Burgundian (Civ3)/Civilopedia

Burgundy, a region of France, takes its name from a tribe of Germanic people called the Burgundians. It also refers to the part of Charlemagne's empire that was ruled by his grandson Lothair. After the death of Charlemagne in 814, the Carolingian empire was passed on to his son, Louis the Pious, who had three sons: Lothair, Pepin, and Louis. In 817, Lothair was made co-Emperor with his father and King of Italy, Pepin was made King of Aquitaine, and the younger Louis made King of Bavaria. In 823, the older Louis had another son, Charles (later known as ‘the Bald’), this one by a new wife. Louis tried desperately to work Charles in as a successor, but the three brothers objected each time he tried to alter his Will. After bitter arguments, Emperor Louis dropped Lothair's imperial title in 829 and exiled him to Italy. The next year the three brothers united, attacked Louis, and reinstated Lothair’s imperial title. By 831, Louis had regained his power, and again dropped Lothair's titles, this time all of them, and barred him from his court. That year Pepin revolted and was joined by his brother Louis the German the next year, and the Emperor Louis declared Pepin stripped of all royal titles but had no power to enforce this declaration. In 833, the three brothers again attacked with support from Louis's own generals and from Pope Gregory IV himself. They imprisoned their father and their brother Charles the Bald, and Louis and Pepin gained territory for their kingdoms. The next year, however, Louis and Pepin released their father and brother Charles and sued for peace. In 835, Louis was re-crowned Emperor, and after the death of Pepin in 838, tried to have Charles the Bald crowned king in Aquitaine, and failed. In 840, Louis the Pious died, and the three surviving brothers, Louis the German, Lothair and Charles the Bald, began a civil war for the division of the Empire.
In 841, Charles and Louis the German allied against Lothair, who was trying to reunite the empire under his sole control, and defeated him. Two years later, the brothers signed the Treaty of Verdun, which established division of the empire into three portions. The Western Frankish Empire (France) was given to Charles the Bald, Louis the German was given rule over the Eastern Frankish Kingdom (Germany), and Lothair would rule the Middle Frankish Kingdom (Italy, Provence, and Lorraine -- the territories making up medieval Burgundy) with the imperial title. These three new realms would form the basis for what became the major powers of the Middle Ages, and eventually the modern European states.
After Lothair’s death, Louis the German and Charles the Bald divided their brother’s lands, heirs notwithstanding, and a long pattern of wars and divisions of land among heirs fractured the once united empire into hundreds of smaller entities. This process continued until gavelkind, the process of dividing lands among all sons was replaced by primogeniture, or inheritance of the firstborn. This practice of primogeniture stabilized Europe and allowed nobles to form an interlocking web of alliances and allegiances and set the pattern for feudalism.