Part II
In this part . . .
As Medieval Europe came together, many of the countries you now recognise emerged. This part covers the amazing journeys that Arabs and Vikings undertook, the exploits of William the Conqueror and an almighty dust-up between the Eastern and Western Churches. If you have a slightly gory side, you’re sure to enjoy some fantastically nasty Viking activities and the downright foul Fulk of Anjou. But don’t worry, you also encounter fascinating theological points of view and the accurately named Louis the Pious.
Chapter 6
In This Chapter
● Surveying Charlemagne’s successors
● Acting piously with Louis
● Creating France and Germany with the Treaty of Verdun
● Establishing a new England with Alfred the Great
At the end of Charlemagne’s reign in 814, Europe had been changed forever. Although his Empire crumbled in the hands of his successors, the territorial divisions that he created helped to form modern-day Europe. In this chapter, I look at the development of Europe in the early Middle Ages by Charlemagne’s various Frankish successors and the unification of England by one man - Alfred the Great.
Following Charlemagne: Louis the Pious
Charlemagne’s younger son Louis was named King of Aquitaine (southern France) in 781 and reigned as joint emperor with his father before Charlemagne’s death in 814 (flip to Chapter 5 for all about Charlemagne). During this period Louis closely followed his father’s example as ruler.
To try to put right the losses suffered by Charlemagne in his 778 Spanish campaign, Louis led his own campaign into Spain in 801. He managed to recover the city of Barcelona from the Emirate of Cordoba and reinforced Frankish control over the Basque population and the area of Pamplona south of the Pyrenees.
After Charlemagne died in 814, sole rule of his empire transferred to Louis. Upon hearing the news of his father’s death, Louis hurried to Aachen and arranged a coronation ceremony (he wasn’t crowned by the pope until 816). He then set about creating a new council of advisors.
Louis was very different from his father. His reign was characterised by piety and a determination to rule as a Christian monarch, earning him the name ‘Louis the Pious’. In addition to calling on religious figures for advice, he made huge changes to the Frankish Church. Although his reign was no great success, many of the changes he made to religious practices far outlived him.
Dividing up authority
With the borders of his kingdom secure, Louis set about ensuring its government by appointing members of his immediate family to positions of authority, much as Charlemagne had done. Louis’s three sons from his first marriage - Lothair, Pippin and Louis - were all involved in the government of Aquitaine and now in governing his empire.
However, Louis’s boldest move was to incorporate a number of figures from the Church into his government. Chief among his advisors were two men, Ebbo and Benedict:
● Ebbo (c. 775-851) was born a peasant in the territory of Charlemagne.
He was educated at court and became chief-librarian and then chancellor to Louis. On his succession, Louis appointed him as the bishop of the city of Rhiems. As a result, Ebbo became hugely influential, preaching to the people of the empire in the north and seeking to convert the Danes to Christianity.
● Benedict (c. 747-821) was a Benedictine monk who exerted great influence over Louis’s thinking. On his advice, Louis ensured that all monasteries in the empire followed Benedictine practice. This meant that the Benedictine order very quickly became the most influential, with its practices being implemented across the whole Holy Roman Empire. Other religious orders did prosper, but the patronage of Louis gave the Benedictines a big advantage.
Pondering mortality: The ordinatio imperii
In 817 Louis was involved in a nasty accident in Aachen. A wooden gallery that he was crossing collapsed, killing many and nearly killing the emperor. This brush with death inspired Louis to make arrangements for his successors. The plan that he made (known as the ordinatio imperii) was to massively influence how succession was treated throughout the medieval period.
Louis divided power as follows:
● Lothair was nominated as successor and immediately made Louis’s coemperor. After Louis’s death, Lothair was to be the senior ruler above everyone else.
● Pippin was proclaimed as King of Aquitaine.
● Louis was proclaimed as King of Bavaria.
● Bernard of Italy (the son of Louis’s dead brother Pippin and so cousin to Louis’s sons) was allowed to keep the title of King of Italy (which he’d inherited from his father years earlier).
Louis further stated that when any of the lesser kings died, they were to be succeeded by their sons. If any of these lesser kings died childless, their lands reverted to Lothair or whoever was in his position.
Louis’s arrangement placed his first born son in a position of absolute authority. This act set a tremendous precedent - that power should transfer to the first born son. Although Louis didn’t write a document or publish an edict stating this, his action was taken as an example for centuries to follow and became common practice throughout much of Medieval Europe. In some countries it remains common practice today (for example, Prince Charles - as the first born son - is the first in line to succeed Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom). Louis wasn’t the first to name his first born son as successor, but his power and influence made doing so a hugely important statement.
