The Grandsons Didn't Get Along

Charlemagne is known as "the father of Europe," and little wonder. The Frankish king and conqueror was crowned emperor by the pope on Christmas Day in 800, and thus the Holy Roman Empire came into being. It would persist, in various forms, for a millennium, an institution critical to the continent's political and religious self-definition.

- Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry

Such persistence, though, was not foreordained. When Charlemagne died in 814, a question arose: Who would inherit his title and, not least, his lands? The Franks, speaking what is now called Old High German, occupied much of what had been the Roman Empire in the West: that is to say, modern France and much of Germany, extending to what is now the Czech Republic, as well as northern Italy and parts of modern Spain. It was a vast territory and an unwieldy one, given that the great Roman roads were, at this point, in poor condition.

Charlemagne's authority had been such that the empire had held together, though even he met with rebellion. His eldest surviving son, Louis the Pious, had a harder time-a harbinger of the even bigger trouble that came in the next generation, with Charlemagne's grandsons.

In "Oathbreakers," Matthew Gabriele and David Perry describe a civil war that erupted only briefly in early medieval Europe but that had substantial and lasting effects. As prelude, the authors, both medieval historians, give an overview of Charlemagne's reign and a chronicle of Louis the Pious's ruling ordeals.

The generational saga is fascinating and well worth tracking to its fateful conclusion. It should be said that, through no fault of the authors, it isn't always easy to follow-not only was the empire extensive but many of the first of its chroniclers wrote long after the events they relate. Most of the Frankish lords were illiterate. Charlemagne learned to write in later life, but he was the exception. Nearly 300 years after him, Henry I of England, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, was known as "Beauclerc" because he could at least write his name.