Rudolf II (Burgundy)

This article covers King Rudolf II of Burgundy (Arelat), for the Duke of Burgundy (Bourgogne) and later King of France see Rudolf of Burgundy .

The kingdoms of Upper and Lower Burgundy and the Duchy of Burgundy in the 9th / 10th. century

Rudolf II (* around 880; † July 12 or July 13, 937 ) was duke , later King of Hochburgund (912-937) and King of Italy (922-926), buried in Saint-Maurice . He is one of the national kings of Italy.

Rudolf was the eldest son of King Rudolf I of Hochburgund (888-912) from the Rudolfinger family , the Burgundian branch of the Guelphs and the Willa of Niederburgund , daughter of King Boso of Vienne .

Duke Rudolf II endeavored to expand his empire in the northeast. He used the unclear conditions in the area of ​​the Swabian duchy . In 916 he acquired Swabian areas west of the Huttwil - Aarwangen line and Basel . His defeat in the battle of Winterthur in 919 against Duke Burchard II cost Rudolf the Thur - and the Zürichgau .

In order to bring about peace, he married - probably in 922 - Burchard's daughter Berta .

From this marriage there were four children:

• King Conrad III. ,
• Rudolf (attested in 961/62),
• Archbishop Burchard I of Lyon and
• Adelheid , later wife of Emperor Otto I.

From then on, Burchard and Rudolf supported each other politically.

In the same year he began to advance towards the south by war. He was raised to the throne of Italy by Adalbert von Ivrea in 921 . Emperor Berengar I of Friuli opposed Rudolf at Fiorenzuola ( Piacenza ) in 923 , but was defeated. This made Rudolf the king of Italy.

In the meantime the Italian nobility began to revolt against Rudolf. Duke Burchard II of Swabia rushed to his aid. Burchard died after an attack by Archbishop Lambert of Milan in April 926 off Novara . Rudolf II then withdrew from Italy and in November 926 returned the Italian Holy Lance, which had been given to him as a symbol of rule, to King Henry I in Worms .

In 933 Rudolf finally renounced Italy in favor of Hugo of Provence against the cession of Lower Burgundy .

King Rudolf II's throne was inherited by his son Conrad III.

swell

• Liudprand of Cremona : Works. In: Sources on the history of the Saxon imperial era. = Fontes ad historiam aevi Saxonici illustrandam (= Selected sources on German history in the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein memorial edition. Vol. 8). Revised by Albert Bauer and Reinhold Rau. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1971, ISBN 3-534-01416-2 , pp. 233-589.

literature

• Rudolf Schieffer :  Rudolfinger. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , pp. 198-200 ( digitized version ).
• Bernd Schneidmüller : The Guelphs. Reign and memory (819–1252) (= Kohlhammer-Urban-Taschenbücher. Vol. 465). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 2000, ISBN 3-17-014999-7 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Rudolf I.	King of Burgundy 912–937	Conrad III.
Hugo I.	King of Lower Burgundy 930–937	Conrad III.
Berengar I.	King of Italy 924–926	Hugo I.