Chapter 10 LO1

Chapter 10 LO1

• By 1000, Civilization had spread throughout Europe  and the three-thousand- year-old European barbarian way of life had come to an end
• Shortly after 700 AD the renewal of the European civilization in the West began with the rise to power of a new dynasty in the Frankish kingdom, the Carolingians
• Around 800 AD the Carolingian warrior king Charlemagne was able to conquer barbarian peoples in central Europe
• By 700 AD the kingdom of the Franks once the most powerful state in western Europe was seemingly falling apart
• On particular family that had become exceptionally wealthy and powerful in the continual factional struggles gained the hereditary position of one and only major of the palace throughout the Frankish kingdom
• In 714 an out od wedlock son of the family by the name of Charles laid claim to the position and won it in several years of civil war
• Charles was a ruthless and warlike ruler who went down in history as Charles MArtel ("Charles the Hammer")
• In 732 an Arab army moved out of the occupied territory on a large scale raid far north into the Frankish kingdom. Charles intercepted then near the town of Tours and forced them to retreat.
• Charles MArtel's son, Pepin< decided that the time had come for the actual power in the kingdom to be recognized as the legal power
• With papal approval, the last Merovingian king was sent to live out his life as a monk, the assembled Frankish nobles chose Pepin to replace him, and Pepin was annoitned( holy oil placed on him) by Archbishop Boniface of Fulda, a monk and missionary in the kingdom's eastern lands who was close to both Pepin and the pope.
• This was the first time in history of any western European kingdom that a king began hhis rign with a solem religious ceremony
• Both coronation and annointing soon became the normal inauguration ceremony for kings throughout Europe. In this way, kings proclaimed that their power came from God.
• Charles, Pepin's son and Charles MArtel's grandson was a towering figure, celbrated in history and legan under the name of Charlemagne( the french version of Charles the Great)
• He had a 46 year reign
• Charlemagne was a rutless and cruel in battle, he fought not only for territory and spoils but alsoHe led his armies into Italy in 774 and broke the Lombard power
• His hardest campaigns which lasted some thirty years were against the Saxons
• encouraged by the church he was determined to transform the Saxons into christian subjects
• Charlemagne attacked the nomadic nation of the Avars
• Charlemagne governed through local officials called counts. Each count represented the crown in a givin region, his county. He presided over a court that met once a month, collected fines, and in time of war called out the warriors of his county.
• Sometimes for purposes of defense several counties were grouped into a karger unit headed by a duke
• Charlemagne made his capital at Aachen
• The most dramatic event of Charlemagnes's rule was his coronation as " Charles Augustus, Emperor of the Romans". The even took place on Christmas Day, 800, while the Frankish King was attending mass in Saint Peters's Basilica in Rome. Supposedly he had not planned the coronation beforehand, his biographer Einhard, reports that Pope Leo the third without warming placed the crown on his head and declaredhim emperor