Berengar I re d'Italia (Berengar I) "The Phantom Emperor" re d'Italia (± 845-924) » Stamboom Homs

Persoonlijke gegevens Berengar I re d'Italia (Berengar I) "The Phantom Emperor" re d'Italia

Bronnen 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Alternatieve namen: King Berenger I, Berenger I Italy, Bérengar D Italia, Berenger I
Roepnaam is The Phantom Emperor.
Hij is geboren rond 840 TO ABT 845.
Hij werd gedoopt rond 888 in King of Italy.
Alternatief: Hij werd gedoopt rond 888 in King of Italy.
Alternatief: Hij werd gedoopt rond 888 in Italy.
Alternatief: Hij werd gedoopt rond 888 in King of Italy.
Beroepen:

.
in King Of Italy.
.
{geni:job_title} Konge/Keiser av Italia
.
{geni:job_title} Roi d'Italie
.
{geni:job_title} Marquis, de Frioul, Roi, d'Italie, 888, Empereur, d'Occident, 12-915
.
{geni:job_title} Unknown GEDCOM info: Konge af Italien 888, Tysk - romersk Kej Unknown GEDCOM info: 0
.
rond 865 TO ABT 874 France in Corti di Anappes, Hildin e Condrost.
{geni:current} 0
{geni:job_title} Signore
rond 874 TO 07-04-924 Cividale, Lombardia, Italy in Marca del Friuli.
{geni:current} 0
{geni:job_title} Marchese
op 25 DEC 887 TO 07-04-924 Pavia, Lombardia, Italy in Regno d'Italia.
{geni:current} 0
{geni:job_title} Re
rond 888 TO ABT 915 in King of Italy.
{geni:current} 0
rond 888 TO ABT 924 in King of Italy.
rond 915 TO 07-04-924 Pavia, Lombardia, Italy in Sacro Romano Impero.
{geni:current} 0
{geni:job_title} Imperatore
rond 915 TO ABT 924 in Emperor of Italy.
{geni:current} 0

Hij is overleden op 7 april 924 in Verona, Province of Verona, Veneto, ItalyVerona, Veneto.
Een kind van Eberhard en Gisèle / Gisela of the West Franks
Deze gegevens zijn voor het laatst bijgewerkt op 12 februari 2012.

Gezin van Berengar I re d'Italia (Berengar I) "The Phantom Emperor" re d'Italia

Let op: Echtgenote (Bertila / Berthe di Spoleto) is ook zijn nicht.

Hij is getrouwd met Bertila / Berthe di Spoleto.

Zij zijn getrouwd rond 880 te Perugia, ItalyPerugia.

Kind(eren):

Gisela of Friuli d'Ivrea ± 880-910
Berenger I de Namur ± 890-± 946

Notities over Berengar I re d'Italia (Berengar I) "The Phantom Emperor" re d'Italia

Name Prefix: King Name Suffix: I

Konge av Italia 888 - 889 og 898 - 915 og tysk-romersk keiser 915 - 924.
Berengar var markgreve av Friaul før 875.
Han ble konge av Italia i januar 888, og valgte da Verona til sitt sete. Berengar ble
tysk-romersk keiser 24.03.915.
Italiaslekten etterfulgte Karolingerslekten som konger av Italia fra 888 til 961. Deretter
ble Italia en del av det tysk-romerske riket. Slekten var også grever av Burgund fra 985 til
1405. Grevskapet Burgund (Franche-Compté) lå i kongeriket Burgund som også ble en del av
det tysk-romerske riket.

King of Italy January 888-924, Emperor December 915-924

[blended.FTW]
[mergebase.FTW]
[Fix.FTW]
King of Italy 888-924
Frankish Emperor 905-924
Pope Steven V wanted Arnulf, the Eastern Frankish King, to come and claim the Italian crown and with it the Imperial crown as well, but because of Danish attacks he couldn't. So instead, Steven gave it to Guido of Spoleto. In 905, the Pope gave it to Berengar, who ruled as kingin Italy alone after Guido's death. When Berengar died in 924, the Frankish Empire died with him. The next to be crowned emperor by the Pope was Otto I, the German king, thus starting the Holy Roman Empire which lasted until 1802.
[Attempt.FTW]
King of Italy 888-924
Frankish Emperor 905-924
Pope Steven V wanted Arnulf, the Eastern Frankish King, to come and claim the Italian crown and with it the Imperial crown as well, but because of Danish attacks he couldn't. So instead, Steven gave it to Guido of Spoleto. In 905, the Pope gave it to Berengar, who ruled as kingin Italy alone after Guido's death. When Berengar died in 924, the Frankish Empire died with him. The next to be crowned emperor by the Pope was Otto I, the German king, thus starting the Holy Roman Empire which lasted until 1802.

[s2.FTW]

[Brøderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #1241, Date of Import: May 8, 1997]

!COUNT OF FRIULI[Brøderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #1241, Date of Import: May 8, 1997]

!COUNT OF FRIULI

Basic Life Information

Berengar I of Italy

Berengar of Friuli (c. 845 - 7 April 924 was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896, King of Italy (as Berengar I) from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.

Margrave of Friuli, 874-887

His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. His name in Latin is Berengarius or Perngarius and in Italian is Berengario. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family. She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, "wife."

When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874, Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli. With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884-885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno

When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor. Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom. This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.

In 883, the newly-succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May. He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.

In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of S. Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain. Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods. Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears as the initiator of the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.

By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887. He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts. In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son. It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887). On the other hand, his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).

King of Italy, 887-915

Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death. Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed. Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death. Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.

In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so diminished that he sued for peace nevertheless. The truce was to last until 6 January 889.

After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent. He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him. Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.

Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli. Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.

In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy. A rumour spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him. The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and "highest counsellor" of Berengar's, who soon died. The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.

Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor. According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and November and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.

The peace did not long last. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler. It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies. Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).

This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July. Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified. During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimisation of his rule. She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.

In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars. The bishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.

Emperor, 915-924

In January 915, Pope John X tried forge an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar was unable to send troops, but after the great Battle of the Garigliano, a victory over the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December). Berengar, however, returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.

As emperor, Berengar was wont to intervene outside of his regnum of Italy. He even dabbled in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège. After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. He was opposed by Charles III of France, who convinced Pope John to excommunicate Hilduin. Another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of pope and emperor.

In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period. She was poisoned. He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915. It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor. In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923. Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.

By 915, Berengar's eldest daughter, Bertha, was abbess of San Salvatore in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications. His younger daughter, Gisela, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids. She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried.Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown. Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.

Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles - led by Adalbert and many of the bishops - invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921. Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country. John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924. On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza. The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only a daughter (the aforementioned Bertha) and an anonymous epic poem, the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, about the many happenings of his troublesome reign.

Berengar has been accused of having "faced [the] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence," having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals," and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning." Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed. Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift-giving. Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berengar_I_of_Italy>

[elen.FTW]

[Brøderbund WFT Vol. 3, Ed. 1, Tree #4579, Date of Import: Jun 15, 2003]

Berenger I, King of Italy, Jan 888-894, Emperor, 915-924. He was murdered at Verona, 7 Apr 924.

Berengar I of Italy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Berengar of Friuli (? – 16 April 924) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874, King of Italy from 888, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death. He descended from the Carolingian dynasty on his mother's side. His mother was Gisela, a daughter of Louis the Pious; his father was Eberhard, the margrave of Friuli.

His older brother Unroch III died before his time and Berengar succeeded him as margrave of Friuli around 874. With this he obtained a key position, as the margrave bordered the Slavs and Magyars who where threatening the Italian peninsula. In 888, Berengar succeeded in convincing the Italian nobility to proclaim him King of Italy, even though there certainly were other options for the title. His rival, Guy of Spoleto, tried to outmaneuver him by having Pope Stephen V crown him Emperor, as well as crowning both him and his son Lambert of Spoleto as King. The coronation was considered controversial because Guy was known to be an archrival of the Pope. Nevertheless, Guy succeeded in restoring order in Italy from his bases in Pavia and Rome. Fortunately for Berengar, Pope Formosus invited King Arnulf of the East Franks to Italy in 893 to overthrow Guy. Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold, who met up with Berengar. Together, they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). The following year, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Guy died in 894. His son, Emperor Lambert, defeated an attempt by Berengar to advance on Pavia in 898, but died in a hunting accident days later. Meanwhile, Arnulf, who had been crowned in 896 in opposition to Lambert, had left Italy that same year. It seemed that Berengar would quickly regain his authority.

