The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a Frankish-dominated empire in Western and Central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned King Charles the Great (better known as Charlemagne) as the Roman emperor in return for political protection, disregarding the universalist claims of the weakened Byzantine Empire. The Carolingian Empire is sometimes considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire.
After a civil war from 840 to 843 following the death of Emperor Louis the Pious, the empire was divided into autonomous kingdoms, with one king still recognised as emperor but with little authority outside his own kingdom. The unity of the empire and the hereditary right of the Carolingians continued to be acknowledged. In 884 Charles the Fat reunited all the Carolingian kingdoms for the last time, but he was deposed by the Frankish nobility in 887 and died in 888, and the empire immediately dissolved. With the only remaining legitimate male of the dynasty a child, the nobility elected regional kings from outside the dynasty or, in the case of the eastern kingdom, an illegitimate Carolingian. The illegitimate line continued to rule in the east until 911, while in the western kingdom the legitimate Carolingian dynasty was restored in 898 and ruled until 987 with an interruption from 922 to 936.
The population of the empire was roughly between 10 and 20 million people. Its heartland was Francia, the land between the Loire and the Rhine, where Aachen, which Charlemagne chose as his primary residence, was located. In the south it crossed the Pyrenees and bordered the Emirate of Córdoba and (after 824) the Kingdom of Pamplona; to the north it bordered the kingdom of the Danes; to the west it had a short land border with Brittany, which was later reduced to a tributary; and to the east it had a long border with the Slavs and the Avars, who were eventually defeated and their land incorporated into the empire. In southern Italy, the Carolingians' claims to authority were disputed by the Byzantines and the vestiges of the Lombard kingdom in the Principality of Benevento. In its day, it was known by various Latin names; the term "Carolingian Empire" arose later.
Nomenclature
The term "Carolingian Empire" is a modern convention and was not used by its contemporaries. The language of official acts in the empire was Latin. During its existence, the empire was referred to by several names. The term universum regnum was used to refer to 'the whole kingdom', distinguishing it from the regional kingdoms. Romanum imperium 'Roman empire' was commonly used to refer to the Roman traditions of imperial statehood in general, while the more complex Romanorum sive Francorum imperium 'empire of the Romans or Franks'—sometimes with Romanum 'Roman' replacing Romanorum 'of the Romans' and atque 'and' replacing sive 'or'—provided the basis for modern historiographical terms, like Franko-Roman Empire or Frankish-Roman Empire. Imperium Christianum 'Christian empire' was also used.
History
Rise of the Carolingians (732–768)
Though Charles Martel chose not to take the title of king (as his son Pepin III would) or emperor (as his grandson Charlemagne), he was the absolute ruler of virtually all of today's continental Western Europe north of the Pyrenees. Only the remaining Saxon realms (which he partly conquered), Lombardy, and the Spanish March were significant additions to the Frankish realms after his death.
Martel cemented his place in history with his defense of Christian Europe against a Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732. The Iberian Saracens had incorporated Berber light horse cavalry with the heavy Arab cavalry to create a formidable army that had almost never been defeated. Christian European forces, meanwhile, lacked the powerful tool of the stirrup. In this victory, Charles earned the surname Martel ("the Hammer"). Historian Edward Gibbon calls Martel "the paramount prince of his age".
Pepin III accepted the nomination as king by Pope Zachary in about 741. Charlemagne's rule began in 768 at Pepin's death. He proceeded to take control of the kingdom following his brother Carloman I's death, as the two brothers co-inherited their father's kingdom.
Reign of Charlemagne (768–814)
The Carolingian Empire during the reign of Charlemagne covered most of Western Europe, as the Roman Empire once had. Unlike the Romans, whose imperial ventures between the Rhine and the Elbe lasted fewer than 20 years before being cut short by the disaster at Teutoburg Forest (9 AD), Charlemagne defeated the Germanic resistance and extended his realm to the Elbe more lastingly, influencing events almost to the Eurasian Steppes. Charlemagne was crowned Roman Emperor in 800.
