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Lotharingia: Europe’s Forgotten Country
What happened to this Medieval kingdom?
In 855 CE, the Kingdom of Lotharingia came into existence. Lotharingia is one of the least known kingdoms of Medieval Europe but it had a lasting linguistic effect on the region. Lotharingia was formed upon the death of King Lothair I, which is where the name Lotharingia originates. (The full name of the kingdom was once Regnum quondam Lotharii or Lothair’s Former Kingdom, which was as much as a mouthful then as it is now.) Lothair I was the king of Middle Francia, which unsurprisingly, was sandwiched between West Francia and East Francia. All three kingdoms were successor states to the short-lived Frankish Carolingian Empire.
When Lothair I died, he followed in the footsteps of his ancestors and split his kingdom into three. The Treaty of Verdun, signed in 843, had split Charlemagne’s empire into three parts, West, Middle and East Francia. Now, Lothair further divided his kingdom by splitting Middle Francia into three parts. Lotharingia was the result of this partition.
So what happened to Lotharingia? Can you still see traces of this forgotten state today?
A Child Among Giants
Unfortunately for Lothair’s heirs, Lotharingia was left smashed between two much larger states in West Francia and East…
