September 2, 2025 • 19 mins
In 395 A.D., the last emperor of the undivided Roman Empire, Theodosius, passed away, leaving his inept son, Honorius, to govern the western half. Honorius relied heavily on the formidable general Stilicho to fend off the Visigoths led by the relentless Alaric. However, when palace intrigues led to Stilichos execution, Alaric seized the moment, culminating in the sack of Rome in 410 A.D. This marked the dawn of an era characterized by chaotic leadership, social upheaval, and barbarian invasions that once bore the ominous label of the Dark Ages. Amidst this turmoil, the Franks rose to prominence, laying the groundwork for the Papacys temporal power. Charlemagne later unified a vast empire and sparked a revival of learning, but his reigns final years were marred by the terrifying incursions of the Vikings, who navigated their shallow-draft vessels through France‚s rivers and established a foothold across England. - Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section seventeen of the Beginning of the Middle Ages by
Richard William Church. This LibriVox recording is in the public
domain recording by Pamel and Agami, Chapter eight The Carolingians
Successors of Charles, Part one one Louis the Pious and
his sons, two the Northmen three Fall of the Carolingian lines.
(00:27):
It seemed as if under Charles, the Francs were to
be to the new world of Christendom what the Romans
had been to the old world of Heathendom. It seemed so,
But before Charles died he showed that he felt it
was hardly to be, and that his image of the
empire had been but his own personal achievement, and was
(00:47):
linked to his own character in life. Two forces opposed
the continuation of his empire, and he recognized them both
the permanent conditions of nationality and the actor accidents of
his own family. He saw that his dominion was made
up of discordant elements, the German, the Gaul and the Italian,
(01:09):
the true German Frank of the East, the Frank of
the Mine and the Rhine, the Moselle and the Mouse,
and the Romanizing Frank of the West. The franc of
Paris and rule of urleon An Tours with the Romanized
celt of the south of Bordeaux, Toulouse and Leon. Three sons,
(01:29):
the sons of one of the earliest of his wives, Hildegarde,
had grown up in the companionship of his wars, and
had shared with him and his enterprises of conquest and rule.
The eldest should succeed to his position by right of
birth or by national choice, was not the assumption of
those days. Among the Franks. The ideas and precedents of
(01:51):
the kingdom prescribed a division of the inheritance, and Charles
accepted as of course the parting of his empire. His
one care was that it should be a peaceable one,
but he never seems to have thought of keeping it
together as he had held it in one hand. Eight
years before his death, in order to avert discord and
(02:13):
quarrel between his sons, he made a solemn act of
partition in Atos six. Charles the eldest was to rule
in the north over the old Kingdom of the Franks,
from the Elbe to the Loire, Neustria and Australia, and
the German lands beyond the Rhine, with north Burgundy, the
valley of the Rhone and Austa, one of the southern
(02:36):
keys of the Alps. Pippin, the second had the east
and southeast Bavaria and Italy, which is also Lombardy with
the southern banks of the Danube and up to the
sources of the Rhine. Louis had the south Aquitaine and Gascony,
the Spanish March, Provence and southern Burgundy, and the valleys
(02:57):
of the western Alps Savoy, Urienne and Tarnes, two each
that each, it was said, might aid the other, really
that each might have his own access to Italy and
Rome was assigned his own pass over the Alps to
Charles by the Saint Bernard, to Pippin by Cua, and
the Septimer to Louis by the Mounsinni and Suza. The
(03:22):
contingency of the death of any of them was provided for,
and rules were carefully laid down for the questions, which,
in the existing state of society were the most usual
causes or pretexts of quarrels. In making this arrangement, Charles
must have acknowledged to himself that the great achievement of
his own life was not likely, except from unforeseen chances,
(03:45):
to be repeated, and that he was in truth founding
three great and separate kingdoms, for which all that he
could do was to try and keep the allied and
at peace. Yet he might have thought that the Germans,
in the great Race of Franks, were henceforth to lead
the world. But none of these things were to be,
not even peace in his family. In the few years
(04:09):
between the Act of Partition and his death, two of
the three sons among whom he had so carefully divided
his realms had died and left their claims to be
a source of endless strife, feud and war to a
younger generation. And that leadership of the Germans during the
last three centuries, which seemed secured to them by the
(04:30):
revived Empire, was, by the results of the policy of
the greatest of German leaders, finally checked and abolished by
the destruction of the Lombard, which meant a Teutonic ascendancy
in Italy, by the decisive separation of the Western frank
