DYNASTY.
There is a certain amount of sound sense, of intelligent activity and
practical efficiency, which even the least civilized and least exacting
communities absolutely must look for in their governing body. When this
necessary share of ability and influence of a political kind are
decidedly wanting in the men who have the titles and the official posts
of power, communities seek elsewhere the qualities (and their
consequences) which they cannot do without. The sluggard Merovingians
drove the Franks, Neustrians, and Austrasians to this imperative
necessity. The last of the kings sprung from Clovis acquitted themselves
too ill or not at all of their task; and the mayors of the palace were
naturally summoned to supply their deficiencies, and to give the
populations assurance of more intelligence and energy in the exercise of
power. The origin and primitive character of these supplements of
royalty were different according to circumstances; at one time,
conformably with their title, the mayors of the palace really came into
existence in the palace of the Frankish kings, amongst the “leudes,”
charged, under the style of antrustions (lieges in the confidence of the
king: in truste regia), with the internal management of the royal affairs
and household, or amongst the superior chiefs of the army; at another, on
the contrary, it was to resist the violence and usurpation of the kings
that the “leudes,” landholders or warriors, themselves chose a chief able
to defend their interests and their rights against the royal tyranny or
incapacity. Thus we meet, at this time, with mayors of the palace of
very different political origin and intention, some appointed by the
kings to support royalty against the “leudes,” others chosen by the
“leudes” against the kings. It was especially between the Neustrian and
Austrasian mayors of the palace that this difference became striking.
Gallo-Roman feeling was more prevalent in Neustria, Germanic in
Austrasia. The majority of the Neustrian mayors supported the interests
of royalty, the Austrasian those of the aristocracy of landholders and
warriors. The last years of the Merovingian line were full of their
struggles; but a cause far more general and more powerful than these
differences and conflicts in the very heart of the Frankish dominions
determined the definitive fall of that line and the accession of another
dynasty. When in 687 the battle fought at Testry, on the banks of the
Somme, left Pepin of Heristal, duke and mayor of the palace of Austrasia,
victorious over Bertaire, mayor of the palace of Neustria, it was a
question of something very different from mere rivalry between the two
Frankish dominions and their chiefs.
At their entrance and settlement upon the left bank of the Rhine and in
Gaul, the Franks had not abandoned the right bank and Germany; there also
they remained settled and incessantly at strife with their neighbors of
Germanic race, Thuringians, Bavarians, the confederation of Allemannians,
Frisons, and Saxons, people frequently vanquished and subdued to all
appearance, but always ready to rise either for the recovery of their
independence, or, again, under the pressure of that grand movement which,
in the third century, had determined the general invasion by the
barbarians of the Roman empire. After the defeat of the Huns at Chalons,
and the founding of the Visigothic, Burgundian, and Frankish kingdoms in
Gaul, that movement had been, if not arrested, at any rate modified, and
for the moment suspended. In the sixth century it received a fresh
impulse; new nations, Avars, Tartars, Bulgarians, Slavons, and Lombards
thrust one another with mutual pressure from Asia into Europe, from
Eastern Europe into Western; from the North to the South, into Italy and
into Gaul. Driven by the Ouigour Tartars from Pannonia and Noricum
(nowadays Austria), the Lombards threw themselves first upon Italy,
crossed before long the Alps, and penetrated into Burgundy and Provence,
to the very gates of Avignon. On the Rhine and along the Jura the Franks
had to struggle on their own account against the new comers; and they
were, further, summoned into Italy by the Emperors of the East, who
wanted their aid against the Lombards. Everywhere resistance to the
invasion of barbarians became the national attitude of the Franks, and
they proudly proclaimed themselves the defenders of that West of which
they had but lately been the conquerors.
When the Merovingians were indisputably nothing but sluggard kings, and
when Ebroin, the last great mayor of the palace of Neustria, had been
assassinated (in 681), and the army of the Neustrians destroyed at the
battle of Testry (in 687), the ascendency in the heart of the whole of
Frankish Gaul passed to the Franks of Austrasia, already bound by their
geographical position to the defence of their nation in its new
settlement. There had risen up among them a family, powerful from its
vast domains, from its military and political services, and already also
from the prestige belonging to the hereditary transmission of name and
power. Its first chief known in history had been Pepin of Landen, called
The Ancient, one of the foes of Queen Brunehaut, who was so hateful to
the Austrasians, and afterwards one of the privy councillors and mayor of
the palace of Austrasia, under Dagobert I. and his son Sigebert II. He
died in 639, leaving to his family an influence already extensive. His
son Grimoald succeeded him as mayor of the palace, ingloriously; but his
grandson, by his daughter Bega, Pepin of Heristal, was for twenty-seven
years not only virtually, as mayor of the palace, but ostensibly and with
the title of duke, the real sovereign of Austrasia and all the Frankish
dominion. He did not, however, take the name of king; and four
descendants of Clovis, Thierry III., Clovis III., Childebert III., and
Dagobert III. continued to bear that title in Neustria and Burgundy,
under the preponderating influence of Pepin of Heristal. He did, during
his long sway, three things of importance. He struggled without
cessation to keep or bring back under the rule of the Franks the Germanic
nations on the right bank of the Rhine,--Frisons, Saxons, Thuringians,
Bavarians, and Allemannians; and thus to make the Frankish dominion a
bulwark against the new flood of barbarians who were pressing one another
westwards.
He rekindled in Austrasia the national spirit and some political life by
beginning again the old March parades of the Franks, which had fallen
into desuetude under the last Merovingians. Lastly, and this was,
perhaps, his most original merit, he understood of what importance, for
the Frankish kingdom, was the conversion to Christianity of the Germanic
peoples over the Rhine, and he abetted with all his might the zeal of the
popes and missionaries, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Gallo-Roman, devoted to
this great work. The two apostles of Friesland, St. Willfried and St.
