History of the Empire of Francia

Below is a brief history of all of the Carolingian monarchs, from Charlemagne to our current blessed Emperor, Louis XV.


772: Charles I, “The Great”, goes to war with the Saxons.
774: Duchy of Bavaria is absorbed into the Empire.
788: War declared against the Avars.
789: War declared against the Slavs, who quickly submit, becoming tributaries of the Empire.
790: Avars subjugated, converted and settled southeast of Vienna.
795: Wars against the Moors end, Spanish March established.
804: Last Saxon uprising quelled.
804: At the insistence of the Pope, Charles finally goes to war with the powerful Lombard kingdom.
810: After six years, the war is locked in stalemate. A short peace is made, and the Pope relocates to Avignon five hundred years early Charlemagne is regardless crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
813: Charlemagne’s only surviving legitimate son, Louis, is crowned Co-Emperor.
814: Charles I dies, leaving Louis I as Emperor of the Romans and King of the Franks.
816: The first of the many frontier rebellions of Louis’ reign.
829 - 837: Three civil wars, all won by Louis I. Louis is temporarily deposed from 833 to 834.
840 : Louis I dies, plunging the realm into civil war.
843: The Treaty of Verdun is signed. His eldest son, Lothair I, is named King of Middle Francia and Emperor of the Romans. Louis the German is named King of East Francia. Charles the Bald is named King of West Francia, with Pepin II as King of Aquitaine in vassalage to him.
858: Louis the German invades West Francia with support from many of the realm’s nobles. Charles the Bald flees to Burgundy, but is saved by the bishops, who refuse to crown Louis king.
864: Pepin II of Aquitaine dies, and his kingdom is given to Charles the Bald.
869: Lothair II, son of Lothair I and King of Middle Francia, dies without an heir.
870: Lothair’s lands are split between East and West Francia.
875 Charles the Bald is crowned Charles II, Emperor of the Romans. In revenge, Louis the German invades and devastates Charles’ holdings.
876: Louis the German dies, his lands split into Bavaria, Saxony and Swabia. Charles II attempts to take them for himself, but is defeated decisively.
877: Charles II dies, and is succeeded by his son, Louis II (Known as “The Stammerer”), who declines the title of Emperor of the Romans.
879: Physically weak, Louis the Stammerer dies shortly after beginning a campaign against the Vikings. His son, Louis III, is crowned King of West Francia jointly with his brother, Carloman II.
880: Louis and Carloman march against Duke Boso, who names himself King of Provence, with aid from Charles the Fat, King of Germany.
882: Louis III falls from his horse and suffers a fatal wound. His brother Carloman is crowned sole King of West Francia, Burgundy and Aquitaine.
884: Carloman II dies in a hunting accident, and is succeeded by Charles the Fat. As a result, Charles reunites the entirety of the Carolingian Empire as Charles III.
887: In a coup, Charles III is deposed from East Francia and Lotharingia.
888: Charles III dies of natural causes. His traitorous nephew Arnulf is made King of East Francia and Lotharingia. Odo, a hero of the Siege of Paris, is made King of West Francia, breaking the line of Carolingian rule.
893: Charles the Simple, third son of Louis the Stammerer, is installed by a faction as King of West Francia.
911: Vikings besiege Paris, and in exchange for peace are granted Normandy in vassalage. Louis the Child, King of Germany, dies without an heir. The nobles of Lotharingia elect Charles the Simple as their king, while Conrad of Franconia is made King of East Francia. The Holy Roman Empire is revived as an elective monarchy in the east.
920: Charles the Simple is seized by his own nobles, but is released after negotiations.
922: The Frankish nobles revolt again, driving Charles from West Francia.
923: Charles returns with an army of Norman mercenaries, but is defeated and captured.
929: Charles dies in prison.
936: Charles’ son, two years old at his father’s death, is eventually crowned Louis IV, King of West Francia.
954: After nearly two decades of relatively peaceful, if tense, rule, Louis IV falls from his horse and dies. He is succeeded by his son, Lothair III of France, at the age of thirteen.
978: Lothair’s son is crowned Louis V, though only in name.
986: Lothair dies and Louis V assumes power as King of West Francia and King of Aquitaine.
987: Louis V most definitely does NOT fall from his horse while hunting, and spends his rule consolidating power as the last Carolingian monarch.
991: Louis V does away with inheritance split among his sons, instead naming his firstborn as “heir to all Francia”. His other three sons rise up in revolt, but being unlanded are quickly dealt with and exiled from the realm.
1032: Louis V dies after a long, reasonably peaceful reign. In an unprecedented move, his son, Louis VI, is crowned “Emperor of Francia” — in effect West Francia, Aquitaine and Brittany — by the Pope in Avignon.
