The Royal Consecrations of Louis III and Carloman

Another view of Hincmar on king-making can be noted in the consecration of Louis III and Carloman, sons of Louis the Stammerer at Ferrières in 879. The context of this event was the complex situation that arose in the West Frankish kingdom after the death of Louis the Stammerer at Compiègne on 10 April. Hincmar began the 879 annal with an account of the arrangements made by Louis during his final illness for the sole succession of his elder son, the future Louis III. Though the boy was already of age, a sort of regency council was set up for him. Then the dying father sent his son

"crown and sword and the rest of the royal gear, and ordered those who were with his son to have him consecrated and crowned king."^[31] According to Hincmar, these paternal plans were blocked by the interests of two powerful factions, the one inviting the intervention of the East Frankish king Louis the Younger to take over the West Frankish realm, the other wishing to see the realm divided between the Stammerer's two sons.^[32] To avert the former's success, "Abbot Hugh and the other magnates who were with the sons of their late lord Louis (the Stammerer) . . . , namely, Louis and Carloman, sent certain bishops, Ansegis and others, to the monastery of Ferrières, and there had Louis and Carloman consecrated and crowned kings."^[33]

The tone of this account is markedly reserved, as if Hincmar were detaching himself from proceedings that constituted a plain violation of Louis the Stammerer's plans for the single succession of his eldest son; the consequence would be a new division of the realm, as described in the next annal.^[34] Note the pointed reminder that the magnates who acted were with "the sons of their late lord," whose last wishes they were disregarding. No doubt Hincmar was motivated by personal rancor: his deepest hostility was to Louis the Younger's main partisan, Abbot Gauzlin, whose motives and support he blatantly misrepresents; but Abbot Hugh and Archbishop Ansegis of Sens were also his rivals and supplanters in influence at court.^[35] Hincmar may well have thought that he, if anyone, ought to have performed the consecrations of the Stammerer's sons, as he had their father's.^[36] Nevertheless, the AB 's account stresses the need for haste. For Hincmar (unlike the other main source for these events) records the impending invasion of Louis the Younger, which justified the action of Abbot Hugh and the other magnates. Further, Hincmar, though absent from the consecrations, sent envoys to convey his consent to what was done.^[37] In the AB thereafter, the Stammerer's sons are referred to as kings. The king-makings at Ferrières were valid, then, in Hincmar's eyes; and his account indicates that their validity derived from the magnates' initiative and role therein. They are the subjects of the two main verbs of Hincmar's key sentence: they "sent" the bishops, and they "caused" the late king's sons to be consecrated and crowned. Hincmar seems to be suggesting that when paternal designation and aristocratic choice did not coincide, in the last resort the latter sufficed to authorize the setting up of king's sons as kings. Again, his prime concern was to preserve the separate existence of a West Frankish realm.