Tuscany, Margravate of

A new embassy had arrived in Regensburg in September 895, beseeching Arnulf's aid, and in October Arnulf undertakes his second campaign into Italy.

He crosses the Alps quickly and takes Pavia, then continues slowly, garnering support among the nobility of Tuscany.

First Maginulf, Count of Milan, and then Walfred, Count of Pavia, joins him.

Eventually, even the Margrave Adalbert II abandons Lambert.

Arnulf, finding Rome locked against him and held by Ageltrude, has to take the city by force on February 21, 896, freeing the pope.

He is greeted at the Ponte Milvio by the Roman Senate, who escort him into the Leonine City, where he is received by Pope Formosus on the steps of the Santi Apostoli.

On February 22, 896, Formosus leads the king into the church, anoints and crowns him, and salutes him as Augustus.

Arnulf then proceeds to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, where he receives the homage of the Roman people.

Arnulf then proceeds to exile to Bavaria two leading senators, Constantine and Stephen, who had helped Ageltrude seize the city.

Leaving one of his vassals, Farold, to hold Rome, Arnulf marches on Spoleto, where Ageltrude had fled to join Lambert.

On his way down, Arnulf suffers a paralyzing stroke, forcing him to call off his campaign and return to Bavaria.

The election of Pope Boniface VI, a native of Rome, had come about as a result of riots soon after the death of Pope Formosus.

Prior to his reign, he had twice incurred a sentence of deprivation of orders as a subdeacon and as a priest.

After a pontificate of fifteen days, he is said by some to have died of gout, by others to have been forcibly ejected to make way for Stephen VI, the candidate of the Spoletan party.

Arnulf only retains power in Italy as long as he is personally here.

On his way north, he stops at Pavia, where he crowns his illegitimate son Ratold, sub-King of Italy, after which …

…he leaves Ratold in Milan in an attempt to preserve his hold on Italy.

This same year, Formosus dies, leaving Lambert once again in power, and both he and Berengar kill any officials who had been put in place by Arnulf, as Ratold also flees from Milan to Bavaria.

Rumors of the time made Arnulf's condition to be a result of poisoning at the hand of Ageltrude.

On his return to Germany, he will exercise very little further control in Italy for the rest of his life, although his agents in Rome will not prevent the accession of Pope Stephen VI in May 896.

Although Stephen will eventually become a supporter of the claims of Lambert, he initially gives his support to Arnulf.

Pope Stephen VI had been made bishop of Anagni by Pope Formosus.

The circumstances of his election are unclear, but he had been sponsored by one of the powerful Roman families, the house of Spoleto, that contested the papacy at this time.

Stephen is chiefly remembered in connection with his conduct towards the remains of Pope Formosus, his last predecessor but one.

The rotting corpse of Formosus is exhumed and put on trial in the so-called Cadaver Synod (or Synodus Horrenda) in January 897.

Pressure from the Spoleto contingent and Stephen's fury with his predecessor probably precipitated this extraordinary event.

With the corpse propped up on a throne, a deacon is appointed to answer for the deceased pontiff.

During the trial, Formosus's corpse is condemned for performing the functions of a bishop when he had been deposed and for receiving the pontificate while he was the bishop of Porto, among other revived charges that had been leveled against him in the strife during the pontificate of John VIII.

The corpse is found guilty, stripped of its sacred vestments, deprived of three fingers of its right hand (the blessing fingers), clad in the garb of a layman, and quickly buried; it is then re-exhumed and thrown in the Tiber.

All ordinations performed by Formosus are annulled.

The trial of Formosus has excited a tumult.

Though the instigators of the deed may actually have been Formosus' enemies of the House of Spoleto (notably Guy IV of Spoleto), who had recovered their authority in Rome at the beginning of 897 by renouncing their broader claims in central Italy, the scandal ends in Stephen's imprisonment and his death by strangling in August.

Romanus, whose personal name is unknown, born in Gallese, Italy near Civita Castellana, is elected to succeed the murdered Stephen VI.

Romanus, like many popes of the era, annuls all the acts and decrees of his predecessor.

His short rule is regarded as a virtuous one by contemporary historian Flodoard, but fifteenth-century historian Bartolomeo Platina scorns him for continuing the practice of annulment.

An opposing faction deposes him in November of the same year and he will end his days as a monk.

His date of death is unknown.

Romanus’ successor, Pope Theodore II, had been ordained as a priest by Pope Stephen V; also his brother Theotius is a bishop.

He reinstates the clerics who had been forced from office by Pope Stephen VI, recognizing the validity of the ordinations of Pope Formosus.

He has the body of Formosus, which had been thrown in the Tiber and recovered near the ancient harbor of Porto, just south of Rome, reburied in St. Peter's Basilica.

He dies after ruling for twenty days in December 897.

Lambert hereafter governs with the church and continues the policy of his father of renovatio regni Francorum: renewal of the Frankish kingdom.

He is able to issue capitularies in the Frankish fashion as his father had done.

In fact, he is the last ruler to do so.

In 898, he legislates against the exploitation of the services owed by arimanni (a warrior class of freemen in Lombard and later Frankish Italy, typically small or medium landowners with a few tenants, or none, beneath them) to create benefices for vassals.

The Lex Romana Utinensis is composed at his court.

However, Lambert still has Berengar of Friuli and the rebellious Adalbert of Tuscany to face.

In 898, the latter marches on Pavia.

The emperor, who had been hunting near Marengo, south of Milan, is given word and surprises and defeats his rival at Borgo San Donnino, taking him prisoner to Pavia.

On his return to Marengo however, he is killed, either by assassination (by Hugh, son of Maginulf), a theory about which Liutprand, our primary source, is reserved, or by falling from his horse.

He is buried in Piacenza.

Liutprand remembers him as an elegans iuvenis and vir severus: "an elegant youth and a stern man".

He is succeeded in Spoleto by Guy IV while the regnum Italicum and the imperium Romanum are thrown into chaos, contested by multiple candidates.

Within days, Berengar has taken Pavia.