Edgar Allan Poe -- Nevermore

 

Edgar Allan Poe (né Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States, and of American literature. He was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction. He is the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Poe was born in Boston, the second child of actors David and Elizabeth "Eliza" Poe. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and when his mother died the following year, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but he was with them well into young adulthood. He attended the University of Virginia but left after a year due to lack of money. He quarreled with John Allan over the funds for his education, and his gambling debts. In 1827, having enlisted in the United States Army under an assumed name, he published his first collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems, credited only to "a Bostonian". Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement after the death of Allan's wife in 1829. Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declared a firm wish to be a poet and writer, and parted ways with Allan.

Poe switched his focus to prose, and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In 1836, he married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, but she died of tuberculosis in 1847. In January 1845, he published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. He planned for years to produce his own journal The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), but before it could be produced, he died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849, aged 40, under mysterious circumstances. The cause of his death remains unknown, and has been variously attributed to many causes including disease, alcoholism, substance abuse, and suicide.

Poe and his works influenced literature around the world, as well as specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. He and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre. 

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second child of American actor David Poe Jr. and English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. He had an elder brother, Henry, and a younger sister, Rosalie. Their grandfather, David Poe, had emigrated from County Cavan, Ireland, around 1750.

His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful merchant in Richmond, Virginia, who dealt in a variety of goods, including cloth, wheat, tombstones, tobacco, and slaves. The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe", although they never formally adopted him.

The Allan family had Poe baptized into the Episcopal Church in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son. The family sailed to the United Kingdom in 1815, and Poe attended the grammar school for a short period in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland (where Allan was born) before rejoining the family in London in 1816. There he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until summer 1817. He was subsequently entered at the Reverend John Bransby's Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb 4 miles (6 km) north of London.

Poe moved with the Allans back to Richmond in 1820. In 1824, he served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as the city celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette. In March 1825, Allan's uncle and business benefactor William Galt died, who was said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, leaving Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at $750,000 (equivalent to $19,000,000 in 2022). By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick house called Moldavia.

Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the University of Virginia in February 1826 to study ancient and modern languages. The university was in its infancy, established on the ideals of its founder Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco, and alcohol, but these rules were mostly ignored. Jefferson enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate. During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. He claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased. Poe gave up on the university after a year but did not feel welcome returning to Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married another man, Alexander Shelton. He traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer, and started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet during this period.

Poe was unable to support himself, so he enlisted in the United States Army as a private on May 27, 1827, using the name "Edgar A. Perry". He claimed that he was 22 years old even though he was 18. He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month. That year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry titled Tamerlane and Other Poems, attributed with the byline "by a Bostonian". Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received virtually no attention. Poe's regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina, and traveled by ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827. Poe was promoted to "artificer", an enlisted tradesman who prepared shells for artillery, and had his monthly pay doubled. He served for two years and attained the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery (the highest rank that a non-commissioned officer could achieve); he then sought to end his five-year enlistment early. He revealed his real name and his circumstances to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard, who would allow Poe to be discharged only if he reconciled with Allan. Poe wrote a letter to Allan, who was unsympathetic and spent several months ignoring Poe's pleas; Allan may not have written to Poe even to make him aware of his foster mother's illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829, and Poe visited the day after her burial. Perhaps softened by his wife's death, Allan agreed to support Poe's attempt to be discharged in order to receive an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Poe was finally discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him. Before entering West Point, he moved to Baltimore for a time to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter Virginia Eliza Clemm (Poe's first cousin), his brother Henry, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe. In September of that year, Poe received "the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard" in a review of his poetry by influential critic John Neal, prompting Poe to dedicate one of the poems to Neal in his second book Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, published in Baltimore in 1829.

Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830. In October 1830, Allan married his second wife Louisa Patterson. The marriage and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of extramarital affairs led to the foster father finally disowning Poe. Poe decided to leave West Point by purposely getting court-martialed. On February 8, 1831, he was tried for gross neglect of duty and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. He tactically pleaded not guilty to induce dismissal, knowing that he would be found guilty.

