Balderic of Friuli

Balderich von Friuli was a Franconian great who was Margrave of Friuli from 819 to 828 . In some sources he is also referred to as dux Foroiuliensis (Friulian duke), although in Carolingian times this designation only referred to the temporary military leader and did not have the later meaning of territorial rule.

Army commander in Jutland

Balderich is first documented in the year 815 when he, as legatus imperatoris (emperor's envoy), led an army of Saxony and Abodrites sent by Emperor Ludwig the Pious to support the Danish Viking prince Harald Klak over the Eider to Jutland , where he plundered, pillaged and Harald thus helped to regain control over part of southern Jutland around Haithabu for a short time .

Margrave of Friuli

In 819 Balderich succeeded the deceased Margrave Kadaloch in the Friuli region , which had become a mark of the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne in 774 and was administered since 776 by margraves of Franconian, Alemannic or Burgundian origin appointed by the emperor .

Fight against Ljudevit

In his first year in office in Friuli he was at war with Ljudevit , the Slavic prince of Posavina , who rebelled against Frankish suzerainty from 819 to 823, but who was finally defeated by Balderich with the help of Slavic allies. Ljudevit and the population of Pannonia and Carantania had suffered greatly from the particularly cruel Margrave Kadaloch, and Ljudevit had already brought a complaint to Emperor Louis the Pious about it in 818, albeit in vain . Like other counts and margraves, Kadaloch had become increasingly independent after the death of Charlemagne and interfered more and more in the internal affairs of the Carantans and Posavians, ruled by their own tribal princes, using brutal methods. When Ljudevit rose to rebellion in 819, he was joined by parts of the Carantans and the Timochans (Timočani). His uncle, the Dalmatian prince Borna , stood against him , who supported the Franks because he needed them as support against Byzantium and because they promised him an expansion of his territory. Together with Ljutevit's father-in-law Dragomuz, he invaded Posavia in 819 at Balderich's urging. On the Kupa it came to a battle won by Ljudevit , in which Dragmuz fell and Borna escaped with difficulty. Thereupon Ljudevit broke into the Dalmatian coastal area in December 819, where his army was exhausted by Borna's delaying tactics and the onset of harsh winter and finally forced to retreat.

In January 820 Borna traveled to Aachen , where he made an alliance with Emperor Ludwig and where it was decided to send three armies against Ljudevit, each of which was to be led by Balderich, Margrave Gerold and Borna. When the invasion troops appeared in Posavia in 820, Ljudevit's people avoided an open field battle against this overwhelming force and withdrew to their mountain fortresses. The Frankish troops as well as the Bornas devastated the country and then marched back. In view of the obvious superiority and destructiveness of the Franks, the rebellious part of the carantans surrendered to Balderich. In the summer of 821, three invading armies again devastated the Posavians, who in turn avoided the decisive battle. However, Borna fell in the battle for one of the Posavian fortresses.

Only when an even stronger contingent advanced from northern Italy in 822, again led by Balderich, did Ljudevit fear the conquest of his fortified places. At the beginning of 823 he fled to Dalmatia, where - in ignorance of Borna's death - he hoped to find refuge there. There he got into an argument with his host, a Serbian sub-prince whom he killed, and then fled to Borna's uncle Ljudemisl. The latter had him murdered that same spring under pressure from the Franks. The news of Ljudevit's death reached an imperial assembly in Frankfurt in June 823, just as new measures to put down the uprising were about to be decided.

Bulgarian war, dismissal

The Bulgarian king Omurtag had turned to Louis the Pious for a diplomatic solution in 824 and 825 because of the rebellion of the Timochans and Branicevci against his sovereignty, which the Franks had seen benevolently since 818 , but without success. When the rumor spread at the imperial court in 826 that Omurtag had been killed or expelled, Emperor Ludwig sent Count Palatine Bertrich and Counts Balderich and Gerold to the border with the Avars in Carantania to clarify, but the three could not be certain there either experienced ("adhuc de motu Bulgarorum adversum nos nihil se sentire posse"). In June 826 Balderich and Gerold came to Ingelheim in person . Balderich still had nothing to report on the Bulgarians' preparations for war, and he did not take any appropriate precautionary measures. In the summer of 827 he was therefore surprised by the Bulgarian invasion of Pannonia, when Omurtag's troops sailed up the Danube and brought southeast Pannonia back under Bulgarian control.

At an imperial assembly in Aachen in February 828, Ludwig the Pious then ordered Balderich to be deposed and his fiefs withdrawn . The same thing happened to Counts Matfried von Orleans and Hugo von Tours , who were accused of failure in Spain. Balderich's great mark was divided into four counties: Friuli with Istria , Carantania, Carniola with Liburnia (Franconian Croatia), and Savia. Afterwards nothing more can be heard from himself.

Founder of Mönchengladbach?

It is possible that Balderich came from the Utrecht area and is identical to Balderich, a "nobleman of the empire", who had the first monastery church built on the Gladbach Abteiberg around 800 and is therefore considered the founder of the later city of Mönchengladbach . The place and the monastery church were later destroyed by the Hungarians in 954 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Joseph Freiherr von Czoernig: Ethonography of the Austrian Monarchy. K.-K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna, 1857. pp. 34–35, Google Books
2. ↑ Christoph Nohn: Prelude to the Gladbach history. The founding history of Gladbach Abbey and the political tension in Lotharingia in the 9th and 10th centuries. Essen, 2011, ISBN 3-8375-0510-3 .
3. ^ Wolfgang Löhr: Balderich von Friuli = Balderich von Gladbach? In: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter . Volume 77 (2013), pp. 301-308. (on-line)
4. ↑ Hans-Peter Hütter: In the footsteps of Count Balderich. A contribution to the question of the historical figure of the Gladbach church founder and his identity with Count Balderich of Friuli. In: Rheydter yearbook for history and culture of the city of Mönchengladbach. 2018; 32 (2018), pages 17-53.

Web links

• Balderich von Friuli, at Genealogy Middle Ages

swell

• Thegan . Vita Hludowici Imperatoris .
• Einhard . Life of Charlemagne .

predecessor	Office	successor
Cadalaus	Margrave of Friuli 819–828	Unroch II.