Louis the German

Third son of Louis the Pious and grandson of Charlemagne, Louis was born around 806 and spent years clashing with his father and siblings over the scraps of an empire too large to hold. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 gave him East Francia, the eastern third, and he ruled it for thirty-three years. He tried twice to take his half-brother Charles the Bald's western kingdom in 858-59 and failed both times. The 860s brought rebellions from his own sons and a struggle to keep control; by 870 he managed to claim Lotharingia at Meerssen, expanding eastward, but his bids for the imperial title and Italy went nowhere. He spent decades fighting the Moravians before reaching peace in 874. He died in August 876, his reign marked by a sharp drop in written record-keeping - fewer documents, less bureaucracy, a state running on thinner paper.