Outside events would change this, however. Chaos had struck as the first Magyar invasions had commenced and Berengar's defeat at their hands near the Brenta River in 899 caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, Louis of Provence. In 900 Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned King and Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise not to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar again defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded. Louis returned to Lower Burgundy and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king.

In January 915, Pope John X, after forging an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers, crowned Berengar as Emperor, hoping he could face the Saracen threat in the south of Italy. However, Berengar returned swiftly to the north where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars. Dissatisfied with the emperor, several Italian nobles invited Rudolf II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 922. Moreover, his own son-in-law, the Margrave of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolf. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country. Pavia was sacked in 924, and the same year Berengar was murdered by one of his own men, possibly at the instigation of Rudolf. He left no sons, only daughters (Bertha and Gisela).

There exists an anonymous writing, 'Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris', about the many happenings of his troublesome time.

Preceded by:
Charles III King of Italy
888–891 Succeeded by:
Louis III
Preceded by:
Louis III King of Italy
905–922 Succeeded by:
Rudolph II
Preceded by:
Louis III Emperor
915–922 Succeeded by:
(interregnum)
Otto I
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Berengar, Holy Roman Emperor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Berengar I of Italy)
Jump to: navigation, search
Berengar of Friuli (c. 845 – 7 April 924[1]) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896,[2] King of Italy (as Berengar I) from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.

Contents [hide]
1 Margrave of Friuli, 874–887
2 King of Italy, 887–915
3 Emperor, 915–924
4 References
5 Notes

[edit] Margrave of Friuli, 874–887
His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. His name in Latin is Berengarius or Perngarius and in Italian is Berengario. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family.[3] She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, "wife."[4]

When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874,[5] Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli.[6] With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884–885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno.[7]

When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor.[8] Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom.[9] This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.

In 883, the newly-succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May.[10] He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.[11]

In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of S. Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain.[12] Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods.[13] Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears as the initiator of the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.[14]

By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887.[15] He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.[16] In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son.[17] It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887).[18] On the other hand, his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).[19]

[edit] King of Italy, 887–915
Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death.[20] Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed.[21] Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death.[22] Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.

In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so diminished that he sued for peace nevertheless.[23] The truce was to last until 6 January 889.[24]

After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent.[25] He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him.[26] Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.[27]

Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli.[28] Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.[29]

In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy.[30] A rumour spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him.[31] The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and "highest counsellor" of Berengar's, who soon died.[32] The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.[33]

Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor.[34] According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and Novemer and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.

The peace did not long last. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler.[35] It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies.[36] Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).[37]

This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July.[38] Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified.[39] During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimisation of his rule.[40] She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.

In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars.[41] The bishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.

[edit] Emperor, 915–924
In January 915, Pope John X tried forge an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar was unable to send troops, but after the great Battle of the Garigliano, a victory over the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December).[42] Berengar, however, returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.

As emperor, Berengar was wont to intervene outside of his regnum of Italy. He even dabbled in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège.[43] After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. He was opposed by Charles III of France, who convinced Pope John to excommunicate Hilduin. Another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of pope and emperor.

In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period.[44] She was poisoned.[45] He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915.[46] It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor.[47] In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923.[48] Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.

By 915, Berengar's eldest daughter, Bertha, was abbess of San Salvatore in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications.[49] His younger daughter, Gisela, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids.[50] She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried.[51] Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown.[52] Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.[53]

Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles — led by Adalbert and many of the bishops — invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921.[54] Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country.[55] John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924.[56] On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza.[57] The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only a daughter (the aforementioned Bertha) and an anonymous epic poem, the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, about the many happenings of his troublesome reign.

Berengar has been accused of having "faced [the] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence,"[58] having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals,"[59] and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning."[60] Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed.[61] Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift-giving.[62] Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed.[63]

[edit] References
Rosenwein, Barbara H. "The Family Politics of Berengar I, King of Italy (888-924)." Speculum, Vol. 71, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp 247-289.
Previté Orton, C. W. "Italy and Provence, 900-950." The English Historical Review, Vol. 32, No. 127. (Jul., 1917), pp 335-347.
Reuter, Timothy (trans.) The Annals of Fulda. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
MacLean, Simon. Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge University Press: 2003.
Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society 400-1000. MacMillan Press: 1981.
Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures and Political Rule. (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Llewellyn, Peter. Rome in the Dark Ages. London: Faber and Faber, 1970. ISBN 0 571 08972 0.
"Berengar." (2007). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 May 2007.

[edit] Notes
^ Rosenwein, p. 270.
^ AF(M), 887 (p. 102 n3). AF(B), 896 (pp 134–135 and nn19&21).
^ Rosenwein, p. 256.
^ Ibid, p. 257.
^ Annales Fuldenses (Mainz tradition), 887 (p. 102 n3). The Annales are hereafter cited as "AF" with the post-882 tradition, Mainz or Bavarian, indicated by (M) or (B).
^ MacLean, p. 70 and n116. He was usually called marchio, but once appears as dux in one charter of Charles the Fat. He was one of only three marchiones and six consiliarii who appear in the reign of Charles.
^ Ibid, p. 71.
^ AF, 875 (p.77 and n8).
^ Ibid. MacLean, p. 70.
^ AF(B), 883 (p. 107 and nn6&7).
^ Ibid.
^ AF(M), 887 (p. 102), presents it as an invasion on Liutward's part.
^ AF(B), 886 (p. 112 and n8).
^ Ibid.
^ AF(B), 887 (p. 113 and nn3&4).
^ Ibid.
^ MacLean, p. 113.
^ Reuter, p. 119, suggests this, adding that Odo, Count of Paris, may have had a similar purpose in visiting Charles at Kirchen.
^ MacLean, pp 167–168.
^ Reuter, p. 121.
^ AF(B), 888 (p. 115 and n3).
^ Ibid, following Liutprand of Cremona in his Antapodosis.
^ AF(B), 888 (p. 117 and n12).
^ Ibid.
^ Ibid.
^ Ibid, n13. Navus and sagus perhaps refer to royal rights or taxes, but more likely to as yet unidentified places. Reuter, p 122, considers Arnulf and Berengar's relationship to be one of suzerain and vassal.
^ Ibid, n14.
^ AF(B), 889 (p.119 and n2).
^ AF(B), 894 (p. 128 and n12).
^ AF(B), 896 (p. 132 and nn1&2).
^ Ibid.
^ Ibid, p. 134 and n19. MacLean, p. 71. The exact dates of Waltfred's rule in Friuli are unknown. Berengar was last confirmed in Friuli in 890.
^ Reuter, p. 123.
^ Ibid, p. 135 and nn20&21.
^ Ibid, n21.
^ Reuter, p. 128, suggests the former view.
^ AF(B), 900 (p. 141 and n4), with a loss of 20,000 men and many bishops. Corroborated by Liutprand, Antapodosis.
^ Previté Orton, p. 337. The Gest Berengarii and Constantine Porphyrogenitus' De administrando imperio both show Berengar as declaiming responsibility for Louis's blinding.
^ Ibid. Rosenwein, p. 259 and n47, which recalls that some historians have accused him of neglecting its defences.
^ Ibid, p. 257.
^ Wickham. p. 175.
^ Llewellyn, 302.
^ Rosenwein, p. 277.
^ AF(B), 889 (p. 139 and n2). Rosenwein, p. 258 and n46.
^ Rosenwein, p. 258.
^ Ibid.
^ Previté Orton, p. 336.
^ Ibid.
^ Rosenwein, p. 255.
^ Ibid, p. 274 and n140.
^ Ibid.
^ Ibid, p. 274.
^ Previté Orton, pp 339–340, who also remarks on Berengar's "unrevengeful character."
^ Rosenwein, pp 262, 274, and passim.
^ Ibid, p. 266. The Magyars were operating, nominally at least, on Berengar's behalf.
^ Ibid.
^ Britannica.
^ Ibid, p. 248.
^ Ibid, who calls him "a terrible warrior."
^ Wickham, p. 171. This appears to be flatly contradicted, however, by the other sources. Reuter calls his a victory over Guy at the Trebbia in 888 and his campaign against Spoleto in 883 was initially successful.
^ Rosenwein, p. 248 and n8.
^ Ibid, passim.
^ Ibid, p. 249.

