894-898: Lambert's early rule
Few figures left behind a grand or even honourable legacy in that time of troubles known as the feudal anarchy, which engulfed Italy as the Carolingian Empire burst into flames unseen since the fall of the first Rome. Not long after the deposition of Charles III, the man whose idleness had turned the vast empire he inherited into nothing but a legacy, France and Germany chose new heraldries to bear, forging royal houses as renowned as that of Saxony, as longevous as that of Capet. Italy was not so lucky.
Over the course of sixty ruinous years, petty magnates and overambitious nobles took turns letting the beautiful system created by Charlemagne spiral out of control, whilst foreign lords vied for their own influence and staked their claim over what was meant to be the fulcrum of European politics. Eventually, as through senseless skulduggery the Ivrean dynasty drove the first nail into its own coffin, fate chose to aid the genial queen Adelaide, widow to the young king whom the would-be kings Berengar II and Adalbert had dethroned, with her new husband – Otto, king of the Germans. For centuries henceforth, the fates of Italy and Germany were bound by a reborn empire, and the time of feudal anarchy came to a climactic close on February 2nd 962, when the Saxon monarch was crowned Caesar in Rome by the young Pope John XII.
But, of course, this was not the only possible course of events. Even in the midst of a succession crisis unlike any other, there was a gleam of hope for a return to form; there was a monarch who showed the same skill and resolve that had welcomed Aurelian and Majorian into the annals of history; there was a rule which, despite only lasting a measly four years, was still marked by boldness, charisma and a will to restore the Empire to its former, righteous glory; and there once was a king, named Lambert.
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The timeline begins here.
On paper, prince Lambert, son of Guy, made the perfect hero to the ailing kingdom of Italy since birth. Lombard blood coursed through his veins, the blood of the ancestral princes who had made Italy their own, but he and his father belonged to the illustrious lineage of the Franks, and to their imperial family through his namesake, the dynasty’s founder Lambert of Nantes, and his bride Adelaide, princess of Italy and granddaughter of Charlemagne himself. This meant his father’s impressive family would make him the rightful heir to Langobardia Maior, the vast swathes of land where Rothari, Liutprand and Aistulf had once ruled, and to the coveted title of Emperor. Through his mother Ageltrudis, princess of Benevento, Lambert seemed in turn perfectly poised to end the squabbles of the Siconids, whose civil wars had turned the powerful Lombard duchy in the south – Langobardia Minor – into a series of petty states, fighting over control of whatever had been left behind by the scheming Romans in the East.
Only one cardinal, a wildcard in this already tangled picture, stood in Lambert's way, as the period of pontifical globalism started under Nicholas the Great was set to continue under the head of the Germanophile party within Rome: Formosus. Having spent many years in France, in diplomatic missions on account of the Holy See, Formosus was a staunch supporter of the Carolingian dynasty: his later demands for the elected French king Eudes, son of Robert the Strong, to abdicate – in favour of the Carolingian prince Charles – demonstrate this policy, perhaps stemmed from a deep respect for the dynasty chosen by God to lead his empire. Beyond these personal sympathies, a more concrete belief was that, for the good of the Roman clergy, Italy should be ruled from beyond the Alps, as a king (or worse, an emperor) in Rome would greatly stunt the Pope’s independence.
Of course, after Charles the Fat’s death, several foreign claimants to the Italian throne, sporting varying degrees of legitimacy and political power, could be found across the Alps:
Despite sharing an origin, both being forged in the early years of the Langobard invasion, the duchies of Spoleto and Friuli – at opposite ends of the Regnum Italiae – had grown different and powerful over many centuries of Lombard and Frankish rule. The first, closer to Rome than it was to Pavia, had slowly developed into the ideal defender of Rome and the Papacy, bulwark against the enemies of the cross, whereas the second, hardened by warfare and with the sole purpose of keeping Italy’s eastern border safe, had built up quite the warlike culture. Paradoxically, the respective rulers reflected the opposite attitudes, as the wrathful Guy was primarily a martial man, with little regard for piety altogether, wherein Berengar much preferred diplomacy and compromise over warfare and bloodshed.
