Meanwhile, in South-eastern Gaul, between the Rhone and the Alps, another kingdom arose, namely the kingdom of Burgundy. ♦Union under Charles the Fat. 884.♦ Under Charles the Third, commonly known as the Fat, all the Frankish dominions, except Burgundy, were again united for a moment. ♦Division on his deposition. 887.♦ On his deposition they split asunder again. We now have four distinct kingdoms, those of the Eastern and Western Franks, the forerunners of Germany and France, the kingdom of Italy, and Burgundy, sometimes forming one kingdom and sometimes two. Lotharingia remained a border-land between the Eastern and Western kingdoms, attached sometimes to one, sometimes to another. Out of these elements arose the great kingdoms and nations of Western Europe. The four can hardly be better described than they are by the Old-English Chronicler: ‘Arnulf then dwelled in the land to the East of Rhine; and Rudolf took to the middle kingdom; and Oda to the West deal; and Berengar and Guy to the Lombards’ land, and to the lands on that side of the mountain.’ But the geography of all the four kingdoms which now arose must be described at somewhat greater length.
It must be borne in mind that all these divisions of the great Frankish dominion were, in theory, like the ancient divisions of the Empire, a mere parcelling out of a common possession among several royal colleagues. ♦No formal titles or names of the Frankish kingdoms.♦ The Kings had no special titles, and their dominions had no special names recognized in formal use. Every king who ruled over any part of the ancient Francia was a King of the Franks, just as much as all among the many rulers of the Roman Empire in the days of Diocletian and Constantine were equally Roman Augusti or Cæsars. As the kings and their kingdoms had no formal titles specially set apart for them, the writers of the time had to describe them as they might.[9] ♦Various names of the Eastern Kingdom or Germany.♦ The Eastern part of the Frankish dominions, the lot of Lewis the German and his successors, is thus called the Eastern Kingdom, the Teutonic Kingdom. Its king is the King of the East-Franks, sometimes simply the King of the Eastern men, sometimes the King of Germany. This last name, convenient in use, was inaccurate as a formal title, for the Regnum Teutonicum lay geographically partly in Germany, partly in Gaul.[10] To the men of the Western kingdom the Eastern king sometimes appeared as the King beyond the Rhine. The title of King of Germany is often found in the ninth century as a description, but it was not a formal title. The Eastern king, like other kings, for the most part simply calls himself Rex, till the time came when his rank as King of Germany or of the East-Franks became simply a step towards the higher title of Emperor of the Romans. ♦Connexion between the Eastern Kingdom and the Empire.♦ But it must be remembered, that the special connexion between the Roman Empire and the German kingdom did not begin at once on the division of 887. ♦Imperial coronation of Arnulf. 896.
Homage of Odo to Arnulf. 888.♦ Arnulf indeed, the first German King after the division, made his way to Rome and was crowned Emperor; and it marks the position of the Eastern kingdom as the chief among the kingdoms of the Franks, that the West-Frankish King Odo did homage to Arnulf before his lord’s Imperial coronation, when he was still simple German king. ♦Final union of Germany with the Empire under Otto the Great. 963.♦ The rule that whoever was chosen King of Germany had a right, without further election, to the kingdom of Italy and to the Roman Empire, began only with the coronation of Otto the Great. Up to that time, the German king is simply one of the kings of the Franks, though it is plain that he held the highest place among them.