Behaving less than piously
Clearly Louis pretty much divided his territory between his three sons. The real loser was Bernard of Italy, who was Louis’s cousin but now lost out to his younger second cousins despite being a closer relative to Charlemagne and having been appointed by him. When Bernard made public proclamations that he would revolt, Louis took his army to Italy, captured Bernard and took him back to France.
The fate of Bernard was unpleasant to say the least. Put on trial for treason, he was convicted and sentenced to death, although on appeal the sentence was ‘reduced’ to blinding. Blinding wasn’t an uncommon punishment in the Medieval World and was particularly used in the Byzantine Empire. Unfortunately, the job was botched, and Bernard died of his injuries two days later. (Other people associated with Bernard suffered unpleasant fates too; Theodulf of Orleans was put into a monastic prison and died soon after. Many claimed that he was poisoned on the orders of Louis.)
Bernard’s death plagued Louis’s conscience and, in 822, he carried out a penance to atone for it. In front of Pope Paschal II and a whole host of dukes and men of the Church, Louis confessed not only to Bernard’s death but also to many other minor sins.
Although he may have saved his immortal soul, Louis’s confession did nothing for his earthly reputation. His standing was diminished in the eyes of the other nobles because it was completely unprecedented for a king or emperor to admit to his failings in front of his subordinates. Although well intentioned, Louis’s behaviour had the effect of lowering his status at a time when civil war was about to erupt.
Marrying again - and fuelling civil War
The key motivator for civil war was Louis’s marriage to his second wife, Judith, in 820, and the fact that three years later she produced a son, called Charles. Louis’s subsequent attempts to involve Charles in his succession plans alienated his sons from his first marriage and plunged the empire into civil war.
Between 829 and 840 three separate uprisings took place that pitted Louis against his sons and their supporters. Twice, agreements were reached, and twice they were broken shortly afterwards. Eventually, when the third struggle came to an end in 840, Louis agreed to divide the empire into three. Louis divided the territory into East, West and Middle Francia. Lothair and Louis II were awarded territory along with Louis’s son Charles (known as Charles the Bald - see the later sidebar ‘The bald truth’) from his second marriage. Louis’s other son, Pippin, had died in 838, creating the vacancy that Charles was now able to fill. It was a complicated situation (have a look at the family tree in Figure 6-1)!
Figure 6-1: The Holy Roman Empire in 840
Louis didn’t have too long to watch over his new arrangement; he died soon afterwards at the age of 62. The majority of his reign had been spent dealing with the internal divisions in his empire caused by his relations - but the religious changes he made, particularly elevating the Benedictines over other monastic orders, carried on for hundreds of years.
Slicing Up the Pie Again: Lothair I and Afterwards
Although Louis’s arrangement made Lothair overlord of his brothers’s territory (see the earlier section ‘Pondering mortality: The ordinatio imperii’), they didn’t respect the agreement. In 841, his brothers revolted against him and Lothair’s army was defeated by their combined force at Fontenay (near Auxerre in modern-day France). Lothair was forced to negotiate.
The three brothers met at Verdun in Lorraine, southern France, in the summer of 843. They needed to come up with a lasting settlement that gave each satisfactory territory and confirm Lothair I in his position as emperor.
What actually happened was that the Empire was chopped into three parts:
● Lothair I took the central portion of the Empire, which became known as the Middle Frankish Empire, consisting of everything between northern Italy and the Low Countries in the north, including the imperial cities of Aachen and Rome. Whilst Lothair didn’t directly control Rome (it was under the official control of the pope) he acted as its military protector, and so Rome and all the papal estates came under his remit.
● Louis II took the most easterly part of the Empire - everything beyond the River Rhine. As a result of this Louis has also been referred to as Louis ‘the German’. His territory forms part of what is referred to as Germany in the modern world; at the time it would have been considered as the eastern Frankish kingdom.
● Charles the Bald received the western portion of the Empire (modern-day France). Within this area Pippin II was made King of Aquitaine (in the south) but only under the authority of Charles.
Figure 6-2 shows the Empire and its territories after the Treaty of Verdun.
The land divisions in the Treaty of Verdun had a major impact on Europe for more than 1,000 years, for example:
● The empire was sectioned up entirely to please the individuals concerned, not taking into account the people who lived within the territories, the languages they spoke or their own culture. By creating these divisions the treaty effectively created the modern European states of France and Germany and made the land between them open to questions of ownership - questions that were fought over until the Second World War (1939-45).
● The way the treaty defined individual territories made governance by a single ruler very difficult. Future Emperors would struggle to maintain authority over the whole empire, but none would have the control that Charlemagne, Louis the Pious and, briefly, Lothair I enjoyed.