Kingdom from the Eastern Francs, and by the creation of
(04:52):
a great Italian power in the reconstructed papacy. The independence
and then the preponderance and triumph of Latin influences in
southern Europe was made sure. Charles aspired to put his
Germans at the head of the rising civilization of the West,
but they were still too rude for the task. And
(05:13):
exactly as his own efforts to awaken a desire for
order and cultivation were successful, it was felt that not force,
but trained and experienced reason, not the gifts which had
made the Germans irresistible, but those which were the inheritance
of the weaker Latins were the foundations of power and
the guardians of peace, law and hope in society. The
(05:37):
wild world which Charles the Great had tried to tame
broke out again into disorder under his son Lewis, named
Pious Der froma le de Bonnaire, the kindly and religious,
as we should perhaps name him the Good. Charles's aim
had been to create a strong central power, which, leaving
(05:58):
each land with its own instant institutions and laws, should
everywhere moderate and control, should enforce justice, should support religion
and civilization, and should encourage learning. And he thought that
he had done so by reviving the Roman Empire in
the West and placing it among the Franks. Still holding
(06:19):
the authority of Emperor Charles, as has been already said,
toward the end of his reign in eight o six,
following both Imperial and Merovingian precedents, appointed three of his sons, Charles, Pippin,
and Louis, to be kings under him, laying down provisions
for maintaining the peace and unity of the one Frank Empire.
(06:42):
But his foresight was of no avail. Pippin in eight
ten and Charles in eight eleven both died before him.
Then he devolved his imperial dignity by his own authority
in eight thirteen, a year before his death, on Louis
of Aquitaine the service of his three kingly sons. Thus,
(07:03):
at charles death in eight fourteen, Louis came at once
into his father's place as emperor, and was welcomed in
it by the unanimous consent of the Franks. Two years
after he was crowned at Reims by the Pope Stephen
the Fifth in eight sixteen. Louis followed his father's example
by associating his eldest son Lothar as emperor with himself,
(07:27):
and by appointing his two other sons, Pippin and Louis
and his nephew Bernard over the outlying portions of the Empire, Aquitaine, Bavaria,
and Italy, or as it was sometimes called, Lombardy. For
sixteen years. All went on as in Charles's times. Louis
popular with his subjects, gentle minded for the most part,
(07:51):
a lover of mercy and justice, but also active and brave.
Sedulously followed in his father's footsteps and legislation and government.
He was busy with reforms both in church and state.
His ordinances swelled the capitularies from all quarters. Ambassadors came
to him with presents, proposals for peace, demands for assistance
(08:13):
from the Greeks, the Saracens, the Bulgarians, the Danes, the
Eastern Slavs, the Popes. The old success attended for the
most part the military expeditions of the Franks. An attempt
to make Italy independent under young Bernard, his nephew was
at once and pitilessly suppressed. In age seventeen, Bernard's eyes
(08:35):
were put out, and he died soon afterwards. In eight eighteen.
More formidable revolts in the border lands beyond the Elbe,
in the slav countries beyond the Inn on the Drava
and the Sava in Brittany in Gascony were vigorously met
and put down. And yet in the midst of his
power and glory, Lewis was mindful of the frailty of
(08:58):
human greatness and the perfection of human action. More than
once his conscience smote him. At a great meeting at
ati yin Ni Lawell in eight twenty two, like the
Emperor Theodosius, he voluntarily humbled himself before his assembled chiefs
and bishops, publicly confessing his offenses against those whom, like
(09:21):
his nephew Bernard, he had treated unjustly and cruelly. Thus,
with a milder and purer character, Louis seemed to keep
up the vigor of his father's rule and to have
inherited his father's power and fortune. Never had the boundaries
of the empire been so extended or its authority appeared
so commanding. Without his father's faults, he had reached to
(09:46):
more than even his father's greatness. But it was the
illusion of only sixteen years. It was true that he
had not his father's faults, but it was proved at
last that he had not his father's strength. The show
of prosperity and success during the first half of his
reign was in the latter half to end in gloomy
(10:06):
and hopeless confusion. The explosion came at last. Louis left
a widower in eight eighteen, married in the following year
eight nineteen, the fair and ambitious Bavarian Judith, the daughter
of Velp, Count of Altorf on the Lake of Lucerne,
the ancestor of many famous lines, among them those Zeveste
(10:29):
of the Guelphs of Bavaria and Saxony of the Plantagenets
of the House of Brunswick. In eight twenty three she
bore a son named after the great Emperor Charles, and
to be distinguished from him afterwards as Charles the Bald.
