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A Feast for Vultures and Wolves: The 9th-century Carolingian Civil War and the End of a Medieval Empire

At the end of the 8th century, the Franks under their new Carolingian kings built an empire that spanned Europe and inspired the respect of both emperor(s) in Byzantium and caliphs in Baghdad. But by the middle of the next century, the empire was in tatters – a field outside Auxerre (in modern France) drenched in blood, as old friends drew each other’s blood, as brother fought brother. This talk will focus on the fateful battle of Fontenoy in June 841 and how an empire that seemed so secure, so tightly bound in its political and cultural consensus, could be destroyed so quickly by greed and vengeance over a disputed succession to power.