House Di Cuneo

*"For Piedmonte, for Italy, for the Empire, for our Lord"*

## Humble Servants Of The Lord

**Family History:**

In 1062, Pierre, the Duke of Piedmonte, went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. By the time he was back, in 1063, he had been converted to Adamitism, an heretic christian faith. In 1065, the Pope issued an excommunication against Pierre, but despite that, the Holy Roman Emperor did not do anything against Pierre, as he was happy to anger the pope due to their fight over temporal power. However, the populace of Piedmonte did not think the same. So, when Aldobrandino came north from Cuneo and preached against the current ruler, they were more than happy to form a peasant uprising and to put Aldobrandino on the throne of Piedmonte.

**Recent history:**

**King Aldobrandino:** In 1066, just a year after his ascension to the throne, Duke Aldobrandino married Adalgisa Agnello, the Duke of Tuscany's daughter, to cement an alliance between the two familise that would endure for centuries. With this alliance came a treaty which partitioned the lands of the Duke of Lombardy between the two Dukes. With this treaty, Aldobrandino managed to ally the most powerful Duke of Italy and to reduce the second most powerful Duke's power to nothingness. However, in 1091, Adalgisa died, so Aldobrandino remarried with Dobroniega Swinka, the daughter of the then powerful King of Pomerania. This alliance was not set to last, but was an easy way for Aldobrandino to find support in his campaigns. In 1095, the Pope called for a crusade to liberate the Kingdom of Jerusalem, from the invading Muslims, in which Aldobrandino participated, helping Queen Terhi to ascend to the throne, the first of a long series of Catholic Finnish Kings and Queens in the Holy Land. As a reward for his participation in the Crusade, the Duchy of Oultrejourdain was given to his daughter, Princess Mariana I, who passed it along her branch of the family. However, Emperor Heinrich IV did not participate in the crusade, and Aldobrandino questioned his right to the title of Emperor if he couldn't defend christians in need. In 1102, he demanded that he abandon the title of Emperor and give independence to all his vassals. Because of Aldobrandino's military strength and strong alliances, Heinrich IV gave up his rights to the Imperial throne without a fight. This allowed Aldobrandino to form his own kingdom in 1103, the Kingdom of Piedmonte, which at the time contained only the Duchies of Piedmonte, Savoy annd Transjurania (one of his vassals recent conquests), as well as Aldobrandino's recent conquests in Lombardy. King Aldobrandino died in 1107 with 8 alive children. This would lead to several succession wars and a lot of turmoil in the realm...

**King Giovanni I:** Being Aldobrandino's firstborn son, he inherited the crown of Piedmonte as well as the majority of the royal demesne, which he himsel expanded further. He understood that his father's actions had left a power vacuum in central europe, and that whoever filled this hole would decide Piedmonte's fate. So, in 1110, he swore fealty to the newly formed Empire of Francia, in a traty that guaranteed him control over the Duchies of Viennois and Provence, further cementing Piedmonte's presence in the Alpine region. In the years following the treaty, the Kingdom became tied economically and culturally to the Francian Empire than to the Italian Peninsula. As a result, it as during Giovanni I's reign that the Piedmontese people inherited many of the Occitan traditions and customs. It is also then that Occitan dialect of Latin was first used in court, instead of the prievously used Italic dialect. He married Princess Helena Karling, to cement an alliance with the powerful Kingdom of Bohemia. She was also the ruler of Ma'an and the Finnish Strait (then called Negev), two counties that from then on became part of the Piedmontese royal demesne. He died, in 1137, giving his lands and title to his only alive son, King Martino I.

