1.
Roman emperor
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The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period. The emperors used a variety of different titles throughout history, often when a given Roman is described as becoming emperor in English, it reflects his taking of the title Augustus or Caesar. Another title often used was imperator, originally a military honorific, early Emperors also used the title princeps. Emperors frequently amassed republican titles, notably Princeps Senatus, Consul, the first emperors reigned alone, later emperors would sometimes rule with co-Emperors and divide administration of the Empire between them. The Romans considered the office of emperor to be distinct from that of a king, the first emperor, Augustus, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch. Although Augustus could claim that his power was authentically republican, his successor, Tiberius, nonetheless, for the first three hundred years of Roman Emperors, from Augustus until Diocletian, a great effort was made to emphasize that the Emperors were the leaders of a Republic. Elements of the Republican institutional framework were preserved until the end of the Western Empire. The Eastern emperors ultimately adopted the title of Basileus, which had meant king in Greek, but became a title reserved solely for the Roman emperor, other kings were then referred to as rēgas. In addition to their office, some emperors were given divine status after death. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century, Romulus Augustulus is often considered to be the last emperor of the west after his forced abdication in 476, although Julius Nepos maintained a claim to the title until his death in 480. Constantine XI was the last Byzantine Roman emperor in Constantinople, dying in the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, a Byzantine group of claimant Roman Emperors existed in the Empire of Trebizond until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1461. In western Europe the title of Roman Emperor was revived by Germanic rulers, the Holy Roman Emperors, in 800, at the end of the Roman Republic no new, and certainly no single, title indicated the individual who held supreme power. Insofar as emperor could be seen as the English translation of imperator, then Julius Caesar had been an emperor, however, Julius Caesar, unlike those after him, did so without the Senates vote and approval. Julius Caesar held the Republican offices of four times and dictator five times, was appointed dictator in perpetuity in 45 BC and had been pontifex maximus for a long period. He gained these positions by senatorial consent, by the time of his assassination, he was the most powerful man in the Roman world. In his will, Caesar appointed his adopted son Octavian as his heir, a decade after Caesars death, Octavians victory over his erstwhile ally Mark Antony at Actium put an end to any effective opposition and confirmed Octavians supremacy. His restoration of powers to the Senate and the people of Rome was a demonstration of his auctoritas, some later historians such as Tacitus would say that even at Augustus death, the true restoration of the Republic might have been possible. Instead, Augustus actively prepared his adopted son Tiberius to be his successor, the Senate disputed the issue but eventually confirmed Tiberius as princeps
2.
Constantine the Great
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Constantine the Great, also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was a Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. Constantine was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman Army officer and his father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west, in 293 AD. Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under the emperors Diocletian, in 305, Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia. As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, the government was restructured and civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation and it would become the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325, at which the Nicene Creed was adopted by Christians, in military matters, the Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile field units and garrison soldiers capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. The age of Constantine marked an epoch in the history of the Roman Empire. He built a new residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople after himself. It would later become the capital of the Empire for over one thousand years and his more immediate political legacy was that, in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletians tetrarchy with the principle of dynastic succession. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and centuries after his reign, the medieval church upheld him as a paragon of virtue while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity. Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Critics portrayed him as a tyrant, trends in modern and recent scholarship attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on his orders at the site of Jesus tomb in Jerusalem. The Papal claim to power in the High Middle Ages was based on the supposed Donation of Constantine. He is venerated as a saint by Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics, though Constantine has historically often been referred to as the First Christian Emperor, scholars debate his actual beliefs or even his actual comprehension of the Christian faith itself. Constantine was a ruler of major importance, and he has always been a controversial figure, the fluctuations in Constantines reputation reflect the nature of the ancient sources for his reign. These are abundant and detailed, but have strongly influenced by the official propaganda of the period. There are no surviving histories or biographies dealing with Constantines life, the nearest replacement is Eusebius of Caesareas Vita Constantini, a work that is a mixture of eulogy and hagiography
3.