Berengar had made his bid for kingship first, in 887, and had accordingly compromised with Guy that he would pledge troops for his bid in the French kingship. When the Frankish lords preferred count Odo of Paris over him, however, the duke of Spoleto had made his bitter return to Italy and – all pacts forgotten – immediately claimed the kingship from Berengar’s shaky grasp. Guy did reach Rome before the duke of Friuli, and he was crowned emperor in early 891 along with his then-infant son Lambert by his supporter, Pope Steven – whose appreciation likely stemmed from Spoleto’s help in fending off a Saracen incursion. That same year, Guy had already defeated Berengar militarily at the battle of the Trebbia, meaning his family’s rule over Italy was secured. It was just then that Arnulf had made his move, in support of Berengar’s kingship. With the accession of Formosus, who much preferred Arnulf over either candidate, as we discussed, but was also a personal enemy of Guy’s, becoming Pope in 891, Guy’s situation was decidedly taking a turn for the worse.
All this to say that when, in 893, Formosus finally called upon Arnulf’s help to defeat both claimants and be crowned emperor, it had been a long time coming. First, Arnulf sent his natural son Zwentibold south, in what constituted more of a recognition operation than a real invasion. Then, in January of 894, the German king’s first personal incursion began. The venture received broad support from many of Guy’s disloyal vassals, but said support was brittle at best, meaning this early campaign ended before any meaningful action could be taken. Although Arnulf’s conquests had driven him to Pavia by March, the sovereign was forced by these averse circumstances to return home that same month, giving Guy some much needed reprieve. This incursion would likely have been a footnote at the start of Guy’s promising reign, had he not suddenly died in November of that fateful 894, in the middle of his venture to pacify the north and assess the damage.
The death of Guy, the energetic sovereign who had practically made Italy his own, was interpreted by Berengar as a signal of his own victory, but the Friulian duke failed to account for his equally as energetic heir Lambert. The boy-king, barely fourteen, successfully drove away a premature attempt by Berengar to pounce on Pavia; then, he headed back south, where a nervous Formosus refused to double down on a coronation which Lambert had already received years earlier, in Ravenna.
Formosus was not simply nervous because Lambert’s accession to the throne seemed to have replaced the vulture he had worried about with a fierce lion, but he was also wary of the empress-mother, the lioness Ageltrudis. The proud queen had developed a disdain for the Franks and their kin, which she – as many did at the Lombard court of Benevento – saw as unworthy usurpers of what had previously been a strong and independent kingdom of Italy. His inability to adapt to the new situation can be attributed to this nervousness, as Formosus – after stalling for almost a year – finally called once again for Arnulf’s aid.
This time, the King of Germany descended upon Italy with his full might. He received the Papal embassy in September 895, and by October he had crossed the Alps. His march upon Pavia gathered the support of Manfred, count of Milan, and Walfred, Berengar’s replacement in Friuli – Berengar himself, by this time, held little sway in Arnulf’s eyes, and left his army in early 896.
On February 22nd 896, while the emperor and his mother, expelled from Rome, took refuge in Benevento, which had been conquered the year prior by Lambert’s cousin Guy, Formosus crowned Arnulf emperor of the Romans and king of Italy. The new emperor then moved against Spoleto, prepared to quell the last of his old, defeated foes, but then, to the dismay of the Holy See, Arnulf was unexpectedly caught by an illness of uncertain origin: some relay a stroke, others a rheumatic attack, with some even claiming Arnulf remained paralysed from the waist down. What mattered in the moment, though, was that Arnulf was forced to return north, to his physicians, driven from his new kingdom. The infamous bad health of the late Carolingians[A] made of Arnulf, who had appeared to be Charlemagne's true successor, its final victim.
The march to Germany was rocky and difficult: many perished along the way; many were captured by Lambert’s supporters and executed as traitors; some chose to defection back to the emperor, such as Adalbert II, duke of Tuscany. Upon his return to Pavia, Arnulf left behind his young son Ratold as co-king, but the situation was unsalvageable and the boy also fled. The German king’s retreat had damaged one person more than most, however, as Formosus, once again entrenched by Ageltrudis and the ever-hostile Lambert, finally died in April of 896.
