Germanic Kingdoms Unite Under Charlemagne

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Germanic Kingdoms Unite Under Charlemagne
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• Objectives
• Know what problems the Germanic invasions caused.
• Know the importance of the Roman Catholic Church
  to the development of the new European powers.
• Know who Clovis I was and why he was important.
• Know who Pope Gregory I was and why he was
  important.
• Know who Charles Martel was and why he was
  important.
• With this, also know what a major domo was and
  know the importance of the Battle of Tours.
• Know who Charlemagne was, why he was important,
  and what the significance was of his interaction
  Pope Leo III.

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• The Middle Ages
• Also known as the Dark Ages because this was when
  Western Europe wasnt the great learned place it
  was under the Romans and wasnt again until the
  Renaissance.
• Also known as the medieval period.
• Also a period of great division among the powers
  and kingdoms.
• Dates vary, but around 476-1453.

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• Youll recall that when we last left the Roman
  Empire, it was in decline, spurred largely by the
  barbarian Germanic tribes that were invading the
  empire.
• By the beginning of the sixth century, the damage
  was pretty much done and the western Roman Empire
  was no more.
• The invasions caused the following problems

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• Disruption of Trade
• Centralized Roman authority broke down and with
  it went the protection of trade.
• Recall that during the Pax Romana, the Empire was
  relatively safe. This enabled widespread, and
  long-distance, trade and commerce. Without that
  Roman power, though, roads and trade routes were
  no longer safe. Without trade and commerce, the
  economy tanked.

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• Downfall of Cities
• Cities got a double-whammy. First, with the
  trade disruption, cities were no longer the vital
  economic centers they once were.
• Second, with the breakdown of central Roman
  authority, cities were no longer needed as
  centers of governmental administration.

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• Population Shifts
• With the cities no longer the important places
  they once were, people started migrating into the
  country.

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• Decline of Learning
• The barbarians werent very good with the fancy
  reading and writing.
• The Germanic languages started becoming
  important, but they lacked a writing system.
• Important stuff was all in Latin, or more likely,
  Greek. The science and philosophy of the
  ancients started getting ignored. The barbarians
  didnt have much use for it anyway.

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• Loss of a Common Language
• As the old Empire was divided up among the
  different barbarian tribes, the Latin language
  started evolving differently in the different
  regions.
• The changes came partly from the separation among
  the peoples as well as the influence of the
  Germanic peoples living in the particular areas.
• The dialects became the Romance languages.

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• Decline of Infrastructure
• All the great public works fell into disrepair
  the aqueducts, the public baths, libraries,
  arenas, etc.
• The barbarian overlords didnt really destroy
  them, they just didnt see the need to maintain
  them.
• In most cases, due to the lack of centralized
  authority and tax collection abilities, they
  didnt have the means or money to maintain them
  anyway.
• It didnt help that these things were mainly
  located in cities, which, as we have seen, were
  largely abandoned.

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• The Church
• The Roman Catholic Church was the one centralized
  institution that remained from the Empire.
• It was also the only literate one.
• Since literacy was necessary for the practice of
  the religion, the clergy was able to read.
• Provided some kind of stability in the chaos.

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• Established monasteries and convents where
  self-sacrificing monks and nuns, respectively,
  lived.
• One monk, Benedict wrote strict practical rules
  of monasteries. Such monasteries became part of
  the Benedictine order.
• The monks also helped to maintain ancient works
  in their libraries and by copying them.

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• The beginnings of feudalism
• Without the centralized government, there was no
  one entity responsible for taxing, administering
  law and services, fielding a military, etc.
• Instead, these responsibilities started falling
  to local or regional nobles. They would give
  land and/or titles to people (later known as
  knights) who would in turn pledge their
  allegiance and military skill to the noble.
• In turn, peasants worked the land, often as serfs
  who were bound to the land.
• This replaced slavery which also largely
  disappeared with the Empire.

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King
Provide money and knights
Grants land to
Nobles
Provide protection and military service
Grants land to
Knights
Grants land to
Provide food and services
Peasants
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• Was aided by the fact that the Germanic peoples
  were tribal, fiercely independent, but fiercely
  loyal to their local tribal leaders. This made
  small government easy, but large centralized
  governments nearly impossible.

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• The Franks
• A confederation of various Germanic tribes that
  settled in northern Gaul (France Franks-France,
  see it?)
• Clovis I
• First king of the Franks, starting in 481.
• Through war and diplomacy, he united all the
  disparate Frankish tribes under his leadership.
• He also converted from paganism (one source says
  he worshipped Roman gods) to Roman Catholicism.
• This was a big step.
• Most of the other Germanic kings, if they were
  Christian at all, believed in Arian Christianity.
  Arians believed that Jesus was divine, but was a
  created creature and not equal to God the father.
  He was inferior. This was a heretical view.

