“And I hereby swear that your foe is my foe, that your friend is my friend. I will be present and faithful to you at all times...”
It had been only mere weeks after the last time someone would swear his loyalty to him. Ildebrando, Hildebrand, maybe Hildfried? Hunfried? The name he has forgotten. He had installed an entire apparatus to remember these names, to remember them of their obligation. But this time, this was something different.
Ottwin’s hands were cold and remembered Lothair more of the white marble and granite of the archbasilica he currently presided in than the actual hands of a mortal being, and he still held them, as his oath was not finished yet. He had known the boy was clever, but this look in the eyes he had never expected;
“whenever you need me.”
Lothair didn’t know or want to know whether or not some devilish force was playing a trick on him, but he saw something, the faintest of smiles on Ottwin’s face. The eyes of the margrave emit some intensity of focus, inhuman and almost totemic, reminding the new emperor of his father Odo during, no, after his descent into insanity. The look of a saint whose depictions in churches and monasteries he has seen. One would not carry it too far if one would call these blue eyes the gates of hell, he thought. Lothair could only hiss, although he had life-or-death power over him, he was afraid of Ottwin. It was crazy, of course. Nevertheless...
Lothair looked into his eyes once more and saw nothing. “Go away.” Thus Ottwin finished his oath, not looking back at the ruler of the Roman Empire, defender of the holy faith and Saint Peter and probably the archbasilica of Saint John Lateran he was presiding in as well. Many craved to get the attention after the departure of Ottwin, but for Lothair, it wasn’t the main focus anymore. It was impossible not to feel that he had failed somewhere.
“Are you sure that this was the only way to deal with him?” Bishop Hermann said. Lothair nodded, and this movement seemed to please the bishop immediately. "This is the only way.", declared Lothair, seemingly to himself, after regarding the perfectly intertwined joints of the roof of the archbasilica. “I hope so.”, he whispered. Bishop Hermann of Lorraine and, for that matter, every other soul on Earth would however never hear the answer given by the emperor. The hall was at first filled with some unharmonic chorus whose unintelligible ramblings Lothair at first did not understand, but which eventually developed to a more understandable shouting: “Ave Caesar!”
+ + +
Excerpt: The Genesis of the Holy Roman Empire – Hervé-Dario Etchegaray, INH Press (AD 1986)
Chapter 11
Meridian Campaigns of Lothair the Great
Lothair III, crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 916, would stay in Rome for a couple of months to overwinter there. His wife and his two children would welcome the third child of the royal family on 30 October 916, a son named Louis, in honor of Lothair’s family ties to his great-granduncle Louis the German. Court records however illustrate that the health of the infant quickly deteriorated in a particularly cold autumn in Rome and the royal couple feared an early death of one of the heirs of the empire. We now know that during this time, Lothair III would spend much time praying for the survival of his children in the Lateran while young Louis would sometimes cry himself to sleep as the Annals of the camerlengo of Rome, a man named Niccolò dei Conti di Segni, recorded. It was also at this time that Charles, the oldest son of Lothair, a tender boy at the age of four would first come into contact with the Latin Church of Rome which he will later so despise during his reign [1].
Whether or not medicine was used to cure Louis is lost to history, but the prayers of Lothair III were heard and the heir would survive his first fragile year in 917 which usually marked the survival of the child as a whole. This was celebrated across Rome, though probably on the behalf of Lothair, and a huge banquet was organized with local nobles and the papal delegates. Here, during the last months of the year, the emperor would encounter the princes of Capua and Salerno, named Landulf I and Guaimar II respectively [2], coming with expensive presents for the emperor, although most of them stemmed from the loots the Lombard princes were able to save from the Saracens. And these princes came to Rome, in their times of desperation and hopelessness to the emperor.
