Defeat of the Alemanni at Tolbiac by Clovis, king of the Franks;
baptism of Clovis.
{1434 moved here for continuity}
SIXTH CENTURY.
CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.
* Uncertain date.
A. D. 504.
Expulsion of the Alemanni from the Middle Rhine by the Franks.
505.
Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
507.
Overthrow of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse by Clovis.
511.
Death of Clovis;
partition of the Frank kingdom among his sons.
Monophysite riot at Constantinople.
512.
Second Monophysite riot at Constantinople.
515.
Publication of the monastic rule of Saint Benedict.
518.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Anastasius, and accession of
Justin I.
519.
Cerdic and Cynric become kings of the West Saxons.
525.
Execution of Boethius and Symmachus by Theodoric, king of
Italy.
526.
Death of Theodoric and accession of Athalaric.
Great earthquake at Antioch.
War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
527.
Accession of Justinian in the Eastern Empire.
528.
Conquest of Thuringia by the Franks.
529.
Defeat of the Persians, at Dara, by the Roman general
Belisarius.
Closing of the schools at Athens.
Publication of the Code of Justinian.
531.
Accession of Chosroes, or Nushirvan, to the throne of Persia.
532.
End of War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
Nika sedition at Constantinople.
533.
Overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in Africa by Belisarius.
Publication of the Pandects of Justinian.
534.
Conquest of the Burgundians by the Franks.
535.
Recovery of Sicily from the Goths by Belisarius.
536.
Rome taken from the Goths by Belisarius for Justinian.
537.
Unsuccessful siege of Rome by the Goths.
539.
Destruction of Milan by the Goths.
Invasion of Italy by the Franks.
540.
Surrender of Ravenna to Belisarius;
his removal from command.
Invasion of Syria by Chosroes, king of Persia;
storming and sacking of Antioch.
Formal relinquishment of Gaul to the Franks by Justinian.
Vigilius made Pope.
541.
Gothic successes under Totila, in Italy.
End of the succession of. Roman Consuls.
Defense of the East by Belisarius.
542.
Great Plague in the Roman Empire.
543.
Surrender of Naples to Totila.
Death of Saint Benedict.
Invasion of Spain by the Franks.
544.
Belisarius again in command in Italy.
546.
Totila's siege, capture and pillage of Rome.
547.
The city of Rome totally deserted for six weeks.
Founding of the kingdom of Bernicia (afterward included in
Northumberland) in England.
Subjection of the Bavarians to the Franks.
548.
Death of the Eastern Empress, Theodora.
549.
Second siege and capture of Rome by Totila.
Beginning of the Lazic War.
552.
Totila defeated and killed by the imperial army under Narses.
553.
End of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy;
restoration of the imperial sovereignty.
Fifth General Council of the Church, at Constantinople.
Establishment of the Exarch at Ravenna, representing the
Emperor at Constantinople.
555.
Pelagius I. made Pope.
558.
Reunion of the Frank empire under Clothaire I.
560.
John III. made Pope.
563.
Founding of the monastery of Iona, in Scotland, by Saint Columba.
565.
Death of Belisarius and of the Eastern Emperor Justinian;
accession of Justin II.
566.
Conquest of the Gepidæ in Dacia by the Lombards and Avars.
567.
Division of the Frank dominion into the three kingdoms of
Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy.
568.
Invasion of Italy by the Lombards;
siege of Pavia.
570.
Birth of Mahomet. *
572.
Renewed war of the Eastern Empire with Persia.
573.
Murder of Alboin, king of the Lombards.
Subjugation of the Suevi by the Visigoths in Spain.
574.
Benedict I. made Pope.
578.
Accession of the Eastern Emperor Tiberius Constantinus.
Pelagius II. made Pope.
582.
Accession of Maurice, Emperor in the East.
588.
Kingdom of Northumberland, in England, founded by the union of
Bernicia and Deira under Æthelric.
589.
Abandonment of Arianism by the Goths in Spain.
590.
Gregory the Great elected Pope.
591.
Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
597.
Mission of Saint Augustine to England.
Death of Saint Columba.
---------End of moved pages 1433 and 1434----------
{1436}
GERMANY: A. D. 687-800.
