Charles the Fat's Growing Empire

When Pope John VIII was threatened by Guy II Duke of Spoleto, who invaded the Papal States in 880, he looked for help from the King of Italy. Unfortunately for the pope, the King of Italy was Charles the Fat, who was not particularly effective. John even crowned Charles as emperor of the Carolingian Empire in February of 881, but Charles still left the Papal States to their own devices. 

The pope continued to write to Charles, asking for help which never came. In February 882, Charles convened a council in Ravenna where Guy and his nicer uncle, Guy of Camerino, the pope, and Charles made peace with a promise to restore the papal lands. A letter in March from the pope to Charles let it be known that the promise to restore land was broken. Fortunately for the pope, Guy died not long after, and was succeeded by his uncle, Guy of Camerino, who was happy to restore the papal lands. (Guy would later become Holy Roman Emperor Guy III.)

Charles was more focused on his own concerns, like building a new palace in Alsace. Aachen was the center of Carolingian power and culture since the time of Charlemagne, but Sélestat in Alsace was closer to the center of Carolingian domains by Charles' time. He also may have asked Notker the Stammerer to write the biography of Charlemagne, the Gesta Karoli Magna ("Deeds of Charles the Great"), since the work is dedicated to Charles, and Notker was known to advise him occasionally.

Not long before, in England, Alfred the Great had defeated the Great Heathen Army in 878, and the survivors had fled to the Low Countries where they became a problem for Charles the Fat's brother, Louis the Younger. He had some success fighting them, but died on 20 January 882, leaving his throne to Charles. This brought the entirety of the East Frankish kingdom, which had been split after the Treaty of Verdun, together again. (It is interesting that Verdun was necessary because three brothers could not get along, while Charles and his two brothers under similar circumstances were able to support each other a generation later with none of the hostility.)

Charles was not entirely useless when it came to enemies. Vikings were a problem for the continent as well as England, and he met with Viking leaders Godfrid and Sigfred after they were besieged by a combined military force all of East Francia. Godfrid converted to Christianity and married Gisela, daughter of Lothair II of Lotharingia. Sigfred was paid off to leave (see illustration). Godfrid was later ambushed and killed  by Charles for fear of him relapsing and attacking again.

In December 884, Carloman II of West Francia (France) died, and the throne was offered to Charles, who accepted. He now was king of West Francia, East Francia, Aquitaine, Alemannia, Italy, and Emperor of the Carolingian Empire.

But then, Sigfred returned in 885, sailing a fleet up the Seine to attack Paris, and things went poorly. I'll explain next time.

Charles the Bald

Charlemagne's son and successor as emperor, Louis the Pious, had several children. Several of them were with his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye. After her death in 818, Louis married Judith of Bavaria and had one son, Charles, born 13 June 823. Charles was much younger than his brothers, who all had been granted sub-kingdoms of their own by the time of his birth. The presence of another son and possible successor to Louis raised concerns among the older children.

Louis tried to give Charles his own sub-kingdom, but Louis' older sons rebelled against these attempts. You can read more about that here. In 837, Louis called his nobles together in Aachen and asked them to recognize Charles as heir to the entirety of Gaul. When Louis died in 840, Charles' allied himself with his older brother Louis the German to defeat their other brother, Lothair I. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 gave Charles all of the kingdom of the West Franks, an area which essentially encompasses modern day France. Louis the German held the eastern area that corresponds to Germany. Lothair kept the title King of Italy.

Life was relatively peaceful after Verdun. The brothers would meet every few years to discuss matters of mutual concern. In 858, however, Louis was persuaded by his nobles to try to take land from Charles. Charles was not very well-liked by his people, who did not respond to his call to raise an army, so he fled to Burgundy. Louis the German's bid failed, because the bishops refused to crown him king of the West Franks.

He eventually became emperor when Lothair's son died, and traveled to Rome where Pope John VIII. When John asked him for help against the Saracens in Italy, he crossed the Alps to help, but the nobles of Lombardy were not interested in supporting him. Charles, feeling ill, started back home, but died on 6 October 877, in the mountains. The body had to be brought home for proper burial, but carrying a body across the Alps was not easy or swift. The stench from the decaying corpse prompted them to bury him as soon as possible, at an abbey in Burgundy. A few years later the body as disinterred and taken for burial to the Abbey of Saint-Denis

Regarding his nickname: A Genealogy of Frankish Kings that was started during his reign lists him as Karolus Calvus, "Charles the Bald." There are no contemporary records that suggest he had little or no hair. Some scholars suggest that it was an ironic nickname because he was very hairy. Others point out that "bald" could simply be a reference to his lack of land at first. The illustration above is of Charles in the Vivian Bible, made in 845, and shows him with plenty of hair.

The Middle Ages cared about hair and its upkeep, and baldness was not seen as desirable. There were cures for baldness. If you're interested in them, come back tomorrow.

Civil War Witness, 3

Charlemagne's grandsons were not satisfied with the way their father, Emperor Louis the Pious, divided up his realm while still alive so they could have territories to rule. They frequently rebelled against him and each other in order to grab more. On these occasions, a sometime adviser to Louis, Bernard of Septimania, once chose the losing side, once chose the winning side, and then tried a different approach.

In 837, Louis the Pious was becoming more devoted to Charles the Bald, his son by his second wife. He made Charles king of Alemannia and Burgundy, including a portion of the land that had been given to Louis the German, Louis' youngest son by his first wife. Louis the German (understandably) objected, invaded Alemannia (for the second time: he had invaded Alemannia as his part of the 2nd civil war). In 838, Pepin died, and Charles was named King of Aquitaine. Unfortunately, the nobles of Aquitaine decided to name Pepin's son, Pepin II, their new king. Lothair actually sided with his father this time; their combined forces quickly deposed Pepin II, forced Louis the German to retreat quickly (but gave him Bavaria), and then granted the whole eastern part of the Empire to Lothair, including Italy.

This was merely a prequel to the free-for-all in 840, when Louis the Pious died.

Pepin was gone, but there were still three (half-) brothers capable of alliance or discord, whichever suited their goals.* Louis the German, with little land, allied himself with the now-more-powerful ruler of the western half of the empire, Charles, and they attacked Lothair. While they marched their armies eastward, Pepin II reared his head again and claimed kingship of the now-deserted Aquitaine, offering his support to Lothair. A decisive battle was fought in June 841, in which Charles and Louis forced Lothair to flee.

Division after the Treaty of Verdun [link]

But where was Bernard? He and a small force had arrived at the battle to offer support, but he obviously knew that picking the losing side again would be disastrous. He sat out the battle, waiting to see who won so that he could offer support. After the battle, he sent his son to Charles with pledges of loyalty and promises that he could talk Pepin II into giving up. He apparently had no intention of doing this, however, nor did his tepid support please Charles. While Charles marched on Aquitaine, he deprived Bernard of Toulouse, his only remaining territory. Bernard, refusing to accept this, allied himself with Pepin II.

Events were not in Bernard's control, however. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 made an arrangement between the three brothers—Lothair, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald—to divide the empire. Pepin continued to make trouble in Aquitaine for many years. Bernard was captured a year later near Uzés in the south, where he had sent his wife years earlier when he became more involved in politics, and brought before Charles where his execution was arranged. A sad end for a man on the fringe of great events; if only he had been the recipient of good advice. For that, he would have had to spend more time with his wife; more on that tomorrow.

*Historians consider this the same war that began in 837-8.