Charles the Fat

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Charles III (839 – 13 January 888), also known as Charles the Fat, was the emperor of the Carolingian Empire^[a] from 881 to 887. A member of the Carolingian dynasty, Charles was the youngest son of Louis the German and Hemma, and a great-grandson of Charlemagne. He was the last Carolingian emperor of legitimate birth and the last to rule a united kingdom of the Franks.

Over his lifetime, Charles became ruler of the various kingdoms of Charlemagne's former empire. Granted lordship over Alamannia in 876, following the division of East Francia, he succeeded to the Italian throne upon the abdication of his older brother Carloman of Bavaria who had been incapacitated by a stroke. Crowned emperor in 881 by Pope John VIII, his succession to the territories of his brother Louis the Younger (Saxony and Bavaria) the following year reunited the kingdom of East Francia. Upon the death of his cousin Carloman II in 884, he inherited all of West Francia, thus reuniting the entire Carolingian Empire.

Usually considered lethargic and inept—he was frequently ill, and is believed to have had

The nickname "Charles the Fat" (Latin Carolus Crassus) is not contemporary. It was first used by the Annalista Saxo (the anonymous "Saxon Annalist") in the twelfth century. There is no contemporary reference to Charles's physical size, but the nickname has stuck and is the common name in most modern European languages (French Charles le Gros, German Karl der Dicke, Italian Carlo il Grosso).^[3]

His numeral is roughly contemporary. Regino of Prüm, a contemporary of Charles's recording his death, calls him "Emperor Charles, third of that name and dignity" (Latin Carolus imperator, tertius huius nominis et dignitatis).^[4]

Biography

Youth and inheritance

Charles was the youngest of the three sons of

In 876, Louis the German died and the inheritance was divided as planned after a conference at Ries, though Charles received less of his share of Lotharingia than planned. In his charters, Charles's reign in Germania is dated from his inheritance in 876.

Acquisition of Italy

Three brothers ruled in cooperation and avoided wars over the division of their patrimony: a rare occurrence in the Early Middle Ages. In 877, Carloman finally inherited Italy from his uncle Charles the Bald. Louis divided Lotharingia and offered a third to Carloman and a third to Charles. In 878, Carloman returned his Lotharingian share to Louis, who then divided it evenly with Charles. In 879, Carloman was incapacitated by a stroke and divided his domains between his brothers: Bavaria went to Louis and Italy to Charles. Charles dated his reign in Italia from this point, and from then, he spent most of his reign until 886 in his Italian kingdom.^[8]

In 880, Charles joined

Imperial coronation

On 18 July 880, Pope John VIII sent a letter to Guy II of Spoleto seeking 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 and crowned Charles emperor on 12 February 881. This was accompanied by hopes of a general revival in western Europe, but Charles proved to be unequal to the task. Charles did little to help against Guy II. Papal letters as late as November were still petitioning Charles for action.

As emperor, Charles began the construction of a palace at

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.

Rule in East Francia

In the early 880s, the remnants of the

After returning from Italy, Charles held an assembly at

When Carloman II of West Francia died on 12 December 884, the nobles of the kingdom invited Charles to assume the kingship. Charles gladly accepted, it being the third kingdom to "fall into his lap".

I will not tell you [Charles the Fat] of this [the

Abbey of Prüm] until I see your little son Bernard with a sword girt to his thigh.^[16]

After the failure of this first attempt, Charles set about to try again. He had the term proles (offspring) inserted into his charters (it had not been in previous years), in a likely attempt to legitimize Bernard.[17] In early 886 Charles met the new Pope Stephen V and probably negotiated for the recognition of his illegitimate son as heir. An assembly was planned for April and May of the following year at Waiblingen. Pope Stephen cancelled his planned attendance on 30 April 887. Nevertheless, at Waiblingen, Berengar, who after 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 his actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.^[18]

Charles eventually abandoned his plans for Bernard and instead adopted

Deposition, death, and legacy

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bishop of Vercelli. She proved her innocence in an ordeal of fire^[22] and left him for the monastic life. He then turned against Liutward, who was hated by all, and removed him from office, appointing Liutbert (archbishop of Mainz)

, in his place.

In that year, his first cousin once removed,

Emperor Louis II and wife of Boso of Provence, brought her son Louis the Blind 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 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. Aside from rebuking his faithlessness, he did little to prevent Arnulf's move—he had recently been ill again—but assured 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 Naudingen (Donaueschingen

). There he died six weeks later, on 13 January 888.

