Lothair I, Emperor, King of Italy

LOTHAIR I, Emperor, King of Italy. - Firstborn son of Louis the Pious and Queen Ermengard, b. around 785, d. at Prüm on 28 Sept. 855. In July 817 his father Louis conferred on him the title of emperor at Aachen, and in 822 he entrusted him with the Kingdom of Italy. After the Assembly of Attigny, he came to Rome and on 5 Apr. 823 was consecrated emperor by Paschal I. The following year he returned to Rome in order to to quell the riots that had broken out and with the "Roman Constitution" regulated relations between the Papacy and the Empire and established norms for the election of the pope. Then at Corteolona (May 825) he sanctioned the capitularies concerning the administration of the Kingdom of Italy, ecclesiastical discipline and the organization of schools.

When Louis the Pious (Worms, Aug. 829) wished to modify the division of the Empire in favor of his youngest son Charles the Bald, Lothair, having risen with his brothers against his father, made him annul the new division (Compiègne, May 830). At the new Assembly of Nijmegen (831), having obtained confirmation of the possession of Italy, he returned there; but as the divisions in France were renewed, his best partisans wanted the Constitution of 817 observed, as an effective guarantee of the unity of the Empire and of the peace of the Christian world. Lothair crossed the Alps again, together with Pope Gregory IV, and at Rothfeld concurred with his brothers in the humiliation of his father at the Assembly of Compiègne (Oct. 833), presided over by Lothair himself. Louis was deposed; but six months later he was restored to the throne and Lothair, after brief resistance, had to submit (834) and return to Italy. In the new division (Worms, June 838) Lothair was granted Italy and a strip of territory bounded on the west by the Rhone, the Saône and the Meuse. Important was the Treaty stipulated by Lothair with Venice, known by the name of Pactum Lotharii (22 Feb. 840), which sanctioned the mutual relations in the region. On his father's death (20 June 840), Lothair claimed the Empire for himself in the form desired by the Constitution of 817, but after the battle of Fontenoy (25 June 841) he renounced the struggle and finally came to an agreement with his brothers by the Treaty of Verdun (Aug. 843). His capitulary De speditione contra Saracenos facienda has remained famous. Lothair, worn out by remorse and disappointments, died in the monastery of Prüm in the monastic habit, and was succeeded by his son Louis II, to whom he had entrusted the Kingdom of Italy as early as 844.

Innocenzo Giuliani