This roused at once the jealousy of the Emperor's first family,
(10:50):
the three sons who shared his government. The Empire was
henceforth filled with their intrigues and revolts, their councilors and partisans.
The turbulent nobles of their kingdoms threw themselves into the
quarrel with rancor, and the attacks on the Empress Judith
had been compared to the insults of the revolutionary parties
(11:11):
in Paris against Marie Antoinette. The Emperor was bent on
carving out a kingdom for his youngest and favorite son,
but the partition between the elder sons was regarded by
them as final, and whatever was given to Charles must
be given at their expense. In eight twenty nine, the
(11:31):
Emperor took from the portion of one of them, Louis,
the German Alamannia, Rietia and Burgundy, beyond the Jura, corresponding
roughly to Schwabia and Switzerland, and created it into a
kingdom for Charles, a child of six years old. From
that time, the Empire of Charles the Great began to
(11:53):
break up. In the following year eight thirty, the elder sons,
with lo Tar, his father's true trusted associate in the empire,
at their head, set up in Paris the standard of revolt.
Louis was surprised by his sons, and, together with the Empress,
was imprisoned, threatened, ill treated. He was restored as suddenly,
(12:15):
for the brothers distrusted one another, and the feeling was
strong for the Emperor in the Eastern and German provinces.
His rebellious sons were lightly punished, and again they rose
up against him. This time they had won over the
Pope Gregory the Fourth to their side, and he accompanied
their united armies against their father. In eight thirty three.
(12:37):
The two hosts, for several days faced each other on
the plains of Elsas near Colmar. Neither side would attack,
but communications freely passed between them, the Pope offering himself
as mediator. The end was that the Emperor's adherents were
persuaded to desert him. His army broke up without fighting.
(12:59):
Bish ships and counts passed over one after another to
his sons, and he was left with the Empress and
her son at the mercy of the rebels. The name
of this long remembered scene of treachery was changed from
the Routefeldt to the Lieugenfeldt Campus Mendaki E the Field
of Lies. Eight thirty three, the sons endeavored to force
(13:23):
their father to abdicate, but he was resolute in his refusal.
They imprisoned him in the monastery of Saint Meda near Schwassen.
At length, in an assembly of bishops and nobles, he
was formally deposed, but the sentence had scarcely been pronounced
before the reaction began. The brothers, as usual, quarreled as before.
(13:45):
The Germans of the eastern provinces were ready to support him,
though they had deserted him at the Lieugenfeldt. Once more,
Louis was released, his deposition canceled, and he was again emperor.
Once more. He forgave and made peace with his rebellious sons,
but confidence and quiet were not restored. Partition after partition
(14:09):
tenar countered during his reign showed the emperor's unscrupulous eagerness
to increase the share of his youngest son. He added
to Alamagnia, Neustria, and on Pippin's death Aquitaine. Father was
still in arms against son and brother against brother. The
empire so prosperous, while united, began to suffer from external attacks.
(14:31):
Northmen and Slavs became more troublesome and audacious. At length,
still victorious, but victorious over his own children. With a
threatening future and amid natural calamity's importance, Louis the Pious
the Kindly died in one of his palaces on the
Rhine on June twentieth, eight forty, and was buried at mess,
(14:55):
leaving discord among his sons, and his great heritage shaken
and in confused. The last ten years of louis Empire
had made it clear that the power to govern its
turbulent elements had departed with its founder, and from this time,
from eight thirty to eight forty, the artificial force which
had kept it together being removed, the contrast and opposition
(15:18):
between its great national divisions became more and more distinct
and sharp. The process of disintegration began, and it was
probably in the nature of things inevitable, but it was
greatly helped forward by violent and incurable dissensions between the
brothers and their children, to whom Louis had left his empire.
