A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Angelberga
ANGELBERGA, or INGELBERGA, Empress of the West, Wife of Lewis II. Emperor and King of Italy, in the Ninth Century.
Nothing certain is known concerning the origin of this princess, though she is supposed to have been of illustrious birth. She was a woman of ability and courage; but proud, unfeeling, and so venal, that presents would always induce her to intercept the course of justice, and influence the nomination even of church dignities.
Lothair, king of Lorrain, dying in 869, Charles the Bald, his paternal uncle, took possession of his dominions, and afterwards divided them with Lewis, king of Germany, without respecting the right of the emperor Lewis, the rightful heir. This latter was at war with the Saracens, in the farthest part of Italy; and, as he could not then approach Lorrain, he had recourse to pope Adrian, who fruitlessly interceded in his behalf.
The war in which he was engaged, detained the emperor till 871, a year that the pride and rapacity of Angelberga, rendered unfortunate to her husband. While a part of his army was engaged at the siege of Tarentum, he was at Benevento, with his court. The troops which he had in the city and its vicinity, were burthensome to their hosts; the empress treated the ladies of Benevento with disdain; and it was suspected she meant to depose Adalgise II. and sell the duchy to some other. This prince concealing his discontent, and seeking to relieve his people from their troublesome auxiliaries, lent a willing ear to the proposals of a Saracen, who, from a prisoner, had become his most intimate friend. He began to be jealous of the power of the French, and espoused the cause of the Greeks with great ardour. Several neighbouring princes secretly entered into his views; and, as soon as the emperor had left Benevento, the general defection began to be visible.
Lewis immediately marched back to that city; but Adalgise found means to persuade him of his fidelity, and turn his arms against the others that had revolted, whom he soon reduced, and returned to Benevento. As this city was much crowded by the troops, Adalgise suggested, that such as came from no great distance might be permitted to return home; and the emperor followed the perfidious counsel, reserving only his own guards. Adalgise then, after some useless resistance, soon made himself master of the person of Lewis, Angelberga, and their suite; but, on the 17th of September, political reasons made him set them at liberty, after extorting solemn vows from both, that they would never attempt to revenge the treatment they had received, or enter the principality of Benevento in arms.
On leaving Benevento, the emperor sent Angelberga to hold a diet at Ravenna, where it immediately became a question, how they should punish Adalgise. She had no scruples concerning the oath; but Lewis, though absolved by the pope, did not think himself at liberty to act in person, leaving it entirely to the empress. She speedily assembled an army for that purpose; but, in the mean time, Adalgise again made his peace with Lewis, though, immediately after, he allied himself more closely than ever with the Greeks, and became a vassal of their emperor.
As Lewis had the succession in Lorrain much at heart, he sent, in the same year 872, Angelberga to treat with the two kings, his uncles, upon the subject. Charles the Bald avoided an interview; but the empress worked so adroitly upon the mind of Lewis, of Germany, who was inclined to be an honest man, that, without acquainting his new subjects with what he intended, he gave up his share in the kingdom of Lorrain, to his nephew, Lewis II.
While Angelberga thus employed her understanding in the service of her husband, the great lords of Italy, to whom she was obnoxious, profiting of the chagrin he yet felt, concerning the unfortunate affair of Benevento, which might be attributed, in a great measure, to her conduct, sought to entangle him with a mistress; and persuaded him to send a courier to the empress, desiring her to wait for him in Lombardy, where he meant speedily to come. Whether Angelberga knew the intrigues of her enemies, or whether such an order appeared suspicious to her, she only made the more haste to join him, and thus disconcerted their projects. Count Campelli, in his history of Spoleto, has taken occasion, from this fact, to suppose, that Angelberga was repudiated by Lewis II. in order to marry this mistress, daughter of the duke of that principality; and, that she became a nun. But the marriage of Lewis and Angelberga was never cancelled; and the daughter of the duke of Spoleto could not have been the person, as she must have been more than fifty years old at the time.
After staying more than a year at Capua, the emperor quitted it, in 879, and passed into Lombardy, where his presence was necessary, leaving the empress and her daughter in that city. The bishop, count Landulph, who, by his flatteries had obtained much influence over the minds of both, persuaded her to put the prince of Salerno, to whom he did homage for Capua, which he had usurped, in prison; from whence he did not effect his deliverance, till he had paid the empress a large sum of money.
