Christianity’s

Criminal History, 194

A modern illustration of Fat Charles.

For the context of these translations click here.
PDFs of entries 1-183 (several of Karlheinz Deschner’s
books abridged into two) can be read here and here.

 
Arnulf’s coup d’état and Charles’ quick demise

Liutward of Vercelli was replaced in June 887 by his opponent, Archbishop Liutbert of Mainz (863-889), a valiant Norman butcher who sometimes struck down ‘not a few’, sometimes ‘very many’ (Annales Fuldenses), but whom the same Catholic source also calls ‘patient, humble and kind’, which harmonises beautifully from a Christian point of view. Liutward, once arch-chaplain to Louis the German and Louis the Younger, became arch-chancellor to Duke Arnulf of Carinthia after his fall. And Archbishop Liutbert of Mainz, who became the emperor’s most important advisor in 887, soon did the same. His change of party at the imperial assembly in Tribur, which established Arnulf’s kingship as it were, helped to decide Charles’s deposition. Still, the archbishop had to ‘improve his tarnished position’ (W. Hartmann). And would he not have played his way back to the top with the new lord had he not already died in February 889?

Arnulf’s anger, his coup d’état, began when he caused the Bavarians to apostatise and soon moved with them and his Carthaginian troops to Frankfurt, where the East Franks, especially the Conradines, elevated him to king in November 887. Charles evaded the advancing forces to Tribur. However, his attempt to recruit a fighting force against Arnulf at the Imperial Diet failed miserably. An influential conspiracy of the nobility spread and forced him to abdicate. Even his Alemanni deserted him. The court disbanded and even his servants ran away. They went over to Arnulf ‘on a bet’, writes Abbot Regino, ‘so that after three days there was hardly anyone left who would even have shown him the duties of philanthropy’.

Practical Christianity in both senses of the word…

As usual, the bishops left in droves. Indeed, they paid homage to the usurper ‘without exception and willingly’ (Dümmler). Just two months after Charles’ deposition, his notary and chancellor Bishop Waldo of Freising visited the new ruler. According to the synodal records, the great assembly in Mainz, which met just six months later, did not say a word of disapproval about the overthrow of the emperor. On the contrary. The synod, which once again spoke at length in favour of the (indeed immense) church property and the payment of tithes to the clergy and against the fornication of clerics—had they even fathered children with their sisters—already ordered everyone to pray for the new King Arnulf and his wife in its first canon.

Of course, it did not help at all that Charles sent the rebellious nephew that supposed piece of ‘wood from the holy cross of Christ’ on which Arnulf had once sworn allegiance to him, ‘so that he would not act so cruelly and barbarously against him, remembering his oaths’. For even if the rather hardened prince shed tears at the sight, he naturally ‘ruled the realm at will’ (Annales Fuldenses). After all, Archbishop Liutbert of Mainz provided the emperor, who had ‘become a beggar’, with a minimum subsistence level until the new lord—begged by the fallen prince—gave him a few farms in Alemannia ‘out of mercy, for his usufruct until the end of his life…’

But the end of his life came surprisingly quickly for Emperor Charles III, who died on 13 January 888, abandoned by all, near Neudingen on the upper Danube. According to the Annales Vedastini even ‘strangled by his own’, not so impossible; ‘in any case he soon ended his present life in order, as we believe, to possess the heavenly one’. The Fulda Yearbooks, however, claim ‘for he stayed only a few days full of piety in the places granted to him by the king, and after Christ’s birthday he happily ended his life on 13 January; and miraculously, while he was honourably buried in the church of Reichenau, many spectators saw heaven open’. The everlasting Christian lies! Meanwhile, the victor allowed himself to be courted by the East Frankish and Slavic nobility in Regensburg ‘and celebrated the Lord’s birthday and Easter there with honour’.

After the end of the last ruler over the Carolingian empire as a whole, a series of kingdoms emerged, now forever. The only Carolingian among the new rulers was Arnulf of Carinthia, albeit an illegitimate scion of the dynasty and therefore with at least a dubious right to the throne. The West Franks raised Count Odo of Paris, the legendary defender of the city. In Burgundy, the Guelph Rudolf founded a new kingship in 888. In Italy, two members of the Frankish high nobility, Berengar of Friuli and Wido of Spoleto, fought for power.

The Carolingian state as a whole had played out its role. The title of emperor became a bone of contention between Italian petty princes. The last shadow emperor of the dynasty, Louis III the Blind, a son of Boso, died around 928, having become emperor in Italy in 901, blinded there in 905 and thus practically incapable of ruling. However, the papacy had gained considerable power under the Carolingians of the 9th century, the foundation of its further rise in the 11th century.