes have been in Burgundy.
IOTL, Hugh agreed to cede Lower Burgundy to Rudolph, King of Upper Burgundy, in exchange for Rudolph's renunciation of his claims to the Italian throne. In fact, however, Hugh was never really faithful to the agreement and continued to control Provence during his reign in Italy. He dies in 947 and his son Lothair dies in 950, and thereafter Rudolph's son Conrad "the Peaceful" (who got his name because he never warred with his neighbors in his 56 year rule) was king of a united Burgundy, though the Provencal lords continued to be quite autonomous. Conrad's sister Adelaide was married to Lothair as part of the initial agreement between Hugh and Rudolph, but after Lothair's early death she remarried to King Otto, thus securing his claim to Italy.
ITTL, Hugh fled to Provence in 940, and after his death Lothair proclaimed himself King of Provence (under Marozia's influence), which was a direct renunciation of the Hugh-Rudolph agreement. Thus Burgundy is still divided between the Upper and Lower kingdoms. Additionally, because Lothair is still alive, he's also still married to Adelaide. Count Boso of Arles, who IOTL is (probably) the ancestor of the autonomous Counts of Provence, got shot full of arrows in this timeline. This ends his lineage, which IOTL would rule as Counts of Provence until 1127. (Boso was also IOTL the probable ancestor of the Counts of Barcelona, the subsequent Kings of Aragon, the Angevin Kings of Naples, and lots of others.)
Thus Burgundy is a bit less stable ITTL than IOTL. Conrad and Lothair are brothers-in-law and they're both pretty mild-mannered guys, so an immediate struggle for Burgundinian reunification is unlikely, but it does mean that Burgundy is going to continue to be a bone of contention between regional powers. Conrad is in Otto's sphere, Lothair is (for now) fully independent, and various counts in the middle like Charles-Constantine of Vienne are under French influence.
As for Germany, it will be covered in some detail in the next installment; I won't get into it now.
All other neighbors are not in any significant way different from their OTL counterparts, though Naples and Gaeta are more closely allied with Alberic than they were IOTL because of family connections and intensified diplomatic contacts.
No, that's a series of typos, it should be Lambert. I've corrected them now.
What's really confusing is that in addition to Guy of Spoleto, who has a son named Lambert, there is also somewhat later a Guy of Tuscany (Marozia's second husband) with a brother named Lambert. The two families are unrelated.
This also butterflies Eleanor of Aquitaine..so no Constance of Arles and Eleanor of Aquitaine..the House of Toulouse might still marry with the Bosonids.
Deleted member 67076
One thing I've been wondering is why don't the Italian kings make moves against the southern principalities such as Naples?
Weakness and disinterest, mostly. The Lombard kings had always had trouble keeping the southern duchies part of their kingdom. Desiderius eventually managed it, but then he was deposed by Charlemagne shortly thereafter. Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's son and successor, tried to conquer the southern Lombards but didn't achieve much and had to settle for vague promises of tribute from the Prince of Benevento that never actually amounted to anything. The post-Carolingian Italian kings were far too weak and busy trying to stay alive to attempt foreign conquests. The first King of Italy to make a decent go at it was Otto the Great, who made Pandulf "Ironhead" of Benevento-Capua his vassal and attacked Byzantine possessions in Italy. But Otto couldn't stay there forever, and Pandulf was defeated and captured by the Byzantines. Eventually Otto got what he really wanted, an imperial bride for his son, and backed off, leaving the south pretty much as he had found it.
Also consider that all the states there, but Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi in particular, were considered vassals of the Byzantine Empire even if they were de facto independent. The Byzantine Emperors took that seriously. Besieging Naples would have meant nothing less than a declaration of war against the Byzantines, whose emperors in this century were by and large a pretty capable bunch. Only a ruler as powerful as Otto could feasibly try and dislodge them, and even he wasn't able to.
The southern Italian states were militarily weak in most respects, but they were situated in rough, mountainous terrain, and they were pretty good at building, maintaining, and defending fortifications, of which there were many. Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi were also very difficult to conquer unless you had a strong navy too, and none of the Italian kings did. This made any conquest a long, difficult, and expensive proposition; quite simply, no king of Italy had the time, money, or interest to do it. Even the Normans took well over a century to conquer the whole thing.
