his outrageous betrayal, mutilation, and murder of
his own nephew, whose rivalry he feared, succeeded his father,
Charlemagne. He was succeeded again by his three sons, Lothair, Pepin,
and Louis by his first wife, and Charles, who was his favorite son, by
his second wife. He had already divided the great heritage left him by
Charlemagne between his three sons Lothair, Pepin, and Louis; but now
he wished to make another division into four parts, to make room for,
and to give a kingdom to, his son Charles by his second wife. The
three elder sons revolt against their father, and his last years are
spent in vain attempts to reconcile his quarrelsome children. At his
death war breaks out. Pepin dies, leaving, however, a son Pepin to
inherit his kingdom of Aquitaine. Louis and Charles attempt to take
his kingdom from him, his uncle Lothair defends him, and at the great
battle of Fontenay (841) Louis and Charles defeat Lothair. Lothair
gains the adherence of the Saxons, and Charles and Louis at the head
of their armies confirm their alliance, and at Strasburg the two
armies take the oath of allegiance: the followers of Louis took the
oath in German, the followers of Charles in French, and this oath, the
words of which are still preserved, is the earliest specimen of the
French language in existence.

In 843 another treaty signed at Verdun, between the two brothers
Lothair and Louis and their half-brother Charles, separated for the
first time the Netherlands, the Rhine country, Burgundy, and Italy,
which became the portion of Lothair; all Germany east of this
territory, which went to Louis; and all the territory to the west of
it, which went to Charles. Germany and France, therefore, by the
Treaty of Verdun in 843, became distinct kingdoms, and modern
geography in Europe is born.

From the death of Henry the Fowler, in 936, down to the nomination of
Frederick I of Bavaria, sixth Burgrave of Nuremberg, to be Margrave of
Brandenburg, in 1411, the history of the particular Germany we are
studying is swallowed up in the history of these German tribes of
central Europe and of the Holy Roman Empire. It is in these years of
the seven Crusades, from 1095 to the last in 1248; of Frederick
Barbarossa; of the centuries-long quarrel between the Welfs, or
Guelphs, and the Waiblingers, or Ghibellines, which were for years in
Italy, and are still in Germany, political parties; of the Hanseatic
League of the cities to protect commerce from t