Review of “Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe’s Lost Country” by Simon Winder

By the time Charlemagne died in 814, he had united most of western and central Europe into a vast (for the time) political entity that became known as the Holy Roman Empire. How the Empire was to be ruled after his death was not immediately apparent. His progeny (and others) squabbled over control until coming to an agreement in the Treaty of Verdun in 843, whereby the Empire was divided into three roughly equal parts, divided along north-south axes, each to be ruled by one of the great man’s surviving grandsons.

Europe after the Treaty of Verdun in 843

The westernmost domaine was granted to Charles the Bald and was called West Francia; it corresponded roughly to modern day France, and became and remained pretty much united over the centuries. The easternmost domain was granted to Louis the German and was designated as East Francia. It corresponded roughly to modern day Germany and Austria, but was not effectively united until the 19th century.

The third, middle area, called Middle Francia, was granted to Charlemagne’s eldest grandson, Lothair I. It corresponded to modern Belgium, Holland, Western Germany, Eastern France, Northern Italy, and Switzerland. It proved to be exceeding difficult to govern, right from the beginning. Not only did it lack prominent physical boundaries, but it was troubled by civil war, Viking raids in the north, and Saracen raids in the south. Lothair’s son, Lothair II, took over the kingdom in 855 at his father’s death. What was left of the kingdom became known as Lotharingia. Scholars claim the kingdom was named for Lothair II, but from my coign of vantage, it could have been named after either Lothair. In any event, the name of the kingdom dropped the “i” in “Lothair” for reasons I have not bothered to ascertain.

Charlemagne, Father (or at least Grandfather) of an Empire

Control of various parts of Lotharingia fluctuated between the growing French state to the west, the Holy Roman Empire (principally under the Hapsburg family) to the east, numerous counts and dukes (principally the Dukes of Burgundy) somewhere in the middle, and frequent interventions from Spain (again, from the Hapsburgs). The story is much too convoluted (with far too many men named Charles) to keep straight or to summarize, but Simon Winder has attempted to construct a coherent narrative about the complex history of this important, but never unified, stretch of territory, the map of which he describes as looking “like a jigsaw a dog had tried to swallow and then thrown up.”

Winder’s approach to writing history is a cross between that of an academician and a stand-up comic. But what a fun way to (sort of) learn history (or something resembling it) . Lotharingia is Winder’s latest romp through European history; his previous books in this vein were Danubia and Germania, each a very entertaining mix of travelogue and collection of historical anecdotes.

In this book, Winder tackles twelve centuries of European history focused on a geographical subset that never did become, but maybe could have become, a country.

Winder sprinkles his account with his own reminiscences, and impressions of the area’s art, music, and architecture. For example:

Perhaps the only poignant feature of the halls is the way that they accidentally preserve the bottoms of various models obliged to shiver for hours pretending to be a goddess or classical heroine or one of the Arts. . . . And how startling it would be to find an elaborate sculpture of a nymph on her way to the bath, with a sensible gown on and a little basket for her shampoo, rather than being ‘surprised’ in the bath in a skittish naked pose.”

Except for the occasional cultural interlude, the story of Lotharingia is a long series of shuffling of control of various areas, either through warfare or the vagaries of dynastic succession. But after describing the horrors of the two world wars of the 20th century, Winder ends on an optimistic note with the formation of the European Union. He concludes:

It will not surprise the reader that I think of this in terms of Lotharingia. The six Lotharingian or part-Lotharingian successor states—the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany and Italy—having been beaten to the ground by the horrors of nationalism and ideology decided to stop any further enmity by joining together. They would go on to make three core Lotharingian cities into their capitals: Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg. In addition the Charlemagne Prize was set up by the City of Aachen to be awarded to whoever its judges viewed as contributing most to the promotion of unity in Europe. And that is probably as good a place as any to end.”

Discussion: While this book is informative and entertaining, I have two complaints.

My first is that it is rather difficult to keep track of the dramatis personae, especially with no chart or timeline provided by the author. Not only are there such names to keep track of as Philip the Good, Philip the Handsome, Philip the Bold, and Philip the Fair, among other Philips, but also Charles the Bold, and Charles the Bald, and Charles from I through X, with at least a couple of numerical repetitions. For example, there was a Charles III “The Fat,” and a Charles III “The Simple.” There were three Charles IVs, two Charles Vs, two Charles VIs, and so on through the numbers. Henrys and Louis’s are also well-represented. (Louis “the Child” was crowned at age six. I’m not sure how descriptive the other epithets are. One wonders in particular about “Arnulf the Bad.” Googling images of “Philip the Handsome” leads one to question the whole process. At any rate, it makes the story difficult to follow.)

My second complaint is that Winder spends a lot of time analyzing famous (and not so famous) paintings, but does not include pictures of them. It can be a bit annoying to read his observations about the paintings without being able to view them. On the other hand, he does include several very good maps—and he is right about the jigsaw puzzle and the dog (see paragraph 4, above).

Evaluation: Winder’s knowledge of the history of Europe is impressive, and he is a good raconteur with a nice sense of humor. While I did not enjoy this book as much as either Danubia or Germania, this quirky book contains a lot of factual information as well as an often delightful and decidedly unique guide to the region and its history.

Rating: 3.5/5

Published in the U.S. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019