1033 - 1042: Louis VI leads a series of successful incursions on the territory of the Holy Roman Empire.
1051: Louis VI dies childless, and his eldest brother returns from exile to be crowned Charles IV, Emperor of Francia.
1066: The Normans successfully invade England, but are driven out by the Norwegians and return to Frankish vassalage.
1070: Charles IV dies of natural causes. His son is crowned Charles V, Emperor of Francia.
1070-1080: Eager to do what even Charlemagne could not, Charles V leads a series of attacks on the powerful Lombards in Italy, attempting to return the Pope to Rome. While minor territorial gains are made, they are lost just as quickly and the conflict ends in stalemate.
1081: Charles V dies childless, and Louis VII - the son of Louis VI’s exiled youngest brother — is elected as Emperor of Francia by a council of nobles.
1090: The Kingdom of Aragon is briefly brought under the Empire as Louis VI’s Jimena wife becomes Queen, but is just as quickly lost to a rebellion.
1092: Louis VII attempts to place a large tax on all feudal rulers’ incomes. Many of the lords of the Kingdom of Aquitaine rise up in revolt.
1100: At the dawn of a new century, the rebellion is finally ended with the Treaty of Vermandois, which halves the feudal tax in exchange for fealty and hostages from many of the rebel lords.
1100: One hostages have been taken and truce signed Louis VI immediately uses the children as leverage to arrest and execute the rebel lords for treason. Labeled “The Trucebreaker”, Louis is excommunicated by the Pope in Avignon and quickly deposed.
1101: Louis VI’s son, age fourteen, is crowned Carloman III, Emperor of Francia, and quickly does away with the feudal tax.
1101-1110: The feudal lords of the Kingdom of Aquitaine are broken down into smaller counts and barons by the execution of most of the dukes. Within a decade, things have mostly returned to order as their heirs come of age.
1115: A Breton conspiracy to declare independence is quickly put down, the lords in charge stripped of their titles. Brittany is made into a crown duchy.
1150: After a long, peaceful reign, Carloman III dies and the crown of the Empire of Francia passes to his grandson, Louis VII (as Carloman outlived his first, and only, son).
1151: Louis VII is murdered in cold blood by his regent and aunt, Adelheid, who claims his crown.
1152: Adelheid crowns herself Adelheid I, Empress of Francia, as most of the feudal lords of the realm rise up in rebellion.
1153: Paris is besieged.
1154: The rule of Adelheid I comes to a bloody end as she is hung from the walls of Paris and posthumously excommunicated by the Avignon Papacy.
1154: Louis VII’s brother and rightful heir is crowned Charles VI at the age of four.
1165: At the age of fifteen, Charles VI’s regency ends. The new Emperor of Francia proves to be cautious and content, and his is an era of peace.
1227: Charles VI dies a natural death and is succeeded by his son, Lothair IV, who is of the age of fifty and already senile.
1230: Lothair IV abdicates in favor of his own, more robust, son, Louis VIII.
1233: Another war is declared against the Lombards.
1237: Another war against the Lombards ends in stalemate.
1252: Louis VIII dies of a fall from his horse. His son is crowned Louis IX, Emperor of Francia, at age twenty-two.
1305: Louis IX, who has spent his reign consolidating his own power at the expense of the nobles, dies, leaving behind only two daughters and no immediate heir.
1306: A council of vassals crowns Louis IX’s eldest daughter, Adèle I, as Empress of Francia, beginning the Age of the Three Empresses. The condition of this decision is that Adèle marries a distant kinsman, so as to keep the line of Carolingian succession intact.
1310: Civil war begins as several conspirators attempt to place Adèle’s male cousin, crowned in secret as Louis X, on the throne of Francia.
1324: After fourteen years of civil war, the conspiracy is finally defeated at grievous cost, and Louis is exiled.
1347: Adèle I dies. Her daughter and only child, Caroline, is crowned Caroline I, as precedent has already been established.
1361: Caroline I dies under suspicious circumstances without children, though nothing is ever proved. The crown passes to her aunt and Adèle I’s sister, Béatrice I, the last monarch of the Age of the Three Empresses.
1383: Béatrice I, now believed to be barren, dies without children of her own. Her heir, the once-pretender Louis X, returns from exile to be crowned Emperor of Francia at age sixty-three.
1385: Louis X dies of natural causes only two years after his coronation. His son, Charles VII, succeeds him as Emperor.
1386: Shorly after his ascension to the throne, Charles VII invades Lombardy at the behest of the Pope in Avignon.
1395: Another truce between the Franks and the Lombards is made, with few territorial concessions from either side despite great casualties from both.
