Inner dynastic battles of the Carolingians 830–842

The years from 830 to 842 were marked by a series of inner-dynastic battles between the Carolingians . Twice, during the loyal palace revolution in 831 and the great outrage in 833, Emperor Ludwig the Pious was overthrown by his sons Lothar I , Pippin of Aquitaine and Louis the German . However, he was able to hold his own twice and was reinstated. His death opened the struggle of the three remaining sons, Lothar I, Ludwig the German and Karl the Kahlen , for their share in the Frankish Empire: unity of the empire against division of inheritance. These years mark the beginning of the end of the united Carolingian Empire and at the same time, much more than the time of Charlemagne , the emergence of medieval Europe .

Ludwig the Pious, son of Charlemagne, was partly responsible for the internal turmoil of the 830s and early 840s due to his alternation between the idea of unity of the empire and the division of inheritance according to Frankish custom. Image: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Codex Vat.Reg. Lat. 124, folio 4 verso.

The ordinatio imperii of 817

Startled by an accident on Maundy Thursday 817, the Frankish Emperor Ludwig the Pious issued the Ordinatio imperii at the Reichstag in Aachen in July 817, at which the most important secular greats of the Frankish Empire were gathered . This was to take up and solve the central constitutional problem of the Carolingian Empire, the conflict between the universal, indivisible empire and the traditional Frankish inheritance law of all legitimate royal sons. Through the Ordinatio imperii, "whose guiding ideas came from ecclesiastical circles", the empire and the church were to form an indivisible unit that should not be given up in favor of the ruler's descendants. Louis the Pious, who from the beginning no longer saw himself as a rex Francorum , but as an imperator augustus , assumed the priority of imperial dignity , unlike Charlemagne in his Divisio regnorum (succession regulation) of 806. He gave this to his eldest son Lothar I alone. After the acclamation of the Frankish greats, Lothar I was made co-regent by Ludwig the Pious. The younger sons, Ludwig and Pippin, who received Bavaria and Aquitaine as sub-kingdoms, were subordinated to their older brother. The unity of the imperial, indivisible according to Roman and ecclesiastical tradition, was to be maintained by Lothar, further divisions were to be prevented in the future.

The furnishings of Charles the Bald 829

Ludwig, whose first wife Irmingard von Hespengau , who came from a Maasland family, died in 818, had married the Welfin Judith in 819 . The efforts of the new empress to secure a part of the imperial rule for her son Karl, born in 823, for whom she won Lothar I as godfather, corresponded to traditional Frankish legal concepts, but ran counter to the ordinatio imperii of 817. At an imperial assembly in Worms in August 829, Ludwig the Pious then launched the plan, contrary to the solemnly sworn Ordinatio Imperii, to redivide the empire in favor of Charles. Since Karl's newly created sphere of influence Alemannia (Swabia) was supposed to be a ducatus (duchy) and not a regnum and thus no elevation to king took place, the Ordinatio Imperii was not formally overridden, but its main intention, namely to prevent further fragmentation power through the restriction of the dynastic right of inheritance, are considered to have failed. The eldest son of the emperor and co-regent was directly affected by this decision of the father, because Charles's share had been taken from his domain. Since Karl's endowment at Lothar's expense meant a reduction in his material resources and thus also a reduction in political influence - in future it would be more difficult for him to furnish and reward his loyal followers - Lothar opposed and broke with his father: Lothar was expelled to Italy and deposed as co-regent.

