Carolingian Empire

• Carolingian Empire

  Empire from 800 to 888, shorter than the Carolingian dynasty in its globality
• Carolingian Empire

  • Created when Charlemagne was crowned by Leo III in 800 in Rome
  • Heartland was the Frankish kingdom, between the Loire and the Rhine, where the realm's main royal residence, Aachen, was located
  • Population believed to have been between 10 and 20 million people, while the Byzantine Empire had around 50 million
• Louis the Pious and the Civil War (814-843)


  1. Charlemagne died in 814, his third son Louis the Pious became emperor

  2. Reign lacked security, often had to struggle to maintain control over the Empire

  3. After years of discontentment among his sons, civil war broke out in 830 and the last years of his reign were plagued by it

  4. He was dismissed and back at being emperor numerous times
• Partition of the Carolingian Empire

  1. When Louis the Pious died in 840, his eldest son Lothar claimed the entire empire

  2. Younger brothers, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, went to war against him

  3. Oaths of Strasbourg in 842 between the 2 youngest, saying they are allied against the big brother (in old French and high German)

  4. Verdun Treaty in 843 made official and definitive a partition of the empire

  5. Western Frankish realm (Francia Occidentalis) for the Bald, Easter Frankish realm (Francia orientalis) for the German and land of Loather (the middle and northern Italy) for Lothar
• Verdun Treaty


  Considered the most important in European history as it is seen to have given birth to France and Germany
• In the following decades, the Carolingian empire had a very complicated history, each one of the brothers had his realm shared between two sons or more
• The last emperor to rule the Carolingian empire in its entirety was Charles the Fat in 887-888
• Challenges faced by the Carolingian Empire

  1. Attacks from the Magyars (people from inner Asia), the Saracens (Arabian pirates), and the Vikings (from Scandinavia)

  2. Emperor's legitimacy fell because no victories against these threats

  3. Internal decline of the empire and too many things to deal with
• Charles the Fat died in 888 without a successor able to rule
• Aristo (landowners) became legitimate enough to take the power and the empire was split into sub kingdoms
• Two kingdoms emerged: Western Frankish kingdom (France) and Eastern Frankish kingdom (Germany)
• Carolingian kings would rule in Francia Orientalis (eastern empire) until 911, then replaced by Saxony kings who soon proclaimed the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806)
• Francia Occidentalis was the more lasting Carolingian kingdom, with members of the dynasty ruling as late as 987
• Governing the Carolingian Empire

  1. Government, administration and organization forged in the court of Charlemagne in the decades around 800

  2. Charlemagne aimed to convert all those in the Frankish kingdom to Christianity and to expand both his empires and the reach of Christianity
• Despite the relatively short existence of the Carolingian empire, its legacy far outlasts the state that had forged it
• The Carolingian empire is seen as the beginning of Feudalism
• A Carolingian template lends to the structure of the High Middle Ages societies and culture