I've been trying to get a better grasp of medieval history and much of that has involved moving my focus High medieval France and Germany. From what I've managed to grasp, Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 A.D. Before that, he also was king of France, bringing control of France under that of the HRE. However, I've had trouble figuring out the relationship between France and the Holy Roman Empire after Charlemagne's rule. Did they immediately split? Or did it take time? Or was France never truly part of the HRE? I'm fully aware I could just have a poor understanding of the time period.
As a side question, I'm also curious about France's relationship with Germany before the Holy Roman Empire. From what I've managed to gather, Germany was a result of the Franks splitting into two kingdoms: west and east Francia, one of which became France and the other of which became Germany. Is this at all accurate?
Thank y'all in advance!
The holy Roman empire of Charlemagne and the one of Otto the great were destinct entities (at least from a historians perspective, medival scholar would disagree, but they also thought that Augustus, Charlemagne and Otto all held the same title.)
Charlemagne was king of the Franks (the Frankish kingdom covered all of modern day France and a good part of modern Germany) who then conquerd the Lombards in Italy and was crowned Roman emperor by the pope in the year 800. After his death his only surviving son Louis, known as the pious, inherited his fathers empire and ruled until his death, also as Roman emperor.
After Louis' death the Carolingian empire eas split between his three sons Lothar, Louis/Ludwig and Charles. Lothar got Italy, the Low countries and the land in between the two (the non Italian part was latter called Lotharingia) and the title of emperor, Ludwig got Germany (becoming known as Ludwig the German) and Charles got modern day France.
Lothar eventually died and and Split his realm into three parts, his firsts son Louis got Italy and the emperor title, his second son (also Lothar) got Lotharingia and his third son got Burgundy. Eventually son three died and his brothers divided his real between them. Lothar also died without any ligitimate children and Ludwig and Charles dividend Lotharingia between them as Louis had bigger problems. Eventually he also died sonless so Charls took over Italy and became Emperor. Now ruling ever subkingdom but Germany he tried to conquer that too but died before he could. Ludwig actually died before him.
After all Sons of Louis the pious had died his remaining grandsons fought each other for a while before all of them expect Ludwigs son Charles died in short succession. Charles became sole ruler and emperor for a time but was not a great ruler so his nephew Arnulf, the bastard son of his older brother took over Germany. Charles died shortly after.
Arnulf then also took over Lotharingia while the last grandson of Charles the Bald took over France. Italy and Burgundy chose local kings. Charles last Grandson had many problems with his nobles while Arnulf and his two sons eventually died and a noble named Conrad took over. All the while Germany and France fought over who should own Lotharingia. Conrad eventually died and Henry, the duke of the Saxons became king of Germany. His son Otto eventually conquered Italy and was crowned emperor by the Pope.
Hope this helps.