Atlas Of Power:Textual Study On Magnates Group Of Charles The Bald In The Civil War

As the macro theme of this dissertation,Atlas of power refers to the geographical base and relation network of power,the specific study object is magnates group of Charles the Bald in the civil war.Charles the Bald,Carolingian king,started his pathway to the throne from the civil war(840-843).It was an internal struggle between the three brothers of the royal family,Lothaire,Louis the German,Charles the Bald,and their nephew,Pippin II of Aquitaine.There were a series of wars happened before and after this civil war,the 9th-century society was in a violent state.Although the war with Saracens and Normans also made serious threat to the regime,but the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire was a direct result of the civil war.The Carolingians continued their reign and developed in eastern,central and western kingdoms since the empire divided into three kingdoms.This made a profound impact on the early form of the political geography of medieval and even modern Europe.Therefore,the interpretation of civil war is a key part to understand the dissolution process of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century.In which way we can interpret the civil war history? In view of major historical documents of civil war,historians prefer to describe people’s political games in the war rather than battle scenes.So it is not enough just to study war history,we also need to pay attention to the people in the war,to concern the political base and political relation in this war.The first two chapters of this dissertation,“The Beginning of Kingship of Charles the Bald: The Group Cooperation in Military and Political Struggle of the Civil War”,“The Decline of Magnates Group of Charles the Bald in the Civil War:Family Revenge in Neustira and the Battle of Angoulême”,studied the rise and fall of magnates group of Charles the Bald in the civil war from the perspective of a whole;“The Core of Magnates: The Courtiers Headed by Adalarde” made a textual study on crucial characters in the magnates group in the form of prosopography,directly presented the Magnates’ main fiefdoms,which also represented the geopolitical power foundation of Charles the Bald.The last two chapters,“The Ideal Power Structure in Political Group”,“Analysis on the Power and Political Ethics of the Carolingian Magnates”,mainly explored the relationship of king and his magnates in the early medieval wars.Domestic and foreign studies on the 9th century Carolingian civil war paid more attention to the monarch,especially the three brothers of the royal family.But from my observation,there was definitely a decision-making community in the group of Charles the Bald.Many decisions need to be made jointly by the king and the magnates,even sometimes by magnates instead.This involves the question of which group made the public decision of the Kingdom.In my opinion,it was the king and magnates,and it is a small-scale public group.