(15:39):
Lo Tar, the eldest, his associate in the empire, and
already crowned at Rome, ambitious, cunning, unscrupulous, claimed for himself
the whole imperial inheritance and the supremacy which his father
and grandfather had held. He was the center of the
Old Frank interest, the local Frank allegiance, the old Frank
(16:00):
claims to rule. He held the North, the Rhine and Italy.
He was master at once of Achen or ex La Chappelle,
and of Rome, the capitals of the New and the
Old Empire. But in the east and West, German Bavaria
and Latin Aquitaine, always impatient of frank supremacy, had each
(16:22):
now their own king sons, like lo Tar of the
late Emperor. In Bavaria and the neighboring lands, Louis, named
the German, had been able to defy his father. His
power and influence had become strongly rooted. In the West.
Charles the Bald, though his claims in Aquitaine were disputed
(16:42):
by a cousin, was gradually becoming formidable in the countries
between the Loire, the Sene and the Rhone. The trial
of strength in such conditions could not fail to come.
There was the usual prelude, like as of faints in
a game of treacherous negotiations and feeble conflicts. At length,
Louis the German and Charles, with the Latinized forces of
(17:05):
the West, united in earnest against their elder brother the
bloody Battle of Fontenais or Fontenois Fontenetum near Oakshir, a
year after their father's death June twenty fifth, eight forty one,
a battle famous in those days for the fierceness of
the fighting and for the greatness of the slaughter ended
(17:27):
in the overthrow of Lotar, and made it clear that
his brothers could hold their own against him. The Battle
of Fontenai was the decisive proof that the unity of
frank Dominion, shaken under the Emperor Louis, was hopeless under
the Emperor Lotar. The two brothers, Louis and Charles, with
more steadiness than was than usual, maintained their alliance and
(17:51):
confirmed it the following year, in eight forty four, by
the memorable Oath of Strasbourg, taken by themselves and their
two arms by Louis army in German toy Diska Deutsch,
by Charles in Roman Romana, a language no longer Latin,
but not yet French. The result of their success was
(18:13):
at length acknowledged and sanctioned by the Treaty of Verdant
eight forty three, the most important and substantially permanent of
the numberless partitions which had been and were to be,
for it was the starting point of the new arrangement
of Western Europe, following on the dissolution of the fabric
which the Great Charles had built up, changes, redistributions, subdivisions,
(18:37):
unions of the most varied kinds were still to be attempted,
but henceforth the broad lines of division were traced, which
the subsequent history of Europe, in spite of all attempts
to obliterate them, have only deepened. End of Section seventeen
Section seventeen of the Beginning of the Middle Ages by
Richard William Church. This LibriVox recording is in the public
domain recording by Pamel and Agami, Chapter eight The Carolingians
Successors of Charles, Part one one Louis the Pious and
his sons, two the Northmen three Fall of the Carolingian lines.
(00:27):
It seemed as if under Charles, the Francs were to
be to the new world of Christendom what the Romans
had been to the old world of Heathendom. It seemed so,
But before Charles died he showed that he felt it
was hardly to be, and that his image of the
empire had been but his own personal achievement, and was
(00:47):
linked to his own character in life. Two forces opposed
the continuation of his empire, and he recognized them both
the permanent conditions of nationality and the actor accidents of
his own family. He saw that his dominion was made
up of discordant elements, the German, the Gaul and the Italian,
(01:09):
the true German Frank of the East, the Frank of
the Mine and the Rhine, the Moselle and the Mouse,
and the Romanizing Frank of the West. The franc of
Paris and rule of urleon An Tours with the Romanized
celt of the south of Bordeaux, Toulouse and Leon. Three sons,
(01:29):
the sons of one of the earliest of his wives, Hildegarde,
had grown up in the companionship of his wars, and
had shared with him and his enterprises of conquest and rule.
