Notes: The Family History of Paul Bosdet and the Bosdet Family

Matches 201 to 250 of 1,662

	Notes	Linked to
201	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1861	Source (S10)
202	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1861	Source (S34)
203	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1861	Source (S395)
204	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871	Source (S12)
205	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871	Source (S35)
206	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871	Source (S259)
207	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871	Source (S396)
208	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881	Source (S9)
209	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881	Source (S36)
210	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881	Source (S261)
211	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881	Source (S465)
212	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1891	Source (S8)
213	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1891	Source (S33)
214	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1891	Source (S262)
215	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1891	Source (S462)
216	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1901	Source (S37)
217	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1901	Source (S458)
218	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives, 1901	Source (S20)
219	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911	Source (S237)
220	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911	Source (S255)
221	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911	Source (S260)
222	Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911	Source (S327)
223	Ceolwald of Wessex was a member of the House of Wessex (see House of Wessex family tree). Although a member of the direct male line from Cynric to Egbert, Ceolwald was never king. His birth and death dates are unknown. His father was Cutha Cathwulf and his child Coenred of Wessex. Nothing more of him is known for certain. Some sites list him as married to Fafertach (620-644), daughter of Prince Finguine of Mumhan (603-644). Several list him as son of Princess Gwynhafar of Dumnonia (daughter of King Clemen ap Bledric).	Ceolwald (I4584)
224	Cerdic (from the early British name represented by modern Welsh Caradog) was probably the first King of Anglo-Saxon Wessex from 519 to 534, cited by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the founder of the kingdom of Wessex and ancestor of all its subsequent kings. (See House of Wessex family tree). Life and career According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Cerdic landed in Hampshire in 495 with his son Cynric in three keels (ships). He is said to have fought a British king named Natanleod at Netley Marsh in Hampshire and killed him thirteen years later (in 508) and to have fought at Cerdicesleag (Charford, Cerdic's Ford[1]) in 519, after which he became first king of Wessex. The conquest of the Isle of Wight is also mentioned among his campaigns, and it was later given to his kinsmen, Stuf and Wihtgar (who had supposedly arrived with the West Saxons in 514). Cerdic is said to have died in 534 and was succeeded by his son Cynric. The early history of Wessex in the Chronicle is clearly muddled [2] and enters duplicate reports of events. David Dumville has suggested that Cerdic's true regnal dates are 538-554. Some scholars suggest that Cerdic was the Saxon leader defeated by the British at the Battle of Mount Badon, which was probably fought sometime between 490 and 518. This cannot be the case if Dumville is correct, and others assign this battle to Ã†lle or another Saxon leader. While Cerdic's area of operation was, according to the Chronicle, in the area north of Southampton, there is also stronger archaeological evidence of early Anglo-Saxon activity in the area around Dorchester-on-Thames. This is the later location of the first West Saxon bishopric, in the first half of the seventh century, so it appears likely that the origins of the kingdom of Wessex are more complex than the version provided by the surviving traditions. Some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that Cerdic is purely a legendary figure, and had no actual existence, but this is a minority view. However, the earliest source for Cerdic, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was put together in the late ninth century; though it probably does record the extant tradition of the founding of Wessex, the intervening four hundred years mean that the account cannot be assumed to be accurate. Descent from Cerdic became a necessary criterion for later kings of Wessex, and Egbert of Wessex, progenitor of the English royal house and subsequent rulers of England and Britain, claimed him as an ancestor. Origins The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle provides a pedigree tracing Cerdic's ancestry back to Woden and the antediluvian patriarchs. However, Kenneth Sisam has shown that this pedigree resulted from a process of elaboration upon a root pedigree borrowed from the kings of Bernicia, and hence prior to Cerdic himself it has no historical basis. Curiously, the name Cerdic is thought to be British - a form of the name Ceretic or Caradog (in Latin Caratacus) - rather than Germanic in origin. One explanation for this is the possibility that Cerdic's mother was British and that he was given a name used by his mother's people; if so, this would provide evidence for a degree of mixing, both cultural and biological, between the invaders and the native British. Alternatively, the use of a British name may indicate that Cerdic was a native Briton, and that his dynasty became Anglicised over time. This view is supported by the non-Germanic names of some of his successors including Ceawlin, Cedda and Caedwalla. Also Cerdic's father, Elesa, has been identified by some scholars with the Romano-Briton Elasius, the "chief of the region", met by Germanus of Auxerre. If this were the case then the records of Cerdic landing in Britain, which were written down many generations after the events they purport to portray, must be looked on as being in the realms of legend. J.N.L. Myres noted that when Cerdic and Cynric first appear in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 495 they are described as ealdormen, which at that point in time was a fairly junior rank. Myres remarks that, It is thus odd to find it used here to describe the leaders of what purports to be an independent band of invaders, who origins and authority are not otherwise specified. It looks very much as if a hint is being conveyed that Cerdic and his people owed their standing to having been already concerned with administrative affairs under Roman authority on this part of the Saxon Shore. Furthermore, it is not until 519 that Cerdic and Cynric are recorded as "beginning to reign", suggesting that they ceased being dependent vassals or ealdormen and became independent kings in their own right. Summing up, Myres believed that, It is thus possible ... to think of Cerdic as the head of a partly British noble family with extensive territorial interests at the western end of the Litus Saxonicum. As such he may well have been entrusted in the last days of Roman, or sub-Roman authority with its defence. He would then be what in later Anglo-Saxon terminology could be described as an ealdorman. ... If such a dominant native family as that of Cerdic had already developed blood-relationships with existing Saxon and Jutish settlers at this end of the Saxon Shore, it could very well be tempted, once effective Roman authority had faded, to go further. It might have taken matters into its own hands and after eliminating any surviving pockets of resistance by competing British chieftains, such as the mysterious Natanleod of annal 508, it could 'begin to reign' without recognizing in future any superior authority. Some would disagree with Myres, as Cerdic is reported to have landed in Hampshire. Some also would say that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle proves that Cerdic was indeed a Saxon, however it does not prove that he had no Celtic blood. Some scholars believe it likely that his mother was a British Celt who left for the Continent, or perhaps a Continental Celt. Geoffrey Ashe postulates he may be a son of Riothamus.	King Of West Saxons, Cerdic (I1129)
225	Charibert (also spelled Caribert and Heribert), Count of Laon, was the maternal grandfather of Charlemagne. He was the father of Charles's mother, Bertrada of Laon. Only his mother is known from contemporary records. In 721, Charibert signed, with his mother Bertrada of PrÃ¼m the foundation act of the Abbey of PrÃ¼m. The same year, also with his mother, he made a donation to the Abbey of Echternach. By 744, his daughter Bertrada of Laon (by Bertrada of Cologne) had married Pippin the Younger, mayor of the palace of Neustria and Burgundy and later king of the Franks. He died before 762, as stated in an act of his daughter and son-in-law.	de Laon, Heribert Comte de Laon (I3806)
