Everything about The Carolingian Dynasty totally explained
The
Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the
Carlovingians,
Carolings, or
Karlings) was a
Frankish noble family with its origins in the
Arnulfing and
Pippinid clans of the 7th century. The name "Carolingian",
Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested
Old High German *
karling, kerling (meaning "descendant of Charles", cf.
MHG kerlinc), derives from the latinised name of
Charles Martel:
Carolus. The family consolidated its power in the late 7th century, eventually making the offices of
mayor of the palace and
dux et princeps Francorum hereditary and becoming the
de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the throne. By 751, the
Merovingian dynasty which until then had ruled the Franks by right was deprived of this right with the consent of the
Papacy and the aristocracy and a Carolingian,
Pepin the Short, was crowned
King of the Franks.
Traditional historiography has seen the Carolingian assumption of kingship as the product of a long rise to power, punctuated even by a premature attempt to seize the throne through
Childebert the Adopted. This picture, however, isn't commonly accepted today. Rather, the coronation of 751 is seen typically as a product of the aspirations of one man, Pepin, and of the Church, which was always looking for powerful secular protectors and for the extension of its temporal influence.
The greatest Carolingian monarch was
Charlemagne, who was crowned Emperor by
Pope Leo III at Rome in 800. His empire, ostensibly a continuation of the
Roman Empire, is referred to historiographically as the
Carolingian Empire. The traditional Frankish (and Merovingian) practice of dividing inheritances among heirs wasn't given up by the Carolingian emperors, though the concept of the indivisibility of the Empire was also accepted. The Carolingians had the practice of making their sons (sub-)kings in the various regions (
regna) of the Empire,
regna which they'd inherit on the death of their father. Following the death of
Louis the Pious, the surviving adult Carolingians fought a three-year civil war ending only in the
Treaty of Verdun, which divided the empire into three
regna while according imperial status and a nominal lordship to
Lothair I. The Carolingians differed markedly from the Merovingians in that they disallowed inheritance to illegimate offspring, possibly in an effort to prevent infighting among heirs and assure a limit to the division of the realm. In the late ninth century, however, the lack of suitable adults among the Carolingians, necessitated the rise of
Arnulf of Carinthia, a bastard child of a legitimate Carolingian king.
The Carolingians were displaced in most of the
regna of the Empire in 888. They ruled on in
East Francia until 911 and they held the throne of
West Francia intermittently until 987. Though they asserted their prerogative to rule, their hereditary, God-given right, and their usual alliance with the Church, they were unable to stem the principle of electoral monarchy and their propagandism failed them in the long run. Carolingian cadet branches continued to rule in
Vermandois and
Lower Lorraine after the last king died in 987, but they never sought thrones of principalities and made peace with the new ruling families. It is with the coronation of
Robert II of France as junior co-ruler with his father,
Hugh Capet, the first of the
Capetian dynasty, that one chronicler of
Sens dates the end of Carolingian rule.
Sources
- Hollister, Clive, and Bennett, Judith. Medieval Europe: A Short History.
- Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
- MacLean, Simon. Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge University Press: 2003.
- Lewis, Andrew W. (1981). Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0 674 77985 1.
- Leyser, Karl. Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries. London: 1994.
- Oman, Charles. The Dark Ages, 476-918. 6th ed. London: Rivingtons, 1914.
- Painter, Sidney. A History of the Middle Ages, 284-1500. New York: Knopf, 1953.
- "Astronomus", Vita Hludovici imperatoris
, ed. G. Pertz, ch. 2, in Mon. Gen. Hist. Scriptores, II, 608.
- Reuter, Timothy (trans.) The Annals of Fulda. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
- Einhard. Vita Karoli Magni. Translated by Samuel Epes Turner. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.
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