Charles the Bald

Charles II of France (French: Charles II), called the Bald («le Chauve») (Frankfurt am Main, June 13, 823-Monte Cenis (Avrieux), October 6, 877), was a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty, one of the sons of Louis the Pious - and grandson of Charlemagne - who they shared the Carolingian Empire in 843. King of Aquitaine already in his father's lifetime, he was King of West Francia from 843 to 877 and later Emperor of the West in 875.

As soon as his father died, wars began immediately between the brothers in order to divide up the vast empire founded by Charlemagne. Luis the German, son of the first marriage of Luis with Ermengarda de Hesbaye, allied with Carlos the Bald against the eldest Lotario I in the battle of Fontenoy-en-Puisaye (841), in which Lotario was defeated. The Strasbourg Oaths, the first testimony written in a Romance language, recorded this alliance in proto-French and proto-High German. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 was conceived as a temporary solution to the fraternal confrontation, although shortly after its stipulations were changing due to the chain of events. The empire was definitively divided —the origin of the political fragmentation of Europe that continues to this day— and will only be reunited briefly. In 869, after the death of Lothair II, son of Lothair I, Lotharingia was divided between France and Germany. In 875 Louis II the Younger, also the son of Lothair I, died, and Charles the Bald was made Emperor, reunifying his father's Empire if only for a brief time.

Carlos was a prince of education and letters, a friend of the Church, and aware of the support he could find in the episcopate against his noble rebels, he chose his advisers among the high clergy, as in the case of Guenelon de Sens, who betrayed him, and Hincmaro de Reims. Shortly before he died, on June 16, 877, he signed the Quierzy capitulary, with which he wanted to regulate the good progress of the empire in the event of the death of the nobles, establishing formally the inheritance of principalities and county offices, which gave way to the birth of feudalism.

During his reign, Charles the Bald had to confront the Norman invasions in his territory between 856 and 861.

He was succeeded by his son, Luis the Stutterer.

Biography

Nickname

Charles owes his nickname "the Bald" to the following circumstance: since 867, he was a lay abbot of Saint-Denis. On 00877-05-05 5 May 877, the day of the consecration by Pope John VIII of the collegiate church of Sainte-Marie, the future abbey of Saint -Corneille de Compiègne, would have shaved his head as a sign of submission to the Church despite the Frankish custom that required a king to have long hair. He wore long mustaches and drooping. The abbey had been founded by Charles one year before.

Origins and childhood

Son of Emperor Louis I the Pious (also called Ludovico Pío) and his second wife Judith of Bavaria, Carlos was born in Frankfurt on June 13, 823 or 820 according to Guy Breton when his older brothers were adults and their father had assigned them their own regna, or sub-kingdoms. He was entrusted, at the age of seven, to a renowned tutor, Walafrido Strabo (c. 808/809-849), then a monk at the Reichenau Monastery in Alemania, a cultivated spirit attached to imperial myth, poet, author of a gloss containing commentaries on the Bible, on which interpretations of the holy book have been based for centuries. For nine years, Strabo ensured the young prince's education, convinced of the great destiny that awaited his ward.

Honors and appointments during the reign of Louis the Pious

Denario de Carlos II el Calvo coined in Paris

Denario (like Temple and cross) by Carlos el Calvo, coined in Reims between 840 and 864 (previous to the Edict of Pistres)

Louis the Pious took care from a very young age to assign Carlos a sub-kingdom. Beginning in Worms in August 829, his father made him Duke of Alemania, including Rhaetia, Alsace, and part of Burgundy, when he was six years old.

In September 832, at the age of nine, he appointed him King of Aquitaine at Limoges, replacing his half-brother Pepin I of Aquitaine; the latter, having aided his father in the rebellion against his sons, regained his throne on 00834-03-15 March 15, 834 in quierzy.

In 837, at a diet in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), his father granted him the coastal territories between Friesland and the Seine and asked the nobles to pay homage to Charles as his heir. In 838, it obtained a territory assimilated to a kingdom that included Maine and the region between the Seine and the Loire. Pepin of Aquitaine died in 838, and Charles finally received that kingdom, angering Pepin's heirs and the Aquitanian nobles. In 839, on 28 or 30 May, at the Worms assembly, Louis the Pious gave him part of western France between the Meuse and the Seine, western and southern Burgundy, Provence, Neustria, the March of Brittany, the Kingdom of Aquitaine, Gascony, and Septimania.