Charlemagne's reign was one of near-constant warfare, participating in annual campaigns, many led personally. He defeated the Lombard Kingdom in 774 and annexed it into his own domain by declaring himself 'King of the Lombards'. He later led a failed campaign into Spain in 778, ending with the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, which is considered Charlemagne's greatest defeat. He then extended his domain into Bavaria after forcing Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria, to renounce any claim to his title in 794. His son Pepin was ordered to campaign against the Avars in 795 since Charlemagne was occupied with Saxon revolts. Eventually, the Avar confederation ended in 803 after Charlemagne sent a Bavarian army into Pannonia. He also conquered Saxon territories in wars and rebellions fought from 772 to 804, with such events as the Massacre of Verden in 782 and the codification of the Lex Saxonum in 802.
Prior to the death of Charlemagne, the empire was divided among various members of the Carolingian dynasty. These included King Charles the Younger who received Neustria; King Louis the Pious who received Aquitaine; and King Pepin who received Italy. Pepin died with an illegitimate son, Bernard, in 810, and Charles died without heirs in 811. Although Bernard succeeded Pepin as king of Italy, Louis was made co-emperor in 813, and the empire passed to him with Charlemagne's death in the winter of 814.
Reign of Louis the Pious and Civil War (814–843)
Louis the Pious' reign as emperor was unexpected; as the third son of Charlemagne, he was originally crowned King of Aquitaine at three years old. With the deaths of his older siblings, he went from "a boy who became a king to a man who would be emperor." Although his reign was mostly overshadowed by the dynastic struggle and resultant civil war, as his epithet states, he was highly interested in matters of religion. One of the first things he did was "ruling the people by law and with the wealth of his piety," namely by restoring churches. "The Astronomer" states that during his kingship of Aquitaine he "built up the study of reading and singing, and also the understanding of divine and worldly letters, more quickly than one would believe." He also made significant effort to restore many monasteries that had disappeared prior to his reign, as well as sponsoring new ones.
Louis the Pious' reign lacked security; he often had to struggle to maintain control of the empire. As soon as he heard of the death of Charlemagne, he hurried to Aachen, where he exiled many of Charlemagne's trusted advisors, such as Wala. Wala and his siblings were children of the youngest son of Charles Martel and so were a threat as a potential alternative ruling family. Monastic exile was a tactic Louis used heavily in his early reign to strengthen his position and remove potential rivals. In 817 his nephew King Bernard of Italy rebelled against him because he was discontent with being the vassal of Lothar, Louis' eldest son. The rebellion was quickly put down by Louis, and by 818 Bernard was captured and punished—the punishment of death was commuted to blinding. However, the trauma of the procedure ended up killing him two days later. Italy was brought back into imperial control. In 822, Louis' show of penance for Bernard's death greatly reduced his prestige as emperor to the nobility; some suggest it opened him up to clerical domination.
In 817 Louis had established three Carolingian kingships for his sons from his first marriage: Lothar was made king of Italy and co-emperor, Pepin was made king of Aquitaine, and Louis the German was made king of Bavaria. His attempts in 823 to bring his fourth son (from his second marriage) Charles the Bald into the will was marked by the resistance of his eldest sons. Whilst this was part of the reason for strife amongst Louis' sons, some suggest that it was the appointment of Bernard of Septimania as chamberlain which caused discontent with Lothar, as he was stripped of his co-emperorship in 829 and was banished to Italy (although it is not known why; The Astronomer simply states Louis "dismissed his son Lothar to go back to Italy") and Bernard assumed his place as second in command to the emperor. With Bernard's influence over the emperor and empress, further discord was sowed amongst prominent nobility. Pepin was disgruntled; he had been implicated in a failed military campaign in 827, and he was tired of his father's overbearing involvement in the ruling of Aquitaine. As such, the angry nobility supported Pepin, civil war broke out during Lent in 830, and the last years of Louis' reign were plagued by civil war.