His successor, Boniface VI, only lasted fifteen days; he was succeeded, fittingly, by a Pope Steven, elected under heavy influence from Lambert and Ageltrudis. Steven VI confirmed Lambert – who, should you be reminded, was then around sixteen years old – as emperor of the Romans, thus annulling Arnulf’s appointment. It took little after that for Lambert to once again assert his authority, especially in the north, where, with the death of Walfred and the execution of Manfred, Lombardy was essentially secured. A minor setback in this reassessment was the surprising return of Berengar, whose scattered supporters rallied around Italy for a grand return. To prevent war, in which he saw certain defeat, the duke of Friuli met Lambert in Pavia, and the two split the kingdom between themselves. Berengar saw confirmed his old titles north of the Po River and east of the Adda, but only Lambert would be allowed to style himself as king and emperor. Found this compromise, the two parted ways, though not for the final time.
By January of 897, most of Lambert’s opposition in Rome had been quelled, but the nail in the coffin for the Formosan faction came when a posthumous trial was held against the previous Pope’s corpse, on account of many reservations which Rome’s aristocracy and the imperial family held against him. After the macabre synod, which came to be known as the ‘Synod of the Cadaver,’ Formosus was considered guilty and cast into the Tiber. The act, while politically shrewd – every cardinal and bishop appointed by Formosus was to be confirmed in their position by the new Pope if they wished to keep their position – left an indelible stain on the brief pontificate. Later that year, a popular revolt, led by a reinvigorated pro-Germanic party, saw the deposition of Steven VI, who was then strangled in prison on August 14th. This dramatic loss of another key supporter came after an upstart nobleman by the name of Alberich had killed Lambert’s cousin Guy, and appointed himself as duke of Spoleto. Though both he and the reinstated duke Radelchis II of Benevento had recognised his right to rule, what mattered most to Lambert was that the young sovereign had lost two dependable allies in just one year.
These significant setbacks did not hinder emperor Lambert when, in early 898, he presided over the Synod of Ravenna in 898. This less well-known but, canonically, far more important council, was a confirmation and amendment to Lothair’s Constitutio Romana (825); in simple terms, Lambert asserted his direct authority over the Papal States and Rome, enforcing that no citizen of the empire – no matter if lay or clergyman – could be forbidden from appealing to the emperor’s judgement on any legal matter. With his authority amplified by these proclamations, Lambert had also reassured the Roman clergy of his staunch defence against an increasingly disloyal vassal – the ambitious margrave Adalbert II.
After his experience serving king Arnulf, Adalbert had returned in Lambert’s good graces, but the duke had also maintained steady communication with Lambert’s rival Berengar: his great availability of funds and loyal subjects – among them his familiar, the brave and honorable count Hildeprand – made him a very desirable ally for the claimant, wherein Adalbert hoped to make the best of the situation and perhaps become king himself. In the Summer of 898, the two nobles decided that Adalbert would march upon Pavia together and pounce upon Lambert unexpectedly, as he was busy hunting in nearby Marengo. To Adalbert’s dismay, however, the sovereign was informed of the Tuscan march’s arrival far ahead of time.
Lambert rallied a small army from the Lombard countryside and struck Adalbert’s army by surprise, in what became known as the Battle of Fidentiola (today Borgo San Donnino): though Hildeprand managed to escape with what was left of the army, Adalbert himself was taken captive by the young emperor. This impressive military victory against the odds bolstered the energetic monarch’s popularity, and many believed he was destined to restore both Italy and the Empire to the glory of his predecessors.
Rather than returning to Pavia immediately after the success of the battle, Lambert preferred to finish the hunt in Marengo. With him, among others, was one of his most trusted vassals: Hugh, son of Manfred, who had taken the reins of the Lombard County after his father’s execution. Lambert had seen great potential in the boy after his father’s death and, to keep him on his good side after his liberation, was known to shower him in favours. Some, to explain the monarch’s uncharacteristic generosity in his regard, even alleged that Lambert loved him. The same sources would attest that the count pretended to reciprocate the emperor’s affection as part of a larger plot, which, if true, would explain what happened in the woods of Marengo.
Legend goes that Lambert and Hugh “were waiting for the boar to pass, but, as he did not appear, the king at last grew weary of the long delay and fell asleep for a while, leaving the traitor, in whom he trusted, to keep watch and ward over him.” Hugh then would have taken a tree-branch and raised it high over the sleeping sovereign’s neck, prepared to break it and take vengeance for his father. However, the count’s hand trembled and, in a moment of doubt, dropped the makeshift weapon and broke into tears. Lambert then awoke and the noble Hugh, mortified, confessed his intentions, and offered the emperor his head. Once again, the mighty emperor chose to spare him, and they returned to Pavia together.[C][1]
On October 19th 898, Lambert and his army were welcomed into Pavia by a popular triumph, akin to that of the emperors of old. In the succeeding weeks and following the riotous Adalbert’s execution, the emperor travelled across Tuscany and Liguria, confirming local loyalties, and appointing new administrators along the way. Since Adalbert had been Lambert’s cousin through Rothildis – Lambert’s aunt and Adalbert’s mother – and the nobleman’s recent marriage was yet to bring him any children, it took little for the sovereign to take over the executed count’s fief for himself.
