Louis Karling

Louis Karling (Latin: Ludovicus Carolingius Imperator Romanorum), also known as Louis the Pious or Louis the Missionary, reigned as Holy Roman Emperor between 806 and his untimely death of stress in 818, which caused the Imperial succession crisis known as the Children's War. Between 806 and 807, he shared the kingship of the Franks with his younger brother, Eustache Karling. However, in what historians note is a sign of developing Carolingian family tradition emulating the death of his father's brother Carloman 40 years earlier, Eustache died from what many believe is poison, leaving his lands to his older brother.

Louis's reign as Holy Roman Emperor was troubled. Whereas not many of his vassals dared to rebel against the brilliant commander and statesman that was Charlemagne, they reasserted themselves strongly during his reign, resenting the power of the Karling dynasty. In addition, his failure to produce a male heir also troubled him, leading him to divorce his Saxon wife, Enda the Heavenly (later regent to his son Charles II) and remarry the Lombard Rotrude, who finally gave him a son, whom he named Charles after his father. To add to his problems, a disastrous attempt to reclaim Navarra from the divided Umayyad Sultanate followed, emboldening his vassals, who wished to put the Duke of Burgundy on the throne. Despite giving away some of the Karling lands to vassal kings, the relationship with his vassals continued to haunt the Emperor. He died of severe stress in 818, willing his lands and crown to his 6-year old son, the later Emperor Charles II. However, the electors seized the opportunity to rid themselves of Karling rule and refused to elect young Charles, leading to the succession crisis known as the Children's War.

Early life
Louis was born in the Imperial capital at Bruges to the Emperor Charlemagne and his wife, the Empress Anthousa of the Romans. His father was overjoyed to finally have a son and heir, and petitioned the Pope to baptise the young prince, christening him Louis. The heir to the Holy Roman Empire was baptised in a grand ceremony at St. Donatian's Cathedral in Bruges, officiated by the ruling Pope.

From early on, the heir presumptive to Charlemagne's domains had big shoes to fill. Historians have assumed based on the sparse sources of Louis's youth that he was not a particularly talented child, who grew up in the shadow of the expectations his father had for him. His father, however, always preferred him as his designated heir, although in his will he would divide the Karling lands between him and his brother Eustache, much like his father did before with him and Carloman.

Holy Roman Emperor (806-818)
When Charlemagne passed away from severe stress, Louis's reign started off in earnest. He was duly crowned by Pope Marinus in a grand ceremony in Rome, after which the grateful new Emperor decreed that further lands in Central Italy were to be returned to the temporal control of the Pope as envisioned in the Donation of his grandfather Pepin of Herstal. Now he turned his attention to consolidating his rule. With his younger brother Eustache receiving many of the Frankish lands and reigning as co-king of the Franks, he had a dangerous rival to boot. However, a year later, Eustache died suddenly in an episode that has often been likened to the death of Carloman that propelled Charlemagne to power. It is quite likely that the Emperor had his brother poisoned so as to inherit control over alll his father's domains.

Louis struggled his whole reign to fill his father's shoes. The princes of the Empire were deeply resentful of Carolingian power within the Empire, and where Charlemagne's reputation had kept them in check, his son could never cultivate the same kind of relationship with them. He made several attempts to win them over, the most important of which being the institution of new vassal kings, crowning important dukes of the Empire to kingdom titles previously held personally by his father. When this was done, he only held the title to the Frankish heartlands and the Frisian and Lombard Kingdoms which were also main parts of his father's Empire. In other desperate attempts to make his own name, he also started writing a book about ruling a Kingdom, which he never finished.

Among the most ignominous of Louis's failures was his attempt to emulate his father and aid Christian forces in the reconquest of Spain. His first campaign on the Iberian peninsula in 809, assisting Queen Carmen of Asturias in reclaiming the lands around Lisbon from the Moors, was successful, and part of the reason he was honoured with the epithet "the Pious". However, disaster struck when Pedro de Irujo, an Asturian knight, went on a campaign to reconquer Navarre from the Djazairids with the backing of Queen Carmen and Emperor Louis. The Moors, eager to prevent the Emperor from assisting the Asturians like he had at Beja, made a clever play by besieging Barcelona, where a large pan-Muslim host smashed the armies of the Emperor. This deeply troubled Emperor Louis and is hypothesized to have caused the severe stress he suffered from leading up to his death.

Meanwhile, his wife Enda the Heavenly had still not given him a son and heir, making the future uncertain. Scared about the future, he petitioned the Pope to annul his marriage and remarried a Lombard noblewoman, Empress Rotrude. She eventually gave birth to Louis's first and only son, the later Emperor Charles the Younger. He immediately changed his will to declare Charles his heir, but he forgot to change the articles of regency, which still designated Enda as his regent. This might have been a blessing in disguise as Enda would later become one of the key champions of Charles's claim to the Imperial throne during the Children's War.

An unusual episode in the late reign of Emperor Louis occurred on the far-off island of Iceland, which had been forced to swear fealty to the new King of Saxony. The pagan High Chief of the farthest domains of the Empire proved a troublesome vassal, constantly ignoring Imperial laws and threatening to reassert their independence. At some point, Louis was so fed up with this that he absolved them of their allegiance, setting them independent. Apparently, the Icelanders were so grateful for this that they later asked the Emperor to sponsor their conversion to Christianity, bolstering Louis's pious reputation.

For all his attempts to live up to his father's legacy, Louis never really reached his level, although he did manage to placate the princes of the Empire. He died of severe stress in Rennes while on his way back to the Imperial capital of Bruges. This left his infant son, Charles the Younger, as the designated heir, but the electors saw an opportunity to rid themselves of Karling rule, electing King Odilo the Frail of Bavaria as Emperor the day after Louis's funeral. This would mark the start of events leading up to the Children's War, the first full-blown civil war in the Holy Roman Empire, which saw his son's regents win back his crown on their charge's behalf.

Full titles

 * The Most Serene Augustus Crowned by God, Louis, the great, peaceful Emperor ruling the Roman Empire, by the Grace of God, King of the Franks, the Lombards and the Frisians (Ludovicus Serenissimus Augustus a Deo Coronatus Magnus Pacificus Imperator Romanum gubernans imperium, Dei gratias Francorum et Longobardorum et Frisiorum Rex)
 * Short form: Louis, Emperor of the Romans (Ludovicus Imperator Romanorum)
 * Abbreviated form: LVDOVICVS IMP. ROM.