The “loyal revolution” of 830 and the regni divisio of 831

In addition to Lothar, who now saw his prospect of future general rule waning, and the younger brothers Pippin and Ludwig, who also had to fear further steps in favor of little Karl, the church reform party also opposed the reallocation. The coup d'état of 830, initiated by a dismissal of obedience by the army, did not come from the older brothers of Charles, who were not very happy about the new regulation, but from men interested in maintaining the unity of the empire, such as the abbot of Corbie , Wala , the former chancellor Helisachar and the Archkapellan Hilduin from. The loyal palace rebellion , which was soon joined by the three older brothers Karl, Pippin, Ludwig and, lastly, Lothar, with the eldest son of the emperor taking over the leadership of the uprising, succeeded in the old legal status at the imperial assembly of Compiègne at the end of April or beginning of May 830 to sanction: The resolutions of the Worms Imperial Assembly were repealed, Lothar took over the government in the name of his father, Judith and her brothers were sent to Aquitaine monasteries. The young Karl should be prepared for a spiritual life as a monk and thus retire from political life.

However, a few months later, Louis the Pious succeeded in attracting Ludwig the Germans and Pippin of Aquitaine to his side by offering to enlarge the area. At the imperial assembly of Nijmegen in October 830, Lothar had to recognize the supremacy of his father again and at the court convention in Aachen in February 831, Ludwig the Pious had the leaders of the rebellion arrested and condemned. Lothar again lost participation in overall rule and was deported to Italy. In a new succession regulation, the undated Regni divisio , Louis the Pious promise to the two younger sons Ludwig and Pippin was redeemed: The empire was redistributed, excluding Lothar's remaining Italy. Pippin's Aquitaine sub-kingdom was expanded north to encompass the land between the Seine and Loire and twenty-eight districts north of the Seine. Ludwig got the areas on the right bank of the Rhine except Alemannia, the northern Francia, the districts of Boulogne and Thérouanne, the Artois and Vermandois. Charles's Alemannic-Alsatian inheritance was expanded to include the important Old Carolingian Moselle region and the Rhône region. Even if it only represented an expectation for the future, because Ludwig the Pious reserved the unlimited imperial hegemony for the time of his life, this renewed division of the empire “unmistakably proves that Ludwig himself used the system of ordinatio of 817 in the given situation had given up. "

The "great indignation" of 833

Charles the Bald, illustration from a manuscript which Liuthard wrote for himself between 842 and 869 in golden uncial script. Because of Charles the Bald, the only son from the second marriage of Louis the Pious to the Welfin Judith, the ordinatio imperii was dropped.

But even the Aachen partition plan of January 831 and the return "to the principles of the division of the empire of 806 [...] could not eliminate the deeper causes of the crisis". As early as 833 there was the second outrage of the sons against the father: The common interests and the fear of further disadvantages in favor of Charlemagne had brought Lothar, Pippin and Ludwig together in a renewed alliance against the father in the inner-dynastic power struggle. This time armed conflicts were accepted by both parties and so the armies of Ludwig and his three sons met at the end of June 833 on the Rotfeld near Colmar . However, there was no fight, because while the emperor was negotiating a compromise with Pope Gregory IV , who had agreed to accompany Lothar and use his authority for the validity of the Ordinatio imperii , the sons of Ludwig his followers knew about theirs Side pull. Abandoned by his own troops, Ludwig the Pious had to surrender to his sons, was captured and deposed as ruler. The fall of Ludwig was to be sanctioned by the church this time and so the bishops, above all the archbishops Agobard and Ebo , declared at an imperial meeting in Compiègne in October 833 that Ludwig had forfeited his office through bad governance, and warned him to pay church penance to take. The rule passed informally to Lothar, who carried the imperial title of the father from then on. Lothar was probably able to make a promise of loyalty to his brothers, but had to let them rule large countries as far as the Seine and Meuse basins.

