LAMBERT OF SPOLETO, GERMAN EMPEROR

Ruled April 30, 892, to Oct. 15, 898; son of Guido III of Spoleto and the Lombard Princess Agiltrude; d. Marengo, Italy, in a hunting accident. Having been associated with his father as king of Italy in 891 and crowned emperor by Pope formosus in 892, he became sole ruler on his father's death in 894. From his father he inherited a conflict with Berengar I of Friuli. An expedition against him by Arnulf, the German emperor, in 895, prompted by an appeal from Formosus, resulted in the capture of Rome from Agiltrude, acting for her son. Arnulf was crowned emperor by Formosus but was incapacitated by illness and returned to Germany. The death of Formosus and an agreement with Berengar enabled Agiltrude and Lambert to re-enter Rome in 897. To satisfy the enemies of Formosus, Pope stephen vi condemned and degraded the exhumed body of the dead pope in a macabre postmortem trial. Agiltrude and Lambert had left the city, and the measure of their responsibility for this profanation is still debated. In a papal election later that year Lambert pronounced in favor of pacification by supporting john ix. The Synod of Ravenna in 898 affirmed Lambert's power over Rome and the states of the church and issued a series of reforming decrees, which he incorporated in a capitulary. An attempt at resistance by Adalbert of Tuscany was crushed.

Bibliography: p. brezzi, Roma e l'Impero medioevale (774–1252) (Bologna 1947). g. fasoli, I re d'Italia, 888–962 (Florence 1949). c. g. mor, L'età feudale, 2 v. (Milan 1952–53). f. zoepfl, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 6:759.

[c. e. boyd]