Bible Encyclopedias
Lorraine

Lorraine in Medieval Times

The original kingdom of Lorraine was the northern part of the territories allotted by the treaty of Verdun (August 843) to the emperor Lothair I., and in 855 formed the inheritance of his second son, King Lothair. This kingdom of Lorraine was situated between the realms of the East and the West Franks, and originally extended along the North Sea between the mouths of the Rhine and the Ems, including the whole or part of Frisia and the cities on the right bank of the Rhine. From Bonn the frontier followed the Rhine as far as its confluence with the Aar, which then became the boundary, receding from the left bank in the neighbourhood of Bingen so as to leave the cities of Worms and Spires to Germany, and embracing the duchy of Alsace. After crossing the Jura, the frontier joined the Saone a little south of its confluence with the Doubs, and followed the Saone for some distance, and finally the valleys of the Meuse and the Scheldt. Thus the kingdom roughly comprised the region watered by the Moselle and the Meuse, together with the dioceses of Cologne, Trier, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Liege and Cambrai, Basel, Strassburg and Besancon, and corresponded to what is now Holland and Belgium, parts of Rhenish Prussia, of Switzerland, and of the old province of Franche-Comte, and to the district known later as Upper Lorraine, or simply Lorraine. Though apparently of an absolutely artificial character, this kingdom corresponded essentially to the ancient Francia, the cradle of the Carolingian house, and long retained a certain unity. It was to the inhabitants of this region that the name of Lotharienses or Lotharingi was primitively applied, although the word Lotharingia, as the designation of the country, only appears in the middle of the 10th century.

The reign of King Lothair (q.v.), which was continually disturbed by quarrels with his uncles, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, and by the difficulties caused by the divorce of his queen Teutberga, whom he had forsaken for a concubine called Waldrada, ended on the 8th of August 869. His inheritance was disputed by his uncles, and was divided by the treaty of Meersen (8th of August 870), by which Charles the Bald received part of the province of Besancon and some land between the Moselle and the Meuse. Then for a time the emperor Charles the Fat united under his authority the whole of the kingdom of Lorraine with the rest of the Carolingian empire. After the deposition of Charles in 888 Rudolph, king of Burgundy, got himself recognized in Lorraine. He was unable to maintain himself there, and succeeded in detaching definitively no more than the province of Besancon. Lorraine remained in the power of the emperor Arnulf, who in 895 constituted it a distinct kingdom in favour of his son Zwentibold. Zwentibold quickly became embroiled with the nobles and the bishops, and especially with Bishop Radbod of Trier. Among the lay lords the most important was Regnier (incorrectly called Long-neck), count of Hesbaye and Hainault, who is styled duke by the Lotharingian chronicler Reginon, though he does not appear ever to have borne the title. In 898 Zwentibold stripped Regnier of his fiefs, whereupon the latter appealed to the king of France, Charles the Simple, whose intervention, however, had no enduring effect. After the death of Arnulf in 899, the Lotharingians appealed to his successor, Louis the Child, to replace Zwentibold, who, on the 13th of August 900, was killed in battle. In spite of the dissensions which immediately arose between him and the Lotharingian lords, Louis retained the kingdom till his death. The Lotharingians, however, refused to recognize the new German king, Conrad I., and testified their attachment to the Carolingian house by electing as sovereign the king of the West Franks, Charles the Simple. Charles was at first supported by Giselbert, son and successor of Regnier, but was abandoned by his ally, who in 919 appealed to the German king, Henry I. The struggle ended in the treaty of Bonn (921), by which apparently the rights of Charles over Lorraine were recognized. The revolt of the Frankish lords in 922 and the captivity of Charles finally settled the question. After an unsuccessful attack by Rudolph or Raoul, king of France, Henry became master of Lorraine in 925, thanks to the support of Giselbert, whom he rewarded with the hand of his daughter Gerberga and the title of duke of Lorraine. Giselbert at first remained faithful to Henry's son, Otto the Great, but in 938 he appears to have joined the revolt directed against Otto by Eberhard, duke of Franconia. In 939, in concert with Eberhard and Otto's brother, Henry of Saxony, he declared open war against Otto and appealed to Louis d'Outremer, who penetrated into Lorraine and Alsace, but was soon called back to France by the revolt of the count of Vermandois. In the same year Giselbert and Eberhard were defeated and killed near Andernach, and Otto at once made himself recognized in the whole of Lorraine, securing it by a treaty with Louis d'Outremer, who married Giselbert's widow Gerberga, and entrusting the government of it to Count Otto, son of Ricuin, until Giselbert's son Henry should have attained his majority.