The eldest should succeed to his position by right of
birth or by national choice, was not the assumption of
those days. Among the Franks. The ideas and precedents of
(01:51):
the kingdom prescribed a division of the inheritance, and Charles
accepted as of course the parting of his empire. His
one care was that it should be a peaceable one,
but he never seems to have thought of keeping it
together as he had held it in one hand. Eight
years before his death, in order to avert discord and
(02:13):
quarrel between his sons, he made a solemn act of
partition in Atos six. Charles the eldest was to rule
in the north over the old Kingdom of the Franks,
from the Elbe to the Loire, Neustria and Australia, and
the German lands beyond the Rhine, with north Burgundy, the
valley of the Rhone and Austa, one of the southern
(02:36):
keys of the Alps. Pippin, the second had the east
and southeast Bavaria and Italy, which is also Lombardy with
the southern banks of the Danube and up to the
sources of the Rhine. Louis had the south Aquitaine and Gascony,
the Spanish March, Provence and southern Burgundy, and the valleys
(02:57):
of the western Alps Savoy, Urienne and Tarnes, two each
that each, it was said, might aid the other, really
that each might have his own access to Italy and
Rome was assigned his own pass over the Alps to
Charles by the Saint Bernard, to Pippin by Cua, and
the Septimer to Louis by the Mounsinni and Suza. The
(03:22):
contingency of the death of any of them was provided for,
and rules were carefully laid down for the questions, which,
in the existing state of society were the most usual
causes or pretexts of quarrels. In making this arrangement, Charles
must have acknowledged to himself that the great achievement of
his own life was not likely, except from unforeseen chances,
(03:45):
to be repeated, and that he was in truth founding
three great and separate kingdoms, for which all that he
could do was to try and keep the allied and
at peace. Yet he might have thought that the Germans,
in the great Race of Franks, were henceforth to lead
the world. But none of these things were to be,
not even peace in his family. In the few years
(04:09):
between the Act of Partition and his death, two of
the three sons among whom he had so carefully divided
his realms had died and left their claims to be
a source of endless strife, feud and war to a
younger generation. And that leadership of the Germans during the
last three centuries, which seemed secured to them by the
(04:30):
revived Empire, was, by the results of the policy of
the greatest of German leaders, finally checked and abolished by
the destruction of the Lombard, which meant a Teutonic ascendancy
in Italy, by the decisive separation of the Western frank
Kingdom from the Eastern Francs, and by the creation of
(04:52):
a great Italian power in the reconstructed papacy. The independence
and then the preponderance and triumph of Latin influences in
southern Europe was made sure. Charles aspired to put his
Germans at the head of the rising civilization of the West,
but they were still too rude for the task. And
(05:13):
exactly as his own efforts to awaken a desire for
order and cultivation were successful, it was felt that not force,
but trained and experienced reason, not the gifts which had
made the Germans irresistible, but those which were the inheritance
of the weaker Latins were the foundations of power and
the guardians of peace, law and hope in society. The
(05:37):
wild world which Charles the Great had tried to tame
broke out again into disorder under his son Lewis, named
Pious Der froma le de Bonnaire, the kindly and religious,
as we should perhaps name him the Good. Charles's aim
had been to create a strong central power, which, leaving
(05:58):
each land with its own instant institutions and laws, should
everywhere moderate and control, should enforce justice, should support religion
and civilization, and should encourage learning. And he thought that
he had done so by reviving the Roman Empire in
the West and placing it among the Franks. Still holding
(06:19):
the authority of Emperor Charles, as has been already said,
toward the end of his reign in eight o six,
following both Imperial and Merovingian precedents, appointed three of his sons, Charles, Pippin,
and Louis, to be kings under him, laying down provisions
for maintaining the peace and unity of the one Frank Empire.
(06:42):
But his foresight was of no avail. Pippin in eight
ten and Charles in eight eleven both died before him.
Then he devolved his imperial dignity by his own authority
in eight thirteen, a year before his death, on Louis
of Aquitaine the service of his three kingly sons. Thus,
(07:03):
at charles death in eight fourteen, Louis came at once
into his father's place as emperor, and was welcomed in
it by the unanimous consent of the Franks. Two years
after he was crowned at Reims by the Pope Stephen
the Fifth in eight sixteen. Louis followed his father's example
by associating his eldest son Lothar as emperor with himself,
(07:27):
and by appointing his two other sons, Pippin and Louis
and his nephew Bernard over the outlying portions of the Empire, Aquitaine, Bavaria,
and Italy, or as it was sometimes called, Lombardy. For
sixteen years. All went on as in Charles's times. Louis
popular with his subjects, gentle minded for the most part,
(07:51):
a lover of mercy and justice, but also active and brave.