However, the situation in the Franconian Empire quickly changed again. Lothar acted too clumsily and wanted to enforce supremacy over his younger brothers, and his tough dealings with Ludwig the Pious met with resistance from both the people and the greats of the Franconian Empire as well as Pippin and Ludwig the German, so that before the end of 833 the brothers' alliance broke up. Already at the beginning of 834 Lothar faced the open hostility of Ludwig the German, and soon also of Pippins of Aquitaine. In February 834 they gathered their armies and marched, Pippin from the west and Ludwig from the east, against Lothar, who was at the time holding court in Paris. After Lothar had withdrawn to Burgundy at the end of February 834 before this approaching superiority, Ludwig the Pious was released from church penance on March 1, 834 in St. Denis and recognized as emperor again. Lothar avoided a battle, even if his followers achieved a victory on the Breton border and he himself captured Chalon . In the late summer of 834 Louis the Pious was able to receive Lothar's submission at Blois. He left Italy for him, but ordered him not to leave this country on his own initiative.

Final succession arrangements for Ludwig the Pious

The furnishing of the youngest emperor's son, Karl, remained an open problem even after 834. At an imperial assembly in Aachen in October 837, Ludwig the Pious again assigned important areas between Friesland and the Seine to young Karl. As a result, Ludwig the German and Lothar met in the valley of Trient in early 838 , which Ludwig the Pious interpreted as a conspiracy against him. At the imperial assembly of Nijmegen in May / June 838 a dispute between father and son ensued, as a result of which the emperor now radically reduced the area of rule of Ludwig the German by withdrawing Alsace, Saxony, Thuringia, East Franconia and Alemannia from him Ludwig restricted the Germans to Bavaria only. When Ludwig the Pious was able to declare Charles the Bald of full age and defenseless in Quierzy in mid-September 838 and crowned him King of Neustria, “the Ordinatio Imperii was now formally abandoned in one of its central components, the prohibition of further division; because now a new sub-kingdom was created. "At the end of 838 a new constellation arose in the" corpus fratrum ": Pippin of Aquitaine had died surprisingly in December 838. Louis the Pious passed over the inheritance claim of Pippin II, the son of Pippin of Aquitaine, invited Lothar to an imperial assembly in Worms in May / June 839 and ordered a division of the entire empire except Bavaria only between Lothar and Karl. Italy and the countries east of a line from the Meuse to Lake Geneva fell to Lothar, the west to Karl. Both Ludwig of Bavaria and a part of the Aquitaine greats, who proclaimed Pippin II as king, opposed this decision. The emperor had to go back to the field, 839 to Aquitaine, 840 against Ludwig von Bayern. However, Ludwig the Pious could no longer experience a solution to the tense situation in the Franconian Empire. He died on June 20, 840 on an island on the Rhine near Ingelheim .

The Brethren War 840–842

In 840, shortly before his death, Ludwig the Pious had sent Lothar a crown, a richly decorated sword and the imperial scepter. With this, the dying emperor designated the eldest son as his successor and gave him control (suzerainty) of the empire. At the same time, however, Ludwig the Pious obliged Lothar to give Karl the part of the empire with which he had been endowed during the last division of the empire. Boshof sees in this last act of Ludwig the attempt to maintain the imperial order of 817 with the "priority of the brother raised to emperor in the corpus fratrum" and at the same time to "adapt to the changed circumstances". Lothar ignored the Worms Agreement of 839 and now claimed all imperial rights from the Ordinatio imperii of 817.

Lothar's claim to supremacy in the east

Lothar I, the eldest son of Ludwig the Pious and his successor to the imperial dignity, had been trying to enforce imperial supremacy in the empire from the first endowment of his half-brother Charles the Bald until the Treaty of Diedenhofen in 842 and the Treaty of Verdun concluded in 843 . Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 266, fol. 1.

After he had sent messengers to Francia to demand the Franconian oaths and pledges of loyalty and at the same time to win them over by confirming all the fiefdoms transferred by Ludwig the Pious, Lothar left Italy, crossed the Alps and went down the Rhine valley to find himself first to seize the East Franconian territories.

