'Charles the Fat' (
[1];
13 June 839 –
13 January 888) was the
King of Alemannia from
876,
King of Italy from
879,
Holy Roman Emperor (as 'Charles III') from
881,
King of East Francia from
882, and
King of West Francia from
884. He was deposed in
East Francia,
Lotharingia, and possibly
Italy (there the records are not clear) in 887. He died just a few weeks after his deposition in January 888.
Granted lordship over
Alemannia in 876 by the ''divisio regnorum'' (division) of
Louis the German's kingdom, he succeeded his in Italy upon the abdication of his older brother
Carloman, incapacitated by a
stroke. Crowned Emperor in 881 by
Pope John VIII, his succession to the territories of his brother
Louis the Younger the following year reunited the entire Kingdom of the East Franks (later
Germany). Upon the death of his nephew
Carloman II, he inherited all of West Francia (later
France) also, thus reviving, if only briefly, the entire
Carolingian Empire.
Usually considered lethargic and inept — he is known to have had repeated illnesses which are believed to have been
epilepsy — he twice purchased peace with
Viking raiders, including at the famous
siege of Paris in 886. Nevertheless, contemporary opinion of him was not nearly so negative as modern historiographical opinion, which itself is seeing a turnaround.
Youth and inheritance
Charles was the youngest of the three sons of
Louis the German, first
King of East Francia, and
Emma, a
Welf. An incidence of demonic possession is recorded in his youth, in which he was said to have been foaming at the mouth before he was taken to the altar of the church. This greatly affected his father and himself, he was described as "a very Christian prince, fearing God, with all his heart keeping His commandments, very devoutly obeying the orders of the Church, generous in alms-giving, practising unceasingly prayer and song, always intent upon celebrating the praises of God."
In 859, Charles was made
Count of the Breisgau, an Alemannic
march against southern Lotharingia.
[2] In 863, his rebellious eldest brother
Carloman revolted against their father. The next year,
Louis the Younger followed Carloman in revolt and Charles joined him. Carloman was invested with
Bavaria as co-king. In 865, the elder Louis was forced to divide his lands amongst his heirs: Bavaria went to Carloman;
Saxony (with
Franconia and
Thuringia) went to Louis; and Alemannia (Swabia with
Rhaetia) went to Charles.
Lotharingia was to be divided between the younger two.
When, in 875, the
Emperor Louis II, who was also
King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby Carloman would succeed in Italy,
Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor.
[3] Louis the German sent first Charles and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian forces under
Berengar of Friuli, their cousin, to possess the Italian kingdom.
[4] This was not, however, successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877.
In 876, Louis died and the inheritance went as planned after a conference at
Ries, though Charles received less of his share of Lotharingian than planned. In his charters, Charles' reign in ''Germania'' is dated from his inheritance in 876.
Acquisition of Italy
The brothers acted cooperatively and there was no war over the division of the patrimony: a rare occurrence in
Dark Age Europe. In 877, Carloman inherited Italy from their uncle
Charles the Bald of
West Francia. Louis divided Lotharingian and offered a third to Carloman and a third to Charles. In 878, Carloman returned his Lotharingian share to Louis, who divided it evenly with Charles. In 879, Carloman was incapacitated by a stroke and divided his domains between his brothers: Bavaria to Louis and Italy to Charles. Charles dated his reign in ''Italia'' from this point.
In 880, Charles joined
Louis III and
Carloman, joint
kings of West Francia, in besieging
Boso of Provence in
Vienne from August to September, but they failed to dislodge him. Provence was legally a part of the Italian kingdom (from 863). In August 882, Charles sent
Richard the Justiciar,
Count of Autun, to take the city, which he did (in September). After this, Boso could not regain most of his realm and was restricted to the vicinity of Vienne.
Imperial coronation and activities
On
18 July 880,
Pope John VIII sent a letter to
Guy II of Spoleto to seek peace, but the duke ignored him and invaded the
Papal States. John responded by begging the aid of Charles in his capacity as King of Italy. In gratefulness, he crowned him Emperor on
12 February 881. His rise to power was accompanied by hopes of a general revival in western Europe, but he proved unequal to the task. Charles did little to help against Guy, however. Papal letters as late as November were still petitioning Charles for action.