The favors granted to Charles the Bald, to the detriment of his half brothers, were the cause of the riots that agitated the end of his father's reign, and of the discontent that existed among his heirs.

The division of the Empire (840-843)

Molde of the seal of Charles II el Calvo, king of France. Archives Nationales.

The emperor's death in 840 sparked war between his sons immediately. Carlos allied himself with his half brother Luis the Germanic, against Lothair I, his other older half brother, who aspired to exclude them from the division of the Empire, as well as Pepin II of Aquitaine, son of Pepin I of Aquitaine, who had been dispossessed. of his kingdom by Charles the Bald. Together, Louis and Charles defeated Lothair at the Battle of Fontenoy-en-Puisaye on 00841-06-25 25 June 841. The following year, the 00842-02-14 February 14, 842, the two brothers confirmed their alliance by reciprocally pronouncing the oaths of Strasbourg, pronounced in the Romance language and in the Tudescan language so that they would be understood by troops from both western and eastern France.

Hostilities ceased in 843 and the war ended with the signing in August 843 of the Treaty of Verdun, which divided Charlemagne's empire into three kingdoms of comparable size:

• Lotario I received the Middle France, Average (later called by his name, Lotaringia), a strip that understood Italy, the valleys of the Rhone, of the Saone, the Mosa, the Anjou and the lower course of the Rhine; he retained the title of emperor (although without having authority over his brothers) and had under his control the two imperial capitals, Aachen and Rome;

• Luis el Germánico received the Eastern France, Eastern France or Germania (the future Germany), that is, the areas east of the right margin of the Rhine, plus the city of Maguncia, on the left margin.

• Carlos el Calvo received Western France, Western France (origin of the kingdom of France), that is, the basins of the Escalda, the Seine, the Loire and the Garonne.

Five years later, on 00848-06-06 June 6, 848 in Orleans Cathedral, Charles the Bald was elected and later acclaimed by the great of the kingdom, being consecrated by the archbishop of Sens, Wénilon (or Ganelon):

And, in the city of Orleans, almost all the nobles, together with the bishops and abbots, choose Charles as his king and consecrate him with the anointing of the holy Christ and with the episcopal blessing.

Et, dans la ville d’Orléans, presque tous les grands, réunis aux évêques et aux abbés, élisent Charles pour leur roi et le consacrent par l’onction du saint chrême et par la bénédiction épiscopale.

Jean de Pange

The wars against the Bretons (843-851)

In 841, Charles the Bald was sworn in by Nominoë, who had been made missus of Brittany during the reign of Louis the Pious. In addition, he entrusted a faithful Aquitanian, Bego (Bégon) with the defense of the south bank of the Loire; Bego installed a stronghold a few kilometers from Nantes (origin of the town of Bouguenais), but he soon fell victim to dissensions within the free camp. Charles undertook an unsuccessful campaign against Brittany, upon his return from which he signed the Coulaines treaty with his nobility and clergy.

Starting in 843, hostilities broke out between Charles the Bald and Nominoë. In 845, during the battle of Ballon, Nominoë won a victory over Charles the Bald and in 846 a first treaty was concluded: Nominoë became sovereign of Brittany. During the resumption of hostilities in 849, the Bretons carried out numerous raids in western Francia (Maine, Anjou, Poitou), and seized the cities of Rennes and Nantes.

On 00851-08-22 August 22, 851, Charles the Bald was defeated by Erispoe at the Battle of Jengland. This defeat led him to sign the Treaty of Angers in the following September, by which he ceded the counties of Rennes and Nantes to Erispoë as well as the country of Retz, and recognized him as king in exchange for homage.

