Kingdom of Arles

The Kingdom of Arles, also called the Kingdom of Burgundy, was the middle kingdom of the medieval West, stretching from the Mediterranean to the High Rhine between 933 and 1378. It was made in 933 when Rudolf II joined Upper Burgundy to Lower Burgundy, a realm of Rhône vineyards, Alpine passes and the old Roman city of Arles that gave it its name. Its Welf kings ruled independently for a century until the line failed in 1032, when the kingdom fell to the German emperor Conrad II and became the third constituent realm of the Holy Roman Empire, beside Germany and Italy. Emperors were crowned kings of Burgundy at Arles, but distance thinned their power: by the thirteenth century the land had fragmented among great vassals, Provence drifted to France, Savoy climbed in the Alps, and imperial rule survived mostly on parchment. The last emperor to take the Burgundian crown did so in 1378, after which the kingdom dissolved into its fiefs, leaving its name to historians and its passes to merchants.