The Empire that was established by Charlemagne
had an enormous impact on the history and culture of Western Europe. It oversaw the greatest territorial expansion
in Western Europe since the days of the Roman Empire and promoted a period of cultural development
known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The splendour of the realm would fade away
with the multiple Carolingian members who succeeded Charlemagne. In this video, we will look at the heirs of
the Carolingian Empire, its complicated splintering and how Europe developed following the end
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and Lombards and the first western monarch to be crowned Emperor after the fall of the
Western Roman Empire, had intended in 806 to divide up his kingdom among his male children
, as was custom for the Carolingian and Merovingian dynasties. Excluded from the division were the illegitimate
children, including Charles’ controversial first son Pepin, and his daughters, as the
Salic law of the Franks did not allow them to inherit land. Following the death of Charlemagne in 814,
the crown of the Frankish kingdom and the Imperial title passed to his only surviving
son, Louis the Pious. To ease our understanding and lessen the confusion
over the numerous family members, we are going to use the nicknames with which they are usually
known as today, even though they might be anachronistic. The new emperor soon decided to divide up
his dominion, both to safeguard the empire from future internal conflict among his sons
in case of his death, and to help administer the huge swaths of land. In the ordinatio imperii of 817 preparations
were made to divide up his lands: his eldest son Lothair was proclaimed co-emperor and
would be the suzerain over his family members, while his other two sons Pepin of Aquitaine
and Louis the German received Aquitaine and Bavaria as Kings. The division did not satisfy all: first of
all a surviving nephew of Louis, Bernard, had kept the title of King of Italy following
the death of his father Pepin son of Charlemagne. Worried that his position was threatened and
unhappy with becoming a vassal of his cousin Lothair, the king of Italy began to plot against
the emperor but he was swiftly arrested with his conspirators and was blinded. The Carolingians were not as good at blinding
deposed family members as the Byzantines and Beregnar died from his wounds, leaving behind
a newborn son who would live on and establish a cadet branch in Vermandois. The execution of a member of the Carolingian
family, although involuntary, became a stain on the reputation of Louis. The Emperor had to undergo public penance
for the death of his nephew, which made him look weak in the eyes of the nobility. Another problem that arose was the birth of
a fourth son, Charles the Bald. He was born in Louis’ second marriage and
the Emperor wanted to leave him a domain to rule over like he had with his elder sons. This sparked a lot of frictions among the
family members: the decade from 830 to 840 was marred by constant fighting between the
father and his sons, with Louis being deposed and then reinstated in 832. Another threat that emerged were the Viking
raids which began during Louis’ reign. And would be a constant thorn in the side
of the Carolingian rulers. In 840 Louis died of sickness, leaving the
Imperial title and the central part of his realm to Lothair the First, the eastern part
to Louis the German and the western part to Charles the Bald. Louis’ second son Pepin of Aquitaine had
died in 838 and his sons were ousted for the succession in Aquitaine, although the eldest
of the Pepin the Second would continue to claim the Kingdom for himself in the following
decades. Once ascended to the throne, Lothair the First
attempted to claim the whole empire for himself but his brothers banded together against him
by swearing the Oath of Strasbourg and defeated Lothair’s army at the Battle of Fontenoy. Hostilities came to an end in the famous Treaty
of Verdun of 843, which sanctioned the division of the Carolingian empire into three pieces. Lothair kept the Imperial title and was assigned
the lands along the Rhine and Meuse rivers, the heartland of the Carolingian territory,
the Rhine Valley and Italy, creating a corridor from modern day Netherlands to Provence. Charles the Bald became king of the Western
Franks, encompassing Neustria and Aquitaine in modern France and the Spanish March, while
Louis the German became king of the Eastern Franks ruling over Saxony, Alemannia, Franconia
and Bavaria. The Treaty of Verdun has been viewed by historians
as one of the most important events of European history, as it gave birth to the polities
that would develop into the modern states of France and Germany, while the central state
would become the battlegrounds for future european conflicts. The central part of the Empire, sometimes
called Middle Francia, and the Imperial crown thus passed to Lothair the First: the morphology
of his realm made it difficult to defend, stretched as it was from north to south and
with many different cultures and people in its borders. He spent most of his reign defending it from
Viking raids in the north and Saracen attacks from the south of Italy, who had sacked Saint