By November, Lambert had also crushed the remains of Adalbert’s rebellion, as Hildebrand, who had entrenched himself in Lucca, was killed in the ensuing siege and the city was officially brought back under imperial rule on the sixteenth day of the month. Lambert then returned to Rome, where a rapid succession of deaths and riots had culminated in the accession of John IX, whose conciliatory and shrewd diplomatic actions – the rehabilitation of Pope Formosus combined with a blessing for Lambert’s continued rule – had temporarily stabilised the city’s complicated political situation. At the young emperor’s request, a council was assembled in December, blaming Adalbert’s insurrection on the incitement of the false king across the Adda, Berengar. Accused of having broken the emperor’s trust and fomented a rebellion against him – in addition to many other charges, including the supposed murder of emperor Guy and general enmity against the church – Berengar was branded as an enemy of the cross and, under threat of excommunication, compelled to visit Rome and make amends for his heinous crimes against the crown and the Holy See.
Understanding that the situation was unfavourable at best, Berengar, weighed down by age, rather than outright declaring war on Rome, made the momentous decision of accepting the summon, writing out a will and testament – in which he entrusted the rulership of Friuli to his nephew and only heir Unroch – and making his way to Rome, where he appealed to the mercy of his former enemy Lambert. After careful consideration, and likely influenced by the advice of Pope John IX, the young emperor accepted the pledge, allowing Berengar to retreat to Verona, where he lived out the rest of his days in the monastery of Saint Zeno. Berengar of Friuli, who in the previous decade had been one of the kingdom’s supermagnates and had fought a subtle, yet intense battle for power, would later be visited by many on account of his enduring prestige, including Lambert himself, until his death in late 926, by then old and venerable. One of Lambert’s first actions in 899 was to mediate the transmission of power in Friuli from Berengar to Unroch (from now on Unroch IV), from whom he received a formal acknowledgement of power.
In just a year, and even after the loss of many important allies, Lambert was once again on top of Italy as its sole, rightful sovereign. Though his rule had underwent and would undergo many hardships, it was this fortunate and energetic start to his reign that set up his future successes. It is often thought that, with the empire hanging in the balance, Italy may easily have fractured under the pressure of its own factionalism, or it could've been conquered by the Magyars. Instead, under the Widonid dynasty, Italy looked to the Tenth Century not only as an equal to the rest of Europe's crowns, but as their rightful leader.
[A]: Arnulf’s own father Karlmann had already suffered an all-too similar fate a few years prior, but many Carolingian sovereigns from the later 9th century endured very premature deaths.
[C]: The amount of truth within this story is left to the interpretation of historians. It is true that both Lambert and Hugh were participating in a hunt at Marengo on October 15th 898, but there is no ostensible record of the count attempting to kill him, much less of the ruthless figure we know Lambert as choosing to forgive him after learning that he had attempted murder on him. The true relationship between Hugh of Milan and Lambert I, thanks to speculation from their contemporaries and their successors, has been muddled by centuries of historiography taking into consideration this and that rumour, so we may never truly know what transpired at that famous quarry.
Non-canon
[1]: This is the Point of Divergence. Hugh’s presence in Marengo and his influence on king Lambert’s death may have been a fabrication of Liutprand of Cremona, to rationalise and find someone to blame for the death of such a promising young sovereign, but it makes for a compelling story nonetheless. The official version, from our timeline, is that Lambert fell from his horse and broke his neck, which is much more easily preventable. For the purposes of this timeline, at the end of the day, what matters is that our boy Lambert outlives this October 15th.
