Lothaire I

Lothaire I was the oldest son of Louis the Pious and had the proverbial head start over his brothers.  However, due to the traditional Frankish practice of patrimonial division, he was forced to divide the Carolingian Empire and share it with his brothers.  Lothaire was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 823 by Pope Paschal I and was King of Italy as well.  As did the other brothers, Lothaire spent much of his youth at his grandfather Charlemagne’s court.  He learned military strategy and tactics at an early age from Charlemagne as well as reading and writing from the scholars of the Court.  He would have been heir to the entire Carolingian Empire if things had gone his father’s and his grandfather’s way.

Upon his father Louis the Pious’ death in 840, Lothaire disregarded all of the empire partitions and claimed the Empire for himself.  Negotiations with his younger brothers followed.  But Lothaire was resolute.  He allied himself with his nephew, Pepin II, from Aquitaine.  Nearly two years of battles followed and despite acts of personal gallantry on the field, Lothaire and Pepin were defeated.  The negotiations brought some peace to all; however, Lothaire spent the rest of his life engaging in alternate quarrels with his brothers and defending the narrow stretch of land in the river valleys of the Rhone and the Rhine from the Vikings.

Lothaire I, the once self-proclaimed final ruler of the Carolingian Empire, died at the Monastery of Prum in 855.  What if Lothaire had succeeded in keeping the Empire whole?  Could we have been living with a unified Europe by 900?