A few years later, under Solomon, the new king of Brittany, Charles was still forced to accept an enlargement of the Breton kingdom. On August 1 or 00867-08-25 August 25, 867, by the Treaty of Compiègne, Charles the Bald granted Solomon the Cotentin peninsula and the Avranchin. Apart from that, the first years of his reign, until the death of Lothair I in 855, were relatively peaceful. During those years, the three brothers continued the system of 'fraternal government', meeting repeatedly at Koblenz (848), at Meerssen (851), and at Attigny (854).

Viking raids and the 858 war against Louis the German

Confirmation by Charles the Calvo of the division of the goods of the Abbey of Saint-Denis between the abbot and the monks. Established in Compiègne el 00863-09-19 September 19, 863. Archives Nationales.

The so-called equestrian statuette of Carlomagno (c. 870), which is believed to represent possibly Carlos el Calvo

The Vikings intensified their raids from the 840s into the west of the kingdom (sack of Nantes in 843 which caused the death of a large number of inhabitants, including Bishop Saint Gohard; first siege of Paris in 845); sack of Bordeaux in 848), which contributed to weakening the Frankish positions against the Bretons during this period.

From 856 to 861, western Francia was raided several times by the then very active Vikings (2nd Siege of Paris) and 3rd Siege of Paris (see: Timeline of Viking invasions and Viking raids on France). Several times King Charles undertook to give them large sums to retire and stop plundering the rich abbeys; the Normans received the ransom and returned later Due to their inability to subdue the invader, the greats of the kingdom, led by Robert the Strong, rebelled against Charles and sought the help of his brother Louis the German.

During the autumn of 858, while Charles II was besieging the Viking-occupied island of Oscelle (Oissel), Louis the German, invited by disaffected nobles eager to drive Charles out, abandoned Worms and invaded the kingdom of the West Franks. He received the homage of the Aquitanians, of the majority of the vassals of the crown, and of a small minority of prelates under the authority of Archbishop Wénilon of Sens, who even gave him the anointing of consecration. Charles was so unpopular that he did not he was able to summon an army and was forced to take refuge in Burgundy. He was only saved thanks to the fidelity of the Welfs, who were related to his mother, Judith, and to the support of the bishops, who reacted and refused to crown Luis, led by Archbishop Hincmaro of Reims. Gathering at Reims on 00858-11-25 25 November 858, they demanded the departure of the East Franks and the return of Charles. Luis complies and dismisses part of the army from him. Taking advantage of the situation, Carlos managed to gather troops and marched north. The two armies met at Jouy, near Soissons; Seeing that Carlos's army was larger than his own, Luis withdrew without fighting. In 860, he also attempted to seize the kingdom from his nephew Charles of Provence, but was rebuffed.

In addition, Charles II had to endure several wars against his nephew Pepin II of Aquitaine to maintain his control over Aquitaine. Charles led several expeditions against the Viking raiders and, by the Edict of Pîtres in 864, he made the army more mobile by providing it with a cavalry element, the predecessor of the French cavalry so famous for the next 600 years. By the same edict, he ordered fortified bridges to be erected across all rivers to block Viking raids. Two such bridges in Paris saved the city during its siege of 885-886. La Monnaie [Mint] was established in 864 by the same edict of Pîtres: today it is one of the oldest French institutions. Carlosse undertook diplomatic actions with the Emirate of Córdoba, receiving camels from the emir Muhammad I rn 865.

From the 860s, the palace of Compiègne became an increasingly important center for Charles, who founded a monastery there in 876. In the X, Compiègne was known as 'Carlopolis' due to his association with Carlos.

King of Lotharingia (869) and later Emperor (875)

Carlos el Calvo, miniature painted towards 870nter

After the death of his nephew Lothair II, Charles was consecrated King of Lotharingia on 00869-09-09 9 September 869 in Metz by Archbishop Hincmaro of Reims, the Bishop of Metz Advence affirming that all the bishops and high laymen of Lotharingia wanted Charles' promotion. Before his coronation, Carlos had to make promises to his new subjects.

But Louis the German also intervened in Lotharingia: in August 870, in the Treaty of Meerssen, Charles had to cede part of the territory to him. The border between his two kingdoms then followed the Moselle and from the city of Thionville towards the bank of the Ourthe river in Belgium, which will most likely serve as a landmark to join the Meuse with its mouth in the North Sea. The treaty also granted Charles the Bald the northern part of the kingdom of Provence, the domain (along with Italy) of Emperor Louis II the Younger, Lothair I's eldest son.