Emperor Berengar
Unruoching dynasty
Died: 7 April 924
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Charles III King of Italy
887 – 924
disputed by:
Guy of Spoleto (888 – 894)
Lambert of Spoleto (891 – 898)
Arnulf of Carinthia (896 – 899)
Ratold (896)
Louis III (900 – 905)
Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy (922 – 933) Succeeded by
Rudolph
disputed with
Hugh
Preceded by
Louis III (Holy) Roman Emperor
915 – 924 Vacant
Title next held by
Otto I
Italian nobility
Preceded by
Unruoch III Margrave of Friuli
874 – 890 Succeeded by
Waltfred

After the fall of King Charles III "the Fat", he was elected King of Italy at Pavia in 888. He acknowledged the overlordship of King Arnulf of Germany as Holy Roman Emperor for aid against Arnulf's rival Guy of Spoleto. After a long struggle with Guy and his son Lambert, from 888 to 896, he was acknowledged King of all Italy after Lambert's death in 898. He was defeated by a force of marauding Magyars on the Brenta Riverin 899, then repulsed the invasion of Louis III of Provence in 902. He captured Louis when he attacked Pavia and Verona, in 905, and blinded him, so that afterward he was known as Louis "the Blind". He was crowned Emperor by Pope John X in Rome in 915, but his authority remained weak. Despite aid from his Magyar allies, he was defeated at the battle of Fiorenzuola by the magnates and their champion, Rudolf II of Burgundy in the summer of 923, and murdered by a follower. Despite some gifts as a commander and politician, his efforts to rule Italy were frustrated by the magnates. His government was tenuous at best.

[2913] BJOHNSN.GED, name also 'Berengar', b 840, d 7 Apr 924

WSHNGT.ASC file (Geo Washington Ahnentafel) # 139602506 = 14683210, Berenger I
Emp. of the West, b & d dates

Rootsweb Feldman
URL: http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:3044567&id=I11389
# ID: I11389
# Name: Berenger I of ITALY 1 1 2 3 4 5
# Sex: M
# Title: King of Italy
# Birth: 850 in Friuli, Italy ?(Marquis and Duke of Friuli) 1 2 3 4 5
# Death: 7 APR 924 in murdered in Verona, Italy 1 2 3 4 5
# Christening: 888 Italy - Aka the "Phantom Emperor" 1 2 3 4 5
# Change Date: 15 JAN 2004 5
# Change Date: 6 OCT 2001 2 3 4 5
# IDNO: 544 2 3 4 5
# Note:

[Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED]

2 PLAC 544
2 SOUR S332582
3 DATA
4 TEXT Date of Import: 14 Jan 2004

[daveanthes.FTW]

GIVN Berenger I of
SURN Italy
NPFX King
NSFX *
EVEN Northern Italy
TYPE Ruled
DATE 899/900
PLAC Italy
EVEN Italy (as rival king to Louis III)
TYPE Ruled
DATE BET 888 AND 923
PLAC Italy

NPFX King
GIVN Berenger I of
SURN ITALY
NSFX *
Marquis of Friuli, King of the Lombards 888-889; Holy Roman Emperor
915-924; defeated by Duke Guy of Spoleta; last of the Italian line of
Emperors. aka Berengarius I.
In 888 Berenger or Berengarius of Friuli declared himself to be kingof Italy, rival king to Louis III of Burgundy.
ABBR SOURCE #337
TITL Kingdom's of Europe, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ruling Monarchs FromAncient Times to the Present
AUTH Gene Gurney
PUBL Crown Publishers, New York. 1982
PAGE Gurney page 48.
EVEN Berengarius of Friuli
TYPE AKA
EVEN Northern Italy
TYPE Ruled
DATE 899/900
PLAC Italy
Berenger I, aka Berengar or Berengaro, claimed the position of soleruler of Northern Italy after the death of Emperor Arnulf. He wasexpelled about 900 by the Hungarians who had invaded his country.
Hewas succeeded by the Burgundian Louis III. Berenger or Beregarius,then claimed all of Italy after Louis III died in 905, and ruled until923. He was succeeded by Rudolf II of Burgundy.
ABBR Trager's Chronology
PAGE 319 AD891-900
ABBR SOURCE #337
TITL Kingdom's of Europe, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ruling Monarchs FromAncient Times to the Present
AUTH Gene Gurney
PUBL Crown Publishers, New York. 1982
PAGE Gurney page 48.
EVEN Italy (as rival king to Louis III)
TYPE Ruled
DATE BET 888 AND 923
PLAC Italy

OCCU King of Italy ...
SOUR Royalty for Commoners, Roderick W. Stuart says c840/845
HAWKINS.GED says ABT 842
PAGE 143
QUAY 1
SOUR BAIL3.GED (Compuserve), #143;
Royalty for Commoners, Roderick W. Stuart, p. 197;
HAWKINS.GED;
Duke of Friuli - COMYNI.GED (Compuserve), #1112;Berenger I-GWALTNEY.ANC (Comp-
userve) #2032179914; Marquis de Frioul - BAIL3.GED (Compuserve), 143; King of
Italy, Jan. 888-924; Emperor of the West, Dec 915-924; Marquis of Fruiuli -
Royalty for Commoners, Roderick W. Stuart p. 197

Father: Eberhard of SAXONY b: ABT 816 in Friuli, Italia
Mother: Gisele Princess of FRANCE b: 818 in Frankfurt, Hesse Nassau, France

Marriage 1 Bertila of SPOLETO b: 845 in Perugia Prov., Italy

* Married: ABT 880 in Italy 1 2 3 4 5

Children

1. Has Children Gisela of ITALY b: ABT 881 in Perugia, Tuscany, Italy
2. Has Children Gerberge ITALY b: ABT 884 in ,,Italy

Sources:

1. Title: daveanthes.FTW
Note: ABBR daveanthes.FTW
Note: Source Media Type: Other
Repository:
Call Number:
Media: Book
Text: Date of Import: 14 Jan 2004
2. Title: daveanthes.FTW
Note: ABBR daveanthes.FTW
Note: Source Media Type: Other
Repository:
Call Number:
Media: Book
Text: Date of Import: Jan 13, 2004
3. Title: Spare.FTW
Repository:
Call Number:
Media: Other
Text: Date of Import: Jan 18, 2004
4. Title: Spare.FTW
Repository:
Call Number:
Media: Other
Text: Date of Import: 21 Jan 2004
5. Title: Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED
Repository:
Call Number:
Media: Other
Text: Date of Import: Feb 6, 2004

Louis III, crowned in 901, was deposed in 905 by Berengar of Friuli, who was himself crowned by the pope in 915, but on Berengar's death in 924 the powerful Roman family of the Crescentii, determined to keep authority in its own hands, stepped in and suppressed the imperial title.Thus the empire created in 800 disappeared, ineffective and unmourned.
[Berenger was never fully recognized outside of Italy and Burgundy. He achived only parital recognition in Germany.

murdered

#Générale##Générale#Profession : Roi d'Italie de 888 au 7 Avril 924, Empereuren 915.
Assassiné.

{geni:occupation} Keiser, Marquis of Friuli, King of Italy, Holy Roman Emperor, Margrave de Friuli, Rei da Itália e imperador do Sacro Império Romano., Conde y Rey de Italia, KING OF ITALY, EMPEROR, Kejsare, Kejsare och kung, Roi d'Italie, Emperor, Holy Roman Emporer

{geni:about_me} Berengar dell'Italia (of Italy) (Cividale del Friuli, 850 (?) – Verona, 924)

Parents: Eberardo del Friuli & di Gisella (o Gisla), figlia di Ludovico il Pio
Spouse: Bertilla de Spoleto
Children: Gisela dell'Italia

LINKS
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berengar_I_of_Italy '''Berengar I of Italy''']

WIKIPEDIA
Berengar of Friuli (c. 845 – 7 April 924[1]) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896,[2] King of Italy (as Berengar I) from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.

--------------------
Berenger Jag markisen av Ivrea kungen av Italien tysk-romersk kejsare
--------------------
Wikipedia:
Berengar I. von Friaul (* um 840; † 7. April 924 in Verona) war Kaiser von 915 bis 924 und König von Italien in den Jahren 888–889, 896–901 und 905–924. Somit gehört er zu den Nationalkönigen.
Leben [Bearbeiten]

Er war eines von zehn Kindern des Unruochingers Eberhard († 866), Markgraf von Friaul, und dessen Frau Gisela († 874), Tochter Kaiser Ludwigs des Frommen.

