CARLOVINGIANS, the second dynasty of Frankish kings. The origin of the family is traced to Aruu1ph, bishop of Metz, who d. in 631. His son, Ansegise, married a daughter of Pepin, of Landen, in Austrasia. His sons, Martin and Pepin d'Heristall (q.v.), as the greatest territorial lords in Austrasia, were called to the office of mayor of the palace. Martin was assassinated; Pepin, by force of arms, compelled the weak Merovingianking, Theodorie III., to invest him with the office of mayor of the palace in all the three Frankish states, Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy Pepin allowed the Merovingian kings to remain upon the throne, but they were kings only in name. He d. on 17th Dec., 714, and left as his successor, his young grandson, Theodoald but Charles Martel (q.v.), a natural son of Pepin, was made mayor of the palace by the Austrasians, and in this capacity subjected the three states to his power. He d. in 741. His two sons, Carloman and Pepin he bref, divided the kingdom, although for a time the nominal Merovingian dynasty still subsisted; but Pepin at last formally assumed the royal power, and was crowned king of the Franks on 3d May, 752. This is the formal commencement of the Carlovingian dynasty. Pepin began the conquest of Italy. His sons, Carloman and Charles the great or Charlemagne (q v.), succeeded him, of whom the latter soon reigned alone, and prodigiously extended his dominions. In 800, pope Leo. III. set upon his head the crown of the western Roman empire. He divided his dominions amongst his sons, of whom, however, only one, Louis le debonnaire, sur vived him, who, in the lint of the kings of France, appears as Louis I., but who was properly emperor and king of the Franks. With Charlemagne, however, the high abilities of his family suddenly disappeared, and his successors showed much weakness of character. Family feuds broke out during the life of Louis he debon naire, who had divided his dominions in part amongst his sons, and he terminated an inglorious reign in 840. By a treaty concluded in Aug., 843, Lotharius I., the eldest son of Louis, obtained the imperial crown and the kingdom of Italy, with Lor raine, Franehe Comte, Provence, and the Lyonnais; Louis, his brother, called Louis the German, obtained the German part of his father's dominions; and Charles the bald, the son of a second marriage, obtained Neustria, Aquitania, and the Spanish Mark, and may almost be regarded as the founder of the French monarchy. The ernperer Lotharius
I. died in 85.5, and his dominions were again dividid—his eldest son, Louis II., being emperor and king of Italy, and his two other sons kings of Lorraine and of Provence, but their kingdoms reverted to the emperor.—Charles the fat, a son of Louis the German, having become emperor, was elected by the French nobles to be their king in 882; and being previously in possession of Italy and Germany, united under his sway great part of Charlemagne's empire. But he was a weak monarch, and was deposed in 887. The imperial dignity passed by the marriage of the daughter of the emperor Arnulph with Fritzlar, count of Franconia, to another family. The French dynasty, of which Charles the bald may be deemed the founder, continued in a succession of weak monarchs for about a century, till it terminated with the reign of Louis V., on whose death, Hugh Capet. the most powerful nobleman in France, seized the crown in 987. The Carlovingian kings had for some time previous possessed no real power. A sub sequent marriage, however, connected their family with that of the Capets, and enabled the kings of France to trace their descent from Charlemange.
The Carlovingiandynasty figures in the early history of France as the ally of the church. It aided the popes against the Lombards; made war on the Aquitanians, who pillaged and despoiled the ohurehes; established the temporal power of the successors of St. Peter; subdued and converted the still pagan Saxons: and fought the Mohammed ans in Spain. Nor, on the other hand, do we find the church ungrateful: it sanctioned, by benediction and prayer, the conquests of this powerful family• in various ways impressed its sacred stamp of approbation upon it. and for its sale resuscitated the imposing idea of an empire of the west. But this alliance, which was advantageous to the policy of kings like Pepin le Bref and his son Charlemagne, because they had genius, vigor, and design, became at a later period, under their feeble successors, a chief cause of the overthrow of the dynasty, for the clergy, after 814, grew stronger and more exacting every day, and forced the monarchs to new concessions.