Poe left for New York in February 1831 and released a third volume of poems, simply titled Poems. The book was financed with help from his fellow cadets at West Point, many of whom donated 75 cents to the cause, raising a total of $170. They may have been expecting verses similar to the satirical ones Poe had written about commanding officers. It was printed by Elam Bliss of New York, labeled as "Second Edition", and including a page saying, "To the U.S. Corps of Cadets this volume is respectfully dedicated". The book once again reprinted the long poems "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf" but also six previously unpublished poems, including early versions of "To Helen", "Israfel", and "The City in the Sea". Poe returned to Baltimore to his aunt, brother, and cousin in March 1831. His elder brother Henry had been in ill health, in part due to problems with alcoholism, and he died on August 1, 1831.

After his brother's death, Poe began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer, but he chose a difficult time in American publishing to do so. He was one of the first Americans to live by writing alone and was hampered by the lack of an international copyright law. American publishers often produced unauthorized copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans. The industry was also particularly hurt by the Panic of 1837. There was a booming growth in American periodicals around this time, fueled in part by new technology, but many did not last beyond a few issues. Publishers often refused to pay their writers or paid them much later than they promised, and Poe repeatedly resorted to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.

After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to prose, likely based on John Neal's critiques in The Yankee magazine. He placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama Politian. The Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded him a prize in October 1833 for his short story "MS. Found in a Bottle". The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means who helped Poe place some of his stories and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in August 1835, but White discharged him within a few weeks for being drunk on the job. Poe returned to Baltimore where he obtained a license to marry his cousin Virginia on September 22, 1835, though it is unknown if they were married at that time. He was 26 and she was 13.

Poe was reinstated by White after promising good behavior, and he went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother. He remained at the Messenger until January 1837. During this period, Poe claimed that its circulation increased from 700 to 3,500. He published several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he and Virginia held a Presbyterian wedding ceremony performed by Amasa Converse at their Richmond boarding house, with a witness falsely attesting Clemm's age as 21.

Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was published and widely reviewed in 1838. In the summer of 1839, he became assistant editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. He published numerous articles, stories, and reviews, enhancing his reputation as a trenchant critic which he had established at the Messenger. Also in 1839, the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes, though he made little money from it and it received mixed reviews.

In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his own journal called The Stylus, although he originally intended to call it The Penn, as it would have been based in Philadelphia. He bought advertising space for his prospectus in the June 6, 1840, issue of Philadelphia's Saturday Evening Post: "Prospectus of the Penn Magazine, a Monthly Literary journal to be edited and published in the city of Philadelphia by Edgar A. Poe." The journal was never produced before Poe's death.

Poe left Burton's after about a year and found a position as writer and co-editor at the then-very-successful monthly Graham's Magazine. In the last number of Graham's for 1841, Poe was among the co-signatories to an editorial note of celebration of the tremendous success the magazine had achieved in the past year: "Perhaps the editors of no magazine, either in America or in Europe, ever sat down, at the close of a year, to contemplate the progress of their work with more satisfaction than we do now. Our success has been unexampled, almost incredible. We may assert without fear of contradiction that no periodical ever witnessed the same increase during so short a period."

Around this time, Poe attempted to secure a position within the administration of President John Tyler, claiming that he was a member of the Whig Party. He hoped to be appointed to the United States Custom House in Philadelphia with help from President Tyler's son Robert, an acquaintance of Poe's friend Frederick Thomas. Poe failed to show up for a meeting with Thomas to discuss the appointment in mid-September 1842, claiming to have been sick, though Thomas believed that he had been drunk. Poe was promised an appointment, but all positions were filled by others

One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of consumption, or tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano, which Poe described as breaking a blood vessel in her throat. She only partially recovered, and Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of her illness. He left Graham's and attempted to find a new position, for a time angling for a government post. He returned to New York where he worked briefly at the Evening Mirror before becoming editor of the Broadway Journal, and later its owner. There Poe alienated himself from other writers by publicly accusing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism, though Longfellow never responded. On January 29, 1845, Poe's poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation. It made Poe a household name almost instantly, though he was paid only $9 for its publication. It was concurrently published in The American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym "Quarles".