Seit 874 war er Nachfolger seines Vaters als Markgraf von Friaul.

Nach der Absetzung Karls des Dicken wurde Berengar I. 888 durch den Bischof Anselm von Mailand in Pavia zum König der Langobarden gekrönt. Als jedoch der ostfränkische König Arnulf mit einem Heer anrückte, huldigte ihm Berengar zu Trient als König von Italien. Und 889 wurde Berengar von seinem Gegner, Herzog Wido III. von Spoleto, an der Trebia besiegt (Wido wurde 891 von Papst Stephan V. zum Kaiser gekrönt). Nach dessen Tod 894 zog der Ostfranke Arnulf erneut über die Alpen und besetzte Oberitalien. Nach Arnulfs Abzug 895 fiel Berengar wieder von ihm ab und teilte sich mit Widos Sohn, Kaiser Lambert, Herzog von Spoleto, die Herrschaft über Ober- und Mittelitalien. Nach Lamberts Absetzung 896 (er starb 898) und Arnulfs Tod 899 versuchte Berengar, sich des ganzen Langobardenreichs zu bemächtigen .

Berengars Position war durch die Niederlage gegen die Ungarn an der Brenta 899 bei deren Einfall 899/900 ernstlich gefährdet und deshalb wurde Ludwig, König von Niederburgund, nach Italien gerufen und 901 zum Kaiser ernannt.

905 konnte Berengar Ludwig verdrängen, indem er ihn bei einem von dessen Italienfeldzügen gefangennahm und ihn dabei in Verona blenden ließ. Berengar wurde allerdings erst 915 von Papst Johannes X. zum Kaiser gekrönt.

Stetige Aufstände machten ihm zu schaffen; deren Anstifter, die Markgrafen von Ivrea und Toskana sowie der Bischof Lambert von Mailand, trugen 919 dem König Rudolf II. von Hochburgund die Krone Italiens an.

Rudolf schlug am 29. Juli 923 Berengar bei Fiorenzuola in der Nähe von Piacenza vollständig, und als dieser die Ungarn zu Hilfe rief, entfremdete er sich dadurch auch den wenigen, die ihm treu geblieben waren. Selbst in Verona, das stets zu ihm gehalten hatte, entstand eine Verschwörung. Berengar I. wurde am 7. April 924 in Verona ermordet.
Ehe und Nachkommen [Bearbeiten]

Berengar war in erster Ehe seit etwa 880/890 mit Bertila von Spoleto († vor Dezember 915) verheiratet, der Tochter von Herzog Suppo II., Graf von Camerino, mit der er drei Kinder hatte. Die älteste Tochter aus dieser Ehe wiederum war mit Adalbert I., Markgraf von Ivrea, verheiratet. Dieser Verbindung entstammte Berengar II.. In zweiter Ehe heiratete er vor Dezember 915 Anna, die nach Mai 936 starb; seine zweite Ehe blieb kinderlos.

Berengars Kinder waren:

* Tochter ∞ NN, Neffe des Bischofs Liutvard von Vercelli
* Gisela (* wohl 880/885, † wohl 910/915) ∞ vor 900 Adalbert I. der Reiche († wohl 923) Markgraf von Ivrea
* Bertha († nach 952) 915 Äbtissin von San Salvatore in Brescia

Weblinks [Bearbeiten]

* Ernst Dümmler: Berengar I.. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Band 2. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, S. 357–359.
* genealogie-mittelalter.de

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berengar_I_of_Italy
--------------------
Berengar I of Italy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Berengar of Friuli)
"Berengar I" redirects here. For the margrave of Neustria, see Berengar I of Neustria.
Berengar of Friuli (c. 845 – 7 April 924[1]) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896,[2] King of Italy (as Berengar I) from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.
Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.

Margrave of Friuli, 874–887

His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. His name in Latin is Berengarius or Perngarius and in Italian is Berengario. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family.[3] She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, "wife."[4]
When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874,[5] Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli.[6] With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884–885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno.[7]
When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor.[8] Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom.[8][9] This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.
In 883, the newly-succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May.[10] He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.[10]
In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of S. Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain.[11] Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods.[12] Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears as the initiator of the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.[12]
By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887.[13] He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.[13] In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son.[14] It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887).[15] On the other hand, his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).[16]
[edit]King of Italy, 887–915

Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death.[17] Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed.[18] Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death.[19] Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.
In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so diminished that he sued for peace nevertheless.[20] The truce was to last until 6 January 889.[20]
After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent.[20] He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him.[21] Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.[22]
Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli.[23] Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.[24]
In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy.[25] A rumour spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him.[25] The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and "highest counsellor" of Berengar's, who soon died.[26] The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.[27]
Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor.[28] According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and November and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.
The peace did not long last. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler.[29] It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies.[30] Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).[31]
This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July.[32] Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified.[33] During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimisation of his rule.[4] She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.
In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars.[34] The bishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.
[edit]Emperor, 915–924

In January 915, Pope John X tried forge an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar was unable to send troops, but after the great Battle of the Garigliano, a victory over the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December).[35] Berengar, however, returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.
As emperor, Berengar was wont to intervene outside of his regnum of Italy. He even dabbled in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège.[36] After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. He was opposed by Charles III of France, who convinced Pope John to excommunicate Hilduin. Another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of pope and emperor.
In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period.[37] She was poisoned.[38] He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915.[38] It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor.[39] In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923.[39] Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.
By 915, Berengar's eldest daughter, Bertha, was abbess of San Salvatore in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications.[40] His younger daughter, Gisela, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids.[41] She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried.[41] Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown.[41] Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.[42]
Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles — led by Adalbert and many of the bishops — invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921.[43] Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country.[44] John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924.[45] On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza.[46] The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only a daughter (the aforementioned Bertha) and an anonymous epic poem, the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, about the many happenings of his troublesome reign.
Berengar has been accused of having "faced [the] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence,"[47] having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals,"[48] and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning."[49] Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed.[50] Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift-giving.[51] Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed.[52]
[edit]References

Rosenwein, Barbara H. "The Family Politics of Berengar I, King of Italy (888-924)." Speculum, Vol. 71, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp 247-289.
Previté Orton, C. W. "Italy and Provence, 900-950." The English Historical Review, Vol. 32, No. 127. (Jul., 1917), pp 335-347.
Reuter, Timothy (trans.) The Annals of Fulda. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
MacLean, Simon. Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge University Press: 2003.
Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society 400-1000. MacMillan Press: 1981.
Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures and Political Rule. (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Llewellyn, Peter. Rome in the Dark Ages. London: Faber and Faber, 1970. ISBN 0 571 08972 0.
"Berengar." (2007). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 May 2007.

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Berengar of Friuli (c. 845 – 7 April 924) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896, King of Italy (as Berengar I) from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.

Margrave of Friuli, 874–887
His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. His name in Latin is Berengarius or Perngarius and in Italian is Berengario. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family. She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, "wife."

When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874, Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli. With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884–885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno.

When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor. Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom.This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.

In 883, the newly-succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May. He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.

In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of S. Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain. Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods. Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears as the initiator of the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.

By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887. He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts. In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son. It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887).On the other hand, his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).

King of Italy, 887–915
Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death.Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed. Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death. Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.

In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so diminished that he sued for peace nevertheless. The truce was to last until 6 January 889.

After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent.He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.

Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli. Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.

In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy. A rumour spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him. The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and "highest counsellor" of Berengar's, who soon died. The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.

Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor. According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and November and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.

The peace did not long last. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler. It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies. Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).

This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July. Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified. During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimisation of his rule. She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.

In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars. Thebishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.

Emperor, 915–924
In January 915, Pope John X tried to forge an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar was unable to send troops, but after the great Battle of the Garigliano, a victory over the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December). Berengar, however, returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.

As emperor, Berengar was wont to intervene outside of his regnum of Italy. He even dabbled in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège. After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. He was opposed by Charles III of France, who convinced Pope John to excommunicate Hilduin. Another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of pope and emperor.

In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period. She was poisoned. He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915. It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor. In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923. Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.

By 915, Berengar's eldest daughter, Bertha, was abbess of San Salvatore in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications. His younger daughter, Gisela, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids. She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried. Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown. Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.

Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles — led by Adalbert and many of the bishops — invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921. Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country.John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924.On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza. The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only a daughter (the aforementioned Bertha) and an anonymous epic poem, the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, about the many happenings of his troublesome reign.