But Ludwig the German also used the time immediately after his father's death. He penetrated as far as the Rhine, left some of his troops as a garrison in Worms and turned against the Saxons to subdue them. Lothar, however, was able to win over the majority of the Franks. Legitimate circles may have leaned towards him as the eldest son of the late emperor. Above all, however, the representatives of the Unity Party were on Lothar's side. Both ecclesiastical and secular greats had obvious reasons to hold on to imperial unity. Partitions did not stop at church provinces. The high Franconian nobility, who owned land and had offices in all parts of the empire, also had to lose power and influence when the empire was divided. In Eastern France , the same nobles were probably on Lothar's side who were involved in the Nijmegen resolution of 838, which limited the sphere of influence of Ludwig the German to Bavaria. Her advocacy for Lothar seemed to guarantee the Frankish greats the unity of Francia. Another reason for this may have been the fear of reprisals from Ludwig due to the previously negative attitude of the East Franconian nobility.

At Kostheim am Rhein near Mainz, Lothar unexpectedly met Ludwig, who had rushed over from Saxony to defend the area on the right bank of the Rhine. A truce was signed for the night. Lothar renounced a military decision and it was agreed to meet on November 11th at the same location to negotiate again.

Lothar's claim to supremacy in the West

Thanks to the agreement with Ludwig the German, Lothar initially had his back in the east, whereupon he turned back to Karl. Karl had the worst possible starting position for the three brothers after the death of Louis the Pious. He did not have as much power as his half-brothers. Both Lothar and Ludwig the German had, through their long reigns in Italy and Bavaria, achieved an authority among the local magnates that had become irrefutable. Charles, on the other hand, had to seek support from the vassals north of the Loire and west of the Meuse, because Aquitaine, which was awarded to him in Worms in 839, sought under Pippin II, who still found considerable support for his claim to the successor of his father among the Aquitanian greats , for autonomy and continued the uprising that had begun against Ludwig the Pious against his youngest son. For example, Charlemagne led a campaign against Pippin II in Aquitaine when Lothar crossed the Seine in October 840 to conquer Neustria. As in eastern France, many of the Franconian greats flocked to Lothar in Neustria: Nithard names Abbot Hilduin of Saint-Denis, Count Gerhard of Paris and Pippin, the son of King Bernhard of Italy, as the most famous defectors. Beyond the coal forest , in the area between the Meuse and the Middle Rhine, a large part of the nobility fell from Charles the Bald much earlier. In November 840, Karl and Lothar met with their armies near Orléans. But like before at Kostheim with Ludwig, the emperor did not risk a battle this time either. Instead, it was agreed to postpone the negotiations to May 8, 841 in Attigny . Aquitaine , Septimania , Provence and ten counties between Loire and Seine were granted by Lothar Karl until the final territorial regulation.

The Battle of Fontenoy 841

After the preliminary agreement with Karl, Lothar first moved to the southeast in the direction of Burgundy , before he and his army turned back to Ludwig the German, who in the meantime achieved his recognition as king of parts of the Alemanni , East Franconia , Thuringia and Saxony and again the left bank of the Rhine occupied. In eastern France in particular, however, Ludwig's authority was still limited. Lothar took advantage of this and was able to win over Count Adalbert von Metz (from the Hatton family ) and Bishop Otgar von Mainz for himself. At the beginning of April 841 the emperor managed to cross the Rhine near Worms, after Ludwig had previously successfully prevented him from crossing the river near Mainz. Without a fight, Lothar Ludwig knew, by persuading Ludwig's followers to refuse, to force them to flee to Bavaria .

But, as Ludwig the German realized now, he was not up to Lothar and therefore sent messengers to Karl with the offer to support him. Karl, who had managed to pull some of the greats back to his side and force the crossing over the Seine, accepted Ludwig's offer, since he was facing another attack from Lothar. In Ries, on the border between Alemannia and Bavaria, Count Adalbert von Metz, left behind by Lothar east of the Rhine as leader of the East Franconian troops, was supposed to repel Ludwig's renewed attempts to advance west. On May 13, 841, there was a bloody battle on the Wörnitz im Ries ( Battle of the Wörnitz ), in which Ludwig remained victorious and besides Count Adalbert von Metz, many East Franconian allies of Lothar, who was staying at Montmédy at that time , fell.

