The decade of the 780s was full of upheavals and personal grief for Charlemagne. When he visited Rome in 781 he had Pope Hadrian crown his sons, Carloman (renamed Pippin) and Louis, in order to give his empire harmony and continuity. He also agreed to betroth Rotrudra, his daughter, to the Byzantine Emperor, Constantine VI. Both of these moves ended up encouraging rebellion instead of peace and promoting fear instead of security. Hildegard, the wife Charlemagne seemed to genuinely feel affection for, died in 783, and the king’s mother followed in the same year not long after his wife. His trusted chamberlain, Adalgisile, and his constable, Geilo, died in battle in 782. His rebound marriage to Fastrada was unpopular with his court, and internal battles among his supporters were constant in the years that followed. Charlemagne, however, rose above all these trials, and, if anything, they encouraged more and higher ambitions in the man.
At the end of the decade, the king had to settle rebellions in southern Italy and Bavaria, although in Bavaria he never did so successfully. In 787 the Lombard duchy of Benevento covered most of southern Italy, and although it technically belonged to Charlemagne from his defeat of Desid-erius, it was far enough away that the duchy operated as an independent state. Duke Arechis, who was a good politician and maintained friendly relations with the Byzantine emperors, ruled it. Arechis might have remained relatively inconspicuous to Charlemagne, but one winter, instead of going home, Charlemagne happened to stay in Rome, making it easy for the king to focus on Arechis’s lack of follow-through with his promises of fealty. The duke made his submissions, but as soon as the king of the Franks was safely on the other side of the Alps, promptly broke all his vows and ignored the pope’s territorial claims. Arechis’s son, Grimoald III, followed his father’s political maneuvering, successfully fending off the armies of Charlemagne or his sons many times in future years. Charlemagne, however, never returned to Benevento, and Grimoald never was forced to surrender to Frankish rule.
In 788, Charlemagne was compelled to turn his attention to Bavaria, a dukedom that he, and his father and grandfather before him, claimed to be vassal territory. Its duke, Tassilo III, disagreed, believing his little country was independent—and because Bavaria (like Benevento in Italy) was seen as too far away from Charlemagne’s rule for the king to bother with it, Tassilo felt very secure. Tassilo tried to make Charlemagne happy by sending military detachments for the king’s armies, but on the other hand Tassilo rarely showed up to attend the Frankish gathering in order to vow fealty publicly. The pope warned Tassilo that he was flirting with disaster, and when Charlemagne decided he needed to control the Danube valley against the Saxons, Avars, and Slavs, Tassilo’s behavior became an issue.
From the chronicles it is quite clear that Tassilo offered no threats or provocations, but the king had had enough of the so-called independence and put his fist around the dukedom. He ordered Tassilo to appear and immediately restate the vow the duke had made to the king; the duke was understandably reluctant to put his person at risk, and the war was on. Charlemagne sent three armies against Bavaria: one with the king in person, one with a force of Saxons and East Franks, and another under the leadership of his son, the young Pippin, king of Italy.
Tassilo wisely did not resist, and he yielded up the dukedom without a fight. Although it must have frustrated Charlemagne because it appears he wished to somehow do away with the duke and change the way the region was ruled, Charlemagne was merciful and did not punish Tassilo. Months later, however, Tassilo came under charges of rebellion, and he and his family were removed: either forced to take monastic vows or exiled. Bavaria was divided into Frankish counties, and the dukedom became another part of the Frankish empire.
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