HRE NES III: Italienische Vorherrschaft

[Micha]

Sounds reasonable to me. Speaking of generals... Could you please generate three new ones for Saxony? I´m somehow running low on them...

[appleciders]

Oooh- good call! I'll add a request for generals to my orders, and you can ignore it if it's too late.

[Cyclotron]

Sure, you can throw in a general request. Micha, however, doesn't get to choose this turn, because he's already getting von Zwickau as a new commander.

[Cyclotron]

By the way, appleciders, feel free to give me the names of those ducal castles at any time.

[Micha]

Well... ( )

[appleciders]

Originally posted by Cyclotron
By the way, appleciders, feel free to give me the names of those ducal castles at any time.

I admit it, I'm drawing blanks. You can name 'em if you want to, especially if there's a historical castle in the area that parallels it.

[Cyclotron]

I'll see what I can do.

[Cyclotron]

Sorry, but I've got a few job applications that need doing right now. I'll attend to this within a few days. Don't worry, we're still cruising for a tremendous update.

[bipolarbear]

Posting to say the follwing:

1) I'm excited.
2) You better.
3) I also get a #1 for this.

[Cyclotron]

Alright, I've got a little more time now. The update should be out this week.

[appleciders]

Whoohoo!

[Cyclotron]

Anno Domini CMXXV

This year’s Pope: John X
This year’s Emperor: None
This year’s King: Heinrich I

Successions

Pope John X, with a delegation sent to Duke Tomislav of the Croatian Duchy of Dalmatia, has recognized him as rex Chroatorum, King of the Croats. He has been crowned at a field in Duvno, surrounded by his adoring subjects.

Siemowit, lord of the Polans, died in his sleep without warning. The chieftains of the Polan tribal confederacy have convened a wiec (popular assembly) and confirmed the succession of Lestko, Siemowit’s son, as the new supreme lord of the Polans. Like his father and most of his subjects, Lestko is a pagan, and it is unknown if he will maintain his father’s reasonably friendly relations with the Germans.

Dirk, Count of Friesland, was thrown from his horse and killed on campaign against the Vikings. A successor has not yet been crowned; his son Dirk is underage, and Bishop Balderik of Utrecht has claimed stewardship over the County.

Family Business

Kunigunde, daughter of Duke Eberhard III, has reached marriageable age.

Krieg und Frieden

Prince Landulf of Benevento and Capua and Prince Guaimar II of Salerno, both nominally Byzantine vassals, have allied to attack the Empire’s themata in southern Italy. Though Landulf met with little success in Langibardia, the Prince of Salerno has gained some ground against the embattled Greek forces in Calabria.

In the midst of the chaos in northern Italy, the fiendish Moors have invaded Corsica – nominally part of the Margravate of Tuscany – and overwhelmed the island’s defenders. Only the fortress of Bonifacio remains out of their heretical grasp.

Duke William II of Aquitaine has renounced his allegiance to the new French King, Rudolph. The King had prepared an invasion to punish the recalcitrant Duke, but was forced to abandon the project due to a particularly bold Magyar incursion into Burgundy that threatened the Ile-de-France.

King Hardeknut of the Danes has finalized a tenuous alliance with the Obodrites, a tribal confederation of Wends living northeast of Hamburg. The Obodrites have felt threatened by Saxon expansion into the lands of the Slavs for some time – apparently, threatened enough to temporarily abandon their long-standing feud with the Danes.

Other News of Christendom

Nicholas Mystikos, Patriarch of Constantinople, partisan of the Emperor Romanos, renowned academic, theologian, and diplomat, has died of natural causes.

Berno, the first abbot of Cluny, has died. A champion of monastic reform, Berno advocated for the cessation of secular control over monasteries, seeing such patronage as dangerous and corrupting interference with the work of God. His ideas of reform and spiritual renewal have reinvigorated the Benedictine Order, and are beginning to spread beyond Burgundy.