The Broadway Journal failed in 1846, and Poe moved to a cottage in Fordham, New York, in the Bronx. That home, now known as the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, was relocated in later years to a park near the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road. Nearby, Poe befriended the Jesuits at St. John's College, now Fordham University. Virginia died at the cottage on January 30, 1847. Biographers and critics often suggest that Poe's frequent theme of the "death of a beautiful woman" stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his wife.

Poe was increasingly unstable after his wife's death. He attempted to court poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Their engagement failed, purportedly because of Poe's drinking and erratic behavior. There is also strong evidence that Whitman's mother intervened and did much to derail their relationship. Poe then returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with his childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found semiconscious in Baltimore, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to Joseph W. Walker, who found him.^[73] He was taken to the Washington Medical College, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning.^[74] Poe was not coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition and why he was wearing clothes that were not his own. He is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. His attending physician said that Poe's final words were, "Lord help my poor soul".^[74] All of the relevant medical records have been lost, including Poe's death certificate.^[75]

Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for death from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. The actual cause of death remains a mystery. Speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation, cholera, carbon monoxide poisoning, and rabies. One theory dating from 1872 suggests that Poe's death resulted from cooping, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder. Wikipedia

 

 

 

Emengarde of Italy, Queen of Provence

Ermengard of Italy (died 896/897) was Queen of Provence as the spouse of King Boso. She was the second and only surviving daughter of Louis II, Holy Roman Emperor. In her early life, she was betrothed to the junior Byzantine Emperor Constantine, but whether the marriage actually occurred or not is still debated among historians. In 871, Ermengard and her famly were taken hostage by Adelchis of Benevento but were later freed. In 876 Ermengard married Boso, a nobleman with connections to the Carolingian dynasty and became queen upon his accession to the throne of Provence in 879. After her husband's death in 887, she served as regent of the kingdom during the minority of her son Louis the Blind. 

Ermengard was the daughter of Emperor Louis II and his wife Engelberga. She was also a great-niece of Emperor Charles the Bald. In her youth, she was instructed in the scriptures by Anastasius Bibliothecarius. In 869, the courts of the Carolingian and Byzantine Empires entered into discussions to arrange an alliance against the Saracens in southern Italy. During the negotiations, in addition to a military alliance, a marriage between Ermengard and Constantine, the eldest son of Emperor Basil I, was proposed.

Ermengard and Constantine were betrothed in 870/871.^[6][7][8] To this end, an ambassador was sent by Louis to the Byzantine Empire. The Carolingian and Frankish annals Annales Bertiniani referred to Ermengard in 879 as "filia imperatoris Italiae et desponsata imperatori Greciae". However, the annals errnoeously refer to Ermengard's betrothed as Basil, not Constantine. Whether the marriage actually occurred is still debated among historians. The historians Charles Previté-Orton and Werner Ohnsorge take the position that they married, but Shaun Tougher argues that there is no evidence of this, considering the arrangement more of a child's engagement than a true marriage, given that Constantine may have been 13/14 at the time and many Byzantine men married at age 15. Louis refused to hand over Ermengard to the Patriarch sent by the Byzantines to bring her to the Byzantine Empire. The alliance between the empires failed to come into frution, and in the Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit (lit. 'Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period'), its authors, including the Byzantinist Ralph-Johannes Lilie, argue that the marriage of Ermengard and Constantine did not either. Instead, the correspondence between Louis II and Basil I reveal a feud over the right to the imperial Roman title,^[1] Basil refusing to yield the status of Roman Emperor to Louis.

