Lower Lorraine

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Lotharingia (yellow), as established by the Treaty of Verdun, 843, and reduced by the Treaty of Mersen, 870

The Duchy of Lower Lorraine or Lower Lotharingia encompassed part of modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany west of the Rhine, and a part of northern France (east of the Schelde). It was created out of the former Carolingian kingdom of Lotharingia. The kingdom was divided for much of the later ninth century, reunited under the French king Charles the Simple in 910. From there it formed a duchy which eventually declared homage to the German king Henry the Fowler (c.923), an act which the French monarchs were helpless to revert and Lotharingia (or Lorraine) becomes a German stem duchy. In 959, the Duke Bruno divided the duchy into two margraviates (or vice-duchies): Lower and Upper Lorraine (or Lower and Upper Lotharingia).

The duchies took very separate paths therafter and were only briefly reunited under Gothelo I from 1033 to 1044. After that, the Lower duchy is quickly marginalised. Upper Lorraine came to be known as simply Lorraine.

The ducal title was granted to the lord of Bouillon in 1087 and, in 1106, to the count of Leuven. The duke of Brabant inherited the duchy in 1190, but the duchy of lost its territorial authority at the Diet of Schwäbisch Hall. The remnant imperial fief was later called the Duchy of Lothier (or Lothryk).

[edit] Origins of Lower Lorraine

Map of Gaul circa 58 BC

The region of Lower-Lorraine was inhabited originally by Celtic-German people called the Belgae. In Roman times, the Belgae lost territory to the Batavians who settled in the northern region of the river Rhine and the Usipetes, Sagambri and Ubii who settled along the eastern bank of the Rhine--all of whom maintained as allies or vassals of the Roman Empire a loose affiliation to the Roman Province Galliae.