She soon after rejoined her husband; and, in 874, built, at Plaisance, a monastery, which afterwards became one of the most famous in all Italy. In 875, Lewis died at Brescia, and Charles the Bald, king of France, succeeded him, instead of his elder brother, Lewis, of Germany. The nobles of Italy held a council at Pavia, at which Angelberga assisted, and took the strange resolution of offering the crown secretly to both kings at once. It is to be supposed, that she had no share in forming this resolution, as she certainly had no reason to be friendly to Charles the Bald.
Angelberga had obtained of her husband the command of the monastery of St. Julia, in Brescia, in which, being a fortified place, her treasures were all deposited; but Charles the Fat had been sent by his father, Lewis, of Germany, to oppose the pretensions of the king of France; and entering the city, made himself master of the fruit of all her extortions. Yet, when hostilities ceased in this part of Lombardy, she retired into this monastery; and, in a letter written the year following, by pope John VIII. it appears the report was, that she had become a nun there; but nothing is less certain. Though she had lost the treasures deposited in this place, she yet remained very rich in landed property, which had been given to her by her husband. To secure these possessions, she obtained a diploma from Lewis of Germany, in 876, in which he stiles her his god-daughter.
In 877, she made her will, at this convent, which Le Campi has printed. She gives to her monastery at Plaisance, a great many manorial rights, which were very valuable, as the lords were entitled to the tenth of all the produce, and many other privileges. She gives also much other property to the hospital built for the sick, and the accommodation of travellers, according to the custom of the age, near the monastery. All is done "for the benefit and redeeming the soul of the most merciful emperor, and for that of her own. She reserves to herself, during her life, the government and patronage of the monastery and hospital. But, after my death," she adds, "I will and desire, that, if my only daughter, Hermengarde, is desirous of taking the religious habit, she may succeed me in the government of the same place. That if, when I leave this life, she does not take the religious habit, I will and decree, that she diminish nothing in the revenues of this monastery and hospital." This will was confirmed by pope John VIII. the same year.
Hermengarde, who, with the consent of her mother, lived at the court of her relation, the duke of Friouli, with his and her own secret approbation, was carried off by Boson, brother of Richildis, wife of Charles the Bald, and married to him in 877. Boson, whom his brother-in-law, dead about two years before, had made duke of Provençe, at the instigation of his wife, caused himself to be proclaimed king, in 879; and, by his courage and ability, preserved the crown he had usurped, though attacked by the brother kings of France. In 881, Charles the Fat, being in Italy, caused the empress Angelberga to be taken from the monastery where she resided, and carried prisoner into Germany. It was supposed she might assist Hermengarde and her husband, by her riches and political knowledge, and he meant to serve Lewis and Carloman by her confinement; yet, when he came to Rome to receive the imperial crown, her friend, the pope, demanded the liberty of Angelberga, which Lewis promised, provided the kings of France consented. On which John wrote to them in a very spirited manner: he said this princess was under the protection of the apostolical see, to which the emperor Lewis II. had recommended her; and prayed them to consent that she might be sent back to Rome, where he himself would so well guard her, that she should not even aid, by her counsels, her son-in-law and her daughter.
He also wrote, on this subject, a circular letter to all the archbishops, bishops, and counts of Italy, to engage them to attempt the deliverance of Angelberga; and the next year, by letter, besought the reigning empress to intercede with her husband for that purpose. But, notwithstanding all his efforts, he did not obtain his request, till after the kings of France had taken Vienna, which they besieged near two years, and which Hermengarde herself had, till then, 882, courageously defended. Then Charles took Angelberga from her prison, and sent her, under the care of the bishop of Verçeil, his prime minister, to Rome.
After this time we hear no more of her, excepting, that, by a bull in the year 885, pope Adrian III. at her desire, confirmed and augmented the privileges of her monastery. That, in 888, she obtained of Berenger, then created king of Italy, a diploma in confirmation of her property; and the next year, Hermengarde being in Germany, obtained for her a like diploma from the emperor Arnold.
It is not specified when she died. She had only two daughters by the emperor—Hermengarde, who survived her, and Gisela, abbess of St. Julia, who died before her parents.