After the meeting at Strassburg, Charles and Louis advanced against Lothair, who now abandoned Aachen and retreated southward past Châlons-sur-Marne toward Lyons. When the brothers had come into the vicinity of Châlons-sur-Saône, they were met by ambassadors from Lothair who declared that he was weary of the struggle and was ready to make peace if only his imperial dignity should be properly recognized and the share of the kingdom awarded to him should be somewhat the largest of the three. Charles and Louis accepted their brother's overtures and June 15, 842, the three met on an island in the Saône and signed preliminary articles of peace. It was agreed that a board of a hundred and twenty prominent men should assemble October 1 at Metz, on the Moselle, and make a definite division of the kingdom. This body, with the three royal brothers, met at the appointed time, but adjourned to Worms, and subsequently to Verdun, on the upper Meuse, in order to have the use of maps at the latter place. The treaty which resulted during the following year was one of the most important in all mediæval times. Unfortunately the text of it has not survived, but all its more important provisions are well known from the writings of the chroniclers of the period. Two such accounts of the treaty, brief but valuable, are given below.
Louis had been the real sovereign of Bavaria for sixteen years and to his kingdom were now added all the German districts on the right bank of the Rhine (except Friesland), together with Mainz, Worms, and Speyer on the left bank, under the general name of Francia Orientalis. Charles retained the western countries—Aquitaine, Gascony, Septimania, the Spanish March, Burgundy west of the Saône, Neustria, Brittany, and Flanders—designated collectively as Francia Occidentalis.[204] The intervening belt of lands, including the two capitals Rome and Aachen, and extending from Terracina in Italy to the North Sea, went to Lothair.[205] With it went the more or less nominal imperial dignity. In general, Louis's portion represented the coming Germany and Charles's the future France. But that of Lothair was utterly lacking in either geographical or racial unity and was destined not long to be held together. Parts of it, particularly modern Alsace and Lorraine, have remained to this day a bone of contention between the states on the east and west. "The partition of 843," says Professor Emerton, "involved, so far as we know, nothing new in the relations of the three brothers to each other. The theory of the empire was preserved, but the meaning of it disappeared. There is no mention of any actual superiority of the Emperor (Lothair) over his brothers, and there is nothing to show that the imperial name was anything but an empty title, a memory of something great which men could not quite let die, but which for a hundred years to come was to be powerless for good or evil."[206] The empire itself was never afterwards united under the rule of one man, except for two years (885-887) in the time of Charles the Fat.
Sources—(a) Annales Bertiniani ["Annals of Saint Bertin">[. Translated from text in Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores (Pertz ed.), Vol. I., p. 440.
(b) Rudolfi Fuldensis Annales ["Annals of Rudolph of Fulda">[. Text in Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores (Pertz ed.), Vol. I., p. 362.
(a)
Charles set out to find his brothers, and they met at Verdun. By the division there made Louis received for his share all the A statement from the annals of Saint Bertin country beyond the Rhine,[207] and on this side Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and the territories belonging to these cities. Lothair received that which is between the Scheldt and the Rhine toward the sea, and that lying beyond Cambrésis, Hainault, and the counties adjoining on this side of the Meuse, down to the confluence of the Saône and Rhone, and thence along the Rhone to the sea, together with the adjacent counties. Charles received all the remainder, extending to Spain. And when the oath was exchanged they went their several ways.
(b)
The realm had from early times been divided in three portions, and in the month of August the three kings, coming together at Another from those of Rudolph of Fulda Verdun in Gaul, redivided it among themselves. Louis received the eastern part, Charles the western. Lothair, who was older than his brothers, received the middle portion. After peace was firmly established and oaths exchanged, each brother returned to his dominion to control and protect it. Charles, presuming to regard Aquitaine as belonging properly to his share, was given much trouble by his nephew Pepin,[208] who annoyed him by frequent incursions and caused great loss.