Carolingian Empire

gigatos | February 23, 2022

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Summary

The Carolingian Empire (800-888) is a historiographical term referring to the Frankish kingdom ruled by the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages.

Due to a succession of weak kings and the depletion of the lands they had given away to ensure the loyalty of the aristocracy, the Merovingian dynasty gradually lost real power. The last representatives of the Merovingian dynasty, the ”treacherous kings”, left the leadership of the kingdom to the butlers. The Pipinids held important estates in the area of present-day Belgium and represented the great Frankish aristocracy in the north, which also explains the gradual consolidation of their power. Charles Martel (719-741) strengthened the family”s position and increased its prestige by defeating the Arabs, who were carrying out increasingly daring raids in the West, at Poitiers (732). Pepin the Short (butler from 741-751) decides to transform his effective power into a de jure kingship.

During the reign of Clovis I of the Merovingian dynasty, the Franks gained supremacy in Western Europe. The conflict that would characterise the whole of medieval history in social and political terms, that between the sovereign and the native princes, arose after Clovis” death. Concessions were necessary before the nobility recognised the royal authority. The repeated division of the kingdom among the legitimate heirs weakened the power of the Merovingians, who eventually succumbed to the Carolingians, the former butlers of the palace. Charles the Great, the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was one of a long line of successful Carolingian rulers.

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Merovingian Dynasty

During the reign of Clovis I of the Merovingian dynasty, the expansionist Franks came into conflict with Siagrius, the last local Roman governor. After ousting him in 486, Clovis expanded his territory considerably, turning the small domain around Cambrai, inherited from his father Childeric, into a powerful kingdom stretching from the Rhine to the Pyrenees. Clovis became a Christian and was baptised in the Nicene rite by Bishop Remigius of Reims. He encouraged the mixing of the Franks with the local Gallo-Roman population and forged an alliance between the rulers of the Frankish Kingdom, and later the Holy Roman Empire, and the papacy. Through his code of laws, the Lex Salica, Clovis did not allow women to the throne, ensuring the continuity of the succession of the Merovingians and their successors. With the agreement of Emperor Anastasius and the Burgundians, Clovis engaged in a final confrontation with the Visigoths, whom he defeated at Vouillé (507) and occupied the parts of the Visigoth kingdom south and west of Lorraine. The consecration of the new Christian monarchy, by granting the title of consul, came from Constantinople out of the usual desire to assert imperial claims over the western provinces, but which served more to legitimise the king”s power in the eyes of the Gallo-Romans and Clovis”s superiority over the other Frankish kings, than the actual authority of the Byzantine emperor. When he died in 511, he ruled over the area of present-day France and Belgium, the Rhineland and south-west Germany.

Despite the settlement of the succession situation, the kingdom was divided after Clovis” death among his four sons according to the old Frankish custom of drawing lots. Three new Merovingian kingdoms emerged: Austrasia (in the east), Neustria (in the west) and Burgundy (in the southeast), whose rulers fought among themselves. Clovis”s descendants, despite dividing the kingdom according to the private patrimonial rules of succession, managed to continue the territorial expansion of the Frankish state, subduing the territories east of the Loire, the Burgundian kingdom, Provence, and east of the Rhine they imposed their protectorate on Thuringia, Alamania and Bavaria.

Chlotar II succeeded in reuniting the kingdom a century later, but at great political sacrifice. In order to attract the nobility to his side, he was forced to accept the Edictum Chlotarii of 614, which stipulated that local dignitaries, counts, were to be elected from among the latifundia of the provinces. The power of the local nobility was strengthened at the expense of central authority. The three kingdoms each had a palace butler who represented the king and enjoyed considerable power. Dagobert I was the last sovereign of the Merovingian dynasty to rule a united kingdom from 629-639. Dissension within the dynasty facilitated the rise of the Carolingians.

Rise of the Carolingians

The only reliable source of this period is the Liber Historiae Francorum, the other source of the period, the Annales Mettenses Priores being a work intended to glorify the Carolingians, compiled at Saint-Denis in 806. There were other chronicles that have been lost, others modified in line with the Carolingian dynasty”s views of the Merovingians. The annals of the Frankish kingdom regard 741 as the starting point of the Carolingian era.

The Carolingian family originated among the aristocratic families of the Merovingian Frankish kingdom. In Austrasia, at the beginning of the 7th century, there were two families whose representatives were Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and Pepin of Landen, butler in Austrasia. Pepin was entrusted with the education of the future King Dagobert by King Clothar II. Clothar had great confidence in Pepin and Arnulf who supported him in 613 in his effort to seize the throne. Before his death in 639, Pepin arranged the marriage of his daughter Begga to Arnulf”s son Asegisel, the union of the two lineages laying the foundations for the future Carolingian dynasty, which began its rise in the late 7th century through Pepin of Herstal, son of Asegisel. Grimoald, son of Pepin of Landen, attempted to take the throne, but failed due to noble opposition in Neustria and Austrasia, according to the Liber Historiae Francorum, an event omitted in later writings by Carolingian propaganda policy.