Willibrod, especially the latter, had intimate relations with Pepin of
Heristal, and received from him effectual support. More than twenty
bishoprics, amongst others those of Utrecht, Mayence, Ratisbonne, Worms,
and Spire, were founded at this epoch; and one of those ardent pioneers
of Christian civilization, the Irish bishop, St. Lievin, martyred in 656
near Ghent, of which he has remained the patron saint, wrote in verse to
his friend Herbert, a little before his martyrdom, “I have seen a sun
without rays, days without light, and nights without repose. Around me
rageth a people impious and clamorous for my blood. O people, what harm
have I done thee? ‘Tis peace that I bring thee; wherefore declare war
against me? But thy barbarism will bring my triumph and give me the palm
of martyrdom. I know in whom I trust, and my hope shall not be
confounded. Whilst I am pouring forth these verses, there cometh unto me
the tired driver of the ass that beareth me the usual provisions: he
bringeth that which maketh the delights of the country, even milk and
butter and eggs; the cheeses stretch the wicker-work of the far too
narrow panniers. Why tarriest thou, good carrier? Quicken thy step;
collect thy riches, thou that this morning art so poor. As for me I am
no longer what I was, and have lost the gift of joyous verse. How could
it be other-wise when I am witness of such cruelties?”
It were difficult to describe with more pious, graceful, and melancholy
feeling a holier and a simpler life.
After so many firm and glorious acts of authority abroad, Pepin of
Heristal at his death, December 16, 714, did a deed of weakness at home.
He had two wives, Plectrude and Alpaide; he had repudiated the former to
espouse the latter, and the church, considering the second marriage
unlawful, had constantly urged him to take back Plectrude. He had by her
a son, Grimoald, who was assassinated on his way to join his father lying
ill near Liege. This son left a child, Theodoald, only six years old.
This child it was whom Pepin, either from a grandfather’s blind fondness,
or through the influence of his wife Plectrude, appointed to succeed him,
to the detriment of his two sons by Alpaide, Charles and Childebrand.
Charles, at that time twenty-five years of age, had already a name for
capacity and valor. On the death of Pepin, his widow Plectrude lost no
time in arresting and imprisoning at Cologne this son of her rival
Alpaide; but, some months afterwards, in 715, the Austrasians, having
risen against Plectrude, took Charles out of prison and set him at their
head, proclaiming him Duke of Austrasia. He was destined to become
Charles Martel.
He first of all took care to extend and secure his own authority over all
the Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians, vexed at
the long domination of the Austrasians, had taken one of themselves,
Ragenfried, as mayor of the palace, and had placed at his side a
Merovingian sluggard king, Chilperic II., whom they had dragged from a
monastery. Charles, at the head of the Austrasians, twice succeeded in
beating, first near Cambrai and then near Soissons, the Neustrian king
and mayor of the palace, pursued them to Paris, returned to Cologne, got
himself accepted by his old enemy Queen Plectrude, and remaining
temperate amidst the triumph of his ambition, he, too, took from amongst
the surviving Merovingians a sluggard king, whom he installed under the
name of Clotaire IV., himself becoming, with the simple title of Duke of
Austrasia, master of the Frankish dominion.
Being in tranquillity on the left bank of the Rhine, Charles directed
towards the right bank--towards the Frisons and the Saxons--his attention
and his efforts. After having experienced, in a first encounter, a
somewhat severe check, he took, from 715 to 718, ample revenge upon them,
repressed their attempts at invasion of Frankish territory, and pursued
them on their own, imposed tribute upon them, and commenced with vigor,
against the Saxons in particular, that struggle, at first defensive and
afterwards aggressive, which was to hold so prominent a place in the life
and glorious but blood-stained annals of his grandson Charlemagne.
In the war against the Neustrians, at the battle of Soissons in 719,
Charles had encountered in their ranks Eudes or Eudon, Duke of Aquitania
and Vasconia, that beautiful portion of Southern Gaul situated between
the Pyrenees, the Ocean, the Garonne, and the Rhone, who had been for a
long time trying to shake off the dominion of the barbarians, Visigoths
or Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians had drawn
into alliance with them, for their war against the Austrasians, this Duke
Elides, to whom they gave, as it appears, the title of king. After their
common defeat at Soissons, the Aquitanian prince withdrew precipitately
into his own country, taking with him the sluggard king of the
Neustrians, Chilperic II. Charles pursued him to the Loire, and sent
word to him, a few months afterwards, that he would enter into friendship
with him if he would deliver up Chilperic and his treasures; otherwise he
would invade and ravage Aquitania. Eudes delivered up Chilperic and his
treasures; and Charles, satisfied with having in his power this
Merovingian phantom, treated him generously, kept up his royal rank, and
at his death, which happened soon afterwards, replaced him by another
phantom of the same line, Theodoric or Thierry IV.; whom he dragged from
the abbey of Chelles, founded by Queen St. Bathilde, wife of Clovis II.,
and who for seventeen years bore the title of king, whilst Charles Martel
was ruling gloriously, and was, perhaps, the savior of the Frankish
dominions. When he contracted his alliance with the Duke of Aquitania,
Charles Martel did not know against what enemies and perils he would soon
have to struggle.
