Charles the Fat (839 – 13 January 888) was the emperor of theCarolingian Empire[a] from 881 to 887. A member of theCarolingian dynasty, Charles was the youngest son ofLouis the German andHemma, and a great-grandson ofCharlemagne. He was the last Carolingian emperor of legitimate birth and the last to rule a united kingdom of theFranks.
Over his lifetime, Charles became ruler of the various kingdoms of Charlemagne's former empire. Granted lordship overAlamannia in 876, following the division ofEast Francia, he succeeded to the Italian throne upon the abdication of his older brotherCarloman of Bavaria who had been incapacitated by a stroke. Crowned emperor in 881 byPope John VIII, his succession to the territories of his brotherLouis the Younger (Saxony andBavaria) the following year reunited the kingdom of East Francia. Upon the death of his cousinCarloman II in 884, he inherited all ofWest Francia, thus reuniting the entireCarolingian Empire.
Usually considered lethargic and inept—he was frequently ill, and is believed to have hadepilepsy—Charles twice purchased peace withViking raiders, including at the infamousSiege of Paris, which led to his downfall.
The reunited empire did not last. During acoup led by his nephewArnulf of Carinthia in mid-November 887, Charles was deposed inEast Francia,Lotharingia, and theKingdom of Italy. Forced into quiet retirement, he died of natural causes on 13 January 888, just a few weeks after his deposition.[2] The Empire quickly fell apart after his death, splintering into five separatesuccessor kingdoms; the territory it had occupied was not entirely reunited under one ruler until the conquests ofNapoleon.
The nickname "Charles the Fat" (LatinCarolus Crassus) is not contemporary. It was first used by theAnnalista Saxo (the anonymous "Saxon Annalist") in the twelfth century. There is no contemporary reference to Charles's physical size, but the nickname has stuck and is the common name in most modern European languages (FrenchCharles le Gros, GermanKarl der Dicke, ItalianCarlo il Grosso).[3]
His numeral is roughly contemporary.Regino of Prüm, a contemporary of Charles's recording his death, calls him "Emperor Charles, third of that name and dignity" (LatinCarolus imperator, tertius huius nominis et dignitatis).[4]
Charles was the youngest of the three sons ofLouis the German, firstKing of East Francia, andHemma from the House ofWelf. An incident of demonic possession is recorded in his youth, in which he was said to have been foaming at the mouth before he was taken to the altar of the church. This greatly affected him and his father. He was described as: "… a very Christian prince, fearing God, with all his heart keeping His commandments, very devoutly obeying the orders of the Church, generous in alms-giving, practising unceasingly prayer and song, always intent upon celebrating the praises of God."
When, in 875, theEmperor Louis II, who was alsoKing of Italy, died having agreed with Louis the German that Carloman would succeed him in Italy,Charles the Bald ofWest Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor.[6] Louis the German sent first Charles and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian forces underBerengar of Friuli, their cousin, to the Italian kingdom.[6][7] These wars, however, were not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877.
In 876,Louis the German died and the inheritance was divided as planned after a conference atRies, though Charles received less of his share of Lotharingia than planned. In his charters, Charles's reign inGermania is dated from his inheritance in 876.
Three brothers ruled in cooperation and avoided wars over the division of their patrimony: a rare occurrence in theEarly Middle Ages. In 877, Carloman finally inherited Italy from his uncleCharles the Bald. Louis dividedLotharingia and offered a third to Carloman and a third to Charles. In 878, Carloman returned his Lotharingian share to Louis, who then divided it evenly with Charles. In 879, Carloman was incapacitated by a stroke and divided his domains between his brothers: Bavaria went to Louis and Italy to Charles. Charles dated his reign inItalia from this point, and from then, he spent most of his reign until 886 in his Italian kingdom.[8]
In 880, Charles joinedLouis III of France andCarloman II, the joint kings ofWest Francia, in a failed siege ofBoso of Provence in Vienne from August to September.Provence, legally a part of the Italian kingdom from 863, had rebelled under Boso. In August 882, Charles sentRichard, Duke of Burgundy,Count of Autun, to take the city, which he finally did in September. After this, Boso was restricted to the vicinity of Vienne.
