LORRAINE

lorraine, one of the former provinces of france. the name has designated different districts in different periods. lotharingia, or lothringen, i.e. _regnum lotharii_, is derived from the _lotharingi_ or _lotharienses_ (o.g. _lotheringen_, fr. _loherains, lorrains_), a term applied originally to the frankish subjects of lothair, but restricted at the end of the 9th century to those who dwelt north of the southern vosges. _lorraine in medieval times._--the original kingdom of lorraine was the northern part of the territories allotted by the treaty of verdun (august 843) to the emperor lothair i., and in 855 formed the inheritance of his second son, king lothair. this kingdom of lorraine was situated between the realms of the east and the west franks, and originally extended along the north sea between the mouths of the rhine and the ems, including the whole or part of frisia and the cities on the right bank of the rhine. from bonn the frontier followed the rhine as far as its confluence with the aar, which then became the boundary, receding from the left bank in the neighbourhood of bingen so as to leave the cities of worms and spires to germany, and embracing the duchy of alsace. after crossing the jura, the frontier joined the saone a little south of its confluence with the doubs, and followed the saone for some distance, and finally the valleys of the meuse and the scheldt. thus the kingdom roughly comprised the region watered by the moselle and the meuse, together with the dioceses of cologne, trier, metz, toul, verdun, liege and cambrai, basel, strassburg and besancon, and corresponded to what is now holland and belgium, parts of rhenish prussia, of switzerland, and of the old province of franche-comte, and to the district known later as upper lorraine, or simply lorraine. though apparently of an absolutely artificial character, this kingdom corresponded essentially to the ancient francia, the cradle of the carolingian house, and long retained a certain unity. it was to the inhabitants of this region that the name of _lotharienses_ or _lotharingi_ was primitively applied, although the word _lotharingia_, as the designation of the country, only appears in the middle of the 10th century. the reign of king lothair (q.v.), which was continually disturbed by quarrels with his uncles, charles the bald and louis the german, and by the difficulties caused by the divorce of his queen teutberga, whom he had forsaken for a concubine called waldrada, ended on the 8th of august 869. his inheritance was disputed by his uncles, and was divided by the treaty of meersen (8th of august 870), by which charles the bald received part of the province of besancon and some land between the moselle and the meuse. then for a time the emperor charles the fat united under his authority the whole of the kingdom of lorraine with the rest of the carolingian empire. after the deposition of charles in 888 rudolph, king of burgundy, got himself recognized in lorraine. he was unable to maintain himself there, and succeeded in detaching definitively no more than the province of besancon. lorraine remained in the power of the emperor arnulf, who in 895 constituted it a distinct kingdom in favour of his son zwentibold. zwentibold quickly became embroiled with the nobles and the bishops, and especially with bishop radbod of trier. among the lay lords the most important was regnier (incorrectly called long-neck), count of hesbaye and hainault, who is styled duke by the lotharingian chronicler reginon, though he does not appear ever to have borne the title. in 898 zwentibold stripped regnier of his fiefs, whereupon the latter appealed to the king of france, charles the simple, whose intervention, however, had no enduring effect. after the death of arnulf in 899, the lotharingians appealed to his successor, louis the child, to replace zwentibold, who, on the 13th of august 900, was killed in battle. in spite of the dissensions which immediately arose between him and the lotharingian lords, louis retained the kingdom till his death. the lotharingians, however, refused to recognize the new german king, conrad i., and testified their attachment to the carolingian house by electing as sovereign the king of the west franks, charles the simple. charles was at first supported by giselbert, son and successor of regnier, but was abandoned by his ally, who in 919 appealed to the german king, henry i. the struggle ended in the treaty of bonn (921), by which apparently the rights of charles over lorraine were recognized. the revolt of the frankish lords in 922 and the captivity of charles finally settled the question. after an unsuccessful attack by rudolph or raoul, king of france, henry became master of lorraine in 925, thanks to the support of giselbert, whom he rewarded with the hand of his daughter gerberga and the title of duke of lorraine. giselbert at first remained faithful to henry's son, otto the great, but in 938 he appears to have joined the revolt directed against otto by eberhard, duke of franconia. in 939, in concert with eberhard and otto's brother, henry of saxony, he declared open war against otto and appealed to louis d'outremer, who penetrated into lorraine and alsace, but was soon called back to france by the revolt of the count of vermandois. in the same year giselbert and eberhard were defeated and killed near andernach, and otto at once made himself recognized in the whole of lorraine, securing it by a treaty with louis d'outremer, who married giselbert's widow gerberga, and