Rise of the Carolingians and the Empire of Charlemagne.
"Towards the close of the Merovingian period, ... the kingdom
of the Franks ... was divided into four great districts, or
kingdoms as they were called: Austrasia, or the eastern
kingdom, from the river Rhine to the Meuse, with Metz as its
principal city; Neustria, or the western kingdom, extending
from Austrasia to the ocean on the west, and to the Loire on
the south; Aquitaine, south of that river to the foot of the
Pyrenees; and Burgundy, from the Rhone to the Alps, including
Switzerland. These four kingdoms became, before the extinction
of the Merovingian race, consolidated into two,--viz., Austrasia
and Neustria, Eastern and Western Francia,--modern Germany
and modern France, roughly speaking,--of which the first was
to gain the pre-eminence, as it was the seat of the power of
that race of Charlemagne which seized upon the kingdoms of the
Merovingians. But in these kingdoms, while the family of
Clovis occupied them, the royal power became more and more
feeble as time went on, a condition which is illustrated by
the title given in history to these kings,--that of 'rois
fainéants.'... The most powerful officer of a Frankish king
was his steward, or, as he was called, the mayor of his
palace. ... In Austrasia the office had become hereditary in
the family of Pepin of Landen (a small village near Liège),
and under its guidance the degenerate children of Clovis in
that kingdom fought for the supremacy with those equally
degenerate in Neustria, at that time also under the real
control of another mayor of the palace, called Ebroin. The
result of this struggle, after much bloodshed and misery, was
reached in the year 687 at the battle of Testry, in which the
Austrasians completely defeated the Neustrians. ... The
Merovingian princes were still nominally kings, while all the
real power was in the hands of the descendants of Pepin of
Landen, mayors of the palace, and the policy of government was
as fully settled by them as if they had been kings de jure as
well as de facto. This family produced in its earlier days
some persons who have become among the most conspicuous
figures in history:--Pepin, the founder; Pepin le Gros, of
Héristal; Charles, his son, commonly called Martel, or the
Hammerer; Pepin le Bref, under whom the Carlovingian dynasty
was, by aid of the Pope, recognized as the lawful successor of
the Merovingians, even before the extinction of that race;
and, lastly, Charles, surnamed the Great, or Charlemagne, one
of the few men of the human race who, by common consent, have
occupied the foremost rank in history. ... The object of Pepin
of Héristal was two-fold,--to repress the disposition of the
turbulent nobles to encroach upon the royal authority, and to
bring again under the yoke of the Franks those tribes in
Germany who had revolted against the Frankish rule owing to
the weakness of the Merovingian government. He measurably
accomplished both objects. ... He seems to have had what
perhaps is the best test at all times of the claims of a man
to be a real statesman: some consciousness of the true nature
of his mission,--the establishment of order. ... His son and
successor, Charles Martel, was even more conspicuous for the
possession of this genius of statesmanship, but he exhibited
it in a somewhat different direction. He, too, strove to hold
the nobles in check, and to break the power of the Frisian and
the Saxon tribes; and he fought besides, fortunately for his
fame, one of the fifteen decisive battles in the history of
the world, that of Poitiers, in 732, by which the Saracens,
who had conquered Spain, and who had strong hopes of gaining
possession of the whole of Western Europe, were driven back
from Northern France, never to return. ... His son, Pepin le
Bref, is equally conspicuous with the rest in history, but in
a somewhat different way. He continued the never-ending wars
in Germany and in Gaul with the object of securing peace by
the sword, and with more or less success. But his career is
noteworthy principally because he completed the actual
deposition of the last of the Merovingian race, whose nominal
servants but real masters he and his predecessors, mayors of
the palace, had been, and because he sought and obtained the
sanction of the Church for this usurpation. ... The Pope's
position at this time was one of very great embarrassment.
Harassed by the Lombards, who were not only robbers, but who
were also Arians, and who admitted none of the Catholic clergy
to their councils,--with no succor from the Emperors at
Constantinople (whose subject he nominally was) against the
Lombards, and, indeed, in open revolt against them because as
bishop and patriarch of the West he had forbidden the
execution of the decree against the placing of images in the
churches,--for these and many such reasons he sorely needed
succor, and naturally in his necessity he turned to the
powerful King of the Franks. The coronation of Pepin le Bref,
first by St. Boniface, and then by the Pope himself, was the
first step in the fulfilment of the alliance on his part.
