Editing Carolingian dynasty (section)

==== Charlemagne ====
[[File:Frankish Empire 481 to 814-en.svg|thumb|upright=1.25|A map showing Charlemagne's additions (in light green) to the [[Frankish Kingdom]]]]
The greatest Carolingian monarch was [[Charlemagne]], Pepin's son. Charlemagne was crowned Emperor by [[Pope Leo III]] at Rome in 800.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charlemagne/Emperor-of-the-Romans|title=Charlemagne – Emperor of the Romans {{!}} Holy Roman emperor [747?–814]|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=2017-09-20|language=en}}</ref> His empire, ostensibly a continuation of the [[Western Roman Empire]], is referred to historiographically as the [[Carolingian Empire]].

The Carolingian rulers did not give up the traditional [[Franks|Frankish]] (and [[Merovingian dynasty|Merovingian]]) practice of dividing inheritances among heirs, though the concept of the indivisibility of the Empire was also accepted. The Carolingians had the practice of making their sons minor kings in the various regions (''regna'') of the Empire, which they would inherit on the death of their father, which Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious both did for their sons. Following the death of the Emperor [[Louis the Pious]] in 840, his surviving adult sons, [[Lothair I]] and [[Louis the German]], along with their adolescent brother [[Charles the Bald]], fought a three-year civil war ending only with the [[Treaty of Verdun]] in 843, which divided the empire into three ''regna'' while according imperial status and a nominal lordship to Lothair who, at 48, was the eldest.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Verdun#ref34135|title=Treaty of Verdun {{!}} France [843]|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=2017-09-20|language=en}}</ref> The Carolingians differed markedly from the Merovingians in that they disallowed inheritance to illegitimate 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]] as the king of [[East Francia]], a bastard child of a legitimate Carolingian king, [[Carloman of Bavaria]],<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arnulf-Holy-Roman-emperor|title=Arnulf {{!}} Holy Roman emperor|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=2017-09-20|language=en}}</ref> himself a son of the First King of the Eastern division of the Frankish kingdom, Louis the German.