On the continent of Europe, Anno Domini was introduced as the era of choice of the Carolingian Renaissance by Alcuin.

For the next 1,300 years the region shared the history of the Kingdom of the Franks, the Carolingian Empire and of the Holy Roman Empire.

During the Middle Ages, the descendants of the Salian Franks, the Carolingian dynasty, came to dominate the area and then extended their rule to a large part of Western Europe.

Lotharingia was a medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire, comprising the Low Countries, the western Rhineland, the lands today on the border between France and Germany, and what is now western Switzerland.

Arnulf of Carinthia (850 8 December 899) was the Carolingian King of East Francia from 887, the disputed King of Italy from 894 and the disputed Holy Roman Emperor from 22 February 896 until his death at Regensburg, Bavaria.

Meanwhile in 817, Louis had established three new Carolingian Kingships for his sons from his first marriage Lothar was made King of Italy and co Emperor, Pepin was made King of Aquitaine, and Louis the German was made King of Bavaria.