Chalcedon
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Chalcedon was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor. It was located almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of Scutari, the name Chalcedon is a variant of Calchedon, found on all the coins of the town as well as in manuscripts of Herodotuss Histories, Xenophons Hellenica, Arrians Anabasis, and other works. The site of Chalcedon is located on a peninsula on the north coast of the Sea of Marmara. A stream, called the Chalcis or Chalcedon in antiquity and now known as the Kurbağalıdere, there Greek colonists from Megara in Attica founded the settlement of Chalcedon in 685 BC, some seventeen years before Byzantium. The Greek name of the ancient town is from the Greek name of the ancient Phoenician city of Carthage, the mineral Chalcedony is named for where it came from outside Chalcedon. The mound of Fikirtepe has yielded remains dating to the Chalcolithic period, phoenicians were active traders in this area. Chalcedon originated as a Megarian colony in 685 BCE, nevertheless, trade thrived in Chalcedon, the town flourished and built many temples, including one to Apollo, which had an oracle. Important villages in Chalcedonia included Chrysopolis and Panteicheion, strabo notes that a little above the sea in Chalcedonia lies the fountain Azaritia, which contains small crocodiles. In its early history Chalcedon shared the fortunes of Byzantium, later, the 6th-century BCE Persian satrap Otanes captured it. The city vacillated for a long while between the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian interests, darius the Greats bridge of boats, built in 512 BC for his Scythian campaign, extended from Chalcedonia to Thrace. Chalcedon formed a part of the kingdom of Bithynia, whose king Nicomedes willed Bithynia to the Romans upon his death in 74 BCE, the city was partly destroyed by Mithridates. The governor of Bithynia, Cotta, had fled to Chalcedon for safety along with thousands of other Romans, three thousand of them were killed, sixty ships captured, and four ships destroyed in Mithridates assault on the city. During the Empire, Chalcedon recovered, and was given the status of a free city, Chalcedon suffered somewhat from its proximity to the new imperial capital at Constantinople. First the Byzantines and later the Ottoman Turks used it as a quarry for building materials for Constantinoples monumental structures, Chalcedon also fell repeatedly to armies attacking Constantinople from the east. In 361 AD it was the location of the Chalcedon tribunal, in 451 AD an ecumenical council of Christian leaders convened here. See below for this Council of Chalcedon, the general Belisarius probably spent his years of retirement on his estate of Rufinianae in Chalcedonia. Beginning in 616 and for at least a decade thereafter, Chalcedon furnished an encampment to the Persians under Chosroes II and it later fell for a time to the Arabs under Yazid. Chalcedon was badly damaged during the Fourth Crusade and it came definitively under Ottoman rule under Orhan Gazi a century before the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople
4.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
5.
Charles the Bald
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Charles the Bald was the King of West Francia, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor. After a series of wars during the reign of his father, Louis the Pious. He was a grandson of Charlemagne and the youngest son of Louis the Pious by his second wife and he was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder brothers were already adults and had been assigned their own regna, or subkingdoms, by their father. The attempts made by Louis the Pious to assign Charles a subkingdom, first Alemannia, at a diet in Aachen in 837, Louis the Pious bade the nobles do homage to Charles as his heir. Pepin of Aquitaine died in 838, whereupon Charles at last received that kingdom, which angered Pepins heirs, the death of the emperor in 840 led to the outbreak of war between his sons. In the following year, the two confirmed their alliance by the celebrated Oaths of Strasbourg. The war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Verdun in August 843, Louis received the eastern part of the Carolingian Empire, known then as East Francia and later as Germany. Lothair retained the title and the Kingdom of Italy. He also received the regions from Flanders through the Rhineland. The first years of Charless reign, up to the death of Lothair I in 855, were comparatively peaceful, during these years the three brothers continued the system of confraternal government, meeting repeatedly with one another, at Koblenz, at Meerssen, and at Attigny. In 858, Louis the German, invited by disaffected nobles eager to oust Charles, Charles was so unpopular that he was unable to summon an army, and he fled to Burgundy. He was saved only by the support of the bishops, who refused to crown Louis the German king, and by the fidelity of the Welfs, in 860, he in his turn tried to seize the kingdom of his nephew, Charles of Provence, but was repulsed. On the death of his nephew Lothair II in 869, Charles tried to seize Lothairs dominions, besides these family disputes, Charles had to struggle against repeated rebellions in Aquitaine and against the Bretons. Led by their chiefs Nomenoë and Erispoë, who defeated the king at the Battle of Ballon and the Battle of Jengland, the Bretons were successful in obtaining a de facto independence. Charles also fought against the Vikings, who devastated the country of the north, the valleys of the Seine and Loire, at the Vikings successful siege and sack of Paris in 845 and several times thereafter Charles was forced to purchase their retreat at a heavy price. By the same edict, he ordered fortified bridges to be put up at all rivers to block the Viking incursions, two of these bridges at Paris saved the city during its siege of 885–886. In 875, after the death of the Emperor Louis II, Charles the Bald, supported by Pope John VIII, traveled to Italy, receiving the crown at Pavia. Louis the German, also a candidate for the succession of Louis II, revenged himself by invading and devastating Charles dominions, and Charles had to return hastily to West Francia
6.
