chroniclers also, that these feelings of ambition and arrogance are
attributed to the Moslems who had overthrown the Visigoth power in
Spain. And their eager expectations of new wars were excited to the
utmost on the reappointment by the Caliph of Abderrahman Ibn Abdillah
Alghafeki to the government of that country, A.D. 729, which restored
them a general who had signalized his skill and prowess during the
conquests of Africa and Spain, whose ready valor and generosity had made
him the idol of the troops, who had already been engaged in several
expeditions into Gaul, so as to be well acquainted with the national
character and tactics of the Franks, and who was known to thirst, like a
good Moslem, for revenge for the slaughter of some detachments of the
"true believers," which had been cut off on the north of the Pyrenees.
In addition to his cardinal military virtues Abderrahman is described by
the Arab writers as a model of integrity and justice. The first two
years of his second administration in Spain were occupied in severe
reforms of the abuses which under his predecessors had crept into the
system of government, and in extensive preparations for his intended
conquest in Gaul. Besides the troops which he collected from his
province, he obtained from Africa a large body of chosen Berber cavalry,
officered by Arabs of proved skill and valor; and in the summer of 732
he crossed the Pyrenees at the head of an army which some Arab writers
rate at eighty thousand strong, while some of the Christian chroniclers
swell its numbers to many hundreds of thousands more. Probably the Arab
account diminishes, but of the two keeps nearer to the truth.
It was from this formidable host, after Eudes, the count of Aquitaine,
had vainly striven to check it, after many strong cities had fallen
before it, and half the land had been overrun, that Gaul and Christendom
were at last rescued by the strong arm of Prince Charles, who acquired a
surname (_Martel_, the "Hammer") like that of the war-god of his
forefathers' creed, from the might with which he broke and shattered his
enemies in the battle.
The Merovingian kings had sunk into absolute insignificance, and had
become mere puppets of royalty before the eighth century. Charles
Martel, like his father, Pépin Héristal, was duke of the Austrasian
Franks, the bravest and most thoroughly Germanic part of the nation, and
exercised, in the name of the titular king, what little paramount
authority the turbulent minor rulers of districts and towns could be
persuaded or compelled to acknowledge. Engaged with his national
competitors in perpetual conflicts for power, and in more serious
struggles for safety against the fierce tribes of the unconverted
Frisians, Bavarians, Saxons, and Thuringians, who at that epoch assailed
with peculiar ferocity the Christianized Germans on the left bank of the
Rhine, Charles Martel added experienced skill to his natural courage,
and he had also formed a militia of veterans among the Franks.
Hallam has thrown out a doubt whether, in our admiration of his victory
at Tours, we do not judge a little too much by the event, and whether
there was not rashness in his risking the fate of France on the result
of a general battle with the invaders. But when we remember that Charles
had no standing army, and the independent spirit of the Frank warriors
who followed his standard, it seems most probable that it was not in his
power to adopt the cautious policy of watching the invaders, and wearing
out their strength by delay. So dreadful and so widespread were the
ravages of the Saracenic light cavalry throughout Gaul that it must have
been impossible to restrain for any length of time the indignant ardor
of the Franks. And, even if Charles could have persuaded his men to look
tamely on while the Arabs stormed more towns and desolated more
districts, he could not have kept an army together when the usual period
of a military expedition had expired. If, indeed, the Arab account of
the disorganization of the Moslem forces be correct, the battle was as
well timed on the part of Charles as it was, beyond all question, well
fought.
The monkish chroniclers, from whom we are obliged to glean a narrative
of this memorable campaign, bear full evidence to the terror which the
Saracen invasion inspired, and to the agony of that great struggle. The
Saracens, say they, and their King, who was called Abdirames, came out
of Spain, with all their wives, and their children, and their substance,
in such great multitudes that no man could reckon or estimate them. They
brought with them all their armor, and whatever they had, as if they
were thenceforth always to dwell in France.
