Arnulf of Carinthia

Arnulf of Carinthia ( 850 – 8 December 899) was the duke of Carinthia who overthrew his uncle Emperor Charles the Fat to become the Carolingian king of East Francia from 887, the disputed king of Italy from 894 and the disputed emperor from February 22, 896, until his death at Regensburg, Bavaria.

Early life

Illegitimacy and early life

Arnulf was the illegitimate son of Carloman of Bavaria, and Liutswind, who may have been the sister of Ernst, Count of the Bavarian Nordgau Margraviate, in the area of the Upper Palatinate, or perhaps the burgrave of Passau, according to other sources. After Arnulf's birth, Carloman married, before 861, a daughter of that same Count Ernst, who died after 8 August 879. As it is mainly West-Franconian historiography that speaks of Arnulf's illegitimacy, it is quite possible that the two females are actually the same person and that Carloman married Arnulf's mother, thus legitimizing his son.

Arnulf was granted the rule over the Duchy of Carinthia, a Frankish vassal state and successor of the ancient Principality of Carantania by his father, after Carloman reconciled with his own father, King Louis the German, and was made king in the Duchy of Bavaria.

Arnulf spent his childhood in ''Mosaburch'' or Mosapurc, which is widely believed to be Moosburg in Carinthia, a few miles away from one of the imperial residences, the Carolingian Kaiserpfalz at Karnburg, which had been the residence of the Carantanian princes. Arnulf kept his seat here, and from later events it may be inferred that the Carantanians, from an early time, treated him as their own duke. Later, after he had been crowned King of East Francia, Arnulf turned his old territory of Carinthia into the March of Carinthia, a part of the Duchy of Bavaria.

Regional ruler

After Carloman was incapacitated by a stroke in 879, Louis the Younger inherited Bavaria, Charles the Fat was given the Kingdom of Italy, and Arnulf was confirmed in Carinthia by an agreement with Carloman. However, Bavaria was more or less ruled by Arnulf during the summer and autumn of 879 while his father arranged his succession. He was also granted "Pannonia," in the words of the ''Annales Fuldenses'', or "Carantanum," in the words of Regino of Prüm. The division of the realm was confirmed in 880 after Carloman's death.

When Engelschalk II of Pannonia in 882 rebelled against Margrave Aribo and ignited the Wilhelminer War, Arnulf supported him and accepted his and his brother's homage. This ruined Arnulf's relationship with his uncle, Emperor Charles the Fat, and put him at war with Svatopluk of Moravia. Pannonia was invaded, but Arnulf refused to give up the young Wilhelminers. Arnulf did not make peace with Svatopluk until late 885, by which time the Moravian ruler was loyal to the emperor. Some scholars see this war as destroying Arnulf's hopes of succeeding Charles the Fat.

King of East Francia

Arnulf took the leading role in the deposition of Charles the Fat. With the support of the Frankish nobles, Arnulf called a Diet at Tribur and deposed Charles in November 887, under threat of military action.Comyn, pg. 78Mann III, pg. 376 Charles peacefully agreed to this involuntary retirement, but not without first chastising his nephew for his treachery and asking for a few royal villas in Swabia on which to live out his final months, which Arnulf granted him. Arnulf, having distinguished himself in the war against the Slavs, was then elected king by the nobles of East Francia (only the eastern realm, though Charles had ruled the whole of the Frankish Empire). West Francia, the Kingdom of Burgundy, and the Kingdom of Italy elected their own kings from the Carolingian family.

Like all early Germanic rulers, he was heavily involved in ecclesiastical