Zioneer
Banned
Good lord, I love this timeline. All the detail and background of a history book, and the panache and drama of something like Game of Thrones.
Again, I only wish I could write as well as this. Well, I better work on my own timeline, I guess. Practice makes perfect and all that.
One question: The Magyars are mostly still pagan, correct? Besides their raids into Italy, what's going on with them?
Again, I only wish I could write as well as this. Well, I better work on my own timeline, I guess. Practice makes perfect and all that.
One question: The Magyars are mostly still pagan, correct? Besides their raids into Italy, what's going on with them?
Thanks, I appreciate the compliment!
The Magyars are indeed completely pagan (or very nearly so) at this time. Unfortunately their pre-Christian history is pretty murky; we can't even say with certainty who their leader was around 950, though as mentioned it was probably either Zoltan or Fajsz.
Starting in the 930s the Germans were getting demonstrably better at fighting the Magyars, and by the 940s they seem to have been winning as many engagements as they were losing. In 950 the Duke of Bavaria actually turned things around and managed to launch a successful raid into Magyar territory. Lechfeld in 955 is often raised up as a a singular and amazing victory, but while it was an important engagement it was also the culmination of a process of stiffening resistance and defensive infrastructure-building that had been proceeding for decades. What really killed the Magyars at Lechfeld was not the royal army, which only managed to disperse them, but the system of "defense in depth" throughout Bavaria, manned by local levies at towns, castles, and bridge crossings, who massacred the fragmented bands of retreating Magyars in the three days following the battle. The conclusion I draw from this is that the ability of the Magyars to raid Germany had been declining for some time before 955, and even if Lechfeld were butterflied away (which it probably will be ITTL), Magyar raids into the west are probably not going to endure much later than 955. The Christians were simply getting too strong and too well-adapted to Magyar warfare to be punching-bags much longer.
This also means that the Christianization of the Magyars is probably going to proceed on more or less the same schedule as OTL. Geza, the first baptized Magyar king, doesn't become the ruling prince until 972 IOTL, so I still have a fair amount of time before I need to address him specifically. The 960s are going to be a busy decade for Alberic.
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IX. Alberic and the Germans
IX. Alberic and the Germans
King Otto receiving the submission of rebellious lords, c. 1200
King of Kings
In 950, King Otto of Germany was easily the most powerful ruler in Latin Christendom. After an early rebellion against his rule in 938-939, he had re-asserted his power in Germany and gone on to defeat or dominate almost every neighboring state. Lorraine, long contested between France and Germany after the disintegration of “Middle Francia,” had been decisively wrested from the French king. Conrad of Burgundy, though a king himself, had recognized Otto as his superior. A Danish-Slavic alliance was crushingly defeated, and the King of the Danes had allegedly acknowledged German suzerainty. A rebellion of the Wends had been crushed, and German authority extended further into their lands than ever before. Bohemia, which for a time had been rebellious, had been humbled and returned to the status of a tributary. The Magyars had not been decisively defeated, but since the victory of Otto’s father Henry at the Battle of Riade in 933 the Germans had been increasingly successful against them. In 950, the Duke of Bavaria flipped the usual script and led a successful raid into Pannonia. By the same year, Otto had managed to place a close relation in every ducal position in Germany – his son-in-law Conrad in Lorraine since 944, his brother Henry in Bavaria since 948, and his son Liudolf in Swabia in 950. His power was imperial in scale, and it seemed only fitting that it be imperial in fact as well. Since Hugh’s death in 943, there had been no emperor in the west – Anscar had not secured it before his demise, and Alberic had not yet claimed it either.[1]
Otto had not yet turned his personal attention to Italy, but it must have been on his mind. He had acceded to the throne of Germany in 936, the same year that Alberic had gained control of Spoleto, and since then had seen the fall of Hugh and the destruction of Anscar at the hands of the Magyars. Now the throne was held by a man of no pedigree or much distinction, who – if he was known at all in the rest of the Latin world – was likely known only for being the son of that dreadful empress who, it was whispered, had murdered her own husband only to be deposed by her stepson.