Berengar has been accused of having "faced [the] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence," having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals,"and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning."Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed. Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift-giving. Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed.

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http://www.thepeerage.com/p11358.htm#i113576
Berenger I of Fuili, Emperor of Italy
M, #113576, d. 924

Last Edited=10 Sep 2005
Berenger I of Fuili, Emperor of Italy was the son of Eberhard of Fuili, Markgraf of Fuili and Gisela d'Aquitaine. He died in 924.1
Berenger I of Fuili, Emperor of Italy gained the title of King Berengar of Italy in 888.2 He gained the title of Emperor Berengar I of Italy in 915.
Children of Berenger I of Fuili, Emperor of Italy
Gisella (?)+
Rosela of Italy2 d. 1003
Citations
[S38] John Morby, Dynasties of the World: a chronological and genealogical handbook (Oxford, Oxfordshire, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1989), page 98. Hereinafter cited as Dynasties of the World.
[S16] Jirí Louda and Michael MacLagan, Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe, 2nd edition (London, U.K.: Little, Brown and Company, 1999), table 64. Hereinafter cited as Lines of Succession.
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Berengar of Friuli (c. 845 – 7 April 924[1]) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896,[2] King of Italy (as Berengar I) from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Margrave of Friuli, 874–887
* 2 King of Italy, 887–915
* 3 Emperor, 915–924
* 4 References
* 5 Notes

[edit] Margrave of Friuli, 874–887

His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. His name in Latin is Berengarius or Perngarius and in Italian is Berengario. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family.[3] She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, "wife."[4]

When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874,[5] Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli.[6] With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884–885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno.[7]

When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor.[8] Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom.[8][9] This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.

In 883, the newly-succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May.[10] He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.[10]

In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of S. Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain.[11] Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods.[12] Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears as the initiator of the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.[12]

By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887.[13] He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.[13] In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son.[14] It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887).[15] On the other hand, his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).[16]
[edit] King of Italy, 887–915

Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death.[17] Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed.[18] Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death.[19] Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.

In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so diminished that he sued for peace nevertheless.[20] The truce was to last until 6 January 889.[20]

After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent.[20] He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him.[21] Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.[22]

Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli.[23] Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.[24]

In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy.[25] A rumour spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him.[25] The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and "highest counsellor" of Berengar's, who soon died.[26] The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.[27]

Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor.[28] According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and November and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.

The peace did not long last. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler.[29] It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies.[30] Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).[31]

This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July.[32] Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified.[33] During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimisation of his rule.[4] She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.

In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars.[34] The bishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.
[edit] Emperor, 915–924

In January 915, Pope John X tried to forge an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar was unable to send troops, but after the great Battle of the Garigliano, a victory over the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December).[35] Berengar, however, returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.

As emperor, Berengar was wont to intervene outside of his regnum of Italy. He even dabbled in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège.[36] After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. He was opposed by Charles III of France, who convinced Pope John to excommunicate Hilduin. Another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of pope and emperor.

In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period.[37] She was poisoned.[38] He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915.[38] It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor.[39] In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923.[39] Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.

By 915, Berengar's eldest daughter, Bertha, was abbess of San Salvatore in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications.[40] His younger daughter, Gisela, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids.[41] She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried.[41] Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown.[41] Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.[42]

Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles — led by Adalbert and many of the bishops — invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921.[43] Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country.[44] John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924.[45] On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza.[46] The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only a daughter (the aforementioned Bertha) and an anonymous epic poem, the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, about the many happenings of his troublesome reign.

Berengar has been accused of having "faced [the] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence,"[47] having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals,"[48] and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning."[49] Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed.[50] Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift-giving.[51] Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed.[52]
[edit] References

* Rosenwein, Barbara H. "The Family Politics of Berengar I, King of Italy (888-924)." Speculum, Vol. 71, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp 247–289.
* Previté Orton, C. W. "Italy and Provence, 900-950." The English Historical Review, Vol. 32, No. 127. (Jul., 1917), pp 335–347.
* Reuter, Timothy (trans.) The Annals of Fulda. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
* Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
* MacLean, Simon. Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge University Press: 2003.
* Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society 400-1000. MacMillan Press: 1981.
* Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures and Political Rule. (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
* Llewellyn, Peter. Rome in the Dark Ages. London: Faber and Faber, 1970. ISBN 0 571 08972 0.
* "Berengar." (2007). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 May 2007.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Rosenwein, p. 270.
2. ^ AF(M), 887 (p. 102 n3). AF(B), 896 (pp 134–135 and nn19&21).
3. ^ Rosenwein, p. 256.
4. ^ a b Rosenwein, p. 257.
5. ^ Annales Fuldenses (Mainz tradition), 887 (p. 102 n3). The Annales are hereafter cited as "AF" with the post-882 tradition, Mainz or Bavarian, indicated by (M) or (B).
6. ^ MacLean, p. 70 and n116. He was usually called marchio, but once appears as dux in one charter of Charles the Fat. He was one of only three marchiones and six consiliarii who appear in the reign of Charles.
7. ^ MacLean, p. 71.
8. ^ a b AF, 875 (p.77 and n8).
9. ^ MacLean, p. 70.
10. ^ a b AF(B), 883 (p. 107 and nn6&7).
11. ^ AF(M), 887 (p. 102), presents it as an invasion on Liutward's part.
12. ^ a b AF(B), 886 (p. 112 and n8).
13. ^ a b AF(B), 887 (p. 113 and nn3&4).
14. ^ MacLean, p. 113.
15. ^ Reuter, p. 119, suggests this, adding that Odo, Count of Paris, may have had a similar purpose in visiting Charles at Kirchen.
16. ^ MacLean, pp 167–168.
17. ^ Reuter, p. 121.
18. ^ AF(B), 888 (p. 115 and n3).
19. ^ Reuter AF, p. 115 and n3, following Liutprand of Cremona in his Antapodosis.
20. ^ a b c AF(B), 888 (p. 117 and n12).
21. ^ AF(B), 888 (p. 117 n13). Navus and sagus perhaps refer to royal rights or taxes, but more likely to as yet unidentified places. Reuter, p 122, considers Arnulf and Berengar's relationship to be one of suzerain and vassal.
22. ^ AF(B), 888 (p. 117 n14).
23. ^ AF(B), 889 (p.119 and n2).
24. ^ AF(B), 894 (p. 128 and n12).
25. ^ a b AF(B), 896 (p. 132 and nn1&2).
26. ^ AF(B), 896 (p. 134 and n19). MacLean, p. 71. The exact dates of Waltfred's rule in Friuli are unknown. Berengar was last confirmed in Friuli in 890.
27. ^ Reuter, p. 123.
28. ^ Reuter, p. 135 and nn20&21.
29. ^ Reuter, p. 135 n21.
30. ^ Reuter, p. 128, suggests the former view.
31. ^ AF(B), 900 (p. 141 and n4), with a loss of 20,000 men and many bishops. Corroborated by Liutprand, Antapodosis.
32. ^ Previté Orton, p. 337. The Gest Berengarii and Constantine Porphyrogenitus' De administrando imperio both show Berengar as declaiming responsibility for Louis's blinding.
33. ^ Previté Orton, p. 337. Rosenwein, p. 259 and n47, which recalls that some historians have accused him of neglecting its defences.
34. ^ Wickham. p. 175.
35. ^ Llewellyn, 302.
36. ^ Rosenwein, p. 277.
37. ^ AF(B), 889 (p. 139 and n2). Rosenwein, p. 258 and n46.
38. ^ a b Rosenwein, p. 258.
39. ^ a b Previté Orton, p. 336.
40. ^ Rosenwein, p. 255.
41. ^ a b c Rosenwein, p. 274 and n140.
42. ^ Previté Orton, pp 339–340, who also remarks on Berengar's "unrevengeful character."
43. ^ Rosenwein, pp 262, 274, and passim.
44. ^ Rosenwein, p. 266. The Magyars were operating, nominally at least, on Berengar's behalf.
45. ^ Rosenwein, p. 266.
46. ^ Britannica.
47. ^ Rosenwein, p. 248.
48. ^ Rosenwein, p. 248, who calls him "a terrible warrior."
49. ^ Wickham, p. 171. This appears to be flatly contradicted, however, by the other sources. Reuter calls his a victory over Guy at the Trebbia in 888 and his campaign against Spoleto in 883 was initially successful.
50. ^ Rosenwein, p. 248 and n8.
51. ^ Rosenwein, passim.
52. ^ Rosenwein, p. 249.