Demetrius Zvonimir of Croatia
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Demetrius Zvonimir was King of Croatia and Dalmatia from 1075 until his death in 1089. He was crowned as king in Solin on 8 October 1076, Zvonimir also ruled as Ban of Slavonia, and was named Duke of Croatia in around 1075. His native name was Zvonimir, he adopted the forename Demetrius at his coronation and he began as Ban of Slavonia in the service of King Peter Krešimir IV. Afterwards, he was appointed as Duke of Croatia by Peter Krešimir IV, in 1075, Demetrius Zvonimir succeeded to the Croatian throne through papal diplomacy. His reign is characterized as relatively peaceful, with no extensive war campaigns, he focused instead on Croatias economic and he was the last native king who exerted any real power over the entire Croatian state, which he inherited at its height and ruled from the city of Knin. Medieval legends allege his assassination, his death and succession are subjects of controversy in Croatian historiography and his reign was followed by a period of anarchy. Most sources describe him as Croatias last native king and his exact origin and background are uncertain. Most sources confirm his descent from Svetoslav Suronja and he was the younger cousin of Peter Krešimir IV, who designated him as heir, he was also elected as heir by an assembly of nobles. During the reign of Peter Krešimir IV, Zvonimir ruled in Slavonia, the term Slavonia at the time referred to both modern day Slavonia and North-West Croatia. The neighboring Holy Roman Empire under Henry IV invaded Hungary in 1063 to restore Solomon to the throne, Hungary was then ruled by Béla I, whose third daughter Helen was married to Zvonimir. Croatia was also attacked around 1067 by the Carantanian army of Ulric I, who occupied a part of Kvarner and eastern coast of Istria, the March of Dalmatia. Since the Croatian king was preoccupied with rebellion in Dalmatia, due to the prohibition of Slavic liturgy, Zvonimir was compelled to seek protection from Solomon, géza I and Solomon helped Zvonimir in restoring his rule in the March of Dalmatia. After they jointly repelled the Carantanians from Croatia, Ban Zvonimir sent gifts to Solomon as a sign of gratitude, shortly afterwards in 1070 Zvonimir is first mentioned as a Ban of Croatia in charters from Zadar. Croatian charters at the time were issued in the names of both King Peter Krešimir and Ban Zvonimir. At the beginning of 1075, Zvonimir held title as Duke of Croatia, this gave him the rule of northern Dalmatia, about the middle of 1075, Zvonimir regained the allegiance of the coastal cities of Dalmatia which had been lost to the Normans. This opened Zvonimirs path to the throne, with support from Pope Gregory VII, Zvonimir was crowned on 8 October 1076 at Solin in the Basilica of Saint Peter and Moses by a representative of Pope Gregory VII. Zvonimir took an oath of fealty to the Pope, promising to support the implementation of the Church reforms in Croatia. After his coronation, Zvonimir in 1076 gave the Benedictine monastery of Saint Gregory in Vrana to the Pope and he took the Christian name of Demetrius at the coronation, most likely after the saint Pope Demetrius I of Alexandria
7.