226	Charlemagne, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was born on 2 April 742 at Aachen, Germany. He was the son of Pepin III, King of the Franks and Bertha de Laon. He married, firstly, Desideria in 770. He married Hildegard of Vinzgau, daughter of Gerold I, Count of Vinzgau and Imma of Swabia, circa 772 in a Aix-la-Chapelle, France marriage. He married, thirdly, Fastrada in 784. He married, fourthly, Luitgard in 794. He died on 28 January 814 at age 71 at Aachen, Germany. He was buried at Aachen, Germany. Charlemagne, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire also went by the nick-name of Charlemagne 'the Great'. He gained the title of King Charlemagne of the Franks in 768. He gained the title of Emperor Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire on 25 December 800. Charlemagne c. 742 - 28 January 814), also known as Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus), was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the European Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and France. The son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, a Frankish queen, he succeeded his father in 768 and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman I. It has often been suggested that the relationship between Charlemagne and Carloman was not good, but it has also been argued that tensions were exaggerated by Carolingian chroniclers. Nevertheless further conflict was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771, in unexplained circumstances. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain, to which he was invited by the Muslim governor of Barcelona. Charlemagne was promised several Iberian cities in return for giving military aid to the governor; however, the deal was withdrawn. Subsequently, Charlemagne's retreating army experienced its worst defeat at the hands of the Basques, at the Battle of Roncesvalles (778) (memorialised, although heavily fictionalised, in the Song of Roland). He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By forcibly Christianizing the Saxons and banning on penalty of death their native Germanic paganism, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty. The French and German monarchies descending from the empire ruled by Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor cover most of Europe. In his acceptance speech of the Charlemagne Prize Pope John Paul II referred to him as the Pater Europae ("father of Europe"): his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity. Political background By the 6th century, the West Germanic Franks had been Christianised and Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, was the most powerful of the kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire. But following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into a state of powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed the do-nothing kings (rois fainÃ©ants). Almost all government powers of any consequence were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace or major domus. In 687, Pippin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry and became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pippin himself was the grandson of two of the most important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pippin of Landen. Pippin the Middle was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel (the Hammer). After 737, Charles governed the Franks without a king on the throne but declined to call himself "king". Charles was succeeded in 741 by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. To curb separatism in the periphery of the realm, in 743 the brothers placed on the throne Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian king. After Carloman resigned office in 746 to enter the church by preference as a monk, Pepin brought the question of the kingship before Pope Zachary, asking whether it was good for a king to have no royal power. The pope handed down his decision in 749. He decreed (mandavit) that it was better for Pepin, who had the powers of high office as Mayor, to be called king, so as not to confuse the hierarchy (ordo). He therefore ordered him (iussit) to become "true king." In 750, Pepin was elected by an assembly of the Franks, anointed by the archbishop and then raised (elevatus) to the office of king. Branding Childeric III as "the false king," the Pope ordered him into a monastery. Thus was the Merovingian dynasty replaced by the Carolingian dynasty, named after Pepin's father, Charles Martel. In 753 Pope Stephen II fled from Italy to Francia appealing for assistance pro iustitiis sancti Petri ("for the rights of St. Peter") to Pepin. He was supported in this appeal by Carloman, Charles' brother. In return the pope could only provide legitimacy, which he did by again anointing and confirming Pepin, this time adding his young sons, Carolus and Carloman, to the royal patrimony, now heirs to the great realm that already covered most of western and central Europe. In 754 Pepin accepted the Pope's invitation to visit Italy on behalf of St. Peter's rights, dealing successfully with the Lombards. Under the Carolingians, the Frankish kingdom spread to encompass an area including most of Western Europe. The division of that kingdom formed France and Germany; and the religious, political, and artistic evolutions originating from a centrally positioned Francia made a defining imprint on the whole of Europe. Personal background Ancestry Charlemagne was the eldest child of Pepin the Short (714 - 24 September 768, reigned from 751) and his wife Bertrada of Laon (720 - 12 July 783), daughter of Caribert of Laon and Bertrada of Cologne. Records name only Carloman, Gisela, and a short-lived child named Pippin as his younger siblings. The semi-mythical Redburga, wife of King Egbert of Wessex, is sometimes claimed to be his sister (or sister-in-law or niece). Date of birth The most likely date of Charlemagne's birth is reconstructed from a number of sources. A date of 742 calculated from Einhard's date of death as January 814 at age 72 suffers from the defect of being two years before his parents' marriage in 744. The year given in the Annales Petaviani as 747 would be more likely, except that it contradicts Einhard and a few other sources in making Charlemagne less than a septuagenarian at his death. A month and day of April 2 is established by a calendar from Lorsch Abbey. In 747 that day fell on Easter, a coincidence that would have been remembered but was not. If Easter was being used as the beginning of the calendar year, then 2 April 747 could have been, by modern reckoning, 2 April 748 (not an Easter). The date favored by the preponderance of evidence is 2 April 742, based on the septuagenarian age at death.[8] This date would appear to support an initial illegitimacy of birth, which is not, however, mentioned by Einhard. Place of birth Charlemagne was most likely born in Herstal, Wallonia, where his father was born, a town close to LiÃ¨ge in modern day Belgium. The Merovingians had a number of hunting villas in the vicinity. LiÃ¨ge is close to the region from where both the Merovingian and Carolingian families originated. He went to live in his father's villa in Jupille when he was around seven, which caused Jupille to be listed as a possible place of birth in almost every history book. Other cities have been suggested, including Aachen, DÃ¼ren, Gauting, MÃ¼rlenbach, and PrÃ¼m. No definitive evidence as to which is the right candidate exists. Name Dubbed Charles le Magne, "Charles the Great," by subsequent Old French historians, becoming Charlemagne in English after the Norman conquest of England, he was named Karl (Carolus) after his grandfather, Charles Martel. Carolus Magnus was universal, leading to numerous translations in many languages of Europe: German Karl der Grosse, Dutch Karel de Grote, Danish Karl den Store, Italian Carlo Magno, Hungarian Nagy KÃ¡roly, Polish Karol Wielki, Czech Karel VelikÃ½, Russian Karl Velikij, and so on. According to Julius Pokorny, the historical linguist and Indo-Europeanist, the root meaning of Karl is "old man", from Indo-European ger-, where the g is a palatal consonant, meaning "to rub; to be old; grain." An old man has been worn away and is now grey with age. "Old man" descended into words with different senses. In all the reflex languages a husband is "the old man" or in feminine form "the old lady". He can be an "old fool" as in English churl or a "sad case" as in Persian zar, but in the Germanic languages he becomes something more exalted. Old Norse Karl, Old English Ceorl, Old High German karel is a free man, a citizen, not a slave or an alien. As far as the civilizations established in imitation of classical city-states are concerned, such as the Roman, which had its senatus, "the old men," Karl means respected senior, similar to the English vernacular for a commander, "the old man." The common Germanic was karilaz, on which the Latin Carolus, English Charles, is based. Regardless of its previously understood meaning, Charles' achievements altered the meaning of the word. In many European languages, the very word for "king" derives from his name; e.g., Polish: krÃ³l, Czech: krÃ¡l, Slovak: krÃ¡l, Hungarian: kirÃ¡ly, Lithuanian: karalius, Latvian: karalis, Croatian: kralj, Turkish: kral. This development parallels that of the name of the Caesars in the original Roman Empire, which became Kaiser and Czar, among others. Language By Charlemagne's time the French vernacular had already diverged significantly from