The Historians' History of the World 07

In the following year, 882, the Northmen laid waste the district along the Moselle. The German king whom they had dreaded was no longer alive, and they therefore gave themselves up without concern to the work of plunder. In a little while the whole region between the Maas, Moselle, and Rhine was a scene of wreck and blackened ruins; the cities of Trèves and Metz were destroyed by fire. The archbishop of Trèves and the bishop of Metz, together with a few of the neighbouring nobles, collected a small army; but they were defeated, and the bishop of Metz himself fell in the battle. The unhappy inhabitants of the country turned in despair to Louis, the young king of the West Franks and the victor of Saucourt, and declared themselves willing to elect him their king. This offer he declined by a reference to existing treaties, but moved with compassion he sent an army to expel the Normans. Never before had Germany fallen upon such evil days.

At the time of Ludwig’s death Charles the Fat, the heir to his kingdom, was in Italy, where he had spent most of his time during the period of measureless misery which had laid his country waste. Pope John VIII, under other circumstances no friend to the German branch of the Carlovingians, had summoned him thither because he was the only prince who, as wearer of the imperial crown, could guarantee at least the possibility of protection to the church. After protracted negotiations over the conditions upon which he was to receive the crown—dealing in the main with the long-claimed papal territory and definite sovereign rights therein—Charles the Fat had been crowned emperor at Rome in February, 881. But the pope, who was so harassed by his quarrelsome nobles and by the close neighbourhood of the Saracens that his life was hardly safe, found himself in no better plight than before; for in spite of all his urgent appeals Charles the Fat stayed in upper Italy and made no preparations for coming to Rome. Pope John VIII met his end soon afterwards, being assassinated at Rome in the year 882.d

CHARLES THE FAT (882-887 A.D.)

[882-887 A.D.]

Charles the Fat [or the Thick], youngest son of Ludwig the German, inherited in 882, on the death of his childless brother, Ludwig the Younger, all the German and Lorraine territory, with the exception of Burgundy; and in 884, also France, properly the inheritance of Charles the Simple, whose two elder brothers were dead, but who being the issue of a marriage pronounced illegal by the pope, and, on account of his imbecility, being recognised by the French themselves as incapable of succeeding to the throne, Charles the Fat easily took possession of the country, and before long reunited France with Germany, in which he was greatly assisted by the pope, to whom he secretly made great concessions, in order to be acknowledged by him as legitimate heir to the crown.