1.
Papal States
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The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the states of Italy from roughly the 8th century until the Italian Peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. At their zenith, they covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Marche, Umbria and Romagna and these holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. By 1861, much of the Papal States territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy, only Lazio, including Rome, remained under the Popes temporal control. In 1870, the pope lost Lazio and Rome and had no physical territory at all, Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini ended the crisis between unified Italy and the Vatican by signing the Lateran Treaty, granting the Vatican City State sovereignty. The Papal States were also known as the Papal State, the territories were also referred to variously as the State of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, or the Roman States. For its first 300 years the Catholic Church was persecuted and unrecognized and this system began to change during the reign of the emperor Constantine I, who made Christianity legal within the Roman Empire, and restoring to it any properties that had been confiscated. The Lateran Palace was the first significant new donation to the Church, other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. But the Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, the seeds of the Papal States as a sovereign political entity were planted in the 6th century. Beginning In 535, the Byzantine Empire, under emperor Justinian I, launched a reconquest of Italy that took decades and devastated Italys political, just as these wars wound down, the Lombards entered the peninsula from the north and conquered much of the countryside. While the popes remained Byzantine subjects, in practice the Duchy of Rome, nevertheless, the pope and the exarch still worked together to control the rising power of the Lombards in Italy. As Byzantine power weakened, though, the took a ever larger role in defending Rome from the Lombards. In practice, the papal efforts served to focus Lombard aggrandizement on the exarch, a climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries embodied in the Lombard king Liutprands Donation of Sutri to Pope Gregory II. When the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell to the Lombards in 751, the popes renewed earlier attempts to secure the support of the Franks. In 751, Pope Zachary had Pepin the Younger crowned king in place of the powerless Merovingian figurehead king Childeric III, zacharys successor, Pope Stephen II, later granted Pepin the title Patrician of the Romans. Pepin led a Frankish army into Italy in 754 and 756, Pepin defeated the Lombards – taking control of northern Italy – and made a gift of the properties formerly constituting the Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope. The cooperation between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty climaxed in 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor, the precise nature of the relationship between the popes and emperors – and between the Papal States and the Empire – is disputed. Events in the 9th century postponed the conflict, the Holy Roman Empire in its Frankish form collapsed as it was subdivided among Charlemagnes grandchildren
2.
Pope
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The pope is the Bishop of Rome and, therefore, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, the office of the pope is the papacy. The pope is considered one of the worlds most powerful people because of his diplomatic and he is also head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the Italian capital city of Rome. The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history, the popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages, they played a role of importance in Western Europe. Currently, in addition to the expansion of the Christian faith and doctrine, the popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, charitable work, Popes, who originally had no temporal powers, in some periods of history accrued wide powers similar to those of temporal rulers. In recent centuries, popes were gradually forced to give up temporal power, the word pope derives from Greek πάππας meaning father. The earliest record of the use of title was in regard to the by then deceased Patriarch of Alexandria. Some historians have argued that the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, the writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD180 reflect a belief that Peter founded and organised the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peters presence in the early Roman Church, Clement of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians, c. 96, about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the struggles in our time and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, first, the greatest and most just columns, the good apostles Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement and in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did. Given this and other evidence, many agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero. Protestants contend that the New Testament offers no proof that Jesus established the papacy nor even that he established Peter as the first bishop of Rome, others, using Peters own words, argue that Christ intended himself as the foundation of the church and not Peter. First-century Christian communities would have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as leaders of their local churches, gradually, episcopacies were established in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure before Rome, some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did not occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, documents of the 1st century and early 2nd century indicate that the Holy See had some kind of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, though the detail of what this meant is unclear. It seems that at first the terms episcopos and presbyter were used interchangeably, the consensus among scholars has been that, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters whose offices were overlapping or indistinguishable
3.