Ducal Affairs

Bavaria

At long last, the Duke of Bavaria was free to return to his holdings and family. Predictably, his nobles had taken more license while he was gone, as like all barons they demonstrated a tendency to get used to lax administration and did not take well to having it strengthened again. A troubling trend of flouting the Duke’s will had become increasingly problematic since his departure to Italy, and his return in and of itself was not enough to reverse this trend. Corruption and smuggling plagued his interests, both from “careless” vassals and enterprising merchants.

The Duke’s concerns were largely defensive, though he had an eye out for greater income as well. Harbors – along with the proliferation of “untaxed” trade through smuggling – led to a significant boom, which in turn translated into modest returns for the Duke. In particular, salt was in great demand both in Italy and in Croatia, where the truce with the Magyars had opened several tenuous trade routes. The River Drau (called Drava by the natives), flowing from Carinthian Tirol to northern Croatia, became an especially significant salt shipping route. Some contemplated shipping salt by the River Sava to the south and thus proceed directly into the Croatian heartland, but the lawless nature of Carniola (and the Magyar chieftain ruling out of Krainburg) made this quite impossible. The Duke attempted to improve roads as well, and while some progress was made, the vast scale of the Duchy and the comparative expense of building roads made this year’s progress seem rather insignificant in the larger scheme of things. The area given the most attention by the Duke was also the one that needed it the least; the Brenner Pass had well-travelled paths known since Roman times, and the Roman highway there, while not perfectly ideal for wagons, was immeasurably better than anything the Bavarians could construct.

Raids on the Bishopric of Trento increased steadily, both as a result of the massive Magyar incursions through northern Italy (who, even if they had cared, would not have known of Trento’s switch to the Germans), and an increase in the level of Saracen activity. These raiders followed their usual routine of marching to a mountain pass and either extorting or robbing those who attempted to pass until a local force of knights was mustered to force them out. More than likely, the chaos in Italy and the fall of Corsica were responsible for this.

To his great pleasure, the Duke was able to finally see his new son, as well as his older daughter – who by this time was of a prime marriageable age. It remains to be seen whether the Duke will be able to use this to his effective advantage.

Carinthia

To the east of Bavaria, work continued on fortifying the country against the Magyars. A Zinnenrecht was granted to von Wien, but for a large and undisclosed sum, which the Markgraf used to raise his own fortifications at Hainburg, from which he could keep a watchful eye both on Vienna and the lands of the Magyars. Eberhard spent the money that remained to him on an aggressive campaign of deforestation in order to clear more lands for his own demesne. Though this effort seemed petty compared to the vastness of Carinthia’s forests, every acre was one that could be put into production and used to enrich the Luitpoldings. Most of these efforts benefited the north; the Markgraf seemed focusing on developing the economically and strategically valuable Danube valley before spending any serious time or effort in the wild south.

Franconia

The Duke returned triumphantly to Franconia with new titles, great accolades, and an immense sum of Italian booty. The campaign had been quick, successful, profitable, and light on casualties; this was the image all good Germans had of a successful warlord, and Eberhard stepped into this role eagerly. Peace at home and victories abroad could only make the Duke look good, and he spent the year patronizing the church and the newly reconstituted city of Worms, which became another link on the all-important Rhine trade route. This route experienced very modest growth as tax rates were cut by the Duke, who hardly needed the extra income.

A new church was raised in Mainz, and letters were written to Rome to raise Worms to a diocese. With the chaos in Rome, however, nothing was achieved – the Pope did not even write back (which may have been no fault of his own, even assuming he received the letters). Without this blessing, there was little the Archbishop could do without grossly overstepping his authority.

The Duke made an official state visit to Frankenburg and Aachen, where he was received by the Duke of Lotharingia. Gilbert, though officially only a Duke, was richer than the King of France and carried himself similarly. Though a bit on the pretentious side, he was hospitable and generous towards his guest, whom he took on a grand tour of Charlemagne’s capital, including the Imperial Palace and its associated school. Gilbert was very interested in German politics and stressed his amicable intentions, but made no direct requests; he was more interested in hearing Eberhard’s opinions of the other Dukes of Germany and discussing local customs practices in the Rhine valley. Eberhard was sent home with appropriate gifts and an expressed hope for further cooperation in the future.