In the earlier years of the eighth century, less than a hundred years
from the death of Mahomet, the Mussulman Arabs, after having conquered
Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Northern Africa, had passed into Europe,
invaded Spain, overthrown the kingdom of the Visigoths, driven back the
remnants of the nation and their chief, Pelagius, to the north of the
Peninsula, into the Asturias and Galicia, and pushed even beyond the
Pyrenees, into old Narbonness, then called Septimania, their limitless
incursions. These fiery conquerors did not amount at that time,
according to the most probable estimates, to more than fifty thousand;
but they were under the influence of religious and warlike enthusiasm at
one and the same time; they were fanatics in the cause of Deism and of
glory. “The Arab warrior during campaigns was not excused from any one
of the essential duties of Islamism; he was bound to pray at least once a
day, on rising in the morning, at the blush of dawn. The general of the
army was its priest; he it was who, at the head of the ranks, gave the
signal for prayer, uttered the words, reminded the troops of the precepts
of the Koran, and enjoined upon them forgetfulness of personal quarrels.”
One day, on the point of engaging in a decisive battle, Moussaben-
Nossair, first governor of Mussulman Africa, was praying, according to
usage, at the head of the troops; and he omitted the invocation of the
name of the Khalif, a respectful formality indispensable on the occasion.
One of his officers, persuaded that it was a mere slip on Moussa’s part,
made a point of admonishing him. “Know thou,” said Moussa, “that we are
in such a position and at such an hour that no other name must be invoked
save that of the most high God.” Moussa was, apparently, the first Arab
chief to cross the Pyrenees and march, plundering as he went, into
Narbonness. The Arabs had but very confused ideas of Gaul; they called
it _Frandjas,_ and gave to all its inhabitants, without distinction, the
name of Frandj. The Khalif Abdelmelek, having recalled Moussa,
questioned him about the different peoples with which he had been
concerned. “And of these Frandj,” said he, “what hast thou to tell me?”
“They are a people,” answered Moussa, “very many in number and abundantly
provided with everything, brave and impetuous in attack, but spiritless
and timid under reverses.” “And how went the war betwixt them and thee?”
added Abdelmelek: “was it favorable to thee or the contrary?” “The
contrary! Nay, by Allah and the Prophet; never was my army vanquished;
never was a battalion beaten; and never did the Mussulmans hesitate to
follow me when I led them forty against fourscore.” (Fauriel, _Histoire
de la Gaule,_ &c., t. III., pp. 48, 67.)
In 719, under El-Idaur-ben-Abdel-Rhaman, a valiant and able leader, say
the Arab writers, but greedy, harsh, and cruel, the Arabs pursued their
incursions into Southern Gaul, took Narbonne, dispersed the inhabitants,
spread themselves abroad in search of plunder as far as the borders of
the Garonne, and went and laid siege to Toulouse. Eudes, Duke of
Aquitania, happened to be at Bordeaux, and he hastily summoned all the
forces of his towns and all the populations from the Pyrenees to the
Loire, and hurried to the relief of his capital. The Arabs, commanded
by a new chieftain, El-Samah, more popular amongst them than El-Haur,
awaited him beneath the walls of the city determined to give him battle.
“Have ye no fear of this multitude,” said El-Samah to his warriors; “if
God be with us, who shall be against us? “Elides had taken equally great
pains to kindle the pious courage of the Aquitanians; he spread amongst
his troops a rumor that he had but lately received as a present from Pope
Gregory II. three sponges that had served to wipe down the table at which
the sovereign pontiffs were accustomed to celebrate the communion; he had
them cut into little strips which he had distributed to all those of the
combatants who wished for them, and thereupon gave the sword to sound the
charge. The victory of the Aquitanians was complete; the Arab army was
cut in pieces; El-Samah was slain, and with him, according to the
victors’ accounts, full three hundred and seventy-five thousand of his
troops. The most truth-like testimonies and calculations do not put down
at more than from fifty to seventy thousand men, in fighting trim, the
number of Arabs that entered Spain eight or ten years previously, even
with the additions it must have received by means of the emigrations from
Africa; and undoubtedly El-Samah could not have led into Aquitania more
than from forty to forty-five thousand. However that may be, the defeat
of the Arabs before Toulouse was so serious that, four or five centuries
afterwards, Ibn-Hayan, the best of their historians, still spoke of it as
the object of solemn commemoration, and affirmed that the Arab army had
entirely perished there, without the escape of a single man. The spot in
the Roman road, between Carcassonne and Toulouse, where the battle was
fought, was one heap of dead bodies, and continued to be mentioned in the
Arab chronicles under the name of Martyrs’ Causeway. But the Arabs of
Spain were then in that unstable social condition and in that heyday of
impulsive youthfulness as a people, when men are more apt to be excited
and attracted by the prospect of bold adventures than discouraged by
reverses. El-Samah, on crossing the Pyrenees to go plundering and
conquering in the country of the Frandj, had left as his lieutenant in
the Iberian peninsula Anbessa-ben-Sohim, one of the most able, most
pious, most just, and most humane chieftains, say the Arab chronicles,
that Islamism ever produced in Europe. He, being informed of El-Samah’s
death before Toulouse, resolved to resume his enterprise and avenge his
defeat. In 725, he entered Gaul with a strong army; took Carcassonne;
reduced, either by force or by treaty, the principal towns of Septimania
to submission; and even carried the Arab arms, for the first time, beyond
the Rhone into Provence. At the news of this fresh invasion Duke Eudes
hurried from Aquitania, collecting on his march the forces of the
country, and, after having waited some time for a favorable opportunity,
gave the Arabs battle in Provence. It was indecisive at first, but
ultimately won by the Christians without other result than the retreat of
Anbessa, mortally wounded, upon the right bank of the Rhone, where he
died without having been able himself to recross the Pyrenees, but
leaving the Arabs masters of Septimania, where they established
themselves in force, taking Narbonne for capital and a starting-point
for their future enterprises.
