XVIII. The Fallen Empire
King Henry II of Germany, late 10th century illustration
The Grand Strategy of Germany
The German monarchs preceding Emperor Otto, Henry and Conrad, have frequently been described as royal in title but only marginally more than ducal in real power. Both were dukes (of Saxony and Franconia, respectively) whose base of power remained in their familial duchy and who had to continually contend with the rival power of the other great dukes of the realm. Often – particularly in the case of Bavaria – defiant dukes behaved like sovereign princes of their own, engaging in foreign alliances, appointing bishops, and otherwise conducting their affairs at home and abroad with little regard for the wishes of the king. Only a strong and watchful hand kept the dukes faithful; the much-lauded military reforms of King Henry I were certainly of great help against the Hungarians, but the king’s Saxon comitatus was surely developed in large part with a mind towards establishing military superiority over his ducal “subjects” as well.
Otto is often credited with charting a different course. Few can resist the temptation to read an authoritarian aim from the very start of his reign: Henry, his father, had been elected and crowned at Fritzlar and had declined to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Mainz; Otto had chosen to be crowned at Aachen, Charlemagne’s capital, and did not refuse clerical anointing. Yet Otto’s departures from his father’s policy are frequently exaggerated – if he was autocratic, if he was centralizing, if he was imperial, it was arguably only because he was able to build on Henry’s successes to achieve aims that Henry himself had aspired to in his own lifetime. Otto is credited with replacing the rebellious “native” dynasties of the duchies with his own kinsmen, and he diminished the powers of these duchies as well. One duchy, Franconia – whose duke had once been the king of Germany prior to Henry’s election – had been dissolved entirely under Otto’s reign, with its constituent counts and bishops made directly dependent on Otto. But it is not as if the assertion of royal supremacy never occurred to Henry – he, too, fought to bring his great feudatories to heel – and it was the army that Henry had painstakingly built which secured Otto’s succession and made the grand character of his reign possible.
Nowhere was the continuity of German policy more evident than in Otto’s treatment of Italy, a policy which was by no means his own innovation. Arnulf of Carinthia, the king of East Francia in the wake of the Carolingian dissolution (and himself a Carolingian), had embarked on a similar quest. He too bore, for a brief moment, the crowns of East Francia, Italy, and the Roman Empire on the same brow. Arnulf, like Otto, had attempted to hold Italy by granting the crown to his son as his sub-king. But a sudden stroke on the eve of his final triumph had left Arnulf’s conquest of Italy incomplete, and as soon as the hobbled emperor withdrew to Germany his Italian domain crumbled, leaving Italy to be fought over by Lambert and Berengar at the end of the 9th century. Otto’s father, Henry I, had contemplated a similar path – according to Widukind, he had planned his own march on Rome. Having warded off the Magyars and made peace with the King of France, he would have been in a strong position to do so had not illness cut his life short.
Such a consistent policy deserves a better explanation than vague allusions to the desire of German kings for “imperial glory.” After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, the “Middle Kingdom” of Francia given to Emperor Lothair had linked (Lesser) Lotharingia, Burgundy, Provence, and Italy together as one theoretical unit and bound them to the imperial title. The imperial crown conveyed elevated prestige – Lothair, being emperor, was in theory set above his brothers – but because of its connection with Middle Francia, it also suggested suzerainty over all of Lothair’s dominions, including the Rhenish borderland with France. The welding of Italy and Rome to Germany did not merely aggrandize German kings, nor was it principally intended to satisfy lofty classical ambitions towards a “Roman restoration.” It was, rather, the core aim of a very sensible policy to legitimate German control over the lands of Middle Francia in all directions, and to ensure that no new “King of Middle Francia” would arise to either contest German hegemony or lay claim to the Lotharingian territories that Germany had held since 925. Establishing dominion over Burgundy was part of this strategy – indeed, Otto’s intervention in Burgundy comes off more as a defensive move than anything else, an attempt to prevent Emperor Hugh from making good on his claims to the Burgundinian kingdom in the wake of the death of Rudolph II.[A]
Otto, owing to the strong position of his rule in Germany after the consolidation of the 940s, the effective military machine he had inherited from his father, and the vagaries of fortune and personal ability, enjoyed substantially more success in his imperial ambitions than Arnulf. In the end, however, his achievements yielded much the same result. Otto too had been laid low by infirmity in Italy (albeit swiftly, unlike Arnulf, who doddered on in Germany for some time after his stroke). His son Liudolf, like Arnulf’s son Ratold, had been incapable of holding the empire’s southern appendage from reconquest by an alliance of the Pope and an Italian prince (who, in the most recent case, were also uncle and nephew). Otto, unlike Arnulf, received a few years to savor his victory and his empire, but the polity it represented – an imperial state from Denmark to Rome, or even to the Gulf of Taranto – was an elusive dream that could only be fitfully and fleetingly realized. Though the policy was on its surface sensible, it did not account for the geographic tyranny which had doomed Middle Francia in the first place. Any “Romano-German Empire” which straddled the Alps would face the same formidable challenges. Otto and Liudolf, like Arnulf, could realistically hope to rule only while they were physically present, and their absence quickly inspired pretenders.[B]
This was not yet an apparent fact, and King Henry II no doubt considered the conquest of Italy and Rome to be a worthy and sensible goal just like the German kings who had preceded him. Realities in Germany, however, made the immediate fulfillment of this enterprise impractical.