Lothair died in 855 and was succeeded by his eldest son Louis. He took the title of Louis II as emperor (not to be confused with the other Louis II - his uncle - who was also known as Louis ‘the German’). His reign was chaotic and full of revolts and challenges to his power. When he died in 875, he had no son and named one of his cousins, Carloman (the son of Louis the German), as his successor. This arrangement didn’t work because both Louis the German and Charles the Bald were still alive and contested the title of Emperor between them. Charles eventually won the title but died in 877, leaving the throne vacant. Just over 60 years after the death of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Empire descended into anarchy.
The bald truth
Historians have long argued over why Charles was known as 'The Bald'. Records indicate that Charles was not bald at all - he was actually pretty hirsute - and so his nickname was clearly some kind of joke. (These kinds of descriptive epithets appear frequently throughout the Middle Ages: the ninth century also produced 'Charles the Fat' and 'Louis the Stammerer' but in most other cases they were actually true and weren't just jokes!)
Charles the Bald may just have been an ironic comment because of the man's general hairiness, but some historians suggest the name may also have come from the fact that he spent so many years without a crown while his half-brothers had already been made into kings - thus, without a crown, he was bald. Granted, either joke is pretty weak, and the nickname was probably not popular with Charles.
Whatever the actual inspiration for the name, a man called Hucbald wrote a poem during the ninth century called 'In Praise of Bald Men'. In the poem he suggests that bald men had a natural ability to become leaders, warriors and intellectuals! Of course, Hucbald lived and worked at the Imperial school that Charles founded, and so he may have had an ulterior motive for writing it. Perhaps he was trying to make Charles feel better about his nickname?
Figure 6-2: Europe after the Treaty of Verdun in 843
Forging a New England: Alfred the Great
While the Treaty of Verdun was roughly establishing the modern states of France and Germany (see the preceding section), things were heating up across the English Channel.
Like much of the rest of Europe, England was coming under threat from the Vikings (I write about these Danish warriors in more detail in Chapter 8). Indeed, much of northern and eastern England came to be under the control of the Danes, who had been regularly invading and then settling since the beginning of the century. (Historians now call this area Danelaw - a term that originally meant ‘the rule of the Danes’ - see Figure 6-3.) During the latter half of the century, young Alfred - the first and only English king to be called ‘The Great’ - led a furious and successful defence against them.
Figure 6-3: King Alfred's 'England'
That he was given the name so soon after Charlemagne (who was known as Charles ‘The Great’ - see Chapter 5) is interesting, but no obvious connection seems to exist between the two. Calling a ruler ‘great’ had been going on for years; Alexander the Great (353-323 BC) and Pompey the Great (106-48 BC) were famous ‘greats’ from the Ancient World. Alfred was probably just called great because of what he did, rather than because of people who had gone before.
Preparing for great things abroad
Alfred was born in 849 as the youngest son of Aethelwulf the King of Wessex in the southwest of England. A surprising amount of information about Alfred’s life is available today because a man called Bishop Asser wrote a biography of the king’s life in 893.
For example, Asser relates that at the age of five Alfred was sent to Rome to be educated, a trip that instilled a passion for learning that stayed with him throughout his life. The visit to Rome would have had a profound effect on Alfred. He stayed there for two years and the city and his experiences there would have been incredibly different to anything that he had seen in Anglo-Saxon England. It may be that in going to Rome Alfred was being groomed for a role in the Church, because with three older brothers he was unlikely to have become king. Events, however, didn’t turn out that way.
While Alfred was in Rome, his eldest brother Aethelbad led a revolt against their father the king. Shortly afterwards, brother Aethelbert staged another revolt. By 866, both brothers were dead and the third, Aethelred, took power. In what proved to be a wise move, Aethelred took the precaution of naming Alfred as his successor in case he fell in battle.
By the end of 870, the Vikings were attacking the kingdom of Wessex and over the course of a few months, nine battles were fought to keep them out. In March 871, Aethelred was killed fighting the Vikings at a place called Merton. Alfred became king at the age of 22.
Turning things around
As the newly crowned king, Alfred took on a losing battle with the Vikings, fierce raiding warriors from Denmark (read more about them in Chapter 8). For the next five years he struggled to prevent them from taking control of large parts of southern England. Through a mixture of diplomacy and paying large bribes, Alfred was able to buy enough time to organise a counter-attack. Eventually he retreated to his fortress of Athelney in the Somerset marshes (see Figure 6-3). Times were desperate for Anglo-Saxon England, with Wessex the only kingdom able to resist the powerful invaders.
Burning the cakes - or cooking the books?
