March of Friuli
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The March of Friuli was a Carolingian frontier march against the Slavs and Avars in the ninth and tenth centuries. It was a successor to the Lombard Duchy of Friuli.
In 774, when the Lombard kingdom of Italy was conquered by Charlemagne, he allowed Lombard and later Frankish dukes to continue ruling in Friuli — to which he added Pannonia as an integral part of his Empire — as a bulwark against the encroachments of the Avars and the Croats. When the last duke, Baldric, was removed from office in 827, the duchy was divided into four counties (Diet of Aachen, 828). In 846, these counties were gathered together again and bestowed on one Eberhard, of a Frankish clan, the Unruochings, with the title of dux, though his successors were called marchio: "margrave."
In 887, Berengar of Friuli was elected King of Italy. His election precipitated decades of contests for the throne between rival claimants. Berengar lost it in 888 and did not succeed in recapturing it until 905. Meanwhile, he remained master in Friuli alone, which was always the base of his support. After his death in 924, his partisans elected Hugh of Arles king. Hugh did not appoint a new margrave and the march lay vacant, though the march remained as a political division of (the March of Verona) of the kingdom of Italy well into the High Middle Ages.
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[edit] Sources
- Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and her Invaders. Clarendon Press: 1895.