The New Order
King Henry had realized his father’s dream to wear the royal crown of Germany, but the victory had come at the cost of the wide sphere of influence cultivated by Otto. Under Octavian, Italy had broken free and taken the imperial crown with it, and Provence seemed to be drifting into Octavian’s orbit. The French king Lothair, who once had relied on German support to maintain his crown, was interfering in Lotharingia in a clear challenge to German dominance there. The Magyars and Danes both soon abandoned the tribute that Otto had compelled them to render. German influence seemed strongest in the east, but though the rulers of Bohemia and Poland had supported Henry, they may have done so with the expectation that the yoke of German rule under the new king would be lighter than that of his predecessors.
Henry was of the Saxon dynasty of Otto (his uncle) and Henry I (his grandfather), but his support in Saxony was poor – many of the Saxon lords seem to have supported Liudolf to the bitter end. Henry’s real base of power was Bavaria; his father had been its duke beginning in 948, and his mother Judith was the daughter of the great and rebellious Duke Arnulf “the Bad,” the great thorn in the side of Conrad and Henry I who was finally subdued by the latter.
Being the king’s own province and base of strength, Bavaria would receive no new duke. Nevertheless, it was still expedient to place a lieutenant in the Carinthian March to take an independent command against the Magyars, who had devolved into a purely local threat but were a threat nevertheless. The man chosen for this job was Henry’s maternal cousin, also named Henry. This latter Henry was the son of Otto’s widow, Empress Alda, by her first husband Duke Berthold of Bavaria (d. 947), the maternal uncle of King Henry II. As a Liutpolding and close relation, he was seemingly a reliable choice for the post. The wisdom of the appointment, however, was soon thrown into question by the flight of Empress Alda from the country, along with her son Bruno, a few months after King Henry’s coronation. Later chroniclers tended to portray Alda as fleeing King Henry’s persecution and mistreatment, but although Henry was a prideful and contumelious man it seems decidedly odd that he would purposefully abuse the mother of the margrave he had just months before installed Carinthia. If the reported time of Alda’s flight is indeed accurate, it is more sensible to assume that Alda proactively decided that the young Bruno, as the only living son of Emperor Otto, would not be safe for very long in Henry’s Germany.
It was now an open question whether Margrave Henry would side with his cousin the king or throw his lot in with his mother and half-brother if they should ever return to make a bid for the throne. King Henry decided to take no chances, and removed the margrave based on the accusation that the margrave had conspired with his mother against the king. The allegation may have been no more than a pretext, but in any case Margrave Henry was unwilling or unable to contest it. He was deposed, apparently peacefully, and replaced with another of the king’s Liutpolding cousins, Berthold von Reisensburg, who was the son of the Count-Palatine Arnulf who had rebelled against Emperor Otto alongside Liudolf in 953.
