Arnulf of Carinthia

German emperor. He was elected King of Germany in 887, defeated the Normans at Louvain, and strengthened his power in Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia. He was called by Pope Formosus in 894 and intervened in the disputes between Berengario and Guido of Spoleto, the first German king to intervene in Italian events. Crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Formosus in 896, he was later deposed by Berengario and died in Germany.

Arnulf (850 – December 8, 899) was the Carolingian King of East Francia from 887 to his death.

He spent his childhood in Karantania, homeland of his mother. Carloman had a court there, in Moosburg (then Blatograd), where the young Arnulf grew up.

He took the leading role in the deposition of his uncle, the Emperor Charles the Fat. With the support of the nobles, Arnulf held a diet and deposed Charles in November 887, under threat of military action. Charles peacefully went into his involuntary retirement, but not without first chastising his nephew for his treachery and asking only for a few royal villas in Swabia, which Arnulf mercifully granted him, on which to live out his final months. Arnulf was elected by the nobles of the realm (only the eastern realm, though Charles had ruled the whole of the Frankish lands) and assumed his title of King.

Arnulf was not a negotiator, but a fighter. After his victory, Arnulf built a new castle on an island in the Dijle river.

In 893 or 894, Great Moravia probably lost a part of its territory — present-day Western Hungary — to him. Arnulf, however, failed to conquer the whole of Great Moravia when he attempted it in 892, 893, and 899.

In 893, Pope Formosus, not trusting the newly crowned co-emperors Guy and Lambert, sent an embassy to Regensburg to request Arnulf come and liberate Italy, where he would be crowned in Rome. Arnulf sent his son Zwentibold with a Bavarian army to join Berengar of Friuli. Arnulf then personally led an army across the Alps early in 894. Lambert and his mother Ageltrude travelled to Rome to receive papal confirmation of his imperial succession, but Formosus, still desiring to crown Arnulf, was imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo.

In September 895, a new embassy arrived in Regensburg beseeching Arnulf's aid. In October, Arnulf undertook his second campaign into Italy. Arnulf was there crowned King and Emperor by Formosus on 22 February. Arnulf marched on Spoleto, where Ageltrude had fled to join Lambert, but he suffered a stroke and had to call of the campaign. Rumours of the time made Arnulf's condition to be a result of poisoning at the hand of Ageltrude.

On Arnulf's death in 899, he was succeeded as a king of the East Franks by his son by his wife Ota, Louis the Child. Arnulf's illegitimate son Zwentibold, whom he had made King of Lotharingia in 895, continued to rule there until the next year (900).