Over the course of sixty ruinous years, petty magnates and overambitious nobles took turns letting the beautiful system created by Charlemagne spiral out of control, whilst foreign lords vied for their own influence and staked their claim over what was meant to be the fulcrum of European politics. Eventually, as through senseless skulduggery the Ivrean dynasty drove the first nail into its own coffin, fate chose to aid the genial queen Adelaide, widow to the young king whom the would-be kings Berengar II and Adalbert had dethroned, with her new husband – Otto, king of the Germans. For centuries henceforth, the fates of Italy and Germany were bound by a reborn empire, and the time of feudal anarchy came to a climactic close on February 2nd 962, when the Saxon monarch was crowned Caesar in Rome by the young Pope John XII.
But, of course, this was not the only possible course of events. Even in the midst of a succession crisis unlike any other, there was a gleam of hope for a return to form; there was a monarch who showed the same skill and resolve that had welcomed Aurelian and Majorian into the annals of history; there was a rule which, despite only lasting a measly four years, was still marked by boldness, charisma and a will to restore the Empire to its former, righteous glory; and there once was a king, named Lambert.
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The timeline begins here.
Lambert I: Lineage, Premises and Early Rule (894-898)
On paper, prince Lambert, son of Guy, made the perfect hero to the ailing kingdom of Italy since birth. Lombard blood coursed through his veins, the blood of the ancestral princes who had made Italy their own, but he and his father belonged to the illustrious lineage of the Franks, and to their imperial family through his namesake, the dynasty’s founder Lambert of Nantes, and his bride Adelaide, princess of Italy and granddaughter of Charlemagne himself. This meant his father’s impressive family would make him the rightful heir to Langobardia Maior, the vast swathes of land where Rothari, Liutprand and Aistulf had once ruled, and to the coveted title of Emperor. Through his mother Ageltrudis, princess of Benevento, Lambert seemed in turn perfectly poised to end the squabbles of the Siconids, whose civil wars had turned the powerful Lombard duchy in the south – Langobardia Minor – into a series of petty states, fighting over control of whatever had been left behind by the scheming Romans in the East.
Only one cardinal, a wildcard in this already tangled picture, stood in Lambert's way, as the period of pontifical globalism started under Nicholas the Great was set to continue under the head of the Germanophile party within Rome: Formosus. Having spent many years in France, in diplomatic missions on account of the Holy See, Formosus was a staunch supporter of the Carolingian dynasty: his later demands for the elected French king Eudes, son of Robert the Strong, to abdicate – in favour of the Carolingian prince Charles – demonstrate this policy, perhaps stemmed from a deep respect for the dynasty chosen by God to lead his empire. Beyond these personal sympathies, a more concrete belief was that, for the good of the Roman clergy, Italy should be ruled from beyond the Alps, as a king (or worse, an emperor) in Rome would greatly stunt the Pope’s independence.
Of course, after Charles the Fat’s death, several foreign claimants to the Italian throne, sporting varying degrees of legitimacy and political power, could be found across the Alps:
- in France, the would-be king Charles, son of Louis II, and the exile count Herbert, son of Bernard could both, through their parentage, make a good case for their right to bear the Iron Crown, but both were far too invested in French affairs to make the journey, not to mention their lack of support in the peninsula;
- in Middle Francia, the last descendants of Lothaire I – queen Ermengarde of Provence, along with her young son Louis, and the Alsatian count Hugh, bastard of king Lothaire II – bid their time, awaiting new developments before direct intervention;
- in Germany, finally, king Arnulf of Carinthia, son of Karlmann and great-grandson of Louis the Pious, was the only man strong enough to claim the imperial crown with any hope of success – not to mention, he had personally crushed Charles the Fat’s son Bernard and his rebellion against him, so the home front was also secure. The German princes had already acknowledged his rule and some Italian magnates were also willing to accept it, but Arnulf preferred to wait before making a grand entrance in Rome, since the enmity of the authoritative PopeSteven V had prevented his direct action in the past.
Despite sharing an origin, both being forged in the early years of the Langobard invasion, the duchies of Spoleto and Friuli – at opposite ends of the Regnum Italiae – had grown different and powerful over many centuries of Lombard and Frankish rule. The first, closer to Rome than it was to Pavia, had slowly developed into the ideal defender of Rome and the Papacy, bulwark against the enemies of the cross, whereas the second, hardened by warfare and with the sole purpose of keeping Italy’s eastern border safe, had built up quite the warlike culture. Paradoxically, the respective rulers reflected the opposite attitudes, as the wrathful Guy was primarily a martial man, with little regard for piety altogether, wherein Berengar much preferred diplomacy and compromise over warfare and bloodshed.