Pepin of Herstal began his activity during the reign of Dagobert II. Together with his brother Martin, the Count of Laon, Pepin became involved in the battles between Ebroin, the butler of Neustria, and the aristocratic group of Burgundy and Austrasia represented by Bishop Leodegar. Leodegar is killed in 679, Marin and Ebroin propelled Pepin as leader of the aristocratic majority in Austrasia, where he became majordomo. His rise reached its peak with the victory at Tertry in 687 over the Neustria butler Berchar. Pepin”s power base remained in Austrasia, his family owning many estates. Pepin inherited from his parents estates in Metz, Frosses and Narmur, as well as monasteries. He ruled through trusted appointees, appointing his son Grimoald to this position, his other son Drago became Duke of Champagne. Pepin presided over the annual general assembly of the nobles and bishops of the kingdom, at which the dues were brought in and armies gathered. Twenty-four royal charters have survived, with the kings holding governmental and legal powers. The kingdom went through a period of peace and development. From 709, Pepin began a long process of bringing the Germanic tribes across the Rhine under Frankish control. He died an old man in December 714, without successors, as Drogo and Grimoald had died. His nephew Theudoald thus became steward of Neustria and widespread revolts broke out in the kingdom”s provinces. Subsequently, Charles, one of his illegitimate sons, took over the leadership of the noble faction, which was threatened by another faction, Plectrude, and by the alliance between the nobles of Neustria and the Frisians.

Empire expansion

Charles or Charles Martel defeated the opponents in Neustria and ousted Plectrude by 717. He repulsed Saxon attacks and installed himself at the head of two provinces. In 721 he enthroned Theuderic IV, who reigned formally. Charles bore the nickname ”Martel”, probably received after the siege of Avignon which has been associated with Joshua”s conquest of Jericho in the Old Testament or after the Battle of Tours, other historians believe it to be a second Christian name in honour of St Martin or Martin, brother of Pepin of Herstal.

During his reign, Charles fought numerous annual battles, trying to expand and consolidate his power. He fought battles with the Saxons from 718 to 724, with the Alamanni in 725 and 730, and with the Bavarians in 725 and 728. He also faced opposition from dukes who were showing tendencies towards independence in Gascony, Aquitaine and Provence. Charles appointed men loyal to his policies to head counties, bishoprics and abbeys to maintain control. Charles also had to make use of the bond of allegiance that was imposed at the base of early feudal society. Charles also imposed a policy of secularisation of church estates. To reward his loyalists, he confiscated church estates, simultaneously removing abbots and overly influential bishops, and appointed many nobles to the ecclesiastical hierarchy with warlike rather than religious attitudes. He sought to reduce the independence of military abbots and bishops, remove them from their places of residence, confiscate the resources they possessed and replace them with favourables. He had early control of the hoard collected by his father and confiscated from Plectrude and took advantage of the support of the Austrasian nobility.

On the military side, a system of call-up was imposed which required all free men to participate in the war. Enlistment could be avoided by paying a sum of money. The Franks were infantrymen, fought with axes, spears, double-edged swords or short swords, defended themselves with a breastplate of animal skin covered with metal plates and wore a conical helmet and a large wooden shield. Cavalry had an increasingly important position in the army. They took over the saddle-saddle from the avars, which allowed the cavalryman to make better use of the lance and sword, which they could hold in both hands. Warriors were rewarded with domains.

In 719, the Arabs, after occupying the Iberian peninsula, crossed the Pyrenees, conquering the southern Gallic possessions of the Visigothic kingdom, the fortress of Narbonne, and in 721, they conquered Toulouse, entering Burgundy through the valley of the Rhone. The Muslims attacked and plundered the southern kingdom at will. With the help of Odo, the Aquitaine commissioner, Charles Martel defeated the Arabs near Poitiers in October 732, surprising them on their way to Tours, where they intended to plunder the Saint-Martin monastery. The victory at Tours was interpreted as God”s judgement in favour of Charles. After the victory, Charles turned his attention to Aquitaine, where Odo was promoting an ambiguous policy. After Odo”s death in 735 and his campaigns in the south between 736-739, Charles secured full control of the region in Provence.

Charles died in October 741, succeeded by Pepin and Carloman, who had shared power since their father”s lifetime. Carloman took parts of Austrasia, Alamania, Thuringia, and Pepin claimed Burgundy, Neustria, Provence and a small part of Austrasia, including Metz and Trier. Grifo, a son of Charles Martel”s second marriage, received a small inheritance. After their father”s death, the two brothers imprisoned Grifo in the fortress of Novum Castellum near Liege. Some of the kingdom”s nobles in the outlying regions of Aquitaine, Alamania and Bavaria resisted the authoritarian tendencies of Pepin and Carloman, especially as there was no king on the throne. To appease them, the two brothers brought a son of King Childeric II, Childeric III, the last Merovingian sovereign, out of the monastery of Saint Bertin. In 747, Carloman retired to the monastery of Monte Cassino in Rome. Pepin relieved Drogo, Carloman”s son, of his duties in order to pave the way for his heirs to an uncontested succession. But Grifo managed to escape to Bavaria, where he imposed himself as head of the duchy after Odilo”s death. With Pepin”s help, Odilo”s son Tassilo became ruler of Bavaria, and Grifo fled to Aquitaine, from where he made his way to Italy, being killed on the way by some Frankish nobles. Pepin”s power was great enough to be unchallenged by the nobles of the kingdom.

Pepin was officially confirmed as king, using loyal Neustrian and Austrasian nobles gathered around him. In November 751, he received the papal blessing from Pope Zacharias. He convened an assembly of all the Franks at Soissons, who by their election acclaimed him as king. He was anointed with holy oil by Boniface, the anointing ceremony having a special significance, as the anointed one was the chosen of the people and of the divinity, entrusted with the mission of leading his subjects to salvation, reinforcing the religious dimension of the royal office. The last Merovingian king, Childeric III, was tonsured and imprisoned in a monastery.