"Then Abderrahman, seeing the land filled with the multitude of his
army, pierces through the mountains, tramples over rough and level
ground, plunders far into the country of the Franks, and smites all with
the sword, insomuch that when Eudes came to battle with him at the river
Garonne, and fled before him, God alone knows the number of the slain.
Then Abderrahman pursued after Count Eudes, and while he strives to
spoil and burn the holy shrine at Tours he encounters the chief of the
Austrasian Franks, Charles, a man of war from his youth up, to whom
Eudes had sent warning. There for nearly seven days they strive
intensely, and at last they set themselves in battle array, and the
nations of the North, standing firm as a wall and impenetrable as a zone
of ice, utterly slay the Arabs with the edge of the sword."
The European writers all concur in speaking of the fall of Abderrahman
as one of the principal causes of the defeat of the Arabs; who,
according to one writer, after finding that their leader was slain,
dispersed in the night, to the agreeable surprise of the Christians, who
expected the next morning to see them issue from their tents and renew
the combat. One monkish chronicler puts the loss of the Arabs at three
hundred and seventy-five thousand men, while he says that only one
thousand and seven Christians fell; a disparity of loss which he feels
bound to account for by a special interposition of Providence. I have
translated above some of the most spirited passages of these writers;
but it is impossible to collect from them anything like a full or
authentic description of the great battle itself, or of the operations
which preceded and followed it.
Though, however, we may have cause to regret the meagreness and doubtful
character of these narratives, we have the great advantage of being able
to compare the accounts given of Abderrahman's expedition by the
national writers of each side. This is a benefit which the inquirer into
antiquity so seldom can obtain that the fact of possessing it, in the
case of the battle of Tours, makes us think the historical testimony
respecting that great event more certain and satisfactory than is the
case in many other instances, where we possess abundant details
respecting military exploits, but where those details come to us from
the annalist of one nation only, and where we have, consequently, no
safeguard against the exaggerations, the distortions, and the fictions
which national vanity has so often put forth in the garb and under the
title of history. The Arabian writers who recorded the conquests and
wars of their countrymen in Spain have narrated also the expedition into
Gaul of their great Emir, and his defeat and death near Tours, in battle
with the host of the Franks under "King Caldus," the name into which
they metamorphose Charles Martel.
They tell us how there was war between the count of the Frankish
frontier and the Moslems, and how the count gathered together all his
people, and fought for a time with doubtful success. "But," say the
Arabian chroniclers, "Abderrahman drove them back; and the men of
Abderrahman were puffed up in spirit by their repeated successes, and
they were full of trust in the valor and the practice in war of their
Emir. So the Moslems smote their enemies, and passed the river Garonne,
and laid waste the country, and took captives without number. And that
army went through all places like a desolating storm. Prosperity made
these warriors insatiable. At the passage of the river Abderrahman
overthrew the count, and the count retired into his stronghold, but the
Moslems fought against it, and entered it by force and slew the count;
for everything gave way to their cimeters, which were the robbers of
lives.
"All the nations of the Franks trembled at that terrible army, and they
betook them to their king 'Caldus,' and told him of the havoc made by
the Moslem horsemen, and how they rode at their will through all the
land of Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and they told the King of the
death of their count. Then the King bade them be of good cheer, and
offered to aid them. And in the 114th year[70] he mounted his horse, and
he took with him a host that could not be numbered, and went against the
Moslems. And he came upon them at the great city of Tours. And
Abderrahman and other prudent cavaliers saw the disorder of the Moslem
troops, who were loaded with spoil; but they did not venture to
displease the soldiers by ordering them to abandon everything except
their arms and war-horses. And Abderrahman trusted in the valor of his
soldiers, and in the good fortune which had ever attended him. But, the
Arab writer remarks, such defect of discipline always is fatal to
armies.
"So Abderrahman and his host attacked Tours to gain still more spoil,
and they fought against it so fiercely that they stormed the city almost
before the eyes of the army that came to save it, and the fury and the
cruelty of the Moslems toward the inhabitants of the city were like the
fury and cruelty of raging tigers. It was manifest," adds the Arab,
"that God's chastisement was sure to follow such excesses, and Fortune
thereupon turned her back upon the Moslems.
