Читать книгу The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273. Investiture Contest, Crusades & The Famous Conflicts онлайн

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The last Carolingians were in no wise puppets and do-nothings like the last Merovingians. Louis IV. proved a strenuous warrior, with a full sense of his royal dignity. He ruled directly over little more than the hill-town of Laon and its neighbourhood, but he did wonders with his scanty resources. He married a sister of Otto the Great, and with German help was able to press severely his former patron. But Otto soon withdrew beyond the Rhine, and Louis, deprived of his help, and ever planning schemes too vast for his resources, was soon altogether at Hugh’s mercy. In 946 he was driven out of Laon: ‘the only town,’ as he complained, ‘where I could shut myself up with my wife and children, the town that I prefer to my life.’ In his despair he laid his wrongs before King Otto and a council of bishops at Ingelheim. Hugh prudently yielded before the threatened thunders of the Church. He renewed his homage to King Louis, and restored Laon to him. ‘Henceforth,’ says the chronicler, ‘their friendship was as firm as their struggles had formerly been violent.’ When Louis died suddenly in 954, his thirteen-year-old son, Lothair, was chosen king through Hugh’s influence. Two years later the great duke died.