In 875, after the death of Emperor Louis II (son of his half-brother Lothair), Charles was heir to the imperial throne, as well as to the kingdoms of Italy and Provence. Supported by Pope John VIII, he traveled to Italy, receiving the royal crown in Pavia and the imperial insignia in Rome on 00875-12-25 25 December 875, Exactly 75 years after Charlemagne's coronation, he was crowned Emperor by Pope John VIII. As emperor, Charles combined the mottos that had been used by his grandfather and his father into a single formula: renovatio imperii Romani et Francorum , renewal of the empire of the Romans and Franks. These words appeared on his seal.

Louis the German, also a candidate for the succession to Louis II, retaliated by invading and devastating Charles's domains, and Charles had to hastily return to western France. After the death of Louis the German in Frankfurt on 00876-08-28 28 August 876, Charles in turn seized the opportunity to invade eastern Lotharingia. But Louis's sons inflicted a severe defeat on 00876-10-08 October 8, 876 at the battle of Andernach near Koblenz.

Meanwhile, Pope John VIII, threatened by the Saracens, urged Charles to come to his defense in Italy. Before leaving, between June 14 and 16, 877, he promulgated the Chapter of Quierzy, considered the legal recognition of the inheritance of the count's position —which had already been done de facto for some time. decades—and of honours, and therefore one of the legal foundations of future feudalism. Charles then crossed the Alps again, but this expedition was greeted with little enthusiasm by the nobles, and even by his regent in Lombardy, Boso, and they refused to join his army. At the same time Carloman, another son of Louis the German, entered northern Italy. Carlos, sick and very distressed, undertook the road back to Gaul. Attacked by pleurisy, he took refuge in Aussois and died of this disease on 00877-10-06 6 October 877, in the town of Brios, the current Avrieux, while crossing the Mont-Cenis pass at Brides-les-Bains. Public rumor quickly accuses Sédécias (Zédéchias), one of his Jewish doctors, of having poisoned him, with the complicity of his wife Riquilda.

Grave

Apparition of Carlos el Calvo and his burial in Saint-Denis (France, century)XV)

Drawing of the tomb of Charles II

According to the Annals of St-Bertin, during the return to Paris, due to the decomposition of the body and the fact that the bearers could not bear the stench, it had to be hastily buried in the Saint-Pierre de Nantua Burgundy abbey. According to tradition, seven years after his death, Charles the Bald appeared to a monk from Saint-Denis (and a monk from Saint-Quentin-en-Vermandois). At his request, the monk asked his son Louis II the Stammerer to bring his father's body to Saint-Denis. Finally, in 884, his bones were returned to the abbey church of Saint-Denis in a porphyry vat. which may be the same one known as "Dagobert I's vat", now in the Louvre. It was recorded that there was a commemorative brass there that was melted down in the Revolution.

Indeed, the Emperor and King Charles II, having assumed the abbey of Saint-Denis in 867, expressed the desire to rest in the abbey, even specifying the place of his future burial, behind the altar of the Trinity.. Queen Ermentruda, his wife, was also buried at Saint-Denis in 869. A son of the imperial couple, Charles, died the same year as his father in 877 and was buried next to his mother.

It is unknown what that first imperial tomb was like. Three and a half centuries later, the construction of a new tomb began the reorganization under Louis IX of the new transept and choir of the Basilica of Saint-Denis as a place of remembrance for royalty. When the abbot Eudes Clément (1229-1245) left for Rouen in 1245, the tomb of Charles II the Bald was finished. It was a recumbent statue on a bronze slab supported by small columns. The emperor was depicted in half relief, with his crowned head resting on a cushion and his feet on a lion. His right hand held a scepter with fleurs-de-lis, his left a sphere. Two cherubs, placed on the spandrels of the trefoil that framed the sovereign's head, held censers and shuttles. An intaglio inscription formed the edge of the tomb recalling the benefits he had bestowed on the abbey. The bottom of the plaque was entirely enameled in blue, with fleurs-de-lys and netting in gold.

