CHAPTER 12: FRAGMENTATION OF THE GERMANIC WORLD. RISE OF BAVARIA
The prosperity and stability of the Twin Kingdoms abruptly ended in the fall of 786. The Frankish King
Edwacer II died in a mysterious accident during a hunting journey near Cologne and this, added to the also obscure death of his only son
Prince Edwacer just six months earlier, meant that the throne of Francia became vacant. The loyal men of Edwacer II accused some nobles of plotting about the deaths of the King and his heir and soon the ancient internal fights resumed in the Kingdom.
The disputes in Francia resulted in the proclamation of
Hubert, a distant relative of Edwacer II, as the new King of the Franks in 788. Hubert was considered a tyrant by many Frankish people, noble or not, and the Dukes of both Alamannia and Burgundy did not accept his election. The semi-independent duchies repealed the Hubertian troops and became Kingdoms with full sovereignty in 790 (Burgundy) and 792 (Alamannia); the anti-Hubertian uprising in Aquitaine however, was brutally repressed and many Latin-speaking peasants abandoned the region escaping from the bloodbath and settling later in other countries, mainly in Vasconia and Brittany.
The change of rulers in Francia deeply affected this 'twin' Kingdom of Saxony. The King
Ricbert relied in his elder brother for keeping the peace and stability in the convulse Saxony; once his brother was dead, he struggled to keep his power and he finally fled to his loyal Thuringia in 789, while the rest of the Kingdom was a field of war between Christian Saxons opposed to Ricbert and Pagan Saxons who wanted to revert the official status of the Christianity in Saxony and recover the Pagan cults. Thus, Saxony was finally split in two parts since 796: a Christian West and a Pagan East (called Wendish Saxony). Thuringia kept his independence, ruled by Ricbert under the protection of the neighbouring Kingdom of the Great Moravia (his wife
Kristina was the queen of Great Moravia and his son
Arnulf inherited it in 802 after the death of his mother), while the Danes and their Jute allies established their own Kingdom in 804, occupying Rugia and other Northern Saxon regions in 806-808.
In 805 Ricbert died and his eldest son
Theoderic was proclaimed King of Thuringia. His younger brother ruled the Great Moravia and he managed to forge and anti-Hubertian alliance with him along with the Danish Kingdom, Alamannia, Burgundy and the Great Lombardy; meanwhile, the King of Francia still controlled the Netherlands and he later built an alliance with the new (Western) Saxon Kingdom. Theoderic and his allies realized that their alliance was far weaker than the Frankish-Saxon one, so he decided to start an approachment to their former rival, the powerful Kingdom of Bavaria, in order to balance the power in the Germanic Europe.
Bavaria was a rising power since the previous century, but under King
Theobald (crowned in 792) it had reached the maximum of its territorial power after defeating the last Kingdom of the Avars in 795. Through the new duchy of Avaria they managed to connect with the formerly isolated Kingdom of the Gepids, which became a loyal ally of Bavaria, expanding their borders into former Avar lands as well. In 802, Theobald imposed his nephew
Grimoald as new King of Croatia, thus puppetizing the Slavic country, and shortly after the new King as his uncle won two border wars with the Chalcedonians for the control of the march of Weissenburg (former region of Sirmium).
Theoderic requested Theobald twice for exploring an alliance between their two political blocks against Francia and his allies. The first time, in 807, Theobald refused the meeting because he was not interested in that matter as he was still busy campaigning against Chalcedon but the second time, in 810, he was more interested because the Frankish troops of Hubert had been harassing Bavarian merchants in the Mainfranken and threating to raid the northern half of Alamannia (considered a buffer state by Bavaria). Theobald finally accepted and the royal meeting was set for March 811 in Regensburg.
Map of Germanic Europe in 810
The coloured states are ruled by a Germanic monarch.