Guy III of Spoleto
Encyclopedia
Guy of Spoleto sometimes known by the Italian version of his name, Guido, or by the German version, Wido, was the Margrave of Camerino from 880 (as Guy I or Guy II) and then Duke of Spoleto and Camerino (as Guy III) from 883. He was crowned King of Italy
King of Italy
King of Italy is a title adopted by many rulers of the Italian peninsula after the fall of the Roman Empire...

 in 889 and Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

 in 891. He died in 894 while fighting for control of the Italian peninsula.

Guy was married to Ageltrude
Ageltrude
Ageltrude was the Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Italy as wife and mother respectively of Guy and Lambert...

, daughter of Adelchis of Benevento
Adelchis of Benevento
Adelchis was the son of Radelchis I, Prince of Benevento, and successor of his brother Radelgar in 854.It was given to Adelchis to preserve the ancient principality and its independence in the face of repeated assaults by the Saracens from the south, the Emperor Louis II from the north, and...

, who bore him a son named Lambert
Lambert II of Spoleto
Lambert II was the King of Italy from 891, Holy Roman Emperor, co-ruling with his father from 892, and Duke of Spoleto and Camerino from his father's death in 894. He was the son of Guy III of Spoleto and Ageltrude, born in San Rufino...

.

Early life

Guy was the second son of Guy I of Spoleto
Guy I of Spoleto
Guy I was the Duke of Spoleto from 842. He was the son of Lambert I of Nantes and Adelaide of Lombardy, the eldest daughter of Pepin of Italy. He travelled with his father in 834 in the entourage of Lothair I. He was given the abbey of Mettlach in Lotharingia in 840, when the Emperor Louis the...

  and Itta, daughter of Sico of Benevento
Sico of Benevento
Sico was the Lombard Prince of Benevento from the 817 to his own death.-Life:Before becoming the Prince of Benevento, he had been the gastald of Acerenza. On the assassination of Grimoald IV, Sico succeeded to the princely throne...

. Guy I was the son of Lambert I of Nantes
Lambert I of Nantes
Lambert I was the Count of Nantes and Prefect of the Breton March between 818 to 831 and Duke of Spoleto between 834 and 836. Lambert succeeded his father Guy....

 and his second wife, Adelaide of Lombardy, who was a daughter of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

's eldest son, Pepin of Italy. In 842, the former Duchy of Spoleto
Duchy of Spoleto
The independent Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald.- Lombards :The Lombards, a Germanic people, had invaded Italy in 568 and conquered much of it, establishing a Kingdom divided between several dukes dependent on the King, who had...

, which had been donated to the Papacy by Charlemagne, was resurrected by the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

 to be held against Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 catapans
Catapanate of Italy
The Catepanate of Italy was a province of the Byzantine Empire, comprising mainland Italy south of a line drawn from Monte Gargano to the Gulf of Salerno. Amalfi and Naples, although north of that line, maintained allegiance to Constantinople through the catepan...

 to the south, as a Frankish border territory by a dependent margrave
Margrave
A margrave or margravine was a medieval hereditary nobleman with military responsibilities in a border province of a kingdom. Border provinces usually had more exposure to military incursions from the outside, compared to interior provinces, and thus a margrave usually had larger and more active...

.

Consequently, Guy’s family had been important players in Italian politics since the early ninth century. Although in 876 Guy and his elder brother, Lambert
Lambert I of Spoleto
Lambert I was the duke and margrave of Spoleto on two occasions, first from 859 to 871 and then from 876 to his death.Lambert was the eldest son of Guy I of Spoleto and Itta, daughter of Sico of Benevento...

, Duke of Spoleto, had been commissioned by Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald , Holy Roman Emperor and King of West Francia , was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.-Struggle against his brothers:He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder...

 to accompany Pope John VIII
Pope John VIII
Pope John VIII was pope from December 13, 872 to December 16, 882. He is often considered one of the ablest pontiffs of the ninth century and the last bright spot on the papacy until Leo IX two centuries later....

 to Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 to break up the alliances that many of the southern Lombard states had made with the Saracens, the family’s interests were generally hostile to the papacy, a policy that Guy initially followed.