Latin. This is evidenced by one of the regulations of the Council of Tours (813), which required that the parish priests preach either in the "rusticam Romanam linguam" (Romance) or "Theotiscam" (the Germanic vernacular) rather than in Latin. The goal of this rule was to make the sermons comprehensible to the common people, who must therefore have been either Romance speakers or Germanic speakers. Charlemagne himself probably spoke a Rhenish Franconian dialect of Old High German. Apart from his native language he also spoke Latin "as well as his native tongue" and understood a bit of Greek, according to his biographer Einhard (Grecam vero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat, "he could understand Greek better than he could speak it"). Einhard also writes that Charlemagne started a "grammar of his native language" and "gave the months names in his own tongue". All of his daughters received Old High German names. The largely fictional account of Charlemagneâ€™s Iberian campaigns by Pseudo-Turpin, written some three centuries after his death, gave rise to the legend that the king also spoke Arabic. Appearance Charlemagne's personal appearance is known from a good description by a personal associate, Einhard, author after his death of the biography Vita Karoli Magni. Einhard tells in his twenty-second chapter: "He was heavily built, sturdy, and of considerable stature, although not exceptionally so, since his height was seven times the length of his own foot. He had a round head, large and lively eyes, a slightly larger nose than usual, white but still attractive hair, a bright and cheerful expression, a short and fat neck, and he enjoyed good health, except for the fevers that affected him in the last few years of his life. Toward the end, he dragged one leg. Even then, he stubbornly did what he wanted and refused to listen to doctors, indeed he detested them, because they wanted to persuade him to stop eating roast meat, as was his wont, and to be content with boiled meat." The physical portrait provided by Einhard is confirmed by contemporary depictions of the emperor, such as coins and his 8-inch (20 cm) bronze statue kept in the Louvre. In 1861, Charlemagne's tomb was opened by scientists who reconstructed his skeleton and estimated it to be measured 74.9 in (190 cm). An estimate of his height from an X-ray and CT Scan of his tibia performed in 2010 is 1.84 m (72 in). This puts him in the 99th percentile of tall people of his period, given that average male height of his time was 1.69 m (67 in). The width of the bone suggested he was gracile but not robust in body build. Dress Charlemagne wore the traditional costume of the Frankish people, described by Einhard thus: "He used to wear the national, that is to say, the Frank, dress-next his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet, and he protected his shoulders and chest in winter by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins." He wore a blue cloak and always carried a sword with him. The typical sword was of a golden or silver hilt. He wore fancy jewelled swords to banquets or ambassadorial receptions. Nevertheless:[23] "He despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed himself to be robed in them, except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys, and shoes; the first time at the request of Pope Hadrian, the second to gratify Leo, Hadrian's successor." He could rise to the occasion when necessary. On great feast days, he wore embroidery and jewels on his clothing and shoes. He had a golden buckle for his cloak on such occasions and would appear with his great diadem, but he despised such apparel, according to Einhard, and usually dressed like the common people. Rise to power Early life Einhard says of the early life of Charles: "It would be folly, I think, to write a word concerning Charles' birth and infancy, or even his boyhood, for nothing has ever been written on the subject, and there is no one alive now who can give information on it. Accordingly, I determined to pass that by as unknown, and to proceed at once to treat of his character, his deed, and such other facts of his life as are worth telling and setting forth, and shall first give an account of his deed at home and abroad, then of his character and pursuits, and lastly of his administration and death, omitting nothing worth knowing or necessary to know." The ambiguous high office The most powerful officers of the Frankish people, the Mayor of the Palace (Maior Domus) and one or more kings (rex, reges) were appointed by election of the people; that is, no regular elections were held, but they were held as required to elect officers ad quos summa imperii pertinebat, "to whom the highest matters of state pertained." Evidently interim decisions could be made by the Pope, which ultimately needed to be ratified by an assembly of the people, which met once a year. Before Pepin the Short, initially a Mayor, was elected king in 750, he held the high office "as though hereditary" (velut hereditario fungebatur). Einhard explains that "the honor" was usually "given by the people" to the distinguished, but Pepin and his brother Carloman received it as though hereditary, as did their father, Charles Martel. There was, however, a certain ambiguity about quasi-inheritance. The office was treated as joint property: one Mayorship held by two brothers jointly. Each, however, had his own geographic jurisdiction. When Carloman decided to resign, becoming ultimately a Benedictine at Monte Cassino, the question of the disposition of his quasi-share was settled by the pope. He converted the Mayorship into a Kingship and awarded the joint property to Pepin, who now had the full right to pass it on by inheritance. This decision was not accepted by all members of the family. Carloman had consented to the temporary tenancy of his own share, which he intended to pass on to his own son, Drogo, when the inheritance should be settled at someone's death. By the Pope's decision, in which Pepin had a hand, Drogo was to be disqualified as an heir in favor of his cousin Charles. He took up arms in opposition to the decision and was joined by Grifo, a half-brother of Pepin and Carloman, who had been given a share by Charles Martel, but was stripped of it and held under loose arrest by his half-brothers after an attempt to seize their shares by military action. By 753 all was over. Grifo perished in combat in the Battle of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne while Drogo was hunted down and taken into custody. On the death of Pepin, September 24, 768, the kingship passed jointly to his sons, "with divine assent" (divino nutu). According to the Life, Pepin died in Paris. The Franks "in general assembly" (generali conventu) gave them both the rank of king (reges) but "partitioned the whole body of the kingdom equally" (totum regni corpus ex aequo partirentur). The annals[30] tell a slightly different version. The king died at St. Denis, which is, however, still in Paris. The two "lords" (domni) were "elevated to kingship" (elevati sunt in regnum), Carolus on October 9 in Noyon, Carloman on an unspecified date in Soissons. If born in 742, Carolus was 26 years old, but he had been campaigning at his father's right hand for several years, which may help to account for his military skill and genius. Carloman was 17. The language in either case suggests that there were not two inheritances, which would have created distinct kings ruling over distinct kingdoms, but a single joint inheritance and a joint kingship tenanted by two equal kings, Charles and his brother Carloman. As before, distinct jurisdictions were awarded. Charles received Pepin's original share as Mayor: the outer parts of the kingdom, bordering on the sea, namely Neustria, western Aquitaine, and the northern parts of Austrasia, while Carloman was awarded his uncle's former share: the inner parts: southern Austrasia, Septimania, eastern Aquitaine, Burgundy, Provence, and Swabia, lands bordering on Italy. The question of whether these jurisdictions were joint shares reverting to the other brother if one brother died or were inherited property passed on to the descendants of the brother who died was never definitely settled by the Frankish people. It came up repeatedly over the succeeding decades until the grandsons of Charlemagne created distinct sovereign kingdoms. Aquitanian rebellion An inheritance in the countries formerly under Roman law (ius or iustitia) represented not only a transmission of the properties and privileges but also the encumbrances and obligations attached to the inheritance. Pepin at his death had been in process of building an empire, a difficult task: "In those times, to build a kingdom from an aggregation of small states was itself no great difficulty .... But to keep the state intact after it had been formed was a colossal task .... Each of the minor states ... had its little sovereign ... who ... gave himself chiefly to ... plotting, pillaging and fighting." Formation of a new Aquitania Aquitania under Rome had been southern Gaul, which was Romanized and spoke a Romance language. Similarly Hispania had been populated by peoples speaking various languages, including Celtic, but was now populated entirely by Romance language speakers. Between Aquitania and Hispania were the Euskaldunak, Latinized to Vascones, or Basques, living in Basque country, Vasconia, which extended, according to the distributions of place names attributable to the Basques, most densely in the western Pyrenees but also as far south as the upper Ebro River in Spain and as far north as the Garonne River in France.