LORRAINE, one of the former provinces of France. The original kingdom of Lorraine was the northern part of the terri tories allotted by the treaty of Verdun (Aug. 843) to the emperor Lothair I., and in 855 formed the inheritance of his second son, King Lothair, from whom the name Lotharingia is derived. This kingdom 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, Strasbourg 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 essen tially to the ancient Francia, the cradle of the Carolingian house, and long retained a certain unity.
The reign of King Lothair (q.v.), ended on Aug. 8, 869. His inheritance was divided by the treaty of Meersen (Aug. 8, 87o), 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 his deposition 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 consti• tuted 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. After the death of Arnulf in 899, the Lotharingians appealed to his suc cessor, Louis the Child, to replace Zwentibold, who, on Aug. 13, 900, was killed in battle. In spite of the dissensions which im mediately 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 testi fied their attachment to the Carolingian house by electing as sovereign the king of the West Franks, Charles the Simple. The struggle which followed ended in the treaty of Bonn (921), by which apparently the rights of Charles over Lorraine were recog nized. The revolt of the Frankish lords in 922 and the captivity of Charles finally settled the question. After an unsuccessful attack by Rudolph, king of France, the German king Henry I. be came master of Lorraine in 925, thanks to the support of Giselbert, son of Regnier count of Hainault, 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 939 he declared open war against him 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 Verman dois. In the same year Giselbert was 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.