Hist-wld 3-2

Abbot

Pepin, Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia, reunited Austrasia and Neustria and gave himself the title of "leader and prince of the Franks". By doing so he established himself as an hereditary ruler. Pepin's son, Charles Martel, sometimes called, "the Hammer" became Mayor of the Palace in 714. Charles ruled from 714 to 741 and strengthened the frontiers, put down the Muslim attacks, and protected Christian missionaries from the barbarians and the Arian Christians.

In the year 800 a significant event in European history took place. On Christmas Day of that year, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, the "Emperor of the Romans." This was an attempt to reestablish the Roman Empire with Charlemagne as its emperor and with the full support of the Roman Church behind him.

The count ruled over a county together with the bishop or archbishop of that county.

Charlemagne appointed dukes to rule over a group of counties.

Finally, Charlemagne appointed agents known as missi dominici, "messengers of God," who went out in pairs to visit the counties each year. These messengers checked the local courts and reported the state of the empire to Charlemagne.

The frontier areas, or marches as they were called, were ruled by margraves who were counts and military men. These buffer zones surrounded most of the empire.

When Baghdad was captured by the Seljuk Turks in 1055, the Abbasids lost their control of the city.

After Charlemagne's death, Viking raids along the coast of West Frankland accelerated. In 911 Charles the Simple allowed Rollo and his band of Vikings to settle on the northwest coast. This group remained; they called themselves Normans and their territory Normandy. They set up a government and became Christians. Rollo was baptized Robert and became the first Duke of Normandy.

A religious image or picture.

Do-Nothing-Kings

• Papal States
• Charles' son, Pepin the Short, ruled from 747 to 768. He ruled as Mayor of the Palace until 752 when he was elected king by the nobles. Pepin asked the Pope to anoint him king and officially declare the end of the reign of the Do-Nothing-Kings. The Pope agreed and in 754, Pepin the Short was anointed king. Pepin defeated the Lombards in Italy in 754 and 756 and gave some of the lands to the Pope. This land gift is known as the Donation of Pepin and became the Papal States.

• wergild
• Charlemagne's capital was at Aix-la-Chapelle, (the modern city of Aachen, Germany). The legal system of the empire was primarily the ancient Germanic law that retained the compensation or wergild and the trial by ordeal. The major difference was the Christian emphasis added to this law, and the Christian interpretation of the law.
• The legal system was also Germanic. The wergild, or cash value placed on each man according to rank, was the prime method of settling criminal matters.

• divided Charlemagne's kingdom
• In 843 by the Treaty of Verdun, the empire was redivided into three kingdoms. The western kingdom, or West Frankland, went to Charles the Bald. The eastern kingdom, or East Frankland, went to Louis the German. These two kingdoms formed the basis for what would become modern France and modern Germany centuries later. The middle kingdom, which was a narrow strip of land extending from the North Sea to the middle of Italy, went to Lothar. This narrow strip between the two other kingdoms was a source of constant warfare. Sections of this strip have been the source of conflict between France and Germany since that time.

Decline of the Empire. Before his death in 814, Charlemagne had his son, Louis the Pious, crowned emperor. As soon as Charlemagne died, the empire began to collapse. Louis the Pious was a weak leader and could not hold together the vast territory. He divided the empire among his three sons who immediately began to fight over their allotted lands. The two younger sons, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, joined forces against their elder brother, Lothar (or Lothair), who was then emperor. In 842, the younger brothers formalized their union by the Strasbourg Oaths.

Norsemen

• Book of Kells
• The monastic scriptorium was responsible for many illuminated manuscripts, which still exist. These manuscripts were works of art as well as important books. Two of the most famous illuminated manuscripts are the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

St. Benedict

the years A.D. 500-1,500

In 768, Pepin the Short's two sons, Charles and Carloman, took the throne. By 771, Charles was the sole ruler and reigned over his Frankish empire until 814. Charles was the first and greatest of the Carolingian kings. He became known as Charles the Great, or Charlemagne. Charlemagne was an able military leader.

In 843 by the Treaty of Verdun, the empire was redivided into three kingdoms. The western kingdom, or West Frankland, went to Charles the Bald. The eastern kingdom, or East Frankland, went to Louis the German. These two kingdoms formed the basis for what would become modern France and modern Germany centuries later. The middle kingdom, which was a narrow strip of land extending from the North Sea to the middle of Italy, went to Lothar.

Basil II became known as the "Bulgarian Slayer" because he devastated the Bulgarian army in 1014 and sent the fifteen thousand prisoners home blinded.

During the reign of Basil II, the Byzantine Empire gained the most territory held by the empire since Justinian. During this same period Constantinople became the cultural center of the Mediterranean, and Byzantine culture reached its highest point.

In the year 800 a significant event in European history took place. On Christmas Day of that year, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, the "Emperor of the Romans." This was an attempt to reestablish the Roman Empire with Charlemagne as its emperor and with the full support of the Roman Church behind him. This angered the Byzantine Empire in the east which believed it had a claim to Rome as the remaining part of the original empire. This event also reinforced the power of the church in government affairs. In effect, the church had crowned and approved Charlemagne. This question of political power of the church over temporal rulers became more serious in the centuries to follow.

The Umayyad Caliphate in Cordoba (Spain) was established in 756 by Abd ar-Rahman, a prince who had escaped the Abassid slaughter of his family. Cordoba was often under attack by the Franks and by the scattered Spanish Christian groups. In the tenth century Cordoba was the most important cultural center in Europe.

Alfred the Great, the Saxon king of Wessex from 871 to 899. A king in Anglo-Saxon England

In the sixth century, Benedict, a hermit who had several followers, established a monastery in Italy at Monte Cassino. His Benedictine Rule, based simply on work and prayer, was followed by the monks who took the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

The germanic king had a council called the witan. The king also surrounded himself with a group of warriors known as the comitatus. Being a member of the comitatus meant swearing complete loyalty to the king in everything. In return for this loyalty, the king would provide for the needs of the members, including paying their debts or legal fines. At times, kings would give land to the best warriors so that these warriors could support some of the costs of war.

The reign of Charlemagne is distinguished as a time of culture and learning; therefore the term "Carolingian Renaissance" is sometimes applied to Charlemagne's reign.

Charlemagne's capital was at Aix-la-Chapelle, (the modern city of Aachen, Germany).

• Beothius wrote "Consolation of Philosophy"
• While Boethius was imprisoned by Theodoric, he wrote his most famous work, the Consolation of Philosophy, a popular work throughout the Middle Ages.

Jerome (340-420) has already been mentioned as the monk who translated the Bible into Latin at the Pope's request. That version of the Bible is called the Latin Vulgate

A movement, called iconoclasm, began to grow. In 726 the Byzantine Emperor Leo III ordered that all religious paintings in the churches be covered, and that all religious statues be destroyed.

The greatest scholar to Charlemagne's court was the English monk, Alcuin of York (735- 804), who established a palace school, the scriptorium at Tours, and who directed most of the educational activity of the empire.