With Lambert’s death in 880, he bequeathed to Guy the march of Camerino
Camerino
Camerino is a small town of 7.135 inhabitants in the Marches , in the province of Macerata, Italy. It is located in the Apennines bordering Umbria, between the valleys of the rivers Potenza and Chienti, about 40 miles from Ancona....

, and in 882 Guy supported his nephew’s (Guy II of Spoleto
Guy II of Spoleto
Guy II was the eldest son and successor of Lambert I as Duke of Spoleto and Margrave of Camerino. He was elected to succeed to these titles on his father's death in 880. He had an ambitious plan of expansion to the south and to the west that conflicted with the Papacy.He received a papal letter...

) invasion of the Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...

. This brought him into conflict with the Emperor Charles the Fat
Charles the Fat
Charles the Fat was the King of Alemannia from 876, King of Italy from 879, western Emperor from 881, King of East Francia from 882, and King of West Francia from 884. In 887, he was deposed in East Francia, Lotharingia, and possibly Italy, where the records are not clear...

, and in 882, at an assembly at Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...

, the emperor dispossessed him of his fiefs, together with a significant number of other important, but minor, Italian nobles. Rising up in rebellion, Guy allied himself with the neighbouring Saracens and began acquiring further territory. At this point, at a diet at Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

, the emperor declared him guilty of high treason, and Berengar of Friuli
Berengar I of Italy
Berengar of Friuli was the Margrave of Friuli from 874 until no earlier than 890 and no later than 896, King of Italy from 887 until his death, and Holy Roman Emperor from 915 until his death.Berengar rose to become one of the most influential laymen in the empire of Charles the Fat before he...

 was commanded to strip him of his fief by force.

In 883, Guy inherited his nephew's title of Spoleto and reunited the dukedom, henceforth as the "Duchy of Spoleto and Camerino" bearing the title of dux et marchio, and by the end of 884, Emperor Charles III was forced to make peace with Guy, where he formally recovered his titles. Then in 885, he fought his occasional allies, the Saracens of the Garigliano.

Rule as Holy Roman Emperor

After the deposition of Charles the Fat in 887, by virtue of being a relative of Archbishop Fulk of Rheims, he had hopes of being crowned king of West Francia, and in fact travelled as far as Langres
Langres
Langres is a commune in north-eastern France. It is a subprefecture of the Haute-Marne département in the Champagne-Ardenne region.-History:As the capital of the Romanized Gallic tribe the Lingones, it was called Andematunnum, then Lingones, and now Langres.The town is built on a limestone...

, where the bishop crowned him as such. But because of Odo's coronation that year (888), he turned and went back with designs on the crown of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and the emperorship
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

.

Guy of Spoleto was opposed by Berengar of Friuli for the Iron Crown of Lombardy
Iron Crown of Lombardy
The Iron Crown of Lombardy is both a reliquary and one of the most ancient royal insignia of Europe. The crown became one of the symbols of the Kingdom of Lombards and later of the medieval Kingdom of Italy...

. Although Berengar had the advantage of being allied with the Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...

 family, and of having been crowned as king of Italy in 887, from 888 Guy was closer to Rome, and had already allied himself with Pope Stephen V
Pope Stephen V
Pope Stephen V was pope from 885 to 891. He succeeded Pope Adrian III, and was in turn succeeded by Pope Formosus. In his dealings with Constantinople in the matter of Photius, as also in his relations with the young Slavonic church, he pursued the policy of Pope Nicholas I.His father, Hadrian, who...

