In medieval historiography, West Francia (Latin: Francia occidentalis) or the Kingdom of the West Franks (regnum Francorum occidentalium) forms the earliest stage of the Kingdom of France, lasting from about 840 until 987. West Francia was formed out of the division of the Carolingian Empire after the death of Emperor Louis the Pious, but the east–west division "gradually hardened into the establishment of separate kingdoms".
West Francia extended further south than modern France, but it did not extend as far east, and did not include Lorraine and Provence. In Brittany and Catalonia (now mostly a part of Spain) the authority of the West Frankish king was barely felt. Initially, West Frankish kings were elected by the secular and ecclesiastic magnates, and for the half-century between 888 and 938 they chose alternatingly from the Carolingian and Robertian houses.
Read more about West Francia: Formation, Reign of Charles The Fat
Famous quotes containing the word west:
“There are acacias, a graceful species amusingly devitalized by sentimentality, this kind drooping its leaves with the grace of a young widow bowed in controllable grief, this one obscuring them with a smooth silver as of placid tears. They please, like the minor French novelists of the eighteenth century, by suggesting a universe in which nothing cuts deep.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)