Berengar was treated well enough as a “guest” of the Duke, but it became clear that his health was declining. For months he stalked the halls of the abandoned monastery, now a small hunting keep on the Duke’s land, where he was imprisoned, until being confined to bed with a grim-sounding cough for most of the winter. Even then he indulged in one of the only pastimes he was capable of pursuing in captivity – verbally abusing his captors and servants with a wide variety of Frankish curses.

As for the troublesome elements in his own nobility, their usual bickering was quite sedate this year, owing to the Duke’s own prestige. Barons that had won support by opposing or ridiculing the Duke suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of celebrity and were quick to ride the Duke’s coattails, loudly trumpeting their own role in his victories.

Saxony

The Frisian campaign had mixed results at best; the threat of Viking attack remained strong, and Duke Gilbert’s support of the Bishop was a rude shock to those who expected Friesland to become a virtual Saxon fiefdom after its liberation. The Saxon barons were especially unhappy, having been denied the usual plunder from a successful campaign; they could hardly plunder the Frisian countryside with impunity, and there was not really much to take anyway. Further work clearly would be needed to free Friesland completely and bring it solidly within the German fold, but without any great foreseeable benefits to them, the Saxon chivalry saw this to be a fool’s errand. The Thuringian campaign had been harsh and bloody, but also glorious and profitable, with the tempting promise of additional estates once the March was firmly feudalized. The Frisian campaign lacked any such promises and enthusiasm suffered as a result. Even more infuriating, the King had opted not to join the attack, sending the vast host of his vassals on campaign while remaining safely at home with his family and servants, and placing the Saxons under a foreigner who himself was hardly above the rank of many of his fellow counts placed under his command. It was no wonder that few opted to stay the winter despite von Norden’s pleas.

The situation in the North, meanwhile, was only getting worse. The immediate dividend of the Danish-Obodrite alliance was a noticeable increase in violent raids on Saxon territory that became increasingly bold as the summer went on. Those on the northern border, at least, were organized against such raids and helped to mitigate them somewhat; those in the east were much less prepared, and riverside villages in north-eastern Saxony were frequently targeted by surprise raids carried out by the Slavic allies of the Danes. These raids were especially damaging because the lands of the Saxons had been virtually emptied of chivalry and experienced warriors by the King’s campaign in Friesland, and only with the coming of winter did they finally subside.

Meissen

Though the King stopped short of granting Johann von Zwickau the Markgrafschaft he was after, it all too clear that the responsibility for its defense lay with him. With the King’s approval in hand and nearly all the King’s vassals away in Friesland, von Zwickau had an entirely free hand to rule as he saw fit.

Originally, von Zwickau’s plans involved the construction of a castle at Meissen. It became apparent to him, however, that it would take several years to gather the necessary funds. That was not the kind of action that won followers and converts, however. Von Zwickau thus welcomed the learned men sent by the King, whom he put to work drawing plans, and then took most of the money granted to him and raised a Thuringian levy army instead. He armed this levy force and the Wendish warriors already loyal to him with whatever was left over from the King’s armories and spent the summer terrorizing his enemies, both within the March and outside it.

Von Zwickau certainly made good on his promise to control bandits. His methods were heavy-handed but brutally effective; prisoners taken either converted or were hanged, along with their families and children. Such severity seemed baffling on the surface, but it soon became clear that von Zwickau was not only going after the enemies of Saxony, but his own personal enemies as well, rivals who had competed with him long before the Saxon invasion. In many cases, these were one and the same; those who opposed von Zwickau originally had naturally opposed his Saxon allies. Some cases were more questionable, but the internal politics of the Wendish people were not well known by the Saxons, who largely assumed von Zwickau was justly putting the fear of God into the pagans.