[33] The French name, Gascony, derives from Vasconia. The Romans were never able to entirely subject Vasconia. The parts which they did, in which they placed the region's first cities, were sources of legions in the Roman army valued for their fighting abilities. The border with Aquitania was Toulouse. The Romans after the fall of their empire were replaced by the Visigoths in Spain and the Franks and Visigoths to the north. Although they had the authority of state, these Germanic tribes were thinly settled at best. They did not keep their languages long but were assimilated to the Romance-speaking prior populations. Romance was still spoken in Toulouse and to the east as well as on the Ebro. These authorities maintained relationships with the Basques that were fully as combative as the previous had been; moreover, the Basques on the whole had the upper hand. They began to raid and pillage to the north and east of their borders into territory then ruled by the Merovingians. They took slaves from the north and sold them to the south. Army after army was sent by the Franks. If the Basques could not win they retreated into the mountains. In 635 a Frankish column under Arnebert was massacred in the Haute Soule, a mountain valley. At about 660 the Duchy of Vasconia united with the Duchy of Aquitania to form a single kingdom under Felix of Aquitaine, governing from Toulouse. This was a joint kingship with a 28-year-old Basque king, Lupus I. The kingdom was sovereign and independent. On the one hand Vasconia gave up predation to become a player on the field of European politics. On the other, whatever arrangements Felix had made with the weak Merovingians were null and void. At his death in 770 the joint property of the kingship reverted entirely to Lupus. As the Basques had no law of joint inheritance, but practiced primogeniture, Lupus in effect founded a hereditary dynasty of Basque kings of an expanded Aquitania. Acquisition of Aquitania by the Carolingians The Latin chronicles on the end of Visigothic Hispania leave much to be desired: identification of characters, filling in the gaps and reconciliation of the numerous contradictions. The Saracen sources, however, present a more coherent view, such as the Ta'rikh iftitah al-Andalus ("History of the Conquest of al-Andalus") by Ibn al-Qu?iyya, "the son of the Gothic woman," meaning by the named woman Sarah, granddaughter of the last king of all Visigothic Spain, who married a Saracen. Ibn al-Qu?iyya, who had another, much longer name, must have been relying to some degree on family oral tradition. According to Ibn al-Qu?iyya the last Visigothic king of a united Hispania died before his three sons: Almund, Romulo and Ardabast, reached majority. Their mother was regent at Toledo, but Roderic, army chief of staff, staged a rebellion, capturing Cordova. Of all the possible outcomes he chose to impose a joint rule over distinct jurisdictions on the true heirs. Evidence of a division of some sort can be found in the distribution of coins imprinted with the name of each king and in the king lists.[39] Wittiza is succeeded by Roderic, reigning 7.5 years, and a certain Achila (Aquila), reigning 3.5 years. If the reigns of both terminated with the incursion of the Saracens, then Roderic appears to have reigned a few years before the majority of Achila. The latter's kingdom is securely placed to the northeast, while Roderic seems to have taken the rest, notably Portugal. Achila is undoubtedly Achila II of the coins and chronicles, who is stated by some chronicles to have been the son of Wittiza. How he fits into the Gothic woman's family tree is a problem, A scribal error in the transmission of her son's manuscript has been postulated: w.q.l.h for Waqla becomes r.m.l.h for Rumulu (Arabic like Hebrew writes only the consonants). Ardabast is generally identified with Ardo king of Septimania, 713-720. The location of the share of Almun, or Olemundo, has not survived, but that he had one is assured by subsequent events. In the account, a Christian merchant, Julian, left his daughter in the guardianship of Roderic (her mother had just died) while he conducted some business on Roderic's request in North Africa. Returning to find his daughter had been seduced by Roderic he simulated nonchalence and acceptance of that event, convincing Roderic to send him back on more business. Arriving there, however, he went to Tariq ibn Ziyad and convinced him to invade al-Andala. En route the prophet Mohammed appeared to Tariq in a dream at the head of an army, telling him to go on. When the Saracens had landed in southern Spain Roderic establishing a base at Cordova reached out to the three sons of Wittiza asking for assistance in the common defense. The three arrived but not even daring to enter Cordova they sent to Tariq stating that Roderic was no better than a dog and offering submission and support in return for keeping their ancestral lands and privileges.[41] The offer having been accepted Roderic was defeated at the Battle of Guadalete. It is not clear whether the royal Goths fought against him or simply withheld troops. "Weighed down with weapons he threw himself into the water and was never found." The three royals travelled to Damascus to confirm their submissions: "Aquila was nominated king of the Goths but in 714 he traveled with his brothers to Damascus and sold the kingdom to Caliph Walid I (705-15) for lands and money." Ardo went on as client-king in Provence. On the death of Almund he appropriated the latter's share of the joint property against the will of the children, who went to Syria to appeal the case. The Saracens moved against Ardo. The boys never recovered the land. One became a Christian bishop. The daughter, Sarah, accepted an arranged marriage with a Saracen, becoming known as "the Gothic woman." She played an important role subsequently in Moorish Spain. The Saracens crossed the mountains to claim Ardo's Septimania, only to encounter the Basque dynasty of Aquitania, always the allies of the Goths. Odo the Great of Aquitania was at first victorious at the Battle of Bordeaux in 721.[43] As Saracen troops gradually massed in Septimania and in 732 advanced into Vasconia Odo was defeated at the Battle of the River Garonne. They took Bordeaux and were advancing toward Tours when Odo, powerless to stop them, appealed to his arch-enemy, Charles Martel, mayor of the Franks. In one of the first of those lightning marches for which the Carolingian kings became famous, Charles and his army appeared in the path of the Saracens between Tours and Poitiers and in the Battle of Tours settled the question of the Saracen advance into Europe. The Moors were defeated so conclusively that they retreated across the mountains, never to return, leaving Septimania to become part of Francia. Odo also had to pay the price of incorporation into Charles' kingdom, a decision that was repugnant to him and also to his heirs. Loss and recovery of Aquitania After his death his son Hunald allied himself with free Lombardy, a violation of the sovereignty of Francia. However, Odo had left the kingdom ambiguously to his two sons jointly, Hunald and Hatto. The latter, loyal to Francia, now went to war with his brother over full possession. Victorius, Hunald blinded and imprisoned his brother, only to be so stricken by conscience that he resigned and entered the church as a monk to do penance. His son Waifer took an early inheritance, becoming duke of Aquitania. Inheriting also the alliance with Lombardy. Waifer decided to honor it, repeating his father's treason, which he justified by arguing that any agreements with Charles Martel became invalid on Martel's death. Since Aquitania was now Pepin's inheritance, the latter and his son, the young Charles, hunted down Waifer, who could only conduct a guerrilla war, and executed him. Among the contingents of the Frankish army were Bavarians under Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria, an Agilofing, the hereditary Bavarian royal family. Grifo had installed himself as Duke of Bavaria but Pepin replaced him with a member of the royal family yet a child, Tassilo, whose protector he had become after the death of his father. The loyalty of the Agilolfings was perpetually in question but Pepin exacted numerous oaths of loyalty from Tassilo. However, the latter had married Liutperga, a daughter of Desiderius, king of Lombardy. At a critical point in the campaign Tassilo with all his Bavarians left the field. Out of reach of Pepin, he repudiated all loyalty to Francia. Pepin had no chance to respond as he grew ill and within a few weeks after the execution of Waifer died himself. The first event of the brothers' reign was the uprising of the Aquitainians and Gascons, in 769, in that territory split between the two kings. Years before, Pepin had suppressed the revolt of Waifer, Duke of Aquitaine. Now, one Hunald (seemingly other than Hunald the duke) led the Aquitainians as far north as AngoulÃªme. Charles met Carloman, but Carloman refused to participate and returned