The king’s attention at the time was called to Italy where two popes, Innocent II. and Anacletus II., were clamouring for his support. At first Lothair, fully occupied with the affairs of Germany, remained heedless and neutral; but in March 1131 he was visited at Liége by Innocent, to whom he promised his assistance. Crossing the Alps with a small army in September 1132, he reached Rome in March 1133, accompanied by Innocent. As St Peter’s was held by Anacletus, Lothair’s coronation as emperor took place on the 4th of June 1133 in the church of the Lateran. He then received as papal fiefs the vast estates of Matilda, marchioness of Tuscany, thus securing for his daughter and her Welf husband lands which might otherwise have passed to the Hohenstaufen. His efforts to continue the investiture controversy were not very serious. He returned to Germany, where he restored order in Bavaria, and made an expedition against some rebels in the regions of the lower Rhine. Resuming the struggle against the Hohenstaufen, Lothair soon obtained the submission of the brothers, who retained their lands, and a general peace was sworn at Bamberg. The emperor’s authority was now generally recognized, and the annalists speak highly of the peace and order of his later years. In 1135, Eric II., king of Denmark, acknowledged himself a vassal of Lothair; Boleslaus III., prince of the Poles, promised tribute and received Pomerania and Rügen as German fiefs; while the eastern emperor, John Comnenus, implored Lothair’s aid against Roger II. of Sicily.
The emperor seconded the efforts of his vassals, Albert the Bear, margrave of the Saxon north mark, and Conrad I., margrave of Meissen and Lusatia, to extend the authority of the Germans in the districts east of the Elbe, and assisted Norbert, archbishop of Magdeburg, and Albert I., archbishop of Bremen, to spread Christianity. In August 1136, attended by a large army, Lothair set out upon his second Italian journey. The Lombard cities were either terrified into submission or taken by storm; Roger II. was driven from Apulia; and the imperial power enforced over the whole of southern Italy. A mutiny among the German soldiers and a breach with Innocent concerning the overlordship of Apulia compelled the emperor to retrace his steps. An arrangement was made with regard to Apulia, after which Lothair, returning to Germany, died at Breitenwang, a village in the Tirol, on the 3rd or 4th of December 1137. His body was carried to Saxony and buried in the monastery which he had founded at Königslutter. Lothair was a strong and capable ruler, who has been described as the “imitator and heir of the first Otto.” Contemporaries praise his justice and his virtue, and his reign was regarded, especially by Saxons and churchmen, as a golden age for Germany.
The main authorities for the life and reign of Lothair are: “Vita Norberti archiepiscopi Magdeburgensis”; Otto von Freising, “Chronicon Annalista Saxo” and “Narratio de electione Lotharii” all in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores, Bände vi., xii. and xx. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892). The best modern works are: L. von Ranke, Weltgeschichte, pt. viii. (Leipzig, 1887-1888); W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, Band iv. (Brunswick, 1877), Band v. (Leipzig, 1888); Ph. Jaffe, Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches unter Lothar (Berlin, 1843); W. Bernhardi, Lothar von Supplinburg (Leipzig, 1879); O. von Heinemann, Lothar der Sachse und Konrad III. (Halle, 1869); and Ch. Volkmar, “Das Vërhältniss Lothars III. zur Investiturfrage,” in the Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte, Band xxvi. (Göttingen, 1862-1886).
LOTHAIR (941-986), king of France, son of Louis IV., succeeded his father in 954, and was at first under the guardianship of Hugh the Great, duke of the Franks, and then under that of his maternal uncle Bruno, archbishop of Cologne. The beginning of his reign was occupied with wars against the vassals, particularly against the duke of Normandy. Lothair then seems to have conceived the design of recovering Lorraine. He attempted to precipitate matters by a sudden attack, and in the spring of 978 nearly captured the emperor Otto II. at Aix-la-Chapelle. Otto took his revenge in the autumn by invading France. He penetrated as far as Paris, devastating the country through which he passed, but failed to take the town, and was forced to retreat with heavy loss. Peace was concluded in 980 at Margut-sur-Chiers, and in 983 Lothair was even chosen guardian to the young Otto III. Towards 980, however, Lothair quarrelled with Hugh the Great’s son, Hugh Capet, who, at the instigation of Adalberon, archbishop of Reims, became reconciled with Otto III. Lothair died on the 2nd of March 986. By his wife Emma, daughter of Lothair, king of Italy, he left a son who succeeded him as Louis V.
See F. Lot, Les Derniers Carolingiens (Paris, 1891); and the Recueil des actes de Lothaire et de Louis V., edited by L. Halphen and F. Lot (1908).
LOTHAIR (825-869), king of the district called after him Lotharingia, or Lorraine, was the second son of the emperor Lothair I. On his father’s death in 855, he received for his kingdom a district lying west of the Rhine, between the North Sea and the Jura mountains, which was called Regnum Lotharii and early in the 10th century became known as Lotharingia or Lorraine. On the death of his brother Charles in 863 he added some lands south of the Jura to this inheritance, but, except for a few feeble expeditions against the Danish pirates, he seems to have done little for its government or its defence. The reign was chiefly occupied by efforts on the part of Lothair to obtain a divorce from his wife Teutberga, a sister of Hucbert, abbot of St Maurice (d. 864); and his relations with his uncles, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, were influenced by his desire to obtain their support to this plan. Although quarrels and reconciliations between the three kings followed each other in quick succession, in general it may be said that Louis favoured the divorce, and Charles opposed it, while neither lost sight of the fact that Lothair was without male issue. Lothair, whose desire for the divorce was prompted by his affection for a certain Waldrada, put away Teutberga; but Hucbert took up arms on her behalf, and after she had submitted successfully to the ordeal of water, Lothair was compelled to restore her in 858. Still pursuing his purpose, he won the support of his brother, the emperor Louis II., by a cession of lands, and obtained the consent of the local clergy to the divorce and to his marriage with Waldrada, which was celebrated in 862. A synod of Frankish bishops met at Metz in 863 and confirmed this decision, but Teutberga fled to the court of Charles the Bald, and Pope Nicholas I. declared against the decision of the synod. An attack on Rome by the emperor was without result, and in 865 Lothair, convinced that Louis and Charles at their recent meeting had discussed the partition of his kingdom, and threatened with excommunication, again took back his wife. Teutberga, however, either from inclination or compulsion, now expressed her desire for a divorce, and Lothair went to Italy to obtain the assent of the new pope Adrian II. Placing a favourable interpretation upon the words of the pope, he had set out on the return journey, when he was seized with fever and died at Piacenza on the 8th of August 869. He left, by Waldrada, a son Hugo who was declared illegitimate, and his kingdom was divided between Charles the Bald and Louis the German.
See Hincmar, “Opusculum de divortio Lotharii regis et Tetbergae reginae,” in Cursus completus patrologiae, tome cxxv., edited by J. P. Migne (Paris, 1857-1879); M. Sdralek, Hinkmars von Rheims Kanonistisches Gutachten über die Ehescheidung des Königs Lothar II. (Freiburg, 1881); E. Dümmler, Geschichte des ostfränkischen Reiches (Leipzig, 1887-1888); and E. Mühlbacher, Die Regenten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern (Innsbruck, 1881).