Europe · The successor kingdoms
Kingdom of Neustria
drawn on the map AD 724–731
Neustria was the western Frankish subkingdom, roughly the region between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria (in modern northern France, centered on the Seine basin with Paris and Soissons). The name may mean "new western land."
- Shown on the map
- AD 724–731
- Peak area
- 131k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
Neustria was the western Frankish subkingdom, roughly the region between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria (in modern northern France, centered on the Seine basin with Paris and Soissons). The name may mean "new western land." It emerged from the Merovingian partitions and was defined largely by its rivalry with Austrasia (the eastern Frankish kingdom).
Decline and legacy
The Neustrian-Austrasian rivalry structured 7th-century Frankish politics. Neustria was at times dominant, but the decisive reversal came at the Battle of Tertry (687), where the Austrasian mayor Pepin of Herstal defeated the Neustrians, ending Neustrian ascendancy and, in Britannica's phrase, uniting the three Frankish kingdoms "under his de facto rule as mayor of the palace." Under the Carolingians, Neustria lost its distinct political identity, though the term survived as a regional designation and later denoted a march against the Bretons.
Common questions
- What was the Kingdom of Neustria?
- Neustria was the western Frankish subkingdom, roughly the region between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria (in modern northern France, centered on the Seine basin with Paris and Soissons). The name may mean "new western land."
- When is the Kingdom of Neustria shown on the map?
- The border data draws the Kingdom of Neustria AD 724–731. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
- How large was the Kingdom of Neustria?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Kingdom of Neustria covered about 131,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
- How did the Kingdom of Neustria end?
- The Neustrian-Austrasian rivalry structured 7th-century Frankish politics. Neustria was at times dominant, but the decisive reversal came at the Battle of Tertry (687), where the Austrasian mayor Pepin of Herstal defeated the Neustrians, ending Neustrian ascendancy and, in Britannica's phrase, uniting the three Frankish kingdoms "under his de facto rule as mayor of the palace."
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica and the World History Encyclopedia, while flagging entries built on thin or contested evidence — Samo's Empire on a single Fredegar passage, Venice's 697 founding date as legendary, the Pacta conventa as a probable forgery. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Neustria en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neustria
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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