On 18 July 880,Pope John VIII sent a letter toGuy II of Spoleto seeking peace, but the duke ignored him and invaded thePapal States. John responded by begging the aid of Charles in his capacity asking of Italy and crowned Charles emperor on 12 February 881. This was accompanied by hopes of a general revival in western Europe, but Charles proved to be unequal to the task. Charles did little to help against Guy II. Papal letters as late as November were still petitioning Charles for action.
As emperor, Charles began the construction of a palace atSélestat inAlsace. He modelled it after thePalace at Aachen which was built byCharlemagne, whom he consciously sought to emulate, as indicated by theGesta Karoli Magni ofNotker the Stammerer. As Aachen was located in the kingdom of his brother, it was necessary for Charles to build a new palace for his court in his own power base of westernAlemannia.[9] Sélestat was also more centrally located than Aachen.
In February 882, Charles convoked a diet inRavenna. The duke, emperor, and pope made peace and Guy and his uncle,Guy of Camerino, vowed to return the papal lands. In a March letter to Charles, John claimed that the vows went unfulfilled. In 883, Guy of Camerino, nowduke of Spoleto as Guy III, was accused of treason at an imperial synod held atNonantula late in May.[10] He returned to Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. Charles sentBerengar against Guy III. Berengar was initially successful until an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all of Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retreat.[10]
In 883, Charles signed a treaty withGiovanni II Participazio,Doge of Venice, granting that any assassin of a doge who fled to the territory of the Empire would be fined 100lbs of gold and banished.
After returning from Italy, Charles held an assembly atWorms with the purpose of dealing with the Vikings. Armies from the whole East Francia were assembled in the summer underArnulf, Duke of Carinthia, andHenry, Count of Saxony. The chief Viking camp was thenbesieged at Asselt. Charles then opened negotiations with the Viking chiefsGodfrid andSigfred. Godfrid accepted Christianity and became Charles's vassal. He was married to Gisela, daughter ofLothair II of Lotharingia. Sigfred was bribed off. Despite the insinuations of some modern historians, no contemporary account criticised Charles's actions during this campaign.[11] In 885, fearing Godfrid and his brother-in-law,Hugh, Duke of Alsace, Charles arranged for a conference atSpijk nearLobith, where the Viking leader fell into his trap. Godfrid was executed, and Hugh was blinded and sent toPrüm.
From 882 to 884, theWilhelminer War engulfed theMarch of Pannonia (laterMarch of Austria). Arnulf of Carinthia, Charles's illegitimate nephew, made an alliance with the rebelEngelschalk II againstAribo of Austria, Charles's appointed margrave of the region.Svatopluk I, ruler ofGreat Moravia, agreed to help Aribo and in 884 atKaumberg took an oath of fidelity to Charles. Though the emperor lost his vassals of theWilhelminer family and his relationship with his nephew was broken, he gained powerful new allies in the Moraviandux and other Slavicduces of the region.
Charles the Fat receives the offer of kingship from two West Francian ambassadors (from theGrandes Chroniques de France, illustration from c. 1375–1379).
When Carloman II of West Francia died on 12 December 884, the nobles of the kingdom invited Charles to assume the kingship. Charles gladly accepted, it being the third kingdom to "fall into his lap".[12] According to theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, Charles succeeded to all of the kingdom of Carloman exceptBrittany, but this does not seem to have been true.[13] It is likely that Charles was crowned byGeilo, Bishop of Langres, asrex in Gallia on 20 May 885 atGrand in theVosges in southern Lorraine.[14] Although Geilo even developed a special West Frankish seal for him, Charles's government in the West was always very distant and he left most day-to-day business to the higher nobility.
Though West Francia (the future France) was far less menaced by the Vikings than theLow Countries, it was heavily hit nonetheless. In 885, a huge fleet led by Sigfred sailed up theSeine, for the first time in years, andbesieged Paris. Sigfred demanded a bribe again, but this time Charles refused. He was in Italy at the time andOdo, Count of Paris, sneaked some men through enemy lines to seek his aid. Charles sent Henry of Saxony to Paris. In 886, as disease began to spread through Paris, Odo himself went to Charles to seek support. Charles brought a large army and encircled the army ofRollo and set up a camp atMontmartre. However, Charles had no intention of fighting. He sent the attackers up the Seine to ravageBurgundy, which was in revolt. When the Vikings withdrew from France next spring, he gave them 700 pounds of promised silver. Charles's prestige in France was greatly diminished.