Emperor Berengar
Unruoching dynasty
Died: 7 April 924
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Charles III King of Italy
887 – 924
disputed by:
Guy of Spoleto (888 – 894)
Lambert of Spoleto (891 – 898)
Arnulf of Carinthia (896 – 899)
Ratold (896)
Louis III (900 – 905)
Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy (922 – 933) Succeeded by
Rudolph
disputed with
Hugh
Preceded by
Louis III (Holy) Roman Emperor
915 – 924 Vacant
Title next held by
Otto I
Italian nobility
Preceded by
Unruoch III Margrave of Friuli
874 – 890 Succeeded by
Waltfred
[show]
v • d • e
Ancestors of Berengar I of Italy
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berengar_I_of_Italy
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Berengar of Friuli (c. 845 – 7 April 924) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896, King of Italy (as Berengar I) from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.
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Berengar I (c. 845 – 7 April 924) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896, King of Italy from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.

His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. His name in Latin is Berengarius or Perngarius and in Italian is Berengario. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family.She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, "wife."When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874,Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli.With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884–885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno.When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor.Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom.This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.

In 883, the newly-succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May.He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of S. Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain.Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods.Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears as the initiator of the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887.He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son.It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887).On the other, hand his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death.Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed.Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death.Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.

In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so decimated that he sued for peace nevertheless.The truce was to last until 6 January 889.After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent.He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him.Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli.Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy.A rumour spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him.The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and "highest counsellor" of Berengar's, who soon died.The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor.According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and Novemer and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.

The peace did not long last. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler.It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies.Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July.Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified.During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimisation of his rule.She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.

In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars.The bishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.

Emperor, 915–924

In January 915, Pope John X tried forge an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar was unable to send troops, but after the great Battle of the Garigliano, a victory over the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December).Berengar, however, returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.

As emperor, Berengar was wont to intervene outside of his regnum of Italy. He even dabbled in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège.After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. He was opposed by Charles III of France, who convinced Pope John to excommunicate Hilduin. Another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of pope and emperor.

In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period.She was poisoned.He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915.It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor.In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923.Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.

By 915, Berengar's eldest daughter, Bertha, was abbess of San Salvatore in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications.His younger daughter, Gisela, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids.She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried.Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown.Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles — led by Adalbert and many of the bishops — invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921.Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country.John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924.On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza.The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only a daughter (the aforementioned Bertha) and an anonymous epic poem, the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, about the many happenings of his troublesome reign.

Berengar has been accused of having "faced e] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence,"having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals,"and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning."Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed.Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift-giving.Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed.

--------------------
Berengar I (c. 845 – 7 April 924[1]) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896,[2] King of Italy from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Margrave of Friuli, 874–887
* 2 King of Italy, 887–915
* 3 Emperor, 915–924
* 4 References
* 5 Notes

[edit] Margrave of Friuli, 874–887

His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. His name in Latin is Berengarius or Perngarius and in Italian is Berengario. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family.[3] She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, "wife."[4]

When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874,[5] Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli.[6] With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884–885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno.[7]

When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor.[8] Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom.[9] This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.

In 883, the newly-succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May.[10] He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.[11]

In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of S. Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain.[12] Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods.[13] Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears as the initiator of the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.[14]

By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887.[15] He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.[16] In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son.[17] It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887).[18] On the other, hand his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).[19]

[edit] King of Italy, 887–915

Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death.[20] Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed.[21] Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death.[22] Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.

In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so decimated that he sued for peace nevertheless.[23] The truce was to last until 6 January 889.[24]

After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent.[25] He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him.[26] Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.[27]

Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli.[28] Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.[29]

In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy.[30] A rumour spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him.[31] The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and "highest counsellor" of Berengar's, who soon died.[32] The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.[33]

Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor.[34] According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and Novemer and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.

The peace did not long last. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler.[35] It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies.[36] Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).[37]

This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July.[38] Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified.[39] During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimisation of his rule.[40] She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.

In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars.[41] The bishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.

[edit] Emperor, 915–924

In January 915, Pope John X forged an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar sent a support force from northern Italy (the marches of Spoleto and Ancona), led by Alberic I of Spoleto, to join the holy league which the pope assembled in that year and which won the great Battle of the Garigliano over the Saracens. In gratefulness and in hopes that he would continue to assist in the war against the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December). However, Berengar returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.

As emperor, Berengar was wont to intervene outside of his regnum of Italy. He even dabbled in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège.[42] After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. He was opposed by Charles III of France, who convinced Pope John to excommunicate Hilduin. Another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of pope and emperor.

In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period.[43] She was poisoned.[44] He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915.[45] It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor.[46] In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923.[47] Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.

By 915, Berengar's eldest daughter, Bertha, was abbess of San Salvatore in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications.[48] His younger daughter, Gisela, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids.[49] She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried.[50] Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown.[51] Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.[52]

Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles — led by Adalbert and many of the bishops — invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921.[53] Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country.[54] John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924.[55] On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza.[56] The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only a daughter (the aforementioned Bertha) and an anonymous epic poem, the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, about the many happenings of his troublesome reign.

Berengar has been accused of having "faced [the] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence,"[57] having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals,"[58] and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning."[59] Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed.[60] Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift-giving.[61] Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed.[62]

[edit] References

* Rosenwein, Barbara H. "The Family Politics of Berengar I, King of Italy (888-924)." Speculum, Vol. 71, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp 247-289.
* Previté Orton, C. W. "Italy and Provence, 900-950." The English Historical Review, Vol. 32, No. 127. (Jul., 1917), pp 335-347.
* Reuter, Timothy (trans.) The Annals of Fulda. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
* Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
* MacLean, Simon. Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge University Press: 2003.
* Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society 400-1000. MacMillan Press: 1981.
* Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures and Political Rule. (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
* "Berengar." (2007). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 May 2007.

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Berenger I of Fuili, Emperor of Italy gained the title of King Berengar of Italy in 888.2 He gained the title of Emperor Berengar I of Italy in 915.
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From http://www.rpi.edu/~holmes/Hobbies/Genealogy/ps05/ps05_153.htm

Elected King in 888 by a section of the Italian nobility, he reigned as Emperor 905-924.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berengar_I_of_Italy
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berengar_I_of_Italy

from "Our Folk" by Albert D Hart, Jr.

887189858. Keiser Berengar I. EBENHARDSON Tyskland was born between 850 and 860.(21496) He was a Markgreve before 875 in Friaul.(21497) He was a Konge in 888 in Italia.(21498) He was a Keiser on 24 Mar 915 in Tysk/Romersk. (21499) He died on 7 Apr 924.(21500) He was married to Grevinne Bertilda SUPPOSDTR av Spoleto before 890.

SOURCE NOTES:
Bu301

RESEARCH NOTES:
Markgreve of Friaul

Myrdet

Berengar of Friuli (c. 845 - 7 April 924[1]) was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896,[2] King of Italy (as Berengar I) from 887 (with interruption) until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.

Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he was elected to replace Charles in Italy after the latter's deposition. His long reign of 36 years saw him opposed by no less than seven other claimants to the Italian throne. Though he is sometimes seen as a "national" king in Italian histories, he was in fact of Frankish birth. His reign is usually characterised as "troubled" because of the many competitors for the crown and because of the arrival of Magyar raiders in Western Europe. He was the last emperor before Otto the Great was crowned in 962, after a 38-year interregnum.

Margrave of Friuli, 874-887
His family was called the Unruochings after his grandfather, Unruoch II. Berengar was a son of Eberhard of Friuli and Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious and his second wife Judith. He was thus of Carolingian extraction on his mother's side. He was born probably at Cividale. His name in Latin is Berengarius or Perngarius and in Italian is Berengario. Sometime during his margraviate, he married Bertilla, daughter of Suppo II, thus securing an alliance with the powerful Supponid family.[3] She would later rule alongside him as a consors, a title specifically denoting her informal power and influence, as opposed to a mere coniunx, "wife."[4]

When his older brother Unruoch III died in 874,[5] Berengar succeeded him in the March of Friuli.[6] With this he obtained a key position in the Carolingian Empire, as the march bordered the Croats and other Slavs who were a constant threat to the Italian peninsula. He was a territorial magnate with lordship over several counties in northeastern Italy. He was an important channel for the men of Friuli to get access to the emperor and for the emperor to exercise authority in Friuli. He even had a large degree of influence on the church of Friuli. In 884-885, Berengar intervened with the emperor on behalf of Haimo, Bishop of Belluno.[7]

When, in 875, the Emperor Louis II, who was also King of Italy, died, having come to terms with Louis the German whereby the German monarch's eldest son, Carloman, would succeed in Italy, Charles the Bald of West Francia invaded the peninsula and had himself crowned king and emperor.[8] Louis the German sent first Charles the Fat, his youngest son, and then Carloman himself, with armies containing Italian magnates led by Berengar, to possess the Italian kingdom.[8][9] This was not successful until the death of Charles the Bald in 877. The proximity of Berengar's march to Bavaria, which Carloman already ruled under his father, may explain their cooperation.

