The Charlemagne Empire was the dynasty of the heyday of the Frankish Kingdom. It reached the highest point in the time of Charlemagne, second only to the Western Roman Empire. However, such a powerful empire was divided into the grandchildren of Charlemagne. Third, it became three kingdoms, the predecessors of Germany, France, and Italy. The reason for this is because of the tradition of the Frankish kingdom that all the sons shared the land equally. Charlemagne was also sharing the land equally with his brothers, but his brother died early, so he was able to unify the Frankish kingdom and eventually become an emperor.
Then if Charlemagne only has one grandson, will the empire need not be divided, and eventually the Charlemagne empire can survive for a long time? the answer is negative.
European countries cannot avoid division before modern times. This is determined by their culture and geopolitics, and cannot be changed by a royal family.
First of all, let鈥檚 talk about their culture. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was the barbarians who ruled Europe. The customs of the barbarians are different from those of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was formed in the Republic era. In order to achieve a complete national system, the history of their unification of Europe is the history of conquest. After the conquest, they spread the system. Unlike the barbarians, their victory was completely accidental or forced. From a certain perspective, they were not barbarians. The Roman Empire was defeated, but the Roman Empire declined and the barbarians filled the gap.
The Germanic barbarians do not know how to govern these lands. They are still in the tribal era, so they only ruled by tribal culture, so the feudal system of Europe was formed, that is, the king divided the nobles. , The noble lords have full power over their own people and land, and the king鈥檚 power over the nobles is limited. This kind of system naturally leads to division and centrifugal force. The division of the Frankish kingdom is almost inevitable. Even the so-called three Frankish kingdoms are actually divided. A bunch of princes are in their own hands, and the power of the king is extremely limited.
The civilization of the Roman Empire was originally controlled by the church, but the church is happy to see Europe split, because a powerful and unified country will inevitably suppress the church, such as the Eastern Roman Empire and Charlemagne鈥檚 living Charlemagne Empire. Therefore, the church also encourages the division of noble lords, large and small, even if there is no tradition of division of the lords, they can also have other reasons to split.
鈥婼econdly, it is determined by the geography of Europe. Europe has a flat terrain and many rivers. On the surface, there are not as many plateaus as China, which is very suitable for rule, but in fact, Europe has an area It was too big. With the ancient technological level at that time, the central government could not achieve perfect control. In fact, looking at the territory of the Roman Empire, it can be seen that the Roman Empire developed along the Mediterranean Sea from the beginning. The control of the coastal land, but even so, it was still too big, so the Roman Empire was forced to be divided into two parts, and after the demise of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Emperor once wanted to regain the territory of the Western Roman Empire. However, we have to give up in the end because it is too difficult to control. In fact, the Western Roman Empire was dragged down by a huge empire.
Although the territory of the Charlemagne Empire is smaller than that of the Western Roman Empire, its control ability is also far weaker than that of the Western Roman Empire. At that time, most of the roads of the Roman Empire were destroyed. It is a priest and cannot form a bureaucracy at all.
And the division of the Charlemagne Empire was not without reason, it was actually divided by the Rhine, Alps and other rivers and mountains. For example, after the division of the Frankish kingdom, every king tried to reunify again, and many wars broke out, but the ending was failure, and the French region and the German region were finally formed. This is determined by the geological culture of the two places. It's like the Spanish region has always been separated by Western Europe.
Cultural system plus geography, this is the reason why Europe has been split since the Roman Empire. All of this will not change due to the development of science and technology until modern times, but at this time the dung stick of England appeared again. Another story.