The enduring story about Alfred burning the cakes allegedly took place during his flight to Somerset and his subsequent attempts to organise a militia. According to an often repeated incident, a peasant woman gave Alfred shelter and asked him to watch her cakes as they cooked. Alfred, lost in thought about his military problems, forgot to watch them and they burned. The woman returned and scolded him before realising who he was and begging forgiveness, but Alfred claimed that he was the one who needed to apologise to her.
In 2007, a historian claimed that the story was stolen from a legend about a fantastically named Viking leader, Ragnar Hairybreeks, who attacked Anglo-Saxon England around 100 years before Alfred's day. The historian claimed that Alfred's biographers lifted the story to build up Alfred's reputation as a leader with the common touch: a case of medieval spin-doctoring perhaps?
Alfred finally emerged in May 878, meeting the invaders at Ethundun in Wiltshire, southwest England (see Figure 6-3). His new army (see the next section ‘Reorganising the military’) won a famous victory, and he pursued the fleeing enemy to their stronghold at Chippenham. After a short siege, the Vikings were forced to surrender. Alfred demanded that the Viking leaders convert to Christianity.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the events as follows:
Three weeks later King Guthrum with 30 of his men who were the most important in the army came to him at Aller [near Athelney] and the King stood sponsor to him at his baptism there. And he was twelve days with the King, and he honoured him and his companions greatly with gifts.
Alfred’s success didn’t stop in 878. The following year he quelled an uprising by some Vikings who had settled in Kent, before travelling on to London. The city had been in decline for hundreds of years, but Alfred set about refortifying it, making use of the old Roman walls and extensively rebuilding the centre of the city.
Alfred rewarded himself for his success by beginning to refer to himself as ‘The King of the Anglo-Saxons’. This shift in titles was an important change - he was now claiming dominion over all the lands of southern England, rather than just Wessex. England had its first real king. Alfred couldn’t lay claim to the whole of England though; the north of England was still firmly under the control of the raiders from Denmark who had settled there.
Reorganising the military
A large reason for Alfred’s success came down to a huge military reorganisation that began with his exile at Athelney and carried on for the rest of his reign. The changes he made created systems that were used all the way through to the Norman invasion of England in 1066 (the Normans are the subject of Chapter 10).
Elevating the army
Initially, Alfred struggled with the lack of an established army. In modern times, most countries have a standing army, a body of paid, professional people whose jobs are to serve in the army. In the Medieval World, such an arrangement was very unusual. Instead, armies were usually composed of men who had been recruited or forced into fighting, usually because their interests were directly threatened. In the case of England in the ninth century such an arrangement was known as the fyrd: a militia raised from local farmers.
Alfred significantly altered the fyrd way of fighting, turning this peasant militia into a standing army. During his period in isolation, Alfred organised training for large groups of local farm workers and garrisoned the soldiers in towns around Wessex. Around 30 of these garrisoned towns were established between 878 and 892, securing the kingdom against further invasion. Alfred also organised his own nobles and supporters into groups of mounted warriors, one of which was always in the field. Having a sort of mobile strike force enabled him to react quickly and nip any invasion in the bud.
None of these changes were particularly new or advanced, but they brought the kind of military organisation to England that hadn’t been seen since the Romans left more than 400 years earlier.
Improving the navy
Another of Alfred’s innovations was the construction of a fleet of ships when, in 897, he began experimenting with naval warfare. As with the cavalry force, his thinking must have been to intercept raiders before they made too much headway. (History notes only one engagement; an encounter with a small group of Viking ships in a river somewhere in the south of England.)
Alfred was the sort of character to whom stories attached themselves (see the earlier sidebar ‘Burning the cakes - or cooking the books?’). Among these too-good-to-be-true tales is the notion that the fleet built in 897 was the first of its kind and that Alfred was the founder of the British Navy. Not true! The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that a small Viking fleet had been defeated all the way back in 851 by another brother of Alfred’s - Athelstan. Alfred as founder of the British Navy is just another example of successful figures having all the accomplishments of the period attributed to them.
Influencing others after his death
Throughout his life Alfred struggled with an unnamed illness that modern scholars suggest may have been Crohn’s disease, making his achievements all the more remarkable. The exact date of his death is uncertain, although most writers suggest the year 901, in which case he would have been 52. Like many medieval leaders, Alfred was made into a saint by the Catholic Church. His saint’s day is the 26 October (the reputed day of his death).
Alfred’s rule left southern England incredibly changed: secure from attack and capable of striking first. Anglo-Saxon England grew from this template and prospered over the next 150 years before the Norman invasion (turn to Chapter 10 for more).