1408: Charles VII dies , and is succeeded as Emperor of Francia by his son, Pepin II.
1453: Pepin II dies after spending his rule fortifying the Lombard border, and is succeeded by his son, Louis XI.
1457: Louis XI, with plans of the Lombards’ destruction, sends his son and heir, Lothair, to serve in a mercenary company and gain military experience.
1461: Louis XI dies suddenly, and with Lothair out of the country Louis’ second son Charles proclaims himself Charles VIII, Emperor of Francia. Thus begins the First Pretender Rebellion.
1462: Furious, Lothair returns to France with the backing of many of the realm’s nobles and the mercenary company he served in.
1464: After a two-year civil war, the capital is taken by Lothair, who is crowned Lothair V, Emperor of Francia. To pay his mercenaries, Lothair allows them to sack many of the towns and cities surrounding Paris. Charles VIII, “The Pretender”, is executed, and his wife and children flee the country.
1507: Lothair V dies a natural death, and his son, Louis XII, succeeds him as Emperor of Francia.
1511: The son of Charles VIII invades Francia with a large army of mercenaries, naming himself Charles IX, Emperor of France.
1512: The decisive victory of Louis XII and his loyal French nobles over the mercenaries marks the end of the Second Pretender Rebellion.
1539: Louis XII dies, and his son Lothair VI is crowned Emperor of Francia.
1540: Charles X, nephew of the pretender Charles IX, gains the support of several of the realm’s influential vassals and rises up to claim the throne. In response, Lothair VI declares that Charles VIII — the First Pretender — was actually a bastard. This claim has little basis in reality, though Louis XI was a somewhat promiscuous man.
1553: After a long and exhausting war, the Third Pretender Rebellion is put down, all living male descendants of Charles VIII put to the sword, and the rebel nobles stripped of their lands and titles. Lothair VI makes an unprecedented decision in greatly curbing the rights of his feudal vassals, instead instituting the beginning of a bureaucracy led by lesser nobility loyal only to the Emperor.
1571: Lothair VI dies, and his grandson, Louis XIII, is named Emperor of Francia as Lothair outlived his firstborn son.
1583: Louis XIII attempts to do away with the feudal system, instead instituting a large standing army. Most of the realm’s nobles rise up in revolt.
1583: Louis’ half-trained army is defeated soundly and the civil war is lost. Louis XIII is allowed to keep his head in exchange for several large concessions to the realm’s feudal vassals.
1605: Louis XIII dies and is succeeded by  his son, Louis XIV.
1605-1653: Louis XIV’s reign is marked by largely unsuccessful colonization efforts in the Americas.
1653: Louis XIV dies of old age, and is succeeded by his grandson, Charles XI — the first Charles   to rule Francia since the Pretender Rebellions. Luckily, over the next few decades Charles XI proves himself a capable administrator and diplomat, and sets the realm to rights.
1707: Charles XI dies, to the sadness of all the realm. He outlived both of his sons and neither produced children. A council of vassals elects the infant Lothair VII, son of Charles XI’s daughter and a distant kinsman, as Emperor of Francia.
1707-1722: The Regency of Infamy. A council of the realm’s nobles rule in place of Lothair VII, as he is not of age, but spend the entire fifteen years squabbling amongst themselves over lands and titles and stealing gold from the treasury.
1722: Lothair VII becomes Emperor in reality as well as in name. His first decree is to order the arrest of the men who served as his regents.
1723-1727: A series of trials are carried out in judgement of the Regents, most of whom are found guilty of crimes ranging from theft to high treason. The trials are carried out in public by a jury of the realm’s other vassals, so none can say that they were staged.
1731: Lothair VII revives the Frankish bureaucracy, beginning the transition of Francia out of feudalism at the expense of his vassals.
1753: Lothair VII dies and his son, Charles XII, takes the throne.
1757: Charles XII declares war on the Lombards, a war that would last for another four decades armies of both sides fight and die in northern Italy.
1763: In the midst of the war Charles XII holds a grand tournament, inviting all the nobles of the realm. At this tournament Charles seduces the wife of the Duke of Provence.
1764: The wife of the Duke of Provence gives birth to the bastard son of Charles XII. The Duke of Provence swears to extract vengeance names himself the independent King of Burgundy, declaring war on the Franks.
1767: The so-called King of Burgundy dies while besieging Paris, ending the war. However, many of his vassals take advantage of the stagnating war in Lombardy to declare themselves still independent of the Empire.
1799: Charles XII, known now as “The Long-Lived” and “The Stubborn”, dies in battle against the Lombards. He is succeeded by his grandson, Louis XV.
1800: Louis XV negotiates a tense peace with the Lombards to focus his attention on the independent counts and dukes of Burgundy.