Otto’s (and Liudolf’s) lieutenant in Saxony had been Hermann Billung, who was duke in all but name. He had also been one of Liudolf’s most ardent supporters, and it was a fine stroke of luck for Henry that he had died – apparently of natural causes – in 973, shortly before Liudolf’s own death. King Henry already had a replacement waiting in the wings: Hermann’s nephew Egbert the One-Eyed, Count of Hasfalagau. Egbert was something of a renegade, hailing from a family of renegades – his father, Wichmann the Elder, had resented being passed over in favor of his younger brother Hermann and had been part of the rebellion of 939. Wichmann’s sons, Egbert and Wichmann the Younger, had rebelled against Otto again alongside Liudolf in the 950s, and when this cause was lost they had taken refuge with the pagan Obodrites and encouraged a rebellion against Saxon rule. Wichmann the Younger was subsequently killed while leading his Slavic allies against the Poles and Bohemians, but Egbert lingered in exile until Henry’s revolt provided him with another chance at power. This was not exactly the resume of a loyal servant, but in theory the enemy of Henry’s enemy was his friend, and Henry could at the very least depend on Egbert to be implacably opposed to Liudolf’s loyalists who still remained in the duchy. Egbert was installed as Duke of Saxony, a title not formally held by his uncle. It was not a popular choice among the Saxon nobility, many of whom still despised Egbert for inciting pagans to ravage Saxony and spill Saxon blood. They preferred Hermann’s son Bernhard, who along with his father had sided with Liudolf. Warned that his cousin intended to take violent revenge against him, Bernhard fled the country, and Egbert seized all the familial lands of the Billungs.
For the time being Swabia was secure under King Henry’s ally and brother-in-law Duke Burchard III, but the duke was now in his mid-60s and not the picture of vitality he had once been. His wife Hedwig, King Henry’s sister, was nearly 40 years his junior, but had yet to bear him any children, meaning that Burchard’s death would end his family of Hunfridings in the main line. This indeed happened not long thereafter in 974, leaving no clear successor to the duchy. Preferring his most ardent co-rebels over any local lords, King Henry arranged the remarriage of Hedwig to Dedo, Count of Merseburg; some have contended that Dedo was a relation of the Hunfridings, but if true he was apparently not close enough for the remarriage of Hedwig to raise objections on grounds of affinity. Elevated to high office by Henry and married to his sister, Dedo had good reasons to be loyal, but it was questionable if the young man could truly fill the shoes of Burchard, who had possessed both extensive military experience and the great respect of the Swabians.
Franconia, naturally, continued to be dukeless. As for Lotharingia, the question of its leadership was still very much an open one. King Lothair of France had attempted to place Lotharingia under his protection during the German civil war. His main proxy there was to be Frederick, the incumbent Duke of Upper Lotharingia, who had sided with Liudolf against Henry. Frederick, fearing that Henry would depose and replace him with another one of his cronies, easily defected to Lothair’s side and did homage to the French king. The fact that Frederick was also the brother-in-law of Hugh Capet, one of the most powerful men in France, may have also played a role in his new political stance; surely Lothair, for his part, hoped that it would invest Hugh in the fate of Lothairingia.
King Lothair of France rides into battle, 19th c.
War on the Borders
A German raid into Lotharingia is recorded in 974, but Henry was repeatedly distracted from affairs in the west by trouble on other fronts. Harald Bluetooth, the King of the Danes, had repudiated his allegiance to the German crown, refused to pay the tribute he had paid to Otto and Liudolf, and underscored his newly-asserted independence by launching a devastating raid into Holstein.
The Magyars rode back onto the German scene around the same time. They seem to have been largely quiescent during Henry’s war for the throne, most likely because Prince Géza had only just succeeded his father and was still consolidating his power at home. Beginning in 974, however, Magyar raiding resumed in Carinthia. These raids bore no resemblance to the wide-ranging plundering expeditions of the past – they seem to have been largely restricted to the Carinthian March (the deepest any of them reached into Bavaria was apparently Passau) and were probably not intended to. While churches and monasteries were still frequent targets, as the German chroniclers in particular pointed out (possibly to counter the claim, presumably made by Octavian’s partisans, that the Italian Emperor had “converted” Géza and his people), villages and the environs of fortresses were hardest-hit. The intent was probably not simply to profit, but to devastate the country in such a way as to prepare the ground for an invasion. One raid would do little to disrupt the defenses of the Carinthian frontier, which had been well-organized against Magyar incursions under the astute policies of Berthold and the late Duke Henry, but successive destruction of villages and fields would displace the local manpower needed to man garrisons and destroy the food needed to sustain them.