Berengar had made his bid for kingship first, in 887, and had accordingly compromised with Guy that he would pledge troops for his bid in the French kingship. When the Frankish lords preferred count Odo of Paris over him, however, the duke of Spoleto had made his bitter return to Italy and – all pacts forgotten – immediately claimed the kingship from Berengar’s shaky grasp. Guy did reach Rome before the duke of Friuli, and he was crowned emperor in early 891 along with his then-infant son Lambert by his supporter, Pope Steven – whose appreciation likely stemmed from Spoleto’s help in fending off a Saracen incursion. That same year, Guy had already defeated Berengar militarily at the battle of the Trebbia, meaning his family’s rule over Italy was secured. It was just then that Arnulf had made his move, in support of Berengar’s kingship. With the accession of Formosus, who much preferred Arnulf over either candidate, as we discussed, but was also a personal enemy of Guy’s, becoming Pope in 891, Guy’s situation was decidedly taking a turn for the worse.
All this to say that when, in 893, Formosus finally called upon Arnulf’s help to defeat both claimants and be crowned emperor, it had been a long time coming. First, Arnulf sent his natural son Zwentibold south, in what constituted more of a recognition operation than a real invasion. Then, in January of 894, the German king’s first personal incursion began. The venture received broad support from many of Guy’s disloyal vassals, but said support was brittle at best, meaning this early campaign ended before any meaningful action could be taken. Although Arnulf’s conquests had driven him to Pavia by March, the sovereign was forced by these averse circumstances to return home that same month, giving Guy some much needed reprieve. This incursion would likely have been a footnote at the start of Guy’s promising reign, had he not suddenly died in November of that fateful 894, in the middle of his venture to pacify the north and assess the damage.
The death of Guy, the energetic sovereign who had practically made Italy his own, was interpreted by Berengar as a signal of his own victory, but the Friulian duke failed to account for his equally as energetic heir Lambert. The boy-king, barely fourteen, successfully drove away a premature attempt by Berengar to pounce on Pavia; then, he headed back south, where a nervous Formosus refused to double down on a coronation which Lambert had already received years earlier, in Ravenna.
Formosus was not simply nervous because Lambert’s accession to the throne seemed to have replaced the vulture he had worried about with a fierce lion, but he was also wary of the empress-mother, the lioness Ageltrudis. The proud queen had developed a disdain for the Franks and their kin, which she – as many did at the Lombard court of Benevento – saw as unworthy usurpers of what had previously been a strong and independent kingdom of Italy. His inability to adapt to the new situation can be attributed to this nervousness, as Formosus – after stalling for almost a year – finally called once again for Arnulf’s aid.
This time, the King of Germany descended upon Italy with his full might. He received the Papal embassy in September 895, and by October he had crossed the Alps. His march upon Pavia gathered the support of Manfred, count of Milan, and Walfred, Berengar’s replacement in Friuli – Berengar himself, by this time, held little sway in Arnulf’s eyes, and left his army in early 896.
On February 22nd 896, while the emperor and his mother, expelled from Rome, took refuge in Benevento, which had been conquered the year prior by Lambert’s cousin Guy, Formosus crowned Arnulf emperor of the Romans and king of Italy. The new emperor then moved against Spoleto, prepared to quell the last of his old, defeated foes, but then, to the dismay of the Holy See, Arnulf was unexpectedly caught by an illness of uncertain origin: some relay a stroke, others a rheumatic attack, with some even claiming Arnulf remained paralysed from the waist down. What mattered in the moment, though, was that Arnulf was forced to return north, to his physicians, driven from his new kingdom. The infamous bad health of the late Carolingians[A] made of Arnulf, who had appeared to be Charlemagne's true successor, its final victim.
The march to Germany was rocky and difficult: many perished along the way; many were captured by Lambert’s supporters and executed as traitors; some chose to defection back to the emperor, such as Adalbert II, duke of Tuscany. Upon his return to Pavia, Arnulf left behind his young son Ratold as co-king, but the situation was unsalvageable and the boy also fled. The German king’s retreat had damaged one person more than most, however, as Formosus, once again entrenched by Ageltrudis and the ever-hostile Lambert, finally died in April of 896.