The struggle had now begun in earnest, from the Rhone to the Garonne and
the Ocean, between the Christians of Southern Gaul and the Mussulmans of
Spain. Duke Eudes saw with profound anxiety his enemies settled in
Septimania, and ever on the point of invading and devastating Aquitania.
He had been informed that the Khalif Hashem had just appointed to the
governor-generalship of Spain Abdel-Rhaman (the Abderame of the
Christian chronicles), regarded as the most valiant of the Spanish Arabs,
and that this chieftain was making great preparations for resuming their
course of invasion. Another peril at the same time pressed heavily on
Duke Eudes: his northern neighbor, Charles, sovereign duke of the Franks,
the conqueror, beyond the Rhine, of the Frisons and Saxons, was directing
glances full of regret towards those beautiful countries of Southern
Gaul, which in former days Clovis had won from the Visigoths, and which
had been separated, little by little, from the Frankish empire. Either
justly or by way of ruse Charles accused Duke Eudes of not faithfully
observing the treaty of peace they had concluded in 720; and on this
pretext he crossed the Loire, and twice in the same year, 731, carried
fear and rapine into the possession of the Duke of Aquitania on the left
bank of that river. Eudes went, not unsuccessfully, to the rescue of
his domains; but he was soon recalled to the Pyrenees by the news he
received of the movements of Abdel-Rhaman and by the hope he had
conceived of finding, in Spain itself and under the sway of the Arabs,
an ally against their invasion of his dominions. The military command
of the Spanish frontier of the Pyrenees and of the Mussulman forces
there encamped had been intrusted to Othman-ben-Abi-Nessa, a chieftain
of renown, but no Arab, either in origin or at heart, although a
Mussulman. He belonged to the race of Berbers, whom the Romans called
Moors, a people of the north-west of Africa, conquered and subjugated by
the Arabs, but impatient under the yoke. The greater part of Abi-
Nessa’s troops were likewise Berbers and devoted to their chiefs. Abi-
Nessa, ambitious and audacious, conceived the project of seizing the
government of the Peninsula, or at the least of making himself
independent master of the districts he governed; and he entered into
negotiations with the Duke of Aquitania to secure his support. In spite
of religious differences their interests were too similar not to make an
understanding easy; and the secret alliance was soon concluded and
confirmed by a precious pledge. Duke Eudes had a daughter of rare
beauty, named Lampagie, and he gave her in marriage to Abi-Nessa, who,
say the chronicles, became desperately enamoured of her.
But whilst Eudes, trusting to this alliance, was putting himself in
motion towards the Loire to protect his possessions against a fresh
attack from the Duke of the Franks, the governor-general of Spain, Abdel-
Rhaman, informed of Abi-Nessa’s plot, was arriving with large forces at
the foot of the Pyrenees, to stamp out the rebellion. Its repression was
easy. “At the approach of Abdel-Rhaman,” say the chroniclers, “Abi-Nessa
hastened to shut himself up in Livia [the ancient capital of Cerdagne, on
the ruins of which Puycerda was built], flattering himself that he could
sustain a siege and there await succor from his father-in-law, Eudes; but
the advance-guard of Abdel-Rhaman followed him so closely and with such
ardor that it left him no leisure to make the least preparation for
defence. Abi-Nessa, had scarcely time to fly from the town and gain the
neighboring mountains with a few servants and his well-beloved Lampagie.
Already he had penetrated into an out-of-the-way and lonely pass, where
it seemed to him he ran no more risk of being discovered. He halted,
therefore, to rest himself and quench the thirst which was tormenting his
lovely companion and himself, beside a waterfall which gushed from a mass
of lofty rocks upon a piece of fresh, green turf. They were surrendering
themselves to the delightful feeling of being saved, when, all at once,
they hear a loud sound of steps and voices; they listen; they glance in
the direction of the sound, and perceive a detachment of armed men, one
of those that were out in search of them. The servants take to flight;
but Lampagie, too weary, cannot follow them, nor can Abi-Nessa abandon
Lampagie. In the twinkling of an eye they are surrounded by foes. The
chronicler Isidore of Bdja says that Abi-Nessa, in order not to fall
alive into their hands, flung himself from top to bottom of the rocks;
and an Arab historian relates that he took sword in hand, and fell
pierced with twenty lance-thrusts whilst fighting in defence of her he
loved. They cut off his head, which was forthwith carried to Abdel-
Rhaman, to whom they led away prisoner the hapless daughter of Eudes.
She was so lovely in the eyes of Abdel-Rhaman, that he thought it his
duty to send her to Damascus, to the commander of the faithful, esteeming
no other mortal worthy of her.” (Fauriel, _Historie de la Gaulle,_ &c.,
t. III., p. 115.)
Abdel-Rhaman, at ease touching the interior of Spain, reassembled the
forces he had prepared for his expedition, marched towards the Pyrenees
by Pampeluna, crossed the summit become so famous under the name of Port
de Roncevaux, and debouched by a single defile and in a single column,
say the chroniclers, upon Gallic Vasconia, greater in extent than French
Biscay now is. M. Fauriel, after scrupulous examination, according to
his custom, estimates the army of Abdel-Rhaman, whether Mussulman
adventurers flocking from all parts, or Arabs of Spain, at from
sixty-five to seventy thousand fighting men. Duke Eudes made a gallant
effort to stop his march and hurl him back towards the mountains; but
exhausted, even by certain small successes, and always forced to retire,
fight after fight, up to the approaches to Bordeaux, he crossed the
Garonne, and halted on the right bank of the river, to cover the city.