Holy Roman Emperor
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The Holy Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. From an autocracy in Carolingian times the title evolved into an elected monarchy chosen by the Prince-electors, until the Reformation the Emperor elect was required to be crowned by the Pope before assuming the imperial title. The title was held in conjunction with the rule of the Kingdom of Germany, in theory, the Holy Roman Emperor was primus inter pares among the other Catholic monarchs, in practice, a Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances made him. Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, effectively became hereditary holders of the title, after the Reformation many of the subject states and most of those in Germany were Protestant while the Emperor continued to be Catholic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by the last Emperor as a result of the collapse of the polity during the Napoleonic wars, from the time of Constantine I the Roman emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. In the west, the title of Emperor was revived in 800, as the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. The best-known and most bitter conflict was known as the Investiture Controversy. After Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, no pope appointed an emperor again until the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. Under Otto and his successors, much of the former Carolingian kingdom of Eastern Francia fell within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, the various German princes elected one of their peers as King of the Germans, after which he would be crowned as emperor by the Pope. After Charles Vs coronation, all succeeding emperors were called elected Emperor due to the lack of papal coronation, the term sacrum in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was first used in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa. Charles V was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope, the final Holy Roman Emperor-elect, Francis II, abdicated in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars that saw the Empires final dissolution. The standard designation of the Holy Roman Emperor was August Emperor of the Romans, the word Holy had never been used as part of that title in official documents. In German-language historiography, the term Römisch-deutscher Kaiser is used to distinguish the title from that of Roman Emperor on one hand, the English term Holy Roman Emperor is a modern shorthand for emperor of the Holy Roman Empire not corresponding to the historical style or title. Successions to the kingship were controlled by a variety of complicated factors, elections meant the kingship of Germany was only partially hereditary, unlike the kingship of France, although sovereignty frequently remained in a dynasty until there were no more male successors. The Electoral council was set at seven princes by the Golden Bull of 1356, another elector was added in 1690, and the whole college was reshuffled in 1803, a mere three years before the dissolution of the Empire. After 1438, the Kings remained in the house of Habsburg and Habsburg-Lorraine, with the exception of Charles VII. Maximilian I and his successors no longer travelled to Rome to be crowned as Emperor by the Pope, Maximilian therefore named himself Elected Roman Emperor in 1508 with papal approval. This title was in use by all his uncrowned successors, of his successors only Charles V, the immediate one, received a papal coronation
4.
Carolingian Empire
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The Carolingian Empire was a large empire in western and central Europe during the early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards of Italy from 774. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in an effort to revive the Roman Empire in the west during a vacancy in the throne of the eastern Roman Empire. The unity of the empire and the right of the Carolingians continued to be acknowledged. In 884, Charles the Fat reunited all the kingdoms for the last time, but he died in 888 and the empire immediately split up. With the only remaining male of the dynasty a child, the nobility elected regional kings from outside the dynasty or, in the case of the eastern kingdom. The size of the empire at its inception was around 1,112,000 square kilometres, in southern Italy, the Carolingians claims to authority were disputed by the Byzantines and the vestiges of the Lombard kingdom in the Principality of Benevento. Use of the term Carolingian Empire is a modern convention, the language of official acts in the empire was Latin. The empire was referred to variously as universum regnum, Romanorum sive Francorum imperium, Romanum imperium or even imperium christianum. Only the remaining Saxon realms, which he conquered, Lombardy. Further, Martel cemented his place in history with his defense of Christian Europe against a Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732, the Iberian Saracens had incorporated Berber lighthorse cavalry with the heavy Arab cavalry to create a formidable army that had almost never been defeated. Christian European forces, meanwhile, lacked the powerful tool of the stirrup, in this victory, Charles earned the surname Martel. Edward Gibbon, the historian of Rome and its aftermath, called Charles Martel the paramount prince of his age, Pepin III accepted the nomination as king by Pope Zachary in about 751. Charlemagnes rule began in 768 at Pepins death and he proceeded to take control over the kingdom following his brother Carlomans death, as the two brothers co-inherited their fathers kingdom. Charlemagne was crowned Roman Emperor in the year 800, the Carolingian Empire during the reign of Charlemagne covered most of Western Europe, as the Roman Empire once had. Prior to the death of Charlemagne, the Empire was divided among members of the Carolingian dynasty. These included King Charles the Younger, son of Charlemagne, who received Neustria, King Louis the Pious, who received Aquitaine, and King Pepin, Pepin died with an illegitimate son, Bernard, in 810, and Charles died without heirs in 811. Although Bernard succeeded Pepin as King of Italy, Louis was made co-Emperor in 813, Louis the Pious often had to struggle to maintain control of the Empire
5.
