1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Louis III. (emperor)

by Arthur William Holland

LOUIS III. (c. 880–928), surnamed the “Blind,” Roman emperor, was a son of Boso, king of Provence or Lower Burgundy, and Irmengarde, daughter of the emperor Louis II. The emperor Charles the Fat took Louis under his protection on the death of Boso in 887; but Provence was in a state of wild disorder, and it was not until 890, when Irmengarde had secured the support of the Bavarian king Arnulf and of Pope Stephen V., that Louis was recognized as king. In 900, after the death of the emperor Arnulf, he went to Italy to obtain the imperial crown. He was chosen king of the Lombards at Pavia, and crowned emperor at Rome in February 901 by Pope Benedict IV. He gained a temporary authority in northern Italy, but was soon compelled by his rival Berengar, margrave of Friuli, to leave the country and to swear he would never return. In spite of his oath he went again to Italy in 904, where he secured the submission of Lombardy; but on the 21st of July 905 he was surprised at Verona by Berengar, who deprived him of his sight and sent him back to Provence, where he passed his days in enforced inactivity until his death in September 928. He married Adelaide, possibly a daughter of Rudolph I., king of Upper Burgundy. His eldest son, Charles Constantine, succeeded to no more than the county of Vienne.

See Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, Bände ix. and x. (Göttingen, 1862–1886); E. Dümmler, Geschichte des ostfränkischen Reichs (Leipzig, 1887–1888); and Gesta Berengarii imperatoris (Halle, 1871); and F. de Gingins-la-Sarra. Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Provence et de Bourgogne Jurane (Zürich, 1851).  (A. W. H.*)