As emperor, Charles began the construction of a palace at
Sélestat in
Alsace. He modelled it after the
Palace at Aachen which
Charlemagne, whom he consciously sought to emulate, as indicated by the ''Vita Karoli Magni'' of
Notker the Stammerer, had built. As Aachen was in the kingdom of his brother, it was necessary for Charles to buid a new palace for his court in his own power base of western Alemannia.
[5] Sélestat was also more central to the Empire than Aachen.
In February 882, Charles convoked a diet in
Ravenna. The duke, emperor, and pope made peace and Guy and his uncle,
Guy of Camerino, vowed to restore stolen papal lands. In a March letter to Charles, John claimed that the vows went unfulfilled. In 883, Guy, now
Duke of Spoleto, was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at
Nonantula late in May.
[6] He returned to the Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. Charles sent Berengar, equipped with an army, to deprive Guy of Spoleto. Berengar was initially successful until an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.
[7]
In 883, Charles signed a treaty with
Giovanni II Participazio,
Doge of Venice, granting that any assassin of a doge who fled to the territory of the empire would be fined 100
lbs of gold and banished.
East Francia
In the early 880s, the remnants of the
Great Heathen Army, defeated by
Alfred the Great at the
Battle of Edington in 878, began to settle in the
Low Countries. They were opposed with some success by Louis, Charles' brother, but he died after a short campaign on
20 January 882 and Charles succeeded to his kingdom, thus reuniting the whole East Frankish realm again. Charles called for an assembling of the army of the whole nation of the East Franks in the summer and he marched off to besiege the chief Viking camp at
Asselt. Not much later, Charles opened negotiations with the Viking chiefs,
Godfrey and
Sigfred. Godfrey accepted Christian baptism and agreed to become Charles's vassal. He was married to Gisela, daughter of
Lothair II. Sigfred was bribed off. Despite the insinuations of some modern chroniclers, no contemporary account criticises Charles actions during this campaign.
[8]
From 882 to 884, the
Wilhelminer War dominated the
Marcha Orientalis (later
Austria).
Arnulf of Carinthia, Charles's illegitimate nephew, allied with the rebel
Engelschalk II against Charles' appointed margrave in the region,
Aribo.
Svatopluk I, ruler of
Great Moravia, took up Aribo's cause and, at
Kaumberg, in 884, took oaths of fidelity to Charles. Though the emperor lost his vassals of the Wilhelminer family and his relationship with his nephew was broken, he gained powerful allies in the Moravian ''dux'' and other Slavic ''duces'' in the area.
In 885, fearing Godfrey and his brother-in-law,
Hugh, Duke of Alsace, Charles arranged for a conference at
Spijk, near
Lobith, inviting the Viking leader to fall into a trap. Godfrey was executed and Hugh was blinded and sent to
Prüm.
Succession matters
Charles, childless by his marriage to
Richgard, tried to have his illegitimate son by an unknown concumbine,
Bernard, recognised as his heir in 885, but met the opposition of several bishops. He had the support of
Pope Hadrian III, whom he invited to an assembly in
Worms in October 885, but who died on the way, just after crossing the
river Po.
[9] Hadrian was going to depose the obstructing bishops, as Charles doubted he could do this himself, and legitimise Bernard.
[7] Based on the unfavouring attitude of the chronicler of the Mainz continuation of the ''
Annales Fuldenses'', the chief of Charles's opponents in the matter was probably
Liutbert, Archbishop of Mainz. Because Charles had called together the "bishops and counts of Gaul" as well as the pope to meet him at Worms, it seems likely that he planned to make Bernard
King of Lotharingia.
[11] Notker the Stammerer, who considered Bernard as a possible heir, wrote in his ''Deeds of Charlemagne'':
: I will not tell you [Charles the Fat] of this [the
Viking sack of the
Abbey of Prüm] until I see your little son Bernard with a sword girt to his thigh.
