Charles Martel (mayor of the palace 717-41) and Pepin III (mayor 741-51, king 751-68) established the dominance of the Arnulfing/ Carolingian family in Francia by their military success against
Arabs, Aquitanians, Frisians and various peoples east of the Rhine, by building networks of aristocratic support and by forging a close alliance with the Church. Following his election
As king of the Franks with papal approval in 751, Pepin launched two expeditions against the Lombards and spent his last years campaigning against the Aquitanians and Saxons. On Pepin's death the kingdom was divided between his two sons, but on the death of the younger, Carloman, in 771, the elder, Charles 'the Great' (Charlemagne) became sole king. An energetic and charismatic war-leader, he exploited the superior numbers and technology of the Prankish army in campaigns against the Saxons (772, 775, 776), against the Lombards, whose kingdom he took over in 774, and against the Spanish Muslims, an unsuccessful expedition culminating in the massacre of his rearguard by Basques in 778. The 780s saw renewed campaigns against the Saxons (780, 782, 784, 785), visits to Italy to see his close ally the pope and intimidate the Lombard duchy of Benevento (781, 787), and the deposition of Duke Tassilo of Bavaria (788). In the 790s Charlemagne turned his attention to the powerful tributary empire of the Avars,
Which he destroyed in a series of campaigns (791, 795 and 796).
Charles also became increasingly involved with non-military matters. He began to attract scholarly advisers to his court, such as the Englishman Alcuin in 782, he constructed a new palace complex at Aachen (his main winter residence from 794), expressed his theological views in the Libri Carolini (794) and developed diplomatic ties with the Caliphate of Baghdad and Byzantium (with whom marriage alliances were planned). The seizure of sole power by the Empress Irene in 797 and the blinding of Pope Leo III in 799 proved the catalysts for the most controversial event of his reign—his intervention in Rome in 800 and coronation as Roman emperor by the restored pope on Christmas Day.
The imperial title should be seen less as the culmination of Charles' policies or as a key stage in the formation of a distinct Western identity than as the product of particular, mainly local factors. The idea of a Christian Roman Empire clearly had an appeal to Charles' ecclesiastical advisers and an emphasis on imperial renovatio can be found in art, coins, charters, writings associated with the 'Carolingian Renaissance' and the issue of new more ambitious capitularies. In practice, however, the imperial title proved a hindrance to Charles, by tying his office too closely to the papacy and Rome and antagonizing Byzantium. Disenchantment is reflected in Charles' divisio regnorum between his three sons in 806, which makes no mention of an empire, and his personal coronation of Louis the Pious in 813. No serious attempt was made to create a new universal identity for Charles' subjects. Instead a clear ethnic distinction was stressed between Franks and other ethnic groups by the writing down of separate laws for each people ruled by Charles. The machinery for administering the 'empire' remained crude, with a minimal central bureaucracy and overdependence on powerful local counts.
Innovations such as the use of capitularies, inspectors (missi) and legal advisers (scabini) were largely ineffective. Government depended more on success in war, with its consequent flow of land and booty, and personal ties such as oaths and grants of benefices to royal vassals and others.
Charles' less active later years were marked by feelings of decline, by concern about the succession and by external threats posed by the Danes, Arabs and Slavs. The fragility of his empire became evident during the reign of his conscientious but ill-advised son Louis (814-40). However, the fundamental structural weaknesses should not obscure the overriding commitment of Charles and his advisers to learning, justice and the reform of the Church, aspirations which were only realized in part but served as lasting ideals for later medieval rulers.
T. S.Brown
World History