Only some twenty years ago, only shortly before Lothair’s actual birth in 894 some twenty sailors from the Umayyad Emirate of Al-Andalus would sail towards Meridia [3] where the Muladi [4] and Berbers, who increasingly slipped away from the weakening apparatus of the state, would lay the foundations of a base of operation for the Saracens on the islands of Ischia or Iskiyah in Arabic. Just off the coast of Meridia, this island was nominally controlled by Naples, which already distanced itself from their de-jure overlords in Constantinople which would ultimately prove to lead to the demise of a neighboring duchy, namely the Amalfitan one.
The Duchy of Naples was by some scholars’ accounts only founded when a Duke named Sergius I reformed his position to become a hereditary position in 840, in opposition to the Rhomaioi who would shift their attention from the Italian peninsula back to their own homefronts in Anatolia and the Haemus where the Pagan and later Latin Bulgars would frequently raid Thrace and Epirus. Thus, Naples found itself suddenly on the stage of Lombard politics which were dominated by the rivalries of the three supreme principalities of Capua, Salerno, and Benevento. Only shortly after the de-facto Neapolitan independence in the 840s, the small duchy was forced to surrender most of its territories outside the city walls to the princes of Salerno in their bid to surpass Capua and Benevento in terms of economic and military strength. It was, however, able to gain the favor of the Saracens in the emerging Shia Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriquiya and, similar to the Amalfitans, soon trade ensued. With the busy commerce came a quiet agreement on mutual assistance, and, not long after, the duchy had to rely on Saracen subsistence. Naples would soon enough find itself under the threat of the Lombard princes, the Latin Church, and its own dynastic squabbles.
Duke-Bishop Sergius II maintained very friendly relations with the Fatimids in Ifriquiya and the Aghlabids in Sicily with the evermore thriving exports of chestnuts and other locally harvested products. This was a very problematic relationship and Pope John VIII would excommunicate him in 877 for not joining a league of states in Meridia to combat the Saracens. The aforementioned League of Anzio created in 876 with the principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and the pontificate itself as its members was not a union of equal members by any definition of “equal” and were only held together by the shared Saracen threat and, for the Lombard princes’ probably the most interesting aspect, money which was especially needed in Benevento which was in the midst of a civil war against the invading Capuans who were excluded from the proceedings of this alliance. The excommunication of Sergius II led to a general uprising in the city against the ruling duke-bishop which was instigated by Sergius’ own brother Athanasius who gained the favor of Pope John VIII after assisting in a battle against the Arabs.
It was this moment when the forts of Iskiyah would come into use for Sergius II. From Iskiyah, the Saracens have not only raided and pillaged the Theme of Sicily, the Duchy of Naples, and the Principalities of Capua and Salerno for more than three decades by this point, but it developed close ties to the Fatimids and especially the Aghlabids of Africa. Sergius, in his despair, would send envoys to Iskiyah calling for an intervention into the coming rebellion of Athanasius. Despite the sheer hopelessness of Sergius’ situation and the ever-shifting focus of the current Aghlabid Emir Ibrahim II and his appointed Sicilian governor Jafar ibn Mohammad al-Tamimi who was preoccupied with his invasion of the remaining Greek possessions on Sicily, the local pirates agreed on relieving Sergius from the revolt for a tribute he should pay after the situation calmed down.