In three short months, von Zwickau had put virtually all of the Wendish magnates of the march either under his control or hanging from an oak tree. With the March suppressed, von Zwickau launched a second and even more unprecedented campaign. Saxon knights were already beginning to return from the Frisian campaign by early autumn. Von Zwickau convinced a fair number of knights and men-at-arms to join an autumn raid over the river into independent Sorbia. Using his longboats, he launched lighting raids up and down the river, striking at villages and camps and destroying everything that couldn’t be stolen. Even his small fleet gave him the mobility to raid wherever he wanted and escape retribution.

The consequences for the free Wends were disastrous. The raids were bad enough, but von Zwickau had specifically planned them for the autumn, the time of the harvest, when communities depended on being at their fields. The Saxon-Wendish force under von Zwickau chased villagers off their land and destroyed fields; tons of crops were lost after their planters were killed or driven from their land. The result was a crippling famine north of the Elbe. The death toll during winter was staggering; entire villages fled into the forests and never returned, having perished of hunger in the wilderness. With resources scarce, local chiefs turned on each other, further magnifying the calamity. Even the Saxon noblemen recognized his ruthlessness, and conversation that year often turned to “the Bloody Prince of the Wends.”

Von Zwickau had made out rather well. Though not technically the Markgraf, it was clear he was the only real native authority in the March. He had even managed to turn a profit from his ventures, and put most of it into the original fortification project, though little work could actually be done in the depth of winter. Banditry was largely quelled and any threatening groups on the northern bank of the Elbe had been scattered or destroyed. He had, however, deeply angered many Wends of the March, who often had family and kinship ties with the trans-Elbe Wends or those political enemies nearer at hand that von Zwickau had dispatched. Though not able or willing to challenge him, some responded by increased attacks against priests and monks, who found the March to be an increasingly hazardous place to preach in despite the campaigns. The new monastery near Meissen was safe enough, but more than a dozen men of God were martyred that year, and no fewer than three wilderness chapels were burned by unknown persons.

Swabia

Having aided the King of Burgundy gain a second crown, the Duke of Swabia returned to his estates. The ducal treasury had been greatly impoverished by the war – success is often expensive. To compensate, the Duke spent the denarii he did have developing local demesne industries. Blessed by God with good fortune, the Duke’s miners uncovered a new vein of copper, which was exposed enough to mine directly, and the weather was very favorable to an impressive grape harvest this year.

Like his colleague in Bavaria, the Duke of Swabia was also beset by corruption and frivolous waste due to his extended absence. Duke Burchard, however, immediately began ferreting out the offenders and punishing the nobles and merchants who took more than their share, encroached on the ducal demesne, or “forgot” about tax and customs requirements. This was effective in combating the problem, but the punishments mandated offended the barons, who thought execution or confinement to the mines an unfitting and outrageous act against a noble for such “trivial” offenses. A few of the more inveterate cheats who were also unlucky enough to have few friends received their official punishment, but organized opposition by the Duke’s vassals eventually forced him to back off rather than provoke a serious crisis. Merchants, however, were protected by no such aristocratic league, and those who were caught smuggling were dealt with harshly indeed. These efforts were hampered somewhat by corruption among the Duke’s own agents, who were rumored to occasionally extract fines in exchange for clemency. This was especially true concerning Swabia’s Jewish population, whose members were often seen as ripe targets for extortion. Both Christian and Jewish merchants complained to the Duke about such activities.

Though not as flush with silver as in years past, the Duke still found silver enough to patronize the church, whose Bishops found the Duke to be more favorable than each other. As suffragans of rival Archdioceses (Trier and Salzburg), the two Bishops had stepped up their competition over the parishes of Swabia since the Duke’s departure, and the situation did not change upon his return. Both sides tried their hand at flattering and negotiating with various barons to expand their leverage, and the money granted to them by the Duke probably only heightened their competition.

A certain Freiherr Baldavin von Rezia, having inherited his father’s lands and fortune only a few years before, was the man to take up the Duke’s offer and found “Süßlichwasser” not far from the village of Nördlingen. Though not much more than a hamlet at its founding, the site had potential to be a useful Danube port for the Duchy in the future.