to Burgundy. Charles went to war, leading an army to Bordeaux, where he set up a fort at Fronsac. Hunald was forced to flee to the court of Duke Lupus II of Gascony. Lupus, fearing Charles, turned Hunald over in exchange for peace. He was put in a monastery. Aquitaine was finally fully subdued by the Franks. Union perforce The brothers maintained lukewarm relations with the assistance of their mother Bertrada, but in 770 Charles signed a treaty with Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria and married a Lombard Princess (commonly known today as Desiderata), the daughter of King Desiderius, to surround Carloman with his own allies. Though Pope Stephen III first opposed the marriage with the Lombard princess, he would soon have little to fear from a Frankish-Lombard alliance. Less than a year after his marriage, Charlemagne repudiated Desiderata, and quickly remarried to a 13-year-old Swabian named Hildegard. The repudiated Desiderata returned to her father's court at Pavia. The Lombard's wrath was now aroused and he would gladly have allied with Carloman to defeat Charles. But before any open hostilities could be declared, Carloman died on 5 December 771, seemingly of natural causes. Carloman's widow Gerberga fled to Desiderius' court in Lombardy with her sons for protection. Italian campaigns Conquest of Lombardy The Frankish king Charlemagne was a devout Catholic and maintained a close relationship with the papacy throughout his life. In 772, when Pope Adrian I was threatened by invaders, the king rushed to Rome to provide assistance. Shown here, the pope asks Charlemagne for help at a meeting near Rome. At the succession of Pope Adrian I in 772, he demanded the return of certain cities in the former exarchate of Ravenna as in accordance with a promise of Desiderius' succession. Desiderius instead took over certain papal cities and invaded the Pentapolis, heading for Rome. Adrian sent embassies to Charlemagne in autumn requesting he enforce the policies of his father, Pepin. Desiderius sent his own embassies denying the pope's charges. The embassies both met at Thionville and Charlemagne upheld the pope's side. Charlemagne promptly demanded what the pope had demanded and Desiderius promptly swore never to comply. Charlemagne and his uncle Bernard crossed the Alps in 773 and chased the Lombards back to Pavia, which they then besieged. Charlemagne temporarily left the siege to deal with Adelchis, son of Desiderius, who was raising an army at Verona. The young prince was chased to the Adriatic littoral and he fled to Constantinople to plead for assistance from Constantine V, who was waging war with Bulgaria. The siege lasted until the spring of 774, when Charlemagne visited the pope in Rome. There he confirmed his father's grants of land, with some later chronicles claiming-falsely-that he also expanded them, granting Tuscany, Emilia, Venice, and Corsica. The pope granted him the title patrician. He then returned to Pavia, where the Lombards were on the verge of surrendering. In return for their lives, the Lombards surrendered and opened the gates in early summer. Desiderius was sent to the abbey of Corbie and his son Adelchis died in Constantinople a patrician. Charles, unusually, had himself crowned with the Iron Crown and made the magnates of Lombardy do homage to him at Pavia. Only Duke Arechis II of Benevento refused to submit and proclaimed independence. Charlemagne was then master of Italy as king of the Lombards. He left Italy with a garrison in Pavia and a few Frankish counts in place that very year. There was still instability, however, in Italy. In 776, Dukes Hrodgaud of Friuli and Hildeprand of Spoleto rebelled. Charlemagne rushed back from Saxony and defeated the duke of Friuli in battle. The duke was slain. The duke of Spoleto signed a treaty. Their co-conspirator, Arechis, was not subdued, and Adelchis, their candidate in Byzantium, never left that city. Northern Italy was now faithfully his. Southern Italy In 787 Charlemagne directed his attention toward Benevento, where Arechis was reigning independently. Charlemagne besieged Salerno, and Arechis submitted to vassalage. However, with his death in 792, Benevento again proclaimed independence under his son Grimoald III. Grimoald was attacked by armies of Charles or his sons many times, but Charlemagne himself never returned to the Mezzogiorno, and Grimoald never was forced to surrender to Frankish suzerainty. Charles and his children During the first peace of any substantial length (780-782), Charles began to appoint his sons to positions of authority within the realm, in the tradition of the kings and mayors of the past. In 781, he made his two younger sons kings, having them crowned by the Pope. The elder of these two, Carloman, was made king of Italy, taking the Iron Crown which his father had first worn in 774, and in the same ceremony was renamed "Pippin." The younger of the two, Louis, became king of Aquitaine. Charlemagne ordered Pippin and Louis to be raised in the customs of their kingdoms, and he gave their regents some control of their subkingdoms, but real power was always in his hands, though he intended his sons to inherit their realms some day. Nor did he tolerate insubordination in his sons: in 792, he banished his eldest, though possibly illegitimate, son, Pippin the Hunchback, to the monastery of PrÃ¼m, because the young man had joined a rebellion against him. Charles was determined to have his children educated, including his daughters, as he himself was not. His children were taught all the arts, and his daughters were learned in the way of being a woman. His sons took archery, horsemanship, and other outdoor activities. The sons fought many wars on behalf of their father when they came of age. Charles was mostly preoccupied with the Bretons, whose border he shared and who insurrected on at least two occasions and were easily put down, but he was also sent against the Saxons on multiple occasions. In 805 and 806, he was sent into the BÃ¶hmerwald (modern Bohemia) to deal with the Slavs living there (Bohemian tribes, ancestors of the modern Czechs). He subjected them to Frankish authority and devastated the valley of the Elbe, forcing a tribute on them. Pippin had to hold the Avar and Beneventan borders but also fought the Slavs to his north. He was uniquely poised to fight the Byzantine Empire when finally that conflict arose after Charlemagne's imperial coronation and a Venetian rebellion. Finally, Louis was in charge of the Spanish March and also went to southern Italy to fight the duke of Benevento on at least one occasion. He took Barcelona in a great siege in the year 797 (see below). Charlemagne's attitude toward his daughters has been the subject of much discussion. He kept them at home with him and refused to allow them to contract sacramental marriages - possibly to prevent the creation of cadet branches of the family to challenge the main line, as had been the case with Tassilo of Bavaria - yet he tolerated their extramarital relationships, even rewarding their common-law husbands, and treasured the illegitimate grandchildren they produced for him. He also, apparently, refused to believe stories of their wild behavior. After his death the surviving daughters were banished from the court by their brother, the pious Louis, to take up residence in the convents they had been bequeathed by their father. At least one of them, Bertha, had a recognised relationship, if not a marriage, with Angilbert, a member of Charlemagne's court circle. Carolingian expansion south Vasconia and the Pyrenees The destructive war led by Pepin in Aquitaine, although brought to a satisfactory conclusion for the Franks, proved the Frankish power structure south of the Loire was feeble and unreliable. After the defeat and death of Waifer of Aquitaine in 768, while Aquitaine submitted again to the Carolingian dynasty, a new rebellion broke out in 769 led by Hunald II, maybe son of Waifer. He took refuge with the ally duke Lupus II of Gascony, but probably out of fear of Charlemagne's reprisal, handed him over to the new King of the Franks besides pledging loyalty to him, which seemed to confirm the peace in the Basque area south of the Garonne. However, wary of new Basque uprisings, Charlemagne seems to have tried to diminish duke Lupusâ€™s power by appointing a certain Seguin as count of Bordeaux (778) and other counts of Frankish background in bordering areas (Toulouse, County of FÃ©zensac), a decision that seriously undermined the authority of the duke of Gascony (Vasconia). The Basque duke in turn seems to have contributed decisively or schemed the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (referred to as â€œBasque treacheryâ€). The defeat of Charlemagne's army in Roncevaux (778) confirmed him in his determination to rule directly by establishing the Kingdom of Aquitaine (son Louis the Pious proclaimed first king) based on a power base of Frankish officials, distributing lands among colonisers and allocating lands to the Church, which he took as ally. From 781 (Pallars, RibagorÃ§a) to 806 (Pamplona under Frankish influence), taking the County of Toulouse for a power base, Charlemagne managed to assert Frankish authority on the Pyrenees by establishing vassal counties that were to make up the Marca Hispanica and provide the necessary springboard