In 739, Pope Gregory II sent two sols with gifts to Charles Martel, asking for an alliance, but he did not respond positively, as he was interested in allying with the Lombards against the Arabs. In 751, the pope appointed Pepin as princeps in the context of the Longobard threat to Italy that had conquered part of the exarchate of Ravenna. The pope preferred to address Pepin rather than the emperor of Constantinople, Constantine V, with whom he had strained relations because of the latter”s iconoclastic beliefs.

In 753-754, Pope Stephen II visited the Frankish kingdom to persuade Pepin to intervene against the Longobards. The Pope anoints Pepin and his wife, Queen Bertrada, and their sons at Saint-Denis, designating them as patrons of Rome. The Frankish king was no longer just a ruler of a kingdom, but a Christian king acting in the name of divine power. Pepin promised to return the entire exarchate of Ravenna to St Peter”s successor, Pope Stephen, through the ”Pepin Donation”. Obtaining the consent of the nobles, Pepin undertook two campaigns against the Longobards in 754-756, forcing them to cede Ravenna and 22 other towns to the pope, which would form the future Papal State. The Pope moved away from Byzantine power and closer to the Frankish kingdom, which provided support for Rome. Pepin continued to consolidate the borders of France by uniting the whole of Wales under his power, and in 753, he defeated the Saxons who were only nominally subject to French power, forcing them to accept the penetration of Christian missionaries into their lands and to pay an annual tribute of 300 horses. He then turned his attention south to the former Septimania and Aquitaine, which was under Muslim control. Pepin was easily won over by the descendants of the Visigoths settled in Septimania, who did not tolerate Arab rule, and promised them that they would live according to Visigothic law.

In 759, he conquered Narbonne. In 761, he undertook expeditions to Aquitaine for eight years, and it was fully conquered in the year of his death in 768. Pepin, ill, retired to Sainte, from where he created Frankish counts in the subject towns and promulgated a capitulary assuring every inhabitant of the province the preservation of his own law and the right to appeal to the king. He introduced a new currency-the silver Denarius. It had no precise seat, swinging between Neustria and Austrasia, between rural residences and large abbeys on the outskirts of cities. Butlers were abolished, and the functions of their institution were taken over by the come palates and camerarius. However, the hereditary dregencies were maintained. The chaplains were responsible for the syntax, spelling, presentation and writing of documents.

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Charles the Great”s Empire

Pepin the Short was succeeded in the leadership by his two sons, Charles and his brother Carloman. The two decided to divide their territories. Thus, at the age of 17, Carloman was given compact, large but heterogeneous territories: Provence, eastern Aquitaine, Burgundy and southern Austrasia. Charles, who was 21 years old, was given a vast territory that circled the Frankish inheritance like an arc, stretching from Atlantic Aquitaine to Thuringia, with parts of Neustria and Austrasia. In 771, Carloman died under mysterious circumstances, and the inheritance was taken over by Charles.

Charles the Great”s reign was characterised by impressive activity, continuing his father”s work of extending the boundaries of the Frankish kingdom, whose sphere of influence had reached Byzantium before 800. His son Carloman took refuge at the court of the Longobard king, Desiderius of the Longobards, who supported his claim to inheritance. Desiderius did not give up his plans to unify Italy, threatening the papacy”s positions after conquering some of the cities previously ceded by Pepin to the bishop of Rome. Summoned by Pope Adrian I, Charles launched expeditions into Italy at the end of 773, conquering Verona and besieging Pavia, the residence of the Lombard king. In the spring of 774, when the siege was underway, Charles went to Rome, where he was received with honours and the Pope obtained confirmation of Pepin”s Donation. Returning to Pavia, Charles conquered the city after its inhabitants surrendered following the outbreak of famine and epidemics. Desiderius was imprisoned in a monastery. Charles divided the spoils he had obtained among his army. He also intervened in Italy in 776 to suppress a revolt in Friuli, in 781 when he installed Pepin, his son, as king, and in 787 when he launched a campaign in the south. Charles took the title Rex Langobardorum, retaining the Longobard institutions, although he had to send trusted Franks to watch over his interests.

Charles also engaged in a long conflict with the Saxons whom he wanted to subdue and Christianise. The Saxons systematically attacked and plundered the north-eastern lands of the Frankish kingdom. In 772, on an expedition against the Saxons, he felled the sacred Irminsul oak near Paderboa. In 777 he captured the Saxon strongholds of Eresburg and Buraburg and organised a protective mark along the valleys of the Ruhr and Lippe rivers. The king realised that he would have no peace on the northern borders while there were small Saxon formations. He instigated Saxon tribes against each other. Eventually, he occupied the whole of Saxony after an annual expedition to the region between 772 and 799. In 782, Widukind, a local ruler, raised a party of Saxons against Charles, whose reprisals were harsh: it is recorded that 4500 Saxons were executed at Verdun in 782. After three years of fighting, Widukind gave in and accepted baptism. Charles issued a capitular in 785 introducing the death penalty for those who practised pagan customs or violated the loyalty owed to the king and for disturbing public order. In 792, the Saxons rebelled again, and after apt expeditions, the territories were integrated into the kingdom and massive deportations took place. In 797, he issued milder provisions indicating that Saxon resistance had broken down. The system of organisation of the new provinces was strengthened, Saxons were accepted among the king”s local representatives, and Saxon law and dynasty were allowed and respected. The Frankish kingdom encompassed the whole of Germany within its borders, with the tribal duchies abolished or reorganised.

