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Church of Tours.* The sons of Heribert, Count of Vermandois, who on the division of their father's territories, had become counts, one of them of Troyes, had continued feuds with the Church. Ragenerius or Regnier, Count of Haynault, the Count of Treves, and numberless others of the same rank, who sought to establish themselves in different towns and fortresses, gave serious trouble to King Louis, whom they spoiled, and to Bruno, who always came with forces to vindicate the King's rights. The lesser aristocracy, at feud with the Church, and kept down by the lieutenants. of the German emperor, came to look to the Duke of France as a preferable suzerain. But the most potent auxiliaries and supporters of Hugh Capet, in effecting this revolution, were of the Belgic or German race. The reaction was rather against the uncompromising churchmen who would reclaim all ecclesiastical property, and against Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, than it was of French against German. Bruno succeeded in placing upon the archiepiscopal chair of Rheims Odalric, a spirited prelate, who commenced an active war against church spoilers, against Thibaut of Chartres, Heribert, and a number of lesser chiefs, by which "he gained the hostility of Duke Hugh." Six years' administration of his diocese, however, showed the impossibility of the Church recovering all its old possessions from the hands of the lesser nobility. One of these, or, at least, one of their party, succeeded Odalric in the episcopal seat of Rheims. This was Adalbero, whose brother Frederic, a duke in Lorraine, had married a sister of Hugh Capet. Adalbero's administration of his diocese was different from that of his predecessors. Instead of quarrelling with neighbouring counts, he strove to economise and put in order what the Church possessed. He suppressed useless and dilapidated monasteries, and transferred their

* See Richer for the one, Frodoard for the other.

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revenues to the service of the cathedral, in the precincts CHAP. of which he established canons, who lived in common, after the manner of monks, but performed the functions of the clergy. Rich himself, Adalbero made large gifts of property to the Church; he became therefore popular even with the monks, and was able to accomplish his reforms. Adalbero at the same time applied himself to establish some kind of education, and for this purpose invited the celebrated Gerbert to Rheims, and introduced him to Hugh Capet, who first sent his son Robert to be Gerbert's pupil, and who afterwards fixed the learned professor in Paris.

Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, expired in 969, whilst Otho was still in Italy; nor did the emperor return from thence to Germany until a short time before his own death in 973. The archbishop had to provide for the settlement and future government of Lorraine, on which the German emperor expended so little care or thought. Bruno, in dying, accomplished this in the only manner that the age allowed; he left the county in the hands of the local noblesse. Frederic, whose brother held the bishopric of Metz, had been for many years employed by Bruno as his vicegerent in that portion of Lorraine. On the prelate's death he became its duke. In Belgian or Lower Lorraine, a chief of the name of Godfrey came to wield similar power. But the general feeling of the nobles was against him; the sons of Regnier, Count of Mons, who had been dispossessed and exiled by Bruno, being considered to have a better right. And these sons received general support from Hugh Capet and the French in their attempts to recover Hainault, whilst Godfrey was upheld by the partisans of Otho. A war ensued, and a battle of doubtful result, except in the circumstance of Godfrey receiving a mortal wound. This led to an accommodation; the son of Regnier was allowed to keep Mons, whilst Charles, the younger brother of Lothaire, was given Cambray. It seemed to have

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CHAP. been the policy of Bruno to enable the Carlovingian princes to find a settlement elsewhere than in their old seats on the borders of Lorraine. Thus Lothaire had been prompted by him to aim at the acquisition, at one time, of Normandy, at another of Flanders. Otho the Second now followed the same policy with respect to Charles, who, poor and without resources, preferred territory, even with nominal vassalage as a count, to existing without followers or resources as a Carlovingian prince. Charles at the same time adopted the manner of the class into which he sunk, by appropriating the church lands and revenues, making light of sacerdotal remonstrances, and taking every opportunity of showing himself the enemy of churchmen.

