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44-576: Lotharingia resulted from the tripartite division in 855 of the kingdom of Middle Francia, which itself was formed after the threefold division of the Carolingian Empire by the Treaty of Verdun of 843. Conflict between East and West Francia over Lotharingia was based on the fact that these were the old Frankish homelands of Austrasia , so possession of them was a matter of great prestige as true claimant of Frankish imperial legacy. Lotharingia

88-649: A council of East Frankish nobility to depose emperor Charles the Fat , who by 884 had succeeded to the thrones of all the kingdoms of the Empire. The Lotharingian aristocracy, in an attempt to assert its right to elect a sovereign, joined the other East Frankish nobles in deposing Charles the Fat in 887 and elected Arnulf as their king. The rule of Arnulf in East Francia was initially opposed by Guy III of Spoleto , who became king of Italy, and by Rudolph I of Burgundy , who

132-571: A mere 16 years of age, was widely celebrated by the people of both Frankish kingdoms. In East Francia, the Old High German poem Ludwigslied celebrated Louis' heroism, piety and poise in the battle, while in West Francia, a chanson de geste titled Gormond et Isembart was inspired by the battle and written a few hundred years later. Louis III died suddenly on 5 August 882, aged around 17, at Saint-Denis . According to legend, he

176-487: A minor, went Provence . To the middle son, Lothair II , went the remaining territories to the north of Provence, a kingdom which lacked ethnic or linguistic unity. Lothair II ruled from Aachen and did not venture outside his kingdom. When he died in 869, Lothair II left no legitimate children, but one illegitimate son - Hugh, Duke of Alsace . His uncles, king of East Francia Louis the German and West Francia Charles

220-598: A result of this split, Boso , one of Charles the Bald's most trusted lieutenants and the Count of Vienne, renounced his allegiance to both brothers and appropriated the title of King of Provence . Invasions began nearly as soon as Louis III was crowned in 879, with dissident nobles and magnates from West Francia led by Louis the Younger , King of East Francia, continuing a campaign that had raged since 877. Louis and Carloman made

264-456: A ruler's sons, rather than primogeniture (i.e., inheritance by the eldest son) which would soon be adopted by both Frankish kingdoms. 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. This made it difficult for a single ruler to reassemble Charlemagne's empire. Only Charles

308-586: A separate part of the kingdom. In September 879, Louis was crowned at Ferrières Abbey . When Louis III was crowned King of West Francia in September 879, approval was split between allowing Louis to rule alone or have the Kingdom be split. Ultimately, Carloman II and Louis made an agreement in March 880 at Amiens , dividing their father's kingdom, with Louis receiving Neustria and Carloman receiving Aquitania. As

352-471: A treaty at Ribemont in 880, giving East Francia the western part of Lotharingia and placating the parties. In the summer of 880, Louis and Carloman went to war against Boso. The campaign started well at first, as the brothers captured Mâcon and the northern part of Provence within the first few months of the war. They proceeded to unite their forces with those of their cousin, Charles the Fat , who brought armies from Italy, East Francia, and Alemannia into

396-791: The Franco-Prussian War , the northern portions of Lorraine were merged with Alsace to become the province of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Empire , which became French territory again after World War I . Today the greater part of the French side of the Franco-German border belongs to the Grand Est region of France . Treaty of Verdun The Treaty of Verdun ( French : Traité de Verdun , German : Vertrag von Verdun ), agreed in 10 August 843, divided

440-520: The Frankish Empire into three kingdoms between Lothair I , Louis II and Charles II , the surviving sons of the emperor Louis I , the son and successor of Charlemagne . The treaty was concluded following almost three years of civil war and was the culmination of negotiations lasting more than a year. 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

484-629: The Oaths of Strasbourg which declared Lothair unfit for the imperial throne, after which he became willing to negotiate a settlement. The meeting happened shortly before August 10, as confirmed by a contemporary letter. Each of the three brothers was already established in one kingdom: Lothair in the Kingdom of Italy ; Louis the German in the Kingdom of Bavaria ; and Charles II in the Kingdom of Aquitaine . After Lothair's death in 855, his eldest son, Louis II , inherited Italy and his father's claim to