Santi Cosma e Damiano
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For the Italian city, see Santi Cosma e Damiano, Lazio. The basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano is a church in the Roman Forum, the circular building at the entrance onto the Forum was built in the early 4th century as a Roman temple, thought to have been dedicated to Valerius Romulus, deified son of the emperor Maxentius. The main building was perhaps the library of an imperial forum and it became a church in 527 and contains important but much restored early Christian art, especially in its mosaics. Today it is one of the ancient churches called tituli, of which cardinals are patrons as cardinal-deacons, cosmae et Damiani is Beniamino Stella, created Cardinal on 22 February 2014. The basilica, devoted to the two Greek brothers, doctors, martyrs and saints Cosmas and Damian, is located in the Forum of Vespasian, also known as the Forum of Peace. The Temple is traditionally held to have been dedicated by Emperor Maxentius to his son and co-consul Valerius Romulus, the temple has also been speculated as a rebuilding of the original temple of Jupiter Stator, or one dedicated to Penates, restored by Maxentius. The apse was decorated with a Roman-Byzantine mosaic, representing a parousia, the bodies of Saints Mark and Marcellian were translated, perhaps in the ninth century, to this church, where they were rediscovered in 1583 during the reign of Pope Gregory XIII. In 1632, Pope Urban VIII ordered the restoration of the basilica, the works, projected by Orazio Torriani and directed by Luigi Arrigucci, raised the floor level seven metres, bringing it equal with the Campo Vaccino, thus avoiding the infiltration of water. The old floor of the basilica is still visible in the lower church, in 1947, the restorations of the Imperial Forums gave a new structure to the church. The old entrance, through the Temple of Romulus, was closed, and the temple restored to its forms, with the Pantheon. A new entrance was opened on the side, whose arch gives access to the cloister. Next to the new entrance to the complex, there are the rooms with the original marble paving of the Forum of Peace, through the cloister, the entrance to the church opens on the side of the single nave. The mosaics are masterpieces of 6th- and 7th-century art, in the middle is Christ, with Saint Peter presenting Saint Cosmas and Saint Theodorus, and Saint Paul presenting Saint Damian and Pope Felix IV, the latter holds a model of the church. Furthermore, for centuries, in this medical area Roman physicians had their meetings, pietro Chioccioni, La Basilica E Il Convento Dei Santi Cosma E Damiano in Roma. Roberta Budriesi, La Basilica dei Ss, vitaliano Tiberia, Il Restauro Del Mosaico Della Basilica Dei Santi Cosma E Damiano a Roma. Roma, Touring Club Italiano,2004, pp. 276–277, Cosma e Damiano in the Twelfth Century, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 49 99–126. Jacalyn Duffin, Medical Saints, Cosmas and Damian in a Postmodern World, photo Official Website Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian, Rome Roman architecture List of Roman domes
6.