In 777, while preparing for another Saxon expedition, Charles was visited by a Muslim governor of Saragossa, who asked for his support in the fight against the Umayyad Emir of Cordoba. Charles accepted, and in 778, having arrived in Spain, the army failed in front of Saragossa, where the Umayyad allies failed to show up. On the way back, Charles” army was ambushed by the Basques at Roncesvalles, with the seneschal Eggihard and the palace committee Anselme among the victims; the battle is described in the Song of Roland. Charles had to establish a boundary at Toulouse to protect the Frankish kingdom from the Arab threat. In 797, the Franks, under Louis, took up positions in Spain, and in 801 occupied Barcelona, which became the seat of a county.

On the eastern frontier, the French territories were plundered by the greedy. After learning of the secret agreement between Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, and the avaricious khagan, Charles accused him of treason and imprisoned him in a monastery in 788, and integrated his duchy into the Frankish kingdom, organising it into counties, appointing a prefect, abolishing the ducal institution but allowing Bavarian law. In 794, Tassilo was brought to an assembly at Frankfurt to renounce all ducal possessions on behalf of himself and his family. Between 791-796, Charles set out from Regensburg, the former residence of the Dukes of Bavaria, and launched three expeditions against the Avars. In the last expedition, he destroyed the Khagan”s residence, called the Ring, a vast fortification at the confluence of the Danube and the Tisza. The territory was organised into an eastern mark that would play an important role against the Hungarian invasion.

Charles sought to extend his authority over the whole of Italy. He imposed control over the Duchy of Spleto and in 787 launched an expedition against the Duchy of Benevent in the south of the peninsula, which had close relations with the Byzantines. Following the imposition of the protectorate on the duchy, the Franks and Byzantines came into conflict, whose relations had cooled since the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which condemned iconoclasm, when Charles refused to adhere to what were considered radical views. He occupied Istria, the region between the former Longobard kingdom and the Byzantine Empire. In 797, Irina Atheniana, ruling as regent in the name of her son Constantine VI, blinded him, and proclaimed herself Basileus to legitimise her power in the face of the West.

A new pope, Leo III, was elected in Italy. He came into conflict with representatives of the Roman aristocracy, who accused him of immorality. In the spring of 799, his opponents tried to overthrow him by force, but failed due to the intervention of two Frankish envoys. Leon fled Rome and took refuge with Charles, whom he met at Paderborn in the summer of 799. The king reinstated him and sent delegates to investigate the case. Alcuin, one of Charles” advisers, made it known that the authority of the Frankish king, considered a king of a nation blessed by God, was superior to papal and imperial dignity. After the coup d”état of Empress Irina, Charles remained the sole leader of the Christian people, marked by wisdom, distinguished by the dignity of his reign. In the autumn of 800, Charles set off for Italy and was met by the Pope 12 miles from Rome in November, following the ritual laid down for imperial visits. On 1 December, Charles presided over a council in St Peter”s Basilica, which brought together the Frankish and Roman priesthood and laymen, who decided that the pope could defend himself in public against the accusations made by a purifying oath.

On 25 December 800, Charles, while in St Peter”s Church to pray on Christmas morning, was crowned by Pope Leo III to the acclaim of the crowd. The rite was inspired by the Byzantine one, being reversed: Leo III wanted to show that it was he who made Charles emperor. The coronation accentuated the break with Byzantium that had begun with the iconoclasm issue and the alliance made with Pepin the Short. Coronation by the pope shows that the act of investiture and recognition of emperors was done only in Rome. However, Charles was recognised as the greatest Christian king of the West.

Charles had relations with King Offa of Mercia, with whom he concluded a trade agreement with the ruler of Wales, Asturias and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Charles became the protector of the holy places, and he sent him the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. The Frankish king resumed relations with the Arabs.

In 797, he sent an embassy consisting of the Jew Issac and the missi Lanfrid and Sigismund to Baghdad to Caliph Harun al-Rashid, re-establishing diplomatic relations initiated in the time of Pepin the Short. In 801-802, the caliph responded and sent him gifts, including a white elephant. In 794, he convened the Council of Frankfurt where Adoptionism was condemned as heresy. The bishops addressed him as rex et sacerdos, as a true representative of Christ on earth. His political authority extended beyond his realm to the West and East. By assuming imperial dignity, Charles arrogated to himself the functions of king of the subject nations and ruler of Western Christendom, accepting the title of emperor. Charles would ask for Irina”s hand in marriage, but she protested. Her successor, Nicephor I, broke all ties with the Frankish king in 803, who responded by occupying Byzantine-held Dalmatia and Venice. Nicephor, at war with the Bulgarians, negotiated with Charles. Charles returned Venice and Dalmatia to Mikhail I Rangabe, the successor of Nicephor. In 812, Charles received a Byzantine solemnity at Aachen, and was recognised as Basileus.

External successes gave Charles full control over the military organisation he centralised. As his father, he reorganised the administration. At its peak, Charles” state covered an area of 1.2 million km² including Gaul, Germany, northern and central Italy as far as Rome, the north-eastern Balkans and north-eastern Spain.

The population numbers 10-20 million, divided into two language groups, Romance and Germanic, each with its own numerous languages, dialects and dialects. Latin, the written language, unites the empire, and is used in the church and chancellery. It ruled the empire through the palace. Exercised banum, the right to rule over all subjects, acted to ensure peace and order and the proper functioning of justice. He had legislative power, enacting laws at great placid general assemblies. Twice a year, the court, clergy and nobility were convened in an assembly in the centre of the Frankish kingdom in Austrasia.

Assemblies were presided over by the emperor, who engaged in complex debates: military, political, legal or religious matters. At the Frankfurt assembly in 794, issues discussed included measures taken in the wake of the 792 rebellion, Tassilo”s relinquishment of his claim to Bavaria, the famine that plagued the kingdom, high prices, and condemnation of adoptionism. The first assembly was held between November and March, where the Frankish king wintered and military operations were decided or the date of the call-up of the army was decided.