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• The conversion also created a new bond between
  the Franks and the RCC.
• The Franks become the defenders and protectors of
  the Church.
• Also helped the strengthen ties between the
  German conquerors and their Roman subjects.
• Clovis then proceeded to conquer the rest of Gaul
  and unite it under him.
• From Clovis, the names Louis and Ludwig are
  derived.

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• Pope Gregory I
• Pope from 590 to 604.
• Was born into a wealthy Roman patrician family in
  540, but by 575 had converted his properties into
  monasteries.
• In 579, he became Pope Pelagiuss representative
  in Constantinople.
• While there, he argued with the Eastern Orthodox
  patriarch. The patriarch claimed that the saved
  would be resurrected as incorporeal
  (non-physical) souls, whereas Gregory countered
  that the physical bodies would be resurrected,
  citing Jesus as a case study.

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• As pope, Gregory greatly expands the political
  power of the papacy.
• The Lombards were attacking Rome. The Byzantine
  emperors representative in the west (this was
  shortly after Justinians time when the west was
  reconquered by the Byzantines) refused to
  negotiate. So Gregory negotiated for peace on
  his own, essentially poking the secular
  authorities in the eye. This established him as
  independent.
• He also appoints governors, raises armies, and
  acts as a temporal authority.

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• Interestingly, though Gregory established the
  papacy as the central political power in Italy
  (and expanded his influence elsewhere in Europe),
  he believed in a strict division of church and
  state.
• The emperor, he thought, was Gods representative
  and choice to rule in temporal, secular matters.
  The pope was Gods representative in spiritual
  matters. And the two should be kept as distinct
  as possible.
• The last sentence was the problematic one.

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• Gregory is one of only three popes given the
  title the Great.
• Leo I, the guy who turned Attila the Hun away
  from Rome is one other.
• Nicholas I is the third.
• In my humble opinion, John Paul II should and
  will also be known as the Great.

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• The Franks again
• As we saw, Clovis united all of modern-day France
  under his leadership by the time of his death in
  511.
• He began the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish
  kings.
• By 700, though, the king served mainly a
  ceremonial function and the real political power
  lay with the major domo the mayor of the palace.

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• In 719, the major domo was Charles Martel, aka
  Charles THE HAMMER.

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Ok, while still a great name, he was more like
this
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• Charles extended Frankish territory.
• His main accomplishment, though, was at the
  Battle of Tours in 732.
• The Muslims were unable to break into eastern
  Europe due to the Byzantines. So they went in
  another way.
• At this point, Muslims held Spain and one Muslim
  leader sent a raiding party across the Pyrenees
  and into France.
• They werent out to conquer territory on this
  mission, they were just pillaging and getting
  loot from the Frankish countryside.
• By the time of the battle, the Muslims had
  already accumulated significant booty which they
  had already stashed and/or dispatched back to
  Spain.

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• 80,000 Muslims (some modern historians claim it
  was closer to 30,000) engage 30,000 Franks under
  THE HAMMER.
• The Muslims relied on heavy cavalry charges,
  armed with lances and scimitars.

• The Franks were mainly infantry armed with axes,
  swords, and javelins.
• The Franks establish a defensive square and dare
  the Muslims to attack they do.
• Repeated attack waves by the Muslims fail to
  break the defensive square. But they get cut
  down.

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• Some Muslims break off the attack when word gets
  out that the Franks are raiding their plunder (it
  was a ruse by Charles), so they go to protect it.
  The other Muslims see this, think its a retreat
  and so they run too. (Many a battle has been
  lost because soldiers were more concerned with
  loot than with defeating the enemy.)
• The Muslim general is killed in the process.

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• After Tours, the Muslims never again make a
  serious incursion across the Pyrenees. The
  battle is thus hailed as stopping Muslim
  conquests in the west, saving Western Europe
  (which likely would not have been able to stop a
  full-scale invasion that almost certainly would
  have occurred had Charles lost), and saving
  Christianity.
• It was also for this victory that Charles got his
  nickname THE HAMMER!

