France rather than Germany as Holy Roman Empire?

Pkmatrix

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I'm working on a story at the moment, and one of the background details I'd like to include is the Holy Roman Empire being equivalent to OTL France, rather than OTL Germany. What would need to have happened to keep the Roman crown passing through the successors of Charles the Bald rather than the East Francian kings? How would this change have altered the political landscape in Medieval Europe? Would a French Holy Roman Empire be able to last? What would become of Germany, England, and the Iberian peninsula?
 
anglo saxn england, Catalonia might not become part of spain, Germany will likely fall apart like it did IOTL.

Things will be interesting in italy
 
France and Germany were in the Carolingian Empire and later split between Charles the bald and Ludwig the Germanic after defeated Lothario who went to Italy...

Maybe if Lothario was forced to resign also the Imperial crown from one of the brothers, in this case Charles... we could have three states: HRE of France (which later expanded in Spain), and Kingdoms of Germany and Italy.

Italy maybe later lose the south part to the Islam and later took its own reconquista, while the war of hundred years could be between Germany and England.
 
Very good idea!
This possibility deserves much more attention.

It doesn't really matter which king calls himself Emperor; I can't imagine that title too consequential. In particular, you can see both extremes in Germany, from a centralized royal authority (as in OTL's France) to the split into not only de-facto, but also de-jure independent tribal counties as early as in the 10th century.

However, the crucial question is how you accomplish that the Pope crowns the king of France Emperor. While a certain political (and theological/philosophical) agreement between the monarch and the pontifex should suffice to arrange that once, it is much more plausible in the long run if France gains much more power than IOTL in the other two Frankish subkingdoms, Burgundy and Italy. So see how you can arrange that.

Nice little detail: If the Eastern Frankish Kingdom stabilizes itself as Germany similarly to OTL, then their kings will need some source of dignified prestige. Why not refer themselves back to the old Franks? It is quite plausible that the Germans will call their country "Frankreich" ...


Another little suggestion: I always wondered what it would have been like if the Popes would make case-to-case decisions between crowning French or German kings Roman Emperors ...
 
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Pkmatrix said:
Would a French Holy Roman Empire be able to last?

That would depend on how the French Holy Roman Emperor works his way out of this mess. If he goes the same way the Capetians did OTL in France, then there is a good chance that the French Holy Roman Empire survives. However, if he follows the OTL example of the HRE, the Empire will fall apart.

French Carolingians were facing the same trouble with their nobles as their German counterpart. The Robertians (ancestors to the Capetians) particularly posed a problem in threat as they were powerful and popular in Neustria.

Plus, the last French Carolingians didn't had much luck after Charles II the Bald. Charles' son, Louis II the Stammerer, died two years after his father. The crown went to his two sons, Louis III and Carloman II, who died before their 20s and without children. Louis II had a posthumous third son, Charles III the Simple whom the French nobles didn't want because he was too young (he was 5). They thus gave the crown to the Charles the Fat, the Holy Roman Emperor, whom ended up pissing them off and kicked out in 888 (shortly before his death). The crown then passed to Eudes, a Robertian. Charles III was only crowned in 898 and after a huge political struggle against Eudes.
Charles III was a rather competent and good-willed king, but he ended up pissing off the nobles on several points (notably his wish to become King of Lotharingia) and was overthrown in 922 by Robert I, Eudes' brother and another Robertian. Charles III tried to get back his throne (leading to Robert I's death in 923) but was defeated and eventually ended up as a prisonner of Herbert II of Vermandois (one of the most vicious politicians of the time). He died imprisonned in 929 under suspicious circumstances (rumor says he was poisonned by Herbert II).
Meanwhile, the French crown went to Rudolph of Burgundy, husband of Emma, Robert I's daughter. Rudolph died in 936 without children and the nobles wished for Hugh the Great, Robert I's son, to be crowned King of the Franks. Hugh refused however and asked for Louis IV, Charles III's eldest son, to have the crown. The French Carolingians recoverd the French crown but not power as Hugh the Great was the one really in charge since he was the most powerful man in France.
Hugh the Great was the power behind the throne during Louis IV's reign. When Louis IV died in 954, Hugh the Great was still in charge for Lothair, the new king.
After the death of Hugh the Great, the Carolingians had to face Hugh Capet. Lothair wished to restablished control over his kingdom but was beaten by Hugh Capet and died accidentally in 986. His son Louis V died the following year by falling from his horse. The last Carolingian who could have claimed the French throne, Charles of Lower Lotharingia, was pushed aside and Hugh Capet became the first Capetian King of France.
 
anglo saxn england, Catalonia might not become part of spain, Germany will likely fall apart like it did IOTL.

Things will be interesting in italy
I think the Kingdom of Arles can form Occitania on this TL or the Kingdom of Arles will be an independent occitan state that is the center of occitano-catalan culture.
 
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anglo saxn england

Disagree in principle.

Unless you mean butterflies preventing William the Conqueror from being born (I always hated that kind of butterflies) a more balkanised France is not going to prevent Rollo and his Norsemen from pillaging northern France, and they are likely going to have to be bought with land anyway too. The Normans were not French, remember - they were Scandinavian invaders who had been bought off with land. In fact a POD could be after Normandy had come into existence. The Norse in France could actually be a whole lot stronger in TTL as, with a broken-up France they stand a chance of either being able to swallow up more land in a peace, or being able to conquer a lot of surrounding land in the way that they tried to annex Brittany, or to simply wash over a France poorly-suited to resisting them, and perhaps even taking the title of Holy Roman Emperor of the Frankish Nation for themselves (or, for Rollo). In this situation, if the Normans get a claim to the English throne - which events in England set up OTL so could easily set up TTL - then the Norman Conquest could even be a far larger invasion with a far more comprehensive and easy success at the alt version of Hastings.
 
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