Licinius
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Licinius I was a Roman emperor from 308 to 324. For most of his reign he was the colleague and rival of Constantine I and he was finally defeated at the Battle of Chrysopolis, before being executed on the orders of Constantine I. Born to a Dacian peasant family in Moesia Superior, Licinius accompanied his close childhood friend and he was trusted enough by Galerius that in 307 he was sent as an envoy to Maxentius in Italy to attempt to reach some agreement about the latters illegitimate political position. Galerius then trusted the eastern provinces to Licinius when he went to deal with Maxentius personally after the death of Flavius Valerius Severus, upon his return to the east Galerius elevated Licinius to the rank of Augustus in the West on November 11,308. He received as his command the provinces of Illyricum, Thrace. In 310 he took command of the war against the Sarmatians, inflicting a defeat on them. On the death of Galerius in May 311, Licinius entered into an agreement with Maximinus II to share the eastern provinces between them, an alliance between Maximinus and Maxentius forced the two remaining emperors to enter into a formal agreement with each other. So in March 313 Licinius married Flavia Julia Constantia, half-sister of Constantine I, at Mediolanum, they had a son, Licinius the Younger, Daia in the meantime decided to attack Licinius. Leaving Syria with 70,000 men, he reached Bithynia, in April 313, he crossed the Bosporus and went to Byzantium, which was held by Licinius troops. Undeterred, he took the town after an eleven-day siege and he moved to Heraclea, which he captured after a short siege, before moving his forces to the first posting station. With a much smaller body of men, possibly around 30,000, before the decisive engagement, Licinius allegedly had a vision in which an angel recited him a generic prayer that could be adopted by all cults and which Licinius then repeated to his soldiers. On 30 April 313, the two clashed at the Battle of Tzirallum, and in the ensuing battle Daias forces were crushed. Ridding himself of the purple and dressing like a slave. Believing he still had a chance to come out victorious, Daia attempted to stop the advance of Licinius at the Cilician Gates by establishing fortifications there. Unfortunately for Daia, Licinius army succeeded in breaking through, forcing Daia to retreat to Tarsus where Licinius continued to him on land. The war between them ended with Daia’s death in August 313. Given that Constantine had already crushed his rival Maxentius in 312, as a result of this settlement, Licinius became sole Augustus in the East, while his brother-in-law, Constantine, was supreme in the West. Licinius immediately rushed to the east to deal with another threat, in 314, a civil war erupted between Licinius and Constantine, in which Constantine used the pretext that Licinius was harbouring Senecio, whom Constantine accused of plotting to overthrow him
8.
Louis the Younger
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Louis the Younger, sometimes Louis III, was the second eldest of the three sons of Louis II the German and Emma. He succeeded his father as the King of Saxony on 28 August 876 and he died in 882 and was succeeded in all his territories, which encompassed most of East Francia, by his younger brother, Charles the Fat, already King of Italy and Emperor. As a young man, Louis was deployed in operations against the Abodrites to the east in 858 and 862. He marched as far as Limoges before turning back, back home, Louis forged close ties with the nobles of the East Francia and became increasingly independent from his father. He engaged himself to the daughter of Count Adalard and, in 865, he, Carloman had already been given the subregulus of Bavaria in 864, now Louis received Saxony, Thuringia, and Franconia and Charles Alemannia and Rhaetia. In 869, Louis married Liutgard, daughter of Liudolf, Duke of Eastphalia, Luitgard was a strong-willed and politically ambitious woman and later on spurred her husband to pursue ambitious goals. This match increased dissension between father and son and in 871 and in 873, Louis rebelled, but each time he was reconciled, upon his fathers death in 876, Louis fully inherited his subkingdoms, bearing the title rex Francorum. Louis also retained his fathers chief advisor, Luitbert, Archbishop of Mainz and he and his brother ruled their kingdoms independently but cooperatively and never at war. Louiss rule was threatened by Charles the Bald, who tried to annex the eastern parts of Lotharingia. Louis brought war on Charles and, on 8 October 876 at Andernach, the East Frankish army displayed superiority in both unity and