"Near the river Owar,[71] the two great hosts of the two languages and
the two creeds were set in array against each other. The hearts of
Abderrahman, his captains, and his men, were filled with wrath and
pride, and they were the first to begin the fight. The Moslem horsemen
dashed fierce and frequent forward against the battalions of the Franks,
who resisted man-fully, and many fell dead on either side, until the
going down of the sun. Night parted the two armies, but in the gray of
the morning the Moslems returned to the battle. Their cavaliers had soon
hewn their way into the centre of the Christian host. But many of the
Moslems were fearful for the safety of the spoil which they had stored
in their tents, and a false cry arose in their ranks that some of the
enemy were plundering the camp; whereupon several squadrons of the
Moslem horsemen rode off to protect their tents. But it seemed as if
they fled, and all the host was troubled.
"And while Abderrahman strove to check their tumult and to lead them
back to battle, the warriors of the Franks came around him, and he was
pierced through with many spears, so that he died. Then all the host
fled before the enemy and many died in the flight. This deadly defeat of
the Moslems, and the loss of the great leader and good cavalier
Abderrahman, took place in the hundred and fifteenth year."[72]
It would be difficult to expect from an adversary a more explicit
confession of having been thoroughly vanquished than the Arabs here
accord to the Europeans. The points on which their narrative differs
from those of the Christians--as to how many days the conflict lasted,
whether the assailed city was actually rescued or not, and the like--are
of little moment compared with the admitted great fact that there was a
decisive trial of strength between Frank and Saracen, in which the
former conquered. The enduring importance of the battle of Tours in the
eyes of the Moslems is attested not only by the expressions of "the
deadly battle" and "the disgraceful overthrow" which their writers
constantly employ when referring to it, but also by the fact that no
more serious attempts at conquest beyond the Pyrenees were made by the
Saracens.
Charles Martel and his son and grandson were left at leisure to
consolidate and extend their power. The new Christian Roman Empire of
the West, which the genius of Charlemagne founded, and throughout which
his iron will imposed peace on the old anarchy of creeds and races, did
not indeed retain its integrity after its great ruler's death. Fresh
troubles came over Europe, but Christendom, though disunited, was safe.
The progress of civilization, and the development of the nationalities
and governments of modern Europe, from that time forth went forward in
not uninterrupted, but ultimately certain, career.
FOOTNOTES:
[69] Gibbon remarks that if the Saracen conquests had not then been
checked, "perhaps the interpretation of the _Koran_ would now be taught
in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a
circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet."
[70] Of the Hegira.
[71] Probably the Loire.
[72] An. Heg.
FOUNDING OF THE CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY
PÉPIN THE SHORT USURPS THE FRANKISH CROWN
A.D. 751
FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT
The Merovingians, the first dynasty of the Frankish kings in Gaul,
was founded by the greatest of their kings, Clovis, who in 486
overthrew the Gallo-Roman sway under Syagrius, near Soissons. After
his death in 511 his kingdom was divided among four sons who were
mere boys ranging from twelve to eighteen years of age. The young
princes extended the conquests of their father until they had
secured from the emperor Justinian title to the whole of Gaul. The
last survivor of the brother-kings was Clotaire I. Under his rule
the whole Frankish empire had been united in one; but on his
decease it was again divided among sons. This division cut the
kingdom into three separate sovereignties.
The reign of these brothers was one of horrible cruelty and
bloodshed. A second Clotaire survived them and brought the monarchy
under one sceptre. But power slipped fast from this royal
representative of the Merovingian race, and the mayor of the palace
(_major-domus)_ began to exercise an authority which in time
resulted in supremacy. When Pépin of Héristal, the greatest
territorial lord of Austrasia, took upon himself the office of
major-domus, he compelled the Merovingian King, at the battle of
Testry in 687, to invest him with the powers of that office in the
three Frankish states, Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy. This
being accomplished Pépin was practically dictator, and the
Merovingians, though allowed to remain on the throne, were simply
figure-heads from that time forth. Charles Martel was a son worthy
of Pépin of Héristal. His most notable achievement was the defeat
of the Saracen invaders at the battle of Tours, A.D. 732, which
ended the advance of Mahometanism through Western Europe.