The second met between May or after the gathering of the army, military expeditions were planned. They discussed securing peace, justice, protecting the church and the poor. Wars were fought during the summer. The army was summoned to a place close to the battlefield. After three to six months, the soldiers were left at the hearth. In order to avoid abandonment, by means of capitularies, Charles modified the Frankish tradition, whereby every free man was a landholder was obliged to take part in the fighting.

As more and more mounted warriors gathered, each needed a horse, helmet, shield, lance, long sword, short sword, bow, arrows and ladders, all at a cost of 18-20 oxen or 40 soles. Charles increased the number of vassals, the so-called vassi dominici, gathered from all parts of the empire. Their personal commitment to the sovereign involved military service, and in return they received benefits in the form of estates granted from royal or church property. From the ranks of the vassals, Charles recruited elite light troops-scarae, capable of intervening anywhere, with speed, whatever the time of year. Charles extended the kingdom”s system of fortifications, both offensive and defensive, especially east of the Rhine.

He supported the great monasteries of the kingdom by giving them large domains in the conquered territories. New places of worship were erected to house supplies for the armies. Before the campaign, Charles summoned the abbots of the monasteries in the territories to be crossed to his court, assuring them of his support in military action. He preferred rural as well as urban residences, such as Worms or Cologne, mostly in the north of the kingdom in Austrasia. He travelled for military purposes and preferred to go to former Roman baths. The residence at Aachen was built near an old Roman bath and next to a royal villa. Construction of a large architectural complex began in 786, with the palace completed in 798. The chapel was consecrated in 805. The palatine hall is in the northern wing, while the royal chapel occupies the southern area, the two being joined by a 120-metre-long corridor with a monumental porch on either side. The Aula was the place where royal power was displayed in all its splendour; the chapel is the only element preserved today, being integrated into a large cathedral. An atrium and a pronaos were intended to represent the gates of Jerusalem, allowing access to the church. Two tiers of columns supported the dome decorated with a mosaic representing Christ. The king sat on a sunlit throne at sunrise, able to attend the liturgy from a position suggesting an intermediary position between the heavenly and earthly worlds. The councillors wanted to recreate Rome or the heavenly Jerusalem. From 802, Charles settled permanently in Aachen, making it the capital of the empire.

At the palace, Charles gathered around him a number of scholars of the time, with whom he consulted: Adalhard, abbot of Corbie, Alcuin, a deacon from York, Peter, a grammarian from Pisa, Paul the Deacon, a scholar from Longobard Italy, and Eginhard, the official court historian. Charles appointed rulers, the most important being the palace commissioner. Under them were the palace servants, with domestic duties and services, to provide food, drink, and horses, with rare military and diplomatic duties. In the old and newly added territories, local administrative elements were preserved. The king appointed commissioners and bishops, the link between the palace and the institutions being made through royal envoys, recruited only from among the elite. They were called missi dominici, two of them: a layman and a cleric, who had the right to judge and punish, to receive oaths and to supervise every aspect of the kingdom”s administration. Through them, Charles had control over the counties, preventing corruption or hereditary transmission of office and the formation of influential groups. In the frontier areas, marks were organised, headed by markographic counts: the marks of Septimania, Spain, Brittany, Benevento, Friuli and the East. The role of the regions was military, protecting the borders. Some of the old Romanian roads were still used as royal roads, being exempt from customs. New roads and bridges were built east of the Rhine. Scabins, legal specialists, were introduced to replace the Merovingian rachimburgs in court. The number of capitularies increased, and they were divided into small chapters, each one for a decision, containing the king”s decisions concerning the regulation of public or private matters, instructions to royal envoys, counts or bishops. Committees and missi were in charge of implementing the measures. The main sources of income came from the royal domains, the former Merovingian domains, from the collection of duties by the counts, customs, fines, which supplemented the treasury. The magnates and monasteries were obliged to present themselves at general assemblies with donum publicum-gifts offered in money or in other ways. Another significant source of income was the bounty or tribute paid by subject populations. Commercial activities took place in semi-rural fairs, towns being favourable places for trade. Products such as salt, grain and olive oil were transported by water. On land, lighter goods such as furs, spices and wax were transported by cart or slave. Salt was the most widely transported product of the time, sourced from the mouth of the Loire in Metz. Silk, hides, jewellery and silver were imported from the Arab world, especially Cordoba, and the Arabs received Jewish slaves captured by the Franks in their military campaigns and sold. Trade relations were maintained with the British Isles and Scandinavia, glass and ceramics were exported, and the Franks imported furs, hides, wax and amber. The empire”s new trading hub was in the Rhine valley. He initiated a monetary reform in 790. The king was considered the supreme legislator, but in turn obeyed the laws and customs of the people. He held absolute power, considered himself the representative of divinity on earth, and his subjects owed him allegiance. In 786, he imposed an oath of allegiance to be sworn to the king by the nobility.

The Carolingian period was characterized by attempts to reform the church, which had the effect of revitalizing culture and intellectual life, the reasons being: the large pagan populations east and north of the Rhine, the moral decay of the clergy, the lack of monastic, liturgical and religious uniformity, the lack of effective authority in many provinces where there were vacant episcopal seats, simony, the ruin of some monasteries. The Carolingian Renaissance, named after Charles the Great, represented the revival of antiquity and, in part, Byzantine culture in the culture and art of the Frankish Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries, in Emperor Charles the Great”s attempt to continue and renew the traditions of the Roman Empire. Among the most significant achievements of the Carolingian Renaissance are the book illustrations in the ”Gospel of Charles the Great” preserved in Vienna, or the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, reminiscent of the ”Basilica San Vitale” (6th century) in Ravenna, and the Sankt Michael Chapel in Fulda, in the style of the ”Santo Stèfano Rotondo” church (5th century) in Rome. The presence of the scholar Alcuin (Latin: Alcuinus) at the imperial court stimulated the transcription of ancient texts and the introduction of Latin as a literary language, which was a determining factor in the subsequent development of the cultural history of the Apusene world.

