For a long time the kingdom of Italy had stood considerably apart from the other Carolingian states. Louis the Pious and Lothar had already placed it in a somewhat special position by sending as their representatives there each his eldest son, already associated in the Empire, and bearing the title of king. Since 855 the Emperor had been restricted to the possession of Italy, where he had already received the royal title in 844, and where his coronation as joint-Emperor had taken place (Rome, April 850). Apart from matters concerning the inheritance of his brothers, it does not seem that Louis II held that his office imposed on him the duty of interfering in affairs beyond the Alps. The Emperor had been obliged to devote his chief attention to his duties as king of Italy, and the defence of the country entrusted to him against the attacks of its enemies, particularly the Saracens. But circumstances were too strong for him, and in spite of his activity and energy, Louis II was fated to wear himself out in a struggle of thirty years, and yet neither to leave undisputed authority to his successor, nor finally to expel the Muslims from Italian soil. The royal power had never been very great in the peninsula. The Frankish counts, who had taken the place of the Lombard lords, had quickly acquired the habit of independence. The bishops and abbots had seen their temporal power grow in extent, through numerous grants of lands and immunities. On the other hand, three strong powers, outside the Papal state, had taken shape out of the ancient duchies of Friuli and Spoleto, and in Tuscany. The counts of Frankish origin were reviving the former Lombard title of duke, or the Frankish one of marquess, and regular dynasties of princes, by no means very amenable to the orders of the sovereign, were established at Cividale, Lucca and Spoleto. The March of Friuli, set up between the Livenza and the Isonzo to ward off the attacks of Slavs and Avars, although its ruler, no doubt, had extended his authority over other countries beyond these limits, had, in the time of Lothar, been bestowed on a certain Count Everard, husband of Gisela, the youngest daughter of Louis the Pious. This man, coming originally from the districts along the Meuse, where his family still remained powerful, was richly endowed with counties and abbeys, and played a distinguished part in the wars against the Serbs, dying in 864 or 865. His immediate successor was his son, Unroch, who died young, and then his second son, Berengar, who was destined to play a conspicuous part in Italy at the end of the ninth century, and who seems from an early date to have thrown in his lot in politics with the partisans of Louis the German and the Empress Engilberga. The ducal family established at Spoleto also came from Francia, from the valley of the Moselle. It was descended from Guy, Count of the March of Brittany under Louis the Pious. His son Lambert, who at first bore the same title, derived from the March, was a devoted adherent of Lothar, and, as such, had been banished to Italy where he died[1].
- ↑ See supra, pp. 15, 19-20.
