The Treaty of Verdun, signed in 843 between the surviving sons of Louis the Pious, marked the division of the Carolingian Empire and brought an end to the universality of the imperial title. From this division, several centuries later, the Kingdom of France would be born.
The Treaty of Verdun was signed in 843 between his three surviving sons Louis the PiousSon Charlemagnewho died in 840. put an end to a conflict arising from the inability of the brothers to agree to the registration of the inheritanceCarolingian Empire upon the death of their father.
We have to go back a few years to understand the origins of these succession disputes. Louis le Beau, who succeeded his illustrious father in 814, was crowned emperor at Reims in 816. He had three sons: Lothair, Pepin, and Louis le Germanic. Then the issue of succession arises, a crucial issue in the imperial context.
In 817, Lothair was designated as the chief successor to Louis le Beau by the privilege Ordinatio Empiri. This document is a compromise between the Frankish tradition of equitable division of heirs and the universal concept of the indivisibility of the imperial title. Having been placed under the power of their brother, Pépin regained the duchies of Aquitaine and Louis, the lands of Bavaria.
A brother torn apart by Charlemagne’s empire
However, an event calls into question this distribution. Irmengard, wife of Louis the Pious, died in 818. The following year, Louis the Pious remarried, to Judith of Bavaria. Two children from this union, including Charles, were born in 823. Then the king had to rethink his succession. He does not hesitate to endow his youngest son with wealth, sometimes at the expense of his elders. For example, in 832, Pepin 1 was plunderedVerse of its lands in Aquitaine and granted it to Charles. Luther sees his legacy as fragmented and weak. Then he decided to counterattack: rallying his brothers to his cause and enlisting the support of the pope. Thus he managed to depose his father in 833. Meanwhile, Judith and Charles were locked up in a monastery.
But the story does not end here. By reversing the alliance, Louis and Pepin drew closer to their father and actively participated in his return to the throne in 834. Only then did his wife and youngest son regain their freedom. Tensions calmed down and paved the way for reconciliation in 838. This rapprochement did not last long, however: Pepin IVerse He died in September 838, forcing the aging king to reconsider his succession. After the new partition in 839, the king died the following year.
Upon the death of Charlemagne’s son, these quarrels resume and turn into armed confrontation. Bolstered by his status as eldest, Lothair claims the succession and rallies Pepin II, son of Pepin I, to his cause.Verse. Louis Le Germanic and Charles Le Chauve then unite to confront their brother’s ambitions. Their alliance triumphed: they defeated Lothair and Pepin II during the Battle of Fontenoy en Pusaye in 841. The alliance of circumstance became a formal alliance with the Section of Strasbourg in February 842; The two kings swear unconditional mutual assistance. Then Lothair has no choice but to surrender to the combined armed forces of his students.
Division of the Carolingian Empire
Lothair, Louis the German, and Charles reached an agreement that crystallized with the Treaty of Verdun. This treaty ratifies the division of their grandfather’s empire and thus abolishes the universality of the imperial title.
- Charles inherits western France: the territory extends over the duchies of Aquitaine, Gascony, Septimania, and part of Burgundy, Neustria, and Navarre. This region is the origin of the Kingdom of France.
- Louis the German got eastern France, often referred to as Germania, the embryo of the future Holy Roman Empire.
- Lothaire receives the middle of Francia, which extends from Lotharingia to Provence and Lombardy.
If Lothaire retained the imperial title, the reality was quite different. He only controls a long territory sandwiched between the rich western France of Charles the Bald and the lands east of Louis the Germanic. The territorial unit of Charlemagne’s empire ceased to exist. Respecting the Frankish law regarding the division of land between the sons of the king.
Territory fragmentation continues in the second half of the ninthH century. Upon the death of Lothair’s sons, Louis the Germanic and Charles the Bald divided the lands of Lotharingia, Provence, and the Kingdom of Italy. This tripartite division of the Carolingian Empire demonstrates the territorial influence of what would become France, Italy, and Germany. The imperial title inherited from Charlemagne disappears upon Lothair’s death. Two new powerful entities seem to be asserting themselves: Charles Le Chauve’s West Francia and Louis’s Germania.
