17 - Western Francia: the southern principalities

Summary

the southern half of the west Frankish kingdom created at Verdun led a troubled existence. Charles the Bald placated Aquitanian separatism by reestablishing a kingdom of Aquitaine for his son in 855, but royal control remained insecure. Rulers crushed an Aquitanian revolt and disposed of Aquitanian honours for the last time in the 870s; thereafter royal inadequacy left the south in comfortable isolation, though southerners continued to profess loyalty to the monarchy. In 888 the nobles of Neustria elected the non-Carolingian Odo as king, and the various peoples gave themselves ‘kings born of their own entrails’, as Regino put it. In Aquitaine, Ramnulf II, count of Poitiers, proclaimed himself king, or at least behaved like one. Odo did not attempt to subdue Ramnulf by force; instead, he went to Aquitaine with only a small escort. Early in 889 Ramnulf submitted, and in return Odo granted him the title of dux maximae partis Aquitaniae, giving him control over Aquitaine under royal authority.

For the western kingdom, Odo’s reign (888–98) initiated the era of principalities: hegemonies over cultural or ethnic entities which revived the former territorial units making up the regnum Francorum. South of the Loire, this phenomenon was especially significant. Throughout the tenth century, rival claimants to the kingdom came from the north; southerners were largely uninterested in the struggle, being more concerned to consolidate their own positions. William the Pious’ adoption of the title of duke in 898 marked the beginning of a period in which the king was effectively absent from the south. The change of dynasty in 987 only made absence complete. The lengthy visit by Robert the Pious in 1019–20, the last royal intervention south of the Loire for over a century, was a mere pilgrimage. The only sign that the southern principalities belonged to the kingdom was the use of regnal years in the dating-clauses of charters.