Lothar could no longer prevent Ludwig and Charles from meeting. At Auxerre the emperor now faced the united armies of his brothers. Ludwig and Karl sent Lothar a message in which they asked for a peaceful settlement, but at the same time demanded recognition of what was due to them. Lothar rejected the peace efforts of the two younger brothers, but at first he avoided an armed conflict, moved away from the two brothers and approached Pippin II , with whom he met on June 24th. The emperor had previously rejected an offer to divide his younger brothers, in which, among others, Ludwig gave up his claims to the areas on the left bank of the Rhine and Karl in turn renounced the land east of the coal forest. On the morning of June 25, 841, in Fontenoy-en-Puisaye , southwest of Auxerre , the battle between Lothar and Pippin II on the one hand and Louis the German and Charles the Bald on the other. Ludwig the German and Charles the Bald eventually got the upper hand in this bloody battle. Angilbert attributes Lothar's defeat to the betrayal and fickleness of some nobles like Margrave Bernhard of Septimania , who had waited a safe distance for the outcome of the battle to pay homage to the victor.

The end of the fratricidal war and the Treaty of Verdun 843

The Carolingian Empire after the Treaty of Verdun

Lothar's severe defeat was viewed by his brothers and their supporters as a judgment of God . Lothar, who still refused to admit defeat, supported the Saxon Frielingen and Lassen , who, as Stellinga, revolted against the nobility and thus also against Ludwig the Germans. He also made contact with the Normans , who had been harassing Friesland and the entire Frisian-North Gallic coast since 834 , and enfeoffed their leader Harald Klak with the island of Walcheren and Rörik I. with the Gau Kimmen / Kinnin in Friesland. These measures, however, brought Charles the Bald and Louis the German closer together, who solemnly swore an alliance in Old High German and Old French on February 14, 842 in Strasbourg in front of their assembled armies ( Strasbourg oath ). After Karl and Ludwig, with their combined army, soon forced Lothar to flee from Aachen to Burgundy, and the emperor feared that the Frankish empire north of the Alps would be divided among his younger brothers, Lothar was forced to give in quickly. He dropped his nephew Pippin II of Aquitaine and began negotiating peace.

In June 842, Lothar, Ludwig and Charles met at Mâcon , who agreed on the principles of division and thus put an end to the civil war. A commission of forty representatives on each side was convened to regulate the demarcation of the boundaries in the Franconian core areas. Aquitaine, Bavaria and Italy were excluded as the indisputable spheres of power of Charles, Ludwig and Lothar. Further negotiations led to a new provisional peace agreement in Diedenhofen in autumn 842 , which paved the way for the final partition treaty . This was closed in August 843 in Verdun after difficult negotiations inhibited by mistrust. Ludwig the German received the area east of the Rhine and Aare up to the Alps, but also the cities of Mainz , Worms and Speyer on the left bank of the Rhine with their surrounding area. A line based on the courses of the Scheldt , Maas , Saône and Rhone rivers should separate Charles' western empire from Lothar's share. The emperor received a middle empire grouped around the imperial cities of Aachen and Rome, which extended beyond Italy from Provence to Friesland.

Research judgment on the years 830–843

The inner-dynastic battles of the Carolingians in the years 830–842 and the subsequent Treaty of Verdun in 843 mean for research “not only a posteriori a deeper turning point” in the history of the Carolingian Empire. The right of division had prevailed in the years 830–843 against the idea of imperial unity. At the end of the inner-dynastic struggles of the Carolingian House in Verdun after Steinbach, “no division of the empire, but, as always before, only the division of rule in the royal family was decided.” The unity of the empire was also decided by the three brothers, as well as by the clergy or the imperial aristocracy , which had several possessions in the three sub-kingdoms, repeatedly emphasized in the years after Verdun. However, this was only an ideal unit. The state idea of substantial imperial unity, which was formulated in the Ordinatio imperii of 817, was finally abandoned in 843.