tactics, and the young king had even dressed his soldiers in white garments so that they appeared as an army of dead spirits. After this victory, Louis the Germans three sons met in November at Nördlingen to discuss the division of their fathers kingdom and to have their hosts swear allegiance. Throughout his reign, though he is always called King of Saxony by historians, he never visited Saxony proper, at the end of 877, the brothers assembled again to discuss the administration of their half of Lotharingia. After Carloman relinquished his claim, the realm was divided between Louis and Charles, who met in September 878 in Alsatia. In 879, Carloman was incapacitated by a stroke and partitioned named Louis as his successor in Bavaria, Louis received it a year later when Carloman expired. This Treaty of Fouron was soon put to the test, when Louis the Stammerer died in April 879, a party of western nobles led by Abbot Joscelin invited Louis the Younger to succeed to the rule of the western kingdom. Since his wife Luitgard also advocated heeding this call, Louis invaded West Francia and he marched as far as Verdun, but after the new kings Louis III and Carloman ceded their part of Lotharingia to the invader, Louis retreated. In February 880, this gain was confirmed by the Treaty of Ribemont and this treaty determined the border of the two kingdoms that were to remain unchanged until the fourteenth century. In contrast to his father, Louis the Younger preferred reconciling royal interests with those of the nobility and he managed to bind powerful families to the king, including the Luidovingian relatives of his wife, that later themselves became kings and emperors
9.
West Francia
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West Francia extended further south than modern France, but it did not extend as far east. In Brittany and Catalonia the authority of the West Frankish king was barely felt, West Frankish kings were elected by the secular and ecclesiastic magnates, and for the half-century between 888 and 936 they chose alternatingly from the Carolingian and Robertian houses. By this time the power of king became weaker and more nominal, the Robertians, after becoming counts of Paris and dukes of France became kings themselves and established the Capetian dynasty. In August 843, after three years of war following the death of Louis the Pious on June 20,840. The youngest, Charles the Bald, received the western Francia, the contemporary West Frankish Annales Bertiniani describes Charles arriving at Verdun, where the distribution of portions took place. After describing the portions of his brothers, Lothair the Emperor and Louis the German, the Annales Fuldenses of East Francia describe Charles as holding the western part after the kingdom was divided in three. Charles the Bald was at war with Pippin II from the start of his reign in 840, accordingly, in June 845, after several military defeats, Charles signed the Treaty of Benoît-sur-Loire and recognised his nephews rule. This agreement lasted until March 25,848, when the Aquitainian barons recognised Charles as their king, thereafter Charless armies had the upper hand and by 849 had secured most of Aquitaine. In May, Charles had himself crowned King of the Franks, the coronation was officiated by Archbishop Wenilo of Sens, and included the first instance of royal unction in West Francia. The idea of anointing Charles may be owed to Archbishop Hincmar of Reims, by the time of the Synod of Quierzy, Hincmar was claiming that Charles was anointed to the entire West Frankish kingdom. With the Treaty of Mersen in 870 the western part of Lotharingia was added to West Francia, in 875 Charles the Bald was crowned Emperor of Rome. The last record in the Annales Bertiniani dates to 882, the next set of original annals from the West Frankish kingdom are those of Flodoard, who began his account with the year 919. After the death of Charless grandson, Carloman II, on December 12,884 and he was probably crowned King in Gaul on 20 May 885 at Grand. His reign was the time after the death of Louis the Pious that all of Francia would be re-united under one ruler. In his capacity as king of West Francia, he seems to have granted the title and perhaps regalia to the semi-independent ruler of Brittany. His handling of the Viking siege of Paris in 885–86 greatly reduced his prestige, in November 887 his nephew, Arnulf of Carinthia revolted and assumed the title as King of the East Franks. Charles retired and soon died on January 13,888, in Aquitaine, Duke Ranulf II may have had himself recognised as king, but he only lived another two years. Although Aquitaine did not become a kingdom, it was largely outside the control of the West Frankish kings
