Unlike his father, the youngest son of the last ruler of the united Frankish kingdom, Louis the Pious, received a dissonant nickname. Nevertheless, Charles the Bald entered the annals of history as the last active ruler of the Carolingian dynasty.
Inheritance division
In 819, Louis the Pious married a second time to the young beauty Judith from the influential Welf family. Four years later, their son Karl was born. The fact of his birth meant that the father had to re-divide the royal possessions, allocating part to the youngest son. This turn of events, of course, did not please the older brothers.
In 833, due to the betrayal of the barons who went over to the side of the rebel sons, Louis, Judith and the young Charles were imprisoned for several months. After the death of the father, the sons divided his possessions. And if Louis and Charles wanted to keep the received lands intact, then Lothair, not content with the title of Roman emperor, wanted to receive all his father's inheritance.
In 841-842. Charles the Bald and Louis, having combined their efforts, repeatedly fought with the army of Lothair. In the end, the brothers came to an agreement onabout the division of the Frankish state into equal parts, which was done in 843 in Verdun.
Normans are the scourge of God
The reign of Charles the Bald is marked by constant Norman raids. Beginning in 856, their attacks become more and more determined. The abbeys and churches, where the treasures of the cities and the crown were kept, were the most attractive booty in the eyes of the pagan Normans. The clergy regarded their invasion as God's punishment and begged the king to stand up for the church.
The clumsy Frankish cavalry could not effectively resist the enemy, who knew how to quickly maneuver and move just as quickly on the water. Medieval chroniclers wrote indignantly that the feudal lords were in no hurry to fight for the people and the church, and often simply fled from the battlefield.
Karl the Bald and the Vikings is a sad page in the history of France. The king repeatedly had to pay huge sums demanded by the leaders of the alien Normans. However, this defensive tactic had only temporary success. After some time, the Vikings returned again. Moreover, over time, they began to seize territories and settle on the lands of the Franks.
King by God's Grace
In 845, just two years after Charles the Bald received his share of the inheritance under the Treaty of Verdun, the Normans laid siege to Paris. The young king managed to raise an army, although not all of the vassals responded to his call.
However, his efforts were in vain. The Franks fled, Paris fell, and those close to him advised Charles to payransom for the Normans. It wasn't the last payout, and it wouldn't be the last time the vassals threw their king onto the battlefield.
Despite all this, starting from 860, Charles was active in liberating the kingdom from the Normans. In parallel, he had to pacify the obstinate barons, asserting his power, and fight for the crowns of neighboring states.
As the ruler of the West Frankish kingdom, he was crowned four more times between 848 and 875, thus becoming the monarch of Aquitaine, Italy, Provence and Lorraine. The apogee of the reign of Charles the Bald can be considered 875, when Pope John VIII proclaimed him Emperor of the West.
And yet, towards the end of his life, he lost control of that part of the empire that he inherited from his father. Although Charles made great efforts and at times won victories, he never managed to become a sovereign ruler in his domains.
Daughter of Charles the Bald
The king was married twice. Of the 13 children, most died during the life of their father. The frail and sickly son Ludovic the Zaika subsequently inherited the throne of the West-Frankish kingdom. Information about the eldest daughter of Charles from the first marriage of Judith has also been preserved. These data are incomplete, but still give an idea of the mores that reigned in the families of medieval monarchs.
Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, lived only 26 years, having managed to marry three times. The first spouse of the princess in 856 was King Æthelwulf of Wessex. In fact, the father forced his daughter, who at that time was 12 years old, to marry a man three times her age. Two years later, Æthelwulf died, andJudith married his son and heir Ethelbald a month later.
However, the marriage of stepmother and stepson was soon annulled by the church. Judith returned to Francia and, by order of her father, was kept in the abbey of the city of Senlis, while he was looking for a match worthy of the princess for her.
Nevertheless, the plans of Charles the Bald were destroyed by Count Baudouin I of Flanders. He kidnapped Judith from the monastery and, fleeing the persecution of the king, fled with her to Rome. Pope Nicholas I removed the excommunication from a young couple who were married at the end of 863. Charles the Bald had to accept, return the lands confiscated from his son-in-law and, with his help, organize the defense of the northern borders of the kingdom from the attack of the Normans.
The end of the emperor
In early 877, Pope John implored Charles to hasten to defend Rome from the Arabs invading Italy. The middle-aged, depressed and weakened emperor could not refuse to fulfill his duty. However, before that, it was necessary to pay another ransom to the Normans in exchange for them leaving the Seine valley. The king demanded a sum of 5,000 pounds of silver from large landowners, much to their displeasure.
Before leaving for Italy, Charles the Bald at the royal villa in Chierzi gathered an assembly - the legislative body of the Carolingian era. Spiritual and secular nobility came to it from all over the country: counts, bishops, abbots. But instead of support, they condemned the king for the fact that, absorbed in the affairs of the empire, he was devastating Frankia, his hereditary possession.
The Italian campaign was a disaster. In the autumn of that year, Karl had to hastily retreat, however, he did not go far. The emperor, abandoned by those close to him, died on October 6, 877 in a simple hut at the age of 54. While the decaying corpse of Charles the Bald was being transported home in a tarred barrel wrapped in leather, the struggle for the empty throne had already begun in Frankia.