In August 871, Ermengard, along with the rest of her family, were held hostage by Adelchis of Benevento. They remained in captivity until September; during that time, rumors circulated that the imperial family were dead. The Bishop of Benevento managed to have them freed, and Ermengard is not mentioned by chronicles until her marriage in 876.

In 876, sometime between February and June, with the approval of Charles, Ermengard was married to Boso of Provence, who was a nobleman with close relations to the Carolingian dynasty. Based on her betrothal to Constantine, the medievalist René Poupardin placed Ermengard somewhere between 17 and 25 years old at the time of her marriage to Boso. In 879, the West Frankish king Louis the Stammerer died. Boso intended to have himself elected as the new monarch of West Francia, but ended up as ruler of Provence. His rise to the throne of Provence was aided by Ermengard and her mother Engelberga. The historian Constance Bouchard states that "Ermengard was indeed quoted at the time as saying that she, daughter of the Roman emperor, who had once been affianced to the Greek emperor, would not want to live if she could not make her own husband king". The couple had three surviving children: a son, Louis the Blind, and two daughters, Engelberga and an unnamed child.

In 878, Ermengard and her husband welcomed Pope John VIII in Arles, who was fleeing Rome. The couple made a good impression on the pontiff, revaled by his correspondence with Ermengard's mother Engelberga. Boso died in 887, leaving his children under the protection of Ermengard. In May of that year, Ermengard travelled with her son to the court of her cousin Emperor Charles the Fat, and according to the East Frankish Annales Fuldenses, she managed to convince her cousin to, as Bouchard puts it, "'quasi-adopt' Boso's young son Louis as his own son". In 890, Louis was elected to succeed to his father's kingdom of Provence. During the minority of her son, Queen Ermengard served as regent of Provence.

Ermengard died in 896/897. In June 897, Ermengard's son Louis requested prayers for the repose of the souls of both his parents.

 

 

Louis II the Younger, King of Italy and Emperor of the Carolingian Empire

 

Louis II (825 – 12 August 875), sometimes called the Younger,was the king of Italy and emperor of the Carolingian Empire from 844, co-ruling with his father Lothair I until 855, after which he ruled alone.

Louis's usual title was imperator augustus ("august emperor"), but he used imperator Romanorum ("emperor of the Romans") after his conquest of Bari in 871, which led to poor relations with the Eastern Roman Empire. He was called imperator Italiae ("emperor of Italy") in West Francia while the Byzantines called him Basileus Phrangias ("Emperor of Francia").

The chronicler Andreas of Bergamo, who is the main source for Louis's activities in southern Italy, notes that "after his death a great tribulation came to Italy.

Louis was born in 825, the eldest son of the junior emperor Lothair I and his wife Ermengarde of Tours. His father was the son of the reigning emperor, Louis the Pious. Little is known about his early life, except that he grew up in his grandfather's court and probably developed a warm affection for the emperor who, in 839, designated his grandson as King of Italy, and let Louis take up his residence in that country.

Louis the Pious died the next year, and his empire was partitioned between his sons, Louis' father, Lothair, and Louis' uncle, Louis the German. Under his father's rule, he was crowned king and co-emperor to the middle-aged Emperor Lothair I at Rome by Pope Sergius II on 15 June 844. This ceremony mirrors the crowning of Lothair I by his father, a tradition started by Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious, who were, respectively, great grandfather and grandfather of Louis II. 

 Louis II immediately claimed the rights of an emperor in the city, a claim which was decisively rejected; but in 850 he was crowned joint emperor at Rome by Pope Leo IV, and soon afterwards, in 851, married Engelberga and undertook the independent government of Italy. He marched into the south of Italy in the year of his imperial coronation and compelled the rival dukes of Benevento, Radelchis I and Siconulf, to make peace. His mediation split the Lombard duchy and gave Radelchis his share with Benevento as his capital, whilst Salerno was given to Siconulf as an independent principality. Radelchis, now pacified, had no need of his Aghlabids mercenaries and happily betrayed them to the emperor. Louis fell on them and they were massacred. He then quashed some accusations against Pope Leo and held a Diet at Pavia. He confirmed the usurping regent Peter as prince of Salerno in December 853, displacing the dynasty he had installed there three years earlier. On the death of his father in September 855, he became sole emperor. 

