Lothair II of Italy

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Lothair II
Berengar II
Born926/8
Died22 November 950
SpouseAdelaide of Italy (m. 947)
IssueEmma, Queen of West Francia
DynastyBosonids
FatherHugh of Provence
MotherAlda (or Hilda)

Lothair II (926/8 – 22 November 950), often Lothair of Arles, was the King of Italy from 947 to his death. He was of the noble Frankish lineage of the Bosonids, descended from Boso the Elder. His father and predecessor was Hugh of Provence, great-grandson of Lothair II, King of Lotharingia, and his mother was a German princess named Alda (or Hilda).

Although he held the title of rex Italiae, he never succeeded in exercising power there. In 931, Lothair's father, Hugh, made him co-regent.[1] He was married, 12 December 947, to the fifteen-year-old Adelaide,[2] the spirited and intelligent[according to whom?] daughter of Rudolph II of Burgundy and Bertha of Swabia.[3]

Their marriage was part of a political settlement designed to conclude a peace between her father and his. In 933, Hugh of Arles had given up his kingdom (Provence) to his inveterate enemy Rudolph II, who merged the two kingdoms into a new

Carolingian Lothair of France
.

Lothair's power in Italy was nominal. From the time of the successful uprising of the nobles in 945, when Hugh was forced into exile,

Otto I of Germany
, whom she married.

Lothair figures briefly in the part related to Adelaide in the Gesta Ottonis, an epic poem about

Hroswitha of Gandersheim
.

References

Bibliography


Regnal titles
Preceded by
Hugh
King of Italy
947–950
Succeeded by
Berengar II