Lateran Palace
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The Lateran Palace, formally the Apostolic Palace of the Lateran, is an ancient palace of the Roman Empire and later the main papal residence in southeast Rome. Located on St. Johns Square in Lateran on the Caelian Hill, the edifice is adjacent to the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome. From the fourth century, the palace was the residence of the popes. The palace is now used by the Vatican Historical Museum, which illustrates the history of the Papal States. The palace also houses the offices of the Vicariate of Rome, as well as the apartments of the Cardinal vicar. Until 1970, the palace was home to the important collections of the Lateran Museum. Following the Lateran Treaty of 1929, the palace and adjoining basilica are extraterritorial properties of the Holy See, the site on which the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano sits was occupied during the early Roman Empire by the domus of the Plautii Laterani family. The Laterani served as administrators for several emperors, their ancestor Lucius Sextius Lateranus is said to have been the first plebeian to attain the rank of consul, one of the Laterani, Consul-designate Plautius Lateranus, became famous for being accused by Nero of conspiracy against the emperor. The accusation resulted in the confiscation and redistribution of his properties, the Domus Laterani fell into the hands of the emperor when Constantine I married his second wife Fausta, sister of Maxentius. Known by that time as the Domus Faustae or House of Fausta, the equites singulares had allegedly supported Maxentius against Constantine. He commissioned the construction of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano the site, the domus was eventually given to the Bishop of Rome by Constantine. As Byzantium grew less able to help prevent Lombard incursions, the became more independent of the Empire. Author Erik Thunø notes that the incentive to refurbish the Lateran Palace was to create a residence from which the pope could exercise not only spiritual. The pope’s palace at the Lateran in Rome was extensively added to in the eighth century by Pope Hadrian I. Leo III, built an enormous Triclinium and it was one of the most famous halls of the ancient palace and was the state banqueting hall, lined with mosaics. Nothing remains of this, but in 1743 copies of the mosaics were made from drawings, the Triclinium and the sala del concilio, an oblong hall with apse mosaic and five ornate niches on each side, were built around 800 to serve as the heart of papal ceremonial. Architecturally they were reminiscent of Byzantine imperial buildings in Constantinople, in the tenth Century Sergius III restored it after a disastrous fire, and later it was greatly embellished by Innocent III. This was the period of its greatest magnificence, when Dante speaks of it as all human achievements
7.
Farfa Abbey
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Farfa Abbey is a territorial abbey in northern Lazio, central Italy. It is one of the most famous abbeys of Europe and it belongs to the Benedictine Order and is located about 60 km from Rome, in the commune of Fara Sabina, of which is also a hamlet. Archaeological discoveries in 1888 find strong evidence that the first monastic establishment was built on the ruins of a pagan temple and this first monastery was devastated by the Vandals in the fifth century. Only a handful of sixth-century finds document the presence of the monastic community. In the seventh century, a wave of Irish monasticism spread over Italy, the foundation the Abbey of Saint Columbanus in Bobbio. and of Farfa by monks from Gaul, about 681, heralded a revival of the great Benedictine tradition in Italy. While in prayer before the Holy Sepulchre, the Virgin Mary in a vision warned him to return to Italy, and restore Farfa, faroald II, who had also had a vision, was commanded to aid in this work. Thomas died in 720, and for more than a century Frankish abbots ruled at Farfa, the Lombard chiefs, and later the Carolingians, succeeded in withdrawing Farfa from obedience to the Bishops of Rieti, and in securing many immunities and privileges for the monastery. In 898, the abbey was sacked by Saracens who then burned it, campo was exiled, and a holy monk with the Merovingian name of Dagibert took his place. At the end of five years, he died by poison —. The monks robbed the altars of their ornaments, and led lives of unbridled vice, owing to the protection of the Emperor Otho, the abbot John III, who had been consecrated circa 967 by the pope, succeeded in re-establishing a semblance of order. But the great reformer of Farfa was Hugues and his nomination as abbot was not secured without simony — but the success of his government palliates the vice of his election. At this instance, abbots Odilo of Cluny and William of Dijon, visited Farfa, the Consuetudines Farfenses drawn up about 1010 under the supervision of Guido, successor to Hugues of Farfa, bear witness to the care with which Hugues organized the monastic life at Farfa. These works are important for the historian of the period. One of Hugues successors, Berard I, abbot from 1049 to 1089, the monk Gregory of Catino arranged the archives. In 1103, Gregory wrote the Largitorium, or Liber Notarius sive emphiteuticus, Gregory was a man of real learning, remarkable in that, as early as the eleventh century, he wrote history with accuracy of view-point, and a great wealth of information. The monks of Farfa owned 683 churches or convents, two towns, Centumcellæ and Alatri,132 castles,16 strongholds,7 seaports,8 salt mines,14 villages,82 mills,315 hamlets, all this wealth was a hindrance to the religious life once more. Between 1119 and 1125, Farfa was troubled by the rivalries between Abbot Guido, and the monk Berard who aimed at being abbot, during the Investiture conflict, Farfa was, more or less, on the side of the Ghibellines. The monks issued an Orthodoxa defensio imperialis in support of the Ghibelline party
8.