At the time of Anscar’s death, Otto had been occupied in his war against the Danes and Slavs. Yet though that perfect opportunity for intervention had been missed, it would surely be no great feat for the greatest king in Christendom to overcome Anscar’s successor, who in 950 did not seem to sit any more securely on the throne than any of the other unfortunates who had called themselves King of Italy since 887.
The surest indication of Otto’s interest in Italy was his marriage to Alda, the daughter of the late Emperor Hugh. Late in Hugh’s reign, Alda had been married to Duke Berthold of Bavaria to help secure his northern border, and she had borne him two surviving children, Henry and Hilda. Berthold, however, had died in 947, and at the time of his death his widow was only 22 years of age. Otto himself was a widower, having lost his first wife Eadgyth (Edith), the daughter of Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons, in 946 to some unrecorded illness. Alda was an ideal bride for the German king – as the sister of King Lothair of Provence, she might help him make further inroads into Burgundy, and as the daughter of an emperor and King of Italy she gave him the connections and clout he would need if he was to dominate that kingdom. They were married in 949. Alberic reportedly sent expensive gifts to Otto on the occasion of the wedding; it must have looked rather like tribute, or a plaintive gesture not to use Alda as an excuse to depose Alberic. Under the circumstances, however, appeasement was the only sensible option.
Family Rivals
Other members of Otto’s family also turned covetous eyes to Italy. As mentioned, Otto’s brother Henry had become Duke of Bavaria in 948. Expanding into Lombardy had been a dream of Bavarian dukes for some time. Given his recent successes against the Magyars, Henry might have from the start entertained notions that he was the man to succeed where his predecessors Arnulf and Berthold had both faltered.
His neighbor in Swabia was his nephew Liudolf. Liudolf had only gained his duchy in 950, but the twenty year old prince was already hungry for more power and glory. While Liudolf was Otto’s only son, the German kingship was in principle elective; even if it were Otto’s express wish that his son should be king after him, this could not be assured unless Liudolf had both the power and prestige to gain the acceptance of the other dukes. His chief competitor for the future succession was clearly his uncle Henry, who had already contested the succession with Otto in 938. The rebellious Henry had been defeated, but was reconciled to Otto and eventually restored to a high position. Liudolf was quite justified to assume that the man who had fought for the crown with his brother would just as easily fight his nephew for it.
For now there would be no war between Liudolf and Henry. The son of the king had to look elsewhere to prove his qualities and win fortune and fame, and Italy seemed like a choice target. Liudolf was popular among the Swabians, and though he lacked much personal experience in command he could count upon a strong force to support his ambitions.
The Invasion of Liudolf
The occasion for action came soon enough. In the spring of 951, a new force of Magyars entered Lombardy. They were less interested in Italy than in France, and Alberic was ready to pay them tribute to expedite their journey west.[A] Resentment against Alberic’s policies in Ivrea, particularly his vast export of Roman and Spoletan vassals and his four year long “regency” in Ivrea (which now had little justification, as Berengar’s oldest son was now seventeen), was combined with outrage over his craven payment of the Magyars and the plundering that they had allegedly engaged in despite being bought off. Liudolf had already been searching for an opportunity for intervention, and jumped on the reports of dissent. No actual agreement is known, but it seems likely Liudolf was “invited” as so many foreigners had been before to make things right in Lombardy. He did not take long to prepare, and in August of 952 Duke Liudolf and a Swabian army entered Italy, probably through the St. Gotthard pass.
The expedition was an utter failure. Liudolf’s attempt to make his way through the mountains in secret was discovered by Count Boniface of Como, a Roman whom Alberic had recently placed in that position precisely so he could keep watch on the nearby mountain passes. Boniface passed word quickly to Alberic, who had been keeping his finger on the pulse of events ever since the Magyar passage through Lombardy and had been preparing for just such an eventuality. Liudolf’s own force was well-armed and sizable, but it was seemingly not well prepared for siege warfare, likely the result of the inexperience and youth of its commander. Accordingly, Bonfiace neither sought nor achieved any victories in the field, but moved quickly to strengthen and resupply the garrisons of his fortresses and held them valiantly against the Swabians. From these fastnesses he managed to harass and contain the Swabians, even plundering his own land to prevent them from foraging.
