Italian emperors since the days of Guy (Guido). The turbulent Roman nobles and his own treacherous kindred were kept in order, the submissive churchmen protected by a pious usurper who favoured monastic reform and was the friend of St Odo of Cluny. It was all Alberic could do, however, to maintain himself against the persistent efforts of King Hugh to conquer Rome. A first siege of the city in 933 was a failure, a second in 936 ended in a treaty by which Alberic married Hugh's legitimate daughter Alda. This pacification did not last, although negotiated by St Odo, and in 941 Hugh by bribes and warfare was so successful as just to enter Rome. Somehow he was expelled, "by the hidden judgement of God" according to our only narrator[1]. Yet he would not give up the war until 946 when he had become a king under tutelage. Alberic thenceforth ruled unchallenged till his death in August 954.
Hugh and Alberic had been rival suitors for the alliance of the Eastern Emperor Romanus I Lecapenus, and in 935 Hugh had won the prize, partly through the pressure he could exercise in the south; partly no doubt through an eligibility to which the isolated prince of the Romans could lay no claim. Hugh, by calling off Theobald I of Spoleto, enabled the Byzantines to recover the lost districts of Apulia, and eventually the alliance was sealed by the marriage of Hugh's illegitimate daughter to a Byzantine prince, the future Emperor Romanus II. The two powers suffered in common from the Hungarians and Saracens. Against the Magyars little was done save to pay blackmail, although in 938 some raiding bands as they retreated from Campania, were exterminated by the Abruzzans. Common action was, however, attempted against the Saracens of Fraxinetum, who, besides their formidable brigandage on the West Alpine passes, raided even as far as Swabia and by sea must have troubled the Byzantines. In 931 the Greeks attacked them and, landing at Fraxinetum, made a slaughter, while it may be that at the same time Hugh's vassals revenged the destruction of Acqui by cutting to pieces the Saracen raiders and occupying for a moment the passes[2]. But no permanent result was obtained. Rather the ravage of the Fraxinetan Saracens grew worse, and in 935 the Fatimites sent a fleet from Africa which stormed Genoa. At last Hugh and Romanus I were roused to a joint campaign. In 942 a Byzantine fleet burnt the Saracens' ships with Greek fire, and blockaded Fraxinetum by sea, while Hugh with his army invested it by land. The Saracens could have been rooted out, when Hugh made a treaty with them they were to hold the Swabian passes against any attempted invasion by Hugh's exiled nephew Berengar of Ivrea. Perhaps Italy was somewhat spared in consequence, but the Alps continued the scene, of their brigandage.
