CHARLES MARTEL AND PIPPIN
[Sidenote: Charles Martel, Frankish mayor of the palace, 714-741.]
24. Just as the pope was becoming the acknowledged head of the Western
Church, the Frankish realms came successively under the rule of two
great statesmen, Charles Martel and his son Pippin the Short, who laid
the foundation of Charlemagne's vast empire.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of holding together a kingdom in the early Middle
Ages.]
The difficulties which Charles Martel had to face were much the same as
those which for centuries to follow confronted the sovereigns of western
Europe. The great problem of the mediæval ruler was to make his power
felt throughout his whole territory in spite of the many rich and
ambitious officials, bishops, and abbots who eagerly took advantage of
all the king's weaknesses and embarrassments to make themselves
practically supreme in their respective districts.
[Sidenote: Origin of counts and dukes.]
The two classes of officers of which we hear most were the counts
(Latin, _comites_) and the dukes (Latin, _duces_). A count ordinarily
represented the king within the district comprised in an old
municipality of the Empire. Over a number of counts the king might place
a duke. Both of these titles were borrowed by the Germans from the names
of Roman officials. While the king appointed, and might dismiss, these
officers when he pleased, there was a growing tendency for them to hold
their positions for life.
We find Charles fighting the dukes of Aquitaine, Bavaria, and Alemannia,
each of whom was endeavoring to make the territory which he was deputed
to rule in the king's interest a separate and independent country under
his own supremacy. By successive campaigns against these rebellious
magnates, Charles succeeded in reuniting all those outlying districts
that tended to forget or ignore their connection with the Frankish
empire.
[Sidenote: Charles and his bishops.]
The bishops proved almost, if not quite, as troublesome to the mayor of
the palace as the dukes, and later the counts. It is true that Charles
kept the choice of the bishops in his own hands and refused to give to
the clergy and people of the diocese the privilege of electing their
head, as the rules of the Church prescribed. But when a bishop had once
got possession of the lands attached to the bishopric and exercised the
wide powers and influence which fell to him, he was often tempted,
especially if he were a nobleman, to use his privileged position to
establish a practically independent principality. The same was true of
the heads of powerful monasteries. These dangerous bishops and abbots
Charles deposed in wholesale fashion. He substituted his own friends for
them with little regard to the rules of the Church--for instance, he
bestowed on his nephew the three bishoprics of Paris, Rouen, and Bayeux,
besides two monasteries. The new incumbents were, however, no better
than the old; they were, indeed, in spite of their clerical robes, only
laymen, who continued to fight and hunt in their customary manner.
The most famous of Charles' deeds was his decisive defeat of the
advancing Mohammedans who were pressing into Gaul from Spain. Before
speaking of this a word must be said of the invaders and their religion,
for the Saracens, as the followers of Mohammed were commonly called,
will come into our story of western Europe now and then, especially
during the Crusades.
[Sidenote: Mohammed, 571-632.]
25. Just as Gregory the Great was dying in Rome, leaving to his
successors a great heritage of spiritual and temporal influence, a young
Arab in far-off Mecca was meditating upon the mysteries of life and
laying the foundation of a religious power rivaling even that of the
popes. Before the time of Mohammed the Arabs had played no important
part in the world's history. The scattered tribes were at war with one
another, and each worshiped its own gods, when it worshiped at all. But
when the peoples of the desert accepted Mohammed as their prophet and
his religion as theirs, they became an irresistible force for the
dissemination of the new teaching and for the subjugation of the world.
[Sidenote: The Hejira, 622.]
Mohammed came of a good family, but was reduced by poverty to enter the
employ of a rich widow, named Kadijah, who fell in love with him and
became his wife. She was his first convert and kept up his courage when
few among his fellow-townsmen in Mecca would believe in his visions or
accept the teachings which he claimed to receive direct from the angel
Gabriel. Finally he discovered that his many enemies were planning to
kill him, so he fled to the neighboring town of Medina, where he had
friends. His flight (the Hejira), which took place in the year 622, was
taken by his followers as the beginning of a new era,--the year one, as
Mohammedans reckon time. A war ensued between the people of Mecca and
those in and about Medina who supported Mohammed. It was eight years
before he reëntered Mecca, the religious center of Arabia, with a
victorious army. Before his death in 632 he had received the adhesion of
all the Arab chiefs, and his faith, Islam (which means _submission to
God_), was accepted throughout the Arabian peninsula.