Shortly after Easter, his sons attacked Louis' empire and dethroned him in favour of Lothar. The Astronomer states that Louis spent the summer in the custody of his son, as an emperor in name only. In 831 Louis attacked his sons' kingdoms by drafting new plans for succession. Louis gave Neustria to Pepin, stripped Lothar of his imperial title and granted the Kingdom of Italy to Charles. Another partition in 832 completely excluded Pepin and Louis the German, making Lothar and Charles the sole benefactors of the kingdom, which precipitated a revolt by Pepin and Louis the German in 832, followed by a revolt by Lothar in 833, and together they imprisoned Louis the Pious and Charles. Lothar brought Pope Gregory IV from Rome under the guise of mediation, but his true role was to legitimise Lothar and his brothers' rule by deposing and excommunicating Louis.
By 835, peace was made within the family, and Louis was restored to the imperial throne at the church of St. Stephen in Metz. When Pepin died in 838, Louis crowned Charles king of Aquitaine, whilst the nobility elected Pepin's son Pepin II, a conflict which was not resolved until 860 with Pepin's death. When Louis the Pious died in 840, Lothar claimed the entire empire irrespective of the partitions. As a result, Charles and Louis the German went to war against Lothar. After losing the Battle of Fontenay in 841, Lothar fled to his capital at Aachen and raised a new army, which was inferior to that of the younger brothers. In the Oaths of Strasbourg in 842, Charles and Louis agreed to declare Lothar unfit for the imperial throne. This marked the east–west division of the empire between Louis and Charles. Considered a milestone in European history, the Oaths of Strasbourg symbolize the birth of both France and Germany.
After the Treaty of Verdun (843–877)
The partition of Carolingian Empire was finally settled in 843 by and between Louis the Pious' three sons in the Treaty of Verdun. Lothar received the imperial title, the kingship of Italy, and the territory between the Rhine and Rhone Rivers, collectively called the Central Frankish Realm. Louis was guaranteed the kingship of all lands to the east of the Rhine and to the north and east of Italy, which was called the Eastern Frankish Realm, which was the precursor to modern Germany. Charles received all lands west of the Rhone, which was called the Western Frankish Realm.
Lothar retired Italy to his eldest son Louis II in 844, making him co-emperor in 850. By the Treaty of Prüm (855), Lothar divided his kingdom into three parts: the Italian territory already held by Louis remained his, the territory of the former Kingdom of Burgundy was granted to his third son Charles of Burgundy, and the remaining territory for which there was no traditional name was granted to his second son Lothar II, whose realm was named Lotharingia.
Louis II, dissatisfied with having received no additional territory upon his father's death, allied with his uncle Louis the German against his brother Lothar and his uncle Charles the Bald in 858. Lothar reconciled with his brother and uncle shortly after. Charles was so unpopular that he could not raise an army to fight the invasion and instead fled to Burgundy. He was only saved when the bishops refused to crown Louis the German king. In 860, Charles the Bald invaded Charles of Burgundy's kingdom but was repulsed. Lothar II ceded lands to Louis II in 862 for support of a divorce from his wife, Teutberga, which caused repeated conflicts with his uncles and the pope. Charles of Burgundy died in 863, and his kingdom was inherited by Louis II.
Lothar II died in 869 with no legitimate heirs, due to the pope's refusal to allow the divorce, and his kingdom was divided between Charles the Bald and Louis the German in 870 by the Treaty of Meerssen. Meanwhile, Louis the German was involved in disputes with his three sons. Louis II died in 875, and named Carloman, the eldest son of Louis the German, his heir. Charles the Bald, supported by the pope, was crowned both king of Italy and emperor. The following year, Louis the German died. Charles tried to annex his realm too, but was defeated decisively at Andernach, and East Francia was divided between Louis the Younger, Carloman of Bavaria and Charles the Fat.