A Brief History of the Carolingian Empire

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Charles Martel
Charlemagne and Louis the Pious
Carolingians and Feudalism
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction

Even though the early Middle Ages is probably the least researched period in the history of Western civilization, the majority of contemporary historians agree that was namely during this period that the term Europe had acquired geopolitical and cultural connotation, as opposed to a strictly geographical one. Therefore, the importance of studying different aspects of Carolingians’ reign over the Frankish Empire cannot be underestimated by those who strive to gain an insight on what were the objective preconditions for Western civilization to attain an undeniable geopolitical prominence by the end of the late Middle Ages.

In his book “The Worlds of Medieval Europe”, Clifford Backman makes a perfectly good point while stating: “The greatest achievement of the Carolingian era was the formation of a cohesive Western cultural identity. United under this family and linked together by the Carolingians’ ardent promotion of Catholicism, the peoples of Europe began to think of themselves as Europeans—members of a distinct civilization larger than their composite ethnicities, a civilization that embraced and fused the classical, Christian, and Germanic traditions” (Backman 2003, 110). While being ruled by Merovingian kings, Franks did not possess any clearly defined cultural or religious identity. They were nothing but barbarians, whose layer of cultural refinement was only a skin-deep. However, by the time Carolingians were at the peak of their power, during the reign of Charlemagne, Franks had learned to think of themselves as being not only the successors of Romans de jure but also de facto.

We can say that, despite the morally dubious nature of many Carolingian undertakings (such as the genocidal Christianization of Saxons), by spreading Christianity, the ruling members of this dynasty had succeeded in instilling Europeans with a sense of racial solidarity. In its turn, this allowed Europeans to effectively deal with Asiatic invasions, later in history. In this paper we will aim at analyzing how Carolingians had contributed to the rise of Feudalism in Europe and also how the members of this dynasty had managed to set the European realm on the course of cultural progress, even though that it was named the sworn enemy of such progress – Christian clergy, which provided Carolingian rule with “God’s given” legitimacy.

Charles Martel

Throughout their rise to power, Carolingians had to deal with a lot of resentment, on the part of the rest of Frankish nobility, simply because there were no “transcendent” preconditions for this family to claim superiority over other families of Frankish Mayors of the Palace. After the death of Dagobert II, Merovingian kings were being steadily deprived of their executive powers, which created a situation when it was named the Mayors of the Palace in Frankish kingdoms, who enjoyed factual ruling sovereignty. In its turn, this prompted the illegitimate son of duke Pippin II, Charles Martel (Carolingian), to decide that he had more rights to be considered as Pippin II’s successor, as opposed to Pippin’s illegitimate grandson Theudoald. From 714 to 719, Martel fought a two-front war: against, one one hand – Theudoald’s supporters, and other the other hand, against Neustrians, who was trying to break away from the control of Austrasians.

Martel prevailed in this war and as a result, he became the Mayor of the Palace in Australia himself. Once Charles Martel had secured his position as Pippin’s true successor, he launched Franks on a series of wars of aggression against their neighbors, in an attempt to prove that he was worthy of a position he had won. Following his victory at the Battle of Tours in 732 against Arabs, he organized annual raids into the South of Frankia, during which he managed to push Arabs back across the Pyrenees Mountains.

In 741, Charles Martel died, which instantly instigated political turmoil across Frankish kingdoms, simply because Frankish nobles were not entirely happy to see Carolingians strengthening their grip on Franks. In its turn, this caused Martel’s son Pippin the Short to realize that there were no reasons for him to remain loyal to Merovingians, who were nothing but the bunch of overindulgent teenagers, who could not possibly be entrusted with governmental responsibilities. In 750, Pippin the Short sends an envoy to Pope with a proposition to recognize Carolinians as being entitled to royal authority over Franks. Pope agreed to this proposition and permitted Carolingians to depose Merovingians. In 754, Pope Sylvester traveled north of the Alps to anoint Pippin the Short as the King of the Franks.