[Sidenote: The Koran and the religion of Mohammed.]
Mohammed was accustomed to fall into a trance from time to time, after
which he would recite to his eager listeners the messages which he
received from Heaven. These were collected into a volume shortly after
his death, and make up the Koran, the Bible of the Mohammedan.[36] This
contains all the fundamental beliefs of the new religion, as well as the
laws under which the faithful were to live. It proclaims one God, "the
Lord of the worlds, the merciful, the compassionate," and Mohammed as
his prophet. It announces a day of judgment in which each shall receive
his reward for the deeds done in the flesh, and either be admitted to
paradise or banished to an eternally burning hell. Those who die
fighting for the sacred cause shall find themselves in a high garden,
where, "content with their past endeavors," they shall hear no foolish
word and shall recline in rich brocades upon soft cushions and rugs and
be served by surpassingly beautiful maidens. Islam has much in common
with Judaism and Christianity. Jesus even has a place in it, but only as
one of the prophets, like Abraham, Moses, and others, who have brought
religious truth to mankind.
The religion of Mohammed was simpler than that of the mediæval Christian
Church. It provided for no priesthood, nor for any elaborate rites and
ceremonies. Five times a day the faithful Mohammedan must pray, always
with his face turned toward Mecca. One month in the year he must fast
during the daytime. If he is educated, he will know the Koran by heart.
The mosque is a house of prayer and the place for the reading of the
Koran; no altars or images are permitted in it.
[Sidenote: Mohammedan conquests.]
Mohammed's successor assumed the title of caliph. Under him the Arabs
went forth to conquer the great territories to the north of them,
belonging to the Persians and the Roman emperor at Constantinople. They
met with marvelous success. Within ten years after Mohammed's death the
Arabs had established a great empire with its capital at Damascus, from
whence the caliph ruled over Arabia, Persia, Syria, and Egypt. In the
following decades new conquests were made all along the coast of Africa,
and in 708 Tangier was taken and the Arabs could look across the Straits
of Gibraltar to Spain.[37]
[Illustration: Map of Arabic Conquests]
[Sidenote: The Arabs in Spain.]
The kingdom of the West Goths was in no condition to defend itself when
a few Arabs and a much larger number of Berbers, inhabitants of northern
Africa, ventured to cross over. Some of the Spanish towns held out for a
time, but the invaders found allies in the numerous Jews who had been
shamefully treated by their Christian countrymen. As for the innumerable
serfs who worked on the great estates of the aristocracy, a change of
landlords made very little difference to them. In 711 the Arabs and
Berbers gained a great battle, and the peninsula was gradually overrun
by new immigrants from Africa. In seven years the Mohammedans were
masters of almost the whole region south of the Pyrenees. They then
began to cross into Gaul and took possession of the district about
Narbonne. For some years the duke of Aquitaine kept them in check, but
in 732 they collected a large army, defeated the duke near Bordeaux,
advanced to Poitiers, where they burned the church, and then set out for
Tours.
[Sidenote: Battle of Tours, 732.]
Charles Martel at once sent out a summons to all who could bear arms
and, in the same year, met and repulsed the Mohammedans near Tours. We
know very little indeed of the details of the conflict, but it is
certain that the followers of Mohammed retreated and that they never
made another attempt to conquer western Europe.
[Sidenote: Pippin and Carloman.]
[Sidenote: Abdication of Carloman.]