Therefore, in the last months of 877, the Saracens were invited to the city to restore order and were able to capture Athanasius himself and demanded a ransom. Much venerated across the city and beyond its walls, and much to the surprise of Sergius, his ransom was quickly obtained, but would never reach the pirates as Sergius sabotaged the deliverance of the money. By that point, the neighboring Salernitans were becoming aware of the dire condition and prepared an invasion of the duchy to end its existence once and for all. In an unexpected twist of events, the Saracens demanded the payment for their intervention from Sergius before the circumstances would change to their enemies’ favor which Sergius II was, unsurprisingly, not able to pay which led to a general revolt of the Saracens in which Athanasius would be killed. The city was sacked and Sergius only narrowly survived by seeking refuge in Amalfi currently ruled by the prefect Pulcharius. Naples was abandoned soon after hearing of the chaotic retreat of Sergius to Amalfi, a city-state that acted on its own after Rhomaian and Lombard control of the region lessened during the Saracen and Norman raids. The Saracens followed and reached Sergius in the early months of the next year and besieged the small city. Meanwhile, the Salernitans prepared a mercenary force consisting of not only local Meridians, but also of Normans conscripted from the earliest members of the non-submissive Varangians that fled from the political intrigues of the later Amorian Dynasty. Thus, the Siege of Amalfi of 878 was a mess whose actual proceedings were not transmitted into our presence, but known is that the Siege ended it in a victory only for the Salernitans who liberated Amalfi. Amalfi itself was damaged and its already only mediocre port and its unpopular trading policies would seal the fate of the merchant prefecture as part of the growing Principality of Salerno, at least for now. The Amalfitans will prove to not be willing to go quietly. Pulcharis was probably slain during the fighting that took place, although even that is not preserved and is rather a good guess of most modern scholars of what really happened. Sergius II escaped the Saracens and would soon return back to Naples where he restored the lawfulness of his rule. Iskiyah itself did not fall yet and would continue to be a safe haven for the Moslem pillagers for another 40 years as they would continuously raid the Lombard principalities from there with success. Unlike the fortified coasts of Neustria, the Meridian nations lacked the economic and political capabilities to protect the monasteries and churches of the region which only provided more incentives for the Saracens. Fast-forwarded back to 917, this ultimately led to the Walk to Rome.
Landulf I and Guaimar II begged Lothair III to intervene in the conflict to finally relieve them from the Saracen menace. Lothair III is quoted to have said that “the story of the Caesars of Rome who protected the lands of and beyond Italia have aged and become a legend. I will try to bring forth new stories since the new always had a different sweetness." [5] which only further emphasized the quite complex yet impulsive character of Lothair. His advisors strictly spoke against other battles, with even Hermann of Metz, probably the closest advisor to the emperor, arguing against it, yet Lothair would set out in April 917 to fight the Saracens [6].
SUMMARY:
873: The first ships arrive at Ischia/Iskiyah where in the coming months a Saracen outpost was established.
877: In an attempt to restore order in Naples, Duke-Bishop Sergius II of Naples invites the Saracens to storm the city which due to a cruel twist of events only leads to the Siege of Amalfi.
878: The Siege of Amalfi. The city is relieved from its siege from the Saracens by the Salernitans who annexed the city-state. Sergius II is allowed to return to Naples.
917: The Walk to Rome. The Princes Landulf I and Guaimar II convince the new emperor Lothair III to intervene in Meridia to finally restore peace to the troubled region.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Spoilers? Spoilers.
[2] Yeah, the same problem as some other characters I’ve mentioned. They share the same name as persons IOTL, but different sperms lead to different humans. With the 10th century kicking in, fewer and fewer people are the same ones as IOTL, although the butterflies are as of now limited to Europe and its immediate surroundings.
[3] Yeah, remember Fraxinetum? It got founded elsewhere and earlier. The somewhat united kingdom of Aquitania which was IOTL part of West Francia, mind you, wasn’t nearly as chaotic as IOTL, and the destabilized Umayyad Emirate of Al-Andalus is still a hotspot for hotheads like these going-to-be pirates. The pirates sailed to the more troubled part of the Mediterranean Sea, namely Southern Italy, or as it is called ITTL Mezzogiorno or Meridia.
[4] Converts of Hispanic origin.
[5] He should understand that gone by, that centuries passed, and that the world has evolved past a Latin Roman Empire. Would become one of his largest flaws in the coming years.
[6] Charles the Fat IOTL reconstituted the Carolingian Empire for a short while in the latter half of the 9th century. His problem was that he was a very sick man with only limited political or administrative talent. The very young emperor Lothair III, on the other hand, while not as administratively capable as even Charles the Fat, he was wise enough to outsource this work to the advisory council he has set up and instead focused only on his actual skill: fighting and making allies.
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