The Treaty of Verdun thus stood at the end of a development that, as has been shown, began in 830, when Louis the Pious fell to the throne for the first time. The inner-dynastic battles of the 830s meant the changeful struggle of the sons against the father, later of the sons against each other. Three interest groups can be identified, behind which there were particular interests.

swell

Annales Bertiniani . In: Sources on the Carolingian Empire History II, ed. by Reinhold Rau (Selected Sources on German Middle Ages History. Freiherr vom Stein Memorial Edition Volume VI), Darmstadt ² 1972, pp. 11–287.
Annales Fuldenses . In: Sources on the Carolingian Empire History III, ed. by Reinhold Rau (Selected Sources on German Medieval History. Freiherr vom Stein Memorial Edition Volume VII), Darmstadt 1960, pp. 19–177.
Annales regni Francorum . In: Sources on the Carolingian Empire History I, ed. by Reinhold Rau (Selected Sources on German History of the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein Memorial Edition Volume V), Darmstadt ²1968, pp. 9–155.
Annales Xantenses . In: Sources on the Carolingian Empire History II, ed. by Reinhold Rau (Selected Sources on German Middle Ages History. Freiherr vom Stein Memorial Edition Volume VI), Darmstadt ² 1972, pp. 339–371.
Anonymi Vita Hludowici Imperatoris . In: Sources on the Carolingian Empire History I , ed. by Reinhold Rau (Selected sources on the German history of the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein Memorial Edition, Volume V), Darmstadt ²1968, pp. 257–381.
Capitularia regnum Francorum I , ed. by Alfred Boretius ( MGH Cap. 1), Hanover 1883.
Capitularia Regum Francorum II , ed. by Alfred Boretius and Victor Krause (MGH Cap. 2), Hanover 1897.
Hrabani (Mauri) Epistolae 32 , ed. by Ernst Dümmler (MGH Epistolae V), Weimar 1899, pp. 462-465.
Lex Salica , ed. by Karl August Eckhardt (Germanic Rights New Series, West Germanic Law), Weimar 1953.
Lotharii I. et Lotharii II. Diplomata , ed. by Theodor Schieffer (MGH Diplomatum Karolinorum III), Berlin - Zurich 1966.
Nithardi historiarum Libri IIII . In: Sources on the Carolingian Empire History I, ed. by Reinhold Rau (Selected Sources on German History of the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein Memorial Edition Volume V), Darmstadt ²1968, pp. 385–461.
Regesta Imperii , founded by Johann Friedrich Böhmer, reworked. by Engelbert Mühlbacher and Johann Lechner (Innsbruck ²1908) ND with a foreword, concordance tables and additions by Carlrichard Brühl and Hans H. Kaminsky, Hildesheim 1966 (cited: BM² + number).
Reginonis Chronica . In: Sources on the Carolingian Empire History III, ed. by Reinhold Rau (Selected Sources on German History of the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein Memorial Edition Volume VII), Darmstadt 1960, pp. 179–319.
Rhythm de pugna fontanetica . In: Poetae Latini medii aevi 2: Poetae Latini aevi Carolini (II). Published by Ernst Dümmler . Berlin 1884, pp. 137-139 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
Thegani Vita Hludowici Imperatoris . In: Sources on the Carolingian Empire History I, ed. by Reinhold Rau (Selected sources on the German history of the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe Volume V), Darmstadt ²1968, pp. 215-253.