[7]
Perhaps Notker was awaiting Bernard's kingship, when Prüm would be avenged.
After the failure of his first attempt, Charles set about to try again. He had the term ''proles'' (offspring) inserted into his charters as it had not been in previous years, probably because he desired to legitimise Bernard.
[13] In early 886, Charles met the new
Pope Stephen V and probably negotiated for the recognition of his son as his heir. An assembly was planned for April and May of the next year at
Waiblingen. Pope Stephen cancelled his planned attendance on
30 April 887. Nevertheless, at Waiblingen, Berengar, who by a brief feud with Liutward had lost the favour of the emperor, came in early May 887, made peace with the emperor, and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.
[14]
Charles probably abandoned his plans for Bernard and instead adopted
Louis of Provence as his son at an assembly at
Kirchen in May.
[15] It is possible, however, that the agreement with Louis was only designed to engender support for Bernard's subkingship in Lotharingia. In June or July, Berengar arrived in Kirchen, probably pining to be declared Charles's heir; he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles's deposition.
[16] Odo, Count of Paris, may have had a similar purpose in visiting Charles at Kirchen.
[7] On the other, hand the presence of these magnates at these two great assemblies may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).
[18]
West Francia
When Carloman of West Francia died on
12 December 884, the nobles of that kingdom invited his uncle, Charles, to assume the kingship. Charles gladly accepted, it being the third kingdom to "fall into his lap."
[19] According to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Charles succeeded to all of the kingdom of Carloman save
Brittany, but this does not seem to have been true.
[20] It is likely that Charles was crowned by
Geilo, Bishop of Langres, as ''rex in Gallia'' on
20 May 885 at
Grand in southern Lorraine.
[21] Though Geilo even developed a special West Frankish seal for him, Charles's government in the West, however, was always very impersonal and he left most day-to-day business to the higher nobility.
Though West Francia (the future France) was far less menaced by the Vikings than the Low Countries, it was heavily hit nonetheless. In 885, a huge fleet led by Sigfred sailed up the
Seine, for the first time in years, and
besieged Paris. Sigfred demanded a bribe again, but this time Charles refused. He was in Italy at the time and
Odo, Count of Paris, snuck some men through enemy lines to seek his aid. Charles sent
Henry, Count of Saxony, to Paris. In 886, as disease began to spread through Paris, Odo himself went to Charles to seek support. Charles brought a large army and encircled the army of
Rollo and set up a camp at
Montmartre. However, Charles had no intention of fighting. He sent the defenders down the Seine to ravage
Burgundy, which was in revolt. When the Vikings withdrew from France next spring, he gave them 700 pounds of promised silver. Charles prestige in France was greatly diminished.
Charles issued a number of charters for West Frankish recipients during his stay in Paris during and after the siege. He recognised rights and privileges granted by his predecessors to recipients in the
Spanish March and Provence, but especially in
Neustria, where he had contact with
Nantes at a time when the
Breton duke Alan I was known to be powerful in the
county of Nantes. It is probable that Charles granted Alan the right to be titled ''rex'';
[20] as emperor he would have had that prerogative and Alan's use of the title appears legitimate. A charter datable to between 897 and 900 makes reference to the soul of ''Karolus'' on whose behalf Alan had ordered prayers to be said in the monastery of
Redon. This was probably Charles the Fat.
Deposition, death, and legacy
With Charles increasingly seen as spineless and incompetent, matters came to a head in late 887. In the summer of that year, having given up on his son's succession, Charles received Odo and
Berengar,
Margrave of Friuli, a relative of his, at his court. He may have accepted neither, one, or both of these as his heir in their respective kingdoms. His inner circle then began to fall apart. First, he accused his wife
Richardis of having an affair with his chief minister and
archchancellor,
Liutward, bishop of
Vercelli. She proved her innocence in an ordeal of fire and left him for the monastic life.
[23] He then turned against Liutward, who was hated by all, and removed him from office, appointing
Liutbert, Archbishop of Mainz, in his stead.