Leaving Bonfiace to his defense, Alberic moved quickly against rebels in Lombardy and Ivrea, seizing upon and destroying rebel forces before they could rendezvous with the Swabians. He was aided substantially by his “new men” in Ivrea, who used the opportunity to ignite a small-scale civil war. In one case a minor battle, possibly just a running skirmish between a few hundred milites, was fought near Bugella between pro-Liudolf and pro-Alberic forces. Alberic’s supporters apparently lost that engagement, but their resistance throughout Ivrea complicated Liudolf’s attempt to reinforce his army and break out of the mountains.[B]
Some progress was made against Boniface, who had himself become trapped and besieged at Lugano, but Liudolf had come too late in the year and too much time had already been lost. By October, Alberic had crushed most of the rebels in Lombardy and Ivrea. He then marched to the rescue of Boniface, and the cold and hungry Swabians found that their retreat to the pass had been cut off. Liudolf agreed to negotiate with Alberic for peace.
Alberic could be merciless, but his treatment of Liudolf was exceptionally gentle. At their meeting, he treated Liudolf like a celebrated guest, and offered him food and wine. He proposed to allow Liudolf to extricate himself from Italy honorably, with all of his men and their arms, and piled rich gifts upon Liudolf including a garment of silk from the lands of the Greeks. Liutprand reports that gifts were also given for conveyance to Otto, though it is unknown if they actually reached him. Alberic required only that Liudolf swear a pact of friendship with him and that neither would bear arms against the other. Liudolf accepted the deal and likely considered himself fortunate.
Alberic could hardly have done otherwise – poor treatment of Otto’s son and heir would surely have brought down the wrath of the great king upon him. As it stood, however, Otto seemed curiously uninterested in the plight of his son. Liudolf executed his plan in secret and chose a time when Otto was fairly distant in Saxony, suggesting that the invasion was not one which Otto condoned or supported. It was the first indication of a rift between father and son that would soon grow into a massive breach.
Turning back to his own kingdom, Alberic now demonstrated the consequences of loyalty and betrayal. Count Boniface was granted the title of patricius[2] and his land was increased substantially, and Alberic’s partisans in Ivrea were also rewarded. Liutprand claims that Alberic “spread rumors of harsh punishment” that would be meted out against traitors during the invasion, with the intention of inducing them to flee the country; some indeed did flee into Swabia or Burgundy, which made it much easier to seize their lands. Alberic’s treatment of those who remained, however, was not harsh. Most of the rebels seem to have been pardoned and restored to their properties.
The Invasion of Henry
Liudolf’s attack upon Lombardy seems to have caught his uncle Duke Henry by surprise, as he was at the time planning his own campaign. It may be that Henry consciously delayed his own attack to ensure that Alberic, who had the upper hand against Liudolf from the start, would not be distracted from defeating him. In the spring of 952, with Liudolf nursing his bruised ego in Swabia, the Duke of Bavaria invaded Friuli.
Compared to his nephew’s attempt, Henry’s force was larger, more experienced, better prepared, and led by a veteran commander. Henry did not enjoy much Italian support, as Alberic had only just crushed the last rebellion in favor of Liudolf. Nevertheless, he did not seem to need it, as he quickly compelled the surrender of Cividale, defeated Margrave Crescentius near Padua, and gained control of the whole march east of the Adige. Verona, however, was strongly held by Crescentius who had retreated there directly, and Henry was forced to pause in order to lay siege.
According to Liutprand, Alberic attempted to buy off Henry, offering him Istria and Aquileia[3] along with “ten bushels of gold” for peace. It suggests that Alberic realized he was likely to lose the war, or that he believed it was likely to be a prelude for a greater Ottonian invasion which might be blunted if Otto’s brother could be bought off. Henry haughtily refused, and demanded Alberic’s abdication instead. An attempt by Alberic to relieve Verona failed, and he drew back with his army to Mantua. Crescentius would not hold out much longer, and it seemed likely that Alberic would soon suffer the fate of many of his predecessors, overthrown and chased from the country.
