Charles Martel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Charles Martel (b. ca 688- d. October 22 741) was Mayor of the Palace of the kingdom of the Franks.

Martel is best remembered for winning the Battle of Tours or Poitiers (732), which has been romanticized as the salvation of Europe from the Arab menace. Although it took another two generations for the Franks to drive all the Arab garrisons out of what is now France and across the Pyrenees, Martel's Frankish army defeated an Arab army fighting to spread Islam, which for more than a century had swept through southern Asia and north Africa, conquering most of the Iberian peninsula and much of southern France.

Charles Martel's halt of the invasion of French soil turned the tide of Islamic advance, and the unification of the Frankish kingdom under Charles Martel, his son Pippin the Short, and his grandson Charlemagne.

Pippin III

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Pippin III (714 - 768) more often known as Pippin the Short (French, Pépin le Bref; German, Pippin der Kleine), was King of the Franks from 751 - 768.

On the death of his father in 741, Pippin became Mayor of the Palace under the weak Merovingian king Childeric III. Childeric was unable to fulfill the most important function of a Frankish king, namely, to provide his warriors with a constant source of booty; Pippin was thus able to demonstrate to the leading men of the Franks that, as a better military leader, he was more qualified to be their king. He succeeded in obtaining the support of the papacy and in 751, he was elected King of the Franks by an assembly of the Frankish leading-men and anointed at Soissons, perhaps by Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz.

During his reign, Pippin III's conquests gave him more power than anyone since the days of King Clovis. He added to that power after Pope Stephen II traveled all the way to Paris to anoint King Pippin in a lavish ceremony at Saint Denis Basilica, bestowing upon him the additional title of Patrician of the Romans. As life expectancies were short in those days, and Pippin wanted family continuity, the Pope also anointed Pippin's younger son Carloman, and his elder brother, Charles (born April 2, 742) who would eventually be known as Charlemagne.

Pippin's first major act was to go to war against the Lombards as a partial repayment for papal support in his quest for the crown. Victorious, he forced the Lombard king to return property seized from the church. In 759, he drove the Saracens out of France with the capture of Narbonne and then consolidated his power further by making Aquitaine a part of his kingdom.

Pippin III died at Saint Denis on September 24, 768 and is interred there in the Abbey Basilica with his wife Bertrada (720 - July 12, 783).

Cultural significance

Charlemagne's reign is often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art and architecture. Most of the surviving works of classical Latin were copied and preserved by Carolingian scholars. The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon; Theodulf, a Visigoth; Paul the Deacon, a Lombard; and Angilbert and Einhard, Franks.

[Check out Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne
translated by Samuel Epes Turner
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880) at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/einhard.html

Louis the Pious, Emperor, King of the Franks, (A.D. 768-840) reigned 814-840.

Louis the German

Lothar

Charles the Bold

In the Treaty of Verdun of 843 the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious divided his territories into three kingdoms. Lothar received the central portion of the empire - what later became the Low Countries, Lorraine, Alsace, Burgundy, Provence, and Italy - and the imperial title as an honor without more than nominal overlordship. Louis the German received the eastern portion, much of what later became Germany. Charles the Bald received the western portion, much of what later became France.

For additional, slightly more detailed, information on Charlemagne, check out this Web site http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/charles/ by Dr. E.L. Skip Knox Boise State University

http://www.bnf.fr/enluminures/themes/t%5F1/st%5F1%5F04/a104%5F002.htm
This site has pictures of Charlemagne.

Ninth Century Invasions

Vikings were warriors from Scandinavia who in the years between 800 and 1050 raided, colonised and traded the lengths of the coasts and islands of Europe. Although they are commonly conceived of as a people bringing terror and destruction in their wake, it should be noted that many also made settlements, traded peacefully, and peacefully co-existed with their neighbors.

The first reports on raids dates back to 793 when the monastery at Lindisfarne on the east coast of England was pillaged by foreign seafarers. For the next 200 years, European history is filled with tales of Vikings and their plundering. Vikings conquered most of Ireland and large parts of England, they travelled up the rivers of France and Spain, and gained control of areas in Russia and along the Baltic coast. Stories tell of raids in the Mediterranean and as far east as the Caspian Sea.

Magyars

Muslims