The elections of 1125 and 1138 had provided cliques with opportunities to display and perhaps to abuse their power, even though kings do not appear to have feared the electoral procedure as such. Imperium or Imperial rule was the personal right of governance and justice which the king exercised in his three kingdoms. Imperium signified a geographical space called the Roman empire, occasionally rendered inaccurately as 'the German empire' by the imperial chancery simply because that reflected the realities of rule. To take examples from Germany, Lothar III, Conrad III and Frederick Barbarossa in turn referred to the authority of the imperium. Since the 1030s the western empire had consisted geographically of three kingdoms: Germany, called 'the Roman kingdom' to establish consistency with the title king of the Romans, Italy called 'the kingdom of Lombardy', its designation when conquered by Otto the Great, and Burgundy, whose southern portion bordering the Mediterranea.

In July 843, the Treaty of Verdun was agreed between Lothar, Louis and Charles: it was a trade-off between the competing interests of those Carolingians and also of their men. Carolingian family politics have predominated. They provide the context in which other themes can be considered. From the king's point of view, the Scandinavians' impact was serious. It depleted the royal treasury the largest single payment of the reign. Clearly enmeshed with Carolingian family politics is the history of the regna within Charles the Bald's realm. Charles' realm was just that: the regnum Karoli. Aquitaine was the largest and politically most important of the component Regna. Italy and the East and West Frankish kingdoms had by contrast had continuous histories since 843. They did not fragment further in 888. In East Francia, the deposition of Charles the Fat resulted from uncertainties over the succession and the play of faction. In the west Charles was abandoned for other reasons.

Louis the Pious, however, after the death of Pippin in 838, tried to confine Louis the German once again to Bavaria (839) in order to promote the interests of Charles. It was from Bavaria that the East Frankish kingdom was created. The Carolingian brothers' mutual hostility encouraged the Vikings to redouble their attacks on the Frankish kingdoms, which affected especially Lothar's territory. Even after 843, Bavaria still remained Louis' most important power base. When Lothar I died in 856 his Middle Kingdom was divided among his sons. When Lothar II died in 869, Charles II immediately invaded the Middle Kingdom while his brother was detained at Regensburg. The inheritance of Lotharingia altered the demands on the East Frankish king, for now he had to beat back the Vikings. For the first time the western frontier of Lotharingia appeared as the frontier of the East Frankish kingdom; the Treaty of Ribemont (880) sealed the agreement.