Pepin was soon called upon to do his share of the work. Twice
at the bidding of the Pope he descended from the Alps, and,
defeating the Lombards, was rewarded by him and the people of
Rome with the title of Patrician. ... On the death of Pepin,
the Lombards again took up arms and harassed the Church's
territory. Charlemagne, his successor, was called upon to come
to the rescue, and he swept the Lombard power in Italy out of
existence, annexing its territory to the Frankish kingdom, and
confirming the grant of the Exarchate and of the Pentapolis
which his father had made to the Popes. This was in the year
774. ... For twenty-five years Charlemagne ruled Rome
nominally as Patrician, under the supremacy, equally nominal,
of the Emperor at Constantinople. The true sovereign,
recognized as such, was the Pope or Bishop of Rome, but the
actual power was in the hands of the mob, who at one time
towards the close of the century, in the absence of both
Emperor and Patrician, assaulted the Pope while conducting a
procession, and forced him to abandon the city. This Pope,
Leo, with a fine instinct as to the quarter from which succor
could alone come, hurried to seek Charlemagne, who was then in
Germany engaged in one of his never-ending wars against the
Saxons. The appeal for aid was not made in vain, and Charles
descended once more from the Alps in the summer of 799, with
his Frankish hosts. On Christmas day, A. D. 800, in the Church
of St. Peter ... Pope Leo, during the mass, and after the
reading of the gospel, placed upon the brow of Charlemagne,
who had abandoned his northern furs for the dress of a Roman
patrician, the diadem of the Cæsars, and hailed him Imperator
Semper Augustus, while the multitude shouted, 'Carolo, Augusto
a Deo coronato magno et pacifico Imperatori Vita et Victoria.'
In that shout and from that moment one of the most fruitful
epochs of history begins."
_C. J. Stillé,
Studies in Mediæval History,
chapter 3._
See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.
{1437}
GERMANY: A. D. 800.
Charlemagne's restoration of the Roman Empire.
"Three hundred and twenty-four years had passed since the last
Cæsar of the West resigned his power into the hands of the
senate, and left to his Eastern brother the sole headship of
the Roman world. To the latter Italy had from that time been
nominally subject; but it was only during one brief interval,
between the death of Totila the last Ostrogothic king and the
descent of Alboin the first Lombard, that his power had been
really effective. In the further provinces, Gaul, Spain,
Britain, it was only a memory. But the idea of a Roman Empire
as a necessary part of the world's order had not vanished: it
had been admitted by those who seemed to be destroying it; it
had been cherished by the Church; was still recalled by laws
and customs; was dear to the subject populations, who fondly
looked back to the days when slavery was at least mitigated by
peace and order. ... Both the extinction of the Western Empire
in [A.D. 476] ... and its revival in A. D. 800 have been very
generally misunderstood in modern times. ... When Odoacer
compelled the abdication of Romulus Augustulus, he did not
abolish the Western Empire as a separate power, but caused it
to be reunited with or sink into the Eastern, so that from
that time there was, as there had been before Diocletian, a
single undivided Roman Empire. In A. D. 800 the very memory of
the separate Western Empire, as it had stood from the death of
Theodosius till Odoacer, had, so far as appears, been long
since lost, and neither Leo nor Charles nor anyone among their
advisers dreamt of reviving it. They, too, like their
predecessors, held the Roman Empire to be one and indivisible,
and proposed by the coronation of the Frankish king, not to
proclaim a severance of the East and West, but to reverse the
act of Constantine, and make Old Rome again the civil as well
as the ecclesiastical capital of the Empire that bore her
name. ... Although therefore we must in practice speak during
the next seven centuries (down till A. D. 1453, when
Constantinople fell before the Mohammedan) of an Eastern and a
Western Empire, the phrase is in strictness incorrect, and was
one which either court ought to have repudiated. The
Byzantines always did repudiate it; the Latins usually;
although, yielding to facts, they sometimes condescended to
employ it themselves. But their theory was always the same.
