Engelschalk II was the margrave (''comes terminalis'', "frontier count") of the

March of Pannonia The March of Pannonia or Eastern March ( la, marcha orientalis) was a frontier march of the Carolingian Empire, named after the former Roman province of ''Pannonia'' and carved out of the preceding and larger Avar march. It was referred to in s ...

in the late ninth century in opposition to Aribo. In his day, the ''march orientalis'' corresponded to a front along the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...

from the

Traun Traun () is an Austrian city located on the north bank of the river Traun and borders Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, to the east. The name ''Traun'' is derived from the Celtic word for river (''dru''). Traun is the fifth largest city in U ...

gau to the

Szombathely Szombathely (; german: Steinamanger, ; see also other alternative names) is the 10th largest city in Hungary. It is the administrative centre of Vas county in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria. Szombathely lies by t ...

and Raba rivers and including the

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

basin. Engelschalk was the son of

Engelschalk I Engelschalk I was the margrave (''comes terminalis'', "frontier count") of the March of Pannonia in the mid ninth century until his death on campaign against the Moravians in 871. In his day, the ''march orientalis'' corresponded to a front along ...

and nephew of William II, sons of William I (the Wilhelminers). He led his brothers and cousins in rebellion against the new margrave Aribo when they were not accorded the succession to their fathers in 871. They displaced Aribo off and on until the Wilhelminer War of 882 – 884, when they were defeated by Aribo and Svatopluk of Moravia, aided by the emperor

Charles the Fat Charles III (839 – 13 January 888), also known as Charles the Fat, was the emperor of the Carolingian Empire from 881 to 888. A member of the Carolingian dynasty, Charles was the youngest son of Louis the German and Hemma, and a great-grandso ...

. They fled to Arnulf of Carinthia, who refused to hand them over to Svatopluk. When Arnulf became king in 887, Engelschalk probably expected to receive his support, but Aribo was so strongly entrenched by then that the new king did not dare upset the balance. Sometime before 893, Engelschalk captured Arnulf's illegitimate daughter Ellinrat and, probably, married her, in order to force Arnulf to accede to his demands. His plan failed and he had to flee to Moravia. In 893, Arnulf did regrant Engelschalk some power in Pannonia, but he offended the magnates of Bavaria and they conspired against him. In Regensburg that year, the aristocracy came together to negotiate with Engelschalk and prevent his assisting the Moravians, against whom Arnulf was planning a campaign for that year. Engelschalk was arrested and blinded without Arnulf's knowledge. His brother William immediately connived with Svatopluk, but the Bavarian aristocracy began to purge the court of Wilhelminers.

Sources

*MacLean, Simon. ''Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire''. Cambridge University Press: 2003. *

Reuter, Timothy Timothy Alan Reuter (25 January 1947 – 14 October 2002), grandson of the former mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter, was a German-British historian who specialized in the study of medieval Germany, particularly the social, military and ecclesiastical i ...

. ''Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056''. New York: Longman, 1991. Wilhelminer dynasty 9th-century rulers in Europe 9th-century people from East Francia {{Germany-noble-stub