Inheritance and succession systems in Early Middle Ages

I'm doing some research about the post-Roman Germanic kingdoms in Western Europe, with focus on the Carolingian period. From what I've found, there were:

A) Salic Patrimony ("Gavelkind", for fellow CK2 players), by which the real estate is divided among the male sons, apparently in equal shares, and, in the case of rulership, with equal titles. It seems that it was the most common method, at least among the Franks, but also practiced by the Kingdom of Asturias (from whence Castille, Galicia and Leon were born).

B) Elective, by which the whole rulership is given to a single person chosen by a group of nobles. Besides the obvious (and complicated) example of the HRE, it seems that in the Lombard Kingdom of Italy election was the traditional method, and not many Kings managed to have their sons elected. I'm not sure about other Germanic monarchies such as Bavaria, Thuringian and pre-Carolingian Saxony.

C) Primogeniture, from what I recall, it was recognized at least among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Alfred the Great's ascension to power instead of his nephew Aethelwold was apparently considered excepcional).

So my basic questions are:

1. Do we have any notion of when (in which century) elective and "gavelkind" systems gradually phased out to give place to male-preference primogeniture? My guess is roughly by the 11th century, but am not so sure about this figure.

2. Did these types of transition to primogeniture by the monarchs met resistance (let's forget a bit about the HRE, for its system goes well beyond my purpose) from the nobility, or were the nobles (at least on Duke rank) also interested in it?

3. Did the eventual collapse of the Carolingian Empire - the "kingdom partition" policies among the eligible heirs being one of the main factors in its decline - led to the conscious adoption of primogeniture in Western European kingdoms after the 10th century?
 
Partible inheritance "gavelkind" systems tended to apply to personal estates, not to realms. When it showed up at the level of independent states, usually what was going on was the state was seen as a collection of separable titles which happened to all be held by a single family. The most prominent examples are the Carolingian Empire (made up of Austrasia, Neustria, Aquitaine, Burgundy, Lombardy, Saxony, etc) and the Angevin Empire (made up of England, Ireland, Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, and the Aquitaine). In both cases, the only unifying principle was personal union of the titles, so rules of personal inheritance applied rather than rules of realm inheritance.

Partible inheritance went away in favor of elective inheritance when the Carolingian dynasty died out. The clusters of Carolingian possession that had most often been administratively unified (the kingdoms of France, Germany, and Italy; with the latter two later merging into the HRE) had by this point come to be seen as realms, so when they needed to pick new rulers in default of Carolingian heirs, they stayed unified and picked a common ruler for each realm by election.

Election went away at different times in different kingdoms, but the usual pattern was that elections declined in importance to a mere formality (first ratifying the King's proposed heir, then ceremonial acknowledging the King's rightful heir) as royal authority increased and the tradition of electing the King's oldest suitable son took on the weight of customary law.

In France, this happened gradually, with Hugh Capet's son being pre-elected as his heir in 987 and the practice of election being dispensed with entirely by Philip Augustus who died in 1223.

In England, election became a formality after the Norman Conquest, with the electors always picking the last king's chosen heir (almost always his eldest son or next-oldest brother) until the Anarchy (1135-1154), when they tried to exercise independence, but the elected King (Stephen of Blois) eventually lost a long and bloody civil war to the nominated heir (Empress Matilda, who later yielded her claim to her son Henry II). I think the elections were a dead letter after that.

In the HRE, of course, real elections persisted until the dissolution of the Empire because the ruling dynasty was never strong enough for long enough to turn the elections into a formality.
 
Well, do keep in mind that these "systems" were not always distinct. To quote Marc Bloch:

Today we are apt to regard the two methods [election and hereditary succession] as strictly incompatible; but we have the evidence of innumerable texts that they did not appear so to the same degree in the Middle Ages. 'We have obtained the unanimous election of the peoples and the princes and the hereditary succession to the undivided realm' - declared Henry II of Germany in 1003. And in France, according to that excellent canonist Ivo of Chartres: 'That man was rightly crowned king, to whom the kingdom fell by hereditary right and who was designated by unanimous consent of the bishops and the great men.' The fact is that neither of the two principles was interpreted in an absolute sense.
Various factors influenced who was considered legitimate, and how heavily each of these factors was considered depended on the particular country and the power of its monarchy. Early Germany is often characterized as "elective," but the wish of the late monarch was often a deciding factor, like Conrad recommending Henry the Fowler and Conrad III urging the election of his nephew Frederick over his own minor son. In Lombard Italy (both north and south), "co-kings" or "co-princes" were a very common practice, in which a monarch would secure the assent of the magnates of the realm to associate his heir with him in the monarchy, so when he died his heir was already considered to be ruling.

Later on, perhaps, the "rules" became more ironclad and formalized, and perhaps someone besides me could speak better to the development of a more codified primogeniture. In the early Middle Ages, however, it was rarely so simple.
 