Charles was held to be the legitimate successor, not of
Romulus Augustulus, but of Basil, Heraclius, Justinian,
Arcadius, and all the Eastern line. ... North Italy and Rome
ceased for ever to own the supremacy of Byzantium; and while
the Eastern princes paid a shameful tribute to the Mussulman,
the Frankish Emperor--as the recognised head of
Christendom--received from the patriarch of Jerusalem the keys
of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of Calvary; the gift of
the Sepulchre itself, says Eginhard, from Aaron king of the
Persians [the Caliph Haroun el Rashid]. ... Four centuries
later, when Papacy and Empire had been forced into the mortal
struggle by which the fate of both was decided, three distinct
theories regarding the coronation of Charles will be found
advocated by three different parties, all of them plausible,
all of them to some extent misleading. The Swabian Emperors
held the crown to have been won by their great predecessor as
the prize of conquest, and drew the conclusion that the
citizens and bishop of Rome had no rights as against
themselves. The patriotic party among the Romans, appealing to
the early history of the Empire, declared that by nothing but the
voice of their senate and people could an Emperor be lawfully
created, he being only their chief magistrate, the temporary
depositary of their authority. The Popes pointed to the
indisputable fact that Leo imposed the crown, and argued that
as God's earthly vicar it was then his, and must always
continue to be their right to give to whomsoever they would an
office which was created to be the handmaid of their own. Of
these three it was the last view that eventually prevailed."
_J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 4-5._
ALSO IN:
_J. I. Mombert,
History of Charles the Great,
chapter 14._
See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.
GERMANY: A. D. 805.
Conquest of the Avars.
Creation of the Austrian March.
See AVARS, and AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.
GERMANY: A. D. 814-843.
Division of the Empire of Charlemagne.
"There was a manifest conflict, during his later years, in the
court, in the councils, in the mind of Charlemagne [who died
in 814], between the King of the Franks and the Emperor of the
West; between the dissociating, independent Teutonic
principle, and the Roman principle of one code, one dominion,
one sovereign. The Church, though Teutonic in descent, was
Roman in the sentiment of unity. ... That unity had been
threatened by the proclaimed division of the realm between the
sons of Charlemagne. The old Teutonic usage of equal
distribution seemed doomed to prevail over the august unity of
the Roman Empire. What may appear more extraordinary, the
kingdom of Italy was the inferior appanage: it carried not
with it the Empire, which was still to retain a certain
supremacy; that was reserved for the Teutonic sovereign. It
might seem as if this were but the continuation of the Lombard
kingdom, which Charlemagne still held by the right of
conquest. It was bestowed on Pepin; after his death entrusted
to Bernhard, Pepin's illegitimate but only son. Wiser counsels
prevailed. The two elder sons of Charlemagne died without
issue; Louis the third son was summoned from his kingdom of
Aquitaine, and solemnly crowned [813] at Aix-la-Chapelle, as
successor to the whole Empire."
_H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2)._
{1438}
"Instead of being preoccupied with the care of keeping the
empire united, Louis divided it in the year 817 by giving
kingdoms to his three sons. The eldest, Lothaire, had Italy;
Louis, Bavaria; Pepin, Aquitaine. A nephew of the emperor,
Bernard, imagined himself wronged by this partition, and took
up arms to hold Italy. Vanquished without striking a blow, he
delivered himself up to his uncle, who caused his eyes to be
put out. He expired under that torture. Louis reproached
himself later for that cruel death, and to expiate it,
subjected himself to a public penance. In 823, there was born
to him a fourth son. To make him a sharer of his inheritance,
the emperor, annulling in 829 the partition of 817, gave him
Germany, thus depriving his elder sons of part of the
inheritance previously assigned them. This provoked the
resentment of those princes; they rose in rebellion against
their father, and the rest of the reign of Louis was only a
succession of impious contests with his turbulent sons. In
833, he deposed Pepin, and gave his kingdom of Aquitaine to
his youngest born, Charles. Twice deposed himself, and twice
restored, Louis only emerged from the cloister, for which he
was so well fitted, to repeat the same faults. When Louis the
Good-natured died in 840, it was not his cause only which he
had lost through his weakness, but that of the empire. Those
intestine quarrels presaged its dismemberment, which ere long
happened. The sons of Louis, to serve their own ambition, had
revived the national antipathies of the different races.