to attack the Hispanic Muslims (expedition led by William Count of Toulouse and Louis the Pious to capture Barcelona in 801), in a way that Charlemagne had succeeded in expanding the Carolingian rule all around the Pyrenees by 812, although events in the Duchy of Vasconia (rebellion in Pamplona, count overthrown in Aragon, duke Seguin of Bordeaux deposed, uprising of the Basque lords, etc.) were to prove it ephemeral on his death. Roncesvalles campaign According to the Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir, the Diet of Paderborn had received the representatives of the Muslim rulers of Zaragoza, Girona, Barcelona, and Huesca. Their masters had been cornered in the Iberian peninsula by Abd ar-Rahman I, the Umayyad emir of CÃ³rdoba. These Moorish or "Saracen" rulers offered their homage to the great king of the Franks in return for military support. Seeing an opportunity to extend Christendom and his own power and believing the Saxons to be a fully conquered nation, Charlemagne agreed to go to Spain. In 778, he led the Neustrian army across the Western Pyrenees, while the Austrasians, Lombards, and Burgundians passed over the Eastern Pyrenees. The armies met at Zaragoza and Charlemagne received the homage of the Muslim rulers, Sulayman al-Arabi and Kasmin ibn Yusuf, but the city did not fall for him. Indeed, Charlemagne was facing the toughest battle of his career where the Muslims had the upper hand and forced him to retreat. He decided to go home, since he could not trust the Basques, whom he had subdued by conquering Pamplona. He turned to leave Iberia, but as he was passing through the Pass of Roncesvalles one of the most famous events of his long reign occurred. The Basques fell on his rearguard and baggage train, utterly destroying it. The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, less a battle than a mere skirmish, left many famous dead: among which were the seneschal Eggihard, the count of the palace Anselm, and the warden of the Breton March, Roland, inspiring the subsequent creation of the Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland). Wars with the Moors The conquest of Italy brought Charlemagne in contact with the Saracens who, at the time, controlled the Mediterranean. Pippin, his son, was much occupied with Saracens in Italy. Charlemagne conquered Corsica and Sardinia at an unknown date and in 799 the Balearic Islands. The islands were often attacked by Saracen pirates, but the counts of Genoa and Tuscany (Boniface) kept them at bay with large fleets until the end of Charlemagne's reign. Charlemagne even had contact with the caliphal court in Baghdad. In 797 (or possibly 801), the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas and a clock. In Hispania, the struggle against the Moors continued unabated throughout the latter half of his reign. His son Louis was in charge of the Spanish border. In 785, his men captured Gerona permanently and extended Frankish control into the Catalan littoral for the duration of Charlemagne's reign (and much longer, it remained nominally Frankish until the Treaty of Corbeil in 1258). The Muslim chiefs in the northeast of Islamic Spain were constantly revolting against CÃ³rdoban authority, and they often turned to the Franks for help. The Frankish border was slowly extended until 795, when Gerona, Cardona, Ausona, and Urgel were united into the new Spanish March, within the old duchy of Septimania. In 797 Barcelona, the greatest city of the region, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against CÃ³rdoba and, failing, handed it to them. The Umayyad authority recaptured it in 799. However, Louis of Aquitaine marched the entire army of his kingdom over the Pyrenees and besieged it for two years, wintering there from 800 to 801, when it capitulated. The Franks continued to press forward against the emir. They took Tarragona in 809 and Tortosa in 811. The last conquest brought them to the mouth of the Ebro and gave them raiding access to Valencia, prompting the Emir al-Hakam I to recognize their conquests in 812. Eastern campaigns Saxon Wars Charlemagne was engaged in almost constant battle throughout his reign, often at the head of his elite scara bodyguard squadrons, with his legendary sword Joyeuse in hand. After thirty years of war and eighteen battles-the Saxon Wars-he conquered Saxonia and proceeded to convert the conquered to Christianity. The Germanic Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to Austrasia was Westphalia and furthest away was Eastphalia. In between these two kingdoms was that of Engria and north of these three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nordalbingia. In his first campaign, Charlemagne forced the Engrians in 773 to submit and cut down an Irminsul pillar near Paderborn. The campaign was cut short by his first expedition to Italy. He returned in 775, marching through Westphalia and conquered the Saxon fort of Sigiburg. He then crossed Engria, where he defeated the Saxons again. Finally, in Eastphalia, he defeated a Saxon force, and its leader Hessi converted to Christianity. He returned through Westphalia, leaving encampments at Sigiburg and Eresburg, which had, up until then, been important Saxon bastions. All of Saxony but Nordalbingia was under his control, but Saxon resistance had not ended. Following his campaign in Italy subjugating the dukes of Friuli and Spoleto, Charlemagne returned very rapidly to Saxony in 776, where a rebellion had destroyed his fortress at Eresburg. The Saxons were once again brought to heel, but their main leader, Widukind, managed to escape to Denmark, home of his wife. Charlemagne built a new camp at Karlstadt. In 777, he called a national diet at Paderborn to integrate Saxony fully into the Frankish kingdom. Many Saxons were baptised as Christians. In the summer of 779, he again invaded Saxony and reconquered Eastphalia, Engria, and Westphalia. At a diet near Lippe, he divided the land into missionary districts and himself assisted in several mass baptisms (780). He then returned to Italy and, for the first time, there was no immediate Saxon revolt. Saxony was peaceful from 780 to 782. He returned to Saxony in 782 and instituted a code of law and appointed counts, both Saxon and Frank. The laws were draconian on religious issues; for example, the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae prescribed death to Saxon pagans who refused to convert to Christianity. This revived a renewal of the old conflict. That year, in autumn, Widukind returned and led a new revolt. In response, at Verden in Lower Saxony, Charlemagne is recorded as having ordered the execution of 4,500 Saxon prisoners, known as the Massacre of Verden ("Verdener Blutgericht"). The killings triggered three years of renewed bloody warfare (783-785). During this war the Frisians were also finally subdued and a large part of their fleet was burned. The war ended with Widukind accepting baptism. Thereafter, the Saxons maintained the peace for seven years, but in 792 the Westphalians again rose against their conquerors. The Eastphalians and Nordalbingians joined them in 793, but the insurrection did not catch on and was put down by 794. An Engrian rebellion followed in 796, but the presence of Charlemagne, Christian Saxons and Slavs quickly crushed it. The last insurrection of the independent-minded people occurred in 804, more than thirty years after Charlemagne's first campaign against them. This time, the most restive of them, the Nordalbingians, found themselves effectively disempowered from rebellion for the time being. According to Einhard: The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people. Submission of Bavaria In 788, Charlemagne turned his attention to Bavaria. He claimed Tassilo was an unfit ruler, due to his oath-breaking. The charges were exaggerated, but Tassilo was deposed anyway and put in the monastery of JumiÃ¨ges. In 794, he was made to renounce any claim to Bavaria for himself and his family (the Agilolfings) at the synod of Frankfurt. Bavaria was subdivided into Frankish counties, as had been done with Saxony. Avars campaigns In 788, the Avars, a pagan Asian horde which had settled down in what is today Hungary (Einhard called them Huns), invaded Friuli and Bavaria. Charlemagne was preoccupied until 790 with other things, but in that year, he marched down the Danube into their territory and ravaged it to the Gyor. Then, a Lombard army under Pippin marched into the Drava valley and ravaged Pannonia. The campaigns would have continued if the Saxons had not revolted again in 792, breaking seven years of peace. For the next two years, Charlemagne was occupied with the Slavs against the Saxons. Pippin and Duke Eric of Friuli continued, however, to assault the Avars' ring-shaped strongholds. The great Ring of the Avars, their capital fortress, was taken twice. The booty was sent to Charlemagne at his capital, Aachen, and redistributed to all his followers and even to foreign rulers, including King Offa of Mercia. Soon the Avar tuduns had thrown in the towel and travelled to Aachen to subject themselves to Charlemagne as vassals and Christians. Charlemagne accepted their surrender and sent one native chief, baptised Abraham, back to Avaria with the ancient title of khagan. Abraham kept his people in line, but in 800, the Bulgarians under Khan Krum swept the Avar state away. In the 10th century, the Magyars settled the Pannonian plain and presented a new threat to Charlemagne's descendants. Northeast Slav expeditions In 789, in recognition of his new pagan neighbours, the Slavs, Charlemagne marched an Austrasian-Saxon army across the Elbe into Obotrite territory. The Slavs immediately submitted under their leader Witzin. Charlemagne then accepted the surrender of the Wiltzes under Dragovit and demanded many hostages and the permission to send, unmolested, missionaries into the pagan region. The army marched to the Baltic before turning around and marching to the Rhine with much booty and no harassment. The tributary Slavs became loyal allies. In 795, when the Saxons broke the peace, the Abotrites and Wiltzes rose in arms with their new master against the Saxons. Witzin died in battle and Charlemagne avenged him by harrying the Eastphalians on the Elbe. Thrasuco, his successor, led his men to conquest over the Nordalbingians and handed their leaders over to Charlemagne, who greatly honoured him. The Abotrites remained loyal until Charles' death and fought later against the Danes. Southeast Slave expeditions When Charlemagne incorporated much of Central Europe, he brought the Frankish <3 state face to face with the Avars and Slavs in the southeast.