Charles Martel died October 22, 741, at Kiersey-sur-Oise, aged fifty-two
years, and his last act was the least wise of his life. He had spent it
entirely in two great works: the reëstablishment throughout the whole of
Gaul of the Franco-Gallo-Roman Empire, and the driving back, from the
frontiers of his empire, of the Germans in the North and the Arabs in
the South. The consequence, as also the condition, of this double
success was the victory of Christianity over paganism and Islamism.
Charles Martel endangered these results by falling back into the groove
of those Merovingian kings whose shadow he had allowed to remain on the
throne. He divided between his two legitimate sons, Pépin, called the
Short, from his small stature, and Carloman, this sole dominion which he
had with so much toil reconstituted and defended. Pépin had Neustria,
Burgundy, Provence, and the suzerainty of Aquitaine; Carloman,
Austrasia, Thuringia, and Alemannia. They both, at their father's death,
took only the title of mayor of the palace, and, perhaps, of duke. The
last but one of the Merovingians, Thierry IV, had died in 737. For four
years there had been no king at all.
But when the works of men are wise and true, that is, in conformity with
the lasting wants of peoples and the natural tendency of social facts,
they get over even the mistakes of their authors. Immediately after the
death of Charles Martel, the consequences of dividing his empire became
manifest. In the North, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Alamannians
renewed their insurrections. In the South, the Arabs of Septimania
recovered their hopes of effecting an invasion; and Hunald, duke of
Aquitaine, who had succeeded his father Eudes after his death in 735,
made a fresh attempt to break away from Frankish sovereignty and win his
independence. Charles Martel had left a young son, Grippo, whose
legitimacy had been disputed, but who was not slow to set up pretensions
and to commence intriguing against his brothers.
Everywhere there burst out that reactionary movement which arises
against grand and difficult works when the strong hand that undertook
them is no longer by to maintain them; but this movement was of short
duration and to little purpose. Brought up in the school and in the fear
of their father, his two sons, Pépin and Carloman, were inoculated with
his ideas and example; they remained united in spite of the division of
dominions, and labored together, successfully, to keep down, in the
North the Saxons and Bavarians, in the South the Arabs and Aquitanians,
supplying want of unity by union, and pursuing with one accord the
constant aim of Charles Martel--abroad the security and grandeur of the
Frankish dominion, at home the cohesion of all its parts and the
efficacy of its government.
Events came to the aid of this wise conduct. Five years after the death
of Charles Martel, in 746 in fact, Carloman, already weary of the burden
of power, and seized with a fit of religious zeal, abdicated his share
of sovereignty, left his dominions to his brother Pépin, had himself
shorn by the hands of Pope Zachary, and withdrew into Italy to the
monastery of Monte Cassino. The preceding year, in 745, Hunald, duke of
Aquitaine, with more patriotic and equally pious views, also abdicated
in favor of his son Waifre, whom he thought more capable than himself of
winning the independence of Aquitaine, and went and shut himself up in a
monastery in the island of Rhé, where was the tomb of his father Eudes.
In the course of divers attempts at conspiracy and insurrection, the
Frankish princes' young brother, Grippo, was killed in combat while
crossing the Alps. The furious internal dissensions among the Arabs of
Spain, and their incessant wars with the Berbers, did not allow them to
pursue any great enterprise in Gaul. Thanks to all these circumstances,
Pépin found himself, in 747, sole master of the heritage of Clovis, and
with the sole charge of pursuing, in state and church, his father's
work, which was the unity and grandeur of Christian France.