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528-512: The church . During his reign, Louis the Pious divided the empire so that each of his sons could rule over their own kingdom under the greater rule of their father. Louis’ eldest son, 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. When Louis died in 840, Lothair I claimed overlordship over the entirety of his father's kingdom in an attempt to reclaim

572-521: The southern third of Lotharingia , Alsace-Lorraine , was traded back and forth between France and Germany from the 18th to the 20th century. In 1766, it passed to France after the death of Stanisław Leszczyński , who had acquired the region from the German Habsburgs by the Treaty of Vienna (1738) ending the War of Polish Succession (1733–1738). In 1871, Alsace-Lorraine became German, after

616-547: The "true" King of West Francia, and upon the death of his grandfather and father in 877 and 879 respectively, ascended to the monarchy and ruled alongside his brother, Carloman II , following a deal in 880 at Amiens to split the throne between Neustria and Aquitania. During his brief tenure as King, he was challenged by Duke Boso, who had ascended to King of Provence. After his victories in Mâcon and northern Provence, he unsuccessfully besieged Vienne alongside his cousin, Charles

660-422: The Bald (who wanted to rule the whole of Lotharingia) agreed to divide Lotharingia between them with the 870 Treaty of Meerssen - the western half went to West Francia and the eastern half to East Francia. Thus, Lotharingia, as a united kingdom, ceased to exist for some years. In 876, Charles the Bald invaded eastern Lotharingia with the intent to capture it, but was defeated near Andernach by Louis's son, Louis

704-420: The Bald , was born to Louis's second wife Judith of Bavaria in 823. When Louis tried in 833 to re-divide the empire for the benefit of Charles, he met with opposition from his adult sons, Lothair , Pepin , and Louis . A decade of civil war and fluctuating alliances followed, punctuated by brief periods of peace. Pepin died in 838, and Louis the Pious in 840. The remaining three brothers made peace and divided

748-603: The Empire with the 843 Treaty of Verdun . Lothair, as the eldest, kept the imperial title and received a long strip of territories stretching from the North Sea to southern Italy. The logic of the division was that Lothair had the crown of the Kingdom of Italy , which had been his subkingdom under Louis the Pious , and that as emperor he should rule in Aachen , the capital of the first Carolingian emperor, Charlemagne , and in Rome ,

792-442: The Fat achieved this briefly. In 855, the northern section became fragile Lotharingia, which became disputed by the more powerful states that evolved out of Francia Occidentalis (present day France ) and Francia Orientalis (present day Germany ). Generations of kings of France and Germany were unable to establish a firm rule over Lothair's kingdom. While the north of Lotharingia was then composed of independent countries ,

836-527: The Fat . Invasions from West Frankish and Louis the Younger were peacefully decided after the cession of Western Lotharingia in 880. Louis' most important victory was the Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu in August 881. Viking raiders came into Saucourt following defeats in East Francia and the sacking of several cities in West Francia, Louis and his brother were able to repel the offensive and killed roughly 9,000 of

880-474: The Great and Herbert II, Count of Vermandois at Attigny in 942. The weak Louis IV had no choice but to agree to Otto's continued suzerainty over Lotharingia. In 944, West Francia invaded Lotharingia, but retreated after Otto I responded with mobilization of a large army under Herman I, Duke of Swabia . In 953, Duke Conrad rebelled against Otto I, and was removed from power and replaced by Otto's brother Bruno

924-409: The Great , who finally pacified Lotharingia in 959 by dividing it into Lotharingia superior (Upper Lorraine or Southern Lorraine) under Frederick I , and Lotharingia inferior (Lower Lotharingia, Lower Lorraine or Northern Lotharingia) under Godfrey I . In 978, king Lothair of West Francia invaded the region and captured Aachen , but Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor , counterattacked and reached

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968-512: The Imperial throne. Upper Burgundy and Lower Burgundy ( Arles and Provence ) passed to Lothair's third son, Charles of Provence . 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. The division reflected an adherence to the old Frankish custom of partible or divisible inheritance amongst

1012-526: The Latin term Lotharingia (from the Latin suffix -ia , indicating a country) in the 10th century. Later French terms such as "Lorraine" and "Lothier" are derived from the Latin term. In 817, Emperor Louis the Pious made plans for division of the Carolingian Empire among his three sons after his death. Unforeseen in 817 was a further heir besides Louis's three grown sons. A fourth son, Charles

