WI: Louis the Pious Only had One Son?
- Thread starter Dirk_Pitt
- Start date
Louis' grandsons share the empire after a civil war. Helped by sons-in-law of Louis. And rogue noble more or less tied to Carolingians.
The collapse of Carolingian empire isn't due to a familial quarell only : the empire was unified OTL after 843 but it didn't lasted as you had much more tendencies present.
Carolingian empire stability was based on a gift-based economy. Conquest and trade managed to maintain the loyalty of the Frankish (I use Frankish here for commodity, but it include Bavarian, Aquitain, Saxon, etc) nobility, that was formed along a vassalic clientelist relation.
When conquest stopped and trade declined, Frankish nobles hadn't many choices : focus on their lands and try to grab what the neighbors had.
Bad harvests due to climatic changes probably helped as well.
The collapse of Carolingian empire isn't due to a familial quarell only : the empire was unified OTL after 843 but it didn't lasted as you had much more tendencies present.
Carolingian empire stability was based on a gift-based economy. Conquest and trade managed to maintain the loyalty of the Frankish (I use Frankish here for commodity, but it include Bavarian, Aquitain, Saxon, etc) nobility, that was formed along a vassalic clientelist relation.
When conquest stopped and trade declined, Frankish nobles hadn't many choices : focus on their lands and try to grab what the neighbors had.
Bad harvests due to climatic changes probably helped as well.
Which son?
Whichever son you choose, he wouldn't have an easy reign. The empire that Louis left would have been weaker than that he received, even in the absence of feuding sons, thanks to the continuing and increasing stress caused by Viking attacks. Just as everyone deserted Charles the Fat in OTL when he failed to deal with those attacks effectively (even though he was more-or-less the last Carolingian left standing), something similar would have unfolded under a different ruler who had no answers.
We also know that different languages were spoken in France and Germany by 843, so it would have been natural for the two to separate.
Whichever son you choose, he wouldn't have an easy reign. The empire that Louis left would have been weaker than that he received, even in the absence of feuding sons, thanks to the continuing and increasing stress caused by Viking attacks. Just as everyone deserted Charles the Fat in OTL when he failed to deal with those attacks effectively (even though he was more-or-less the last Carolingian left standing), something similar would have unfolded under a different ruler who had no answers.
We also know that different languages were spoken in France and Germany by 843, so it would have been natural for the two to separate.
Why? It wasn't the case, every kingdom and greater subdivision being made without considering the linguistic separation between romance language (whom separation was an ongoing process and germanic languages).
The association between language and country didn't really appeared before the Renaissance (or arguably, late MA Italy).
The division of 888 [here's a map] is certainly not following any linguistic border.
Western Francia does have (admitting that north and southern gallo-romance language appeared then) french, occitano-roman, german, basque languages within his borders; Germany have an huge romance part; I won't talk about languages in Burgundian kingdoms; Italy is maybe the only one relatively unified in this regard (admitting retho-romance languages didn't appeared then)
I think he meant that, after this hypothetical only son inherit Carolingia, the empire eventually broke of in two parts along the Rhine.
I don't know why, it's seems really random (no carolingian or post-carolingian border following an only river, or even precise river beds).