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The 'Carolingian dynasty' (known variously as the ''Carlovingians'' or ''Karlings'') was a Frankish noble family with its origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the seventh century. The name "Carolingian" itself derives from the Latin name of Charles Martel: ''Carolus''.^[1] The family consolidated its power in the late seventh century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and ''dux et princeps Francorum'' hereditary and becoming the ''de facto'' rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the throne. By 751, the Merovingian dynasty which had thitherto ruled the Franks by right was deprived of this right with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy and a Carolingian, Pepin the Short, was crowned King of the Franks.
Traditional historiography has seen the Carolingian assumption of kingship as the product of a long rise to power, punctuated even by a premature attempt to seize the throne through Childebert the Adopted. This picture, however, is not commonly accepted today. Rather, the coronation of 751 is seen typically as a product of the aspirations one man, Pepin, and of the Church, which was always looking for powerful secular protectors and for the extension of its temporal influence.
The greatest Carolingian monarch was Charlemagne, who had himself crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III at Rome in 800. His empire, ostensibly a continuation of the Roman Empire, is referred to historiographically as the Carolingian Empire. The traditional Frankish (and Merovingian) practice of dividing inheritances among heirs was not given up by the Carolingian emperors, though the concept of the indivisibility of the Empire was also accepted. The Carolingians had the practice of making their sons (sub-)kings in the various regions (''regna'') of the Empire, ''regna'' which they would inherit on the death of their father. Following the death of Louis the Pious, the surviving adult Carolingians fought a three-year civil war ending only in the Treaty of Verdun, which divided the empire into three ''regna'' while according imperial status and a nominal lordship to Lothair I. The Carolingians differed markedly from the Merovingians in that they disallowed inheritance to illegimate offspring, possibly in an effort to prevent infighting among heirs and assure a limit to the division of the realm. In the late ninth century, however, the lack of suitable adults among the Carolingians, necessitated the rise of Arnulf of Carinthia, a bastard child of a legitimate Carolingian king.
The Carolingians were displaced in most of the ''regna'' of the Empire in 888. They ruled on in East Francia until 911 and they held the throne of West Francia intermittently until 987. Though they asserted their prerogative to rule, their hereditary, God-given right, and their usual alliance with the Church, they were unable to stem the principle of electoral monarchy and their propagandism failed them in the long run. Carolingian cadet branches continued to rule in Vermandois and Lower Lorraine after the last king died in 987, but they never sought thrones of principalities and made peace with the new ruling families.

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Sources

★ Hollister, Clive, and Bennett, Judith. ''Medieval Europe: A Short History''.

★ Reuter, Timothy. ''Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056''. New York: Longman, 1991.

★ MacLean, Simon. ''Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the end of the Carolingian Empire''. Cambridge University Press: 2003.

★ Leyser, Karl. ''Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries''. London: 1994.

★ Oman, Charles. ''The Dark Ages, 476-918''. 6th ed. London: Rivingtons, 1914.

★ Painter, Sidney. ''A History of the Middle Ages, 284-1500''. New York: Knopf, 1953.

★ "Astronomus", ''Vita Hludovici imperatoris'', ed. G. Pertz, ch. 2, in Mon. Gen. Hist. Scriptores, II, 608.

★ Reuter, Timothy (trans.) ''The Annals of Fulda''. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.

★ Einhard. ''Vita Karoli Magni''. Translated by Samuel Epes Turner. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.

Notes

1. Hollister and Bennett, 97.

See also

★ List of Frankish Kings

★ List of French monarchs

★ List of German monarchs

★ List of Holy Roman Emperors

★ Kings of France family tree

★ Carolingian minuscule

★ Carolingian Renaissance

★ List of counts of Vermandois