Henry found success against Harald, leading a counter-invasion of Denmark in 975 that forced the Danish king to return to tributary status. He followed this with a similar counterstroke against the Hungarians in 976, but to less effect; his army penetrated into Hungary as far as Lake Balaton or possibly even “Alba Civitas” (Székesfehérvár), a royal seat founded by Géza, but the Hungarian prince would neither fight nor negotiate. The Magyars despoiled the land in advance of Henry’s march, and these scorched earth tactics eventually compelled Henry’s withdrawal without allowing him to either come to grips with his enemy or compel them to accept terms. A second campaign may have been planned for the following year, but in 977 Henry’s attention was turned back to Lotharingia by the death of Duke Frederick. Frederick was succeeded by his son Theodoric, but as he was only about twelve years old the regency was held by his mother Beatrice, the sister of Hugh Capet.
King Henry used the opportunity to mount a campaign against Lothair’s party. He succeeded in overwhelming much of the country, driving into Upper Lorraine as far as the Meuse and laying siege to Beatrice and Theodoric at Verdun. As Lothair had hoped, the imperative to prop up his sister gave Hugh Capet only more reason to fully support the royal cause, and a relief army led by Lothair and Hugh managed to force Henry to withdraw from Verdun without resort to a pitched battle. Lothair’s proxy was secure for the time being, but Henry was to acquire a proxy of his own, and no less a figure than Lothair’s own brother Charles. Charles had fallen out with Lothair, allegedly over an allegation of infidelity leveled at Queen Emma. The queen was exonerated, but Charles was exiled and fled into Henry’s open arms. Following his retreat from Verdun, Henry appointed Charles as Duke of Lotharingia in opposition to Theodoric. Supported by the bishops Theodoric of Metz and Egbert of Trier, Charles succeeded in holding parts of eastern Lotharingia but was unable to expel Duke Theodoric or control any territory west of the Meuse.
The Roman Revolt
As Henry contended with Lothair, Emperor Octavian had been reigning in peace. The governance of Empress Agatha was beginning to show signs of her unpopularity among the Lombard nobility, but in the wake of Octavian’s conquest of Lombardy and the absence of any other serious competitors, any discontent was largely buried.
In Rome, the Tusculani regime was embodied by Pope Sergius IV, Octavian’s uncle. After Octavian had toppled the urban prefect Demetrius, he had appointed no replacement, instead investing temporal power over the city in the hands of the pope. This was a complete reversal of Alberic’s policy, in which the pope had no temporal power at all; Octavian may have been confident that his uncle would be a more reliable hand in Rome after the treason of Demetrius soured him on the prefectural office.
Sergius, however, proved himself to be both unpopular and unwise. He was, in the first place, thoroughly debauched. Alberic’s candidates had been the image of piety and probity; Sergius drank to excess, kept mistresses openly at the papal court, bestowed clerical honors upon friends with no ecclesiastical qualifications, and brazenly sold clerical offices for money. These things were in themselves not too objectionable to the Roman aristocracy so long as they received the offices and stipends they were accustomed to, but Sergius also abused his temporal power. He stripped offices from members of families who failed to support him or to pay the enormous fees he demanded for his favor, and had several of his political enemies imprisoned or blinded. He also allegedly carried on an affair with Stefania, the wife of the Rector of Sabina, who was apparently also his cousin in some fashion.[1]
In 976, Count Joseph of Rieti and the cuckolded Benedict, Rector of Sabina, roused the people and nobility of Rome into open revolt. Pope Sergius fled to the Castle of the Holy Angel and locked himself in, leaving the rest of the city to Joseph and Benedict. Knowing that overthrowing the emperor’s uncle would bring his wrath down upon their heads, they hatched a plan involving Octavian’s younger brother Deodatus. Alberic had seen to the preparation of his younger son for a church career, and Sergius had made his nephew the Bishop cardinalis of Sutri. The rebel leaders seized Deodatus, and in a rather rushed synod of anti-Sergius Roman clergy, Pope Sergius was declared deposed and Deodatus was enthroned – possibly unwillingly – as Pope Deodatus III.[2]
Octavian, seeing the rebellion as a clear threat to his authority, immediately marched on Rome. Once he arrived, however, he found himself faced with choosing between his uncle and his brother. Joseph and Benedict had played a clever hand – by replacing Sergius with another Tusculani and sending their own entreaties to Octavian to liberate them from the wicked Sergius, they had taken care to couch their “rebellion” in terms of a revolt against Sergius himself, not a rebellion against Tusculani or imperial authority more broadly. If that failed, however, they at least had Octavian’s brother in their custody as a potential hostage.