26. Charles was able, before his death in 741, to secure the succession
to his office of mayor of the palace for his two sons, Pippin and
Carloman. The brothers left the nominal king on the throne; but he had
nothing to do, as the chronicler tells us, "but to be content with his
name of king, his flowing hair and long beard; to sit on his throne and
play the ruler, listening to the ambassadors who came from all
directions, and giving them the answers that had been taught him, as if
of his own sovereign will. In reality, however, he had nothing but the
royal name and a beggarly income at the will of the mayor of the
palace." The new mayors had succeeded in putting down all opposition
when, to the astonishment of every one, Carloman abdicated and assumed
the gown of a monk. Pippin took control of the whole Frankish dominion,
and we find the unusual statement in the Frankish annals that "the whole
land enjoyed peace for two years" (749-750).
[Sidenote: Pippin assumes the crown with the approbation of the pope,
752.]
Pippin now felt himself strong enough to get rid of the "do-nothing"
king altogether and assume for himself the nominal as well as the real
kingship of the Franks. It was, however, a delicate matter to depose
even a quite useless monarch, so he determined to consult the head of
the Church. To Pippin's query whether it was fitting that the
Merovingian king of the Franks, having no power, should continue to
reign, the pope replied: "It seems better that he who has the power in
the state should be king and be called king, rather than he who is
falsely called king."
It will be noticed that the pope in no sense created Pippin king, as
later writers claimed. He sanctioned a usurpation which was practically
inevitable and which was carried out with the approbation of the
Frankish nation. Raised on the shields of the counts and dukes, anointed
by St. Boniface, and blessed by the pope, Pippin became in 752 the first
king of the Carolingian family, which had already for several
generations ruled the Franks in all but name.
[Sidenote: A new theory of kingship.]
This participation of the pope brought about a very fundamental change
in the theory of kingship. The kings of the Germans up to this time had
been military leaders selected, or holding their office, by the will of
the people, or at least of the aristocracy. Their rule had had no divine
sanction, but only that of general acquiescence backed up by sufficient
skill and popularity to frustrate the efforts of rivals. By the
anointing of Pippin in accordance with the ancient Jewish custom, first
by St. Boniface and then by the pope himself, "a German chieftain was,"
as Gibbon expresses, it "transformed into the Lord's anointed." The pope
uttered a dire anathema of divine vengeance against any one who should
attempt to supplant the holy and meritorious race of Pippin. It became a
_religious_ duty to obey the king. He came to be regarded by the Church,
when he had duly received its sanction, as God's representative on
earth. Here we have the basis of the later idea of monarchs "by the
grace of God," against whom, however bad they might be, it was not
merely a political offense, but a sin, to revolt.
27. The sanction of Pippin's usurpation by the pope was but an
indication of the good feeling between the two greatest powers in the
West,--the head of the ever-strengthening Frankish state and the head of
the Church. This good feeling quickly ripened into an alliance,
momentous for the history of Europe. In order to understand this we must
glance at the motives which led the popes to throw off their allegiance
to their ancient sovereigns, the emperors at Constantinople, and turn
for help to Pippin and his successors.
[Sidenote: Controversy over the veneration of images and pictures,--the
so-called iconoclastic controversy.]
For more than a century after the death of Gregory the Great his
successors continued to remain respectful subjects of the emperor. They
looked to him for occasional help against the Lombards in northern
Italy, who showed a disposition to add Rome to their possessions. In
725, however, the emperor Leo III aroused the bitter opposition of the
pope by issuing a decree forbidding the usual veneration of the images
of Christ and the saints. The emperor was a thoughtful Christian and
felt keenly the taunts of the Mohammedans, who held all images in
abhorrence and regarded the Christians as idolaters. He therefore
ordered all sacred images throughout his empire to be removed from the
churches, and all figures on the church walls to be whitewashed over.
This aroused serious opposition even in Constantinople, and the farther
west one went, the more obstinate became the resistance. The pope
refused to obey the edict, for he held that the emperor had no right to
interfere with practices hallowed by the Church. He called a council
which declared all persons excommunicated who should "throw down,
destroy, profane or blaspheme the holy images." The opposition of the
West was successful, and the images kept their places.[38]
[Sidenote: The popes and the Lombards.]
