LAST YEARS OF LUDWIG THE GERMAN
[870-876 A.D.]
In the latter years of his life, King Ludwig was afflicted by the same misfortune which he and his brothers had conspired to bring upon their father; for his grown-up sons rebelled against him. He had early conferred upon them a share in the sovereignty of parts of his dominions, and after his kingdom had been considerably aggrandised by the Treaty of Mersen, they demanded a corresponding extension of their dominions. Carloman, the eldest, ruled Bavaria almost as an independent kingdom, and therefore received a considerable accession of territory. The younger sons, Ludwig and Charles, felt themselves aggrieved by this proceeding, and refused to render obedience to their father any longer. This occurrence took place at an unpropitious time for the king, as the Moravian prince, Suatopluk, had just inflicted a crushing defeat upon a Bavarian contingent. Under these circumstances Ludwig endeavoured to come to a compromise with his sons. In a diet at Forchheim they were reconciled to him, on condition that they should all share equally in the heritage of Lorraine. Thereupon a great expedition against the Moravians was undertaken in 872. But fortune did not favour the Germans. A detachment of Saxons, at variance among themselves, was worsted in battle and turned back in shameful rout, and another army, under the command of Bishop Arno of Würzburg, came back with heavy loss and without having accomplished its object. Carloman was attacked in the rear by the Moravians, and forced to beat a retreat with heavy loss. The king himself was unable to take part in the war, being busy with the affairs of Italy.
A grievous domestic trouble was soon added to these military reverses. His two younger sons conceived the criminal design of dethroning their father, and holding him in captivity. The project came to light as by a miracle. Charles, burdened with an evil conscience, was seized with a fit of the epileptic disease from which he suffered, and betrayed part of his secret, probably during the convulsions. According to the ideas of the time, it was believed that the devil had entered into him, and he was taken to church, where the clergy tried to cure him by prayers and exorcisms. The sight of his brother’s ravings wrought such an effect on the mind of Ludwig the Younger that, stricken with remorse, he confessed their design to his father. The king refrained from punishing his sons; he was reconciled to them again, and left his dispositions for the succession unaltered. Grown wise by such experiences, he thenceforth granted his sons a fuller measure of independence in their subordinate dominions.
About the end of Ludwig’s reign a peace was concluded with the Danes, to his great satisfaction. After King Horik’s death his two sons declared their willingness to enter into a compact with Ludwig, whom they were prepared to honour as a father, to the effect that the Eider should constitute the boundary between the two kingdoms, and that the two nations should thenceforward live in peaceful intercourse with one another. On this basis a peace was concluded, greatly to the benefit of missionary enterprise in particular. The archiepiscopal see of Hamburg and Bremen was at that time governed by Rimbert, a pupil of Anskar’s, who worked in complete harmony with the spirit of his predecessor. He endured the hardships of many sea-voyages, labouring to spread Christianity among the Danes and Swedes.
In the following year the long war with the Moravians was also brought to a close. A Moravian embassy appeared at Forchheim in 874 to sue for peace. Prince Suatopluk undertook to render fealty to the king of Germany and to pay a regular annual tribute. From a German province Moravia thus became a feudal state under German suzerainty, an alteration which must be reckoned almost as a defeat for Ludwig.
In the last year of Ludwig’s life an event took place to which he had latterly devoted his whole attention. The Italian emperor Ludwig II died and left no heir, and the throne of the Roman Empire thus fell vacant. Both Ludwig and Charles the Bald laid claim to this dignity. Engelberga, the widow of the deceased monarch, favoured the German king, who had made an agreement with her at Trent in 872 to the effect that his eldest son Carloman should be the successor of Ludwig II; Pope John VIII, on the contrary, wished to confer the succession upon Charles the Bald. When the news of Ludwig II’s death reached Rome the pope immediately despatched an embassy to the king of the West Franks and invited him to come and be crowned emperor. On the other hand a convocation of Lombard nobles, at which the Empress Engelberga was present, declared in favour of the king of Germany.
Charles the Bald outwitted his rival by the celerity of his action, for no more than four weeks after he had received the tidings of the emperor’s death he and his army stood upon Italian soil. But his way to Rome was barred by the sons of Ludwig, for Charles was in Italy at the time, and Carloman hurried thither from Bavaria with an army. By gross imposture, however, Charles the Bald contrived to render his opponents harmless; he concluded a compact with Carloman, according to which they were both to leave Italy, taking their armies with them, and the fate of that country was then to be decided by amicable agreement between the two kings. When Carloman, relying on this compact, had withdrawn from Italy, Charles the Bald hastened to Rome and there received the imperial crown from the pope in return for lavish gifts and promises. This clumsy fraud so enraged Ludwig the German that he undertook an expedition against the kingdom of the West Franks, not with a view to the conquest of the country but in order to compel his brother to come back from Italy and make a fair arrangement with him. But the old king himself was summoned home by mournful tidings; his wife Imma, the loyal companion of so many years, had died after protracted suffering, and her death plunged him into profound dejection. He nevertheless determined to await his brother’s return and then march against him with his sons at the head of a well-found army. But the projected expedition never came to pass, for Ludwig died soon after, in August, 876. The momentous question whether the imperial dignity and the sovereignty of Italy should pass to the kingdom of the West Franks or that of the East Franks thus remained undecided.
In retrospect the total result of the reign of Ludwig the German is seen to be not unfavourable. Amidst severe struggles he maintained his dominions intact at almost every point, and secured a valuable accession of territory from those left by Lothair II. Moreover the first vehement onslaught of the Slavonic races on the eastern division of the Frankish Empire had been successfully repulsed.
THE SONS OF LUDWIG THE GERMAN; CHARLES THE FAT (876-887 A.D.)
[876-877 A.D.]
After the death of Ludwig his three sons undertook the government conjointly. Carloman regarded Bavaria as his proper heritage, and hoped to win Italy and the imperial crown into the bargain. Charles the Fat reigned in Swabia, and Ludwig the Younger ruled over the northern provinces of the kingdom. This tripartite division was agreed upon by the three brothers at a meeting at Riess, but it had hardly time to take effect, for the assaults of foes from without and other grave disasters followed in such rapid succession that they were fully employed in remedying immediate evils.