Conquest & Upheaval the Mid-Eleventh Century
1031 - 1047 AD
Agilof the Cruel
Agilof IV was keenly aware that he was not his father. His predecessor had been a controversial king, remembered in Lombard history for becoming the first ruler to successfully establish a hereditary system of inheritance in the kingdom. It had been a bitter pill to swallow throughout much of the kingdom. The electoral system had helped to guarantee Lombardy's stability for many generations, and was part of the reason why the Lombards had enjoyed one of the most stable kingdoms in Europe while the northern countries struggled to find unity. Despite his controversial move, Agilof III had held the nation together, successfully subduing three rebel Dukes and the Grand Mayor of Genoa to enforce his rule. While his decisions may have been unpopular, Agilof III had the power of presence and the commanded respect to keep the nobles in line. But in 1042, the 58 year-old Agilof made the abrupt decision to personally command a small force of troops in support of Galicia's holy war against Waldensian heretics in Portugal. Many suspect the king had grown tire of his long life, and he met his end on the battlefields of Iberia, leaving the kingdom to his son in the first succession by primogeniture in Lombard history.
His successor, however, seemed to lack many of his father's positive traits when he came to the throne late in 1042. And Agilof IV, hot-tempered and ambitious as he was, knew quite keenly that he was not his father. His middle brother, Kakko, had gone off to find a successful career with the Knights Templar, and his youngest brother Reccared -- who Agilof crowned as Duke of Provence -- was hailed as one of the greatest tacticians in the kingdom's history. Agilof IV, though, had none of the virtuous traits of his brother, and is well-documented as a self-serving power seeker. He was a highly arrogant young man, boasting of his father's prowess, and resting secure in the alliance his father had forged when he made yet another controversial decision and married Agilof to Eupraxia, the youngest daughter of Byzantine Emperor Hypatios the Hammer. Full of hubris, anger, and courage, Agilof earned himself the nickname "the Cruel" when he opened his reign with an unforgettable show of force against one of his rival Dukes.
Before Agilof had come to the throne, he had ordered the assassination of the eldest son of Duke Odoaker II of Pisa, and when he came to the throne the Duke had expressed his dissatisfaction in no uncertain terms. Odoaker, Agilof decided, would serve as an example to set the tone of his reign -- by making a show of subduing him, he would prove to all the Dukes that he was not a figure to be trifled with. Within days of Agilof ascending to the throne, he issued an immediate challenge to Odoaker, inviting him to duel the king in the capital at Verona. Eager to avenge his son, Odoaker accepted the challenge, and the Dukes gathered in Verona in May of 1042. The battle between the two was a long and fierce one, as the undersized (some would say scrawny) Agilof parried and matched blades with Odoaker for an extended time. Eventually, though, Agilof seized the advantage and disarmed the Duke with a well-placed slash to the arm. Victory was declared, but Agilof would not relent. With all of his vassal Dukes and courtiers watching, Agilof turned to the crowd with a flourish and thrust his blade through Odoaker's neck, leaving the ruler to bleed out in the center of the hall.
The public execution of Odoaker did not, however, have the effect Agilof IV had hoped for. Instead, his Dukes seemed to grow more indignant at his display, and when the King attempted to call a grand feast in the fall, slightly less than half of his vassals attended, with many of the leading Dukes expressing their disdain for their monarch in their rejection letters. Their defiance reached a peak, however, during Agilof's first military campaign.
In 1043, Agilof brought the Lombard armies against Burgundy once again, aiming to capture Venaissin to expand his brother's territory within the Duchy of Provence. The King of Burgundy, ever aware of his expiring influence, attempted to call in the aid of his allies in the massive northern kingdom of Sweden, but King Eskild, already in the midst of his own wars, could spare only a paltry three thousand soldiers to the cause. Agilof's men easily overwhelmed Burgundy and laid simultaneous sieges to three of its provinces, but his greatest threat lay behind enemy lines. While the army was away fighting, six of the kingdom's eleven Dukes, along with the Grand Mayor of Genoa, gathered their coalition and demanded a reduction in their levy obligations and the freedom to contest one another's lands. His father had already conceded to the Dukes once, and while Agilof was anything but eager to see the monarchy weakened even more, he could ill afford to watch seven of his most powerful vassals rebel together in the midst of a foreign war. Reluctantly, the king chose to abide the coalition's demands, sacrificing some of his influence for the security of a military victory.
Burgundy did eventually collapse under Agilof's assault, and Venaissin was conceded into the Lombard Duchy of Provence. Despite the conquest, though, Agilof knew that he still had many enemies at home, and knew that keeping his own house in order could well be the greatest challenge of his reign. The Dukes were already beginning to war amongst themselves, laying claim to each other's lands and fighting to install their own claimants to titles -- Agilof was not even out of his twenties, and he had a challenging kingdom on his hands.
Two Big Wins for Catholics
While Agilof IV was attempting to keep his kingdom together in the face of increasingly impetuous Dukes, other Catholic kingdoms were making significant strides for their own power and for the faith.
The Kingdom of Portugal, which had split away from Galicia thanks to a divided election, had succeeded in winning several counties away from Galicia in a series of wars. But when King Pero embraced the Waldensian heresy, he put his kingdom in the crosshairs of the loyal Catholic Galicians, as both the king and several of his dukes waged holy wars against Portugal, fighting back effectively for the first time since the divide of the crowns. These combined military efforts proved effective, and Portugal's army faced a string of defeats that saw over half of the kingdom absorbed back into Galicia by the middle of the eleventh century.
Even more noteworthy was the proclamation of the Fourth Crusade. After the First Crusade had proved a sweeping victory against the Muslims in Iberia, the Second and Third Crusades had become laughably ineffective attempts to retake portions of the Holy Land from the seemingly invincible Abbasid and Yaqubid Caliphs. In August of 1033 AD, Pope Adeodatus V declared the Church's third attempt to attack the Muslim-occupied regions around Jerusalem, sparking a grueling, bloody, thirteen-year-long war. Unlike the previous two efforts, the Fourth Crusade was widely supported by Catholic nobles, as over twenty Catholic rulers pledged their wealth and soldiers to the long journey and endless battle. Initially, the opening battles of the Crusade did not go well against the Caliph's massive armies. But over the years, a number of internal revolts divided the Caliphate, and as Muslim fought against Muslim, the Caliph was weakened as more rulers joined the Crusade and sent fresh troops to the battle. The campaign was long and bloody, but after five years of struggle, the tide slowly began to turn in favor of the Crusaders.
Finally, after thirteen exhausting years of war, the teenage Caliph Murad, who had come to power midway through the Crusade, gave his surrender. Pope John VIII declared the glorious victory of the Crusade, and just as Vitalian II had done after the First Crusade, held a grand High Mass in Rome to celebrate the victory. There, he recognized the French Duke of Burgundy, Frederic de Horn, as the Crusade's chief hero, and granted him the rule over the conquered portions of the Holy Land. While Jerusalem itself remained under the control of the Byzantine Empire, the surrounding regions came under French control with the Crusade's success. It had taken many years and three attempts, but at last the majority of the Holy Land belonged to Christians once again.