Between 794 (when Charles the Great began the construction of the palace of Aachen) and 877 (the year of the death of Charles the Pious) it can be seen that both Charles the Great and Louis the Pious felt the need to join the spiritual power represented by the clerics in order to preserve the homogeneity of the Frankish state, at a time when it was expanding its borders from one period to another. Having devised a better distribution of the churches” wealth, having balanced the precarious condition of monks and priests with that of bishops and abbots, and having restored discipline among the clergy, which had been tolerant under the Merovingians, Charles the Great supported the opening of episcopal and monastery schools and appealed, to raise the cultural level of the clergy, to scholars from regions where important pockets of Latin culture had been maintained, i.e. from regions which had not declined culturally at the end of the Merovingian period, as had been the case with most of Gaul, which had lost everything it had acquired in the previous period.

Responding to the king”s invitation, the imperial palace at Aix-la-Chapelle, a veritable centre for the training of clerics and the dissemination of culture, welcomed famous masters from Italy-Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia, the historian Paul the Deacon, and the Spanish theologian and grammarian Theodulf, who was later invested as Bishop of Orléans, from Ireland-the astronomer Dungal and the geographer Dicuil, from Anglo-Saxon Britain-the philosopher, theologian and man of letters Alcuin of York (Albinus Flaccus 735 – 804 ), who was charged with organising education. With their help, public schools were re-established on the old Roman model, thus attempting to do away with the Germanic practice of educating the young in the home with the help of a tax collector. The newly established schools were located around the monasteries. The most important school was the Palatine School, where the above-mentioned intellectuals taught. It is worth noting that King Charles the Great himself took grammar lessons from his cultural advisor Alcuin. At the beginning of the Carolingian era, grammatical precision seems to have had the sole purpose of understanding God”s word well and serving Him properly, but with the Carolingian revival, grammar was profoundly transformed from a simple manual of elementary Latin rules to a discipline regulating expression and thought. During Charles”s reign, the movement of renewal within the church initiated by his predecessors continued. He issued capitularies regulating religious matters relating to clerical organisation, decreed fasting and prayers, and appointed his favourites to key posts. He recognised the authority of abbots or bishops over ecclesiastical domains. Among the missi, one was a bishop, the other a committee. He became involved in the Christianisation of the remaining Germanic heathen nations like the Saxons, sending missionaries to preach from east of the Elbe, and to Jutland. The palace became a cultural centre. The king was interested in promoting knowledge, the court being a school, library, gathering place for scholars and centre for religious revival. The leader of the cultural movement was Alcuin, head of the York school, appointed by Charles to head the Palatine Academy in Aachen, who continued his work as abbot of the Saint-Martin monastery in Tours after 796. Charles helped to found the Carolingian imperial idea, providing the ideological basis for the assumption of the crown. He was involved in the iconoclastic debates. The Palatine Academy at Aachen was not a university, but it was an educational institution. Its role was to educate the young sons of nobles, but also representatives of other categories supported by Charles. Those who completed the school”s training entered the service of the king, who granted them positions, or worked in church structures. He was interested in the progress of the academy, which he visited regularly. Theodulf, a Visigoth scholar from Spain, was appointed Bishop of Orleans, organised four large schools in his diocese, called priests from his home country, and organised other schools for pupils from some senior or free villages. Theodulf even took on the role of spiritual advisor to the emperor. A council of Maintz in 813 recommended sending children to school, either to bishops or monasteries or to priestly schools, being instructed in the teaching of the Christian faith. A new way of writing was imposed, based on Carolingian minuscule. Interest in the works of the ancients increased. There are 8,000 manuscripts from the Carolingian period in libraries, including the Codex Aureus of Lorsch, an illuminated gospel with illuminations and gilded decorations. Historical events from 741-829 were recorded in the Annals of the Frankish Kingdom. The life of Charles was recorded in the biography written by Eginhard, in “Life of Charles the Great”. The restoration of episcopal authority continued, with archbishoprics and centres beyond the Rhine, such as Mainz, Cologne and Salzburg, being erected in turn. Charles successfully imposed the limited Benedictine rule as the basis of the organisation of monk communities.

The main objective of the revival of cultural life was to educate the clergy to perform their religious and other functions properly, as it can be seen how the people of the Church became the king”s best collaborators in running public affairs. The pages of the capitular on the cultivation of literary studies (“capitulare de litteris colendis”) show us that the laity were also urged not to neglect the study of letters, for only in this way would they be able to know the mysteries of Holy Scripture more easily and more accurately. The chapter also highlights Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans, who urged the clerics under him to open schools in towns and villages where all children who wished to be instructed in the craft of letters could be received, without being charged a fee. From Bishop Theodulf”s words it appears that education was general and free for all free men.