Octavian had brought an army, but the support of the rebels within Rome was considerable and the Romans were prepared to defend their walls even from the Roman Emperor himself. Octavian menaced the city for several weeks, initially refusing to meet with any of the rebel leaders, but eventually he agreed to meet with Rector Benedict at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls (which, as the name implies, lay outside the main walls of Rome). The emperor would not agree to the deposition of Sergius – he claimed an imperial right to select the pope, and considered the election of Deodatus to be illegal (which, on the grounds of canon law, it most likely was). Benedict does, however, seem to have impressed Octavian with his case. An agreement was made under which Sergius was restored to the throne, Deodatus renounced his papal election (but retained his cardinal see), and the temporal powers of the city were mostly removed from Sergius and granted to Rector Benedict himself, who became the new urban prefect. Benedict had his marriage to the unfaithful Stefania annulled – she was sent to a convent thereafter, though it was rumored that Sergius continued to visit her there – and would eventually marry Theoderanda, the daughter of John Crescentius, making Benedict and Octavian second cousins-in-law. The Benedictii of Sabina would go on to play an important role in the politics of Rome. Sergius was, predictably, unhappy with the arrangement, but he would last only a few yeas more on the throne. In 979, at the age of 60, he finally drank himself to death – one colorful tale has him falling from a balcony in his stupor. His replacement would be none other than his nephew Deodatus, whose brief stint as an antipope does not seem to have counted against him in the eyes of Octavian.
Another attractive candidate could well have been Liutprand, archicancellarius and Bishop of Mantua, who despite losing out in his battles with Agatha still retained Octavian’s favor. Sergius, however, outlived the chronicler; Liutprand retired to Mantua due to poor health in 977 and died in the winter of 977-978. He received a lavish funeral and a place in the basilica of his native Pavia, where to this day his tomb can be found in the same crypt that houses the remains of Boethius, Saint Augustine, and the chronicler’s own namesake, the 8th century Lombard king Liutprand. It was an honorable end for the witty young Pavian page with a good singing voice.[3]
The Carinthian War
Géza had been undeterred by the German invasion of Pannonia in 976, and in Henry’s absence resumed his incursions into Carinthia. This time, however, he also sought the aid of Octavian, who had only just set Rome in order. According to Thietmar, the Magyar prince and the Italian emperor conspired ultimately to “divide the [Carinthian] lands between themselves.” The Magyars, of course, had long sought to advance their border into Carinthia, but there were potential advantages for Octavian as well. Carniola, the southernmost German march, could serve as a buffer against invasions of Friuli from the Carinthian lands, and it would also create a shared border between Italy and Hungary which did not presently exist. Basil Notarius claims that the arrival of Hungarian legates at Octavian’s court in 977 was also the point at which Géza pledged himself (by proxy) as a vassal to the emperor (contrary to Liutprand, who alleged this pledge had been given on the occasion of the first arrival of Géza’s legates some five years previously). Characteristically, Basil says nothing of any strategic considerations, explaining simply that Octavian accepted the alliance – and thus the invitation to war with Germany – because he was “restless without a lance in his hand.”
Octavian’s first strike against Germany, however, was not in Carinthia, but against Bavaria itself, in particular the diocese of Brixen, which was the only German possession south of the alpine ridge. Its bishop Albuin proved himself a stalwart defender, and Octavian ultimately withdrew from the province without making any significant conquests or raiding much further into Bavaria. Nevertheless, Henry retaliated by calling up Guy of Ivrea, the exiled margrave who had vainly attempted to hold off Octavian’s reconquest of Lombardy, and dispatched Duke Dedo of Swabia to join him in making an attempt at an Ivrean restoration. The attempt was halfhearted; although the Swabians forced the Alps and plundered around Como and northern Ivrea, a general uprising in Guy’s favor was not forthcoming, and when Octavian appeared with a larger army Dedo’s force withdrew.
The retaliation inspired a retaliation of its own. Octavian now received Bruno, son of the Empress Alda, at his court in Pavia; Bruno had previously been in exile in Provence, hosted by his uncle King Lothair (not to be confused with the King of France, at this time also named Lothair). The traditional view is that Octavian invited Bruno as a tit-for-tat response to Henry’s support of Guy. This is a reasonable explanation, but we cannot discount the possibility that Bruno came on his own initiative, realizing that though he was welcome in Provence it was not within his uncle’s power to advance his claim to Germany. A move to France was also conceivable – Queen Emma of France was Bruno’s cousin – but Lothair of France may have been reluctant to support a prospective King of Germany so closely related to the Bosonid house of Provence. If he was to favor a new king for Germany it was more likely to be Otto, Liudolf’s son, still overseas in England.
