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Updated: May 23, 2025
The title of Duke of Lotharingia was therefore not given to one of Régner's descendants, but to Godfrey of Verdun, who succeeded in defeating his adversaries at Florennes , where he was killed.
His Burgundian domains were separated from the Low Countries by Alsace and Lorraine. Had he been able to join Low and High Burgundy through these lands, he would have very nearly reconstituted the old kingdom of Lotharingia, by unifying all the borderlands lying between France and Germany, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
I, Philip Crevecoeur of Cordes, Count of the Empire, and Knight of the honourable and princely Order of the Golden Fleece, in the name of the most puissant Lord and Prince, Charles, by the grace of God, Duke of Burgundy and Lotharingia, of Brabant and Limbourg, of Luxembourg and of Gueldres; Earl of Flanders and of Artois; Count Palatine of Hainault, of Holland, Zealand, Namur, and Zutphen; Marquis of the Holy Empire; Lord of Friezeland, Salines, and Malines, do give you, Louis, King of France, openly to know, that you, having refused to remedy the various griefs, wrongs, and offences, done and wrought by you, or by and through your aid, suggestion, and instigation, against the said Duke and his loving subjects, he, by my mouth, renounces all allegiance and fealty towards your crown and dignity pronounces you false and faithless; and defies you as a Prince, and as a man.
The German monarch, Henry the Fowler, at that period called King of the East Franks, as Charles of the West Franks, acquired Lotharingia by the treaty of Bonn, Charles reserving the sovereignty over the kingdom during his lifetime. In 925, A.D., however, the Simpleton having been imprisoned and deposed by his own subjects, the Fowler was recognized King, of Lotharingia.
By crossing the boundary established by the Verdun treaty and interfering directly in the internal affairs of Lotharingia, Baldwin inaugurated a new policy and rendered possible a system of alliances between the Belgian nobles which brought about the reunion of both parts of the country under the same sovereign and, ultimately, the foundation of Belgian nationality.
Like Lotharingia, it possessed two essentially Belgian characteristics. It had neither racial nor linguistic unity, the north being Germanic and the south romanized, and it was placed between two rival Powers, France and England.
Lotharingia ceased to exist owing to the decreasing influence of the Empire following the struggle of the Investitures, and the counts of Flanders were so powerful that they were practically independent of their French suzerains.
After the death of Lotharius I, his son, Lotharius II, inherited the northern part of his father's domains, which, for want of a better name, was called "Regnum Lotharii" Lotharingia. But both Charles and Louis were already endeavouring to conquer their nephew's possessions.
This penetration of French, not only in Flanders, which was nominally attached to the kingdom of France, but also in Lotharingia and even in Liége, the centre of German influence, is all the more remarkable as it implied no political hegemony, the counts of Flanders being practically independent, at the time, and the other nobles attached to the Empire.
But, if local ambitions became supreme in Europe in the tenth century, we may at least point out that, owing to the mixed characters of language and race prevailing in Belgium, and to the peculiar position occupied by Flanders and Lotharingia, nowhere were those tendencies more evident than in these distant marches of France and Germany.
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