In 883, the newly-succeeded Guy III of Spoleto was accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May.[10] He returned to the Duchy of Spoleto and made an alliance with the Saracens. The emperor, then Charles the Fat, sent Berengar with an army to deprive him of Spoleto. Berengar was successful before an epidemic of disease, which ravaged all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forced him to retire.[10]

In 886, Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, took Berengar's sister from the nunnery of S. Salvatore at Brescia in order to marry her to a relative of his; whether or not by force or by the consent of the convent and Charles the Fat, her relative, is uncertain.[11] Berengar and Liutward had a feud that year, which involved his attack on Vercelli and plundering of the bishop's goods.[12] Berengar's actions are explicable if his sister was abducted by the bishop, but if the bishop's actions were justified, then Berengar appears as the initiator of the feud. Whatever the case, bishop and margrave were reconciled shortly before Liutward was dismissed from court in 887.[12]

By his brief war with Liutward, Berengar had lost the favour of his cousin the emperor. Berengar came to the emperor's assembly at Waiblingen in early May 887.[13] He made peace with the emperor and compensated for the actions of the previous year by dispensing great gifts.[13] In June or July, Berengar was again at the emperor's side at Kirchen, when Louis of Provence was adopted as the emperor's son.[14] It is sometimes alleged that Berengar was pining to be declared Charles' heir and that he may in fact have been so named in Italy, where he was acclaimed (or made himself) king immediately after Charles' deposition by the nobles of East Francia in November that year (887).[15] On the other hand, his presence may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles' illegitimate son Bernard as his heir (Waiblingen), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead (Kirchen).[16]

King of Italy, 887-915
Berengar was the only one of the reguli (petty kings) to crop up in the aftermath of Charles' deposition besides Arnulf of Carinthia, his deposer, who was made king before the emperor's death.[17] Charter evidence begins Berengar's reign at Pavia between 26 December 887 and 2 January 888, though this has been disputed.[18] Berengar was not the undisputed leading magnate in Italy at the time, but he may have made an agreement with his former rival, Guy of Spoleto, whereby Guy would have West Francia and he Italy on the emperor's death.[19] Both Guy and Berengar were related to the Carolingians in the female line. They represented different factions in Italian politics: Berengar the pro-German and Guy the pro-French.

In Summer 888, Guy, who had failed in his bid to take the West Frankish throne, returned to Italy to gather an army from among the Spoletans and Lombards and oppose Berengar. This he did, but the battle they fought near Brescia in the fall was a slight victory for Berengar, though his forces were so diminished that he sued for peace nevertheless.[20] The truce was to last until 6 January 889.[20]

After the truce with Guy was signed, Arnulf of Germany endeavoured to invade Italy through Friuli. Berengar, in order to prevent a war, sent dignitaries (leading men) ahead to meet Arnulf. He himself then had a meeting, sometime between early November and Christmas, at Trent.[20] He was allowed to keep Italy, as Arnulf's vassal, but the curtes of Navus and Sagus were taken from him.[21] Arnulf allowed his army to return to Germany, but he himself celebrated Christmas in Friuli, at Karnberg.[22]

Early in 889, their truce having expired, Guy defeated Berengar at the Battle of the Trebbia and made himself sole king in Italy, though Berengar maintained his authority in Friuli.[23] Though Guy had been supported by Pope Stephen V since before the death of Charles the Fat, he was now abandoned by the pope, who turned to Arnulf. Arnulf, for his part, remained a staunch partisan of Berengar and it has even been suggested that he was creating a Carolingian alliance between himself and Louis of Provence, Charles III of France, and Berengar against Guy and Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.[24]

In 893, Arnulf sent his illegitimate son Zwentibold into Italy. He met up with Berengar and together they cornered Guy at Pavia, but did not press their advantage (it is believed that Guy bribed them off). In 894, Arnulf and Berengar defeated Guy at Bergamo and took control of Pavia and Milan. Berengar was with Arnulf's army that invaded Italy in 896. However, he left the army while it was sojourning in the March of Tuscany and returned to Lombardy.[25] A rumour spread that Berengar had turned against the king and had brought Adalbert II of Tuscany with him.[25] The truth or falsehood of the rumour cannot be ascertained, but Berengar was removed from Friuli and replaced with Waltfred, a former supporter and "highest counsellor" of Berengar's, who soon died.[26] The falling out between Berengar and Arnulf, who was crowned Emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus, has been likened to that between Berengar II and Otto I more than half a century later.[27]

Arnulf left Italy in the charge of his young son Ratold, who soon crossed Lake Como to Germany, leaving Italy in the control of Berengar, who made a pact with Lambert, Guy's son and successor.[28] According to the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, the two kings met at Pavia in October and November and agreed to divide the kingdom, Berengar receiving the eastern half between the Adda and the Po, "as if by hereditary right" according to the Annales Fuldenses. Bergamo was to be shared between them. This was a confirmation of the status quo of 889. It was this partitioning which caused the later chronicler Liutprand of Cremona to remark that the Italians always suffered under two monarchs. As surety for the accord, Lambert pledged to marry Gisela, Berengar's daughter.

The peace did not long last. Berengar advanced on Pavia, but was defeated by Lambert at Borgo San Donnino and taken prisoner. Nonetheless, Lambert died within days, on 15 October 898. Days later Berengar had secured Pavia and become sole ruler.[29] It was during this period that the Magyars made their first attacks on Western Europe. They invaded Italy first in 899. This first invasion may have been unprovoked, but some historians have suspected that the Magyars were either called in by Arnulf, no friend of Berengar's, or by Berengar himself, as allies.[30] Berengar gathered a large army to meet them and refused their request for an armistice. His army was surprised and routed near the Brenta River in the eponymous Battle of the Brenta (24 September 899).[31]

This defeat handicapped Berengar and caused the nobility to question his ability to protect Italy. As a result, they supported another candidate for the throne, the aforementioned Louis of Provence, another maternal relative of the Carolingians. In 900, Louis marched into Italy and defeated Berengar; the following year he was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict IV. In 902, however, Berengar struck back and defeated Louis, making him promise never to return to Italy. When he broke this oath by invading the peninsula again in 905, Berengar defeated him at Verona, captured him, and ordered him to be blinded on 21 July.[32] Louis returned to Provence and ruled for another twenty years as Louis the Blind. Berengar thereby cemented his position as king and ruled undisputed, except for a brief spell, until 922. As king, Berengar made his seat at Verona, which he heavily fortified.[33] During the years when Louis posed a threat to Berengar's kingship, his wife, Bertilla, who was a niece of the former empress Engelberga, Louis's grandmother, played an important part in the legitimisation of his rule.[4] She later disappeared from the scene, as indicated by her absence in his charters post-905.

In 904, Bergamo was subjected to a long siege by the Magyars. After the siege, Berengar granted the bishop of the city walls and the right to rebuild them with the help of the citizens and the refugees fleeing the Magyars.[34] The bishop attained all the rights of a count in the city.

Emperor, 915-924
In January 915, Pope John X tried forge an alliance between Berengar and the local Italian rulers in hopes that he could face the Saracen threat in southern Italy. Berengar was unable to send troops, but after the great Battle of the Garigliano, a victory over the Saracens, John crowned Berengar as Emperor in Rome (December).[35] Berengar, however, returned swiftly to the north, where Friuli was still threatened by the Magyars.

As emperor, Berengar was wont to intervene outside of his regnum of Italy. He even dabbled in an episcopal election in the diocese of Liège.[36] After the death of the saintly Bishop Stephen in 920, Herman I, Archbishop of Cologne, representing the German interests in Lotharingia, tried to impose his choice of the monks of the local cloister, one Hilduin, on the vacant see. He was opposed by Charles III of France, who convinced Pope John to excommunicate Hilduin. Another monk, Richer, was appointed to the see with the support of pope and emperor.