[Cyclotron]

Frisian Campaign

Kingdom of Germany
Commanding General: Landgraf Theoderic von Norden
Total Forces: 8,650 men and 6 ships

Duchy of Bavaria (Freiherr Visloff der Kroat)
150 Knights
1,500 Retainers

Duchy of Bohemia (Hrabe Jasny z Litomerice)
80 Knights
800 Retainers

Duchy of Saxony (Landgraf Theoderic von Norden)
420 Knights
4,200 Retainers
1,200 Levies [110 Heavy Guards (heavy, shield, polearm); 410 Siege Archers (pavise, composite bow, bow); 680 swordsmen (light, shield, sword)]
6 Longships

Frerik’s Sworn Men (Frerik the Frisian)
300 Mercenaries [200 Frieslander Raiders (light, polearm), 100 Angonmen (javelin, spear, shield)]

Jarldom of Frisia
Commanding General: Jarl Havard Fasthjalm
Total Forces: 3,840 men and 46 ships

Jarldom of Frisia (Jarl Havard Fasthjalm)
350 Huskarl (heavy, spear, sword, shield)
2,400 Vikings (light, polearm, sword, shield)
480 Viking Archers (light, bow, sword, shield)
250 Riders (horse, sword, javelin, shield)
40 Longships

Traustmenn (Laef the Dane)
300 Vikings (light, polearm, sword, shield)
60 Viking Archers (light, bow, sword, shield)
6 Longships

It took time to gather what was perhaps the largest army yet fielded by Germany. As forces and supplies trickled into Bremen, winter turned to spring, and spring to summer. It was already July when the army was ready to set out; a good time for the farmers in the King’s levy, but a poor one for the Frisians, who had to deal with still more months of Viking predations. In fact, by the time the force was assembled, no serious resistance to Viking rule remained save for in Norden, where a small strip of the Frisian coast was left inviolate to avoid provoking a German response. Germany, however, was already provoked.

The German-Frisian coalition had taken a severe blow in February, when the main force of Frisian warriors under Count Dirk was ambushed in supposedly “free” Frisian territory. Most of the force escaped, but in the flight the Count was thrown from his horse into an icy river. Whether he died of drowning, hypothermia, or hitting his head on the rocky streambed is not known, but he did die. His 14-year-old son succeeded him, but there was nothing really to succeed to. The “County” as such quickly collapsed, with the remaining barons submitting yet again to Viking authority.

Elske van Egmond, the widowed Countess of Friesland, fled to the Germans. The King was only too happy to receive her, along with her son and 5-year-old daughter, as this gave only further legitimacy to his invasion of Friesland. To support an ally was one thing; to reinstate the rightful dynasty on the throne was quite another. Ordinarily, no Christian power would have minded land being taken back from the marauding pagans, but Duke Gilbert of Lotharingia also had designs on Friesland, and had been carefully watching the situation. He wished to expand his holdings around Antwerp to encompass the length and breadth of the Frisian coastline, but was at best ambivalent about openly challenging Germany. The flight of the comital family dissuaded him from further action, and instead he contented himself with the reception of Duke Eberhard III, who was visiting Frankenburg at the time.

The Germans crossed into Frisian territory in June, and after a few skirmishes it became clear to the Jarl of Frisia, Havard Fasthjalm, that this was not an army he could easily take on. It was more than twice the size of all his assembled forces, and many of these were Danes who were only there at all for plunder, and not terribly interested in defending his land or remaining on the continent for more than a season or two. He was also concerned that the German cavalry, which was numerous and strong, would cause him serious problems – he only had a few hundred light horsemen of his own. Fortunately, he did not have to engage. His was the more mobile force; his men were less numerous, had few supplies to carry, and had the advantage of a fleet of ships that put the King’s six vessels to shame. The largest actual battle occurred near the hamlet of Oss, where a scouting party of 80 knights and men-at-arms from Holstein took a 60-man Viking raiding party unawares. Though surprised, the Danes fought hard and around half their number managed to escape to their ship – the rest were killed or captured, with a loss of twenty men on the Saxon side. For the most part, the Danes had no trouble evading the Germans in the river-tangled lowlands of Frisia, especially considering von Norden’s painfully slow advance.

