Pippin (Italy)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Emperor Karl (left) in conversation with his son Pippin of Italy, facsimile of a miniature from the Liber legum des Lupus Ferrariensis , probably made during his stay in Fulda 828 / 29-836 on behalf of Margrave Eberhard von Friuli , Biblioteca Capitolare zu Modena .

Pippin (* 777 ; † July 8, 810 in Italy ) was King of Italy from 781 to 810 . He was the third son of Charlemagne , but the second son of his second (later the first only valid) recognized marriage with Hildegard and was originally called Karlmann .

Childhood and adolescence, the foundations of rule

Manuscript in Alemannic minuscule from the Sankt Gallen monastery founded in 719 ; Most of the clergy and settlers in Italy came from Alemannia

Pippin was named Pippin probably only when he, on April 15, 781 in the presence of his father by Pope Adrian I in Rome baptized was anointed king of Italy. It is unclear whether the appointment was made by the father. In any case, Pippin counted his reign from the date of his anointing. The Pope was godfather, with which he affirmed the compaternitas with the Carolingian family, but also guarantor of the spiritual institution. On the return journey from Rome, Pippin made a solemn move into the royal palace of Pavia .

Pippin was initially under the tutelage of Adalhard , Abbot of Corbie . This was originally the confidante of Charlemagne's brother, Karlmann . Desiderius , the last Longobard king, was held in captivity in his monastery - probably beyond 786. Adalhard had fallen out with Karl because of the Lombard War in 774, but the half-brothers had reconciled in 781 and Adalhard had then obtained the abbotship of Corbie. Adalhard, on the other hand, was extremely well connected at the king's court school, so that his influence in the cultural field increased enormously. “You may even have to accept the center of Charlemagne's court school in the Corbie monastery,” says Stefan Weinfurter . The templates for the almost massive copies of ancient works came mostly from Italy, even if Boniface or the Irish had collected some writings. The library of the monastery Castellum Lucullanum (the former villa of Lukull ) on the island of Megaride (today in Naples), where the most important writing school in the Latin West developed in the 6th century, is considered particularly rich . A similarly important writing school was in Ravenna in the 6th century . In the 6th and 7th centuries, important writing schools emerged in southern France, then in Luxeuil in Burgundy , from where the newly founded royal monastery of Corbie was settled in 662; Also Chelles became an important tradition center. In 613/14, Bobbio, the most important monastic center in northern Italy , also advanced to become an important center of tradition. In Charles' and thus in Pippin's time, however, the newly created court library , which was later mainly sold for the benefit of the poor, was very radiant (cf. Carolingian Renaissance ).

The higher positions in Italy were now taken over by Franconia, Bavaria and in particular the Alemanni, this also applied to the royal messengers, the missi dominici , but above all to the clergy . Monasteries in the Franconian Empire also received extensive lands in Italy, and so many church offices were filled with men from the Franconian Empire that Pope Hadrian I worried in a request to Karl whether he, the Pope - as he had heard - was from a “de gente vestra”, that is, “from your people” should be replaced. A considerable number of settlers, small landlords and vassals (vassi) also came to the peninsula, mostly as vassi domni regis . As fideles nostri Franci (our loyal Franks), these men intended for military service received beneficia (equipment, own benefits). Their main settlement areas were around Milan and Pavia, from Como to Lecco , around Parma , Lucca and Piacenza . Almost a third of the population, it was estimated, came from Alemannia. Pippin had to know their popular rights , under which the immigrants continued to live, because the king had to be able to sit in judgment over them if necessary. His territory also had a further cultural independence, which is proven by the long adherence to the Alemannic minuscule .

Wars against Avars (791, 796), Slavs (797) and Saxons (799)

Scarcely of age, Pippin waged war against the Avars in 791 , a series of wars initiated by his father. Pippin attacked from Italy. But this war led to little success. Perhaps not far from Cividale he conquered an Avar border fortification, killing numerous Avars, about 150 of them being dragged off as prisoners.

In 795 the long-prepared war of conquest began. In the summer of 796 Pippin completed the victory and he captured the rest of the Avar treasure, after Margrave Erich von Friuli had captured the majority of the treasure the year before and brought it to Aachen. Taking home the immense treasures gave Pippin, who was soon to be credited with the decisive part in the victory, an unexpected increase in rank and reputation, as can be measured from the poetry. This is how the poem About King Pippin's Avar Victory came about and Angilbert also praised the young king in the form of a poem.

In 797 Pippin devastated the land of the Slavs with the Bavarians and Lombards and in 799 he and his father moved against the Saxons . But there were still fights between the Bavarians and the Avars in 799. Therefore the Avarmark was created as a border security. A final Avar uprising was put down in 803.

Reich partition plan from 806

The division of the empire envisaged in the Divisio Regnorum of 806. In it, Charles the Younger received the Franconian core areas, Ludwig and Pippin the economically more valuable. To be on the safe side, the Pope was supposed to approve the regulation sent to him; all the great had to swear to ensure compliance with the regulations.