The German Crisis
After his invasion, Liudolf had returned to Swabia with an intact army and fine gifts, but it was still quite obvious that his quest for Italy had been frustrated. Despite the fact that the prince had launched his attack in secret, we are told by Thietmar[4] that he resented that Otto had never come to his aid as his army struggled and starved in the mountains. Even more alarming was the news soon after his return to Germany that the king’s new wife, Alda, was pregnant; she would soon give birth to a boy, Henry. Now there was also the apparent success of Duke Henry in Italy; Otto had come to value his brother’s wise council, particularly in military matters, and if all continued to go well for him in Italy his position and prestige would be greatly strengthened. Liudolf worried that his privileged position as heir was being eroded from all sides.
He was not alone with his dissatisfaction against Duke Henry. Bavaria had been traditionally ruled by the Luitpolding family, and with substantial independence from the crown. In the reign of King Henry, Otto’s father, Duke Arnulf of Bavaria had been a constant thorn in his side, even waging an unsuccessful war for the crown. Arnulf was succeeded by his son Eberhard, but Eberhard had rebelled against Otto in the 938 civil war and had been removed from his duchy and banished. Initially Bavaria remained with the Luitpoldings – the next duke, Berthold, was the younger brother of Duke Arnulf – but Berthold’s autonomy in Bavaria was greatly reduced, and when he died the duchy was given not to his young son Henry, but to Otto’s brother Henry. The Ottonian Henry had married Judith, a daughter of Duke Arnulf, to secure his claim.
A younger son of Duke Arnulf, however – also named Arnulf – still held power as Count-Palatine of Bavaria, in charge of supervising royal properties in the duchy. He was disgruntled at the theft of power from his family and desired to rule Bavaria as its duke like his father before him. Despite Henry’s marriage to Arnulf’s sister, the traditional aristocracy of Bavaria disliked Henry and were ripe for incitement by Arnulf.
With Henry now engaged in Lombardy, it seemed like the perfect time to conspire against him in Germany. At Mainz, King Otto was approached by Liudolf along with Conrad “the Red,” Duke of Lothairingia and Otto’s son-in-law, who had sided with Liutpold against the growing power of Henry. Some sort of settlement or ultimatum was presented to the king, probably intending to curb Henry’s power. Initially, Otto agreed, but once he left Mainz he repudiated the settlement, claiming that his son and son-in-law had conspired with Frederick, the Archbishop of Mainz, to compel his agreement under duress. Otto was able to withdraw peacefully to Saxony, but the danger of war was plain, and he sent word to Duke Henry to rejoin him at once.
Henry may have heard of the conspiracy against him in Germany before Otto’s messengers even reached him. According to Liutprand, Henry sent his own emissaries to Alberic to belatedly accept the king’s previous offer. Alberic, however, was also aware of the goings-on in Germany; the events of 951 and 952 suggest that Alberic had excellent intelligence north of the Alps, though we do not know exactly who his informants were. He received Henry’s ambassadors but was noncommittal, telling them that such a concession needed to be carefully considered before being made. Frustrated and impatient, Henry abandoned Verona and plundered the environs of Mantua, but even with Henry’s army rampaging outside his walls Alberic was unmoved. He had time on his side, and both he and Henry knew it. Unable to compel a settlement and increasingly concerned with events unfolding in Germany, Henry retreated from Italy without having struck any bargain with Alberic.
Liutprand is the only source to give a detailed account of these negotiations; elsewhere Henry’s invasion is described as simply being called off because of the outbreak of war in Germany or because of a summons from Otto, and no mention of any offer or belated acceptance is made. The story is not itself implausible, but it may well be Liutprand’s attempt to put the best possible face on the fact that Alberic clearly feared to face Henry in battle and made little attempt to defend his territories apart from withdrawing behind strong walls.
Depiction of a Magyar cavalryman, 10th c.
