Louis the Younger
Louis the Younger | |
---|---|
Carolingian | |
Father | Louis II |
Mother | Emma of Altdorf |
Louis the Younger (830/835 – 20 January 882), sometimes called Louis the Saxon
Military youth
As a young man, Louis was deployed in military operations against the
Back home, Louis forged close ties with the nobles of East Francia and became increasingly independent from his father. He engaged himself to the daughter of Count Adalard and, in 865, he and his brother Charles joined in rebellion against their father. This flirtation with revolt was brief, however, and Louis, Charles, and their father were reconciled later that year, though the elder Louis was forced to make a division of the remainder of his territories between his two sons. Carloman had already been given the
In 869, Louis married Liutgard, daughter of Liudolf, Duke of Saxony, at Aschaffenburg. Liutgard was a strong-willed and politically ambitious woman and later on spurred her husband to pursue ambitious goals. This match increased tensions between father and son and in 871 and in 873, Louis rebelled, but, on each occasion, he later reconciled with his father.
Rule in Saxony
Upon his father's death in 876, Louis fully inherited his subkingdoms, bearing the title rex Francorum ("king of the Franks"). Louis the Younger considered himself the true heir of Louis the German and as his father died in 876, Louis buried him in the abbey of
Acquisition of Lotharingia and Bavaria
Louis's rule was immediately threatened by Charles the Bald, who tried to annex the eastern parts of Lotharingia and maybe even to achieve supremacy over his nephew. Louis brought war on Charles and, on 8 October 876 at Andernach, he defeated the much-larger host of West Francia. The East Frankish army displayed superiority in both unity and tactics, and the young king had even dressed his soldiers in white garments so that they appeared as an army of spirits.
After this victory, Louis the German's three sons met in November at Nördlingen to discuss the division of their father's kingdom and to have their hosts swear allegiance. According to the plan drawn up in 865, which their father, despite all his sons' rebellions, had confirmed in 872, Carloman received Bavaria, Charles Swabia, and Louis Saxony, Franconia, and Thuringia. Throughout his reign, though he is always called "King of Saxony" by historians, he never visited Saxony proper, though it formed the bulk of his territory. At the end of 877, the brothers assembled again to discuss the administration of their half of Lotharingia. After Carloman relinquished his claim, the realm was divided between Louis and Charles, who again met in September 878 in Alsatia. In 879, Carloman was incapacitated by a stroke and named Louis as his successor (and erstwhile regent) in Bavaria. Louis received it outright a year later when Carloman expired.
In November 878, after the death of Charles the Bald, his heir,
Relationship with the nobility
In contrast to his father, Louis the Younger preferred reconciling royal interests with those of the nobility and avoided confrontation. He managed to bind powerful families to the king, including the
Viking incursions
Since the summer of 879,
Death and succession
Louis fell sick in 881 and died in
Family
Louis the Younger married
- Louis (876 - November 879)
- Hildegard (875/878 or 881 - after 900)
- Bernhart
- Hugo (ca. 855/860 - February 880), illegitimate son[7]
- Adalhard, illegitimate son
See also
- Kings of Germany family tree
Notes
- ^ Weinzierl, Eduard von (1877). Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Geschichte (in German). Austrian National Library. p. 110.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Bradshaw, George (1867). Illustrated hand-book to Germany. London. pp. xxi.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Louis III, Holy Roman Emperor, or Louis the Child.
- ^ McKitterick 1999, p. 354.
- ^ Reuter, 72.
- ^ As "prefect of the marches." Bowlus, 569.
- ^ a b c McKitterick 1995, p. 234-235.
- ^ McKitterick 1999, p. 235.
Sources
- Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages 476–918. London: Rivingtons, 1914.
- McKitterick, Rosamond (1995). The Carolingians and the Written Word. Cambridge University Press.
- McKitterick, Rosamond (1999). The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians. Pearson Education Limited.
- Bowlus, Charles R. "Imre Boba's Reconsiderations of Moravia's Early History and Arnulf of Carinthia's Ostpolitik (887-892). Speculum, Vol. 62, No. 3. (Jul., 1987), pp 552–574.
- Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages, c. 800–1056. Longman, 1991.
- Annales Fuldenses translated by Timothy Reuter, with commentary (subscription needed).
External links
- The Dissolution of the Frankish Empire at Historical Atlas. Good for maps of Louis's realm and his brothers'.