entrusting the government of it to count otto, son of ricuin, until giselbert's son henry should have attained his majority. after the deaths of the young henry and count otto in 944, otto the great gave lorraine to conrad the red, duke of franconia, the husband of his daughter liutgard, a choice which was not completely satisfactory to the lotharingians. in 953 conrad, in concert with liudulf, the son of the german king, revolted against otto, but was abandoned by his supporters. otto stripped conrad of his duchy, and in 954 gave the government of it to his own brother bruno, archbishop of cologne. bruno had to contend against the efforts of the last carolingians of france to make good their claims on lorraine, as well as against the spirit of independence exhibited by the lotharingian nobles; and his attempts to raze certain castles built by brigand lords and to compel them to respect their oath of fidelity resulted in serious sedition. to obviate these difficulties bruno divided the ducal authority, assigning lower lorraine to a certain duke godfrey, who was styled _dux ripuariorum_, and upper lorraine to frederick (d. 959), count of bar, a member of the house of ardenne and son-in-law of hugh the great, with the title of _dux mosellanorum_; and it is probable that the partition of the ancient kingdom of lorraine into two new duchies was confirmed by otto after bruno's death in 965. in 977 the emperor otto ii. gave the government of lower lorraine to charles i., a younger son of louis d'outremer, on condition that that prince should acknowledge himself his vassal and should oppose any attempt of his brother lothair on lorraine. the consequent expedition of the king of france in 978 against aix-la-chapelle had no enduring result, and charles retained his duchy till his death about 992. he left two sons, otto, who succeeded him and died without issue, and henry, who is sometimes regarded as the ancestor of the landgraves of thuringia. the duchy of lower lorraine, sometimes called _lothier_ (_lotharium_), was then given to godfrey (d. 1023), son of count godfrey of verdun, and for some time the history of lorraine is the history of the attempts made by the dukes of lothier to seize upper lorraine. gothelon (d. 1043), son of duke godfrey, obtained lorraine at the death of frederick ii., duke of upper lorraine, in 1027, and victoriously repulsed the incursions of odo (eudes) of blois, count of champagne, who was defeated and killed in a battle near bar (1037). at gothelon's death in 1043, his son godfrey the bearded received from the emperor only lower lorraine, his brother gothelon ii. obtaining upper lorraine. godfrey attempted to seize the upper duchy, but was defeated and imprisoned in 1045. on the death of gothelon in 1046, godfrey endeavoured to take upper lorraine from albert of alsace, to whom it had been granted by the emperor henry iii. the attempt, however, also failed; and godfrey was for some time deprived of his own duchy of lower lorraine in favour of frederick of luxemburg. godfrey took part in the struggles of pope leo ix. against the normans in italy, and in 1053 married beatrice, daughter of duke frederick of upper lorraine and widow of boniface, margrave of tuscany. on the death of frederick of luxemburg in 1065 the emperor henry iv. restored the duchy of lower lorraine to godfrey, who retained it till his death in 1069, when he was succeeded by his son godfrey the hunchback (d. 1076), after whose death henry iv. gave the duchy to godfrey of bouillon, the hero of the first crusade, son of eustace, count of boulogne, and ida, sister of godfrey the hunchback. on the death of godfrey of bouillon in 1100 lower lorraine was given to henry, count of limburg. the new duke supported the emperor henry iv. in his struggles with his sons, and in consequence was deposed by the emperor henry v., who gave the duchy in 1106 to godfrey, count of louvain, a descendant of the lotharingian dukes of the beginning of the 10th century. this godfrey was the first hereditary duke of brabant, as the dukes of lower lorraine came to be called. _upper lorraine._--the duchy of upper lorraine, or lorraine _mosellana_, to which the name of lorraine was restricted from the 11th century, consisted of a tract of undulating country watered by the upper course of the meuse and moselle, and bounded n. by the ardennes, s. by the table-land of langres, e. by the vosges and w. by champagne. its principal fiefs were the countship of bar which otto the great gave in 951 to count frederick of ardenne, and which passed in 1093 to the lords of montbeliard; the countship of chiny, formed at the end of the 10th century, of which, since the 13th, montmedy was the capital; the lordship of commercy, whose rulers bore the special title of _damoiseau_, and which passed in the 13th century to the house of saarebrucken; and, finally the three important ecclesiastical lordships of the bishops of metz, toul and verdun. theodoric, or thierri (d. 1026), son of frederick, count of bar and first duke of upper lorraine, was involved in a war with the emperor henry ii., a war principally remarkable for the siege of metz (1007). after having been the object of numerous attempts on the part of the dukes of lower lorraine, upper lorraine was given by the emperor henry iii. to albert of alsace, and passed in 1048 to albert's brother gerard, who died by poison in 1069, and who was the ancestor of the hereditary house of lorraine. until the 15th century the representatives of the hereditary house were theodoric