Emperor of the West – Charlemagne III

Carolingian currency



Attack is the Best Form of Defence

Charles’ return to his kingdom was predicated by the need to deal with the Saxons who were once again causing problems. Charles was a ruler able to view events on a long term basis; he realised that in order to stabilise his northern borders the regions to the north needed pacifying. In 776 he began construction of a fortress at Paderborn[i], near the source of the river Pader, deep inside territory formerly belonging to the Saxons.

In 777 Charles held his spring review with his nobles amid the construction site that was Paderborn. His standing was increased by the attendance of an envoy from Al-Andalus seeking Charles’ assistance. Charles was becoming a personage, a counter to the power of Constantinople.

One of the most formidable of the Saxon warriors was a champion named Widukind. He was to be a thorn in the Frankish side for many years, conducting raids into Francia and then retreating into the marshes of his homeland or into Nordmannia or Frisia. While not very competent militarily Widukind was a hero to his people and helped stiffen resistance to the invading Franks.

Frisia

In 779 the campaigning season took the Franks to the Saxons’ northern border with the Slavs. The East Saxons put up little resistance and there were mass conversions to Christianity. According to Einhard;

‘Sometimes they were so cowed and broken that they promised to abandon the worship of devils and willingly to submit themselves to the Christian religion.’[ii]

Charles established churches and monasteries in the newly captured lands in an attempt to encourage the unconverted to see the light[iii]. The Saxons’ resolve and their ability to field armies season after season remained undiminished, an annual drain on Charles’ finances. Both sides lost thousands of fighting men and the line between the two territories was very fluid and varied from season to season.

Campaigning in Spain

Umayyad Caliphate in 750

Charles’ expedition into Islamic Spain in 778 was encouraged by Pope Hadrian who wanted to expand Christian influence throughout the peninsula and eliminate the Muslim presence[iv]. The Muslims in the western Mediterranean were in disarray following the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate by the Abbasids. In Spain Abd al-Rahman I[v] resisted the Abbasid revolution and instituted an independent caliphate with a capital in Córdoba.

Abd al-Rahman was opposed by supporters of the Abbasids, religious dissidents and local leaders bidding for independence. Sulaiman ibn Yaqdhanu’l-A’rabi, the wali of Barcelona, headed the opposition which included a number of Muslim princelings holding sway over the lands between the Ebro and the Pyrenees. Those opposing Al-Rahman sent envoys to Paderborn, calling on Charles for assistance to rid them of this interloper.

Charles led an army into Islamic Spain where he was able to take Pamplona, a city damaged by earlier internecine wars. He then marched on to Zaragoza while a second army travelled to Barcelona. The garrisons of both cites refused to admit their nominal allies, the Franks. Sulaiman had been murdered by one of his colleagues and the anti-al-Rahman clique fell into disarray. Al-Rahman marched northwards sweeping the rebels before him and Charles had no option but to retreat homewards.

Einhard tells a different story. According to him;

‘Charles attacked Spain with the largest military expedition that he could collect. He crossed the Pyrenees, received the surrender of all the towns and fortresses that he attacked.’[vi]

Charles may have felt pressured into accepting the rebels’ invitation in order to match the reputation of his grandfather Charles Martel who, in 721, who pushed the Muslims out of Aquitaine and back over the Pyrenees[vii].

Roncevalles

Battle of Roncevalles

It was at the end of this Spanish campaign that Charles suffered his greatest defeat, glorified in the Chanson du Rolande written in the 11^th century. The original crossing into al-Andalus over the Pyrenees had made enemies of the Gascons living in the mountains, they objected to the taking of Pamplona. On the Frankish army’s return to Francia, circa 15^th August, the Gascons attacked at Roncevalles.

Einhard records that the dastardly Gascons attacked the Frankish army marching enfilade through the narrow valleys, at the battle of Roncevaux Pass.

‘For while his army was marching in a long line….the Gascons placed an ambuscade on the top of the mountain….and then rushing down into the valley beneath threw into disorder the last part of the baggage train and also the rearguard which acted as a protection to those in advance. In the battle which followed the Gascons slew their opponents to the last man.’[viii]

One of Charles’ captains, Roland died during the battle, along with a number of Charles’ friends and leading nobles. The humiliation of this defeat did not lower Charles’ standing in Francia.

Charles’ southern frontier was safe from attack as successive caliphs were too involved in internal problems to worry about expanding the caliphate northwards. The Christian kingdoms of Asturias, Navarre, Leon, Castile and Aragon were a buffer zone between Charles’ lands and al-Andalus.