The division of Lothair's dominions, by which he obtained no territory outside Italy, aroused his discontent, and in 857 he allied himself with Louis the German against his own brother Lothair II, and King Charles the Bald. But after Louis had secured the election of Pope Nicholas I in 858, he became reconciled with his brother, and received some lands south of the Jura mountains in return for assistance given to Lothair in his efforts to obtain a divorce from his wife, Teutberga.

In 863, upon the death of his brother Charles, Louis received the kingdom of Provence, and in 864 came into collision with Pope Nicholas I over his brother's divorce. The archbishops, who had been deposed by Nicholas for proclaiming this marriage invalid, obtained the support of the emperor, who reached Rome with an army in February 864; but, having been seized with fever, he made peace with the pope and left the city. 

In his efforts to restore order in Italy, Louis met with considerable success both against Italy's turbulent princes and against the Aghlabids who were ravaging southern Italy. In 866, after issuing a call for assistance to fight the Muslims, he routed these invaders, but could not follow up his successes owing to the lack of a fleet. So in 869 he made alliance with the eastern emperor, Basil I, who sent him ships to assist in the capture of Bari, capital of the Emirate of Bari, which succumbed in 871.

Meanwhile, his brother Lothair had died in 869, and owing to his detention in southern Italy, Louis failed to prevent the partition of Lotharingia between Louis the German and Charles the Bald. Some jealousy between Louis and Basil followed the victory at Bari, and in reply to an insult from the eastern emperor Louis attempted to justify his right to the title "emperor of the Romans."

He had withdrawn into Benevento to prepare for a further campaign when he was treacherously attacked in his palace, robbed and imprisoned by Adelchis, prince of Benevento, in August 871. The capture of Louis was lamented in a contemporary short poem, the Rythmus de captivitate Ludovici imperatoris. The landing of fresh bands of Aghlabids compelled Adelchis to release his prisoner a month later, and Louis was forced to swear he would take no revenge for this injury, nor ever enter Benevento with an army. Returning to Rome, he was released from his oath, and was crowned a second time as emperor by Pope Adrian II on 18 May 872.

Then Louis won further successes against the Aghlabids, relieving the siege of Salerno and driving them from Capua, but the emperor's attempts to punish Adelchis were not very successful. Returning to northern Italy, he died, near Ghedi, in what is now the province of Brescia, on 12 August 875, having named as his successor in Italy his cousin Carloman, son of Louis the German. Louis was buried in the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lothair I, King of the Franks, Emperor of the Romans,

 Lothair I or Lothar I (Dutch and Medieval Latin: Lotharius; German: Lothar; French: Lothaire; Italian: Lotario; 795 – 29 September 855) was emperor (817–855, co-ruling with his father until 840), and the governor of Bavaria (815–817), King of Italy (818–855) and Middle Francia (840–855).

Lothair was the eldest son of the Carolingian emperor Louis the Pious and his wife Ermengarde of Hesbaye, daughter of Ingerman the duke of Hesbaye. On several occasions, Lothair led his full-brothers Pepin I of Aquitaine and Louis the German in revolt against their father to protest against attempts to make their half-brother Charles the Bald a co-heir to the Frankish domains. Upon the father's death, Charles and Louis joined forces against Lothair in a three-year civil war (840–843). The struggles between the brothers led directly to the breakup of the Frankish Empire assembled by their grandfather Charlemagne, and laid the foundation for the development of modern France and Germany.

