of the clergy, a defender of the faith.

When we turn from this noble dream to follow the history of the
Carolingian Empire, the contrast between the real and the ideal is
almost grotesque. Within a generation the Frankish realm is partitioned
after the Merovingian fashion; all that remains as a guarantee of unity
is the imperial title attached to one of several kingdoms, and the
theory that the kings are linked in fraternal concord for the defence of
Church and State against all enemies. Contemporaries laid the blame on
the weakness of Lewis the Pious and the ambition of his sons. These
causes undoubtedly accelerated the process of disruption; but others
more impersonal and more gradual in their operation were at work below
the surface of events.

(1) The first was the dawning of nationality. North of the Alps the
subjects of the Empire fell into a Germanic group, lying chiefly east of
the Rhine, and a Romance group nearly co-extensive with the modern
France; Italy was sharply severed from both by geography, by differences
of race and language, and by political tradition. In the Treaty of
Verdun (843), which begins the process of political disintegration,
these natural divisions are only half respected. The kingdom of the East
Franks is wholly Germanic; that of the West Franks contains the
Gallo-Roman provinces subdued by Clovis; but between them lies the
anomalous Middle Kingdom, the portion of the titular Emperor, in which
are united Italy, Provence, Burgundy, the valley of the Moselle and a
large part of the Netherlands. In each re-distribution of territories
among Carolingian princes the lines of partition approximate more
closely to the boundaries of modern nations. Burgundy and Provence alone
remain, after the year 888, as memorials of the Middle Kingdom. Italy
becomes an independent state; the northern provinces (Lotharingia) are