Charles issued a number of charters for West Frankish recipients during his stay in Paris during and after the siege. He recognised rights and privileges granted by his predecessors to recipients in theSpanish March and Provence, but especially inNeustria, where he had contact withNantes at a time when theBreton dukeAlan I was known to be powerful in thecounty of Nantes. It is probable that Charles granted Alan the right to be titledrex;[13] as emperor he would have had that prerogative and Alan's use of the title appears legitimate. A charter dated to between 897 and 900 makes reference to the soul ofKarolus, on whose behalf Alan had ordered prayers to be said in the monastery ofRedon. This was probably Charles the Fat.
Charles, childless by his marriage toRichgard, tried to haveBernard, his illegitimate son by an unknown concubine, recognised as his heir in 885, but this met with opposition from several bishops. He had the support ofPope Hadrian III, whom he invited to an assembly inWorms in October 885, but the pope died on the way there, just after crossing theriver Po.[15] Hadrian was going to remove the obstructing bishops for Charles, as he doubted he could do this himself, and legitimise Bernard.[15] Based on the unfavorable attitude shown by the chronicler responsible for the Mainz continuation of theAnnales Fuldenses, the chief of Charles's opponents in this matter was most likelyLiutbert, Archbishop of Mainz. Because Charles had called together the "bishops and counts of Gaul" as well as the pope to meet him at Worms, it is likely that he had plans to make BernardKing of Lotharingia.[16]Notker the Stammerer, who considered Bernard as a possible heir, wrote in hisDeeds of Charlemagne:
I will not tell you [Charles the Fat] of this [theViking sack of theAbbey of Prüm] until I see your little son Bernard with a sword girt to his thigh.[16]
After the failure of this first attempt, Charles set about to try again. He had the termproles (offspring) inserted into his charters (it had not been in previous years), in a likely attempt to legitimise Bernard.[17] In early 886 Charles met the newPope Stephen V and probably negotiated for the recognition of his illegitimate son as heir. An assembly was planned for April and May of the following year atWaiblingen. Pope Stephen cancelled his planned attendance on 30 April 887. Nevertheless, at Waiblingen, Berengar, who after a brief feud with Liutward had lost the favour of the emperor, came in early May 887, made peace with the emperor and compensated for his actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.[18]
Charles eventually abandoned his plans for Bernard and instead adoptedLouis of Provence as his son at an assembly atKirchen in May.[19] It is possible, however, that the agreement with Louis was only designed to engender support for Bernard's sub-kingship in Lotharingia. In June or July, Berengar arrived in Kirchen, probably pining to be declared Charles's heir; he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles's deposition.[20]Odo, Count of Paris, may have had a similar purpose in visiting Charles at Kirchen.[20] On the other hand, the presence of these magnates at these two great assemblies may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles's illegitimate son as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).[21]
Charles the Fat in theChartularium monasterii Casauriensis, ordinis S. Benedicti (San Clemente a Casauria, illustration from c. 1182)
With Charles increasingly seen as spineless and incompetent, matters came to a head in late 887. In the summer of that year, having given up on plans for his son's succession, Charles received Odo andBerengar,Margrave of Friuli, a relative of his, at his court. He may have accepted neither, one, or both of these as his heir in their respective kingdoms. His inner circle then began to fall apart. First, he accused his wife Richgard of having an affair with his chief minister andarchchancellor,Liutward,bishop of Vercelli. She proved her innocence in anordeal of fire[22] and left him for the monastic life. He then turned against Liutward, who was hated by all, and removed him from office, appointingLiutbert, archbishop of Mainz, in his place.
