THE END OF LOTHAIR
[860-869 A.D.]
From the year 860 onwards the affairs of Lorraine occupied the foreground of political attention for both the German and Austrasian kings. In 855 the emperor Lothair died in the monastery of Prüm, into which he had retired sick and world-weary. His unfilial conduct towards his father appears to have weighed heavily upon his spirit and estranged the hearts of others from him to such an extent that he never afterwards throve in men’s esteem. In accordance with ancient Frankish usage his three sons divided amongst them the dominions he had left. Italy and the imperial dignity fell to Ludwig II,[141] the Rhone provinces to Charles, who was yet a minor, and the most important share, Lorraine (Lotharingia) proper and Friesland, to Lothair II. From the time that he was little more than a boy the young king, Lothair, had lived with his father’s connivance in a sort of marriage relation with a lady of rank, Waldrada by name, who had borne him several sons. After his father’s death he took to wife, not the love of his youth, but Thietberga, the daughter of a distinguished Burgundian noble whose possessions lay in the Alpine valleys between Italy and the kingdom of the West Franks. There was no issue of the marriage, and the king conceived the desire to rid himself of his consort that he might marry Waldrada and so secure the kingdom to his children. With this object he caused all sorts of scandalous rumours to be disseminated about Thietberga, implying that before her marriage she had lived in incestuous intercourse with her own brother.
Charles the Bald
The time-serving clergy of Lorraine, with Archbishop Thietgand of Trèves and Günther of Cologne at their head, were venal enough to grant a divorce on the ground of these calumnious reports at a synod held at Aachen in the year 860, and to condemn the queen to do penance in a nunnery. Lothair thereupon celebrated his nuptials with Waldrada with great pomp. But both his uncles, Charles the Bald and Ludwig were adverse to the divorce, because if Lothair left no legitimate issue they would be the heirs to his kingdom. At the instigation of Charles the Bald Hincmar, the learned and disputatious archbishop of Rheims, published a pamphlet exposing the whole tissue of falsehoods which had been invented to Thietberga’s disadvantage and vehemently impugning the proceedings of the synod of Aachen. The unhappy queen escaped from her nunnery and threw herself upon the protection of Charles; she also appealed to the pope for help. The papal chair was at that time occupied by Nicholas II, a mighty prince of the church, who gladly embraced the opportunity thus offered of summoning a king before his judgment-seat. He sent legates to Lorraine to inquire into the king’s matrimonial affairs at a Frankish synod. But the legates were not proof against bribery, and at a synod at Metz in the year 863 they pronounced in favour of the king.
Nicholas, learning of the corruptibility of his agents, condemned the conclusions of the synod of Metz in a Lateran synod and deposed the archbishops of Trèves and Cologne. A lengthy and repulsive controversy on the subject of the royal divorce ensued in Lorraine, finding an echo even in the chambers where the women sat spinning. Lothair was forced to bow to the pope’s will, and his consort Thietberga returned to his court. But he presently began to live with Waldrada again, although he could not procure the church’s sanction to a divorce and a marriage with his mistress. This scandalous quarrel, which kept the mind of all the western world in a state of agitation, was still dragging its length along when Nicholas II died in 867. Lothair hoped that he might gain his end with the new pope Adrian II, and with the object in view he undertook a journey to Italy in 869. At his interview with the pope he swore, to the horror of all pious souls, an oath notoriously false, declaring that in recent years he had avoided all commerce with Waldrada. But the new pope, who held the king in profound contempt on account of his corrupt morals, also refused to grant the divorce, and could be brought to promise no more than that he would inquire into the matter once again in a synod which he would summon to meet at Rome. Lothair died of a raging fever on his homeward way, and his devout contemporaries saw in his death the divine judgment on his crime. His children were not recognised by the law, and his dominions therefore passed to the other monarchs who were of kin to him. His brother, the emperor Ludwig II, was childless, so that Ludwig the German and Charles the Bald were the only heirs whom it was necessary to take into account.
LUDWIG AND CHARLES DIVIDE LOTHAIR’S POSSESSIONS (870 A.D.)
[870 A.D.]
At the time of Lothair’s unlooked for decease the king of the East Franks was engaged in a war against the Slavs. His eldest son, Carloman [or Carlmann], had for years been warring on Ratislaw, prince of Moravia, and had gained some successes. The Czechs also frequently made excursions into Bavaria at this period, carrying the inhabitants of the country away into captivity. Ludwig therefore resolved to attack the Czechs all along the line in one great campaign. In the August of 869 his armies were equipped and ready to march against the foe. His second son, Ludwig the Younger, was to attack the Sorbs, he himself in concert with his son Carloman was to reduce the Moravians to subjection once more. At this juncture he suddenly fell sick of a serious malady at Ratisbon; and his third son, Charles, as yet untried in arms, led the army to join Carloman in his stead. The war was conducted with success at all points. The Sorbs were compelled to submit. The German warriors attacked the Moravians behind their apparently impassable earthworks, burned many places to the ground, and returned home laden with spoil.
Meanwhile, Charles the Bald was making haste to take possession of Lothair’s dominions. He had been busy with defensive measures against the Norman pirates, when the news of his nephew’s death was brought to him. The emperor Ludwig II, Lothair’s brother, was far away and his forces were insignificant, and the reports of Ludwig’s illness sounded so unfavourable that there seemed no chance of his recovery; so that Charles the Bald hoped that he might succeed in making himself Lothair’s sole heir. He hurried to Metz, where he had himself crowned king of Lorraine, and thence proceeded to Aachen to receive the homage of the nobles. Very few of the nobles, however, presented themselves. He then ventured to encroach upon the kingdom of the East Franks, for he took possession of Alsace, which Lothair had previously ceded to Ludwig in return for the assurance of his support in his matrimonial quarrel.
But Charles the Bald was not destined long to enjoy his bloodless victory; for Ludwig recovered and threatened him with war unless he consented to a fraternal division of the dominions left by Lothair. Thus came about the famous partition treaty, which was concluded at Mersen in the year 870. By this treaty one-half of Lorraine fell to the western kingdom, and the other to the eastern. The boundary line ran southwards from the mouth of the Maas [Meuse], following the course of the river for some distance until it reached Ourthe, then crossed to the middle Moselle, just touched upon the Marne, and then ran along the Saône to the level of the Lake of Geneva. Thus, east Lorraine, Alsace, and north Burgundy, passed to Germany. The Treaty of Mersen was a corollary to the Treaty of Verdun; all the purely Germanic elements of the population were now combined with the eastern kingdom, and the way was prepared for the formation of two great states and nations, the one Germanic and the other Romance.