Sedulously followed in his father's footsteps and legislation and government.
He was busy with reforms both in church and state.
His ordinances swelled the capitularies from all quarters. Ambassadors came
to him with presents, proposals for peace, demands for assistance
(08:13):
from the Greeks, the Saracens, the Bulgarians, the Danes, the
Eastern Slavs, the Popes. The old success attended for the
most part the military expeditions of the Franks. An attempt
to make Italy independent under young Bernard, his nephew was
at once and pitilessly suppressed. In age seventeen, Bernard's eyes
(08:35):
were put out, and he died soon afterwards. In eight eighteen.
More formidable revolts in the border lands beyond the Elbe,
in the slav countries beyond the Inn on the Drava
and the Sava in Brittany in Gascony were vigorously met
and put down. And yet in the midst of his
power and glory, Lewis was mindful of the frailty of
(08:58):
human greatness and the perfection of human action. More than
once his conscience smote him. At a great meeting at
ati yin Ni Lawell in eight twenty two, like the
Emperor Theodosius, he voluntarily humbled himself before his assembled chiefs
and bishops, publicly confessing his offenses against those whom, like
(09:21):
his nephew Bernard, he had treated unjustly and cruelly. Thus,
with a milder and purer character, Louis seemed to keep
up the vigor of his father's rule and to have
inherited his father's power and fortune. Never had the boundaries
of the empire been so extended or its authority appeared
so commanding. Without his father's faults, he had reached to
(09:46):
more than even his father's greatness. But it was the
illusion of only sixteen years. It was true that he
had not his father's faults, but it was proved at
last that he had not his father's strength. The show
of prosperity and success during the first half of his
reign was in the latter half to end in gloomy
(10:06):
and hopeless confusion. The explosion came at last. Louis left
a widower in eight eighteen, married in the following year
eight nineteen, the fair and ambitious Bavarian Judith, the daughter
of Velp, Count of Altorf on the Lake of Lucerne,
the ancestor of many famous lines, among them those Zeveste
(10:29):
of the Guelphs of Bavaria and Saxony of the Plantagenets
of the House of Brunswick. In eight twenty three she
bore a son named after the great Emperor Charles, and
to be distinguished from him afterwards as Charles the Bald.
This roused at once the jealousy of the Emperor's first family,
(10:50):
the three sons who shared his government. The Empire was
henceforth filled with their intrigues and revolts, their councilors and partisans.
The turbulent nobles of their kingdoms threw themselves into the
quarrel with rancor, and the attacks on the Empress Judith
had been compared to the insults of the revolutionary parties
(11:11):
in Paris against Marie Antoinette. The Emperor was bent on
carving out a kingdom for his youngest and favorite son,
but the partition between the elder sons was regarded by
them as final, and whatever was given to Charles must
be given at their expense. In eight twenty nine, the
(11:31):
Emperor took from the portion of one of them, Louis,
the German Alamannia, Rietia and Burgundy, beyond the Jura, corresponding
roughly to Schwabia and Switzerland, and created it into a
kingdom for Charles, a child of six years old. From
that time, the Empire of Charles the Great began to
(11:53):
break up. In the following year eight thirty, the elder sons,
with lo Tar, his father's true trusted associate in the empire,
at their head, set up in Paris the standard of revolt.
Louis was surprised by his sons, and, together with the Empress,
was imprisoned, threatened, ill treated. He was restored as suddenly,
(12:15):
for the brothers distrusted one another, and the feeling was
strong for the Emperor in the Eastern and German provinces.
His rebellious sons were lightly punished, and again they rose
up against him. This time they had won over the
Pope Gregory the Fourth to their side, and he accompanied
their united armies against their father. In eight thirty three.
(12:37):
The two hosts, for several days faced each other on
the plains of Elsas near Colmar. Neither side would attack,
but communications freely passed between them, the Pope offering himself
as mediator. The end was that the Emperor's adherents were
persuaded to desert him. His army broke up without fighting.
(12:59):
Bish ships and counts passed over one after another to
his sons, and he was left with the Empress and
her son at the mercy of the rebels. The name
of this long remembered scene of treachery was changed from
the Routefeldt to the Lieugenfeldt Campus Mendaki E the Field
of Lies. Eight thirty three, the sons endeavored to force
(13:23):
their father to abdicate, but he was resolute in his refusal.