literature

Arnold Angenendt: The early Middle Ages. Western Christianity from 400 to 900 . Stuttgart ² 1995.
Hans Hubert Anton :: Charlemagne, the Carolingians and Europe . In: Günther Gehl, Mathilde Reichertz (Ed.): The Carolingians as the ancestors of Europe . (= History and Politics 4), Weimar 1995, pp. 11–32.
Jacques Delperrié De Bayac: Charlemagne. Life and time . Vienna 1976.
Egon Boshof : Ludwig the Pious . ( Shaping the Middle Ages and the Renaissance ), Darmstadt 1996.
Karl Brunner : Opposition groups in the Carolingian Empire ( publications by the Institute for Austrian Historical Research . Volume XXV), Graz 1979.
Konrad Bund: overthrow and deposition of the ruler in the early Middle Ages . ( Bonn Historical Research , Volume 44), Bonn 1979.
Roman Deutinger : Hludovicus rex Baioariae. On the role of Bavaria in the politics of Ludwig the German . In: Wilfried Hartmann (Hrsg.): Ludwig the German and his time . Darmstadt 2004, pp. 47-66.
Rolf Große: From the Frankish Empire to the origins of the nation states 800–1214 . ( Franco-German History , Volume 1), Darmstadt 2005.
Wilfried Hartmann : Ludwig the German . ( Shaping the Middle Ages and the Renaissance ), Darmstadt 2002.
Eduard Hlawitschka : Lotharingia and the empire on the threshold of German history . ( Writings of the Monumenta Germaniae historica , Volume XXI), Stuttgart 1968.
Eduard Hlawitschka: From the Franconian Empire to the formation of the European community of states and peoples 840-1046. A study book for the time of the late Carolingians, Ottonians and early Salians in the history of Central Europe . Darmstadt 1986.
Mayke De Jong: The Penitential State. Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814-840 . Cambridge 2009.
Martin Kintzinger : The heirs of Charlemagne. France and Germany in the Middle Ages . Ostfildern 2005.
Gerhard Lubich : On the way to "Golden freedom". Dominion and space in the Francia orientalis from the Carolingian to the Staufer times . ( Historical studies volume 449), Husum 1996.
Eckhard Müller-Mertens : Karl the Great, Ludwig the Pious and the Free. Who were the liberi homines of the Carolingian capitularies (742 / 743–832)? . ( Research on Medieval History , Volume 10), Berlin 1963.
Janet L. Nelson : Charles the Bald . London 1992.
August Nitschke : Early Christian empires . In: Alfred Heuss , Golo Mann , August Nitschke: Propylaea world history . Fifth volume: Islam and the emergence of Europe . Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1963, pp. 273–395.
Friedrich Prinz: Basics and Beginnings. Germany until 1056 . ( New German History , Volume 1), Munich 1985.
Pierre Riché : The Carolingians. One family makes Europe . 3. Edition. Munich 1995.
Pierre Riché: The world of the Carolingians . 2nd Edition. Paris 1999.
Rudolf Schieffer : The Carolingians , 4th edition, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-17-019099-3
Theodor Schieffer : The Carolingian Empire (751-843) . In: Theodor Schieffer (ed.): Europe in the change from antiquity to the Middle Ages . ( Handbook of European History , Volume 1), Stuttgart 1976, pp. 542-596.
Walter Schlesinger : Empire and division of the empire. To the Divisio regnorum of 806 . In: Gunther Wolf (Ed.): To the empire of Charlemagne . (= Paths of Research , Volume 38). Darmstadt 1972, pp. 116-173.
Hans K. Schulze : From the empire of the Franks to the land of the Germans: Merovingians and Carolingians . ( The Germans and their Nation ), Berlin 1987.
Hans Steidle: The emergence of early medieval society in East Franconia. A contribution to early medieval social history and research on feudalism . ( Mainfränkische Studien , Volume 46), Würzburg 1989.
Franz Steinbach: The Franconian Empire . Constance 1957.
Harald Zimmermann : The Middle Ages . Part I: From the Beginning to the End of the Investiture Controversy . Brunswick 1975.
Erich Zöllner: The political position of the peoples in the Franconian Empire . ( Publications of the Institute for Austrian Historical Research , Volume XIII), Vienna 1950.