Massacre at Verden

Charles was caught in a fight to the death with his neighbours, having staked his reputation as a leader on the fight. His treatment of the Saxons, who would not give way, became ever more savage. Failing to conquer all of Saxony would deleteriously affect the cohesion of the Franks who were drawn on by the promise of riches.

In 782 the majority of Saxon leaders, bar Widukind, capitulated to the Franks. Charles then enforced a number of constraints on the Saxons; making it illegal to destroy or raid churches, kill priests or refuse baptism. He also imposed military service on the Saxons to take the fight to the Slavic tribes on the northern borders. In retaliation Widukind rallied his fellow Saxons and rose up against the Franks. By the spring of 783 the uprising was widespread.

River Aller

Three of Charles’ captains precipitately led the Frankish army into the battle of Süntel and lost most of their men including two of the three captains and two Counts. From his base in Auxerre Charles led a second army into Saxony and summonsed the Saxon leaders to resubmit themselves to his authority. Widukind fled yet again and his fellow leaders surrendered the warriors who fought in the battle. Charles authorised the massacre of the 4,500 Saxons[ix] at Verden, beheaded near the river Aller. The Royal Frankish Annals comments;

‘The Lord King Charles rushed to the place with all the Franks that he could gather on short notice and advanced to where the Aller flows into the Weser. Then all the Saxons….surrendered the evildoers who were chiefly responsible for this revolt to be put to death—four thousand and five hundred of them. This sentence was carried out. Widukind was not among them since he had fled to Nordmannia.[x]

Trouble Abroad

Ardennes

Even the massacre did not stop the fighting; Charles had to campaign in 783 and 784 and beyond. Charles was aware that Widukind was a voice that needed silencing. In 785 Charles offered Widukind safe passage to his villa[xi] at Attigny in the Ardennes. The two men met there in the autumn where Charles showered his visitor with gifts and a pardon in return for which Widukind was baptised on 25^th December with Charles standing as his godfather.

The conversion of this renegade did not mean an end to the fighting which continued sporadically until 805. Charles arranged the government of Saxony, less as a colony, more an integral part of his kingdom leaving him free to concentrate his attention elsewhere.

Alongside the later campaigns against the Saxons Charles was having problems ruling his lands in Italy. The distances between his capital and Lombardy meant that Charles could not provide speedy decisions for problems emanating from Italy. The independence of Spoleto and Benevento were thorns in the side of the papacy while Benevento remained good relations with Byzantium[xii] which regarded it as a client state in the west.

Joining East and West

Constantine VI with his father Leo IV

The eastern empire was undergoing its own woes with the Iconoclastic Controversy[xiii]. In both east and west there were Islamic states pressing for further victories, while only Charles was extending Christianity in the north. This role increased Charles kudos as a counter-balance to Byzantium, making his support ever more attractive to the pope.

In 781 the Byzantine Empress Regent Irene began negotiations with Charles for Rotrude to marry her son Constantine VI. Irene went as far as to send an official to instruct Rotrude in Greek; but in 787 Irene broke off the engagement against her son's wishes[xiv]. Irene demanded that Rotrude be sent to Constantinople and Charles refused, breaking the agreements between the two empires.

Irene had looked for Charles support for the restoration of the practise of venerating icons, but events conspired against her. Constantinople had provided a safe harbour for Desiderius’ son Adelchis and Irene refused to return him. And Hadrian had no desire to see a rapprochement between the major powers in the west the east; he preferred to be a pivot between the two.

In retaliation to the breakdown of the agreement in 788 Irene sent an army into Italy, headed by John the Military Logothete, The army was aided by the Byzantine Governor of Sicily, Theodore. The Byzantines aimed to occupy Benevento, but the citizens, aided by the Lombards, fought off the invaders who retreated ignominiously.