Peter’s Cathedral in Rome in the year 846. He gave the task to rule and defend Italy
to his eldest son, Louis the Second, who recaptured Benevento from the Saracens,and for this was
crowned co-emperor and King of Italy. Lothair remained in the old Carolingian hearthlan
around Aachen and ruled there until 855 when he died. In the Treaty of Prüm, his lands were once
again divided up among his three surviving sons: Louis the Second was confirmed King
of Italy and inherited the Imperial crown, Lothair the Second obtained the modern-day
Low Countries, Lorraine and part of Burgundy, while the youngest son Charles of Provance,
still a kid, was given Provence and the southern part of Burgundy. Charles of Provence, who was around ten years
old at the death of his father, came under the regency of local nobles and he had to
fend off the ambitions of Charles the Bald. In 860 a treaty at Coblenz reaffirmed the
arrangement among the brothers but three years later Charles died and his realm was divided
along the Rhone river by his brothers. Lothair the Second, who would give the name
to the region of Lorraine (or Lotharingia in German), is mostly remembered for his struggles
to divorce his wife Teutberga who had not sired him children, so he could marry his
mistress Waldrada who had given him children. Lothair spent most of his resources trying
to garner support from his family members to have the marriage annulled , something
they were not too keen to do hoping to inherit the land of the heirless king. In the year 869, while returning from Rome
where the Pope had given his consent for the annulment, he died of a fever. His lands in Lotharingia were swiftly divided
in the Treaty of Meerssen between his uncles, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, declaring
Lothair’s children illegitimate while his brother Louis the Second did not have the
support from the local nobles to overrule the occupation. Louis the Second ruled the Kingdom of Italy
in some form from 842: he spent much of his reign going to war against the Saracens, who
had occupied Sicily, Bari and Taranto by this time. He hoped to expand outside of Italy, first
by inheriting the crown of King of Provence from his minor brother, but he was unsuccessful
in retaining the legacy of his father in Lotaringia. He thus decided instead to concentrate his
efforts on unifying the rest of italy and in 871 he managed to expel the Arabs from
Bari and tried to establish his rule over the smaller duchies of southern Italy. He fell ill in 875 and died near Brescia without
any male heir; he wanted to leave the Italian kingdom to his cousin Carloman of Bavaria,
but the King of the Western Franks Charles the Bald invaded first and took Italy and
Provance for himself. The youngest of the three sons of Louis the
Pious, Charles, nicknamed the Bald, inherited the Kingdom of the Western Franks, which had
been one of the main reasons of conflicts with Louis the German and Lothair. Charles spent the first years of his reign
campaigning in Aquitaine, where his nephew Pepin the Second had gathered the support
of the local aquitanian nobility and viking raiders, while rebellious Bretons regained
their autonomy defeating Charles . Both the unrest in aquitaine and the viking raids,
who in 845 under the command of a certain Ragnar managed to occupy Paris and forced
the king to pay a ransom for the city, continued to plague his reign up to the eight hundred
sixties. Threats did not only come from external entities,
as he also quarrelled with his other family members, such as his nephew Louis the Young
who invaded to take over Aquitaine. Charles also expanded his dominion: after
attempting to take over Provence twice, he took over half of the Kingdom of Lotharingia
in 869 following the death of Lothair the Second. Charles the Bald’s brother Louis the German
instead inherited the Eastern part of the Kingdom of the Franks. The region had been populated by various germanic
tribes and polities such as the Bavarians, Saxons, Alemanians and Franconians. Louis was an effective ruler and managed to
defend his lands against the neighbouring Danes, Slavs and Hungarians, but he often
quarreled with his youngest brother especially once their realms bordered, and had to quell
the insurrections of his sons: Carloman of Bavaria, Louis the Young and Charles the Fat. When the Emperor Louis the Second died in
875, it began a convoluted time in the Frankish kingdom that would briefly resee it reunited. Charles the Bald was the fastest one to cross
the Alps and take over the Kingdom of Italy with the support of the Pope, but was confronted
by Carloman of Bavaria who had been designated as the heir to the Kingdom and had the support
of the greatest feudal lords of Italy. The ensuring conflict saw Charles victorious,
who was crowned emperor but was attacked and defeated the following year on the Rhine by
the Eastern Franks . The following year, 876, Louis the German
died and his kingdom was divided among his sons as previously stipulated: Carloman received
Bavaria, Louis the Young obtained Saxony, Franconia and Eastern Lotharingia and the
youngest Charles the Fat inherited Swabia, Alemania and Alsace. In October 877, Charles the Bald, the last