Abdel-Rhaman who had followed him closely, forced the passage of the
river, and a battle was fought, in which the Aquitanians were defeated
with immense loss. “God alone,” says Isidore of Beja, “knows the number
of those who fell.” The battle gained, Abdel-Rhaman took Bordeaux by
assault and delivered it over to his army. The plunder, to believe the
historians of the conquerors, surpassed all that had been preconceived
of the wealth of the vanquished: “The most insignificant soldier,” say
they, “had for his share plenty of topazes, jacinths, and emeralds, to
say nothing of gold, a somewhat vulgar article under the circumstances.”
What appears certain is that, at their departure from Bordeaux, the
Arabs were so laden with booty that their march became less rapid and
unimpeded than before.
In the face of this disaster, the Franks and their duke were evidently
the only support to which Eudes could have recourse; and he repaired in
all haste to Charles and invoked his aid against the common enemy, who,
after having crushed the Aquitanians, would soon attack the Franks, and
subject them in turn to ravages and outrages. Charles did not require
solicitation. He took an oath of the Duke of Aquitania to acknowledge
his sovereignty and thenceforth remain faithful to him; and then,
summoning all his warriors, Franks, Burgundians, Gallo-Romans, and
Germans from beyond the Rhine, he set himself in motion towards the
Loire. It was time. The Arabs had spread over the whole country between
the Garonne and the Loire; they had even crossed the latter river and
penetrated into Burgundy as far as Autun and Sens, ravaging the country,
the towns, and the monasteries, and massacring or dispersing the
populations. Abdel-Rhaman had heard tell of the city of Tours and its
rich abbey, the treasures whereof, it was said, surpassed those of any
other city and any other abbey in Gaul. Burning to possess it, he
recalled towards this point his scattered forces. On arriving at
Poitiers he found the gates closed and the inhabitants resolved to defend
themselves; and, after a fruitless attempt at assault, he continued his
march towards Tours. He was already beneath the walls of the place when
he learned that the Franks were rapidly advancing in vast numbers. He
fell back towards Poitiers, collecting the troops that were returning to
him from all quarters, embarrassed with the immense booty they were
dragging in their wake. He had for a moment, say the historians, an idea
of ordering his soldiers to leave or burn their booty, to keep nothing
but their arms, and think of nothing but battle: however, he did nothing
of the kind, and, to await the Franks, he fixed his camp between the
Vienne and the Clain, near Poitiers, not far from the spot where, two
hundred and twenty-five years before, Clovis had beaten the Visigoths;
or, according to others, nearer Tours, at Mire, in a plain still called
the Landes de Charlemagne.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF TOURS----193]
The Franks arrived. It was in the month of September or October, 732:
and the two armies passed a week face to face, at one time remaining in
their camps, at another deploying without attacking. It is quite certain
that neither Franks nor Arabs, neither Charles nor Abdel-Rhaman
themselves, took any such account, as we do in our day, of the importance
of the struggle in which they were on the point of engaging; it was a
struggle between East and West, South and North, Asia and Europe, the
Gospel and the Koran; and we now say, on a general consideration of
events, peoples, and ages, that the civilization of the world depended
upon it. The generations that are passing upon earth see not so far, nor
from such a height, the chances and consequences of their acts; the
Franks and Arabs, leaders and followers, did not regard themselves, now
nearly twelve centuries ago, as called upon to decide, near Poitiers,
such future question; but vaguely, instinctively they felt the grandeur
of the part they were playing, and they mutually scanned one another with
that grave curiosity which precedes a formidable encounter between
valiant warriors. At length, at the breaking of the seventh or eighth
day, Abdel-Rhaman, at the head of his cavalry, ordered a general attack;
and the Franks received it with serried ranks, astounding their enemies
by their tall stature, stout armor, and their stern immobility. “They
stood there,” says Isidore of Beja, “like solid walls or icebergs.”
During the fight, a body of Franks penetrated into the enemy’s camp,
either for pillage or to take the Arabs in the rear. The horsemen of
Abdel-Rhaman at once left the general attack, and turned back to defend
their camp or the booty deposited there. Disorder set in amongst them,
and, before long, throughout their whole army; and the battle became a
confused melley, wherein the lofty stature and stout armor of the Franks
had the advantage. A great number of Arabs and Abdel-Rhaman himself were
slain. At the approach of night both armies retired to their camps. The
next day, at dawn, the Franks moved out of theirs, to renew the
engagement. In front of them was no stir, no noise, no Arabs out of
their tents and reassembling in their ranks. Some Franks were sent to
reconnoitre, entered the enemy’s camp, and penetrated into their tents;
but they were deserted. “The Arabs had decamped silently in the night,
leaving the bulk of their booty, and by this precipitate retreat
acknowledging a more severe defeat than they had really sustained in the
fight.”
[Illustration: “The Arabs had decamped silently in the night.”----195]
Foreseeing the effect which would be produced by their reverse in the
country they had but lately traversed as conquerors, they halted nowhere,
but hastened to reenter Septimania and their stronghold Narbonne, where
they might await reenforcements from Spain. Duke Eudes, on his side,
after having, as vassal, taken the oath of allegiance to Charles, who
will be henceforth called Charles Martel (Hammer), that glorious name
which he won by the great blow he dealt the Arabs, reentered his
dominions of Aquitania and Vasconia, and applied himself to the
reestablishment there of security and of his own power. As for Charles
Martel, indefatigable alike after and before victory, he did not consider
his work in Southern Gaul as accomplished. He wished to recover and
reconstitute in its entirety the Frankish dominion; and he at once
proceeded to reunite to it Provence and the portions of the old kingdom
of Burgundy situated between the Alps and the Rhone, starting from Lyons.