**The Piedmontese succession wars:** Although King Giovanni I left his succession apparently clear, it wasn't so simple. In fact, his brother, Ardicino, also claimed the Kingdom, but did not dare challenge his Giovanni I, who was respected by his vassals. However, the young King Martino I, who was only 25 at the time, did not benefit of the same treatment. So, in 1141, Ardicino, supported by the majority of Piedmontese Dukes and Counts, declared war for the Kingdom. Martino I, severely outnumbered, was forced to surrender. Unfortunately for Ardicino, who was now Ardicino I, he died of old age just a few days later, at age 66. He had three daughters, Cecilia, Alisia and Augusta, who respectively received the counties of Savoie, Tortona and Canavese. But most importantly, Cecilia I, being the eldest, received the Kingdom of Piedmonte. Martino was immediately allarmed by this, as he knew that the three sisters were all married patrilineally. This meant it was not a question of personal gain anymore, but of making sure the Kingdom stayed in the family. Because of this, Martino acted impatiently, and declared war for the Kingdom less than a year later. War that he won in 1102. But the Kingdom was far from being at peace, as many vassals still despised him. So, in 1145, he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, as Ardicino's daughter's claims were not strong enough against a male heir. But Giovanni II was only 7, and very sick. In fact, he had leper and smallpox, making him unable to rule anything. So, only a few months later, the Piedmontese vassals rebelled again, this time in favor of Augusta. Even if she was Ardicino's youngest daughter, she was married to King Uberto of Italy, who was eager to unite the allied thrones. But the struggle for the throne continured, each claimant becoming King or Queen when they had enough gold to sway vassals or to hire mercenaries, but as soon as the gold ran out, the other claimant would take the throne. So, Martino reclaimed the throne in 1152, but lost it 2 years later to Queen Augusta, who ruled until 1163, as she tried to revoke the duchy of Piedmonte, Martino's pirmary title, to stop the period of instability once and for all. Unfortunately, she lost, and was forced to abdicate in favor of her daughter, Queen Ermenegilda. This was a critical moment in the Kingdom's history, as Ermenegilda was part of the Agnello family, and the heir of the King of Italy. Martino launched one last desperate attempt to recover the Kingdom, and won. Cecilia, Ardicino's eldest daughter, had died from flagelling herself in 1157, and Augusta was executed by Martino I in 1165, to avoid any other civil wars. Princess Alisia was Ardicino's last daughter, but she never managed to rally enough support among vassals to press her claim. In 1172, Martino I conquered Currezia, further expanding the Kingdom to the north, and in 1179, he died of old age. Martino II was his only surviving son, marking the end of the Piedmontese succession wars. The only remnant of this period was the county of Canavese, which was Queen Ermengilda of Piedmonte's rightful territory by right of succession, due to her being Ardicino's granddaughter. This county was however exchanged against the county of Ajaccio in a treaty in 1184.

**King Martino II:** Even though the internal turmoil had been dealt with, Martino II knew that to ensure his place on the throne of Piedmonte, he had to make sure the Kingdom of Italy was on his side. In fact, Ermenegilda, who sat on the throne of Piedmonte during the wars of succession, was now Queen of Italy, and could still theoretically claim the Kingdom of Piedmonte. Luckily, King Martino II was still under the Francian Empire's protection, but in the case of an Imperial crisis, the situation would be much more delicate. Fortunately, King Martino I had anticipated such problems and had already thought of a solution. In 1173, he began a program to further integrate Piedmont in the Empire. He adopted the Oïl dialect of Latin as his court language, and started promoting Francian traditions and customs amongst the local peasantry. These efforts resulted in the birth of an "Imperial" culture, which was strongest around the most important cities of the Empire: Paris, the Imperial capital, and Asti, the Piedmontese capital. Queen Ermenegilda as not a fool and understood these changes would make controlling the Piedmontese populace from Firenze a nightmare, and decided to strenghten the dynastic alliance between the two Kingdoms instead. However, she knew she had an advantage in the negociations, so she offered that her sister Nunzia, a dishonoured and disinherited drunkard, marry King Martino II. He was forced to accept. Apart from that, Martino II's reign was peaceful and prosperous, the only change in Piedmonte's borders was in the Holy Land. In 1150, before his rise to the throne, he had inherited the counties of Negev and Ma'an from his grandmother, Princess Helena of Bohemia, due to his father being busy in the succession wars. The county of Ma'an remained in the royal domain of Piedmonte for centuries, but the county of Negev was de jure part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Even though he was not particularly pious, King Matino II had fought in the Crusades, so in 1197 he agreed to give the county back to King Valta of Jerusalem. King Martino II died in 1208 with two alive sons. However Prince Bernardino, his youngest son, was craven and ambitionless, leaving the Kingdom to his older brother, who would become King Ardicino II.

**King Ardicino II:** His reign immediately began with expansion to the north, but this time peacefully. In fact, seeing the prosperity of the Piedmontese Kingdom, many German counts offered their fealty to King Ardicino II. Thanks to this, In 1210 the duchies of Swabia, Alsace and Upper Lorraine were integrated in King Ardicino II's realm. However, this sudden expansion scared the Emperor, who pressured King Ardicino II into releasing the Duke of Upper Lorraine.