West Francia
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30
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9
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Search complete. 30 mentions across 9 episodes found for "West Francia".
Oct 15, 2026
Chris SavageGUEST
Ludwigus II gets Francia Orientalis, aka Western Germany.
Chris SavageGUEST
And Karl II gets Francia Occidentalis, aka West France.
Chris SavageGUEST
So there's this empire Stretching from France to Germany, it gets split up three ways with Charlemagne's three sons.
Chris SavageGUEST
911, Ludwig III, or the fourth, depending on how you're counting them, aka Louis the Child, dies without heir, and the Carolingian dynasty ends in Francia Orientalis, aka Western Germany.
speaker_0NARRATOR
They founded Ireland's first trading towns, Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Wicklow, and Limerick, and used their base on the Irish coast to launch attacks within Ireland and across the Irish Sea to England.
speaker_0NARRATOR
When King Charles the Bald began defending West Francia more energetically in 862, fortifying towns, abbeys, rivers, and coastal areas, Viking forces began to concentrate more on England than Francia.
speaker_0NARRATOR
In the wave of Viking attacks in England after 851, only one kingdom, Wessex, was able to successfully resist.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Viking armies, mostly Danish, conquered East Anglia and Northumberland and dismantled Mercia, while in 871, King Alfred the Great of Wessex became the only king to decisively defeat a Danish army in England.
Valerie CarusoHOST
Then Charles the Bald, who was Louis the German's half-brother, he got what is now France.
Valerie CarusoHOST
All hail the King of West Francia, King of Italy, and Emperor of the Carolingian Empire.
Valerie CarusoHOST
This came from Pepin, who was Louis the German's actual brother, who...
Valerie CarusoHOST
He originally inherited it, but died, and there was some shuffling around.
speaker_0HOST
This adolescent Charles will see the breakup of his grandfather's empire permanently and the rending of the Frankish world and live to pick up the pieces.
speaker_0HOST
One of those pieces will be the distinctive kingdom of West Francia, of which the capital from the time of Charles will be our city on the Seine.
speaker_0HOST
As he was the only one of his brothers not to originally have a crown, he has gone down in history with one of those unfortunate nicknames that pop up every so often.
speaker_0HOST
Charles the Bald.
Eleanor BarracloughGUEST
So it gets split up into three.
Eleanor BarracloughGUEST
We've got Charles the Bald, he gets West Francia, which is very roughly what France is.
Eleanor BarracloughGUEST
And then Lothar gets Middle Francia, which is sort of, you know, the bit in the middle, and then Louis the German, as he gets called now, gets East Francia, which is roughly Germany.
Eleanor BarracloughGUEST
Very roughly.
12 MINS LATER
William DalrympleHOST
Yeah
Eleanor BarracloughGUEST
... that he was.
Eleanor BarracloughGUEST
What we then have, he follows this up with the Siege of Chartres in West Francia in the spring of 911.
Eleanor BarracloughGUEST
He's well-established by this time.
Riley KnightHOST
But what if I told you that the Normans were, after a fashion, Vikings themselves? While their conquest of England didn't take place until the 11th century, it was back in the 9th century that Viking invaders first established themselves as the Normans in the north of France in a way not entirely unlike the Vikings of the Danelaw.
Riley KnightHOST
So to now explore another example of Vikings making this transition from raiding to conquest and settlement, we turn our attention back to France, or to West Francia, I suppose, to be more specific at this point.
Riley KnightHOST
Although, interestingly, in the same way that Alfred the Great is today generally recognised as being the first king of England, despite in his time being the king of the Anglo-Saxons, Charles the Bald, the West Frankian king in the mid-9th century, is today generally recognised as the first king of France.
Riley KnightHOST
Very similar to Alfred the Great, it's a funny old thing.
Riley KnightHOST
I mean, what was he, a particularly clear speaker? In any case, he didn't stick around for long.
Riley KnightHOST
He died in 879.
Riley KnightHOST
But generally, generally, Carolingian kings of West Francia had a rough old time of it with the epithets because later Carolingian kings included Charles the Fat, Charles the Simple, and Louis the Do-Nothing.
Riley KnightHOST
Then again, when you think about it, Louis the Do-Nothing actually makes sense.
James PalmerGUEST
A lot of things just don't go his way.
James PalmerGUEST
So when he first becomes emperor, there are two other Carolingian kings in West Francia, so modern-day France, and they look very promising, but they're both teenagers.
James PalmerGUEST
And then one dies unfortunately by racing into a house after a girl that he fancies while on a horse and hits the doorframe, and that's it for him.
James PalmerGUEST
And then his brother dies not very long afterwards in a hunting accident when a boar gets very lively and one of the king's friends goes with a spear and misses and goes through the king instead.
Riley KnightHOST
120 ships, 5,000 raiders.
Riley KnightHOST
And after arriving in the capital, they handily defeated the army that the King of West Francia, Charles the Bald, had mustered.
Riley KnightHOST
in a vain attempt to repel these Vikings, and then struck further horror and fear into the people of Paris by publicly hanging over a hundred of the soldiers that they took prisoner, all for the glory of Odin.
Riley KnightHOST
And after this, the Vikings ravaged the city, looting and pillaging and burning it before just occupying it, just plonking themselves down on their arses and staying put, refusing to leave until...