♦Extent of the German kingdom.♦
This Eastern or German kingdom, as it came out of the division of 887, had, from north to south, nearly the same extent as the Germany of later times. It stretched from the Alps to the Eider. Its southern boundaries were somewhat fluctuating. Verona and Aquileia are sometimes counted as a German march, and the boundary between Germany and Burgundy, crossing the modern Switzerland, often changed. To the North-east the kingdom hardly stretched beyond the Elbe, except in the small Saxon land between the Elbe and the Eider. The great extension of the German power over the Slavonic lands beyond the Elbe had hardly yet begun. ♦The Austrian and Carinthian marks.♦ To the South-east lay the two border-lands or marks; the Eastern Mark, which grew into the later duchy of Oesterreich or the modern Austria, and to the south of it the mark of Kärnthen or Carinthia. ♦The great duchies.♦ But the main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of Saxony, Eastern Francia, Alemannia, and Bavaria. ♦Saxony.♦ Of these the two names of Saxony and Bavaria must be carefully marked as having widely different meanings from those which they bear on the modern map. Ancient Saxony lies, speaking roughly, between the Eider, the Elbe, and the Rhine, though it never actually touches the last-named river. ♦Eastern or Teutonic Francia.♦ To the south of Saxony lies the Eastern Francia, the centre and kernel of the German kingdom. The Main and the Neckar both join the Rhine within its borders. To the south of Francia lie Alemannia and Bavaria. ♦Alemannia and Bavaria.♦ This last, it must be remembered, borders on Italy, with Bötzen for its frontier town. Alemannia is the land in which both the Rhine and the Danube take their source; it stretches on both sides of the Bodensee or Lake of Constanz, with the Rætian Alps as its southern boundary. For several ages to come, there is no distinction, national or even provincial, between the lands north and south of the Bodensee.
♦Lotharingia.♦
These lands make up the undoubted Eastern or German territory. To the west of this lies the border land of Lotharingia, which has a history of its own. For the first century after the division of 887, the possession of Lotharingia fluctuated several times between the Eastern and the Western kingdom. ♦987.♦ After the change of dynasty in the Western kingdom, Lotharingia became definitely and undoubtedly German in allegiance, though it always kept up something of a distinct being, and its language was partly German and partly Romance. Lotharingia took in the two duchies of the Ripuarian Lotharingia and Lotharingia on the Mosel. The former contains a large part of the modern Belgium and the neighbouring lands on the Rhine, including the royal city of Aachen. Lotharingia on the Mosel answers roughly to the later duchy of that name, though its extent to the East is considerably larger.
♦The Western Kingdom.♦
The part of the Frankish dominions to which the Frankish name has stuck most lastingly has been the Western kingdom or Karolingia, which gradually got the special name of France. This came about through the events of the ninth and tenth centuries. ♦Its extent.♦ The Western kingdom, as it was formed under Charles the Bald and as it remained after the division of 887, nominally took in a great part of modern France, namely all west of the Rhone and Saône. It took in nothing to the east of those rivers, and Lotharingia, as we have seen, was a border land which at last settled down as part of the Eastern kingdom. Thus the extent of the old Karolingia to the east was very much smaller than the extent of modern France. But, on the other hand, the Western kingdom took in lands at three points which are not part of modern France. These are the march or county of Flanders in the north, the greater part of which forms part of the modern kingdom of Belgium; the Spanish March, or county of Barcelona, which is now part of Spain; and the Norman Islands which are now held by the sovereign of England. And it is hardly needful to say that, even within these boundaries, the whole land was not in the hands of the King of the West-Franks. He had only a supremacy, which was apt to become nearly nominal, over the vassal princes who held the great divisions of the kingdom. ♦The great fiefs.♦ South of the Loire the chief of these vassal states were the duchy of Aquitaine, a name which now means the land between the Loire and the Garonne—the duchy of Gascony between the Garonne and the Pyrenees—the county of Toulouse to the east of it—the marches of Septimania and Barcelona. North of the Loire were Britanny, where native Celtic princes still reigned under a very doubtful supremacy on the part of the Frankish kings—the march of Flanders in the north—and the duchy of Burgundy, the duchy which had Dijon for its capital, and which must be carefully distinguished from other duchies and kingdoms of the same name. ♦The Duchy of France.♦ And, greatest of all, there was the duchy of France, that is Western or Latin France, Francia Occidentalis or Latina. Its capital was Paris, and its princes were called Duces Francorum, a title in which the word Francus is just beginning to change from its older meaning of Frank to its later meaning of French. ♦Normandy cut off from France. 912.♦ From this great duchy of France several great fiefs, as Anjou and Champagne, were gradually cut off, and the part of France between the Seine and the Epte was granted to the Scandinavian chief Rolf, which, under him and his successors, grew into the great duchy of Normandy. Its capital was Rouen, and this settlement of the Normans had the effect of cutting off France and its capital Paris from the sea.