Lambert of Italy

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Lambert of Italy
Guideschi
FatherGuy III of Spoleto
MotherAgeltrude

Lambert (c. 880 – 15 October 898)

Carolingian
tradition.

Confronting Arnulf

Lambert was crowned king in May 891 at

Formosus wanted instead to crown Arnulf and was imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo
.

Lambert was preoccupied in thwarting the attempts of both Arnulf of Carinthia and Berengar of Friuli to take Italy for themselves during his reign. Early on,

Principality of Benevento from the Byzantines. Despite the urging of Fulk of Rheims on his behalf, Lambert found himself abandoned by the Pope, who feared the increased power of the Spoletan house. In September, an embassy arrived in Regensburg beseeching Arnulf's aid.[5] In October, Arnulf undertook his second campaign into Italy. He crossed the Alps quickly and took Pavia, but then he continued slowly. While Lambert refused to offer battle, Arnulf was garnering support among the nobility of Tuscany. Even Adalbert joined him. Finding Rome locked against him and held by Ageltrude, Arnulf took the city by force on 21 February 896, freeing the pope.[6] Arnulf was there crowned King and Emperor by Pope Formosus, who declared Lambert deposed. Arnulf marched on Spoleto, where Ageltrude had fled to Lambert, but Arnulf suffered a stroke and had to call off the campaign.[7] That same year, Formosus died, leaving Lambert once again in power.[citation needed
]

Renovatio regni Francorum

After Arnulf returned to Germany and until his death,[

Adda and the Po and Lambert the rest.[8] They shared Bergamo. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. Lambert also pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona
to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs.

In early 897, Lambert journeyed to Rome with Ageltrude and Guy to receive reconfirmation of his imperial title.[9] The vengeful Lambert and Ageltrude also persuaded Pope Stephen VI, elected by their influence, to put the corpse of Formosus on trial for various crimes.[citation needed] The body, stripped of its papal robes and mutilated, was thrown into the river Tiber after the "Cadaver Synod."[10] In January 898, Pope John IX rehabilitated Formosus against their will. Lambert convened a diet at Ravenna in February. Seventy bishops met and confirmed the pact of 891, the invalidity of Arnulf's coronation, and the validity of Lambert's imperial title.[11] They legitimised the election of John IX. They also solved the Formosan question and confirmed his rehabilitation.[12] Most significantly for Lambert, however, they reaffirmed the Constitutio Romana of Lothair I (824), which required the imperial presence at papal elections.[11]

Lambert hereafter governed with the church and continued the policy of his father of

Lex Romana Utinensis
was composed at his court.

His rule was recognized in Benevento after the restoration of Prince Radelchis II in 897.[13]

Battle of Marengo

However, Lambert still had to face Berengar of Friuli and the rebellious Adalbert of Tuscany.

Borgo San Donnino, taking him prisoner to Pavia. On his return to Marengo however, he was killed, either by assassination (by Hugh, son of Maginulf), a theory about which Liutprand, our primary source, is reserved, or by falling from his horse.[citation needed] He was buried in Piacenza. Liutprand remembered him as an elegans iuvenis and vir severus: "an elegant youth and a stern man". His epitaph (in Latin elegiac couplets
) is:

Sanguine præcipuō Francōrum germinis ortus
Lambertus fuit hīc Caesar in Urbe potēns
Alter erat Cōnstantīnus, Theodōsius alter
Et prīnceps pācis clārus amōre nimis
Born with the distinguished blood of the stock of the Franks,
Lambert was here Emperor, holding power in the City (of Rome);
He was another
Constantine, another Theodosius
,
and a prince of peace, excessively renowned with love.

He was succeeded in Spoleto by

imperium Romanum were thrown into chaos, contested by multiple candidates.[16]
Within days, Berengar had taken Pavia.

References

  1. ^ a b Carpegna Falconieri
  2. ^ a b Comyn, pg. 82
  3. ^ Mann, III, pg. 378
  4. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 50
  5. ^ a b c Mann, IV, pg. 51
  6. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 52
  7. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 53
  8. ^ Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages, pg. 24
  9. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 80
  10. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 82
  11. ^ a b Mann, IV, pg. 95
  12. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 94
  13. ^ Kreutz, pg. 178
  14. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 87
  15. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 97
  16. ^ Mann, IV, pg. 98

Sources

  • Carpegna Falconieri, Tommaso di. Lamberto. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LXIII. Rome: 2004, pp. 208–211.
  • Comyn, Robert. History of the Western Empire, from its Restoration by Charlemagne to the Accession of Charles V, Vol. I. 1851
  • Kreutz, Barbara (1996). Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Mann, Horace, K. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. III: The Popes During the Carolingian Empire, 858–891. 1925
  • Mann, Horace, K. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. IV: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy, 891–999. 1925
  • Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society 400–1000. MacMillan Press: 1981.
Emperor Lambert
House of Guideschi
Born: c. 880 Died: 15 October 898
Regnal titles
Preceded by Holy Roman Emperor
892–898 		Succeeded by
King of Italy
891–898
Italian nobility
Preceded by
Duke of Spoleto

894–898 		Succeeded by
Margrave of Camerino

894–898
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