In his work “Medieval France: An Encyclopedia”, William Kibler provides us with insight into Sylvester’s rational considerations, which eventually caused to decide in favor of supporting Carolingians in their strive to assume political power in Frankia: “In 751, Rome and surrounding areas had been threatened by the Lombard king Aistulf. Since Sylvester was a Byzantine subject, he appealed to Emperor Constantine V for assistance, but no avail. Seeking protection elsewhere, Sylvester traveled to Ponthion in 754, where he obtained a sworn oath from Pepin III the Short to defend the Roman Church” (Kibler 1992, 303). The importance of this event can hardly be underestimated. By the middle of the 8th century, Papacy had realized that Roman Church would be so much better of while being protected by Franks under the leadership of Carolingians, rather than by remote Emperor of Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople, as it was the case before Martel’s military exploits having taken place. From 754 onwards, the protection of the Papacy’s interests becomes the duty of secular authorities in Western Europe. Moreover, Pippin’s coronation by Pope Sylvester marked the initial stage of the process of the Holy See’s influence beginning to strongly affect the essence of socio-political dynamics in Western Europe, up until the time of Reformation. And, as we are all well aware of – it is quite impossible to talk about the idea of Feudalism, without mentioning the role that Catholic Church had played, within a context of how medieval concepts of politics, culture, and economics came into being.

Charlemagne and Louis the Pious

There are many reasons for the most famous of all Carolingian rulers, Charlemagne (742-814), to be referred to as a truly remarkable individual. He was a physically imposing, intelligent, and strong-willed man, who reigned over Franks for over forty years. As a Frankish leader, Charlemagne was remarkably successful in many respects – he expanded the boundaries of the Frankish Empire to include territories that not even the Romans themselves had succeeded in subduing, he revived a title (Emperor) that no Western ruler had dared to use since 476, and he established objective preconditions for a so-called “Carolingian Renaissance” to take place while he was still alive and also during the reign of his successor Louis the Pious. While under Charlemagne, the cultural and political influence of the Frankish Empire had attained such prominence that he went down in historical memory of even those nations that had never been subjected to Frankish rule. For example, in all Slavic languages, the word “carol” means “king”.

In his book “One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups”, James Minahan refers to Charlemagne’s accomplishments in a rather brief informative manner, but even such author’s referral allows us to realize the sheer magnitude of Charlemagne’s role in the history of Western civilization: “Pipin’s son and heir, called Charlemagne, was crowned in Rome by Pope Leo III and received the title Emperor of the Romans. There had not been a Roman Emperor in the Western provinces since the late fifth century. Charlemagne established a vast administrative system, divided into some 250 counties, for governing his vast Empire. Charlemagne was the sole ruler of the Franks for more than four decades until he died in 814. Under Charlemagne’s rule, the Frankish kingdom expanded to rule parts of modern Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries” (Minahan 2000, 259). Therefore, it is not simply an accident that Charlemagne is being now equally revered in both: Germany and France – we were the actual founder of both nations, even though that providing early French and Germans with the sense of national identity has never been the part of Charlemagne’s agenda.

When Pippin the Short died in 769, he left behind two legitimate sons: Carloman and Charlemagne. Charlemagne was given the main Frankish territories of Austrasia and Neustria, while Carloman was given the Aquitania. However, even though both brothers coveted each other’s domains, it never came to an open confrontation between them, because in 771 Carloman died of natural causes. After his brother’s death, Charlemagne was quick enough to assume lordship over Carloman’s territories, even though that Carloman had sons who should have inherited their father’s lands.

Immediately, after having been recognized as the king of all Franks, Charlemagne began striking out against his neighbors in every possible direction. First, Charlemagne takes on the Saxons, who lived to the east of the Rhine River. Carolingians had a long history of raving among the Saxons for slaves, but Charlemagne did not take interest in Saxons as slaves, but as loyal subjects to his rule, thus proving himself being a progressively-minded individual for his time. He wanted to integrate Saxon territories into the Frankish kingdom, while being well aware of the fact that he would not be able to succeed with such his intention, for as long as Saxons were not converted to Christianity. However, the process of conversion of Saxon barbarians into Christianity did not go smoothly, which is why Charlemagne would resort to such a method of popularizing the “religion of peace and tolerance” among these barbarians as killing Saxon “hardened pagans” en masse.

After having subdued Saxons, Charlemagne took on the Lombards, which proved to be much less of a challenge for the Frankish king to deal with. Then, in 778, Charlemagne decided to free Spain of Muslims; however, this turned out to be quite impossible – Charlemagne was lucky to escape Spain unharmed, with the third of his army, was being destroyed by Spain’s Basks on the way of returning to Frankia.

Despite the humiliation Charlemagne suffered in 778, he did not give up on his intentions of trying to make territorial gains at the expense of Muslims, and in 801 his son Louis the Pious had succeeded in capturing Barcelona.