[50] The most southeast Frankish neighbors were Croats, who settled in Pannonian Croatia and Littoral Croatian Duchy. While fighting the Avars, the Franks had called for their support. During the 790s, when Charlemagne campaigned against the Avars, he won a major victory in 796. Pannonian Croatian duke Vojnomir of Pannonian Croatia aided Charlemagne, and the Franks made themselves overlords over the Croatians of northern Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Pannonia. The Frankish commander Eric of Friuli wanted to extend his dominion by conquering Littoral Croatian Duchy. During that time, Littoral Croatia was ruled by duke ViÅ¡eslav of Croatia, who was one of the first known Croatian dukes. In the Battle of Trsat, the forces of Eric fled their positions and were totally routed by the forces of ViÅ¡eslav. Eric himself was among the killed, and his death and defeat proved a great blow for the Carolingian Empire. Charlemagne also directed his attention to the Slavs to the west of the Avar khaganate: the Carantanians and Carniolans. These people were subdued by the Lombards and Bavarii, were made tributaries, but were never fully incorporated into the Frankish state. Imperium Imperial diplomacy In 799, Pope Leo III had been mistreated by the Romans, who tried to put out his eyes and tear out his tongue. Leo escaped and fled to Charlemagne at Paderborn, asking him to intervene in Rome and restore him. Charlemagne, advised by Alcuin of York, agreed to travel to Rome, doing so in November 800 and holding a council on 1 December. On 23 December Leo swore an oath of innocence. At Mass, on Christmas Day (25 December), when Charlemagne knelt at the altar to pray, the Pope crowned him Imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans") in Saint Peter's Basilica. In so doing, the Pope was effectively reviving the Western Roman Empire and nullifying the legitimacy of Empress Irene of Constantinople (Leo III did not consider her a legitimate claimant to the Byzantine throne because she was a woman). Einhard says that Charlemagne was ignorant of the Pope's intent and did not want any such coronation: [H]e at first had such an aversion that he declared that he would not have set foot in the Church the day that they [the imperial titles] were conferred, although it was a great feast-day, if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope. Many modern scholars suggest that Charlemagne was indeed aware of the coronation; certainly he cannot have missed the bejeweled crown waiting on the altar when he came to pray. In any event, he used these circumstances to claim that he was the renewer of the Roman Empire, which had apparently fallen into degradation under the Byzantines. In his official charters, Charles preferred the style Karolus serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus magnus pacificus imperator Romanum gubernans imperium ("Charles, most serene Augustus crowned by God, the great, peaceful emperor ruling the Roman empire") to a more direct Imperator Romanorum ("Emperor of the Romans"). The iconoclasm of the Byzantine Isaurian Dynasty was endorsed by the Franks. When the Second Council of Nicaea reintroduced the veneration of icons under Empress Irene, the council was not recognized by Charlemagne since no Frankish emissaries had been invited although Charlemagne was ruling more than three provinces of the old Roman empire and was considered equal in rank to the Byzantine emperor. And although the Pope supported the reintroduction of the iconic veneration he thus politically digressed from Byzantium.[57] He also most certainly desired to increase the influence of the papacy, honour his saviour Charlemagne, and solve the constitutional issues then most troubling to European jurists in an era when Rome was not in the hands of an emperor. Thus, Charlemagne's assumption of the imperial title was not an usurpation in the eyes of the Franks or Italians. It was, however, in Byzantium, where it was protested by Irene and her successor Nicephorus I-neither of whom had any great effect in enforcing their protests. The Byzantines, however, still held several territories in Italy: Venice (what was left of the Exarchate of Ravenna), Reggio (in Calabria), Brindisi (in Apulia), and Naples (the Ducatus Neapolitanus). These regions remained outside of Frankish hands until 804, when the Venetians, torn by infighting, transferred their allegiance to the Iron Crown of Pippin, Charles' son. The Pax Nicephori ended. Nicephorus ravaged the coasts with a fleet, and the only instance of war between the Byzantines and the Franks, as it was, began. It lasted until 810, when the pro-Byzantine party in Venice gave their city back to the Byzantine Emperor, and the two emperors of Europe made peace: Charlemagne received the Istrian peninsula and in 812 the emperor Michael I Rhangabes recognised his status as Emperor,[58] although not necessarily as "Emperor of the Romans". Danish attacks After the conquest of Nordalbingia, the Frankish frontier was brought into contact with Scandinavia. The pagan Danes, "a race almost unknown to his ancestors, but destined to be only too well known to his sons" as Charles Oman described them, inhabiting the Jutland peninsula, had heard many stories from Widukind and his allies who had taken refuge with them about the dangers of the Franks and the fury which their Christian king could direct against pagan neighbours. In 808, the king of the Danes, Godfred, built the vast Danevirke across the isthmus of Schleswig. This defence, last employed in the Danish-Prussian War of 1864, was at its beginning a 30 km (19 mi) long earthenwork rampart. The Danevirke protected Danish land and gave Godfred the opportunity to harass Frisia and Flanders with pirate raids. He also subdued the Frank-allied Wiltzes and fought the Abotrites. Godfred invaded Frisia, joked of visiting Aachen, but was murdered before he could do any more, either by a Frankish assassin or by one of his own men. Godfred was succeeded by his nephew Hemming, who concluded the Treaty of Heiligen with Charlemagne in late 811. Death In 813, Charlemagne called Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, his only surviving legitimate son, to his court. There Charlemagne crowned his son with his own hands as co-emperor and sent him back to Aquitaine. He then spent the autumn hunting before returning to Aachen on 1 November. In January, he fell ill with pleurisy.[60] In deep depression (mostly because many of his plans were not yet realized), he took to his bed on 21 January and as Einhard tells it: He died January twenty-eighth, the seventh day from the time that he took to his bed, at nine o'clock in the morning, after partaking of the Holy Communion, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign. He was buried the same day as his death, in Aachen Cathedral, although the cold weather and the nature of his illness made such a hurried burial unnecessary. The earliest surviving planctus, the Planctus de obitu Karoli, was composed by a monk of Bobbio, which he had patronised. A later story, told by Otho of Lomello, Count of the Palace at Aachen in the time of Otto III, would claim that he and Emperor Otto had discovered Charlemagne's tomb: the emperor, they claimed, was seated upon a throne, wearing a crown and holding a sceptre, his flesh almost entirely incorrupt. In 1165, Frederick I re-opened the tomb again and placed the emperor in a sarcophagus beneath the floor of the cathedral. In 1215 Frederick II re-interred him in a casket made of gold and silver. Charlemagne's death greatly affected many of his subjects, particularly those of the literary clique who had surrounded him at Aachen. An anonymous monk of Bobbio lamented: From the lands where the sun rises to western shores, People are crying and wailing...the Franks, the Romans, all Christians, are stung with mourning and great worry...the young and old, glorious nobles, all lament the loss of their Caesar...the world laments the death of Charles...O Christ, you who govern the heavenly host, grant a peaceful place to Charles in your kingdom. Alas for miserable me. He was succeeded by his surviving son, Louis, who had been crowned the previous year. His empire lasted only another generation in its entirety; its division, according to custom, between Louis's own sons after their father's death laid the foundation for the modern state of Germany. Administration As an administrator, Charlemagne stands out for his many reforms: monetary, governmental, military, cultural, and ecclesiastical. He is the main protagonist of the "Carolingian Renaissance." Military It has long been held that the dominance of Charlemagne's military was based on a "cavalry revolution" led by Charles Martel in 730s. However, the stirrup, which made the "shock cavalry" lance charge possible, was not introduced to the Frankish kingdom until the late eighth century. Instead, Charlemagne's success rested primarily on novel siege technologies and excellent logistics.