1056-545: The West Franks, since their king Rudolph was weak and would interfere less in local affairs. In 939, Henry's son and successor, Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor , invaded Lotharingia, and at the Battle of Andernach defeated Gilbert who drowned trying to flee across the Rhine. The dukes of Lotharingia were thereafter royal appointees. Henry I, Duke of Bavaria was duke for two years, followed in 941 by duke Otto , who, in 944,

1100-578: The Younger . In 879, Louis the Younger was invited by a faction of the West Frankish nobility to succeed king Louis the Stammerer , Charles's son, on the throne of West Francia. After a brief war, Louis the Stammerer's young sons, Carloman II and Louis III , ceded western Lotharingia to Louis. The border between the two kingdoms was established at Saint-Quentin in 880 by the Treaty of Ribemont . In November 887, Arnulf of Carinthia called

1144-532: The ancient capital of emperors. Middle Francia (Latin Francia media ) thus included all the land between Aachen and Rome, and it has sometimes been called by historians the "Lotharingian axis". In 855, when Lothair I was dying in Prüm Abbey , he divided his kingdom among his three sons with the Treaty of Prüm . To the eldest son, Louis II , went Italy, with the imperial title. To the youngest, Charles , still

1188-401: The fact that his parents had married secretly and Ansgarde was later repudiated at Charles' insistence, Louis' legitimacy was largely questioned during his early life. When Charles the Bald died in 877, followed by Louis the Stammerer on 10 April 879, Louis became King of West Francia. Some Frankish nobles advocated keeping Louis as the sole king, but another party favoured each brother ruling

1232-536: The formation of many of the modern countries of western Europe . 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). Following Charlemagne's death, Louis was made ruler of the Frankish Empire. Agobard , archbishop of Lyon, opposed the division of the empire, as he claimed that it would divide

1276-434: The invaders. However, the victory proved inconsequential, as Louis died nearly a year later in an accident and was succeeded by his brother. Contemporaries state that Louis was a popular King during his short reign, and describe him as "able and energetic". Louis was born in either 863 or 865 at St Denis and was the eldest son of Louis the Stammerer , King of Aquitaine , and his first wife, Ansgarde of Burgundy . Due to

1320-483: The monarchy, Louis would prove to be an effective leader during his reign, notable for the defeat of Viking invaders at the Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu in August 881 that would later be immortalized in the poem Ludwigslied . He also led a less successful military campaign against Boso of Provence with help from Charles the Fat . The eldest son of Louis the Stammerer and Ansgarde of Burgundy , Louis endured questions of his legitimacy and refused to recognize him as

1364-545: The power he had at the beginning of his reign as emperor . He also supported his nephew Pepin II's claim to Aquitaine , a large province in the west of the Frankish realm . Lothair's brother, Louis II , and his half-brother Charles II refused to acknowledge Lothair's suzerainty and declared war against him. After a bloody civil war, they defeated Lothair at the Battle of Fontenoy in 841 and sealed their alliance in 842 with

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1408-583: The title Duke of Lothier (derived from "Lotharingia"). With the disappearance of a "lower" Lorraine, the duchy of Upper Lorraine became the primary referent for "Lorraine" within the Holy Roman Empire . After centuries of French invasions and occupations, Lorraine was finally ceded to France at the close of the War of the Polish Succession (1737). In 1766, the duchy was inherited by the French crown and became Lorraine . In 1871, after

1452-514: The victory of Prussia and its German allies over the French in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). In 1919, it became French again by the Treaty of Versailles (1919), following the French victory over the Germans in World War I (1914–1918). In 1940, Germany reannexed Alsace-Lorraine following Germany's conquest of France . Finally, in 1945, after World War II (1939–1945), Alsace-Lorraine

1496-542: The walls of Paris. In 980, Lothair renounced his rights to Lotharingia. Except for one brief period (1033–44, under Gothelo I ), the division was never reversed and the margraves soon raised their separate fiefs into duchies. In the twelfth century the ducal authority in Lower Lotharingia (or Lower Lorraine) fragmented, causing the formation of the Duchy of Limburg and the Duchy of Brabant , whose rulers retained