In its turn, this prompted Pope Leo III to decide to crown Charlemagne as Emperor in 800. The political implications of Charlemagne being proclaimed an Emperor by the Pope were being felt by people in Europe, throughout the Middle Ages – the fact that Charlemagne allowed Leo III to place Emperor’s crown upon its head meant that he was willing to recognize Holy See’s supreme authority over European worldly affairs, even though that it was far from Charlemagne’s original intentions. In his book “Charlemagne: Father of a Continent”, Alessandro Barbero says: “Public acts that remained impressed in everyone’s memory had enormous political significance. The act of Leo III placing the imperial crown on the head of the kneeling king was of this kind. The implications of this gesture could not have escaped a politician of Charlemagne’s intelligence, and this is more than enough to explain his unease” (Barbero 2004, 94). In other words, it will not be an exaggeration, on our part, to suggest that the era of Feudalism in Europe had symbolically begun in 800 when Charlemagne was being crowned as Emperor by Pope. The person who had destroyed the remnants in Feudalism in 19th century Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte, was well aware of this fact, which is why he made a point in refusing Pope to place the crown of French Emperor upon its head. On the same page of the book, from which we have already quoted, Alessandro Barbero states: “A thousand years later another emperor, Napoleon, purposely invited the Pope to his coronation but made sure that he was to place the crown on its head” (Barbero 2004, 94). In the next part of this paper, we will discuss cultural, economic, and religious aspects of how the reign of Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious had contributed to Europe embracing Feudalism, as a metaphysical mode of its geopolitical existence.

Carolingians and Feudalism

As we all know, the particularities of social hierarchy in Feudal society relate to how the relationship between feudal (noble landowners) and their vassals is being formed. The Carolingians’ rise to power became possible because they have managed to acquire the ownership rights to vast territories within Frankia while serving Merovingians. It is namely because Carolingians were able to promise their supporters land, in exchange for helping them to depose Merovingians, which allowed them to succeed with becoming kings themselves. Therefore, the very technicalities of how Merovingians have been deposed, point out the fact that even as early as the middle of the 8th century, the social dynamics within Frankish society corresponded to the essential principles of Feudalism.

However, the state of “high Feudalism” is characterized by the tendency of the Church’s clergy to continuously strive towards the acquisition of more and more land with the mean of encouraging nobles to leave their fiefdoms to “holy fathers”, as the ultimate way of proving their commitment to some “higher cause”, such as “liberation of Jerusalem from infidels”, for example. It goes without saying, of course, that during Carolingians’ reign in Frankia, the members of Christian clergy were not in a position of defying secular authorities yet; however, it was named during Charlemagne and Louis the Pious’ “time in the office”, that the extensive system of Christian parishes has been established, throughout the Empire.

Charlemagne has also yielded to priests’ demands to force Franks to annually pay one-tenth of what they owned to the Church. In their book “Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages”, Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre state: “Under Charlemagne clerical and lay assemblies developed the doctrine that ‘those who hold benefices from churches should give a ninth and a tenth to the church which owns the land. Those who hold such a benefice by metayage [share-croping] should give tithes from their portion to their priest’. Louis the Pious allowed the commutation of ninths and tenths into money rent” (Davies & Fouracre 2002, 25). In return, clerics promised Carolingian rulers to continue legitimizing the dynasty’s royal authority in their sermons.

When Carolingians ruled the Empire, there was an utter shortage of educated individuals who could be entrusted with the task of performing various executive duties, on behalf of governmental authorities. This was the reason why Charlemagne and his successors used to pay a lot of attention to the matters of education. In his book “History of Education during the Middle Ages and the Transition to Modern Times”, Frank Graves points out at Charlemagne’s taste for participating in educational pursuits as a primary motivational factor behind “Carolingian Renaissance”: “Nor did Charlemagne limit his endeavors to educating himself and his relatives and friends. Besides establishing the Palace School, he undertook to revive the monastic, cathedral, and parish schools” (Graves 1909, 30). Unlike intellectuals, associated with the Italian Renaissance of the 14th-15th centuries, Carolingian “scholars” were not interested in studying the works of ancient Roman and Greek literature as such that had value in itself – they simply utilized these works for perfecting their skills in Latin. This; however, does not undermine the importance of the “Carolingian Renaissance” as the first step on the way of European thinkers beginning to slowly break out of Christianity’s intellectual imprisonment. Thus, it appears that theological “sciences”, closely associated with the era of “high Feudalism”, trace their roots back to the time when Carolingians ruled the Frankish Empire.

