Events

761: Waifar strikes back

by

As 761 dawned, two rulers faced each other across the Loire. To the north Pepin had delivered his ultimatum the year before, and then backed it up with a lightning strike down the eastern border of Aquitaine, looting the land and returning to Francia with minimal casualties. To the south Waifar was licking his wounds. Despite years of relative peace with which to prepare for a day he must have known was coming, his leadership and army were shoved aside when he refused to accede to Pepin’s demands. The fact that he later apparently caved on all counts could not have endeared him to his people or his commanders. He needed to take action, and so he did.

Waiofar in his wickedness started plotting against Pippin, King of the Franks. He made an alliance with Chunibert count of Bourges and Bladinus count of the Auvergne whom in the previous year he had sent with Bishop Bertelannus of Bourges to King Pippin, to the latter’s great indignation. With these and with other counts he secretly moved his entire army to Chalon, and he set fire to the whole region of Autun as far as Chalon. They laid waste the approaches to Chalon and destroyed whatever they found there. They burnt down the royal villa of Mailly. Then they went home with great spoils and plunder, there being no one to stop them. King Pippin was furious when he was told that Waiofar had plundered a large part of his kingdom and had broken his oaths that he had sworn to him.1.Fredegar, ch.42, pp.110-111.

Read more

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Fredegar, ch.42, pp.110-111.

760: Pepin declares war

by

King Pepin of Francia had waged successful battles of conquest and intimidation ever since he had succeeded (along with his brother Carloman) to the leadership of the realm in 741. He had fought in Lombardy, Saxony, Aquitaine, Bavaria, and Burgundy. He had out-maneuvered family and allies and made himself king, with the help and blessing of the pope. The kingdom had expanded under his rule, the Arabs were in retreat, he was friendly with the Byzantines, his family had solidified their grip on power, and he had no reason to believe the future would hold anything different. His son Charles had already fulfilled delicate diplomatic missions, and no doubt showed great promise as a future leader. By the year 760 Pepin was in his mid-forties, at the height of his powers, and the kingdom was at peace.

In other words, it was time to “‘Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war.”1.Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1. The dogs would be loosed on Aquitaine, the last of the great semi-independent kingdoms once ruled by the Merovingians. But even in the eighth century, a king couldn’t simply ride across the border, not a king devoted to Christendom. A casus belli had to be found. From the abduction of Helen in the dark ages of Greece, to Hitler’s invention of a violated radio post on the Polish border, rulers have always needed a reason to invade first.

Read more

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1.

Aquitaine tries to rebuild

by

The Aquitanian defeat in 732 was a crushing blow to the region’s ambitions of true independence. As recently as 718 Duke Odo had challenged Charles Martel directly, with a naked offer of assistance to Martel’s opponents in the Frankish civil war. Martel’s seemingly effortless swatting away of the Duke’s defiance should be seen for what it was: the realization by two unequal opponents just how unequal they were. The final denouement of this confrontation took another forty years to unfold, but the beginnings are clear to see.

Before we attempt to discern too much about what happened in Aquitaine prior to 760, let us bear in mind what Paul Fouracre noted, that “we can find out very little about Aquitaine in the period 675 – 750. Remarkably few charters have survived, and narrative material from the region is equally scarce.”1.Fouracre, Charles Martel, pp.83-84. But we can try.

Read more

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Fouracre, Charles Martel, pp.83-84.

Franks and Byzantines, but not Charlemagne

by

After last week’s overview of the Byzantine empire, let’s now look at what the Byzantines meant to the Franks and the rest of western Europe. Strictly for the sake of convenience, we’ll take it up to 768, when Charlemagne ascended to the Frankish throne.

First, the obvious: this is the Dark Ages, and there’s not a lot of primary evidence. This is best exemplified by a scholar of the Carolingian economy: “Our information on goods imported through Venice or other Italian ports from the eastern Mediterranean into western Europe in the Carolingian period is nearly non-existent.”1.Verhulst, Carolingian Economy, p.107. Nice. But we do have some records to review.

Italy was the nexus between east and west, as it had been in the heyday of the Roman empire. Most of what we know is through the context of theology and relations between Rome and Constantinople. During the “Twenty Years of Anarchy” through which the eastern empire suffered in the first decade of the eighth century there was little of note going on between Greece and Italy. Once the empire stabilized, the papacy was alarmed to the see emerge the first dictates of the Iconoclast Controversy. Along with Charlemagne and the Battle of Poitiers, this is a subject about which even non-specialists may have heard.

Read more

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Verhulst, Carolingian Economy, p.107.

Charlemagne’s annus horribilis

by

In November of 1992 Queen Elizabeth II gave a speech in which she lamented the “annus horribilis” she had endured over the last eleven months. Recently a fire had devastated Windsor Castle, and prior to that her children and near relatives had been the subject of much tabloid gossip and exposure.

One person from whom she would have received no sympathy would be Charlemagne. Elizabeth had been forced to see pictures of Duchess Fergie’s toes being nuzzled by a bald American millionaire while her estranged husband Andrew was away performing his princely duties. Truly enough to make any monarch go weak. But twelve centuries before Elizabeth’s travails King Charlemagne had frantically wielded the strings of power over the span of just a few months while his kingdom almost broke apart. It is possible that he felt God Himself had abandoned him.

Read more