1540-570: The war. Despite the added manpower, The siege of Vienne from August to November 880 proved unsuccessful and resulted in too many casualties for the war to continue, and the war ended in Louis' defeat. The Viking raids against the Frankish kingdoms increased sharply around the middle of 880 and quickly turned into a large challenge. After the Viking defeat at Thimeon in the east, the raiders turned to

1584-527: The west and took Kortrijk, Arras, Cambrai, Amiens and Corbie between November 880 and July 881. Louis and his brother intercepted the Vikings at Saucourt-en-Vimeu on 3 August 881, catching them by surprise. In an extremely violent and bloody attack, according to the Annales Fuldenses , the West Frankish forces slaughtered as many as 9,000 raiders and won an important, decisive victory. Louis, at

1628-541: Was captured and imprisoned by Heribert II of Vermandois until his death in 929. In 923, king Henry the Fowler of East Francia used this opportunity and invaded Lotharingia (including Alsace ). In 925, Lotharingians under Gilbert elected Henry the Fowler to be their king. In 930, Gilbert's loyalty was rewarded and he received the prestigious hand of Henry's daughter Gerberga in marriage. On Henry's death in 936, Gilbert rebelled and tried to swap Lotharingian allegiance to

1672-483: Was chasing after a girl who was retreating to her father's house on horseback and hit his head on the lintel of a low door, taking a bad fall and breaking his skull. Because Louis III had no children, his brother Carloman II became the sole king of West Francia , and the young king was buried in the royal mausoleum of the Basilica of Saint-Denis . Louis' death was incredibly damaging to the West Frankish war against

1716-420: Was elected king in the southern half of former Middle Francia - Upper Burgundy . Rudolph had intended to make himself king over the whole of Lothair II's former kingdom, but had to be content with Burgundia. Arnulf defeated the Vikings in 891 and dislodged them from their settlements at Louvain. In 895, he appointed his illegitimate son Zwentibold as the king of Lotharingia who ruled semi-independently until he

1760-677: Was elected king of East Francia in 911, Lotharingian nobles under the new duke Reginar voted to attach their duchy to West Francia, still ruled by the Carolingian dynasty. In 915, Charles the Simple rewarded him by granting him the title of margrave . Reginar was succeeded by his son Gilbert who used the title dux Lotharingiae : "duke of Lotharingia". When the West Franks deposed Charles in 922, he remained king in Lotharingia, from where he attempted to reconquer his kingdom in 923. He

1804-420: Was followed by Conrad . Lotharingia was turned into a junior stem duchy whose dukes had a vote in royal elections. While the other stem duchies had tribal or historic identities, Lotharingia's identity was solely political. King Louis IV of West Francia tried to maintain a claim to Lotharingia by marrying Gilbert's widow and Otto's sister Gerberga. In his turn, Otto I accepted homage from West Francia's Hugh

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1848-506: Was known as regnum quondam Lotharii or regnum Lotharii ("kingdom [once] Lothair's") and its inhabitants Lotharii (from Lotharius ), Lotharienses (from Lothariensis ), or Lotharingi (which gives the modern Dutch, German, and Luxembourgish names for the province Lotharingen, Lothringen, and Lothringen respectively). The latter term, formed with the Germanic suffix -ing , indicating ancestral or familial relationships, gave rise to

1892-504: Was overthrown and killed by Reginar on August 13, 900. The kingdom then ceased to exist and became a duchy. The young king of East Francia Louis the Child appointed Gebhard to be the duke of Lotharingia in 903. His title was recorded in contemporary Latin as dux regni quod a multis Hlotharii dicitur : "duke of the kingdom that many call Lothair's". He died in 910 fighting Hungarian invaders . When non-Carolingian Conrad I of Germany

1936-663: Was solidified as French territory, which it remains to this day, more than a thousand years after the Treaty of Verdun. The collapse of the Middle Frankish Kingdom also compounded the disunity of the Italian Peninsula, which persisted into the 19th century. Louis III of France Louis III (863/65 – 5 August 882) was King of West Francia from 879 until his death in 882. Despite questions of his legitimacy and challenges against his ascendance to

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