Hugh of Italy
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Hugh of Arles or Hugh of Provence (before 887 - 947) was King of Italy from 924 until his death.
He was the son of Theobald of Arles and of Bertha, illegitimate daughter of Lothar II of Lotharingia. Elected King of Italy in 924, he relinquished his interests in Provence in 933 and died in 947. His wife, Willa of Provence, was the daughter of Boso of Provence and Ermengard of Provence; Hugh ruled as regent for Willa's brother, Louis the Blind.
At some date after his father's death, his mother remarried to Adalbert II of Tuscany. However, Hugh first came to prominence in his native Provence as effective regent at Arles for king Louis the Blind, in the years after Louis's ultimately disastrously unsuccessful attempt between 900 and 905 to add the throne of Italy to that of Provence and subsequent blinding by Berengar of Friuli.
About 922, a sizable faction of Italian nobles revolted against the by-now emperor Berengar and elected Rudolf II, king of Burgundy as king of Italy. This started a civil war, which resulted in Berengar's assassination in 924. Rather than accept Rudolf, Berengar's partisans now elected Hugh as King of Italy.
Hugh's reign started successfully enough. By 926, Rudolf had been ejected from Italy, although he would not abandon his claims for several years yet. He somewhat improved the central administration of the kingdom, achieving rather more (though not total) success against the Magyar raids that had been plaguing Italy for several decade. He induced the Italian nobility to recognise his son Lothar as their next king. A young page educated at Hugh's court at the traditional Lombard capital, Pavia, grew up to be Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, the liveliest chronicler of the 10th century; his loyalty to the memory of Hugh may have helped fuel some of his partisan bitterness in chronicling Hugh's heirs.
However, Hugh's attempt to strengthen his power further by a second marriage failed disastrously. His bride was Marozia, senatrix and effective ruler of Rome and widow first of Alberic I of Spoleto and then of Hugh's own half-brother Guido of Tuscany. This last fact, though, meant that the marriage was illegal under Canon law, on grounds of consanguinity— a matter that Hugh tried to circumvent by disowning and eliminating the descendants of his mother's second marriage and giving Tuscany to a relative on his father's side of the family. This in turn, however, alarmed Alberic, Marozia's teenage son or step-son by her first marriage, who, appealing to Roman distrust of the foreign troops Hugh had brought with him, launched a coup d'état during the wedding festivities. Hugh managed to flee, but Marozia was imprisoned until her death a few years later.
Hugh's power in Italy was damaged but not destroyed by these events. To strengthen his hand in the affairs of Milan, he tonsured his younger son to groom him for the position of archbishop of Milan; unfortunately the ancient cleric, Arderic, whom he installed pro tem lived another twenty-two years[1]. He continued to organise the fight against the Magyars and the Andalusian pirates based at Fraxinet in Provence. Active, if sometimes dubious, diplomacy paid off. He concluded a treaty with Rudolf in 933 by which Rudolf abandoned his claims to Italy in return for being handed Provence over the heads of Louis the Blind's heirs and the marriage of Rudolf's daughter Adelaide to Hugh's son Lothar II of Arles. Friendly relations were maintained with the Byzantine Empire and, in 942, Hugh even came to terms with Alberic, who married one of Hugh's daughters.
Within the kingdom, Hugh intensified his existing habit of giving any available offices or lands to relations, including his numerous legitimate and illegitimate progeny, and a small circle of old and trusted friends. The effect this had on Italian nobles who saw this as threatening themselves eventually resulted, in 945, in a rebellion led by Berengar of Ivrea. Hugh managed to come to terms, by which he nominally kept the crown but returned to Provence, leaving Lothar as king in Italy but with all real power now in Berengar's hands.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Arnulf of Milan, Liber gestorum recentium, I.2. Arderic died 13 October 948.
| Preceded by Rudolf |
King of Italy 924–947 |
Succeeded by Lothar II of Arles |
[edit] References
- Llewellyn, Peter (1971). Rome in the Dark Ages. Constable. ISBN 0-09-472150-5.
- Riché, Pierre (1993). The Carolingians: a family who forged Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1342-4.
