879–884
The Great Army in Francia, 879–884
In 879 a Viking army that has wintered at Fulham on the Thames crosses to the continent and makes its camp at Ghent. West Francia is weak after the deaths of Charles the Bald in 877 and Louis the Stammerer in 879, and Louis’s young sons Louis III and Carloman II are crowned together in September 879. The army takes Kortrijk in November 880, raids Arras and Cambrai in December and sacks Amiens and Corbie in 881.
Louis III and Carloman crowned kings at the abbey of Ferrières in 879, an illumination in the Grandes Chroniques de France of about 1275 to 1280Wikimedia Commons, unknown artist, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Louis III et Carloman furent couronnés rois en 879 par l'archevêque de Sens Anségise, dans l'abbaye bénédictine Saint-Pierre-et-saint-Paul de Ferrières en Gâtinais.png)
On 3 August 881 Louis III and Carloman defeat the Danes at Saucourt in the Vimeu, west of Abbeville. The Annals of Fulda count 9,000 Danes killed, and the Old High German Ludwigslied celebrates the victory. The army turns east to the Meuse and makes a fortified camp at Asselt. Over the winter it burns Liège, Maastricht and Tongeren, sets Charlemagne’s palace at Aachen on fire, plunders Cologne, Bonn and the abbey of Prüm and on 5 April 882 takes Trier.
Louis III against the Northmen at Saucourt, a painting by Jean-Joseph Dassy, Palace of VersaillesWikimedia Commons, Jean-Joseph Dassy, Public domain (Dassy-Invasions normandes.jpg)
In the summer of 882 the emperor Charles the Fat leads an army from Worms against the camp at Asselt. After a siege of twelve days he negotiates. The Danish leader Godfrid is baptised with Charles as his godfather, marries Gisela, a daughter of Lothair II, and receives Frisia to hold as Charles’s vassal, and another leader, Sigfrid, is paid to leave. Godfrid holds Frisia until he is killed at a meeting at Spijk near Lobith in 885.
The manuscript of the late 9th century at Valenciennes that holds the Ludwigslied, the Old High German song of Louis III’s victory, after the Sequence of Saint EulaliaWikimedia Commons, unknown scribe, Public domain (Ludwigslied Manuscript Valenciennes p. 1+2.jpg)
In 883 the rest of the army returns west, defeats Carloman on the Somme and winters at Amiens. In February 884 Carloman offers it 12,000 pounds of silver to leave, and in October it moves to Boulogne, where it divides between England and Leuven. Carloman dies in December 884, and the West Frankish nobles invite Charles the Fat to be their king.
Sources
- Annals of Fulda, entries for 881 and 882.
- Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes and Simon MacLean, The Carolingian World (2011).
- Simon MacLean, Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire (2003).
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