Landgraf von Norden was certainly thorough, making sure to secure his lines of supply at every turn and keeping scouts days ahead of the army, but this was not an approach fit for taking the Danes by surprise. The Saxon knights were furious with him, but the levies never wavered, and the King’s allies had no problem with the pace. The barons had to content themselves with fuming idly while the Danes absconded to the coast. Ineffectual counter-raids failed to stop the Germans from liberating Deventer in July. In August he was at Utrecht, where the Jarl, sensing that the party was over, abandoned the town without a fight after stripping everything of any value and setting fire to much of the rest. The smoldering remains were triumphantly liberated.

Here, Gilbert’s luck changed for the better. The comital family may have sought asylum with Germany, but the indefatigable Balderik, Bishop of Utrecht and Primate of the Frisians since 917, had fled from his seat-in-exile in Deventer to the arms of the Lotharingian Duke in March when that town fell to the Vikings. Gilbert extracted a pledge of fealty from him, as well as a statement that he officially recognized himself as a suffragan of the Archbishop of Cologne (the allegiance of the Bishop of Utrecht having been rather nebulous before), and allowed him to repair to Utrecht to take back the traditional seat of the Bishop to the Frisians with as great pomp and circumstance as could be mustered. Von Norden was not pleased, but there was no denying that Balderik was the rightful bishop, so he let the matter drop. The bishop was not there long, for he found the ruins of Utrecht an insufficiently glorious place for the Bishop’s seat. He stayed only long enough to say a few blessings and comb the ashes of the church for any stray relics before returning to Deventer, where his predecessors had ruled over the faithful among the Frisians since the middle of the 9th century.

Without any pitched battle, the Germans had restored most of Friesland to Christendom, though it was not yet entirely clear who would lead the County. The rightful Count was a mere boy, and Balderik claimed – not entirely unreasonably – the title of Stadtholder (Steward, or literally “place-holder”) for himself, arguing that in the absence of a proper temporal lord the ecclesiastical lord was the logical choice to lead the County. Needless to say, this greatly pleased Gilbert, who seemed close to achieving the addition of Friesland into his sphere of influence without the trouble of actually having to do anything. The Germans suspected that this was his intent all along, and were not amused at what they considered to be his feigned surprise.

Some territories remained to the Jarl, primarily because his comparatively large fleet enabled him to hang on tenaciously to Friesland’s many islands and narrow peninsulas. Most notably, the Frisian Islands remained firmly in Danish hands, as well as North Holland, where the Jarl built a formidable wooden fortress on a strong defensive outcropping that the Danes called “Helgrindr” (“Hell’s Gate”). Zeeland remained in the Danish sphere, but not under Havard’s direct influence – the Danish mercenary captain Laef and his “Traustmenn” (Trusted Men) opted to take these islands for themselves and live comfortably off raids on Flanders. Raids against free Friesland continued from these and other offshore strongholds, as the King’s army could not be permanently maintained at its large size, and was incapable at any rate of guarding the entire Frisian coastline. Autumn soon forced the return of the levies, the contract with Frerik’s men expired, and many of the Saxon nobles, considering their feudal obligations to be fulfilled for that year, returned to their estates. Through constant cajolery and flattery, as well as numerous appeals to God and King, von Norden managed to convince the other Saxons to stay. The Bohemian and Bavarian nobles remained in their entirety, perhaps only because a winter march across all of Germany seemed rather unappealing. They made their intentions to retire in the spring very clear to von Norden, who was powerless to dissuade them. The remaining force proved sizeable enough to prevent a counterattack by the Jarl, but without a suitable navy even the original eight thousand men would likely have been insufficient to drive out the Danes completely. In the end, though much was gained by the expedition, the decisive blow needed to permanently cripple the Danish presence in the Low Countries eluded Germany’s warriors.

