Were there any critics of divided inheritance?

It's pretty much common sense that the division of territory the Franks practiced on succession was a bad idea, my question is if there was anyone who realized this was bad policy back when it was actually practiced?
 
It's pretty much common sense that the division of territory the Franks practiced on succession was a bad idea, my question is if there was anyone who realized this was bad policy back when it was actually practiced?

I don't think they had a full grasp of the concept of "policy".
 
I think you have pretty much caricatural vision of Frankish political succession, to be entierly frank (pun totally intended).

Not only do they had a concept of "policy" (while more issued from the Late Roman Empire, and coupled with a relativly weak state) but it never was about ignoring what a state was.

The division of the Merovingian kingdom in 511 was more or less unprecedented, from what we know, in western germanic usages. It's quite probable, that it can be traced to a mix of germanic inheritance where every son have a similar share AND to the late roman usage to have different rulers on a same entity (you can find it in different kingdoms, such as sub-kings in Visigothic Spain).

It should be pointed out that it never was considered as a division of the realm : in spite of infighting, it never went to the establishment of different entities.
It eventually went down to two factors : fiscality (each share being based on cities and fiscal revenues) and organisation of territory (for occupation and defenses purposes : for instance, Aquitaine was often divided in as much equal shares than you had kings).
The public land isn't divided in different entities, but remains as property to only one realm, being trusted to different rulers.

Normally, each king was king of the Franks, without other mention, and was normally to support his brothers and uncles : now that's for the theory, and as in Late Roman Era, infighting over monopolisation of kingship existed. It should be noted, though, that outright refuse of support, as Carloman did on Charlemagne, generally meant a weakening of legitimacy, critically when it comes to a foreign threat or a rebellion.

(It was discussed a bit there)
 
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