Abbot
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Abbot, meaning father, is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as a title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The word is derived from the Aramaic av meaning father or abba, in the Septuagint, it was written as abbas. At first it was employed as a title for any monk. The title abbot came into general use in western monastic orders whose members include priests. An abbot is the head and chief governor of a community of monks, the English version for a female monastic head is abbess. In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, the jurisdiction of the abbot, or archimandrite, was, sometimes he ruled over only one community, sometimes over several, each of which had its own abbot as well. Saint John Cassian speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid who had 500 monks under him, by the Rule of St Benedict, which, until the Cluniac reforms, was the norm in the West, the abbot has jurisdiction over only one community. Monks, as a rule, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot any exception, for the reception of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church. This rule proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert or at a distance from a city, the change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of abbot was commonly filled by laymen till the end of the 7th century. The ecclesiastical leadership exercised by abbots despite their frequent lay status is proved by their attendance, thus at the first Council of Constantinople, AD448,23 archimandrites or abbots sign, with 30 bishops. The second Council of Nicaea, AD787, recognized the right of abbots to ordain their monks to the inferior orders below the diaconate, abbots used to be subject to episcopal jurisdiction, and continued generally so, in fact, in the West till the 11th century. The Code of Justinian expressly subordinates the abbot to episcopal oversight, in the 12th century, the abbots of Fulda claimed precedence of the archbishop of Cologne. It has been maintained that the right to wear mitres was sometimes granted by the popes to abbots before the 11th century, but the documents on which this claim is based are not genuine. The first undoubted instance is the bull by which Alexander II in 1063 granted the use of the mitre to Egelsinus, abbot of the monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury. Of these the precedence was yielded to the abbot of Glastonbury, until in AD1154 Adrian IV granted it to the abbot of St Albans, next after the abbot of St Albans ranked the abbot of Westminster and then Ramsey. Of course, they always and everywhere had the power of admitting their own monks, the power of the abbot was paternal but absolute, limited, however, by the canon law. One of the goals of monasticism was the purgation of self and selfishness
9.
Lothair I
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Lothair I or Lothar I was the Holy Roman Emperor, and the King of Bavaria, Italy and Middle Francia. Lothair was the eldest son of the Carolingian emperor Louis the Pious and his wife Ermengarde of Hesbaye, upon the fathers death, Charles and Louis joined forces against Lothair in a three-year civil war. Lothair was born in 795, to Louis the Pious and Emengarde of Hebsbaye and his father was the son of the reigning Emperor, Charlemagne. Little is known of Lothairs early life, which was passed at the court of his grandfather Charlemagne. In 814, the elderly Charlemagne died at age 72, when his grandson Lothair was 19, the next year, Lothair was sent to govern Bavaria in 815 for his father Louis the Pious. He first comes to attention in 817, when Louis the Pious drew up his Ordinatio Imperii. Lothair would also inherit their lands if they were to die childless, Lothair was then crowned joint emperor by his father at Aachen. At the same time, Aquitaine and Bavaria were granted to his brothers Pippin and Louis, respectively, following the murder of Bernard by Louis the Pious, Lothair also received the Kingdom of Italy. In 821, Lothair married Ermengarde, daughter of Hugh the Count of Tours, in 822, he assumed the government of Italy, and at Easter,5 April 823, he was crowned emperor again by Pope Paschal I, this time at Rome. Lothair, however, soon changed his attitude and spent the decade in constant strife over the division of the Empire with his father. The first rebellion began in 830, all three brothers fought their father, whom they deposed. In 831, their father was reinstated and he deprived Lothair of his imperial title, the