Bibliography

Celts and Saxons – Peter Berrisford Ellis, Constable and Company Ltd 1995

The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages – Robert Fossier (ed), Cambridge University Press 1989

The Oxford History of Medieval Europe – George Holmes, Oxford University Press 2001

The Year 1000 – Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger, Abacus 2007

Absolute Monarchs – John Julius Norwich, Random House 2011

Emperor of the West – Hywel Williams, Quercus 2010

Charlemagne – The Great Adventure – Derek Wilson, Hutchinson 2005

www.gutenberg.org

www.wikipedia.en

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[i] He may have intended Paderborn to be his new capital

[ii] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48870/48870-h/48870-h.html#page-13

[iii] There may very well have been many instances of forced conversions

[iv] Something not achieved until the Reconquista ended in 1492; see http://wolfgang20.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/renaissance-europe-juana-la-loca.html

[v] His family had been ejected from Damascus in 750

[vi] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48870/48870-h/48870-h.html#page-13

[vii] After the battle of Toulouse

[viii] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48870/48870-h/48870-h.html#page-1

[ix] The figure is disputed

[x] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden#cite_note-SCHOLZ61-1

[xi] Built by Clovis II

[xii] Byzantium also owned lands in southern Italy

[xiii] The first of two disputes in part over whether religious pictures should be shown in churches

[xiv] Increasing enmity between mother and son

Emperor of the West – Charlemagne II

A denarius minted by Carloman

Death of Carloman

Carloman did not take the reverses in Rome lying down, sending envoys in an attempt to persuade the pope to reverse his decision. He threatened to invade Italy to break up the ‘unholy’ alliance. To counter Carloman’s attempts Desiderius marched his Lombard army on Rome. Stephen welcomed Desiderius’ men and informed Carloman’s faction in Rome that they did not have his support. Carloman’s agents were put to death on the pope’s orders.

The three way alliance of the papacy, Charles and Desiderius was thrown into disarray with the death of Carloman on 4^th December 771. Carloman died at Samoussy; his death was recorded as being of natural causes.

Charles immediately travelled to Laon where his brother’s body lay. He wanted his brother’s men to swear allegiance to him. By Frankish law Carloman’s sons should have inherited their father’s domains, but the Frankish lords cannot have wanted two young infants as their kings.

Hildegarde

A number of Carloman’s liege men readily swore allegiance to Charles but others had to be bribed or wooed. There was little dissent at Charles’ takeover of his nephews’ lands, with the notable exception of Bertrada and Charles’ cousin Adalhard of Corbie[i].

Einhard records;

‘Upon the death of Carloman, his wife with her sons and some of the leading nobles fled to Italy, and, for no obvious reason[ii], passed over her husband’s brother, and placed herself and her children under the protection of Desiderius, King of the Lombards.’[iii]

Charles returned his wife to her father; Charles no longer needed the Lombard alliance. In Desiderata’s place Charles married Hildegard, daughter of Count Gerald of Vinzgau and granddaughter of the Duke of Alamannia. Hildegard was chosen to help win the allegiance of the nobles of Alamannia[iv].

 

Family Life



Charles at dinner (medieval manuscript)

Charles and Hildegarde’s first child Charles the Younger was born the following year. Like any woman of the time, Hildegard spent much of the twelve years of her marriage producing children, six of whom lived into adulthood. In 773 she gave birth to Carloman (later renamed Pepin) and in 774 a daughter Adalhaid, born while her parents were in Italy, she died the same year.

Hildegarde then had a break for three years after which she produced another four children in a row; Rotrude, Louis[v] and his twin Lothair who died two years later and Bertha in 779. Gisela was born in 781 and Hildegarde in 782.

By 773 Charles had a concubine named Gersuinda who bore him a daughter named Adaltrude in 774. The following year Charles added another concubine to his harem, Madelgard who bore a daughter in 775 named Ruodhaid[vi].

According to Einhard Charles did not neglect his children’s education’

‘In educating his children he determined to train them, both sons and daughters, in those liberal studies to which he himself paid great attention. Further, he made his sons, as soon as their age permitted it, learn to ride like true Franks, and practise the use of arms and hunting. He ordered his daughters to learn wool work and devote attention to the spindle and distaff, for the avoidance of idleness and lethargy, and to be trained to the adoption of high principles.’ ’[vii]

War with the Saxons



Lippe River

To the north of Charles’ new enlarged kingdom lay the lands of the Saxons, long regarded as barbarians by the Romans. The continual border clashes resulting from the Saxons desire for the more hospitable lands southwards and population pressures meant that any peace treaties did not last long. The religious divide exacerbated the problems; north of Francia the inhabitants adhered to the old gods; oaths made on them did not impress the Christian negotiators and vice versa.

