Brian Tierney

“When Pepin died in 768, he was succeeded by his two sons, Charles (768-814) and Carloman (768-771). As the two brothers could not agree, it was fortunate for the state that Carloman died three years after his father. Charles ignored Carloman’s infant son and promptly took possession of the entire Frankish kingdom.”

Robert Hoyt

“On the death of Pepin, the kingdom was divided according to Frankish custom between his two sons, Charles (768-814) and a younger brother, Carloman, who died in 771. Charles then ruled alone, excluding his two young nephews from any share in the government.”

Joseph Strayer

“When Pippin died in 768 he was succeeded by his sons, Charles and Carloman, who divided the realm between them. Carloman, however, died after reigning only three years. He left two infant sons, but Charles excluded them from the succession, and thus acquired the entire kingdom. Once established as sole ruler, he was free to carry on the work begun by his father and grandfather.”

Roger Collins

“Prior to his death, and with the consent of the Frankish nobles and the bishops present with him, Pippin had divided up his kingdom between his two sons. To Charles, later known as Charles ‘the Great’, or Charlemagne, be gave the primary Frankish territories of Austrasia and a rather thinned down Neustria. To his younger son Carloman he entrusted the territories that he and Charles Martel had conquered: Burgundy, Alamannia, Provence and Septimania.

“The period of the co-existence of the two kings, which lasted from 768 to 771, could not be described as a success, any more than could that of the co-rule of their father and uncle between 741 and 747. One cause of the conflict may well have been Aquitaine, which the continuator of Fredegar, in his penultimate section, described as going to be divided between the two brothers, but which the later Annals of the Kingdom of the Franks state was given to Charles. Certainly, when in 769 Charles invaded Aquitaine to suppress continuing resistance, now led by Hunald II, the son of duke Waiofar, some form of confrontation or dispute seems to have occurred between the brothers at Moncontour, north of Poitiers. Whatever the cause, Carloman then withdrew from Aquitaine.

“It is thought that in 770 an alliance was devised to encircle Carloman. The diplomacy for this appears to have been conducted principally by his own mother, Pippin’s widow Bertrada, and the parties who were brought into alliance against him were his brother Charles, duke Tassilo III of Bavaria, and the Lombard king Desiderius (756-74). Pope Stephen III (IV) was aghast at the prospect of his Frankish protectors allying themselves to his Lombard enemies, but the death of Carloman in December 771 led to the dissolution of the relationship. Charles sent his Lombard wife back to her father, to whom also now fled the widow and infant children of Carloman when the principal secular and religious leaders of the latter’s kingdom decided to accept the rule of his brother. Thus in 771 Charles acquired control of the whole of the kingdom that his father had created. Without this the succeeding period of military conquest and expansion could never have occurred.”

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