After the deaths of the young Henry and Count Otto in 944, Otto the Great gave Lorraine to Conrad the Red, duke of Xvii. I a Franconia, the husband of his daughter Liutgard, a choice which was not completely satisfactory to the Lotharingians. In 953 Conrad, in concert with Liudulf, the son of the German king, revolted against Otto, but was abandoned by his supporters. Otto stripped Conrad of his duchy, and in 954 gave the government of it to his own brother Bruno, archbishop of Cologne. Bruno had to contend against the efforts of the last Carolingians of France to make good their claims on Lorraine, as well as against the spirit of independence exhibited by the Lotharingian nobles; and his attempts to raze certain castles built by brigand lords and to compel them to respect their oath of fidelity resulted in serious sedition. To obviate these difficulties Bruno divided the ducal authority, assigning Lower Lorraine to a certain Duke Godfrey, who was styled dux Ripuariorum, and Upper Lorraine to Frederick (d. 959), count of Bar, a member of the house of Ardenne and son-in-law of Hugh the Great, with the title of dux Mosellanorum; and it is probable that the partition of the ancient kingdom of Lorraine into two new duchies was confirmed by Otto after Bruno's death in 965. In 977 the emperor Otto II. gave the government of Lower Lorraine to Charles I., a younger son of Louis d'Outremer, on condition that that prince should acknowledge himself his vassal and should oppose any attempt of his brother Lothair on Lorraine. The consequent expedition of the king of France in 978 against Aix-la-Chapelle had no enduring result, and Charles retained his duchy till his death about 992. He left two sons, Otto, who succeeded him and died without issue, and Henry, who is sometimes regarded as the ancestor of the landgraves of Thuringia. The duchy of Lower Lorraine, sometimes called Lothier (Lotharium), was then given to Godfrey (d. 1023), son of Count Godfrey of Verdun, and for some time the history of Lorraine is the history of the attempts made by the dukes of Lothier to seize Upper Lorraine. Gothelon (d. 1043), son of Duke Godfrey, obtained Lorraine at the death of Frederick II., duke of Upper Lorraine, in 1027, and victoriously repulsed the incursions of Odo (Eudes) of Blois, count of Champagne, who was defeated and killed in a battle near Bar (1037). At Gothelon's death in 1043, his son Godfrey the Bearded received from the emperor only Lower Lorraine, his brother Gothelon II. obtaining Upper Lorraine. Godfrey attempted to seize the upper duchy, but was defeated and imprisoned in 1045. On the death of Gothelon in 1046, Godfrey endeavoured to take Upper Lorraine from Albert of Alsace, to whom it had been granted by the emperor Henry III. The attempt, however, also failed; and Godfrey was for some time deprived of his own duchy of Lower Lorraine in favour of Frederick of Luxemburg. Godfrey took part in the struggles of Pope Leo IX. against the Normans in Italy, and in 1053 married Beatrice, daughter of Duke Frederick of Upper Lorraine and widow of Boniface, margrave of Tuscany. On the death of Frederick of Luxemburg in 1065 the emperor Henry IV. restored the duchy of Lower Lorraine to Godfrey, who retained it till his death in 1069, when he was succeeded by his son Godfrey the Hunchback (d. 1076), after whose death Henry IV. gave the duchy to Godfrey of Bouillon, the hero of the first crusade, son of Eustace, count of Boulogne, and Ida, sister of Godfrey the Hunchback. On the death of Godfrey of Bouillon in 110o Lower Lorraine was given to Henry, count of Limburg. The new duke supported the emperor Henry IV. in his struggles with his sons, and in consequence was deposed by the emperor Henry V., who gave the duchy in 1106 to Godfrey, count of Louvain, a descendant of the Lotharingian dukes of the beginning of the 10th century. This Godfrey was the first hereditary duke of Brabant, as the dukes of Lower Lorraine came to be called.

