Within three years of Louis’s accession, Bernard, king of Lombardy, the son of one of Charlemagne’s illegitimate children, known as Pippin the Hunchback, began the rot. The flashpoint was the publication of a constitutional document known as the Ordinatio imperii in 817. In it, Louis tried to clarify the hierarchy of the Carolingian empire and make provisional plans for its rule after his own death. Louis implied (although he did not state) that when the time came, Bernard ought to recognize the supreme lordship of Louis’s eldest son Lothar.
