Within a few years after these events it was becoming evident that the Western world was not about to conform to Papal ambitions and expectations. Pepin the Short died in 768 and, according to Frankish tradition, was succeeded by his two sons, Charles and Carloman. The weakness in this ancient system soon became plain as the brothers quarreled with each other so violently that they seriously disrupted the state to which Pepin had brought such unity and strength. But before more dangerous conflict could arise, Carloman died suddenly and inexplicably at the age of only 21 – “of some disease,” a contemporary chronicler wrote, vaguely enough; significantly, too, Carloman’s family immediately fled the kingdom and sought refuge in Italy. Charles, meanwhile, blithely ignoring his nephews’ birthrights, took over the entire kingdom, and with that set out to become one of history’s great figures – Carolus Magnus, Charles the Great, Charlemagne.
Charlemagne was still in his late twenties when he assumed the crown of all the Franks, and he was a semi-literate – meaning he was barely able to read or scratch his own name. It was said that he supported a large number of concubines, and he generally acted much like the near-barbarian people who were his heritage. But apparently Charles also possessed a keen native intelligence – enough, at any rate, that he managed to surrounded himself with the most educated people in his realm, and with their assistance was able to bring remarkable changes to Western society.
But no Germanic king, no matter how many admirable qualities he might have possessed, could ever have gained the allegiance of his lords unless he was also able to prove himself on the battlefield. And Charlemagne, above all else, was a warrior king with an ambitious plan of conquest. Most of his long reign, in fact, was spent in expanding and consolidating the Western Christian world.
In northern Germany, between the Rhine and the Elbe Rivers, lay the territory of the Saxons, brothers to the Germanic tribes who had invaded England together with the Angles more than two centuries earlier. While much of Western Europe had already become Christianized, however, the resolutely hostile Saxons clung stubbornly to their pagan rites and traditions. Christianity had until then always been introduced peacefully by missionaries to the various tribes, but on these Saxons it was now imposed by brutal force as Charlemagne began three decades of bitter campaigns against them. The Saxons, in turn, fought desperately and violently to preserve their way of life; again and again, Charlemagne’s forces conquered them, only to have them rise in revolt the moment his armies were withdrawn.
Their hostile resistance finally brought a relentlessly vicious punishment over the Saxons. The death penalty was enforced against anyone who continued to sacrifice to the pagan idols, and in one single day in 782, more than 4,000 unrepentant Saxons were executed under this edict. Mass deportations got rid of thousands more of the potential troublemakers, and under such merciless pressure even these hardy tribesmen could not hold out indefinitely. Black Monks appeared everywhere in the wake of the Frankish armies, and by the beginning of the 9th century, both Christianity and Frankish control was securely established in Saxony. The annexation of this territory brought nearly all of ancient Germany under the influence of the Carolingian kingdom. Beyond its borders now lay only the regions of barbarism, inhabited by the much despised Avars and, lowlier still, the Slavs.
The Avars were one of the many groups of wild horsemen of Mongolian or Turkish origin, who had established themselves in the Danube Valley around the 5th century. They had meanwhile made themselves masters of an area from the later Yugoslavia into Germany, dominated the Slavic population all along the Danube, and at one time had even besieged Constantinople. By the end of the 8th century, these Avars continuously raided the borders of both the Byzantine Empire and the Frankish kingdom, until Charlemagne finally decided to put an end to this turmoil. In two expeditions in 791 and 795, his armies brutally massacred the Avars nearly to the point of extinction, and just to prevent any further aggression, he also threw a march or mark across the valley of the Danube – a defensive territory under military administration. This Eastern Mark, or Ostmark, later became the basis of both the name and territory of modern Austria.
Such marks were also established in northern Germany against the Slavic tribes. As aliens and pagans these people were considered to be beyond all humanity, not even worthy of being offered Christianity. Slavs taken prisoner were usually sold like cattle, and, in fact, the word slave in all Western languages is derived from their name. Slav in 9th- and 10th-century Europe came to have the same connotations as Negro was to have nearly a thousand years later in America.
In the south, along the Pyrenees, the Frankish kingdom came into contact not with pagan barbarians, but with the Moslems, who had created a most impressive civilization along the Mediterranean shores. But serious quarrels had already begun to break out in the once solidly united world of Islam, and during one such dispute an Arab emir appealed to Charlemagne for assistance. The ambitious King of the Franks responded by personally leading an army across the mountains into Spain, but failed to accomplish anything at all. Worse yet, in the retreat which followed, the Frankish soldiers were attacked in the mountain passes by Basque warriors, who fell over them, robbed their supply train and disappeared back into the mountains.
This entire affair was little more than a minor incident in Charlemagne reign, but during the religious and martial excitement that seized Europe a few centuries later, this episode assumed the proportions of a momentous historical event and inspired the Chanson de Roland as the national epic of the French nation. At the time, however, the failed expedition did teach Charlemagne one lesson: his policy toward Spain thereafter remained purely defensive, and he established the so-called Spanish March as a buffer zone against the Moslems. It was this very territory which in later generations served the surviving Christian lords of Spain as a base in their centuries-long struggle to recapture the Iberian peninsula.
As the 8th century came to an end, the Carolingian kingdom covered virtually all of Western Europe – all of France, Germany, Ireland and northern Spain. In 774, Charlemagne had also crossed the Alps, defeated the Lombards, and had himself proclaimed King of the Franks and Lombards, adding northern and central Italy to his domain. Outside the Frankish kingdom now lay only the world of Islam and a few small pagan kingdoms in the British islands.
The Pope in Rome, however, had new problems to worry about – this time from the nobility of his own city. Eager to place one of their own on the throne of St. Peter, the upper classes of Rome had begun to spread rumors, charging Leo III with immoral conduct so vile and reprehensible, that in 799 the Pontiff was actually attacked and beaten by an enraged mob in the very streets of the city. The terrified Leo fled northward across the Alps to appeal for help from the Protector of Rome, and the following year, at a trial presided over by Charlemagne, Leo III was finally able to clear himself of all charges.
The deeply humiliated Pontiff, however, was not about to let matters rest there; in a carefully planned strategy he determined to regain some of his previous prestige and authority. Thus, on Christmas Day, 800, as Charlemagne rose from prayer before the tomb of St. Peter, the Pope suddenly stepped forward and placed a crown on the king’s head, while a well-rehearsed clergy and spectators applauded and cheered “Charlemagne Augustus, Emperor of the Romans!”
Charlemagne Augustus was furious. This same Pope who had just months earlier appealed to him for protection, the man whom he regarded as no more than a protege, had now shown the audacity to grant the most powerful ruler in the Western world the imperial crown. There can be little doubt that Charlemagne would eventually have assumed the role of Emperor in any case, but he would scarcely have permitted himself to be crowned Roman emperor. The Roman Empire by that time meant Byzantium, while the Carolingians proudly regarded themselves as a distinct and separate society from that of the East. And Charlemagne most certainly would never have accepted the imperial crown from any Pope, thereby placing himself and his empire into a subordinate position to Rome. Still, though he almost never used the title of Roman Emperor, it was on that Christmas Day in the year 800 that had been created the concept of a Holy Roman Empire, restoring in the hopes of the Western Christian people a return to the glory that once was Rome.
