This made it difficult for a single ruler to reassemble Charlemagne's empire. Since Lotharingia combined lengthy and vulnerable land borders with poor internal communications as it was severed by the Alps, it was not a viable entity and soon fragmented. The division reflected an adherence to the old Frankish custom of partible or divisible inheritance amongst a ruler's sons, rather than primogeniture (i.e., inheritance by the eldest son) which would soon be adopted by both Frankish kingdoms. Treaty of Verdun Memorial at Fontenoy-en-Puisaye ( October 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. The remaining territory north of the Alps, which did not previously have a name, was inherited by Lothair's second son, Lothair II, and was then named Lotharingia (present day Lorraine) after him.
Upper Burgundy and Lower Burgundy ( Arles and Provence) passed to Lothair's third son, Charles of Provence. It eventually became the Kingdom of France.Īfter Lothair's death in 855, his eldest son, Louis II, inherited Italy and his father's claim to the Imperial throne. Charles received all lands west of the Rhône, called West Francia. Pepin II was granted the Kingdom of Aquitaine, but only under the authority of Charles.
After a bloody civil war, they defeated Lothair at the Battle of Fontenoy in 841 and sealed their alliance in 842 with the Oaths of Strasbourg which declared Lothair unfit for the imperial throne, after which he became willing to negotiate a settlement. Lothair's brother, Louis II, and his half-brother Charles II refused to acknowledge Lothair's suzerainty and declared war against him. He also supported his nephew, Pepin II's claim to Aquitaine, a large province in the west of the Frankish realm. When Louis died in 840, his eldest son, Lothair I, claimed overlordship over the entirety of his father's kingdom in an attempt to reclaim the power he had at the beginning of his reign as emperor. Lothair I was given the title of emperor but because of several re-divisions by his father and the resulting revolts, he became much less powerful. During his reign, he divided the empire so that each of his sons could rule over their own kingdom under the greater rule of their father. The treaty was the first of the four partition treaties of the Carolingian Empire, followed by the Treaties of Prüm (855), Meerssen (870), and Ribemont (880).įollowing Charlemagne's death, Louis was made ruler of the Frankish Empire.
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It was the first in a series of partitions contributing to the dissolution of the empire created by Charlemagne and has been seen as foreshadowing the formation of many of the modern countries of western Europe. The treaty was concluded following almost three years of civil war and was the culmination of negotiations lasting more than a year. The Treaty of Verdun ( French: Traité de Verdun), agreed in August 843, divided the Frankish Empire into three kingdoms among the surviving sons of the emperor Louis I, the son and successor of Charlemagne. Emperor Louis I (right) blessing the division of the Frankish Empire in 843 into West Francia, Middle Francia, and East Francia from the Grandes Chroniques de France, 15th century
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