Hugo I. (Italy)

Hugo I. , also Hugo Graf von Vienne , Hugo von (der) Provence , Hugo von Arles , (* before 887, † April 10, 947 in Arles ) from the noble family of the Bosoniden was from 905 regent for Ludwig the blind , who after his dazzling was practically incapable of governing . From 924 he was King of Lower Burgundy and from 926 to 946 King of Italy , making him one of the national kings.

Life

Hugo was the son of Count Theotbald von Arles and Bertha von Lotharingien , a daughter of King Lothar II , who married Margrave Adalbert II of Tuscia († 915) for the second time . In 912 he married Willa von Burgund , probably a daughter of Boso von Vienne , the widow of King Rudolf I of Burgundy († 912).

After the death of the blinded King Ludwig III. , which he had already completely controlled during his lifetime, he seized Niederburgund in 924, but was summoned to Italy by the party hostile to King Rudolf II of Hochburgund - his wife's son - and, after his overthrow, was crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 925 ; on the other hand he had to cede his Burgundian rule to Rudolf. Against Berengar I he called the Arabs into the country ( Islam in Italy ), who in turn called the Hungarians . From then on, both peoples plundered northern Italy.

Hugo ruled vigorously, but also with harshness and cruelty, surrounded himself with a harem of beautiful women and conferred spiritual and secular offices on unworthy favorites. In 931 he blinded his half-brother, the Margrave Lambert of Tuszien , and then transferred his land to his own brother Boso . In 932 he married the Roman nobleman Marozia , the widow of Lambert's brother and predecessor Guido von Tuszien , the mother of Pope John XI. , with the aim of attaining the imperial crown. A few days before the coronation in December 932, his stepson Alberich , Marozia's son from a previous marriage, instigated a revolt in Rome, which was directed against both Hugo and Marozia. Since King Hugo apparently did not have his entire retinue in Rome, he had to flee the city headlong. He left his new wife Marozia behind, who was immediately imprisoned by Alberich II and later died in custody. A few days later, the Romans made Alberich lord of their city in a formal election.

Hugo immediately tried to regain his rule over Rome and free Marozia. However, the siege of the Eternal City had to be broken off in 933 without result, as the incursions of his enemies into northern Italy required Hugo's presence there. In 936 he made another attempt to conquer Rome, but had just as little luck as before and had to consent to the peace negotiations with the Romans at the urging of Abbot Odo von Cluny .

Hugo lost Niederburgund in 933 to the Guelph King Rudolf II of Hochburgund, who in return waived his claims to rule in Italy. His attempts to regain this territory after the death of Rudolf II in 937 failed because a German intervention thwarted this plan. On December 12th 937 he tried to marry Rudolf's widow Bertha , which King Otto I did not allow him. However, he did not succeed either, whose son Konrad III. because of the support of the Saxon Duke and German King Otto I. to wrest Niederburgund.

In 944 Hugo undertook a military operation against the bases of Spanish Saracens in Provence, which posed a massive threat to pilgrimage traffic over the Alpine passes and the cities of Pavia and Genoa. Despite the initial great success of the Byzantine fleet allied with Hugo, Hugo abruptly broke off this operation because his power base in central Italy was in the process of dissolution.

When he was planning to surprise, capture and blind Berengar II , the Margrave of Ivrea , he brought about his own downfall. Berengar escaped to King Otto I, warned in good time by Lothar , Hugo's son and co-regent, and returned in 945 with a crowd recruited in Germany. Many nobles, above all Bishop Manasse and Count Milo of Verona, who were dissatisfied with Hugo's rule, fell away from Hugo immediately after Berengar's appearance. When he was ready to abdicate, Lothar succeeded by kneeling before the victorious Berengar to at least to some extent secure the continued existence of Burgundian rule in Italy. Berengar, who was deeply indebted to Lothar for warning him of his father's plans, could not and would not refuse this request. The lonely and completely bitter still de facto King Hugo fled to Provence, where he died in Arles in 947 while preparing for another war against Berengar .

The Kingdom of Italy received his son Lothar in 946 , who was married to Rudolf II's daughter Adelheid , but died in 950. The rumors suggested that his death was due to poisoning by Berengar, but this has not been proven or disproved. The turmoil and disagreements of this epoch prepared the ground for the later conquest of Italy by the German King Otto I, who a little later married Adelheid, the daughter of Rudolf II and widow of Lothar, who had inherited Italy from him.

literature

• Peter Llewellyn: Rome in the Dark Ages. Constable, London 1993, ISBN 0-09-472150-5 .
• Rosamond McKitterick : The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751-987. Longman, London et al. 1983, ISBN 0-582-49005-7 .
• Charles W. Previté Orton: Italy and Provence, 900-950. In: The English Historical Review . Vol. 32, No. 127, 1917, pp. 335-347, JSTOR 551042 .
• Pierre Riché : The Carolingians. A family who forged Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia PA 1993, ISBN 0-8122-1342-4 .
• Harald Zimmermann : The Dark Century. A historical portrait. Styria, Graz et al. 1971.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Charles W. Previte Orton: Italy and Provence, 900-950. In: The English Historical Review. Vol. 32, No. 127, 1917, pp. 335-347, JSTOR 551042 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Louis the blind	King of Lower Burgundy 924–933	Rudolf II.
Rudolf II.	King of Italy 926–946	Lothar II