Civil War
As Henry agonized, the situation in Germany was rapidly deteriorating. Conrad and Liudolf still hoped to peacefully enforce their agenda upon the king, but in preparation for the worst, they began heavily reinforcing their cities and castles in Lorraine and Swabia. Feeling threatened, Otto opted to move even without the support of his brother, and at an assembly at Fritzlar declared Conrad to be deposed from his duchy. Conrad refused to step down, and the civil war was now on.
The intricacies of Liudolf’s rebellion are covered best in other works on the medieval Saxon kingdom. In brief, Otto achieved initial success in Lothairingia and managed to corner Liudolf and Conrad at Mainz, but negotiations between them broke down and the strong defense of Mainz seemed in no danger of failing soon. The will of Otto’s soldiers to continue the war against the rebellious dukes – who were still widely respected and took pains to emphasize that their enemy was Henry, not Otto – began to break down. During or soon after Henry’s retreat from Italy, Count-Palatine Arnulf raised his own flag of rebellion in the name of the Luitpoldings. The Bavarians apparently attempted to keep Henry from crossing the mountains, but failed; nevertheless he was very distant from the king’s army at Mainz and in a duchy torn apart by civil war.
Otto, faced with either continuing to lead the siege of Mainz or rushing to quash the rebellion in Bavaria, chose the former, perhaps assured by Henry’s return that he was capable of prosecuting the war in his own duchy. In so doing, he was to assure his victory over his rebellious son, but at a cost. In the spring of 953, a very large Magyar army swept into Bavaria, allegedly summoned by Arnulf who was in danger of losing the struggle with Henry. Hearing of the invasion, Henry was forced to withdraw from Regensburg, which he had been besieging, probably with the intent of proceeding to Augsburg, whose bishop was still loyal to the royal cause. On the way there, he was attacked or ambushed by the Magyars and Bavarians at Geisenfeld. His army managed to defeat the Bavarians and drive back the first wave of the Magyars, but as the raiders pulled back from their assault one of them took a parting shot that hit Henry in the face and killed him immediately.
The Bavarian-Magyar alliance had the effect of discrediting the whole rebellion and renewing the will of Otto’s soldiers to fight, and soon both Conrad and Liudolf surrendered to Otto and begged for his forgiveness. Despite their loss, however, their principal objective – the removal of Henry from his position of power – had been achieved, albeit in a roundabout and gruesome fashion. The Magyar army did not remain long in Bavaria, and plundered their way through Germany with little opposition. Otto concentrated his efforts against Arnulf, who was now isolated; many Bavarian lords and bishops who had been on the fence joined the royal cause, and in October of 953 Arnulf was killed in a skirmish near Regensburg, bringing the rebellion to a close.
Otto did indeed forgive his son and son-in-law and received them back into his grace, but they were nevertheless removed from their ducal positions. With the death of his brother as well, he was swiftly running out of family members who still had his trust to occupy the commanding heights of the kingdom and had to depend once more on local dynasts. Swabia was given to Burchard, a member of the old Alemannic family of Hunfridings, who thanks to his marriage to a daughter of the late Duke Henry was at least Otto’s nephew-in-law. Bavaria went to the son of Duke Henry, also named Henry, but as the boy was only two years old the duchy was managed by his mother Judith, a Luitpolding and the sister of the rebellious Arnulf.[C]
The View From Italy
Alberic could look on all this with some satisfaction. He had parried one German attack and outlasted another which faltered thanks to Germany’s own discord. Within weeks of Henry’s departure, he had regained everything in Friuli that was lost. The civil war would remove Germany as a threat for more than a year, and the outcome was that both dukes who had attacked him were now gone – Liudolf deposed from Swabia, and Henry in his grave. Duke Burchard of Swabia might still be a threat, but he was at least not the impulsive and glory-hungry son of Otto. As for Bavaria, that country had been ravaged by war and was now ruled by an infant, and would pose no danger in the near future.