His successor, Boniface VI, only lasted fifteen days; he was succeeded, fittingly, by a Pope Steven, elected under heavy influence from Lambert and Ageltrudis. Steven VI confirmed Lambert – who, should you be reminded, was then around sixteen years old – as emperor of the Romans, thus annulling Arnulf’s appointment. It took little after that for Lambert to once again assert his authority, especially in the north, where, with the death of Walfred and the execution of Manfred, Lombardy was essentially secured. A minor setback in this reassessment was the surprising return of Berengar, whose scattered supporters rallied around Italy for a grand return. To prevent war, in which he saw certain defeat, the duke of Friuli met Lambert in Pavia, and the two split the kingdom between themselves. Berengar saw confirmed his old titles north of the Po River and east of the Adda, but only Lambert would be allowed to style himself as king and emperor. Found this compromise, the two parted ways, though not for the final time.
By January of 897, most of Lambert’s opposition in Rome had been quelled, but the nail in the coffin for the Formosan faction came when a posthumous trial was held against the previous Pope’s corpse, on account of many reservations which Rome’s aristocracy and the imperial family held against him. After the macabre synod, which came to be known as the ‘Synod of the Cadaver,’ Formosus was considered guilty and cast into the Tiber. The act, while politically shrewd – every cardinal and bishop appointed by Formosus was to be confirmed in their position by the new Pope if they wished to keep their position – left an indelible stain on the brief pontificate. Later that year, a popular revolt, led by a reinvigorated pro-Germanic party, saw the deposition of Steven VI, who was then strangled in prison on August 14th. This dramatic loss of another key supporter came after an upstart nobleman by the name of Alberich had killed Lambert’s cousin Guy, and appointed himself as duke of Spoleto. Though both he and the reinstated duke Radelchis II of Benevento had recognised his right to rule, what mattered most to Lambert was that the young sovereign had lost two dependable allies in just one year.
These significant setbacks did not hinder emperor Lambert when, in early 898, he presided over the Synod of Ravenna in 898. This less well-known but, canonically, far more important council, was a confirmation and amendment to Lothair’s Constitutio Romana (825); in simple terms, Lambert asserted his direct authority over the Papal States and Rome, enforcing that no citizen of the empire – no matter if lay or clergyman – could be forbidden from appealing to the emperor’s judgement on any legal matter. With his authority amplified by these proclamations, Lambert had also reassured the Roman clergy of his staunch defence against an increasingly disloyal vassal – the ambitious margrave Adalbert II.
After his experience serving king Arnulf, Adalbert had returned in Lambert’s good graces, but the duke had also maintained steady communication with Lambert’s rival Berengar: his great availability of funds and loyal subjects – among them his familiar, the brave and honorable count Hildeprand – made him a very desirable ally for the claimant, wherein Adalbert hoped to make the best of the situation and perhaps become king himself. In the Summer of 898, the two nobles decided that Adalbert would march upon Pavia together and pounce upon Lambert unexpectedly, as he was busy hunting in nearby Marengo. To Adalbert’s dismay, however, the sovereign was informed of the Tuscan march’s arrival far ahead of time.
Lambert rallied a small army from the Lombard countryside and struck Adalbert’s army by surprise, in what became known as the Battle of Fidentiola (today Borgo San Donnino): though Hildeprand managed to escape with what was left of the army, Adalbert himself was taken captive by the young emperor. This impressive military victory against the odds bolstered the energetic monarch’s popularity, and many believed he was destined to restore both Italy and the Empire to the glory of his predecessors.
Rather than returning to Pavia immediately after the success of the battle, Lambert preferred to finish the hunt in Marengo. With him, among others, was one of his most trusted vassals: Hugh, son of Manfred, who had taken the reins of the Lombard County after his father’s execution. Lambert had seen great potential in the boy after his father’s death and, to keep him on his good side after his liberation, was known to shower him in favours. Some, to explain the monarch’s uncharacteristic generosity in his regard, even alleged that Lambert loved him. The same sources would attest that the count pretended to reciprocate the emperor’s affection as part of a larger plot, which, if true, would explain what happened in the woods of Marengo.