Due to the education practised in the newly established schools, which was mainly aimed at the interests of the nobles, who sent their children mainly to be educated, the culture gradually acquired a clerical-feudal character. The language used in schools and administration was classical Latin because the administrative unity of such a vast empire, from the Elbe and the Danube to the Pyrenees, bringing several peoples together, could not be maintained if each dregent spoke his own dialect. So the language that the scholars could easily master became the only language by which they could all understand each other. At the same time, it seems that the Carolingian Renaissance was only able to transmit the ideas of the ancient authors to the future. Last but not least, Henri Pirenne considered Latin to be an instrument of the Carolingian Renaissance, even though he regarded it as a dead, learned language after 800.

The extent to which writing took off in the Carolingian period led to the emergence of the beautiful ”Carolingian minuscule”. Unlike the much elongated and difficult to decipher Merovingian script, the Carolingian minuscule was a neat script with well-defined, gracefully rounded characters, making it effortless to read. Although it could be executed much more quickly than earlier handwriting and was clear, it hardly gave the impression of handwriting. The Carolingian minuscule uncial represented the last form in the evolution of Roman writing. Its spread throughout the Empire brought a decisive advance in culture as it was a tool with which Carolingian intellectuals wrote and translated extensively and in diverse fields. It also established itself throughout the West and over time became one of the most widely used models to this day. The origin of the Carolingian minuscule seems to be in Corbie, as it was here that the first manuscript written in these letters was discovered. It is the Amiens Bible commissioned by Maurdramne, abbot of Corbie between 772 and 780.

At the same time, in the art of mural painting, mosaics, manuscripts, the tradition of early Christian models was alive. There were also elements of Roman realism, allegories, costumes, classical architectural backgrounds. It is worth noting that the revival of the arts, although it was under political and religious control, nevertheless managed to be more original and less dependent on foreign or past contributions. Artists did not necessarily seek to copy classical models, but rather to introduce new elements more hastily.

From the Vita Karoli Magni it is known that of all kings, “the most zealous in diligently seeking out learned men and in giving them the opportunity to cultivate their wisdom at their leisure, which enabled him to restore all the brilliance of science hitherto almost unknown to this barbarous world”, was Charles the Great. His cultural activities were an important step in the process by which the German people assimilated classical and Christian learning. Particular emphasis should be placed on Charles the Great in medieval history, as his coronation as emperor on 25 December 800 is very significant, as it marked the union of the population of the old Roman Empire with that of the Algae. It put an end to the Eastern emperor”s dream of recapturing the territories of the Western Empire occupied by the barbarians in the 5th century.

The act of the coronation explains why the Carolingian revival is a combination of forces, a union of several factors that led to a new and therefore original synthesis. Basically, what was sought after 800 was not simply a restoration, but a “translatio imperii translatio studii”, i.e. a displacement of the forms of the old Empire in order to mould it into a young world.

In 817, by Ordinatio Imperii, the empire was to be divided: Louis retained the territories of Neustria, Austrasia, Burgundy, Alamania and Provence, Lothar, associated to the reign, ruled in Italy, receiving Alamania and Provence, Pepin received Aquitaine, and Louis “the Germanic” received Bavaria; thus forming a confederation of kingdoms. Pepin rebelled because his father was interfering in Aquitaine”s affairs. The emperor married Judith, who gave birth to Charles the Plebeian, and gave him part of Burgundy. Opponents of Louis tried to oust him. In 830, the emperor was overthrown by Pepin. Lothar seized power in Austrasia, and the emperor regained his throne with the help of loyal subjects. Unhappy with his attitude, Louis took Aquitaine from Pepin and offered it to Charles. Conflict broke out again in 833.

Lothar came from Italy with Pope Gregory IV, forced his father to do penance, dethroned him and assumed power. But the emperor had supporters, Louis the German and Pepin, who came to his aid. Louis was reinstated as emperor in 834 and pardoned his rebellious sons. In 840, Emperor Louis died.

A civil war ensued, in which Lothar allied himself with Pepin II, son of Pepin of Aquitaine, against Charles the Pious and Louis the Germanic. Each side eliminated local nobles and clerics from the opposing sides. They seized their domains and distributed them to loyal subjects After much fighting, in 843, by the Treaty of Verdun, the three brothers decided on a new division of the empire. Lothar was given the title of emperor, with Italy, the territory between the Rhine and the Rhine as far as Phrygia, being called Lotharingia. Louis the Germanic received the part east of the Rhine, the towns of Speyer, Mainz and Worms on the west bank of the river, and Charles the Plebeian received the part west of the Rhine and Meuse, and Aquitaine. The treaty was the result of tough negotiations between the brothers, but it did not guarantee the stability of the new kingdoms. In 858, Louis the Germanic attacked Charles the Plebeian, claiming to have responded to the invitation of noblemen dissatisfied with his rule. Charles the Plebeian, a good diplomat and inexperienced fighter, attracted the northern Frankish nobles to his side. Pepin II settled in Aquitaine, but from 848 the magnates, bishops and abbots gave in and elected Charles the Plebeian as king, and he was anointed at Orleans. He no longer granted provinces to his sons, so the nobles were to depend on the king for favours. But the Frankish kingdom faced attacks from the Normans in the west. A former Danish ally, Ragnar, attacked Paris in 845, where he hanged 111 prisoners. Ragnar was bribed with 7000 pounds of silver to retreat. Raids and looting in the Seine and Loire valleys increased causing peasants to flee and ransoms to be paid. Charles recruited Norman rulers to his side, built bridges and fortifications, increased the role of chivalry, imposed taxes. But he was losing control and prestige. He met his brothers on several occasions. Lothar imposed his control over the territory to which he had been entitled. In 855, he died in the monastery of Prum. Lothar”s sons divided their father”s kingdom: Louis II became emperor and took Italy, Charles became king in Provence, and Lothar II was given Lotharingia, which became an area of contention between Charles the Plebeian and Louis the Germanic. After the death of Lothar II, the possessions were divided by Charles the Plebe and Louis the Germanic, retreating the boundaries established at Verdun between western and eastern France. Charles took Liege, Cambrai, Besancon, Lyon and Vienne, and Louis took Cologne, Trier, Metz and Strasbourg.