His first campaign with this object, in 733, was successful; he retook
Lyons, Vienne, and Valence, without any stoppage up to the Durance, and
charged chosen “leudes” to govern these provinces with a view especially
to the repression of attempts at independence at home and incursions on
the part of the Arabs abroad. And it was not long before these two
perils showed head. The government of Charles Martel’s “leudes” was hard
to bear for populations accustomed for some time past to have their own
way, and for their local chieftains thus stripped of their influence.
Maurontius, patrician of Arles, was the most powerful and daring of these
chieftains; and he had at heart the independence of his country and his
own power far more than Frankish grandeur. Caring little, no doubt, for
the interests of religion, he entered into negotiations with Youssouf-
ben-Abdel-Rhaman, governor of Narbonne, and summoned the Mussulmans into
Provence. Youssouf lost no time in responding to the summons; and, from
734 to 736, the Arabs conquered and were in military occupation of the
left bank of the Rhone from Arles to Lyons. But in 737 Charles Martel
returned, reentered Lyons and Avignon, and, crossing the Rhone, marched
rapidly on Narbonne, to drive the Arabs from Septimania. He succeeded in
beating them within sight of their capital; but, after a few attempts at
assault, not being able to become master of it, he returned to Provence,
laying waste on his march several towns of Septimania, Agde, Maguelonne,
and Nimes, where he tried, but in vain, to destroy the famous Roman
arenas by fire, as one blows up an enemy’s fortress. A rising of the
Saxons recalled him to Northern Gaul; and scarcely had he set out from
Provence, when national insurrection and Arab invasion recommenced.
Charles Martel waited patiently as long as the Saxons resisted; but as
soon as he was at liberty on their score, in 739, he collected a strong
army, made a third campaign along the Rhone, retook Avignon, crossed the
Durance, pushed on as far as the sea, took Marseilles, and then Arles,
and drove the Arabs definitively from Provence. Some Mussulman bands
attempted to establish themselves about St. Tropez, on the rugged heights
and among the forests of the Alps; but Charles Martel carried his pursuit
even into those wild retreats, and all Southern Gaul, on the left bank of
the Rhone, was incorporated in the Frankish dominion, which will be
henceforth called France.
The ordinary revenues of Charles Martel clearly could not suffice for so
many expeditions and wars. He was obliged to attract or retain by rich
presents, particularly by gifts of lands, the warriors, old and new
“leudes,” who formed his strength. He therefore laid hands on a great
number of the domains of the Church, and gave them, with the title of
benefices, in temporary holding, often converted into proprietorship,
and under the style of precarious tenure, to the chiefs in his service.
There was nothing new in this: the Merovingian kings and the mayors of
the palace had more than once thus made free with ecclesiastical
property; but Charles Martel carried this practice much farther than his
predecessors had. He did more: he sometimes gave his warriors
ecclesiastical offices and dignities. His liege Milo received from him
the archbishoprics of Rheims and Troves; and his nephew Hugh those of
Paris, Rouen, and Bayeux, with the abbeys of Fontenelle and Jumieges.
The Church protested with all her might against such violations of her
mission and her interest, her duties and her rights. She was so
specially set against Charles Martel that, more than a century after his
death, in 858, the bishops of France, addressing themselves to Louis the
Germanic on this subject, wrote to him, “St. Eucherius, bishop of
Orleans, who now reposeth in the monastery of St. Trudon, being at
prayer, was transported into the realms of eternity; and there, amongst
other things which the Lord did show unto him, he saw Prince Charles
delivered over to the torments of the damned in the lowest regions of
hell. And St. Eucherius demanding of the angel, his guide, what was the
reason thereof, the angel answered that it was by sentence of the saints
whom he had robbed of their possessions, and who, at the day of the last
judgment, will sit with God to judge the world.”
Whilst thus making use, at the expense of the Church, and for political
interests, of material force, Charles Martel was far from
misunderstanding her moral influence and the need he had of her support
at the very time when he was incurring her anathemas. Not content with
defending Christianity against Islamism, he aided it against Paganism by
lending the Christian missionaries in Germany and the north-west of
Europe, amongst others St. Willibrod and St. Boniface, the most effectual
assistance. In 724, he addressed to all religious and political
authorities that could be reached by his influence, not only to the
bishops, “but to the dukes, counts, their vicars, our palatines, all our
agents, our envoys, and our friends this circular letter: ‘Know that a
successor of the Apostles, our father in Christ, Boniface, bishop, hath
come unto us saying that we ought to take him under our safeguard and
protection. We do you to wit that we do so very willingly. Wherefore we
have thought proper to give him confirmation thereof under our own hand,
in order that, whithersoever he may go, he may there be in peace and
safety in the name of our affection and under our safeguard; in such sort
that he may be able everywhere to render, do, and receive justice. And
if he come to find himself in any pass or necessity which cannot be
determined by law, that he may remain in peace and safety until he be
come into our presence, he and all who shall have hope in him or
dependence on him. That none may dare to be contrary-minded towards him
or do him damage; and that he may rest at all times in tranquillity and
safety under our safeguard and protection. And in order that this may be
regarded as certified, we have subscribed these letters with our own hand
and sealed them with our ring.’”
Here were clearly no vague and meaningless words, written to satisfy
solicitation, and without a thought of their consequences: they were
urgent recommendations and precise injunctions, the most proper for
securing success to the protected in the name of the protector.
Accordingly St. Boniface wrote, soon after, from the heart of Germany,
“Without the patronage of the prince of the Franks, without his order and
the fear of his power, I could not guide the people, or defend the
priests, deacons, monks, or handmaids of God, or forbid in this country
the rites of the Pagans and their sacrilegious worship of idols.”
