Definition: The Treaty of Verdun in 843 separated
the Carolingian empire. When Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s son, died, the
kingdom was divided amongst his sons. His oldest son Lothar attempted to take
all of the land, but his brothers Charles the Bald and Louis the German
revolted at this idea. (Thanks Lothar, you’re making all of us “first born”
look bad!) After a good-old sibling dispute (just kidding, there was some
serious warfare), the empire was divided into West Frankia for Charles the
Bald, East Frankia for Louis the German, and Tuscany for Lothar in Verdun. Sounds
fair to me! Well, except for Lothar got control of Aachen, which was the
wealthy area of the kingdom (“Treaty of Verdun”). Hey, you can’t win them all,
boys.
Importance: Well, it may not appear that this redistribution
of land is significant; these kinds of demarcations have been happening over
and over for the past two semesters! Despite this reoccurrence, this time the
division stick. When Charlemagne’s empire is split into three, we can see the
basic outline of modern day Europe. Pretty cool! Eventually, the Carolingian
Dynasty dies out of all three of these areas, but the division remain the same.
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