Nowadays, it is namely the images of armored knights, with which people associate the Medieval Era. However, only a few of these people are aware that it was not the invention of knight’s heavy armor in the early 14th century, which accounted for the emergence of such important medieval concept as “knighthood”, but the invention of stirrups, backed horse saddles and the evolution of spear into a lance, in late 8th century. These devices were invented by Carolingian Franks and the reason why the invention of these things became possible, in the first place, is because of Charlemagne’s view of warfare as such that is being inseparably related to the concept of logistics. While knowing perfectly well that he could not afford to maintain a regular army at all times, Charlemagne nevertheless succeeded in creating a semi-regular army, while taking advantage of burgeoning Frankish Feudalism. That is, he would provide the members of Frankish nobility with land and with various rights and privileges in exchange for military “favors”, on their part. In its turn, this caused Frankish nobles to think of their military value as soldiers in terms of a pathway towards attaining social and financial prominence. Thus, these nobles were genuinely interested in becoming the “ultimate fighting machines” – knights, who were capable of charging the enemy in a truly relentless manner, while taking an advantage of their still primitive but effective armor and their lances. In his book “Daily life in the age of Charlemagne”, John J. Butt says: “With stirrups, a rider can couch a lance (hold it tightly under one’s arm or even have a permanent hold on the warrior of the horse’s saddle) and charge into the enemy… The stirrups also made it easier and more likely for a warrior to remain on the horse when he used his sword or ax against an enemy while mounted” (Butt 2002, 45). Even though the author doubts that stirrups, backed saddles, and lances were invented during the Carolingian era (nowadays, it became a common tendency among politically correct historians to regard Western civilization as “evil”, and therefore quite dissociable with the concept of cultural and scientific progress), we can have no doubts that it was named when Carolingians were in charge of running Roman (Frankish) Empire, that the earlier mentioned combat “gadgets” came into being – the laws of historical determinism fully support such our suggestion.

Conclusion

As we have suggested earlier, the true significance of Carolingian rule cannot be discussed outside of what representatives of this Frankish dynasty have done to strengthen the positions of the Roman Church in Europe. Given the fact that the period between the 10th and 15th centuries A.D. is now being commonly referred to as the “Dark Ages”, it is only natural for educated people’s attitudes towards Carolingians to be marked with a certain degree of resentfulness. Nevertheless, if it was not up to Carolingians contributing to the growth of the Church’s power, today’s European men would probably be wearing turbans around their heads and European women would probably be getting sentenced to death for their failure to observe the laws of Sharia by leaving their faces uncovered in public, as it is the case in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

Initially, Carolingians acted as the agents of death and destruction: they willingly infused healthy European (Barbarian) social north of the Alps with Semitic spiritual poison – Christianity. (When the same thing has been done to Roman society – Roman Empire had simply ceased to exist). However, given the fact that the biological and mental health of ancient Europeans of the time has not been undermined by the practice of racial mixing and by degenerative political ideologies, as is the case nowadays, Europeans were able to work out a spiritual vaccine against this poison – early Catholicism, which had nothing to do with the original essence of Christianity, as one among many Eastern suicidal cults. It is namely early Catholicism that helped European barbarians to get rid of their tribal mentality and also allowed them to unite while facing the peril of Muslim and Mongol invasions in later centuries. Therefore, even though the most prominent members of the Carolingian dynasty can hardly be thought of as the role models, they nevertheless managed to contribute enormously to the fact that, by the end of the 19th century, Europeans (and White people, in general) had realized themselves undisputed masters of the world.

Bibliography

Backman, Clifford. The Worlds of Medieval Europe. NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Barbero, Alessandro. Charlemagne: Father of a Continent. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Butt, John. Daily life in the age of Charlemagne. Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002.
Davies, Wendy & Fouracre, Paul. Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Diakonoff, Igor. Paths of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Graves, Frank. History of Education during the Middle Ages and the Transition to Modern Times. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, [1909] 2004.
Kibler, William. Medieval France: An Encyclopedia. NY: Garland, 1995.
MacLean, Simon. Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the End of the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Marenbon, John. Early Medieval Philosophy (480-1150): An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002.
Minahan, James. One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000.

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