Several plaques of inlaid enamel also decorated the edges of the tunics and cloak. Four bronze lions, resting on very short twin stone columns, supported this table. In the four corners, the mitred ecclesiastics served to carry candles that were regularly lit in honor of the emperor, as in Saint-Germain-des-Prés by the Merovingian king Childebert I.

The monument was in the middle of the monks' choir, in front of the cross that Charles II the Bald had offered to the abbey, aligned with the tombs of Felipe II Augusto and Luis VIII located in front of the main altar. The emperor's tomb marked the western limit of the funerary space.

After the day of August 10, 1792, the convention decided to melt down all the bronze statues and monuments of the abolished monarchy. The bronze statues in the tombs, as well as the recumbent metal figures, were removed and melted down during the days of desecration of the tombs of the Saint-Denis basilica. Only the drawings by François Roger de Gaignières keep the memory of it, as well as the description that Viollet-le-Duc made in his Dictionnaire raisonné de L'architecture.

The disappearance of this tomb, the only one of its kind, left a great void in the royal necropolis of Saint-Denis. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc foresaw a reconstruction in the middle of the XIX century. He left drawings but that project was never realized.

Birth of feudalism

Continuing the legislative and organizational work of Charlemagne, Charles II left a large number of capitulations, among them the capitulation of Quierzy, which was particularly important for the political and social development of the kingdom.

In 847 he promulgated the capitulary of Meerssen, which marked the beginning of feudalism. Carlos II invited every free man to choose a lord, whether he was the king or another lord:

(Latin) Volumus ut unusquisque liber homo in nostro Regno Seniorem, qualem voluerit in nobis " in nostris Senioribus, accipiat.

We want every free man in our kingdom to receive as a lord whom he himself has chosen, either to ourselves or to one of our faithful.

Following Charlemagne, creator of a corps of officers in charge of decimating wolves in the empire (the louveterie), Charles II created a corps of specialized officers (the «bévari» or «bevarii», official of the beavers (bièvres) especially in charge of hunting beavers, highly sought after for their skins and since ancient times for the castoreum they produced (it is also probable that the monks complained about the beavers that voluntarily dammed the drainage ditches that were then being dug across Europe to reclaim new land from flooded swamps and forests); he was also accused of degrading the crops that grew along the water's edge.

Between June 14 and 16, 877, a few weeks before his death, Charles the Bald promulgated the Quierzy Chapter. This recognized the inheritance of the countship (which was already done de facto) and the inheritance of honours, which made it illegal to revoke an earl or refuse to grant the title of earl to the son of an earl who had just died as he had. been possible until then (because Charlemagne had originally created the office of count as revocable officials). This was one of the important legal foundations of feudalism.

Ancestry

Marriage and offspring

On 00842-12-14 December 14, 842 in Quierzy, Charles married Ermentrudis of Orleans, of the Agilolfinges family, with whom he had nine children:

• Judith (about 843-870), who married the king of Wessex Æthelwulf (fallen in 858) in 856, then with his son Æthelbald (fallen in 860), then with the count of Flanders Balduino II;
• Louis II the Tartamudo (846-879), king of the Franks, who married Ansgarda of Burgundy in 862 and then with Adelaide de Friul in 878;
• Charles the Child (c. 847-866), king of Aquitaine;
• Carloman (about 847 - about 877), Abbot of Saint-Médard de Soissons after Echternach;
• Ermentrude, Abbey of Hasnon Abbey in 877;
• Hildegarde;
• Rotrude;
• Lotario “le Boiteux” (circa 850-866), abad de Saint-Germain d'Auxerre;
• Godehilde de France (about 864-923), who married the Count of Maine Godefroi III (or Gozlin).

Carlos later married Riquilda, from the Bosonidas family, with whom he had a daughter:

• Rotilde(c. 871 - c. 928), married the Earl of Maine Roger.

The couple would also have other children who died young, including Pépin and Dreux, possibly twins, buried in Saint-Amand Abbey.

In fiction

• Vikings (temporaries 3, 4 and 5), Carlos II el Calvo is interpreted by Lothaire Bluteau.