Middle Francia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Middle Francia designates the short-lived realm created for Emperor Lothair I (843-855) wedged between East Francia and West Francia. A natural outcome of the Frankish tradition of treating the res publica as private property, it was created in the partition of Louis the Pious' legacy that was embodied in the 843 Treaty of Verdun.
In his 817 ordinatio imperii Emperor Louis the Pious had designated his eldest son Lothair as his heir and co-ruler, whereas his younger sons Pepin and Louis received Aquitaine and Bavaria respectively as partly realms. The fundamentals of this arrangement however were eliminated with the second marriage of Louis the Pious and the birth of his son Charles the Bald in 823. When his father attempted to create a new subkingdom for him and even tried to strip Pepin of Aquitaine, his elder sons in 833 revolted and deposed their father.
Lothair, crowned co-emperor since 823, acceeded to a sole rule, but was now challenged by his younger brothers, who again restored the reign of their father. The quarrels between the sons continued after the death of Pepin in 838 and Louis the Pious himself in 840, settled by the Verdun treaty of 843. Lothair retained the Imperial crown and received a narrow realm stretching from the Kingdom of Italy, and Burgundy in the south to the west of the former Austrasia in the north, including the residence of Aachen.
Likewise the two other realms, Middle Francia had no historical or ethnic identity to bind its varied peoples and in 855 Lothair, constantly fearing the claims of his brothers, on his deathbed at Prüm Abbey again partitioned it amongst his sons. He bequested the Kingdom of Italy to his eldest son Louis II, crowned emperor since 850. The northern part of Middle Francia from Upper Burgundy, the Rhineland, the Low Countries to Frisia passed to Lothair II. His kingdom was then known as regnum lotharii or Lotharingia. The Kingdom of Provence, with Lower Burgundy passed to his youngest son Charles.
Lothair's plans to secure his realm ultimately failed as Middle Francia broke up after the extinction of his sons. When Charles of Provence died in 863, his brothers divided his kingdom among themselves. However, after the death of Lothair II in 869, his brother Louis II, though emperor, was not able to prevent the division of Lotharingia between his uncles Charles the Bald and Louis the German by the 870 Treaty of Meerssen. He could only retain the Kingdom of Italy with Lower Burgundy, which after he had died without male heirs in 875 were both also annexed by Charles the Bald.
The fragments of Middle Francia, Lotharingia, the Kingdom of Italy and Burgundy remained matters of dispute among the heirs of Louis the Pious. After the death of Charles the Bald in 877, Italy passed to East Francia under the sons of Louis the German. Emperor Charles the Fat had by 884 reunited all Frankish kingdoms under his rule. When he died in 888, the nobles and leading clergy of Upper Burgundy assembled at St Maurice and elected Rudolph, count of Auxerre (from the Elder Welf family) as king. He tried to reunite the realm of Lothair II, but opposition by Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia forced him to focus on his Burgundian territory, the later Kingdom of Arles, a constituent part of the Holy Roman Empire. The late mediæval Duchy of Burgundy under Charles the Bold (1467-77) in its extent was reminiscent of Lothair's realm.
