louis the Pious had hurt himself, but his wounds were not worth talking about. Only three weeks later he was hunting again. Four months after this accident, the imperial council met. ‘Suddenly, through divine inspiration’, the emperor admitted, ‘our faithful lieges admonished us that while we were still in good health, and God granted universal peace, we should confer on the state of the whole empire and the position of our sons, as our ancestors had done.’ However, the political order the emperor and ‘those who know what is most salutary’ came up with was revolutionary, and led to civil war. Contrary to all precedent, the empire was no longer to be divided equally among the emperor’s sons (Map 8); on the contrary, the eldest son, Lothar, was to receive the imperial crown immediately and exclusively while his brothers Pippin and Louis (the German) who were both minors had to be content, the former with Aquitaine, the latter with Bavaria and its adjacent territories. All other parts of the huge Frankish realm were to fall to Lothar; his brothers were to act as viceroys ‘under’ him.

Lothar really received the imperial crown in 817, while his brothers were made kings. They seemed in a fair way to bring about the new order, but there was resistance from the majority of nobles. What was more, the Empress Irmengard died, and Louis took a new wife, Judith, a Welf, who feared for the inheritance of her children. She found some powerful supporters.