Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (123 page)

Appendix 2: German Kings

For anti-kings, see
Table 2
(
p. 303
).

Carolingians

Ottonians

Salians

Staufers

‘Little Kings’

Luxembourgs

Habsburgs

Thereafter, as the emperors.

Appendix 3: Kings of Italy

Title assumed automatically by German kings after 962/83.

Chronology

PRE-HISTORY TO 800

3rd Century

Germanic tribes raid the Roman empire and some begin to settle and become assimilated.

313

Conversion of Emperor Constantine. Christianity spread to become the official religion of the Roman empire by 391 when all other cults were banned. The Christian church developed an infrastructure mapped onto the Roman provinces across the empire, with five patriarchs, or leaders, based in Rome, Constantinople (former Greek town of Byzantium), Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria.

395

The intermittent splits in the Roman empire since 286 became permanent with the continuous existence of a western emperor in Rome and an eastern one in Constantinople.

5th Century

Age of migrations. The arrival of Slavs and Huns in central Europe by the mid-fourth century displaced some Germanic peoples south and west, adding to the pressure on the Roman empire. The invaders founded their own kingdoms inside the Roman empire, including the Visigoths in Spain and southern France, the Burgundians along the Rhône, the Alemanni on the Upper Rhine, the Franks between the Loire and the Main, the Bavarians south of the Danube, and the Lombards in northern Italy. The invading Visigoths sacked the city of Rome (410), shaking confidence in the Roman imperial order, which was now clearly in decline. The Germanic tribes resented the Huns as competitors and were often happy to cooperate with the Romanized population against them. The Huns were defeated at Troyes (451), and subsequently retreated after decimation by plague and the death of Attila (453).

476

Augustulus, the last western Roman emperor, was deposed by Odovacar, leader of the Goths invading Italy. Eastern imperial rule continued as the Byzantine empire, which saw itself as the direct continuation of ancient Rome and entered a period of revival and expansion. The Byzantine emperor sponsored Theodoric (454–526), leader of the Ostrogoths (another tribe displaced by the Huns), to recover Italy. Theodoric invaded in 489, defeating and killing Odovacar four years later, and was recognized by the emperor as ruler of Italy (497).

481

Accession of Clovis, of the Merovingian clan of the Franks, as king. Within 20 years, Clovis had united all the Frankish lordships in former Roman Gaul into a single kingdom (Francia), adopting Roman Christianity and the remnants of Roman administrative and ecclesiastical institutions. Clovis and his successors repeatedly partitioned their kingdom between their sons, but it nonetheless continued to grow through reunifications and new conquests. By 730, the Franks ruled most of the Germanic tribes north of the Alps, including the Burgundians, Alemanni, Thuringians and Frisians. To the north and east, the Saxons and Bavarians remained outside Frankish influence.

535–62

Gothic War. The new Byzantine emperor, Justinian I, was not content to rule Italy indirectly through the Ostrogoths. Having already recovered north Africa and parts of southern Spain by 534, Justinian invaded and eventually conquered Italy. The Byzantine administrative structure was introduced, with military districts (themes), each with its own commander (
dux
, or duke), mapped onto the old Roman provinces. A command base (exarchate) was established in Ravenna in 540 as the seat of Byzantine government in Italy.

568

The Lombards, who had previously cooperated with the Byzantines against the Ostrogoths, crossed the Alps and swiftly overran much of Italy. The Lombards intermarried with local elites and established a stable kingdom (Langobardia) based initially (584) in Milan, and later at Pavia (616). Refugees fleeing the Lombards established Venice in the safety of the lagoons (569). The Byzantine presence was reduced to the ‘Roman part’ (Romagna) based around Ravenna.

590

Accession of Pope Gregory I the Great whose rule laid the groundwork for the papacy to fill the void left by the contraction of Byzantine influence in Italy.

610

Emergence of Islam. Within two decades Mohammed’s followers had overrun Arabia, and between 634 and 640 they had conquered Palestine, Syria, Armenia and western Anatolia, removing them from the Byzantine empire. Byzantine Egypt fell two years later as the Arabs advanced westwards across north Africa, completing their conquest by 709. The last Visigoth kingdom in Spain fell to them in 711. Although Constantinople repulsed three Arab attacks, the Byzantine empire remained on the defensive and was unable to oppose the Lombard advance in Italy. The Arab capture of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria by 642 increased the significance of the two surviving Christian patriarchs based in Rome and Constantinople.

663

Constans II became the last Byzantine emperor to visit Rome. The brief Byzantine revival in Italy subsided after his murder in 668. Lombard lords established semi-autonomous duchies in the former Byzantine districts at Benevento, Spoleto and Capua in central-southern Italy.

680

The Byzantine empire recognized the existence of the Lombard kingdom in Italy, while around this point the papacy effectively usurped the administrative powers associated with the Byzantine
dux
around Rome, thereby establishing itself as a temporal as well as spiritual power. The area of papal political jurisdiction became known as the
Patrimonium
and provided the material underpinning for the pope’s claims to lead the western Christian church, as well as enabling him to maintain his independence from the Lombards.

717

The Lombards exploited deteriorating papal-Byzantine relations to expand their influence in Italy at the expense of both, capturing Ravenna (751) and effectively ending Byzantine influence in mainland Italy. Rather than attempt to recover Italy, Byzantium exploited the collapse of the Arab caliphate in Damascus (750) to recover its lost territories in the eastern Mediterranean.

732

Victory of a Frankish army under Charles Martel over the Arabs at Poitiers. The Arabs were confined to Spain, and Martel enhanced the influence of his clan (the Pippinids, later called the Carolingians) at the Merovingian court.

751

Martel’s son, Pippin the Short, deposed the Merovingians and made himself king of the Franks with papal assistance. Pippin formally sanctioned papal territorial jurisdiction over the Patrimonium and promised to protect the pope. Following two papal visits, Pippin intervened against the Lombards in Italy in 754–6 without securing a definitive settlement there. The Franks were then distracted by a succession dispute amongst Pippin’s sons after 768, from which Charlemagne emerged as sole heir by 771.

773–4

Charlemagne defeated the Lombards and asserted himself as their king, thereby combining Langobardia with Francia. The Lombard duchies in Spoleto and Benevento retained their autonomy in return for accepting this outcome.

775–94

Charlemagne subdued the Saxons and Bavarians, whom the Franks regarded as vassals, but who had in fact remained independent until this point. This was accompanied by a significant intensification of Christianization measures amongst the Germanic tribes, with new archbishoprics founded at Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Salzburg and Hamburg-Bremen. Carolingian administration expanded along lines broadly similar to that used by the Byzantines in Italy from the sixth century, with the establishment of military-judicial districts (duchies) subdivided into counties. This process accelerated the cooption and assimilation of Germanic and Lombard elites with the Franks.