Why I Started Digging Into The Verdun Split
Honestly, I never paid much attention to old maps or empires crumbling apart. Just popped into my feed while scrolling late last night. Saw “Carolingian Empire Split 843” and thought, “Wait, that’s when Charlemagne’s grandsons broke his whole kingdom into pieces, right?” Had this fuzzy image in my head – France, Germany, Italy kinda starting there? Felt like knowing the actual borders would click things into place.
Hitting A Wall With Google Maps
My first dumb move? Pulled up a regular map site. Typed in “Europe.” Obvious fail. Got modern countries glowing bright, useless for 9th-century squiggles. Felt like showing someone a picture of a chopped-down tree stump when they need to see the original forest. Need those old borders!
Started frantically searching terms like “Verdun Treaty map.” Google Images flooded me with junk:
- Ugly textbook scans: Pixelated blobs labeled in ancient fonts.
- Conflicting lines: West Francia here looked bigger? Smaller? No one agreed!
- Weird language maps: One showed Old High German zones? Total side-track.
Got frustrated fast. Was picturing a nice, clear visualization. Reality was messy scribbles. Needed a proper historical map resource. Badly.
Stumbling Onto That ResourceMap Gem
Remembered seeing folks mention some site focused purely on historical maps. Scrolled back through old forum tabs I never closed. Boom! ResourceMap. Specifically designed for layered historical geography stuff. Finally!
Went straight to their search. Filtered by time: “Early Middle Ages”. Region: “Europe”. Keywords: “Carolingian, Treaty of Verdun”. Held my breath… and it delivered!
Found a winner map labeled clearly: “Carolingian Empire: Division Post-Verdun (AD 843)”. Opened it. Felt like putting on glasses. Instantly saw three big chunks in distinct colors:
- Bright Green Blob (West): Labeled “Charles the Bald” – ah, roughly Frankia, seeds of France.
- Deep Blue Stretch (East): “Louis the German” – yep, the East Frankish bit, Germany’s core.
- Long Pink Sliver (Middle): “Lothair I” – this skinny middle strip? The confusing bit! Lotharingia? Burgundy? Italy? All mashed together awkwardly.
The ResourceMap overlay trick was genius. Toggled a faint modern country outline underneath. Suddenly it clicked:
- Charles’s West chunk? Hugged Atlantic, roughly modern France’s shape starting.
- Louis’s East part? Covered bits we know as Germany, Switzerland, Austria.
- Lothair’s mess? Felt like the doomed leftovers snaking down middle Europe towards Italy. No wonder it didn’t last!
Why This Map Made Sense Out Of Chaos
Seeing it laid out so clearly on ResourceMap just made me realize how messy brotherly compromises get. Lothair got the “Emperor” title but the worst, indefensible land? Like getting the fanciest hat while sleeping in a hallway. It wasn’t neat countries like now – just warring family slices.
The map made it crystal clear why future wars kept exploding over that middle bit, Lothair’s land. France and Germany spent centuries yanking it back and forth. Saw it right there on the screen – that ugly pink strip was the future battlefield.
Wrapping It Up
So yeah, went from total confusion staring at modern borders to finally seeing the messy divorce papers signed at Verdun. ResourceMap saved my sanity. Being able to overlay faint modern lines onto the old borders was the masterstroke – finally connected the medieval split to the Europe I recognize. Definitely bookmarking that site next time I dive into history’s messy map drawer!