‘For the Saxons, like most of the races that inhabit Germany, are by nature fierce, devoted to the worship of demons and hostile to our religion, and they think it no dishonour to confound and transgress the laws of God and man.’[viii]



Charles' men destroy the Irminsul (19th century)

In 772, following a Saxon incursion over the Lippe[ix], Charles launched an invasion across his northern border, the curtain raiser to two decades of war. In the spring Charles held a conclave of all his nobles at Worms[x], and it was from here that the army;

‘Marched first into Saxony. Capturing the castle of Eresburg, he proceeded as far as the Irminsul[xi], destroyed this idol, and carried away the gold and silver which he found.’[xii]

In this campaign Charles was acting as the spear man for the Christian fight against the pagans in northern Europe. Churchmen had long been associated with the throwing down of foreign idols and converting pagans to the way, the truth and the light, now a political leader was doing the same. This joining of safeguarding his borders, possible expansion in the north and the church was to be a focus of Charles’ early reign.

Charles’ people regarded Saxon practices of human sacrifice and the burning alive of criminals with loathing[xiii]. They felt that their culture was superior to the Saxons and that they were conducting a war blessed by God, their weapons being blessed by priests for God’s holy work. Following destruction of the Irminsul the Franks returned home. This was only the first shot in a bitter fight.

The Return of the Lombards



Charles meets Hadrian (medieval)

In early 772 Pope Stephen died and Hadrian was elected pontiff in his place. This change of pope led to a collapse of the alliance with the Lombards and once again Desiderius was well placed to threaten Rome. When he received the pope’s call for help in the Autumn of 773 Charles decided to attempt a crossing of the Alps before the winter snows made the passes impossible to travel.

The Frankish army’s successful passage through the Great St Bernard Pass meant that Desiderius had to fall back on Pavia which Charles then besieged. Desiderius assumed that winter would take its toll of Charles’ army and then Charles would retreat to Francia, his tail between his legs. Charles managed to maintain the unity of his army throughout the long winter months; it was the citizens of Pavia who suffered most from hunger and disease.

Einhard recorded that;

‘Charles….did not stop [fighting] until he had received the surrender of King Desiderius, whom he had worn down after a long siege; until he had forced his son Adalgis[xiv]….to fly not only from his kingdom but from Italy; until he had restored to the Romans all that had been taken from them’[xv]



The Iron Crown of Lombardy

Having expected that Charles would demand large amounts of loot and then march home Desiderius was shocked, when suing for peace at midsummer 774, to find himself a prisoner with his family while Charles placed the iron crown of Lombardy[xvi] on his own head.

During this Italian trip Charles took time out to visit Hadrian; he was rapturously received in Rome. Charles wanted to make clear to his subjects the closeness of his relationship with Hadrian as he needed the support of the church to enforce his control over his disparate peoples. Charles was determined not to be just the pope’s poster boy, but he intended to keep his own counsel and look out for his best interests. He would not put the needs of the church above those of Francia.

Hadrian on his part wanted Charles to curb the antics of Leone I, Archbishop of Ravenna, who refused to accept the pope’s authority. There were papal lands under the control of unauthorised persons and these included the Franks. Hadrian was concerned that he had exchanged the threat of Desiderius for Charles who for his part was not prepared to jump when Hadrian demanded it. He was unimpressed and determined to return home.

Bibliography

The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages – Robert Fossier (ed), Cambridge University Press 1989

The Oxford History of Medieval Europe – George Holmes, Oxford University Press 2001

The Year 1000 – Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger, Abacus 2007

Absolute Monarchs – John Julius Norwich, Random House 2011

Emperor of the West – Hywel Williams, Quercus 2010

Charlemagne – The Great Adventure – Derek Wilson, Hutchinson 2005

www.gutenberg.org

www.wikipedia.en

---

[i] Adalhard later reconciled with his cousin and became a counsellor to Pepin of Italy when he reigned in Italy

[ii] Einhard was being more than disingenuous here

[iii] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48870/48870-h/48870-h.html#page-13

[iv] Hildegard’s brother Gerold was chosen to be Prefect of Bavaria when Bavaria was incorporated in Charles enlarged kingdom in 788

[v] Known as Louis the Pious

[vi] Later Abbess of Faremoutiers

[vii] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48870/48870-h/48870-h.html#page-32

[viii] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48870/48870-h/48870-h.html#page-13

[ix] A border fortified originally by the Romans

[x] A favoured residence of the Carolingian kings

[xi] An ancient tree trunk the Saxons believed was one of the pillars of the heavens

[xii] Charlemagne - Wilson

[xiii] There are some reports that the Saxons practised cannibalism; certainly the Franks believed this was so

[xiv] In joint kingship with his father

[xv] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48870/48870-h/48870-h.html#page-13

[xvi] The crown allegedly had a nail from the true cross worked into the golden circlet