. A province on the northeastern frontier of the French kingdom, Lorraine takes its name from the state created in 855 for Lothair, the second son of the emperor of the same name. Lotharingia, as it came to be called by the 10th century, comprised the northern third of the middle kingdom set up in 843 by the Treaty of Verdun, which divided the empire of Charlemagne among his three grandsons. It included the watersheds of the Meuse and the Moselle rivers as well as the bishoprics (reading from north to south) of Cologne, Liege, Cambrai, Verdun, Metz, Toul, Strasbourg, Basel, and Besangon.
This region, the heart of the old Frankish homeland, was a major crossroads for east-west and north-south movement and became a region of conflict between the kingdoms of the West Franks (later France) and the East Franks (later the Holy Roman Empire and Germany). The name Lorraine was, by the 12th century, to be restricted to the southern part of the original realm, centered on the bishoprics of Verdun, Metz, and Toul. At about the same time, the town of Nancy became the chief residence of its rulers and was to remain so until the area was officially joined to France in the 18th century.
Rivalry for this rich and strategic region began with the death of King Lothair, its first ruler, in 869. In 870, the Treaty of Meerssen divided the realm between the dead ruler’s uncles, Charles the Bald of France (r. 840-77) and Louis the German (r. 840-76). Both Lorraine and the empire were briefly and ingloriously reunited under Charles the Fat between 884 and 887, after which Lorraine retained its identity, with the whole region falling eventually to the East Frankish ruler Arnulf, who reestablished it as a distinct state for his illegitimate son Zwentibold (r. 895-900).
The 10th century saw Lorraine’s magnates grow more independent, and they were able to use their geographical situation to advantage by playing off the eastern and western monarchs against each other. This was made easier as the French Carolingian rulers, losing ground in their own realm to the rival Capetian family, sought to regain authority by taking over Lorraine. Even before Zwentibold’s death in 900, Charles the Simple had invaded the kingdom at the invitation of its magnates. Crowned king of Lorraine when its lords refused to accept the election of Conrad I in Germany, he held off the German ruler Henry I until after 922, when the French magnates rose against him and took him prisoner. His rival in France, King Raoul, had to concede Lorraine to Henry with the exception of the bishopric of Besangon, which was definitively separated from Lorraine at this time.
Henry I transformed Lorraine into a duchy, which he granted to Gilbert (Giselbert), count of Hainaut, in 925. But the new duke proved disloyal to Henry’s son, the emperor Otto I, and in 939 called in Louis IV of France, only to be killed in battle the same year. Otto was eventually to entrust Lorraine to his own brother Bruno, archbishop of Cologne (r. 954-65). It was Bruno who (ca. 960) divided the duchy into Lower (northern) and Upper (southern) Lorraine. The former was granted to Charles, brother and rival of King Lothair and opponent of Hugh Capet in 987; the latter went to Frederick I, count of Bar.
In spite of many attempts during the 11th century to reunite the two duchies, they remained separate. Lower Lorraine, in the course of the 11th century, was transmogrified into the duchy of Brabant after being ruled by such noteworthy figures as Godefroi II le Barbu (d. 1069) and Godefroi IV de Bouillon (d. 1100), the hero of the First Crusade and the last of his line.
In 1046, Emperor Henry III bestowed Upper Lorraine on Albert (Adalbert) of Alsace, who founded a line that
Ruled in uninterrupted male succession until 1431. Upper Lorraine (henceforth referred to simply as Lorraine) during this time increased its contacts with the French kingdom, with Duke Simon I (r. 1115-39) becoming the vassal of the counts of Champagne for at least part of his lands and with Ferri III (r. 1251-1304) promoting a communal movement by issuing charters modeled on that of Beaumont-en-Argonne. The disintegration of imperial power after the death of Emperor Frederick II (1250) made this movement easier.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the dukes of Lorraine found themselves confronted with the growing power of the Valois dukes of Burgundy, who had united that duchy to the south of Lorraine with a growing agglomeration of power based on Flanders to their north. The alliance of the Burgundian dukes with the English in the last phase of the Hundred Years’ War created in Lorraine the sort of tensions that gave rise to the career of Jeanne d’Arc. In 1431, the year of her execution, Duke Charles II (or I if one does not count the 10th-c. Charles) died with no male heir. This marked the beginning of a disputed succession between the houses of Anjou and Vaudemont. Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and the last of the great independent feudal figures in France, also entered the succession dispute. Having failed to get the emperor Frederick III to recreate a “middle kingdom” in his favor, Charles was killed while attacking Nancy in 1477. The death of the last Angevin claimant, Duke Nicolas, having already taken place in 1473, the house of Vaudemont came to power in the person of Duke Rene II (r. 1473-1508). He was the ancestor not only of the ducal line until 1738 but also of the house of Guise and of the rulers of Austria after 1780.
R. Thomas McDonald
[See also: BRABANT; CHARLES THE BOLD]
World History