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What Carp said, with this nuance : the elective principle never really played fully. Look at the French kingship structure since the XIth century, and you'd see that in spite of a formal election, the hereditary succession was barely disputed (as in 1030's, with Robert II succession being disputed among his sons : which ended with a gavelkind-like split).

While the Xth saw actual, divisive, elections, one have to remember we're talking of a period of generalized war between nobmes, royal dynasties, external pressures...
Rather than symptomatic of a general unstability and undecision of the elective choice, it was more symptomatic of a really troubled era.

Eventually, in an heavily ritualized (for what concerned social and political matters, especially) society, the permanance of a formal election that was never really put in question (safe dynastic unstability or termination) by the great nobles which still highlights the permanance of the sacred dynasty principle from the Carolingian and Post-Carolingian world.

In Lombard Italy (both north and south), "co-kings" or "co-princes" were a very common practice, in which a monarch would secure the assent of the magnates of the realm to associate his heir with him in the monarchy, so when he died his heir was already considered to be ruling.
That's a generalized practice : in France, Germany, Anglo-Norman England, etc; that could be reinforced by multiple coronation or sacres of the heir.

3. Did the eventual collapse of the Carolingian Empire - the "kingdom partition" policies among the eligible heirs being one of the main factors in its decline - led to the conscious adoption of primogeniture in Western European kingdoms after the 10th century?

The elective kingship is more a consequence of the Late Carolingian (it's particularly obvious with Lothair of Western Francia) and post-Carolingian situations, with the growing power of stable princely dynastic holdings in Francia (a growing more important landed aristocracy, basically) and the general geopolitical instability.

Carolingians and Post-Carolingians aristocrats weren't exactly keen about slaughtering each other for claimaints, and they actually supported dynastical division rather than striving for an unified rule, because it was the way to maintain social (and familial) social solidarities, and maybe as well to abide by regional/national identities.

After all, it was why Charlemagne had to give Aquitaine a distinct king, even as the country was decisively conquered and crushed, politically, by his father. The importance of these political identities, critically in face of rule from a foreign but powerful ruler (eventually, with Frankish kings barely ruling or influencing anything at all south of Loire, the Aquitain kingship went extinct) shouldn't be handwaved.

Not that you didn't have an unitarian position on kingship, but it's more coming from the Aquitain or aquitainized intelligentia (that, as Michel Rouche pointed out, formed the bulk of Carolingian administration if not as individuals, at least intellectually/ideologically), that adopted a very important "Unified Christian Empire", rather than dynastical.

So, I'd say no : the dynastical separation (distinct, formally and essentially from Merovingian tradition of co-kingship while in its historical continuity) of the Carolingian world was supported by the same social groups that went to be the bulk of the elective rituals.
Reasons are more to be searched into dynastical and geopolitical unstability, growth of landed aristocracy ("Advisors" with a certain political power) and social solidarities.
 
It seems that it was the most common method, at least among the Franks

It's quite distinct with Franks, actually.

Bruno Dumézil said:
First, what was really shared? Successions' accounts points that each Merovingian king, as each son of the deceased king, recieved a series of cities and strongholds, forming only rarely a continuous territory.
Kings are not given a coherent portion of land, but essentially two elements of power : a most wealthy capital region and an active border to defend.

It can be considered that the merovingian shares looks like the ones practiced in the Late Roman Empire. As the territory is too vast, a prince is needed on each active border; every ruler is so tied to a threatened area and have enough hinterland to supply it.

One can think as well that it's an efficient way to expand the territory : each Merovingian have an area to defend but as well to expand trough conquest. This share system was indeed particularily efficient.
Between Clovis and the early VIIth, Frankish regnum is doubled, each king trying to gain land at his neighbours' expense.

Furthermore, the successorial share doesn't mean the State was considered as private patrimony bt Merovingians. At the contrary, these kings maintain a really precise list of fiscs, these public lands formerly owned by the emperor and then held by the Merovingian kings. Each king is the keeper of the fiscs on his territory, but these belong to the whole regnum.

So, the permanancy of the public land, since Late Antiquity to the IXth century ensure a certain continuity of the Frankish State. As long the Frankish State is a landowner State, as long it beneficiy from domanial lands, divisions, reunifications and shares doesn't harm its power.

It's particularily obvious with non-Frankish lands of the kingdom as Aquitaine or Provence, that are rarely part of a continuous land but themselves divided apart from Francia proper, at least up to Dagobert I that gives half of it to his half-brother (as a separate sub-kingdom against Vascons).

Kingdom of Asturias (from whence Castille, Galicia and Leon were born).
It's a bit particular there, maybe too much to be named Gavelkind (that ideally should be restricted to British Isles : everything else is an abuse due to poor CK II mechanics and conventions).

Admittedly the succession structures in Asturias are still debated, but it may eventually come more from both some Visigothic anti-dynastic kingship features (especially the elective part) with more regional nobiliar uses, as in matrilinear succession.
What existed afterwards is more the result of something similar to what existed in Merovingian France, and a strong regional identity : the kingdoms aren't seen as separated but eventually as belonging to the same continuity and to be re-unified eventually.
 
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