In that year, his first cousin once removed,Ermengard of Provence, daughter of theEmperor Louis II and wife ofBoso of Provence, brought her sonLouis the Blind to him for protection. Charles confirmed Louis in Provence (he may even have adopted him) and allowed them to live at his court. He probably intended to make Louis heir to the whole realm and theimperium. On November, he called an assembly toFrankfurt. While there he received news that an ambitious nephew,Arnulf of Carinthia, had fomented a general rebellion and was marching into Germany with an army of Bavarians and Slavs. The next week saw the collapse of all his support in East Francia. The last to abandon him were his loyalAlemanni, though the men of Lotharingia never seem to have formally accepted his deposition. By 17 November, Charles was out of power, though the exact course of events is unknown. Aside from rebuking his faithlessness, he did little to prevent Arnulf's move—he had recently been ill again—but assured that Bernard was entrusted to his care and possibly Louis too. He asked for a few estates in Swabia on which to live out his days and thus receivedNaudingen (Donaueschingen). There he died six weeks later, on 13 January 888.
The Empire fell apart, never to be restored. According toRegino of Prüm, each part of the realm elected a "kinglet" from its own "bowels"—the bowels being the regions inside the realm. It is probable that Arnulf desired the whole empire, but the only part he received other than East Francia was Lotharingia. The French elected Odo, although he was opposed at first byGuy III of Spoleto, who also opposed Arnulf in Lotharingia. Guy sought the kingship in Italy after his failures in Francia, despite Berengar having already been crowned. Louis was crowned in Provence, as Charles had intended, and he sought the support of Arnulf and gained it, probably through supplication to him. Odo would eventually submit to Arnulf's supremacy as well. InUpper Burgundy, oneRudolph, adux of the region, was elected as king in a distinctly non-Carolingian creation, probably the result of his failure to succeed in the whole of Lotharingia. InAquitaine,Ranulf II declared himself king and took the guardianship of the youngCharles the Simple, the Carolingian heir to the West, refusing to recognise Odo's election.
It is unknown if these elections were a response to Charles's East Frankish deposition or to his death. Only those of Arnulf and Berengar can be certainly placed before his death. Only the magnates of the East ever formally deposed him. He was buried with honour inReichenau after his death and theAnnales Fuldenses heap praises on his piety and godliness. Indeed, contemporary opinion of Charles is consistently kinder than later historiography, though it is a modern suggestion that his lack of apparent successes is the excusable result of near constant illness and infirmity.
Charles was the subject of a hortative piece of Latin prose, theVisio Karoli Grossi, designed to champion the cause of Louis the Blind and warn the Carolingians that their continued rule was not certain if they did not have "divine" (i.e. ecclesiastical) favour.[23]
^This is the term preferred by scholars for the early phase of what became theHoly Roman Empire of the high Middle Ages and the early modern period. He is numbered as "Charles III" in the lists on German monarchs but was not counted as king of France (despite briefly ruling overWest Francia) byCharles V when he adopted hisregnal number.[1]
^Agnes Baillie Cunninghame Dunbar (1905).A Dictionary of Saintly Women. Vol. 2. Bell. p. 186.Charles suffered excruciating pains in his head and attributed it to some sort of diabolic possession, for which he was exorcised, but the pain continued. Then he had incisions made in his head to get rid of the devil, but the pain only grew worse. Among other delusions, he suspected his wife of misconduct with Luitward, bishop of Vercelli. She demanded to clear her character, either by having a champion to fight for her or by some other ordeal. The trial consisted of the accused being wrapped in linen cloth soaked with inflammable liquid and set on fire at the four corners. It was burnt away to nothing, and the innocent queen remained unhurt. Thus was her innocence proved.
^Paul Edward Dutton. "Charles the Fat's Constitutional Dreams", inThe Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1994, 225–251.
Airlie, Stuart. "'Sad stories of the death of kings': Narrative Patterns and Structures of Authority in Regino of Prüm'sChronicle." In Elizabeth M. Tyler and Ross Balzaretti (eds.),Narrative and History in the Early Medieval West, pp. 105–32. Brepols, 2006.
Leyser, Karl.Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries. London, 1994.
MacLean, Simon.Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire.Cambridge University Press: 2003.
Reuter, Timothy.Germany in the Early Middle Ages, c. 800–1056. Longman, 1991.
Legend: → ≡ "father of", · ≡ "brother of" Begga, the daughter of Pepin I, married Ansegisel, the son of Arnulf of Metz, and was the mother of Pepin II.