At the same time that he protected the Christian missionaries launched
into the midst of Pagan Germany, Charles Martel showed himself equally
ready to protect, but with as much prudence as good-will, the head of the
Christian Church. In 741, Pope Gregory III. sent to him two nuncios, the
first that ever entered France in such a character, to demand of him
succor against the Lombards, the Pope’s neighbors, who were threatening
to besiege Rome. These envoys took Charles Martel “so many presents that
none had ever seen or heard tell of the like,” and amongst them the keys
of St. Peter’s tomb, with a letter in which the Pope conjured Charles
Martel not to attach any credit to the representations or words of
Luitprandt, king of the Lombards, and to lend the Roman Church that
effectual support which, for some time past, she had been vainly
expecting from the Franks and their chief. “Let them come, we are told,”
wrote the Pope, piteously, “this Charles with whom ye have sought refuge,
and the armies of the Franks; let them sustain ye, if they can, and wrest
ye from our hands.” Charles Martel was in fact on good terms with
Luitprandt, who had come to his aid in his expeditions against the Arabs
in Provence. He, however, received the Pope’s nuncios with lively
satisfaction and the most striking proofs of respect; and he promised
them, not to make war on the Lombards, but to employ his influence with
King Luitprandt to make him cease from threatening Rome. He sent, in his
turn, to the Pope two envoys of distinction, Sigebert, abbot of St.
Denis, and Grimon, abbot of Corbie, with instructions to offer him rich
presents and to really exert themselves with the king of the Lombards to
remove the dangers dreaded by the Holy See. He wished to do something in
favor of the Papacy to show sincere good-will, without making his
relations with useful allies subordinate to the desires of the Pope.
Charles Martel had not time to carry out effectually with respect to the
Papacy this policy of protection and at the same time of independence; he
died at the close of this same year, October 22, 741, at Kiersy-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 reestablishment
throughout the whole of Gaul of the Franco-Gallo-Roman empire, and the
driving back from the frontiers of this 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, Pepin, called the Short, from his small stature, and
Carloman, this sole dominion which he had with so much toil reconstituted
and defended. Pepin had Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and the suzerainty
of Aquitaine; Carloman, Austrasia, Thuringia, and Allemannia. 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 Allemannians
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, Pepin 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 Pepin, 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 Rhe, 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 whilst crossing the Alps.
The furious internal dissensions amongst 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, Pepin 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.
Pepin, 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 Chilperic
II., the last but one of the sluggard kings, and made him king, the last
of his line, with the title of Childeric 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, Pepin considered the moment arrived for putting an end to this
fiction. In 751, he sent to Pope Zachary at Rome, Burchard, bishop of
Wurtzhurg, and Fulrad, abbot of St. Denis, “to consult the Pontiff,” says
Eginhard, “on the subject of the kings then existing amongst 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,
Pepin 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, Childeric 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 Pepin’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 amongst 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 there the 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 arch-bishop; “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 amongst 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, whilst 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 Pepin, 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. “There was an important point,” says M. Fauriel,
“in respect of which the position of Charles Martel’s sons turned out to
be pretty nearly the same as that of their father: it was touching the
necessity of assigning to warriors a portion of the ecclesiastical
revenues. But they, being more religious, perhaps, than Charles Martel,
or more impressed with the importance of humoring the priestly power,
were more vexed and more anxious about the necessity under which they
found themselves of continuing to despoil the churches and of persisting
in a system which was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of all
ecclesiastical discipline. They were more eager to mitigate the evil and
to offer the Church compensation for their share in this evil to which it
was not in their power to put a stop. Accordingly at the March parade
held at Leptines in 743, it was decided, in reference to ecclesiastical
lands applied to the military service: 1st, that the churches having the
ownership of those lands should share the revenue with the lay holder;
2d, that on the death of a warrior in enjoyment of an ecclesiastical
benefice, the benefice should revert to the Church; 3d, that every
benefice by deprivation whereof any church would be reduced to poverty
should be at once restored to her. That this capitular was carried out,
or even capable of being carried out, is very doubtful; but the less
Carloman and Pepin succeeded in repairing the material losses incurred by
the Church since the accession of the Carlovingians, the more zealous
they were in promoting the growth of her moral power and the restoration
of her discipline. . . . That was the time at which there began to be
seen the spectacle of the national assemblies of the Franks, the
gatherings of the March parades transformed into ecclesiastical synods
under the presidency of the titular legate of the Roman Pontiff, and
dictating, by the mouth of the political authority, regulations and laws
with the direct and formal aim of restoring divine worship and
ecclesiastical discipline, and of assuring the spiritual welfare of the
people.” (Fauriel, _Histoire de la Gaule,_ &c., t. III., p. 224.)
Pepin, after he had been proclaimed king and had settled matters with the
Church as well as the warlike questions remaining for him to solve
permitted, directed all his efforts towards the two countries which,
after his father’s example, he longed to reunite to the Gallo-Frankish
monarchy, that is, Septimania, still occupied by the Arabs, and
Aquitaine, the independence of which was stoutly and ably defended by
Duke Eudes’ grandson, Duke Waifre. The conquest of Septimania was rather
tedious than difficult. The Franks, after having victoriously scoured
the open country of the district, kept invested during three years its
capital, Narbonne, where the Arabs of Spain, much weakened by their
dissensions, vainly tried to throw in re-enforcements. Besides the
Mussulman Arabs the population of the town numbered many Christian Goths,
who were tired of suffering for the defence of their oppressors, and who
entered into secret negotiations with the chiefs of Pepin’s army, the end
of which was, that they opened the gates of the town. In 759, then,
after forty years of Arab rule, Narbonne passed definitively under that
of the Franks, who guaranteed to the inhabitants free enjoyment of their
Gothic or Roman law and of their local institutions. It even appears
that, in the province of Spain bordering on Septimania, an Arab chief,
called Soliman, who was in command at Gerona and Barcelona, between the
Ebro and the Pyrenees, submitted to Pepin, himself and the country under
him. This was an important event indeed in the reign of Pepin, for here
was the point at which Islamism, but lately aggressive and victorious in
Southern Europe, began to feel definitively beaten and to recoil before
Christianity.