second rebellion was instigated by Angilbert II, Archbishop of Milan, in 833, and again Louis was deposed in 834. Lothair, through the loyalty of the Lombards and later reconciliations, retained Italy, when Louis the Pious was dying in 840, he sent the imperial insignia to Lothair, who, disregarding the various partitions, claimed the whole of the Empire. He was 45 years old when his father died, negotiations with his brother Louis the German and his half-brother Charles, both of whom resisted this claim, were followed by an alliance of the younger brothers against Lothair. A decisive battle was fought at Fontenay-en-Puisaye on 25 June 841, with fresh troops he began a war of plunder, but the forces of his brothers were too strong, and taking with him such treasure as he could collect, he abandoned his capital to them. He met with the leaders of the Stellinga in Speyer and promised them his support in return for theirs, peace negotiations began, and in June 842 the brothers met on an island in the Saône. They agreed to an arrangement which developed, after much difficulty and delay, into the Treaty of Verdun, in 845 the count of Arles, Fulcrad, led a rebellion in Provence. The emperor put it down and the count joined him in an expedition against the Saracens in Italy in 846 and he was buried at Prüm, where his remains were found in 1860
10.
Charles the Bald
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Charles the Bald was the King of West Francia, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor. After a series of wars during the reign of his father, Louis the Pious. He was a grandson of Charlemagne and the youngest son of Louis the Pious by his second wife and he was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder brothers were already adults and had been assigned their own regna, or subkingdoms, by their father. The attempts made by Louis the Pious to assign Charles a subkingdom, first Alemannia, at a diet in Aachen in 837, Louis the Pious bade the nobles do homage to Charles as his heir. Pepin of Aquitaine died in 838, whereupon Charles at last received that kingdom, which angered Pepins heirs, the death of the emperor in 840 led to the outbreak of war between his sons. In the following year, the two confirmed their alliance by the celebrated Oaths of Strasbourg. The war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Verdun in August 843, Louis received the eastern part of the Carolingian Empire, known then as East Francia and later as Germany. Lothair retained the title and the Kingdom of Italy. He also received the regions from Flanders through the Rhineland. The first years of Charless reign, up to the death of Lothair I in 855, were comparatively peaceful, during these years the three brothers continued the system of confraternal government, meeting repeatedly with one another, at Koblenz, at Meerssen, and at Attigny. In 858, Louis the German, invited by disaffected nobles eager to oust Charles, Charles was so unpopular that he was unable to summon an army, and he fled to Burgundy. He was saved only by the support of the bishops, who refused to crown Louis the German king, and by the fidelity of the Welfs, in 860, he in his turn tried to seize the kingdom of his nephew, Charles of Provence, but was repulsed. On the death of his nephew Lothair II in 869, Charles tried to seize Lothairs dominions, besides these family disputes, Charles had to struggle against repeated rebellions in Aquitaine and against the Bretons. Led by their chiefs Nomenoë and Erispoë, who defeated the king at the Battle of Ballon and the Battle of Jengland, the Bretons were successful in obtaining a de facto independence. Charles also fought against the Vikings, who devastated the country of the north, the valleys of the Seine and Loire, at the Vikings successful siege and sack of Paris in 845 and several times thereafter Charles was forced to purchase their retreat at a heavy price. By the same edict, he ordered fortified bridges to be put up at all rivers to block the Viking incursions, two of these bridges at Paris saved the city during its siege of 885–886. In 875, after the death of the Emperor Louis II, Charles the Bald, supported by Pope John VIII, traveled to Italy, receiving the crown at Pavia. Louis the German, also a candidate for the succession of Louis II, revenged himself by invading and devastating Charles dominions, and Charles had to return hastily to West Francia
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Gregory IV". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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