Upper Lorraine

The duchy of Upper Lorraine, or Lorraine Mosellana, to which the name of Lorraine was restricted from the 11th century, consisted of a tract of undulating country watered by the upper course of the Meuse and Moselle, and bounded N. by the Ardennes, S. by the table-land of Langres, E. by the Vosges and W. by Champagne. Its principal fiefs were the countship of Bar which Otto the Great gave in 951 to Count Frederick of Ardenne, and which passed in 1093 to the lords of Montbeliard; the countship of Chiny, formed at the end of the 10th century, of which, since the 13th, Montmedy was the capital; the lordship of Commercy, whose rulers bore the special title of damoiseau, and which passed in. the 13th century to the house of Saarebriicken; and, finally the three important ecclesiastical lordships of the bishops of Metz, Toul and Verdun. Theodoric, or Thierri (d. 1026), son of Frederick, count of Bar and first duke of Upper Lorraine, was involved in a war with the emperor Henry II., a war principally remarkable for the siege of Metz (1007). After having been the object of numerous attempts on the part of the dukes of Lower Lorraine, Upper Lorraine was given by the emperor Henry III. to Albert of Alsace, and passed in 1048 to Albert's brother Gerard, who died by poison in 1069, and who was the ancestor of the hereditary house of Lorraine. Until the 15th century the representatives of the hereditary house were Theodoric II., called the Valiant (1069-1115), Simon (1115-1139), Matthew(1139-1176), Simon II. (1176-1205), Ferri I. (1205-1206), Ferri II. (1206-1213), Theobald (Thibaut) I. (1213-1220), Matthew II. (1220-1251), Ferri III. (1251-1304), Theobald II. (1304-1312), Ferri IV., called the Struggler (1312-1328), Rudolph, or Raoul (1328-1346), John (1346-1391) and Charles II. or I., called the Bold (1391-1431). The 12th century and the first part of the 13th were occupied with wars against the counts of Bar and Champagne. Theobald I. intervened in Champagne to support Erard of Brienne against the young count Theobald IV. The regent of Champagne, Blanche of Navarre, succeeded in forming against the duke of Lorraine a coalition consisting of, the count of Bar and the emperor Frederick II., who had become embroiled with Theobald over the question of Rosheim in Alsace. Attacked by the emperor, the duke of Lorraine was forced at the treaty of Amance (1218) to acknowledge himself the vassal of the count of Champagne, and to support the count in his struggles against his ancient ally the count of Bar. The long government of Ferri III. was mainly occupied with wars against the feudal lords and the bishop of Metz, which resulted in giving an impulse to the municipal movement through Ferri's attempt to use the movement as a weapon against the nobles. The majority of the municipal charters of Lorraine were derived from the charter of Beaumont in Argonne, which was at first extended to the Barrois and was granted by Ferri, in spite of the hostility of his barons, to La Neuveville in 1257, to Frouard in 1263 and to Luneville in 1265. In the church lands the bishops of Toul and Metz granted liberties from the end of the 12th century to the communes in their lordship, but not the Beaumont charter, which, however, obtained in the diocese of Verdun in the 14th and 15th centuries.

By the will of Duke Charles the Bold, Lorraine was to pass to his daughter Isabella, who married Rene of Anjou, duke of Bar, in 1420. But Anthony of Vaudemont, Charles's nephew and heir male, disputed this succession with Rene, who obtained from the king of France an army commanded by Arnault Guilhem de Barbazan. Rene, however, was defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Bulgneville, where Barbazan was killed (2nd of July 1431). The negotiations between Rene's wife and Anthony had no result, in spite of the intervention of the council of Basel and the emperor Sigismund, and it was not until 1436 that Rene obtained his liberty by paying a ransom of 200,000 crowns, and was enabled to dispute with Alfonso of Aragon the kingdom of Naples, which he had inherited in the previous year. In 1444 Charles VII. of France and the dauphin Louis went to Lorraine, accompanied by envoys from Henry VI. of England, and procured a treaty (confirmed at Chalons in 1 445), by which Yolande, Rene's eldest daughter, married Anthony's son, Ferri of Vaudemont, and Rene's second daughter Margaret became the wife of Henry VI. of England. After his return to Lorraine in 1442, Rene was seldom in the duchy. Like his successor John, duke of Calabria, who died in 1470, he was continually occupied with expeditions in Italy or in Spain. John's son and successor, Nicholas (d. 1473), who supported the duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, against the king of France, died without children, and his heir was Rene, son of Frederick of Vaudemont. The duke of Burgundy, however, disputed this inheritance, and carried off the young Rene and his mother, but on the intervention of Louis XI. had to set them at liberty. Rene helped the Swiss during their wars with Charles the Bold, who invaded Lorraine and was killed under the walls of Nancy (1477). Rene's last years were mainly spent in expeditions in Provence and Italy. He died in 1508, leaving by his second wife three sons - Anthony, called the Good, who succeeded him; Claude, count (and afterwards duke) of Guise, the ancestor of the house of Guise; and John (d. 1550), known as the cardinal of Lorraine. Anthony, who was declared of age at his father's death by the estates of Lorraine, although his mother had tried to seize the power as regent, had been brought up from the age of twelve at the French court, where he became the friend of Louis XII., whom he accompanied on his Italian expeditions. In 1525 he had to defend Lorraine against the revolted Alsatian peasants known as rustauds (boors), whom he defeated at Lupstein and Scherweiler; and he succeeded in maintaining a neutral position in the struggle between Francis I. of France and the emperor Charles V. He died on the 14th of June 1544, and was succeeded by his son Francis I., who died of apoplexy (August 1545) at the very moment when he was negotiating peace between the king of France and the emperor.