The kingdom of Louis the Germanic stabilised, less dependent on the noble factions, and led campaigns against the Slavs, its authority respected more than in western France. He ran into trouble in Saxony and Thuringia, arranging marriage alliances to retain the loyalty of the nobles. After his death, his sons were given the regions on ethnic lines: Louis the Younger-Franconia, Thuringia and Saxony; Carloman-Bavaria; Charles the Fat-Swabia and Raetia. The unity and stability of Eastern France became a memory. Charles the Plebeian, however, occupied Italy and was crowned Emperor of the West in 875 with the support of Pope John VIII. He fell ill and died on 6 October 877. A period of instability followed in western France. His successors granted honours, domains, abbeys and countships to attract loyalists, forming dynasties of hereditary holders of countships, the aristocracy becoming indispensable to maintaining royal power. The king”s authority diminished and local forces expanded and became autonomous. Eventually, the succession of minor or inexperienced kings led to the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty. The two kings crowned by the magnates of the kingdom in 880 who divided western France: Louis III (Neustria) and Carloman (Aquitaine) died shortly afterwards. Charles the Fat nominally reunited western France without Provence, eastern France and Italy, reigning as emperor from 881 to 887. He was forced to abdicate at the assembly of Trier in 887 because he did not stand up to Norman attacks. At the turn of the Rhine, in the battles following the dethronement of Charles the Fat, the local lords rallied around the Count of Paris, Odo, son of Robert the Strong, whose rule over the counties of Angers, Tours, Blois and Orleans was recognised by Charles the Fat in 886. Odo was not a Carolingian, but he had the advantage of having many vassals, being the emperor”s trusted man, and had distinguished himself in the defence of Paris during the Norman sieges, and in the battle of Montfaucon in 888. Odo was elected king by the nobles and bishops, and also gained the support of Arnulf, king of western France, to whom he formally became a vassal. After struggling against the Normans in 889, he decided to accept tribute, and in 892 the Normans left France. He continued to convene general assemblies and councils, confirmed previous acts of danage and immunities, and appointed counts and markgraves. He relinquished the administration of the earldoms to his brother Robert, who succeeded him. In 893, Charles the Simple was crowned at Rheims by his rival Archbishop Fulques, Neustria and Aquitaine remained loyal to Odo, whose power was restored in 895. In 897, Odo recognised Charles as his heir to the throne, under unclear circumstances. Charles the Simple had a long reign, with the Carolingian family returning to the throne of western France. It was marked by a relative quiet on the part of the aristocracy, and the settlement of the Normans at the mouth of the Seine in the territory that would come to be known as Normandy. Defeated near Chartres by Robert, brother of the former king Odo, aided by Richard the Just, autonomous duke and count of Autun, Rollo agreed to give up his attacks and became a Christian, receiving the status of vassal and count of the king, as well as part of Neustria-Normandy. In 911, Louis the Child died and was succeeded to the throne of Eastern France by Conrad. Charles was also elected king by the great lords of Lotharingia, bringing back the old Pepinid possessions of Herstal and Metz and the capital Aachen. He was proclaimed as King Robert in 922, but was killed in 923 at the Battle of Soissons, while Charles was captured by the Count of Vermandoin, Herbert II. Rudolf followed, proclaimed king by the nobles. He was caught in the middle of the fighting between the nobles of the kingdom: Herber II and Hugo, son of Robert I. Rudolf maintained his position in Burgundy as the power base. He faced a Viking attack in 924, then a Hungarian attack that devastated the Champagne region between 930-935. Under Louis IV, king from 936-954, he spent time at the court of Edward the Elder in England. Louis succeeded to the throne of France with Hugo”s support. As leader, Hugh controlled the Seine and Loire of Neustria, the counties of Tours, Angers and Paris, had estates in Orleans, Berry, Maine and Meaux, was lay abbot of many monasteries such as Saint Martin, Saint Denis etc. and had a large number of vassals. His first wife supported Louis IV and his second wife was the daughter of Henry the Foal, and the king”s closeness to the Duke of Burgundy led to a cooling of relations between the two sides and a long conflict after 937. After his excommunication, Hugo relented and recognised Louis as suzerain. But the king of Apuan France lost influence over Lotharingia to Otto I.

After a turbulent reign, Louis died in an accident. He was succeeded to the throne by his son Lothar. In 956, Hugo died. His sons Hugo and Odo swore an oath to Lothar in 960. Lothar was king of France and Burgundy and sought to assert his authority in the outlying regions, to gain control over the nobles who sought his support and protection, to tighten the bonds of loyalty through negotiations and marriage alliances, and was temporarily recognised in Flanders and Aquitaine. Wishing to regain Lotharingia in 978, he entered Aachen and was thwarted by Otto II. Otto entered France, destroyed the royal palaces of Compiegne and Attigny, establishing Charles, Lothar”s brother, as king. In 980 peace was concluded and Lothar gave up his claim to Lotharingia. He crowned his son Louis V as heir. After a short reign marked by quarrels between the king and the Archbishop of Reims, he died in 987 in an accident. Hugo, called “Capet”, son of Hugo the Great, stood out. He was one of the influential nobles, and the magnates accepted him as leader of the assembly. He was proclaimed king and crowned and anointed at Adalberon.

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