What if Charlemagne's brother survived?

On September 24, 768, Pepin, King of the Franks, died and split his realm between his two sons. Charles, later known as Charlemagne, received the outer portions, and his 17-year-old brother Carloman recieved the interior of the kingdom. They ruled with "joint kingship" but were highly competitive.
Charles attempted to surround Carloman with allies by signing a treaty with the Duke of Bavaria and marrying the a daughter of Desiderius, King of the Lombards. Less than a year later, Charlemagne left her for a 13-year-old Swabian. The repudiated princess returned to hier father's court, where he angrily began to seek an alliance with Carloman to oppose Charles. Before any open hostilities could be declared, however, Carloman died of seemingly natural causes.
What if Carloman had not died?
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I made this map to illustrate the two sides of the war, but it might not be very accurate. Would Duke Tassilo of Bavaria honor his alliance with Charles? Would the Pope pick a side? Would the recently conquered Aquitaine take this opportunity to rebel? And, most importantly, who would win?
 
personally i suspect that Carloman was poisoned by charles, something all too common in those days. he likely will try it again.
Or maybe Carloman will return the favour when he avoids it, but discovers what happened
 
Welcome to the forum, agnorith64

I actually thought about this divergence you put there as a PoD for the TL in my signature.

If Carloman survives (whether his death was natural or instigated by his brother), I imagine they will soon enough face each other in civil war. It seems that only the intermediation of their mother prevented conflict, and, by now, Charlemagne had repudiated his Lombard wife "Desiderata", and Desiderius the King of the Lombards would certainly favor Carloman's claim (indeed, IOTL Carloman's wife and sons went to Desiderius' court after his death, and this gave Charlemagne the casus belli to invade Lombardy).

It would be an interesting TL if Charlemagne was defeated, or even killed. Afterwards, Carloman might try to cultivate friendly relations with his ally Desiderius, and he might pursue a more expansionist policy against the Papacy. In this case, the embryo of the HRE is possibly butterflied (unless one of the Frankish successors tries to imitate Pepin the Short and become the "defender of the Pope").
 
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er bad map, te papal stats did not exist, tecnically the pope of rome til charlamagnes crowing was subject to the byzantine emperor. Thus the papal states region should be either lombard or byzantine. It was only charlamagne who gave the pope the region shown on the map as the papal states.
 
er bad map, te papal stats did not exist, tecnically the pope of rome til charlamagnes crowing was subject to the byzantine emperor. Thus the papal states region should be either lombard or byzantine. It was only charlamagne who gave the pope the region shown on the map as the papal states.

You think that's bad? :confused:
Flevoland (and the Afsluitdijk) being on the map is way worse, since it consists of the major 20th century polders of the Netherlands.
 
It would be an interesting TL if Charlemagne was defeated, or even killed. Afterwards, Carloman might try to cultivate friendly relations with his ally Desiderius, and he might pursue a more expansionist policy against the Papacy. In this case, the embryo of the HRE is possibly butterflied (unless one of the Frankish successors tries to imitate Pepin the Short and become the "defender of the Pope").

Interesting points. So do you think Carloman would be as expansionist as Charlemagne? He was certainly a less experienced commander: Charlemagne had the experience of fighting alongside his father in Aquitaine.

BTW your TL looks really cool. Mind if I borrow some of your ideas about the extant Lombards?
 
er bad map, te papal stats did not exist, tecnically the pope of rome til charlamagnes crowing was subject to the byzantine emperor. Thus the papal states region should be either lombard or byzantine. It was only charlamagne who gave the pope the region shown on the map as the papal states.

Not completely true as the 1st Iconoclasm and other disputes had the Pope exercising de facto (if not de jure) soveriegnty over the Papal States, though that particular name yes was not used, and the Donation of Pepin was the final cut between the papal lands and Byzantine, so no you can't say it was Byzantine even in "name only" and no it wasn't "only" just Charlemagne's donation that gave him the region on the map. So, the map is guilty of an anachronism, but not of being wrong in the papal supremacy of that land.
 
Just buy CK2 and the Charlemagne DLC and you can find out. :p

Well, if Karl/Charles is out of the picture Carloman has all of Frankia under him. It would depend on his character. If he was expansionist there are Muslims to the South and pagans to the East and North.
 
This is a map from a Walloon history site, it is basically similar:

0768_0090c1.jpg


This partition certainly cannot last long once the brothers are no longer on good terms.
If they fight and Carloman wins, then you can have him do things a bit differently, but not much.
 
If someone is really interested in this level of detail: The reason we can today rather easily reproduce the line of partition is that it was based on ecclesiatical dioceses. Generally they gave whole metropolitan provinces (ie archbishoprics) to on of the brothers, only the Province of Reims was divided by suffragan bishoprics. I can post the list if you want.
 
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