Lothair of France - Military Conflicts

Military Conflicts

In 962, Baldwin III of Flanders, son, co-ruler, and heir of Arnulf I died and Arnulf bequeathed Flanders to Lothair. On Arnulf's death in 965, Lothair invaded Flanders and took many cities, but was eventually repulsed by the supporters of Arnulf II. He temporarily remained in control of Arras and Douai.

Lothair, when thirty-seven, seems to have conceived the design of recovering Lorraine, once held by his family. He attempted to precipitate matters by a sudden attack, and in the spring of 978 nearly captured the emperor Otto II at Aachen. He took the imperial capital itself and even reversed the direction of the brazen eagle sitting atop the palace. Otto took his revenge in the autumn by invading France. He penetrated as far as Paris, devastating the country through which he passed (Soissons, Reims, and Laon), but failed to take the town, and was eventually forced to retreat with heavy losses across the Aisne, as Hugh Capet and through him, other key nobles supported Lothair. Peace was concluded in July 980 at Margut-sur-Chiers on the Chiers on the frontier of the two kingdoms, and in 983 Lothair was even chosen guardian to the young Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor when Otto II died on 7 December 983. Around 980, however, Lothair quarrelled with Hugh Capet, who, at the instigation of Adalberon, archbishop of Reims, became reconciled with Otto III, despite the defeat of his father with Capet's help.

In early January 985, he invaded the duchy of Lorrain, besieged Verdun in March and took several prisoners: Count Godefroy I, (brother of Adalberon Reims), Frederick (son of Godefroy I), Siegfried of Luxembourg (uncle of Godefroy I) and Thierry, Duke of Upper Lorraine (nephew of Hugh Capet).

Returning to Laon, he forced the Archbishop of Rheims to keep a garrison in Verdun to prevent the city from being taken over by the Ottonians. He also required writs from the archbishops of Trier, Mainz and Cologne, declaring he is the true king of the Carolingians. Lothair began to suspect that the Archbishop of Rheims, friendly towards the Ottonians and Hugh Capet, was playing a double game. When asked to destroy the fortifications around the monastery of Saint-Paul de Verdun Adalberon, archbishop of Reims refused, claiming that his soldiers, hungry, were no longer able to keep the city. Furious, Lothair wanted to bring justice and convened a meeting at Compiègne on 11 May 985, on the pretext that the priest had placed his nephew Adalberon on the seat of Verdun without his consent. Alerted, Duke Hugh Capet marched to Compiègne with 600 men and dispersed the meeting. Lothair could not afford an open war with Hugh Capet, as he would find himself caught between two fronts. He therefore freed the prisoners withheld in Lorraine, but Godfrey preferred to stay in prison rather than turning over Mons, the Hainaut and Verdun, as his son would be expelled from the bishopric. Instead, Duke Thierry of Upper Lorraine, nephew of Hugh Capet, was released.

The rest of Lothair's reign was dominated by internal troubles which distracted him from important peripheral affairs. In 985, when the caliph of Córdoba, Al-Mansur, sacked Barcelona, Lothair was ill and could offer no assistance to the Count Borrel II upon receiving his envoys at Verdun. This caused the final rift between the Hispanic March and the French crown during the reign of his successors.

Towards the end of his reign, Lothair's power seemed markedly less than that of Hugh Capet. In a letter of March or April 985, Gerbert of Aurillac wrote to the Archbishop Adalberon that "Lothair is king of France in name alone; Hugh is, however, not in name but in effect and deed." Gerbert goes on to suggest that if Adalberon wished to free his father who was held captive by Lothair, he needed only to warm up to Hugh by arranging an advantageous marriage alliance with Otto III. Lothair died a year after this, on 1 March 986.