Lothair was born in 795, to Louis the Pious and Ermengarde of Hesbaye. His father was the son of the reigning Emperor, Charlemagne. Little is known of Lothair's early life, which was probably passed at the court of his grandfather Charlemagne. In 814, the elderly emperor died, and left his sole surviving legitimate son Louis the Pious as successor to his vast empire. The next year, Lothair would be sent to govern Bavaria for his father, the new emperor.^[1] In 817, Louis the Pious drew up his Ordinatio Imperii. In this, Louis designated Lothair as his principal heir and ordered that Lothair would be the overlord of Louis' younger sons Pippin of Aquitaine (who was 20) and Louis the German (who was 13), as well as his nephew (Lothair's cousin) Bernard of Italy. Lothair would also inherit their lands if they were to die childless. Lothair, aged 22, was then crowned joint emperor by his father at Aachen. At the same time, Aquitaine and Bavaria were granted to his brothers Pippin and Louis, respectively, as subsidiary kingdoms. Following the death of Bernard, brought on by his plotting against and blinding by Louis the Pious, Lothair also received the Kingdom of Italy. In 821, Lothair married Ermengarde (d. 851), daughter of Hugh the Count of Tours.

In 822, he assumed the government of Italy, and at Easter, 5 April 823, he was crowned emperor again by Pope Paschal I, this time at Rome. In November 824, Lothair promulgated a statute, the Constitutio Romana, concerning the relations of pope and emperor, which reserved the supreme power to the secular potentate, and he afterwards issued various ordinances for the good government of Italy.

On Lothair's return to his father's court, his stepmother Judith won his consent to her plan for securing a kingdom for her son Charles, a scheme which was carried out in 829, when the young prince was given Alemannia as king. Lothair, however, soon changed his attitude and spent the succeeding decade in constant strife over the division of the Empire with his father. He was alternately master of the Empire, and banished and confined to Italy, at one time taking up arms in alliance with his brothers and at another fighting against them, whilst the bounds of his appointed kingdom were in turn extended and reduced.

In 855 he became seriously ill, and despairing of recovery renounced the throne, divided his lands among his three sons, and on 23 September entered the monastery of Prüm, where he died six days later. He was buried at Prüm, where his remains were found in 1860. It was at Prüm that Lothair was most commemorated.The same year, Lothair's kingdom was divided between his three sons in a deal called the Treaty of Prüm: the eldest, Louis II, received Italy and the title of emperor; the second, Lothair II, received Lotharingia; the youngest, Charles, received Provence. Wikipedia

 

 

Louis I, The Pious, Holy Roman Emperor

 

Louis the Pious (German: Ludwig der Fromme; French: Louis le Pieux; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only surviving son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position that he held until his death except from 833 to 834, when he was deposed.

During his reign in Aquitaine, Louis was charged with the defence of the empire's southwestern frontier. He conquered Barcelona from the Emirate of Córdoba in 801 and asserted Frankish authority over Pamplona and the Basques south of the Pyrenees in 812. As emperor, he included his adult sons, Lothair, Pepin and Louis, in the government and sought to establish a suitable division of the realm among them. The first decade of his reign was characterised by several tragedies and embarrassments, notably the brutal treatment of his nephew Bernard of Italy for which Louis atoned in a public act of self-debasement.

In the 830s his empire was torn by civil war between his sons that was only exacerbated by Louis's attempts to include his son Charles by his second wife in the succession plans. Though his reign ended on a high note, with order largely restored to his empire, it was followed by three years of civil war. Louis is generally compared unfavourably to his father but faced a distinctly different sort of problems.

While at his palace of Doué, Anjou, Louis received news of his father's death. He rushed to Aachen and crowned himself emperor to shouts of Vivat Imperator Ludovicus by the attending nobles.

Upon arriving at the imperial court in Aachen in an atmosphere of suspicion and anxiety on both sides, Louis's first act was to purge the palace of what he considered undesirable. He destroyed the old Germanic pagan tokens and texts which had been collected by Charlemagne. He further exiled members of the court he deemed morally "dissolute", including some of his own relatives.

