CHAPTER 5.3. THE EMPIRE OF THE NORTH
While in the South the balance of power was being reconfigured between Bernardians, Guideschi and Venetians, in the North an abrupt change came in with the usurpation of power by a Dane called
Olaf the Islander in 889.
Since the death of King
Louis II of North Francia in 868, his sons and other throne claimants had engaged in a never-ending story of plots, fights and intrigues which weakened their power in front of the rising influence of the so-called ‘Islander faction’, an elite of Eastern Dane warriors who had embraced Christianism and adopted some of the civilized manners of the Francians without losing their military character.
It was just a matter of time that a prominent figure of the Islanders would usurp the crown of North Francia. Olaf reunited the North Francian Kingdom with most of the Danish territories controlled by his chiefs and thus the first Kingdom of the Danes and the Northern Franks was created in 892. However, his control over the four southern duchies (Middle Francia, East Francia, Thuringia and Lower Alamannia) was purely nominal, as they have being taking over all the real power since the 860s.
The breakaway of the southern duchies produced a progressive approaching of them to Milan, especially after
Robert of Tuscany recovered the power for the Bernardians in the early 10th century. However, the central power of Milan has been too weakened in order to impose their overlordship anywhere outside Italy and Burgundy. Moreover, the Eastern Danes accelerated their expansion through the Scandinavian-Baltic axis, in their particular imperialistic race against the rise of the rival Western Danish realm.
Hamburg, see of the Danish-Frankish kingdom, in the 10th century.
This scenario led to the long and bloody Great Danish War (922 – 944), which finished with the proclamation of the ‘Empire of the North’, a collection of realms attached to
Olaf II, the eldest son of Olaf the Islander, who dared to invest himself as ‘Emperor’ (but unrecognized out of his realms). Despite the conquest of most of England, many Norse-Francian chiefdoms escaped to his control in the West.
The duchies of Middle Francia, East Francia, Thuringia and Lower Alamannia severed their last ties with the now Danish power in Hamburg and called for a united response of the remaining Frankish realms to the Danish pressure. The Frankish Kingdom of Bavaria, however, was busy enough trying to repeal the advance of the Magyars [this will be explained in a separate chapter] while Tolosa was overwhelmed by the raids of the free chiefdoms of the West. It was time for Milan to take a leap…