, who had described Guy “as his only son”. Fighting between the rival contenders began, and it was Guy who had himself proclaimed king of Italy in a diet held at Pavia
Pavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...

 at the end of the year 888. He was formally crowned King of Italy
King of Italy
King of Italy is a title adopted by many rulers of the Italian peninsula after the fall of the Roman Empire...

 by Pope Stephen V in 889, and this was followed by his coronation as Roman Emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...

 on February 21, 891
891
Year 891 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* Arnulf of Carinthia defeats the Normans at the Battle of Leuven....

, together with the crowning of his son Lambert II
Lambert II of Spoleto
Lambert II was the King of Italy from 891, Holy Roman Emperor, co-ruling with his father from 892, and Duke of Spoleto and Camerino from his father's death in 894. He was the son of Guy III of Spoleto and Ageltrude, born in San Rufino...

 as King of Italy.

The situation in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 began to deteriorate with the election of a new pope, Formosus
Pope Formosus
Pope Formosus was Pope of the Catholic Church from 891 to 896. His brief reign as Pope was troubled, and his remains were exhumed and put on trial in the notorious Cadaver Synod.-Biography:...

 in 891. Distrustful of Guy, he began to look elsewhere for support against the emperor, as Guy found it increasingly difficult to end the threat of Berengar who still held out in his Duchy of Friuli. To bolster his overall position, at Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

 on April 30, 892
892
Year 892 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* Poppo of Thuringia, count of the march in Thuringia, is deposed by the German Carolingian king Arnulf of Carinthia....

, Guy forced Pope Formosus to crown Lambert as co-emperor.

The pope therefore took the next opportunity to oppose Guy by supporting Arnulf of Carinthia
Arnulf of Carinthia
Arnulf of Carinthia was the Carolingian King of East Francia from 887, the disputed King of Italy from 894 and the disputed Holy Roman Emperor from February 22, 896 until his death.-Birth and Illegitimacy:...

 for the Italian and imperial titles. In 893, Formosus invited Arnulf to come to Trento
Trento
Trento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino...

 to overthrow Guy and be crowned himself. Arnulf instead sent his son Zwentibold
Zwentibold
Zwentibold was the illegitimate son of the Carolingian Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia. In 895 his father, then king of East Francia, granted him the Kingdom of Lotharingia, which he ruled until his death.After his death he was declared a saint and martyr by the Catholic Church.- Life :Zwentibold...

 with an army to join Berengar, the deposed king, and march on Trento. Their joint army surrounded Trento, but Guy probably bribed them to leave him unmolested. The following year, they defeated Guy at Bergamo
Bergamo
Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...

 and took Trento and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. Berengar was recognised as king and a vassal of Arnulf. Zwentibold returned to Germany, as fever had wreaked havoc on the German armies. Guy retreated in order to regroup at a fortified place on the Taro
Taro River
The Taro is a 126 km-long river in northern Italy, tributary to the Po River. It flows almost entirely in the province of Parma, west of the city Parma. The Taro flows into the Po River north of Parma....

 and died there suddenly in late autumn, leaving his son under the tutelage of his wife. Both would contest the throne with Berengar and Arnulf.

Legacy

Guy's power never extended over much beyond his hereditary lands, which offered stark illustration of the fact that the imperial title, with its pretensions of universal rule, had by the end of the ninth century become merely a token of the pope's favour, to be fought over by various Italian nobles. He did not even firmly control the north of Italy, battling other claimants over the throne for much of his reign. He did try to maintain the Carolingian tradition and issue capitularies as former emperors had. In 891, he demanded the traditional service in the army of all arimanni, whether they owned land or not.

Sources

  • di Carpegna Falconieri, Tommaso. Guido di Spoleto. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LXI. Rome: 2003, pp. 354–361.
  • Mann, Horace, K. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol III: The Popes During the Carolingian Empire, 858-891. 1925
  • Mann, Horace, K. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol IV: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy, 891-999. 1925
  • Comyn, Robert. History of the Western Empire, from its Restoration by Charlemagne to the Accession of Charles V, Vol. I. 1851
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