He quickly sent all of his many unmarried (half-)sisters and nieces to nunneries in order to avoid any possible entanglements from overly powerful brothers-in-law. Sparing his illegitimate half-brothers Drogo, Hugh and Theoderic, he forced his father's cousins, Adalard and Wala to be tonsured, sending them into monastic exile at St-Philibert on the island of Noirmoutier and Corbie, respectively, despite the latter's initial loyalty.

He made Bernard, margrave of Septimania, and Ebbo, Archbishop of Reims his chief counsellors. The latter, born a serf, was raised by Louis to that office, but betrayed him later. He retained some of his father's ministers, such as Elisachar, abbot of St. Maximin near Trier, and Hildebold, Archbishop of Cologne. Later he replaced Elisachar with Hildwin, abbot of many monasteries.

He also employed Benedict of Aniane (the Second Benedict), a Septimanian Visigoth, whom he made abbot of the newly established Inden Monastery at Aix-la-Chapelle and charged him with the reform of the Frankish church. One of Benedict's primary reforms was to ensure that all religious houses in Louis's realm adhered to the Rule of Saint Benedict, named for its creator, Benedict of Nursia. From the start of his reign, his coinage imitated his father Charlemagne's portrait, which gave it an image of imperial authority and prestige. In 816, Pope Stephen IV, who had succeeded Leo III, visited Reims and again crowned Louis on Sunday 5 October. As a result, most French kings were crowned in Reims, following the custom established by Louis the Pious. 

 

 

Berenger I, King of Italy

 

Berengar I (Latin: Berengarius, Perngarius; Italian: Berengario; c. 845 – 7 April 924^[1]) was the king of Italy from 887. He was Holy Roman Emperor between 915 and his death in 924. He is usually known as Berengar of Friuli, since he ruled the March of Friuli from 874 until at least 890, but he had lost control of the region by 896.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat, and he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition in November 887. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. His reign is usually characterised as troubled because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. His death was followed by an imperial interregnum that lasted 38 years until Otto I was crowned emperor in 962. 

His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family. She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, wife.

When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874,^[5] Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli. With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884–885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno.

When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor. Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom. This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.

In 883, the newly succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May. He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, and forced him to retire.

In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of San Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain. Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods. Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears to have initiated the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.

By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887. He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts. In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son. It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887). On the other hand, his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).

Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death. Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia, in the Basilica of San Michele Maggiore, between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed. Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death. Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.

In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so diminished that he sued for peace nevertheless. The truce was to last until 6 January 889.

After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent. He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him. Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.

Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli. Represented by his counsellor Walfred at the city of Verona, he remained master in Friuli, which was always the base of his support. Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.

In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy. A rumor spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him. The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and highest counsellor of Berengar's, who soon died. The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.

Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor. According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and November and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.

The peace did not last long. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler. It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies. Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).

This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July. Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified. During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimization of his rule. She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.

In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars. The bishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.

In January 915, Pope John X tried to forge an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar was unable to send troops, but after the great Battle of the Garigliano, a victory over the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December).^[36] Berengar, however, returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.

As emperor, Berengar intervened in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège, outside of the kingdom of Italy.^[37] After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. The clergy opposed to this interference appealed to Berengar, King Charles III of France and Pope John.^[38] In the end, the pope excommunicated Hilduin and another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of the emperor.

In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period. She was poisoned. He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915. It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor. In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923. Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.

By 915, Berengar's elder daughter, Bertha, was abbess of Santa Giulia in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications. His younger daughter, Gisela of Friuli, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids. She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried. Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown. Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.

Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles – led by Adalbert and many of the bishops – invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921. Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea (who would rule as Berengar II of Italy from 950), rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country. John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924. On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza. The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only two daughters, Bertha and Gisela.

Berengar has been accused of having "faced [the] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence," having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals," and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning." Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed. Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift giving. Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed. Wikipedia