Lorraine in Modern Times. - Francis's son Charles III. or II., called the Great, succeeded under the tutelage of his mother and Nicholas of Vaudemont, bishop of Metz. Henry II. of France took this opportunity to invade Lorraine, and in 1552 seized the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun. In the same year the emperor laid siege to Metz, but was forced to retreat with heavy loss before the energetic resistance of Duke Francis of Guise. On leaving Lorraine, Henry II. took Charles to France, brought him up at the court and married him to his daughter Claude. After the accession of Francis II., the young duke returned to Lorraine, and, while his cousins the Guises endeavoured to make good the claims of the house of Lorraine to the crown of France by virtue of its descent from the Carolingians through Charles, the son of Louis d'Outremer, he devoted himself mainly to improving the administration of his duchy. He reconstituted his domain by revoking the alienations irregularly granted by his predecessors, instructed his chambre des comptes to institute inquiries on this subject, and endeavoured to ameliorate the condition of industry and commerce by reorganizing the working of the mines and saltworks, unifying weights and measures and promulgating edicts against vagabonds. His duchy suffered considerably from the passage of German bands on their way to help the Protestants in France, and also from disturbances caused by the progress of Calvinism, especially in the neighbourhood of the three bishoprics. To combat Calvinism Charles had recourse to the Jesuits, whom he established at Pont-a-Mousson, and to whom he gave over the university he had founded in that town in 1572. To this foundation he soon added chairs of medicine and law, the first professor of civil law being the maitre des requetes, the Scotsman William Barclay, and the next Gregory of Toulouse, a pupil of the jurist Cujas. Charles died on the 14th of May 1608, and was succeeded by his eldest son Henry II., called the Good, who rid Lorraine of the German bands and died in 1624 without issue.

Henry was succeeded by his brother Francis II., who abdicated on the 26th of November 1624 in favour of his son Charles IV. or III. At the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII. Charles embroiled himself with France by harbouring French malcontents. Louis entered Lorraine, and by the treaty of Vic (31st of December 1631) bound over Charles to desist from supporting the enemies of France, and compelled him to cede the fortress of Marsal. Charles's breach of this treaty led to a renewal of hostilities, and the French troops occupied St Mihiel, Bar-le-duc, Pont-a-Mousson and Nancy, which the duke was forced to cede for four years (1633). In 1632, by the treaty of Liverdun, he had already had to abandon the fortresses of Stenay and Clermont in Argonne. On the 19th of January 1634 he abdicated in favour of his younger brother Francis Nicholas, cardinal of Lorraine, and withdrew to Germany, the parlement of Paris declaring him guilty of rebellion and confiscating his estates. After vain attempts to regain his estates with the help of the emperor, he decided to negotiate with France; and the treaty of St Germain (29th of March 1641) re-established him in his duchy on condition that he should cede Nancy, Stenay and other fortresses until the general peace. This treaty he soon broke, joining the Imperialists in the Low Countries and defeating the French at Tuttlingen (December 1643). He was restored, however, to his estates in 1644, and took part in the wars of the Fronde. He was arrested at Brussels in 1654, imprisoned at Toledo and did not recover his liberty until the peace of the Pyrenees in 1659. On the 28th of February 1661 the duchies of Lorraine and Bar were restored to him by the treaty of Vincennes, on condition that he should demolish the fortifications of Nancy and cede Clermont, Saarburg and Pfalzburg. In 1662 Hugues de Lionne negotiated with him the treaty of Montmartre, by which Charles sold the succession to the duchy to Louis XIV. for a life-rent; but the Lorrainers, perhaps with the secret assent of their prince, refused to ratify the treaty. Charles, too, was accused of intriguing with the Dutch, and was expelled from his estates, Marshal de Crequi occupying Lorraine. He withdrew to Germany, and in 1673 took an active part in the coalition of Spain, the Empire and Holland against France. After an unsuccessful invasion of Franche-Comte he took his revenge by defeating Crequi at Conzer Briicke (11th of August 1675) and forcing him to capitulate at Trier. On the r8th of September 1675 died this adventurous prince, who, as Voltaire said, passed his life in losing his estates. His brother Francis, in favour of whom he had abdicated, was a cardinal at the age of nineteen and subsequently bishop of Toul, although he had never taken orders. He obtained a dispensation to marry his cousin, Claude of Lorraine, and died in 1670. He had one son, Charles, who in 1675 took the title of duke of Lorraine and was recognized by all the powers except France. After an unsuccessful attempt to seize Lorraine in 1676, Charles vainly solicited the throne of Poland, took an active part in the wars in Hungary, and married Eleanor of Austria, sister of the emperor Leopold I., in 1678. At the treaty of Nijmwegen France proposed to restore his estates on condition that he should abandon a part of them; but Charles refused, and passed the rest of his life in Austria, where he took part in the wars against the Turks, whom he defeated at Mohacz (1687). He died in 1690.

