Lotharingia

Lotharingia was a region in northwest Europe, comprising the Low Countries, the western Rhineland, the lands today on the border between France and Germany, and what is now western Switzerland. It was born of the tripartite division in 855, of the kingdom of Middle Francia, itself formed of the threefold division of the Carolingian Empire by the Treaty of Verdun in 843. Neither Lotharingia nor Middle Francia had any natural coherence, but each was conceived as a territorial division of a larger realm. In 870 Lotharingia, after a brief interregnum, was divided by the Treaty of Meerssen between its neighbours, East Francia and West Francia. After brief wars in 876 and 879 West Francia ceded its half of Lotharingia to East Francia by the Treaty of Ribemont (880). The Lotharingian aristocracy, in attempting to assert its right to elect a sovereign, joined the other East Frankish lands in deposing their king, Charles the Fat, in 887. Under a series of dukes that began under the child king Louis IV in 903, the Lotharingians frequently swapped allegiance between the East and West Frankish kings. In 939 the East Frankish king Otto I brought the reigning duke Gilbert to heel and incorporated Lotharingia into his realm as one of the "younger" stem duchies, whose dukes had a vote in royal elections. While the other stem duchies were tribal or national identities, Lotharingia's identity was solely political.

In 959 the Lotharingian duke Bruno the Great divided the duchy between Lotharingia superior (Upper Lorraine) and Lotharingia inferior (Lower Lorraine), giving each to the rule of a margrave. Except for one brief period (1033–44, under Gothelo I), the division was never reversed and the margraves had soon raised their separate fiefs into dukedoms. In the twelfth century the ducal authority in Lower Lorraine became fragmented, causing the formation of the Duchy of Limburg and the Duchy of Brabant, whose rulers retained the title Duke of Lothier (derived from "Lotharingia"). With the disappearance of a "lower" Lorraine, the duchy of Upper Lorraine became the primary referent for "Lorraine" within the Holy Roman Empire. After centuries of French invasions and occupations, Lorraine was finally ceded to France at the close of the War of the Polish Succession (1737). In 1766 the duchy was inherited by the French crown and became the province of Lorraine. In 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War, the German-speaking part of Lorraine was merged with Alsace to become the province of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Empire. Today the greater part of the French side of the Franco-German border belongs to the Lorraine région.

Read more about Lotharingia:  Middle Francia, Kingdom of Lotharingia, Duchy of Lotharingia