Legend goes that Lambert and Hugh “were waiting for the boar to pass, but, as he did not appear, the king at last grew weary of the long delay and fell asleep for a while, leaving the traitor, in whom he trusted, to keep watch and ward over him.” Hugh then would have taken a tree-branch and raised it high over the sleeping sovereign’s neck, prepared to break it and take vengeance for his father. However, the count’s hand trembled and, in a moment of doubt, dropped the makeshift weapon and broke into tears. Lambert then awoke and the noble Hugh, mortified, confessed his intentions, and offered the emperor his head. Once again, the mighty emperor chose to spare him, and they returned to Pavia together.[C][1]
On October 19th 898, Lambert and his army were welcomed into Pavia by a popular triumph, akin to that of the emperors of old. In the succeeding weeks and following the riotous Adalbert’s execution, the emperor travelled across Tuscany and Liguria, confirming local loyalties, and appointing new administrators along the way. Since Adalbert had been Lambert’s cousin through Rothildis – Lambert’s aunt and Adalbert’s mother – and the nobleman’s recent marriage was yet to bring him any children, it took little for the sovereign to take over the executed count’s fief for himself.
By November, Lambert had also crushed the remains of Adalbert’s rebellion, as Hildebrand, who had entrenched himself in Lucca, was killed in the ensuing siege and the city was officially brought back under imperial rule on the sixteenth day of the month. Lambert then returned to Rome, where a rapid succession of deaths and riots had culminated in the accession of John IX, whose conciliatory and shrewd diplomatic actions – the rehabilitation of Pope Formosus combined with a blessing for Lambert’s continued rule – had temporarily stabilised the city’s complicated political situation. At the young emperor’s request, a council was assembled in December, blaming Adalbert’s insurrection on the incitement of the false king across the Adda, Berengar. Accused of having broken the emperor’s trust and fomented a rebellion against him – in addition to many other charges, including the supposed murder of emperor Guy and general enmity against the church – Berengar was branded as an enemy of the cross and, under threat of excommunication, compelled to visit Rome and make amends for his heinous crimes against the crown and the Holy See.
Understanding that the situation was unfavourable at best, Berengar, weighed down by age, rather than outright declaring war on Rome, made the momentous decision of accepting the summon, writing out a will and testament – in which he entrusted the rulership of Friuli to his nephew and only heir Unroch – and making his way to Rome, where he appealed to the mercy of his former enemy Lambert. After careful consideration, and likely influenced by the advice of Pope John IX, the young emperor accepted the pledge, allowing Berengar to retreat to Verona, where he lived out the rest of his days in the monastery of Saint Zeno. Berengar of Friuli, who in the previous decade had been one of the kingdom’s supermagnates and had fought a subtle, yet intense battle for power, would later be visited by many on account of his enduring prestige, including Lambert himself, until his death in late 926, by then old and venerable. One of Lambert’s first actions in 899 was to mediate the transmission of power in Friuli from Berengar to Unroch (from now on Unroch IV), from whom he received a formal acknowledgement of power.
In just a year, and even after the loss of many important allies, Lambert was once again on top of Italy as its sole, rightful sovereign. Though his rule had underwent and would undergo many hardships, it was this fortunate and energetic start to his reign that set up his future successes. It is often thought that, with the empire hanging in the balance, Italy may easily have fractured under the pressure of its own factionalism, or it could've been conquered by the Magyars. Instead, under the Widonid dynasty, Italy looked to the Tenth Century not only as an equal to the rest of Europe's crowns, but as their rightful leader.
Footnotes
Canon[A]: Arnulf’s own father Karlmann had already suffered an all-too similar fate a few years prior, but many Carolingian sovereigns from the later 9th century endured very premature deaths.
[C]: The amount of truth within this story is left to the interpretation of historians. It is true that both Lambert and Hugh were participating in a hunt at Marengo on October 15th 898, but there is no ostensible record of the count attempting to kill him, much less of the ruthless figure we know Lambert as choosing to forgive him after learning that he had attempted murder on him. The true relationship between Hugh of Milan and Lambert I, thanks to speculation from their contemporaries and their successors, has been muddled by centuries of historiography taking into consideration this and that rumour, so we may never truly know what transpired at that famous quarry.
Non-canon
[1]: This is the Point of Divergence. Hugh’s presence in Marengo and his influence on king Lambert’s death may have been a fabrication of Liutprand of Cremona, to rationalise and find someone to blame for the death of such a promising young sovereign, but it makes for a compelling story nonetheless. The official version, from our timeline, is that Lambert fell from his horse and broke his neck, which is much more easily preventable. For the purposes of this timeline, at the end of the day, what matters is that our boy Lambert outlives this October 15th.
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