In his Wittenburg to Westphalia podcast, Benjamin Jacobs describes Arnulf's coup as (likely) the best planned and first executed of several different schemes to replace Charles, and frames the following crownings elsewhere in the empire as, at least in part, a sudden scramble to determine which of these other plans could be salvaged after Arnulf's success.
Is this a reasonable way to look at these events? Does it comport with your understanding of the actors involved?
As in, he thinks there are other attempts to replace Charles the Fat? I'm not sure I see that in the sources. After his death in 888 a lot of the new kings are people who were already important regional players, and they saw it as a moment they could try to become rulers. Arnulf, I would argue, isn't super interested in West Francia and realizes he needs to shore up his support in East Francia first.
I probably shouldn't have just said "replace", because what he talks about is almost the opposite. More that the various regional factions had a sense that the empire wasn't going to hold together, and that Charles himself wasn't likely to last long, so they were starting to set up *local* replacements for the formerly-united empire. Thus you get a whole bunch of local claimants, but everybody is aware enough to not try for the whole, including Arnulf.
It's basically an argument that "if not Arnulf, someone else, very soon and very quickly". I think I may still be overstating the claim, even as I try to walk it back. Jacobs puts a lot of emphasis on it because he's trying to explain the breakup of the Carolingian empire rather than the emergence of a particular successor, but he talks about it being under-discussed in common narratives, not those narratives being wrong.
I'm not sure if I would say it is that they think it won't last long versus the empire was a historical oddity at this point. From 840 to 884 it had already been divided, so I think those fault lines are the result of that history. I talk about this a few times in the dissertation because its an important point. Arnulf doesn't want to become emperor of the entire thing because it isn't his historical frame of reference, most of his life had been spent under East Francia with his grandfather Louis the German. I don't think there is a process of like, setting up Odo in 886 so he would be king though. The aftermath of 888 is very messy and contested, so they aren't just "kings-to-be" waiting for Charles to die.
In his Wittenburg to Westphalia podcast, Benjamin Jacobs describes Arnulf's coup as (likely) the best planned and first executed of several different schemes to replace Charles, and frames the following crownings elsewhere in the empire as, at least in part, a sudden scramble to determine which of these other plans could be salvaged after Arnulf's success.
Is this a reasonable way to look at these events? Does it comport with your understanding of the actors involved?
As in, he thinks there are other attempts to replace Charles the Fat? I'm not sure I see that in the sources. After his death in 888 a lot of the new kings are people who were already important regional players, and they saw it as a moment they could try to become rulers. Arnulf, I would argue, isn't super interested in West Francia and realizes he needs to shore up his support in East Francia first.
I probably shouldn't have just said "replace", because what he talks about is almost the opposite. More that the various regional factions had a sense that the empire wasn't going to hold together, and that Charles himself wasn't likely to last long, so they were starting to set up *local* replacements for the formerly-united empire. Thus you get a whole bunch of local claimants, but everybody is aware enough to not try for the whole, including Arnulf.
It's basically an argument that "if not Arnulf, someone else, very soon and very quickly". I think I may still be overstating the claim, even as I try to walk it back. Jacobs puts a lot of emphasis on it because he's trying to explain the breakup of the Carolingian empire rather than the emergence of a particular successor, but he talks about it being under-discussed in common narratives, not those narratives being wrong.
I'm not sure if I would say it is that they think it won't last long versus the empire was a historical oddity at this point. From 840 to 884 it had already been divided, so I think those fault lines are the result of that history. I talk about this a few times in the dissertation because its an important point. Arnulf doesn't want to become emperor of the entire thing because it isn't his historical frame of reference, most of his life had been spent under East Francia with his grandfather Louis the German. I don't think there is a process of like, setting up Odo in 886 so he would be king though. The aftermath of 888 is very messy and contested, so they aren't just "kings-to-be" waiting for Charles to die.