Leopold, Charles's son and successor, was restored to his estates by the treaty of Ryswick (1697), but had to dismantle all the fortresses in Lorraine and to disband his army with the exception of his guard. Under his rule Lorraine flourished. While diminishing the taxes, he succeeded in augmenting his revenues by wise economy. The population increased enormously during his reign - that of Nancy, for instance, almost trebling itself between the years 1699 and 1735. Leopold welcomed French immigrants, and devoted himself to the development of commerce and industry, particularly to the manufacture of stuffs and lace, glass and paper. He was responsible, too, for the compilation of a body of law which was known as the "Code Leopold." Some time after his death, which occurred on the 27th of March 1729, his heir Francis III. was betrothed to Maria Theresa of Austria, the daughter and heiress of the emperor Charles VI. France, however, could not admit the possibility of a union of Lorraine with the Empire; and in 1 735, at the preliminaries of Vienna, Louis XV. negotiated an arrangement by which Francis received the duchy of Tuscany, which was vacant by the death of the last Medici, in exchange for Lorraine, and Stanislaus Leszczynski, the dethroned king of Poland and father-in-law of Louis XV., obtained Lorraine, which after his death would pass to his daughter - in other words, to France. These arrangements were confirmed by the treaty of Vienna (18th of November 1738). In 1736, by a secret agreement, Stanislaus had abandoned the financial administration of his estates to Louis XV. for a yearly subsidy. The intendant, Chaumont de la Galaiziere, was instructed to apply the French system of taxation in Lorraine; and in spite of the severity of the administration Lorraine preserved a grateful memory of the good king Stanislaus, who held his brilliant little court at Luneville, and founded an academy and several libraries and hospitals. At his death in February 1766 the two duchies t Lorraine and Bar became definitively incorporated in the kingdom of France. The treaties of 1735 and 1736, however, guaranteed their legislation, the privileges enjoyed by the three orders, and their common law and customs tariffs, which they retained until the French Revolution. Lorraine and Barrois formed a large government corresponding, together with the little government of the three bishoprics, to the intendance of Lorraine and the generalite of Metz. For legal purposes, Metz had been the seat of a parlement since 1633, and the parlement of Nancy was created in 1776. There was, too, a chambre des comptes at Metz, and another at Bar-le-duc. (For the later history see ALSACE-LORRAINE.) See Dom. A. Calmet, Histoire ecclesiastique et civile de Lorraine (2nd ed., Nancy, 1 7471 757); A. Digot, Histoire de Lorraine (1879-1880); E. Huhn, Geschichte Lothringens (Berlin, 1877); R. Parisot, Le Royaume de Lorraine sous les Carolingiens (Paris, 1899); Comte D'Haussonville, Histoire de la reunion de la Lorraine a la France (2nd ed., Paris, 1860); E. Bonvalot, Histoire du droit et des institutions de la Lorraine et des Trois-Eveches (Paris, 1895); and E. Duvernoy, Les Etats Generaux des duches de Lorraine et de Bar jusqu' d la majorite de Charles III. (Paris, 1904) (R. Po.)