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• Pepin the Short
• Actually Pepin the Younger the Short is a bad
  translation.
• Charles Martels son and becomes major domo in
  741.
• He thought he should be king so asked the pope to
  decide who should be king the guy with the title
  or the guy with the power (de jure vs. de facto).
• Since the pope depended on the Franks for
  defense, especially against the Lombards, he
  sided with Pepin and declared him king. The
  Frankish nobles make it official by electing him
  king (and to avoid the many soldiers Pepin had on
  hand if they thought differently).
• He becomes the first of the Carolingian dynasty.

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Pepin. Not Short.
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• Charlemagne
• Pepins son Charles (henceforth known as
  Charlemagne Charles the Great) becomes king in
  771.
• His contemporary biographer described him thus
• Charles was large and strong, and of lofty
  stature, though not disproportionately tall (his
  height is well known to have been seven times the
  length of his foot) the upper part of his head
  was round, his eyes very large and animated, nose
  a little long, hair fair, and face laughing and
  merry. Thus his appearance was always stately and
  dignified, whether he was standing or sitting
  although his neck was thick and somewhat short,
  and his belly rather prominent but the symmetry
  of the rest of his body concealed these defects.
  His gait was firm, his whole carriage manly, and
  his voice clear, but not so strong as his size
  led one to expect.

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Prominent belly. Short neck. Yet pleasantly
symmetrical.
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• Charlemagne proceeds to conquer to the east and
  south, taking on Germanic tribes and Muslim
  forces, and greatly expanding his territory.
• Also comes to the aid of Pope Hadrian by
  conquering the Lombards in Italy who were
  threatening papal lands in 773.

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• Really comes to aid of Pope Leo III in 800.
• Leo III was from a commoner background which
  annoyed Romes nobility who thought only nobles
  should be pope. They accused him of various
  crimes
• So a mob seized him and nearly put out his eyes
  and cut off his tongue. They wind up deposing
  him and imprisoning him in a monastery.

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• L3 manages to escape to Charlemagne.
• Charlemagne doesnt recognize the deposition. He
  thinks no earthly power can judge the pope,
  marches him back to Rome, makes him swear an oath
  of innocence of the crimes of which he was
  accused, and then reinstates him.

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• Shortly afterward, on Christmas day, Charlemagne
  goes to St. Peters Basilica to celebrate mass.
  As hes praying, he raises his head to find Leo
  III placing a crown on his head and repeating
  three times, Hail to Charles the Augustus,
  crowned by God the great and peace-bringing
  Emperor of the Romans.
• Leo III thus makes Charlemagne an emperor,
  ostensibly the Roman emperor.

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• That Leo III crowned Charlemagne is a big deal.
  It indicated that the pope had the power to
  dictate who would be ruler.
• Charlemagne seemed to want something like this,
  but on his own terms and not by Leo. His
  biographer says that had Charlemagne known what
  Leo was going to pull, he wouldnt have gone into
  St. Peters to pray.
• Goes along with it anyway.
• For his part, this was Leos way of asserting
  authority over Charlemagne, no matter how
  powerful he was (he may also have been put out by
  the humiliating public oath he was forced to
  swear and so was sticking it to Charlemagne).
• At any rate, this precedent has far-reaching
  consequences in European politics and royalty.

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• The crown used continued to be used in French
  coronation ceremonies up until the late 1700s
  when it was destroyed during the French
  Revolution.
• Interestingly, when Napoleon became emperor of
  the French in 1804, he specifically crowned
  himself, instead of the pope doing it, in order
  to demonstrate the pope was not his overlord.

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• The act also creates conflict with
  Constantinople.
• At the time, the Byzantine ruler was an empress
  Irene. She took power when her husband died and
  their son was too young to rule (she eventually
  has his eyes put out when he attempts a coup).
• Since there was no male occupant of the throne in
  Constantinople, Leo III considered it vacant and
  could therefore appoint Charlemagne to it.
• The Byzantines were outraged and thought
  Charlemagne makes overtures to taking the
  Byzantine throne, it goes nowhere and he abandons
  the effort. The Byzantines continue with their
  own emperors.
• This was also an outrage to the Byzantines
  because under their system, the patriarch was
  beneath the emperor. Leo III reversed it.

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• Charlemagne makes a number of other reforms. He
  consolidates power in himself and away from the
  nobles. He also spurs a new era of learning in
  France.
• He dies in 814 and is buried in a cathedral in
  northern France.
• According to the stories, when the vault was
  opened in 1000, Charlemagnes body was found
  seated on a marble throne, crown on his head,
  scepter in hand, dressed in his royal robes, and
  with the Gospels opened on his lap.

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• His body was moved a couple of times, but the
  remains now reside in this casket.

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The marble throne on which he was seated.
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• Oh, and in the 1700s, they measured his bones
  and found that he was about 64.