Emperor Octavian was not immediately interested in aiding Bruno in a bid for the throne, but Bruno, who was only 22 in 978, had some time to wait. A marriage was discussed between him and Octavian’s daughter Helena, who was still unmarried on account of Agatha’s protectiveness; but while Agatha had been able to overrule the discussed marriage between Helena and Prince Hugh of Provence when Helena was 14 years old, her opposition to her daughter’s marriage at the unusually advanced age (for a royal princess) of 20 was considerably weaker. Basil claims that Agatha convinced Octavian to at least wait until Bruno’s seat on the throne was assured, so that she would be married to a king and not merely a royal pretender in exile.
Finally, after failing to take Brixen and repulsing the Swabians, Octavian seemed to come around to Géza’s point of view. In spring of 978, he invaded Carniola. Berthold, Margrave of Carinthia, appealed to Henry’s Bavarian feudatories for aid, and among the most prominent of them to respond was Frederick, the Archbishop of Salzburg. The Bavarian-Carinthian army, not described in detail but allegedly a considerable force, marched to relieve the fortress of Crain which Octavian had attacked or threatened. One way or another – by Magyar raiders in the vicinity, Carniolan Slavs in Octavian’s paid service, or his own scouts – the emperor was informed of the opposing force. Instead of awaiting the Germans, he immediately abandoned the siege of Crain and marched out against them. As the Bavarians descended from the Wurzen Pass, Octavian and his cavalry vanguard ambushed them near the village of Velden. Much of the army was routed; Berthold and his rearguard were able to withdraw northwards, but the Archbishop of Salzburg was killed in the retreat. Octavian followed up his victory at the Battle of Velden by pursuing the margrave northwards. Berthold took refuge in a fortress in the Lurngau, in the upper reaches of the Drava valley; Octavian, satisfied that his humiliated foe no longer posed any threat, turned east and plundered the lower Drava.
The outcome of Velden demanded the attention of King Henry, who had to once again abandon his continuing efforts in Lotharingia to see to his southeastern border. It was not just the Italians – Henry was likely more concerned with the Magyars, who had invaded Carinthia at the same time (though at this point probably not in any real coordination with Octavian), and who would surely use the vanquishing of the Carinthian margrave to roll back the German frontier. Soon after receiving news of Berthold’s defeat, Henry was on the move with an army of his own.
Next Time: Hengistfeld
Footnotes (In Character)
[1] Her relationship to the Tusculani is unclear; the most likely possibility may be that she was of the family of John, the husband of Marozia’s younger daughter Theodora and the father of Duke Crescentius. Such a relationship would make Stefania a blood relation of the Crescentii, but related to the main Tusculani line (and thus to Sergius) only by marriage, not blood.
[2] The two previous popes of that name are more commonly known as Adeodatus, but this is considered to be a variant of the same name. Both lived in the 7th century. By the 10th century, the name seems to have been exceedingly rare, which may be why one 11th century English monk rather bizarrely mangled Deodatus into Davidus. The result was the creation of a spurious “(anti)pope David” who some later ecclesiastical writers assumed was an altogether different person than the Tusculani pope Adeodatus III. The “Pope David” legend would only be conclusively debunked by the Church centuries later.
[C] The profound historical irony of Liutprand's life was that his greatest professional triumph, the marriage of Octavian and Agatha, was to destroy any possibility of Liutprand exercising the power that Octavian had ostensibly granted him as a reward. His titles were great and his later life was undoubtedly comfortable, but as a political figure he was unable to escape the shadow of the Greek princess he had personally brought to Italy. His fate was to be remembered not as a statesman, nor even foremost as a diplomat, but as a chronicler
Timeline Notes (Out of Character)
[A] In OTL, the acquisition of essentially all the former lands of Middle Francia by the Holy Roman Empire was completed in 1032, when the last king of Burgundy died without issue and the kingdom was left to Emperor Conrad II.
[B] Our author is a bit skeptical of the long-term viability of German dominion over Italy. I’m not trying to bang the “reality is implausible” drum too hard here, as the joke seems a little shopworn, but it makes sense to me that a “modern” historian in this timeline would draw a connection between the failure of Arnulf of Carinthia to dominate Italy and the later attempt by Otto to do the same, and conclude that while the German policy these invasions represented had elements of sensibility, it ultimately wasn’t a feasible project.
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