son of Louis the Pious, also died leaving his kingdom to his only son Louis the Stammerer. Carloman of Bavaria had already invaded Italy
a few months before and had been crowned Emperor and King of Italy, but he soon fell ill. The year 879 saw new developments: in the
eastern half of the realm the ailing Carloman gave the title of King of Italy and Emperor
to his brother Charles the Fat, while his second brother Louis the Young occupied Bavaria,
ignoring the claims of Carloman’s bastard child Arnulf of Carinthia. In the west, Louis the Stammerer also died,
leaving his kingdom to his two sons Carloman the Second and Louis the Third, the first
becoming king of Neustria and the latter King of Aquitaine, while a third unborn son Charles
the Simple would become king at a later date. In this year we also find the first rebellion
and declaration of independence of a non-carolingian family member, when Bozo of Provence declared
himself King of Provence. In 880 the Treaty of Ribemont, the last among
the Carolingians, was meant to seal the peace among the feuding family branches and to defeat
the Provencal usurper, but it latter didn’t happen. Meanwhile Lotharingia was unified under Louis
the Young but then in 882 Louis the Young and Louis the Third died without male descendants,
with their realms being absorbed by their respective brothers, while in 884 Carloman
the Second also died, which meant that the whole Carolingian realm was now controlled
by Charles the Fat, unified for the first time since 840. Although the records of his failures are exaggerated,
it is true that Charles the Fat still failed to keep the enormous realm together. It was simply too big to govern by himself
and with the constant threat of Norman invasion, such as the Siege of Paris of 886 which was
lifted only after a heavy ransom. The king, sick and unpopular, was deposed
in 887 and died a few weeks later, by a council of nobles at Tribur headed by his nephew Arnulf
of Carinthia. This marked the end of an era, as no longer
would the empire ever again be unified. The reason for the dissolution of the Carolingian
power has been historically attributed to the ineptitude of the numerous kings, and
their infighting, which certainly had its part. The rise of the aristocracy has also been
pointed as a reason, giving a clean and easy explanation on how the power went from the
centralized state to the periphery, though some modern scholar argue that the powerful
nobles who were the intermediary with the lower nobility of a region were crucial for
the emperors to keep their power. However, when Charles the Fat was deposed
only the illegitimate Arnulf and Charles the Simple, still a child, were left as Carolingian
candidates, and as Bozo of Provence had demonstrated, it was possible for a non Caroligian to take
over the Crown themself in the power vacuum, just as they had with the Merovingian dynasty. Also the constant viking raids, although not
a direct reason for the fall of the Carolingians, did weaken and stretch their forces on multiple
fronts. When Arnulf of Carinthia deposed his uncle,
he became king of the Eastern Franks and of Lotharingia, where he would reign until his
death in 899. He focused his efforts on defending against
Norman attacks and campaigning in Italy. Following his death he was succeeded by his
son Louis the Child, who oversaw the beginning of the Magyar raids. When he died after 12 years of reign, the
powerful dukes of the Kingdom decided to elect one of them as king to confront the Hungarian
threat, first Conrad of Franconia and later Henry of Saxony, who began the Ottonian dynasty. In other parts of the Empire, the nobles who
had been the closest collaborators of Charles the Fat and had Fluid network of patronage
and allegiance within the aristocracy took over in their respective regions as reguli,
or petty kings. In Western Frankia Odo of Paris was elected
king and had some success against the Vikings, while in Aquitaine Ranulf took power. The Kingdom was plagued the following half
a decade by a struggle for power among the other great families of the kingdom, the Robertian
and the Bosonid. Charles the Simple inherited the crown after
Odo and retook Lotharingia, but would be deposed in 922. The Caroligians returned to power in 936 and
gave three more kings until 987 when Louis the Fifth died and was finally succeeded by
Hugh Capet, who founded the Capetian dynasty. Lotharingia remained bound to the Eastern
Kingdom of the Franks apart from a short period, while in southeastern France two kingdoms
emerged: the Kingdom of Provence and the kingdom of Burgundy. They would be united in marriage and be remembered
as the Kingdom of Arles, which would be absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire in the eleventh
century. Finally, Italy went through a period known
as the Anarchy where local dukes and foreign rulers fought over the Imperial Crown and
the Kingdom, until 951 when Otto I of Saxony invaded Italy and would later become Holy
Roman Emperor, uniting the fate of Northern Italy to the Empire. We are planning more videos on the history
of Europe, so make sure you are subscribed and have pressed the bell button to see the
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