The threat from the north, however, was far from over. Henry was dead, but he had overran Friuli virtually without opposition; the best that Alberic and Crescentius had been able to manage was to wait him out behind their walls. It was a lesson that was unlikely to be lost on Otto. The German King had defeated the rebellion and now could count on little domestic trouble to distract him from foreign ventures. Furthermore he was still married to Alda, who had recently bore him a son, and thus a male descendant of Hugh. That little boy, Henry, would not survive infancy, but Alda had many childbearing years ahead of her, and even without issue the marriage was dangerous. The King of Germany would for the foreseeable future remain the Sword of Damocles hanging over Alberic’s head.
Before the civil war in Germany was even over, however, Alberic found himself faced with another grave threat. The great Magyar army that had crashed through Germany and Lothairingia was now plundering in France. Their next destination would be Burgundy, and from there their path back to Pannonia lay directly through Lombardy. In short order, Alberic would again have to confront the pagans who had destroyed his predecessor.
Next Time: Imperator
Footnotes (In Character)
[1] Why exactly Alberic did not take the imperial crown immediately, or at least soon after his royal coronation, is a subject of some debate. Certainly he had the means; Rome and the Pope were his, and between 948 and 950 the kingdom was peaceful enough to allow the relatively short trip from Lucca to Rome. Alberic’s reasons were thus certainly political. It may be that, as he had cast himself (or been imagined by his new subjects) as a continuator of Anscar’s light-handed rule, the imperial crown would have been seen as too much of a presumption, or have created a worrying implication of autocracy in the manner of Hugh. He may have also been given pause by the fact that the act would make him the first man with no relation to Charlemagne whatsoever to become emperor in the west. Every one of the reguli since 887 who had worn the imperial crown had at the very least been able to claim some matrilineal descent from the first Frankish Emperor. For a new king with few accomplishments and no familial claim who had gained the throne very nearly by default to be crowned as Charlemagne’s successor by his pet pope might seem like nothing more than an outrageous farce both within Italy and outside it.
[2] The title of patricius was, of course, borne by Alberic and his predecessors while in Rome to indicate their power over the city, but Alberic seems to have in this case been imitating the Greek Emperors, who had a long tradition of granting the high court dignity of patrikios to southern Lombard princes who served well, as well as important generals of the empire. Boniface, as a Roman, would certainly have been familiar with this usage.
[3] Probably meaning the eastern portion of Friuli rather than just the city of Aquileia itself, which after thorough devastation by the Magyars was not much of a prize. Even the Patriarch of Aquileia had ruled from Cividale since the episcopate of Calixtus in the early 8th century.
[4] Thietmar (b. 975, d. 1018) was a German bishop and chronicler who wrote a history of the Saxon kings, the Chronicon Thietmari which covers events in Germany from the beginning of the 10th century to his death in 1018. While not a contemporary of Alberic, Otto, or our main Italian source Liutprand, his account is detailed and useful.
Timeline Notes (Out of Character)
[A] This invasion is historical. As ITTL, the OTL invaders seem to have passed through Lombardy without too much incident to get at France.
[B] Liudolf attempted a fairly similar campaign IOTL, which met a fairly similar fate. The difference is that Liudolf IOTL was attempting (possibly) to pre-empt his father, who was already preparing an invasion of Italy that year to gain the hand of Adelaide and the crown of Italy, and ended up getting rescued by his father when his attempt went awry. My feeling is that it’s reasonable to surmise that even without Otto’s invasion of 951, Liudolf might have invaded anyway given the right prompt, which the Magyar passage and its incitement of rebellion provides. He is, after all, an insecure 20 year old who’s just been given a duchy and an army and is eager to prove that he’s Otto’s worthy heir.
[C] This whole narrative is quite similar to the actual rebellion against Otto that happened around this time. The main differences are that a) Otto’s new wife is Alda, rather than Adelaide; b) the trigger is Henry’s absence in Lombardy rather than Otto’s repudiation of Conrad’s truce with Berengar, and c) the war proceeds somewhat differently because Henry is stuck in Italy and then Bavaria, where he dies, instead of being at Otto’s side from the start. It is Henry who IOTL convinces Otto to leave the siege of Mainz and prosecute the war against Arnulf in the south. Henry survives the civil war IOTL only to die of an illness in 955, not long after the Battle of Lechfeld.
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