Charles the Bald

Charles the Bald was the youngest son of Emperor Louis the Pious and Judith of Bavaria and a grandson of Charlemagne. His father’s efforts to provide him with a kingdom contributed to prolonged conflict among the Carolingian heirs. After Louis died, Charles allied with his half-brother Louis the German against Lothair I, and the Treaty of Verdun in 843 assigned Charles the western portion of the empire, the political core from which the later kingdom of France would develop.

Charles spent much of his reign balancing royal ambitions against powerful aristocrats, rebellious relatives and repeated Viking attacks on West Francia. His government relied heavily on bishops, assemblies and negotiated grants of office, illustrating the increasingly regional nature of Carolingian power. In 875 Pope John VIII crowned him emperor, but his attempt to extend authority into Italy proved short-lived. Charles died in 877 while returning across the Alps, and the rapid succession crises after his death further weakened the possibility of restoring a unified Carolingian empire.

In Cecelia Holland’s The Angel and the Sword, Roderick’s path leads towards Paris during the Scandinavian assaults of the ninth century and into the service of rulers struggling to hold West Francia together under Charles the Bald.