treaty of Verdun have made themselves felt even down to our own day, since from 843 to 1920 France and Germany have contended for portions of media Francia, the ancient home whence the companions of Charles and Pepin went forth to conquer Gallia and Germania. But in 843 France and Germany do not yet exist. Each sovereign looks upon himself as a King of the Franks. None the less, there is a Frankish kingdom of the West and a Frankish kingdom of the East, the destinies of which will henceforth lie apart, and from this point of view it is true to say that the grandsons of Charles, the universal Emperor, have each his country.
Even contemporary writers realised the importance of the division made by the Treaty of Verdun in the history of the Frankish monarchy. The following justly famous verses by the deacon Florus of Lyons sum up the situation as it appeared to the advocates of the ancien régime of imperial unity:
Floruit egregium claro diademate regnum:
Princeps unus erat, populus quoque subditus unus,
At nunc tantus apex tanto de culmine lapsus,
Cunctorun teritur pedibus; diademate nudus
Perdidit imperii pariter nomenque decusque,
Et regnum unitum concidit sorte triformi.
Induperator ibi prorsus jam nemo putatur;
Pro rege est regulus, pro regno fragmina regni[1].
For the old conception of a united Empire in which kings acted merely as lieutenants of the Emperor, was being substituted the idea of a new form of government, that of three kings, equal in dignity and in effective power. Lothar, it is true, retained the imperial title, but had been unable to secure, by obtaining a larger extent of territory, any real superiority over his brothers. He possessed, indeed, the two capitals of the Empire, Rome and Aix, but this circumstance did not, in the ninth century, carry all the weight in men's minds that has since been attributed to it. Besides this advantage in dignity was largely counterbalanced by the inferiority arising from the weakness of geographical position which marked Lothar's long strip of territory, peopled by varying races with varying interests, threatened on the north by the Danes, and on the south by the Saracens, over the whole of which it was barely possible that he could exercise his direct authority. As to the Emperor's brothers, they were naturally disinclined to recognise in him any superiority over them. In their negotiations with him they regard themselves as his equals (peers, pares). Beyond his title of king they give him no designation save that of "elder brother" and the very word imperium rarely occurs in documents.
- ↑ Querela de divisione imperii in M.H.G., Poet. Lat., Vol. II. p. 559 et sqq.