[Sidenote: The pope turns to the Franks for aid.]
In spite of their abhorrence of the iconoclastic Leo and his successors,
the popes did not give up all hope that the emperors might aid them in
keeping the Lombards out of Rome. At last a Lombard ruler arose,
Aistulf, a "son of iniquity," who refused to consider the prayers or
threats of the head of the Church. In 751 Aistulf took Ravenna and
threatened Rome. He proposed to substitute his supremacy for that of the
eastern emperor and make of Italy a single state, with Rome as its
capital. This was a critical moment for the peninsula. Was Italy, like
Gaul, to be united under a single German people and to develop, as
France has done, a characteristic civilization? The Lombards had
progressed so far that they were not unfitted to organize a state that
should grow into a nation. But the head of the Church could not consent
to endanger his independence by becoming the subject of an Italian king.
It was therefore the pope who prevented the establishment of an Italian
kingdom at this time and who continued for the same reason to stand in
the way of the unification of Italy for more than a thousand years,
until he was dispossessed of his realms not many decades ago by Victor
Emmanuel. After vainly turning in his distress to his natural protector,
the emperor, the pope had no resource but to appeal to Pippin, upon
whose fidelity he had every reason to rely. He crossed the Alps and was
received with the greatest cordiality and respect by the Frankish
monarch, who returned to Italy with him and relieved Rome (754).
[Sidenote: Pippin subdues the Lombards.]
No sooner had Pippin recrossed the Alps than the Lombard king, ever
anxious to add Rome to his possessions, again invested the Eternal City.
Pope Stephen's letters to the king of the Franks at this juncture are
characteristic of the time. The pope warmly argues that Pippin owes all
his victories to St. Peter and should now hasten to the relief of his
successor. If the king permits the city of the prince of the apostles to
be lacerated and tormented by the Lombards, his own soul will be
lacerated and tormented in hell by the devil and his pestilential
angels. These arguments proved effective; Pippin immediately undertook a
second expedition to Italy, from which he did not return until the
kingdom of the Lombards had become tributary to his own, as Bavaria and
Aquitaine already were.
[Sidenote: Donation of Pippin.]
Pippin, instead of restoring to the eastern emperor the lands which the
Lombards had recently occupied, handed them over to the pope,--on
exactly what terms we do not know, since the deed of cession has
disappeared. In consequence of these important additions to the former
territories of St. Peter, the popes were thereafter the nominal rulers
of a large district in central Italy, extending across the peninsula
from Ravenna to a point well south of Rome. If, as many writers have
maintained, Pippin recognized the pope as the sovereign of this
district, we find here the first state that was destined to endure into
the nineteenth century delimited on the map of Europe. A map of Italy as
late as the year 1860 shows the same region still marked "States of the
Church."
[Sidenote: Significance of Pippin's reign.]
The reign of Pippin is remarkable in several ways. It witnessed the
strengthening of the kingly power in the Frankish state, which was soon
to embrace most of western Europe and form the starting point for the
development of the modern countries of France, Germany, and Austria. It
furnishes the first instance of the interference of a northern prince in
the affairs of Italy, which was destined to become the stumbling-block
of many a later French and German king. Lastly, the pope had now a state
of his own, which, in spite of its small size, proved one of the most
important and permanent in Europe.
Pippin and his son Charlemagne saw only the strength and not the
disadvantage that accrued to their title from the papal sanction. It is
none the less true, as Gibbon says, that "under the sacerdotal monarchy
of St. Peter, the nations began to resume the practice of seeking, on
the banks of the Tiber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of
their fate." We shall have ample evidence of this as we proceed.
General Reading.--For Mohammed and the Saracens, GILMAN, _The
Saracens_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50). Gibbon has a famous chapter
on Mohammed and another upon the conquests of the Arabs. These are
the fiftieth and fifty-first of his great work. See also MUIR,
_Life of Mohammed_ (Smith, Elder & Co., $4.50).