Lothaire placed himself at the head of the Italians; Louis
rallied the Germans round him, and Charles the Bald the Franks
of Gaul, who were henceforward called Frenchmen. Those three
peoples aspired to break up the union whose bond Charlemagne
had imposed upon them, as the three brothers aspired to form
each for himself a kingdom. The question was decided at the
great battle of Fontanet, near Auxerre, in 841. Lothaire, who
fought therein for the preservation of the empire and of his
authority, was conquered. By the treaty of Verdun [843--see
VERDUN, TREATY OF] it was decided that Louis should have
Germany to the east of the Rhine; Charles, France to the west
of the Scheld, the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone; finally,
Lothaire, Italy, with the long range of country comprised
between the Alps and the Cevennes, the Jura, the Saone, the
Rhine, and the Meuse, which from his name was called
Lotharingia. This designation is still to be traced in one of
the recently French provinces, Lorraine."
_S. Menzies,
History of Europe from the Decadence of
the Western Empire to the Reformation,
chapter. 13._
GERMANY: A. D. 843.
Accession of Louis II.
GERMANY: A. D. 843-962.
Treaty of Verdun.
Definite separation from France.
The kingdom of the East Franks.
The partition of the empire of Charlemagne among his three
grandsons, by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, gave to Charles
the Bald a kingdom which nearly coincided with France, as
afterwards existing under that name, "before its Burgundian
and German annexations.
See VERDUN, TREATY OF;
also, FRANKS: A. D. 814-962.
It also founded a kingdom which roughly answered to the later
Germany before its great extension to the East at the expense
of the Slavonic nations. And as the Western kingdom was formed
by the addition of Aquitaine to the Western Francia, so the
Eastern kingdom was formed by the addition of the Eastern
Francia to Bavaria. Lewis of Bavaria [surnamed 'the German']
became king of a kingdom which we are tempted to call the
kingdom of Germany. Still it would as yet be premature to
speak of France at all, or even to speak of Germany, except in
the geographical sense. The two kingdoms are severally the
kingdoms of the Eastern and of the Western Franks. ... The
Kings had no special titles, and their dominions had no
special names recognized in formal use. Every king who ruled
over any part of the ancient Francia was a king of the Franks.
... The Eastern part of the Frankish dominions, the lot of
Lewis the German and his successors, is thus called the
Eastern Kingdom, the Teutonic Kingdom. Its king is the King of
the East-Franks, sometimes simply the King of the Eastern men,
sometimes the King of Germany. ... The title of King of
Germany is often found in the ninth century as a description,
but it was not a formal title. The Eastern king, like other
kings, for the most part simply calls himself' Rex,' till the
time came when his rank as King of Germany, or of the
East-Franks, became simply a step towards the higher title of
Emperor of the Romans. ... This Eastern or German kingdom, as
it came out of the division of 887 [after the deposition of
Charles III., called Charles the Fat,. who came to the throne
in 881, and who had, momentarily reunited all the Frankish
crowns, except that of Burgundy], 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 [called 'Saxony beyond the Elbe'--modern Holstein]. The
great extension of the German power over the Slavonic lands
beyond the Elbe had hardly yet begun. To the southeast 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. But the
main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of
Saxony, Eastern Francia, Alemannia, and Bavaria. 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. 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.
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."
_E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 6, section 1._
ALSO IN:
_Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
volumes 1-2._
On the indefiniteness of the name of the Germanic kingdom in
this period,
See FRANCE: 9TH CENTURY.
GERMANY: A. D. 881.
Accession of Charles III. (called The Fat), afterwards King of
all the Franks and Emperor.
GERMANY: A. D. 888.
Accession of Arnulf, afterwards Emperor.
GERMANY: A. D. 899.
Accession of Louis III. (called The Child).
GERMANY: A. D. 911.
Election of Conrad I.
{1439}