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Carloman of Italy

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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CARLOMAN (828-880), king of Bavaria and Italy, was the eldest son of Louis the German, king of the East Franks. In 856 he undertook the defence of the eastern frontier of Bavaria against the Bohemians and Moravians, and won considerable fame in various campaigns. He married a daughter of Ernest, count of the Bohemian mark, and in conjunction with his father-in-law resisted the authority of his father in 861. For some years he alternated between rebellion and submission to his father, but in 865 an arrangement was made by which he became possessed of Bavaria and Carinthia as his expectant share of the kingdom of Louis. During the troubles between Louis and his two younger sons Carloman remained faithful to his father, and carried on the war with the Moravians so successfully that in 870 their territory was completely under the power of the Franks; and when peace was made at Forchheim in 874, they recognized the Frankish supremacy. In 875 the emperor Louis II. died, having named his cousin Carloman as his successor in Italy. Carloman crossed the Alps to claim his inheritance, but was cajoled into returning by the king of the West Franks, Charles the Bald. In 876, on his father's death, Carloman became actually king of Bavaria, and after a short campaign against the Moravians he went again to Italy in 877 and was crowned king of the Lombards at Pavia; but his negotiations with Pope John VIII. for the imperial crown were fruitless, and personal illness added to the outbreak of an epidemic in his army compelled him to return to Bavaria. Stricken with paralysis, Carloman was unable to prevent his brother Louis from seizing Bavaria; so making a virtue of necessity, he bequeathed the whole of his lands to Louis. He died on the 22nd of September 880 at Ottingen, where he was buried, leaving an illegitimate son, afterwards the emperor Arnulf.

See "Annales Fuldenses," "Annales Bertiniani," Regino von Prum, "Chronicon," all in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores, Band i. (Hanover and Berlin,1826-1892); E. Miihlbacher,Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern (Innsbruck, 1881); and E. Di mmler, Geschichte des ostfrankischen Reiches (Leipzig, 1887-1888).