Charles was invested with the county of Cambresis by Otho the Second, on the condition that he should not support the pretensions of his brother Lothaire upon Lorraine. The anxiety of the German emperor was to leave his northern realms at peace, in order that his time, resources, and levies might be applied to the maintenance of his Italian interests. Lothaire was too poor to rest contented with the mere town of Laon; and as Bruno had prompted the Carlovingian princes to acquire territories westward, Hugh Capet now counselled them to press upon Lorraine. In 978 Lothaire learned that Otho was passing the summer season with his empress at Aix, without any army to guard him; for a military force, according to the feudal system that was established, consisted in what followers vassals could bring together upon an emergency; and when no necessity appeared, monarchs refrained from putting their vassals to the inconvenience of attending them. Lothaire summoned Hugh Capet and the noblesse of the Duchy of France, and pointed out to them the opportunity of surprising Otho. They applauded the enterprise and lent their assistance towards it, the prince setting out forthwith, accompanied by a lightly armed body of

troops, to accomplish his design. Some delay, however, in the passage of the Meuse gave Otho warning, and allowed him time to escape, which he did, vowing vengeance upon Lothaire.

In the following year, 980, Otho came with 30,000 men to take his revenge. He marched through the territory of Rheims, burned the royal palaces of Attigny and Compiegne, and continuing his route to Paris, assembled his army on the heights of Montmartre (Mons Martyrium), and there hymned forth an hallelujah, as a song of triumph. Paris was then safely confined in its island, or at most extended along the southern shore of the Seine, which river Otho found it difficult to cross. He therefore contented himself with the ravages and the bravado in which he indulged, and returned into Lorraine. The French chroniclers boast that they molested his retreat, and even caused Otho considerable loss on his repassage of the Aisne. The campaign, however, was successful in having raised mutual disgust between Lothaire and Hugh Capet, the latter finding himself exposed to incursions and ravage from the idle ambition and provocation of Lothaire, who was unable to support him by any force; while Lothaire, on his side, saw that Hugh merely protected his own territories, without caring for Laon or Lorraine. Lothaire, therefore, became reconciled to Otho, held a meeting with him on the Meuse, and, as the price of the emperor's friendship, waived his pretensions to Lorraine, at which the hearts of his followers, corda Francorum*, says the chronicler of Saint Denis, were much saddened. If the descendant of Charlemagne gave up his claims upon Lorraine to Otho, it was idle for Hugh Capet to remain in hostility with the German emperor. The latter, after his pacification with Lothaire, had gone to Italy;

In the letters of Gerbert, and in Richer, who were cotemporary writers, Franci manifestly means the

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followers of Lothaire, not the barons
or nobles of the duchy of France.

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CHAP. thither Hugh Capet sent, proffering friendship and alliance with Otho. The reply was an invitation to the duke to visit the emperor in Italy: a request with which Hugh Capet complied, to the great anxiety and suspicion of Lothaire, who, according to Richer, used every effort to have Hugh's return intercepted. The latter felt it necessary to pass the Alps in the disguise of a groom, and thus returned to his duchy.

Otho the Second expired in 982. Henry of Bavaria pretended to succeed, setting aside the right of the future Otho the Third, a boy of but five years old; and Lothaire, alive to every opportunity of gaining Lorraine, leagued with Henry, and undertook an expedition to the Rhine. The people of the country were, however, hostile to him, and he retreated with some difficulty. In the following year he was more fortunate; aided by Heribert of Troyes, he succeeded in winning possession of the strong town of Verdun, from the walls of which he repelled all the efforts of the Lorraine chiefs to expel him. A gleam of prosperity thus shone upon Lothaire, when death carried him off in 986. His eldest son Louis, who had been crowned by anticipation several years previous, succeeded to the hopeful position of his father. Even Hugh Capet seemed inclined to restore his friendship and protection, as the first act of the young king was, in concert with the duke, to march to the reduction of the archiepiscopal town of Rheims.

It is considered by M. Thierry, who has been in general followed by modern French historians, that the principal causes which about this time led to the enthronement of Hugh Capet, as king of France or of the French, in place of the Carlovingian princes, was the antipathy of race, and especially that of French against Germans, which prompted the chiefs and the population of the central provinces to throw off the yoke of the Germans, which the Lorrain or Belgian princes were to

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