This week we’re going to take a look at what exactly happened between Charles and his brother Carloman. The two are referred to in all of the histories as having had a troubled relationship, and this is another one of those situations where, if you poke around on the Internet a little, you can find people asking the counterfactual question of, “What if Charlemagne had died rather than Carloman?” Because, belated spoiler alert, Carloman is going to die shortly, in 771. And it’s interesting to think of what might have happened if he had lived. It’s also interesting to consider how he died, because it was rather convenient for Charles that his pesky little brother up and kicked the bucket for no well-documented reason at the age of 20. Now, people died young all the time back at this time, and quick illnesses with tragic endings were really not all that uncommon. And that could have been the case... it was just very convenient for Charles.

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Listenable: History of the Merovingians, 451-613