The Empire fell apart, never to be restored. According to

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.

Charles was the subject of a hortative piece of Latin prose, the Visio Karoli Grossi, designed to champion the cause of Louis the Blind and warn the Carolingians that their continued rule was not certain if they did not have "divine" (i.e. ecclesiastical) favour.^[23]

See also

• Family tree of the German monarchs

Notes

1. ^ This is the term preferred by scholars for the early phase of what became the Holy Roman Empire of the high Middle Ages and the early modern period. He is numbered as "Charles III" in the lists on German monarch but was not counted as king of France (despite briefly ruling over West Francia) by Charles V when he adopted his regnal number.^[1]

References

1. JSTOR 23408518
   .
2. ^ "Karl III". Neue Deutsche Biographie.
3. ^ MacLean, 2.
4. ^ Airlie, 129.
5. ^ Reuter, 72.
6. ^ ^{a b} AF, 875 (p. 77 and n8).
7. ^ MacLean, 70.
8. ^ Chris Wickham (1981), Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society, 400–1000 (Macmillan), 169.
9. ^ MacLean, 187–188.
10. ^ ^{a b} AF(B), 883 (p. 107 and nn6–7).
11. ^ Reuter.
12. ^ MacLean, pp. 166–168, quoting Regino of Prüm.
13. ^ ^{a b} Smith, 192.
14. ^ MacLean, 127.
15. ^ ^{a b} Reuter, 116–117. AF(M), 885 (pp. 98–99 and nn6–7) and AF(B), 885 (p. 111 and n2).
16. ^ ^{a b} MacLean, 131.
17. ^ MacLean, 132.
18. ^ AF(B), 887 (p. 113 and nn3–4).
19. ^ MacLean, 167.
20. ^ ^{a b} Reuter, 119.
21. ^ MacLean, pp. 167–168.
22. ^ Agnes Baillie Cunninghame Dunbar (1905). A Dictionary of Saintly Women. Vol. 2. Bell. p. 186. Charles suffered excruciating pains in his head and attributed it to some sort of diabolic possession, for which he was exorcised, but the pain continued. Then he had incisions made in his head to get rid of the devil, but the pain only grew worse. Among other delusions, he suspected his wife of misconduct with Luitward, bishop of Vercelli. She demanded to clear her character, either by having a champion to fight for her or by some other ordeal. The trial consisted of the accused being wrapped in linen cloth soaked with inflammable liquid and set on fire at the four corners. It was burnt away to nothing, and the innocent queen remained unhurt. Thus was her innocence proved.
23. ^ Paul Edward Dutton. "Charles the Fat's Constitutional Dreams," in The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1994, 225–251.

Bibliography

• Airlie, Stuart. "'Sad stories of the death of kings': Narrative Patterns and Structures of Authority in Regino of Prüm's Chronicle." In Elizabeth M. Tyler and Ross Balzaretti (eds.), Narrative and History in the Early Medieval West, pp. 105–32. Brepols, 2006.
• Duckett, Eleanor. Death and Life in the Tenth Century. University of Michigan Press, 1968.
• Leyser, Karl. Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries. London, 1994.
• MacLean, Simon. Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge University Press: 2003.
• 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.
• Smith, Julia M. H. Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians. Cambridge University Press: 1992.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles the Fat.

• Annales Fuldenses translated by Timothy Reuter, with commentary (subscription needed)., medievalsources.co.uk

Emperor Charles III Carolingian dynasty Born: 839 Died: 13 January 888
Regnal titles
Preceded by Louis II as King of East Francia	King of Alemannia 28 August 876 – 20 January 882	Succeeded by Himself as King of East Francia
Preceded by Carloman of Bavaria	King of Italy 879–887	Succeeded by Berengar I
Vacant Title last held by Charles II	Carolingian emperor 881–888	Vacant Title next held by Guy
Preceded by Louis III the Younger	Lotharingia 20 January 882	Succeeded by Himself as King of East Francia
Preceded by Himself as Saxony, and Bavaria	King of East Francia 20 January 882 – 17 November 887	Succeeded by Arnulf of Carinthia as King of East Francia
		Succeeded by Rudolph I of Burgundy as King of Upper Burgundy
Preceded by Carloman II	King of West Francia 884–888	Succeeded by Odo as King of West Francia
		Succeeded by Ranulf II of Aquitaine as King of Aquitaine