Ageltrude

Ageltrude (also spelled Agiltrude) (died 27 August 923) was the Empress and Queen of Italy as wife and mother respectively of Guy (reigned 891–94) and Lambert (reigned 894–98).^[1][2] She was the regent for her son and actively encouraged him in opposing her archenemies, the Carolingians, and in influencing papal elections in their favour.

She was the daughter of Prince Adelchis of Benevento and Adeltrude. She married Guy in the early 880s, when he was still just the duke and margrave of Spoleto and Camerino.^[1]

In 894, she accompanied her 14-year-old son, Lambert, to Rome to be confirmed as emperor by Pope Formosus, who supported the Carolingian claimant Arnulf of Carinthia.^[3] In 896, she and her son were holed up in Spoleto when Arnulf marched into Rome and was crowned in opposition to Lambert. Arnulf was soon paralysed by a stroke and Formosus died. Ageltrude quickly interfered to assert her authority in Rome and have elected her candidate as Pope Stephen VI. At her and Lambert's request, the body of Formosus was disinterred and tried, convicted and hurled into the Tiber in the Cadaver Synod.^[1] Lambert became Lambert II of Spoleto.

References

1. Bury, John Bagnell (1922). The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 3. Macmillan.
2. Mann, Horace (1925). The Lives of Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. IV: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy, 891-999. London, K. Paul, Trench, Trübner.
3. Partner, Peter (1972). The lands of St. Peter : the papal state in the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. Berkeley [u.a.]: University of California Press. ISBN 0520021819.

Further reading

• Leporace, Tullia Gasparrini (1960). "Ageltrude". In Ghisalberti, Alberto Maria. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. 1. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia italiana.