Louis The Blind - Marriages and Heirs

Marriages and Heirs

In 899, Louis III was betrothed to Anna, the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise and his second wife, Zoe Zaoutzaina. This occurred shortly before the fall of Taormina to the Arabs, and was part of extended diplomatic activities meant to strengthen Byzantine alliances with the western powers to preserve Byzantine territory in southern Italy.

The question of whether the betrothal was ever followed up by an actual marriage is still a matter of some controversy. Louis fathered a son called Charles-Constantine, who would become Count of Vienne. Charles' mother is not named in any sources. There has been modern speculation, most notably by Christian Settipani on his work Nos Ancêtres de l' Antiquité, that she was Anna, the daughter of Leo VI and Zoe Zaoutzaina, based both upon the documented betrothal, as well on the onomastic evidence, stating that Charles-Constantine's name points to a Byzantine mother.

Detractors of the theory point out that when Anna was born, however, she was the daughter of a concubine who later became Empress. Her father, at the time of Charles' birth was the reigning Emperor, therefore the silence of primary sources works against this theory. In addition Liutprand of Cremona, makes no mention of this, and it would have been very interesting to him, given that he was a thorough gossip, had been ambassador to Constantinople and devoted several chapters to the misadventures of Louis in Italy with no mention of these Byzantine connections. René Poupardin believed that Constantine was not a baptism name, but Settipani denies that. Richer specifically stated that Charles' mother's line (without naming her) was tainted with illegitimacy and mentioned nothing of her supposed illustrious Byzantine parentage.

Christian Settipani challenges that theory by stating that the only reason why René Poupardin made him a bastard of Louis III was solely based on a passage by Richer claiming that Charles Constantine (...) was from a royal race, but which nobility had been vilified by a bastard ancestry remounting to his great-great-grandfather, proving nothing about Charles-Constantine's mother. He finally asserts this Byzantine ancestry based on a letter by Patriarch Nicholas I Mystikos discovered by byzantinists, in which he testifies that Emperor Leo VI of Byzantium, father of Constantine VII, had united his daughter to a Frank Prince, a cousin of Berta (of Tuscia), to whom came later a great misfortune. That unfortunate Prince could only be Louis III, whose mother Irmingardis was a first cousin of Berta de Tuscia and who was blinded on 21 July 905. Such a union would also account for the mention of Greek merchants in Louis’ privilege of 921.

In 914, Louis entered a second union, which would then be either his first or second marriage, by marrying Adelaide, daughter of Rudolph I of Upper Burgundy.