Carolingian Crisis
When Louis the Stammerer died in 879 after a two-year reign, the kingdom was divided between his two young sons. Louis III received the ancient northern partitions of the Merovingian kingdom, Neustria and Austrasia (including the Lorraine). His second son Carloman received the southern partitions, Burgundy and Aquitaine (including Septimania). The problems plaguing the throne were exacerbated when both Louis (882) and Carloman (884) died soon after their succession. Not wanting to crown Louis the Stammerer's remaining son, Charles the Simple, who was only five, the nobles of France looked about for a powerful man who could defend the land from the fearsome Vikings and their vicious raids on the Channel and Atlantic coasts.
At the Assembly of Ponthion (884), the Franks chose the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fat, who was already king of Germany and Italy. Charles, son of Louis the German, therefore became the first person since the death of Louis the Pious to reign over the entire realm of Charlemagne, his illustrious great-grandfather. He would also be the last.
Incapable of much, Charles was lethargic and probably suffered from epilepsy. In November 885 he raised a grand army to fight off the Norsemen besieging Paris, after two requests from the French nobility. However, he chose to buy the Vikings off, paying them to attack Burgundy (then in revolt) instead. He left Paris in December. He subsequently failed to deal with revolts in Swabia, Saxony, Thuringia, Franconia, and Bavaria. The nobles of the Empire deposed him in 887, and he died two months later in 888.
Charles' nephew Arnulf of Carinthia succeeded him in Germany, Berengar of Friuli succeeded him in Italy, and Odo, Count of Paris, succeeded him in France. Splinter realms also arose in Aquitaine and Burgundy. The breakdown of central royal authority and the dynastic changes broke the Holy Roman Empire and Frankish Kingdom apart. The Carolingian polity which empowered the counts at the beginning of the century was nonexistent by the end; the Counts were de facto independent—especially in the outlying regions, like the Marca Hispanica.
Read more about this topic: Wilfred The Hairy
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“It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed crisis by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the military situation into a political situation. That will alienate the masses, who, from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things.”
—Carlos Marighella (d. 1969)