When Charlemagne divided his empire among his sons in Diedenhofen in 806 ( Divisio Regnorum ), Pippin received Bavaria and Italy as well as the southern Alemannia Raetia. He went to the monastery there , as reported in the Reichenau Genesius story, and documents were dated to him in the monastery of St. Gallen .

Battle against Saracens, attack on the Venice lagoon (810)

After he had expelled the Moors from Corsica , he besieged Venice in 810 - following the Venetian historiography, unsuccessfully - and subjugated the dukes "Wilheran" and "Beatus", who later know as Obelerio Antenoreo or Obelerius and his brother Beatus or Beato . The Byzantine emperor Nikephorus I , with whom Charles I had been in a dispute over the imperial issue since his coronation in 800 , had sent a fleet to the northern Adriatic , which was commanded by the patrician Nicetas. Since the Franks had no fleet at their disposal, Niketas initially brought Dalmatia under his control without resistance . When the fleet appeared at the entrance to the Venice lagoon , Fortunatus , who later became the Patriarch of Grado, fled while Obelerius and his brother Beatus submitted. Obelerius received the title of Spatharius (sword-bearer), with which he was externally subordinate to the Byzantine rule.

Niketas also managed to conclude an agreement with King Pippin. His fleet returned to Constantinople in the summer of 807 . The agreement between Nicetas and Pippin was short-lived in the absence of a treaty between the empires. As early as 809, Paulus, Duca of Kephalonia , led another fleet into Venetian waters. Fights broke out with the Franks of Comacchio , after which the Byzantines who had failed there tried to find a new agreement. The two doges remained indifferent, so that Pippin prepared an invasion after the fleet had withdrawn.

The chronologically closest source after the Frankish imperial annals comes from the chaplain of Doge Johannes Diaconus . This paints a highly partisan picture. From the distance of two centuries a relatively solid version of the tradition had been established in Venice, which blamed Pippin for the outbreak of the conflict. The latter attacked the ducat Venice from land and sea in breach of the agreements. He was able to conquer the coastal centers quickly. Then he had penetrated the southern lagoon, where he had advanced over the long sandbanks that protected the lagoon from the open sea to Albiola near Pellestrina . From there he threatened Malamocco, which was the residence of the Doges until 811, but was defeated in battle. The Franconian Reichsannals, on the other hand, provide a completely different version. Accordingly, an agreement between Constantinople and Pippin had failed because of the machinations of the Doge brothers, whereupon Pippin subjugated the Venetians. Only the Greek fleet, which appeared in the upper Adriatic, forced him to withdraw. Obelerius and Beatus tried to secure their precarious rule by taking the side of the victors. Obelerius sought in vain Franconian support, because they delivered him to Byzantium in 810 and he ended up as a prisoner in Constantinople. Beatus was taken to Zara , where he died the next year.

Death and offspring

But Pippin also died surprisingly on July 8, 810. He was buried in Milan . When Charles the Younger died on December 4, 811, the regulations of 806 were obsolete. The only living son, later called Ludwig the Pious, inherited the entire empire in 814, but he had a rival in the son of Pippin, in Bernhard .

This son had emerged from a peace marriage in which Pippin had married a woman whose name was not known. In addition to his son Bernhard, there were four daughters from this marriage. These were Adalhaid, Gundrada, Berthaid and Theodrada, who were all born after 800 and were still alive when their father died in 810. Bernhard († 818) was his successor as King of Italy. Although he took up this position on the orders of Charles I in 812/813, the situation changed with the death of Charles in 814. In 817, Bernhard was in the Ordinatio Imperii of Louis the Pious , which was tailored to his own three sons was no longer intended. His domain went to Ludwig's eldest son Lothar .

literature

Web links

Commons : Pippin of Italy  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Stefan Weinfurter : Charlemagne. The holy barbarian , Piper, Munich and Zurich 2015, p. 99 f.
  2. ^ Stefan Weinfurter: Charlemagne. The holy barbarian , Piper, Munich and Zurich 2015, p. 195.
  3. ^ Stefan Weinfurter: Charlemagne. Der heilige Barbar , Piper, Munich and Zurich 2015, p. 168, based on Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Epistolae 3, p. 629, pp. 33–35.
  4. ^ Walter Pohl : The Avar Wars of Charlemagne 788-803 (= Military History Series , 61). Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1988.
  5. ↑ Brigitte Kasten : The sons of kings and the rule of kings. Studies on participation in the empire in the Merovingian and Carolingian times , at the same time habilitation thesis Bremen 1996, Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hanover 1997, p. 269.
  6. ↑ Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Poetae latini 1, p. 117.
  7. ↑ Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Poetae latini 1, p. 358 f.
  8. ↑ Meinrad Schaab , Hansmartin Schwarzmaier (ed.) U. a .: Handbook of Baden-Württemberg History . Volume 1: General History. Part 1: From prehistoric times to the end of the Hohenstaufen. Edited on behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-608-91465-X , p. 334.
  9. ↑ Giovanni Monticolo (Ed.): Cronache veneziane antichissime , Vol. 1, Rome 1890, p. 104 f.
predecessor Office successor
Charlemagne King of Italy / King of the Lombards
781–810 		Bernhard
personal data
SURNAME Pippin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Italy
DATE OF BIRTH 777
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 810
Place of death Italy