They imprisoned him in the monastery of Saint Meda near Schwassen.
At length, in an assembly of bishops and nobles, he
was formally deposed, but the sentence had scarcely been pronounced
before the reaction began. The brothers, as usual, quarreled as before.
(13:45):
The Germans of the eastern provinces were ready to support him,
though they had deserted him at the Lieugenfeldt. Once more,
Louis was released, his deposition canceled, and he was again emperor.
Once more. He forgave and made peace with his rebellious sons,
but confidence and quiet were not restored. Partition after partition
(14:09):
tenar countered during his reign showed the emperor's unscrupulous eagerness
to increase the share of his youngest son. He added
to Alamagnia, Neustria, and on Pippin's death Aquitaine. Father was
still in arms against son and brother against brother. The
empire so prosperous, while united, began to suffer from external attacks.
(14:31):
Northmen and Slavs became more troublesome and audacious. At length,
still victorious, but victorious over his own children. With a
threatening future and amid natural calamity's importance, Louis the Pious
the Kindly died in one of his palaces on the
Rhine on June twentieth, eight forty, and was buried at mess,
(14:55):
leaving discord among his sons, and his great heritage shaken
and in confused. The last ten years of louis Empire
had made it clear that the power to govern its
turbulent elements had departed with its founder, and from this time,
from eight thirty to eight forty, the artificial force which
had kept it together being removed, the contrast and opposition
(15:18):
between its great national divisions became more and more distinct
and sharp. The process of disintegration began, and it was
probably in the nature of things inevitable, but it was
greatly helped forward by violent and incurable dissensions between the
brothers and their children, to whom Louis had left his empire.
(15:39):
Lo Tar, the eldest, his associate in the empire, and
already crowned at Rome, ambitious, cunning, unscrupulous, claimed for himself
the whole imperial inheritance and the supremacy which his father
and grandfather had held. He was the center of the
Old Frank interest, the local Frank allegiance, the old Frank
(16:00):
claims to rule. He held the North, the Rhine and Italy.
He was master at once of Achen or ex La Chappelle,
and of Rome, the capitals of the New and the
Old Empire. But in the east and West, German Bavaria
and Latin Aquitaine, always impatient of frank supremacy, had each
(16:22):
now their own king sons, like lo Tar of the
late Emperor. In Bavaria and the neighboring lands, Louis, named
the German, had been able to defy his father. His
power and influence had become strongly rooted. In the West.
Charles the Bald, though his claims in Aquitaine were disputed
(16:42):
by a cousin, was gradually becoming formidable in the countries
between the Loire, the Sene and the Rhone. The trial
of strength in such conditions could not fail to come.
There was the usual prelude, like as of faints in
a game of treacherous negotiations and feeble conflicts. At length,
Louis the German and Charles, with the Latinized forces of
(17:05):
the West, united in earnest against their elder brother the
bloody Battle of Fontenais or Fontenois Fontenetum near Oakshir, a
year after their father's death June twenty fifth, eight forty one,
a battle famous in those days for the fierceness of
the fighting and for the greatness of the slaughter ended
(17:27):
in the overthrow of Lotar, and made it clear that
his brothers could hold their own against him. The Battle
of Fontenai was the decisive proof that the unity of
frank Dominion, shaken under the Emperor Louis, was hopeless under
the Emperor Lotar. The two brothers, Louis and Charles, with
more steadiness than was than usual, maintained their alliance and
(17:51):
confirmed it the following year, in eight forty four, by
the memorable Oath of Strasbourg, taken by themselves and their
two arms by Louis army in German toy Diska Deutsch,
by Charles in Roman Romana, a language no longer Latin,
but not yet French. The result of their success was
(18:13):
at length acknowledged and sanctioned by the Treaty of Verdant
eight forty three, the most important and substantially permanent of
the numberless partitions which had been and were to be,
for it was the starting point of the new arrangement
of Western Europe, following on the dissolution of the fabric
which the Great Charles had built up, changes, redistributions, subdivisions,
(18:37):
unions of the most varied kinds were still to be attempted,
but henceforth the broad lines of division were traced, which
the subsequent history of Europe, in spite of all attempts
to obliterate them, have only deepened. End of Section seventeen
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