Pépin, less enterprising than his father, but judicious, persevering,
and capable of discerning what was at the same time necessary and
possible, was well fitted to continue and consolidate what he would,
probably, never have begun and created. Like his father, he, on arriving
at power, showed pretensions to moderation or, it might be said,
modesty. He did not take the title of king; and, in concert with his
brother Carloman, he went to seek, heaven knows in what obscure asylum,
a forgotten Merovingian, son of Childéric II, the last but one of the
sluggard kings, and made him king, the last of his line, with the title
of Childéric III, himself, as well as his brother, taking only the style
of mayor of the palace. But at the end of ten years, and when he saw
himself alone at the head of the Frankish dominion, Pépin considered the
moment arrived for putting an end to this fiction. In 751 he sent to
Pope Zachary at Rome Burchard, bishop of Wuerzburg, and Fulrad, abbot of
St. Denis, "to consult the pontiff," says Eginhard, "on the subject of
the kings then existing among the Franks, and who bore only the name of
king without enjoying a tittle of royal authority."
The Pope, whom St. Boniface, the great missionary of Germany, had
prepared for the question, answered that "it was better to give the
title of king to him who exercised the sovereign power "; and next year,
in March, 752, in the presence and with the assent of the general
assembly of "leudes" and bishops gathered together at Soissons, Pépin
was proclaimed king of the Franks, and received from the hand of St.
Boniface the sacred anointment. They cut off the hair of the last
Merovingian phantom, Childéric III, and put him away in the monastery of
St. Sithiu, at St. Omer. Two years later, July 28, 754, Pope Stephen II,
having come to France to claim Pépin's support against the Lombards,
after receiving from him assurance of it, "anointed him afresh with the
holy oil in the church of St. Denis, to do honor in his person to the
dignity of royalty," and conferred the same honor on the king's two
sons, Charles and Carloman. The new Gallo-Frankish kingship and the
papacy, in the name of their common faith and common interests, thus
contracted an intimate alliance. The young Charles was hereafter to
become Charlemagne.
The same year, Boniface, whom six years before Pope Zachary had made
archbishop of Mayence, gave up one day the episcopal dignity to his
disciple Lullus, charging him to carry on the different works himself
had commenced among the churches of Germany, and to uphold the faith of
the people. "As for me," he added, "I will put myself on my road, for
the time of my passing away approacheth. I have longed for this
departure, and none can turn me from it; wherefore, my son, get all
things ready, and place in the chest with my books the winding-sheet to
wrap up my old body." And so he departed with some of his priests and
servants to go and evangelize the Frisons, the majority of whom were
still pagans and barbarians. He pitched his tent on their territory, and
was arranging to celebrate their Lord's supper, when a band of natives
came down and rushed upon the archbishop's retinue. The servitors
surrounded him, to defend him and themselves, and a battle began.
"Hold, hold, my children!" cried the archbishop; "Scripture biddeth us
return good for evil. This is the day I have long desired, and the hour
of our deliverance is at hand. Be strong in the Lord: hope in him, and
he will save your souls." The barbarians slew the holy man and the
majority of his company. A little while after, the Christians of the
neighborhood came in arms and recovered the body of St. Boniface. Near
him was a book which was stained with blood and seemed to have dropped
from his hands; it contained several works of the fathers, and among
others a writing of St. Ambrose, _On the Blessing of Death_. The death
of the pious missionary was as powerful as his preaching in converting
Friesland. It was a mode of conquest worthy of the Christian faith, and
one of which the history of Christianity had already proved the
effectiveness.
St. Boniface did not confine himself to the evangelization of the
pagans; he labored ardently in the Christian Gallo-Frankish Church to
reform the manners and ecclesiastical discipline, and to assure, while
justifying, the moral influence of the clergy by example as well as
precept. The councils, which had almost fallen into desuetude in Gaul,
became once more frequent and active there: from 742 to 753 there may be
counted seven, presided over by St. Boniface, which exercised within the
Church a salutary action. King Pépin, recognizing the services which the
archbishop of Mayence had rendered him, seconded his reformatory efforts
at one time by giving the support of his royal authority to the canons
of the councils, held often simultaneously with and almost confounded
with the laic assemblies of the Franks; at another by doing justice to
the protests of the churches against the violence and spoliation to
which they were subjected.