The Struggle for Rome

King Rudolph II made haste with his army southward through Tuscany in order to dissuade its Margrave, Guy, from maintaining his siege of Rome. In February, the Burgundinians entered the Margravate, confiscating Guy’s lands and despoiling his demesne in an attempt to compel his deference. Even Guy could see that his own situation was rapidly worsening; the long siege and his own excommunication were causing desertion among his levies, and many of his nobles abandoned the siege to look after their own estates once word spread of the King’s march through Tuscany.

Also worrying to the Margrave was the army of the Duke of Spoleto, which had retreated from Venice only to begin marching straight for Rome. Both Boniface of Spoleto and Guy’s wife Marozia (Boniface’s sister-in-law from her first marriage to Boniface’s brother Alberic, previous Count of Spoleto) were of the Tusculani clan, but rivalry between its members was not out of the question – Marozia was a powerful voice among the Tusculani, and Boniface may not have wanted to be in the shadow of a mere woman. Boniface met Guy in person at the estate of the late Theophylact, founder of the Tusculani. It is unknown exactly what they discussed, but it seems some accord was reached.

The Tusculani rebelled en masse in Rome, probably instigated by Marozia and Boniface, and opened the gates of the city to Guy, Marozia, and Boniface. In a dramatic scene, Marozia had the Pope arrested in the Lateran Palace and kept there under lock and key, maintaining his office but forced to rescind Guy’s excommunication, acknowledge the Marchesa Marozia as senatrix and patricia of Rome (essentially, Rome’s secular leader), and cede Romagna and the Pentapolis – whose real ownership had always been in doubt – to Boniface, who was recognized as the “Duke of Romagna,” a title apparently invented by Boniface himself.

King Rudolph liked this not at all, and continued his march on Rome with renewed vigor. Initially, the King moved to do battle, but was soon forced to reconsider. He received word that the Magyars were at the gates of Pavia – and his own supply lines were in perilous danger, with Romagna in revolt on Boniface’s instigation and the Amalfitan fleet, allied to Boniface, hanging just off the coast. Worst of all, another contender for the throne of Italy had emerged.

Louis “the Blind,” now King of Lower Burgundy, had once been Emperor (as Louis III) before he was defeated in the year 905 by, oddly enough, a momentary alliance between Berengar (then only King of Italy) and the Bavarians under Arnulf’s father. Berengar had let him off easy once before after a disastrous battle 902, and Louis had promised to never return to Italy. This time, Berengar was not inclined to show mercy, and had Louis’ eyes put out (thus his nickname). Since that year, the blind and grief-stricken Louis was no more than a figurehead; in reality, the kingdom was ruled by his regent Hugh, the Count of Arles and Vienne.

Many Italian nobles were opposed to Rudolph, and many of those were also distrustful of Roman domination through the Tusculani syndicate stretching out from Rome. Hoping to tempt Hugh into an invasion of Italy, Lombard barons at a meeting in Turin elected him as King of Lombardy. When Rudolph heard of this, he was thrown into a state of panic – the Provencal army was nothing to scoff at, and Hugh could easily cut him off from Upper Burgundy and force him into a potentially disastrous confrontation. Rudolph raced northwards. Fortunately for him, Hugh had not yet decided to do anything, but Rudolph made the mistake of regrouping his forces in Burgundy, which many Lombards interpreted as a retreat. In September, Hugh struck at Pavia and received the Iron Crown of Lombardy. Rudolph was nowhere to be seen; only the Archbishop of Milan, a supporter of his, stopped Lombardy from falling into Hugh’s hands entirely.

With the coming of the harvest, all these campaigns came to a temporary end. It remains to be seen how this new conflagration in Italy will unfold, and who will gain final Italian supremacy.

*****

I actually do have the updated stats, but it's getting late - they, along with the map, will be posted tomorrow.

[bipolarbear]

Wow, that was HUGE. Thank you Cyc.

[Micha]

Yuk, damn you old man!!!

So everything is as always: vassals freaking out, armies dissolving against my wish, neighbours allying against me and nobles speaking of cowardness... Thank you Cyclotron for this formidable update!