Conflict between East and West Francia over Lotharingia was based on the fact that these were the old Frankish homelands of Austrasia, so possession of them was a matter of great prestige as true claimant of Frankish imperial legacy.īecause Lotharingia lacked a single historic or ethnic identity, contemporaries were unsure what to call it. Lotharingia resulted from the tripartite division in 855 of the kingdom of Middle Francia, which itself was formed after the threefold division of the Carolingian Empire by the Treaty of Verdun of 843. It was named after King Lothair II, who received this territory after the Kingdom of Middle Francia of his father, Lothair I, had been divided among his three sons in 855. It comprised present-day Lorraine (France), Luxembourg, Saarland (Germany), Netherlands, and the eastern half of Belgium, along with parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) and Nord (France). Lotharingia ( Latin: regnum Lotharii, regnum Lothariense, Lotharingia French: Lotharingie German: Reich des Lothar, Lotharingien, Mittelreich Dutch: Lotharingen) was a short-lived medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire.