In his latter years, his wife Bertilla was charged with infidelity, a charge not uncommon against wives of declining kings of that period.[37] She was poisoned.[38] He had remarried to one named Anna by December 915.[38] It has been suggested, largely for onomastic reasons, that Anna was a daughter of Louis of Provence and his wife Anna, the possible daughter of Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine Emperor.[39] In that case, she would have been betrothed to Berengar while still a child and only become his consors and imperatrix in 923.[39] Her marriage was an attempt by Louis to advance his children while he himself was being marginalised and by Berengar to legitimise his rule by relating himself by marriage to the house of Lothair I which had ruled Italy by hereditary right since 817.

By 915, Berengar's eldest daughter, Bertha, was abbess of San Salvatore in Brescia, where her aunt had once been a nun. In that year, the following year, and in 917, Berengar endowed her monastery with three privileges to build or man fortifications.[40] His younger daughter, Gisela, had married Adalbert I of Ivrea as early as 898 (and no later than 910), but this failed to spark an alliance with the Anscarids.[41] She was dead by 913, when Adalbert remarried.[41] Adalbert was one of Berengar's earliest internal enemies after the defeat of Louis of Provence. He called on Hugh of Arles between 917 and 920 to take the Iron Crown.[41] Hugh did invade Italy, with his brother Boso, and advanced as far as Pavia, where Berengar starved them into submission, but allowed them to pass out of Italy freely.[42]

Dissatisfied with the emperor, who had ceased his policy of grants and family alliances in favour of paying Magyar mercenaries, several Italian nobles - led by Adalbert and many of the bishops - invited Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy to take the Italian throne in 921.[43] Moreover, his own grandson, Berengar of Ivrea, rose up against him, incited by Rudolph. Berengar retreated to Verona and had to watch sidelined as the Magyars pillaged the country.[44] John, Bishop of Pavia, surrendered his city to Rudolph in 922 and it was sacked by the Magyars in 924.[45] On 29 July 923, the forces of Rudolph, Adalbert, and Berengar of Ivrea met those of Berengar and defeated him in the Battle of Fiorenzuola, near Piacenza.[46] The battle was decisive and Berengar was de facto dethroned and replaced by Rudolf. Berengar was soon after murdered at Verona by one of his own men, possibly at Rudolph's instigation. He left no sons, only a daughter (the aforementioned Bertha) and an anonymous epic poem, the Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, about the many happenings of his troublesome reign.

Berengar has been accused of having "faced [the] difficulties [of his reign] with particular incompetence,"[47] having "never once won a pitched battle against his rivals,"[48] and being "not recorded as having ever won a battle" in "forty years of campaigning."[49] Particularly, he has been seen as alienating public lands and districtus (defence command) to private holders, especially bishops, though this is disputed.[50] Some historians have seen his "private defense initiatives" in a more positive light and have found a coherent policy of gift-giving.[51] Despite this, his role in inaugurating the incastellamento of the succeeding decades is hardly disputed.[52]

References
Rosenwein, Barbara H. "The Family Politics of Berengar I, King of Italy (888-924)." Speculum, Vol. 71, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp 247-289.
Previté Orton, C. W. "Italy and Provence, 900-950." The English Historical Review, Vol. 32, No. 127. (Jul., 1917), pp 335-347.
Reuter, Timothy (trans.) The Annals of Fulda. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800-1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
MacLean, Simon. Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge University Press: 2003.
Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society 400-1000. MacMillan Press: 1981.
Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures and Political Rule. (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Llewellyn, Peter. Rome in the Dark Ages. London: Faber and Faber, 1970. ISBN 0 571 08972 0.
"Berengar." (2007). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 May 2007.

Notes
^ Rosenwein, p. 270.
^ AF(M), 887 (p. 102 n3). AF(B), 896 (pp 134-135 and nn19&21).
^ Rosenwein, p. 256.
^ a b Rosenwein, p. 257.
^ Annales Fuldenses (Mainz tradition), 887 (p. 102 n3). The Annales are hereafter cited as "AF" with the post-882 tradition, Mainz or Bavarian, indicated by (M) or (B).
^ MacLean, p. 70 and n116. He was usually called marchio, but once appears as dux in one charter of Charles the Fat. He was one of only three marchiones and six consiliarii who appear in the reign of Charles.
^ MacLean, p. 71.
^ a b AF, 875 (p.77 and n8).
^ MacLean, p. 70.
^ a b AF(B), 883 (p. 107 and nn6&7).
^ AF(M), 887 (p. 102), presents it as an invasion on Liutward's part.
^ a b AF(B), 886 (p. 112 and n8).
^ a b AF(B), 887 (p. 113 and nn3&4).
^ MacLean, p. 113.
^ Reuter, p. 119, suggests this, adding that Odo, Count of Paris, may have had a similar purpose in visiting Charles at Kirchen.
^ MacLean, pp 167-168.
^ Reuter, p. 121.
^ AF(B), 888 (p. 115 and n3).
^ Reuter AF, p. 115 and n3, following Liutprand of Cremona in his Antapodosis.
^ a b c AF(B), 888 (p. 117 and n12).
^ AF(B), 888 (p. 117 n13). Navus and sagus perhaps refer to royal rights or taxes, but more likely to as yet unidentified places. Reuter, p 122, considers Arnulf and Berengar's relationship to be one of suzerain and vassal.
^ AF(B), 888 (p. 117 n14).
^ AF(B), 889 (p.119 and n2).
^ AF(B), 894 (p. 128 and n12).
^ a b AF(B), 896 (p. 132 and nn1&2).
^ AF(B), 896 (p. 134 and n19). MacLean, p. 71. The exact dates of Waltfred's rule in Friuli are unknown. Berengar was last confirmed in Friuli in 890.
^ Reuter, p. 123.
^ Reuter, p. 135 and nn20&21.
^ Reuter, p. 135 n21.
^ Reuter, p. 128, suggests the former view.
^ AF(B), 900 (p. 141 and n4), with a loss of 20,000 men and many bishops. Corroborated by Liutprand, Antapodosis.
^ Previté Orton, p. 337. The Gest Berengarii and Constantine Porphyrogenitus' De administrando imperio both show Berengar as declaiming responsibility for Louis's blinding.
^ Previté Orton, p. 337. Rosenwein, p. 259 and n47, which recalls that some historians have accused him of neglecting its defences.
^ Wickham. p. 175.
^ Llewellyn, 302.
^ Rosenwein, p. 277.
^ AF(B), 889 (p. 139 and n2). Rosenwein, p. 258 and n46.
^ a b Rosenwein, p. 258.
^ a b Previté Orton, p. 336.
^ Rosenwein, p. 255.
^ a b c Rosenwein, p. 274 and n140.
^ Previté Orton, pp 339-340, who also remarks on Berengar's "unrevengeful character."
^ Rosenwein, pp 262, 274, and passim.
^ Rosenwein, p. 266. The Magyars were operating, nominally at least, on Berengar's behalf.
^ Rosenwein, p. 266.
^ Britannica.
^ Rosenwein, p. 248.
^ Rosenwein, p. 248, who calls him "a terrible warrior."
^ Wickham, p. 171. This appears to be flatly contradicted, however, by the other sources. Reuter calls his a victory over Guy at the Trebbia in 888 and his campaign against Spoleto in 883 was initially successful.
^ Rosenwein, p. 248 and n8.
^ Rosenwein, passim.
^ Rosenwein, p. 249.

_P_CCINFO 2-2438

KING OF ITALY

He was King of Italy from 886 to 924, Holy Roman Emperor from 915 to 924 and Duke of Fruili.

[De La Pole.FTW]
Sources: RC 269; Coe, A. Roots, AF; Kraentzler 1458; Pfafman. Count of Ivrea and then King of Italy from January 888-924. Emperor of the West, December 914-924. Marquis of Friuli. Murdered 7 April 924 in Verona, Italy. Pfafman: King of Italy (Lombards) in 888. Crowned by Pope John X as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, ruling from 915-924, last emperor of Italian line. K: Marquis de Friaul, King of Italy, Emperor of Roman Empire.

He was King of Italy from 886 to 924, Holy Roman Emperor from 915 to 924 and Duke of Fruili.

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