In that year, his first cousin once removed,
Ermengard, daughter of the
Emperor Louis II and wife of
Boso of Provence, brought her son
Louis to him for protection. Charles confirmed Louis in Provence (he may even have adopted him) and allowed them to live at his court. He probably intended to make Louis heir to the whole realm and the ''imperium''. On
11 November, he called an assembly to
Frankfurt. While there he received news that an ambitious nephew,
Arnulf of Carinthia, had fomented a general rebellion and was marching into Germany with an army of Bavarians and Slavs. The next week saw the collapse of all his support in East Francia. The last to abandon him were his loyal
Alemanni, though the men of Lotharingia never seem to have formally accepted his deposition. By
17 November, Charles was out of power, though the exact course of events is unknown. Asides from rebuking his faithlessness, he did little to prevent Arnulf's move — he had recently been ill again — but assure that Bernard was entrusted to his care and possibly Louis too. He asked for a few estates in Swabia on which to live out his days and thus received
Neidingen. There he died six weeks later, on
13 January 888.
Charles' empire broke asunder, never to be restored. According to
Regino of Prüm, each part of the realm elected a "kinglet" from its own "bowels". It is probable that Arnulf desired the whole empire, but the only part he received other than East Francia was Lotharingia. The French elected Odo, though he was opposed at first by Guy III of Spoleto, who also opposed Arnulf in Lotharingia. Guy sought the kingship in Italy after his failures in Francia, though there Berengar had already been crowned. Louis was crowned in Provence as Charles had intended and he sought the support of Arnulf and gained it, probably through supplication to him. Odo would eventually submit to Arnulf's supremacy as well. In
Upper Burgundy, one
Rudolph, a ''dux'' of the region, was elected as king in a distinctly non-Carolingian creation, probably the result of his failure to succeed in the whole of Lotharingia. In
Aquitaine,
Ranulf II declared himself king and took the guardianship of the young
Charles the Simple, the Carolingian heir to the West, refusing to recognise Odo's election.
It is unknown if these elections were a response to Charles's East Frankish deposition or to his death. Only those of Arnulf and Berengar can be certainly placed before his death. Only the magnates of the East ever formally deposed him. He was buried with honour in
Reichenau after his death and the ''
Annales Fuldenses'' heap praises on his piety and godliness. Indeed, contemporary opinion of Charles is consistently kinder than later historiography, though it is a modern suggestion that his lack of apparent successes is the excusable result of near constant illness and infirmity.
References
★ MacLean, Simon. ''Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire''. Cambridge University Press: 2003.
★ Leyser, Karl. ''Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries''. London, 1994.
★
Reuter, Timothy. ''Germany in the Early Middle Ages, c. 800-1056''. Longman, 1991.
★ Reuter, Timothy (trans.) ''
The Annals of Fulda''. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
★ Duckett, Eleanor. ''Death and Life in the Tenth Century''. University of Michigan Press, 1968.
★ Smith, Julia M. H. ''Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians''. Cambridge University Press: 1992.
★
''Annales Fuldenses'' translated by Timothy Reuter, with commentary (subscription needed).
Notes
1. The nickname "the Fat" is a twelfth-century concoction. Charles's actual girth is unknown.
2. Reuter, 72.
3. AF, 875 (p.77 and n8).
4. ibid. MacLean, 70.
5. MacLean, 187–188.
6. AF(B), 883 (p107 and nn6–7).
7. ''ibid''
8. Reuter.
9. ''ibid'', 116–117. AF(M), 885 (pp 98–99 and nn6–7) and AF(B), 885 (p. 111 and n2).
10. ''ibid''
11. MacLean, 131.
12. ''ibid''
13. ''ibid'', 132.
14. AF(B), 887 (p. 113 and nn3–4).
15. MacLean, 167.
16. Reuter, 119.
17. ''ibid''
18. MacLean, pp167–168.
19. Ibid, from Regino of Prüm.
20. Smith, 192.
21. MacLean, 127.
22. Smith, 192.
23. Or she declared herself a virgin.
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