This Eastern or German kingdom, as it came out of the division of 887, had, from north to south, nearly the same extent as the Germany of later times. It stretched from the Alps to the Eider. Its southern boundaries were somewhat fluctuating. _Verona_ and _Aquileia_ are sometimes counted as a German march, and the boundary between Germany and Burgundy, crossing the modern Switzerland, often changed. To the North-east the kingdom hardly stretched beyond the Elbe, except in the small Saxon land between the Elbe and the Eider. The great extension of the German power over the Slavonic lands beyond the Elbe had hardly yet begun. ♦The Austrian and Carinthian marks.♦ To the South-east lay the two border-lands or _marks_; the _Eastern Mark_, which grew into the later duchy of _Oesterreich_ or the modern _Austria_, and to the south of it the mark of _Kärnthen_ or _Carinthia_. ♦The great duchies.♦ But the main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of _Saxony_, _Eastern Francia_, _Alemannia_, and _Bavaria_. ♦Saxony.♦ Of these the two names of Saxony and Bavaria must be carefully marked as having widely different meanings from those which they bear on the modern map. Ancient Saxony lies, speaking roughly, between the Eider, the Elbe, and the Rhine, though it never actually touches the last-named river. ♦Eastern or Teutonic _Francia_.♦ To the south of Saxony lies the Eastern _Francia_, the centre and kernel of the German kingdom. The Main and the Neckar both join the Rhine within its borders. To the south of Francia lie _Alemannia_ and _Bavaria_. ♦Alemannia and Bavaria.♦ This last, it must be remembered, borders on Italy, with Bötzen for its frontier town. Alemannia is the land in which both the Rhine and the Danube take their source; it stretches on both sides of the _Bodensee_ or Lake of Constanz, with the Rætian Alps as its southern boundary. For several ages to come, there is no distinction, national or even provincial, between the lands north and south of the Bodensee. * * * * * ♦Lotharingia.♦ These lands make up the undoubted Eastern or German territory. To the west of this lies the border land of _Lotharingia_, which has a history of its own. For the first century after the division of 887, the possession of Lotharingia fluctuated several times between the Eastern and the Western kingdom. ♦987.♦ After the change of dynasty in the Western kingdom, Lotharingia became definitely and undoubtedly German in allegiance, though it always kept up something of a distinct being, and its language was partly German and partly Romance. Lotharingia took in the two duchies of the _Ripuarian Lotharingia_ and _Lotharingia on the Mosel_. The former contains a large part of the modern Belgium and the neighbouring lands on the Rhine, including the royal city of Aachen. Lotharingia on the Mosel answers roughly to the later duchy of that name, though its extent to the East is considerably larger.