Short reigns/Charles the Fat (oct 7, 877 – jan 1, 898)

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Louis the Stammerer was the eldest son of emperor Charles the Bald and was crowned in 877. He was physically weak and outlived his father by only two years. On his death in 879, his realms were divided between his two sons, Louis III and Carloman. They ruled jointly until Louis's death in 882. Thereafter Carloman ruled alone until his own death in 884, when his cousin, the Emperor and King of East Francia Charles the Fat (son of Louis the German) was invited by the nobility to succeed the throne. Over his lifetime, Charles had become ruler of the various kingdoms of Charlemagne's former Empire. Granted lordship over Alamannia in 876, following the division of East Francia, he succeeded to the Italian throne upon the abdication of his older brother Carloman of Bavaria who had been incapacitated by a stroke. Crowned Emperor in 881 by Pope John VIII, his succession to the territories of his brother Louis the Younger (Saxony and Bavaria) the following year reunited the kingdom of East Francia/Germany. Upon the death of his cousin Carloman II in 884, he inherited all of West Francia, thus reuniting the entire Carolingian Empire. The Viking raid and siege of Paris in 885-886 weakened his position. During a coup led by his nephew Arnulf of Carinthia (Carloman of Bavaria's son) in November 887, Charles was deposed in East Francia, Lotharingia, and Kingdom of Italy. Forced into quiet retirement he died of natural causes in January 888, just a few weeks after his deposition. The Empire quickly fell apart after his death, splintering into five separate successor kingdoms: West Francia (Odo), East Francia/Lotharingia (Arnulf), Italy (Berengar), Upper Burgundy (Rudolph), and Aquitaine (Ranulf II, who took guardianship of young Charles the Simple).

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