The conquest of Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more keenly disputed and
for a much longer time uncertain. Duke Waifre was as able in negotiation
as in war: at one time he seemed to accept the pacific overtures of
Pepin, or, perhaps, himself made similar, without bringing about any
result, at another he went to seek and found even in Germany allies who
caused Pepin much embarrassment and peril. The population of Aquitaine
hated the Franks; and the war, which for their duke was a question of
independent sovereignty, was for themselves a question of passionate
national feeling. Pepin, who was naturally more humane and even more
generous, it may be said, in war than his predecessors had usually been,
was nevertheless induced, in his struggle against the Duke of Aquitaine,
to ravage without mercy the countries he scoured, and to treat the
vanquished with great harshness. It was only after nine years’ war and
seven campaigns full of vicissitudes that he succeeded, not in conquering
his enemy in a decisive battle, but in gaining over some servants who
betrayed their master. In the month of July, 759, “Duke Waifre was slain
by his own folk, by the king’s advice,” says Fredegaire; and the conquest
of all Southern Gaul carried the extent and power of the Gallo-Frankish
monarchy farther and higher than it had ever yet been, even under Clovis.
In 753, Pepin had made an expedition against the Britons of Armorica, had
taken Vannes, and “subjugated,” add certain chroniclers, “the whole of
Brittany.” In point of fact Brittany was no more subjugated by Pepin
than by his predecessors; all that can be said is, that the Franks
resumed, under him, an aggressive attitude towards the Britons, as if to
vindicate a right of sovereignty.
Exactly at this epoch Pepin was engaging in a matter which did not allow
him to scatter his forces hither and thither. It has been stated
already, that in 741 Pope Gregory III. had asked aid of the Franks
against the Lombards who were threatening Rome, and that, whilst fully
entertaining the Pope’s wishes, Charles Martel had been in no hurry to
interfere by deed in the quarrel. Twelve years later, in 753, Pope
Stephen, in his turn threatened by Astolphus, king of the Lombards, after
vain attempts to obtain guarantees of peace, repaired to Paris, and
renewed to Pepin the entreaties used by Zachary. It was difficult for
Pepin to turn a deaf ear; it was Zachary who had declared that he ought
to be made king; Stephen showed readiness to anoint him a second time,
himself and his sons; and it was the eldest of these sons, Charles,
scarcely twelve years old, whom Pepin, on learning the near arrival of
the Pope, had sent to meet him and give brilliancy to his reception.
Stephen passed the winter at St. Denis, and gained the favor of the
people as well as that of the king. Astolphus peremptorily refused to
listen to the remonstrances of Pepin, who called upon him to evacuate the
towns in the exarchate of Ravenna, and to leave the Pope unmolested in
the environs of Rome as well as in Rome itself. At the March parade held
at Braine, in the spring of 754, the Franks approved of the war against
the Lombards; and at the end of the summer Pepin and his army descended
into Italy by Mount Cenis, the Lombards trying in vain to stop them as
they debouched into the valley of Suza. Astolphus beaten, and, before
long, shut up in Pavia, promised all that was demanded of him; and Pepin
and his warriors, laden with booty, returned to France, leaving at Rome
the Pope, who conjured them to remain a while in Italy, for to a
certainty, he said, king Astolphus would not keep his promises. The Pope
was right. So soon as the Franks had gone, the King of the Lombards
continued occupying the places in the exarchate and molesting the
neighborhood of Rome. The Pope, in despair and doubtful of his
auxiliaries’ return, conceived the idea of sending “to the king, the
chiefs, and the people of the Franks, a letter written, he said, by
Peter, Apostle of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, to announce to
them that, if they came in haste, he would aid them as if he were alive
according to the flesh amongst them, that they would conquer all their
enemies and make themselves sure of eternal life!” The plan was
perfectly successful: the Franks once more crossed the Alps with
enthusiasm, once more succeeded in beating the Lombards, and once more
shut up in Pavia King Astolphus, who was eager to purchase peace at any
price. He obtained it on two principal conditions: 1st, that he would
not again make a hostile attack on Roman territory or wage war against
the Pope or people of Rome; 2d, that he would henceforth recognize the
sovereignty of the Franks, pay them tribute, and cede forthwith to Pepin
the towns and all the lands, belonging to the jurisdiction of the Roman
empire, which were at that time occupied by the Lombards. By virtue of
these conditions, Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, that is to say, the Romagna,
the Duchy of Urbino and a portion of the Marches of Ancona, were at once
given up to Pepin, who, regarding them as his own direct conquest, the
fruit of victory, disposed of them forthwith, in favor of the Popes, by
that famous deed of gift which comprehended pretty nearly what has since
formed the Roman States, and which founded the temporal independence of
the Papacy, the guarantee of its independence in the exercise of the
spiritual power.
At the head of the Franks as mayor of the palace from 741, and as king
from 752, Pepin had completed in France and extended in Italy the work
which his father, Charles Martel, had begun and carried on, from 714 to
741, in State and Church. He left France reunited in one and placed at
the head of Christian Europe. He died at the monastery of St. Denis,
September 18, 768, leaving his kingdom and his dynasty thus ready to the
hands of his son, whom history has dubbed Charlemagne.