Europe · The early medieval west
West Francia
843–987
West Francia (Francia Occidentalis) was the western third of the Carolingian Empire allotted to Charles the Bald (r. 843–877) at Verdun, and the direct predecessor of the Kingdom of France. The contemporary Annales Bertiniani record that at Verdun, after the portions of his brothers were set out, "the rest as far as Spain they ceded to Charles" — stretching from the Atlantic to roughly the Meuse, Saône, and Rhône, and including the Spanish March.
- Existed
- 843–987
- Shown on the map
- AD 850–989
- Peak area
- 1.2M km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
West Francia (Francia Occidentalis) was the western third of the Carolingian Empire allotted to Charles the Bald (r. 843–877) at Verdun, and the direct predecessor of the Kingdom of France. The contemporary Annales Bertiniani record that at Verdun, after the portions of his brothers were set out, "the rest as far as Spain they ceded to Charles" — stretching from the Atlantic to roughly the Meuse, Saône, and Rhône, and including the Spanish March.
Decline and legacy
Charles the Bald's reign was dominated by Viking raids up the Seine, Loire, and Garonne; he often paid Danegeld and issued the Edict of Pîtres (864) to organize defenses, including fortified bridges. He was crowned emperor in 875. The later West Frankish Carolingians alternated with the rising Robertian family (ancestors of the Capetians): Odo (Eudes), Count of Paris, hero of the Viking siege of Paris (885–886), was elected king (888–898). The dynasty's decline culminated in 987, when, on the death of the last Carolingian Louis V, the nobility and clergy elected Hugh Capet, founder of the Capetian dynasty, which would rule France for centuries.
Common questions
- What was West Francia?
- West Francia (Francia Occidentalis) was the western third of the Carolingian Empire allotted to Charles the Bald (r. 843–877) at Verdun, and the direct predecessor of the Kingdom of France. The contemporary Annales Bertiniani record that at Verdun, after the portions of his brothers were set out, "the rest as far as Spain they ceded to Charles" — stretching from the Atlantic to roughly the Meuse, Saône, and Rhône, and including the Spanish March.
- When did West Francia exist?
- West Francia existed 843–987. On this map it is drawn AD 850–989.
- How large was West Francia?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, West Francia covered about 1.2 million km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
- How did West Francia end?
- Charles the Bald's reign was dominated by Viking raids up the Seine, Loire, and Garonne; he often paid Danegeld and issued the Edict of Pîtres (864) to organize defenses, including fortified bridges. He was crowned emperor in 875.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica and the World History Encyclopedia, while flagging entries built on thin or contested evidence — Samo's Empire on a single Fredegar passage, Venice's 697 founding date as legendary, the Pacta conventa as a probable forgery. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — West Francia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Francia
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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