[66] However, large numbers of horses were used by the Frankish military during the age of Charlemagne. This was because horses provided a quick, long-distance method of transporting troops, which was critical to building and maintaining such a large empire. Economic and monetary reforms Charlemagne had an important role in determining the immediate economic future of Europe. Pursuing his father's reforms, Charlemagne abolished the monetary system based on the gold sou, and he and the Anglo-Saxon King Offa of Mercia took up the system set in place by Pippin. There were strong pragmatic reasons for this abandonment of a gold standard, notably a shortage of gold itself. The gold shortage was a direct consequence of the conclusion of peace with Byzantium, which resulted in the ceding of Venice and Sicily and the loss of their trade routes to Africa and to the East. This standardisation also had the effect of economically harmonising and unifying the complex array of currencies which had been in use at the commencement of his reign, thus simplifying trade and commerce. He established a new standard, the livre carolinienne (from the Latin libra, the modern pound), which was based upon a pound of silver-a unit of both money and weight-which was worth 20 sous (from the Latin solidus [which was primarily an accounting device and never actually minted], the modern shilling) or 240 deniers (from the Latin denarius, the modern penny). During this period, the livre and the sou were counting units; only the denier was a coin of the realm. Charlemagne instituted principles for accounting practice by means of the Capitulare de villis of 802, which laid down strict rules for the way in which incomes and expenses were to be recorded. The lending of money for interest was prohibited and then strengthened in 814, when Charlemagne introduced the Capitulary for the Jews, a draconian prohibition on Jews engaging in money-lending. In addition to this macro-oriented reform of the economy of his empire, Charlemagne also performed a significant number of microeconomic reforms, such as direct control of prices and levies on certain goods and commodities. Charlemagne applied the system to much of the European continent, and Offa's standard was voluntarily adopted by much of England. After Charlemagne's death, continental coinage degraded, and most of Europe resorted to using the continued high-quality English coin until about 1100. Education reforms A part of Charlemagne's success as warrior and administrator can be traced to his admiration for learning. His reign and the era it ushered in are often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art, and architecture which characterize it. Charlemagne, brought into contact with the culture and learning of other countries (especially Visigothic Spain, Anglo-Saxon England, and Lombard Italy) due to his vast conquests, greatly increased the provision of monastic schools and scriptoria (centres for book-copying) in Francia. Most of the presently surviving works of classical Latin were copied and preserved by Carolingian scholars. Indeed, the earliest manuscripts available for many ancient texts are Carolingian. It is almost certain that a text which survived to the Carolingian age survives still. The pan-European nature of Charlemagne's influence is indicated by the origins of many of the men who worked for him: Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon from York; Theodulf, a Visigoth, probably from Septimania; Paul the Deacon, Lombard; Peter of Pisa and Paulinus of Aquileia, Italians; and Angilbert, Angilram, Einhard, and Waldo of Reichenau, Franks. Charlemagne took a serious interest in scholarship, promoting the liberal arts at the court, ordering that his children and grandchildren be well-educated, and even studying himself (in a time when even leaders who promoted education did not take time to learn themselves) under the tutelage of Paul the Deacon, from whom he learned grammar; Alcuin, with whom he studied rhetoric, dialectic (logic), and astronomy (he was particularly interested in the movements of the stars); and Einhard, who assisted him in his studies of arithmetic. His great scholarly failure, as Einhard relates, was his inability to write: when in his old age he began attempts to learn-practicing the formation of letters in his bed during his free time on books and wax tablets he hid under his pillow-"his effort came too late in life and achieved little success", and his ability to read - which Einhard is silent about, and which no contemporary source supports-has also been called into question. In 800, Charlemagne enlarged the hostel at the Muristan in Jerusalem and added a library to it. He certainly had not been personally in Jerusalem. Church reforms Writing reforms During Charles' reign, the Roman half uncial script and its cursive version, which had given rise to various continental minuscule scripts, were combined with features from the insular scripts that were being used in Irish and English monasteries. Carolingian minuscule was created partly under the patronage of Charlemagne. Alcuin of York, who ran the palace school and scriptorium at Aachen, was probably a chief influence in this. The revolutionary character of the Carolingian reform, however, can be over-emphasised; efforts at taming the crabbed Merovingian and Germanic hands had been underway before Alcuin arrived at Aachen. The new minuscule was disseminated first from Aachen and later from the influential scriptorium at Tours, where Alcuin retired as an abbot. Political reforms Charlemagne engaged in many reforms of Frankish governance, but he continued also in many traditional practices, such as the division of the kingdom among sons.[citation needed] Organization The Carolingian king exercised the bannum, the right to rule and command. He had supreme jurisdiction in judicial matters, made legislation, led the army, and protected both the Church and the poor. His administration was an attempt to organize the kingdom, church, and nobility around him. However, the effort was heavily dependent upon the efficiency, loyalty, and support of his subjects. Imperial coronation Historians have debated for centuries whether Charlemagne was aware of the Pope's intent to crown him Emperor prior to the coronation (Charlemagne declared that he would not have entered Saint Peter's had he known), but that debate has often obscured the more significant question of why the Pope granted the title and why Charlemagne chose to accept it once he did. Roger Collins points out "[t]hat the motivation behind the acceptance of the imperial title was a romantic and antiquarian interest in reviving the Roman empire is highly unl	Charlemagne (I2980)
227	Charles II, Roi de France also went by the nick-name of Charles 'the Fat'. He was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 881. He succeeded to the title of Emperor Charles III of the Holy Roman Empire in 881. He succeeded to the title of Roi Charles II de France in 885. He was deposed as Holy Roman Emperor in 887.	Charles Roi de France II (I867)
228	At least one living or private individual is linked to this note - Details withheld.	Bosdet, Charles Lewis (I4607)
229	Charles Martel (Latin: Carolus Martellus) (23 August 686 - 22 October 741), also known as Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum (737-43) at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the title of Consul by the Pope, but he refused. He is remembered for winning the Battle of Tours (also known as the Battle of Poitiers) in 732, in which he defeated an invading Moorish army and halted northward Islamic expansion in western Europe. A brilliant general, he is considered to be a founding figure of the Middle Ages, often credited with a seminal role in the development of feudalism and knighthood, and laying the groundwork for the Carolingian Empire. He was also the father of Pepin the Short and grandfather of Charlemagne. Birth and youth Martel was born in Herstal, the illegitimate son of duke Pepin II and his concubine Alpaida. In German-speaking countries he is known as Karl Martell. Alpaida also bore Pepin another son, Childebrand. Contesting for power The Frankish kingdoms at the time of the death of Pepin of Heristal. Note that Aquitaine (yellow) was outside of Arnulfing authority and Neustria and Burgundy (pink) were united in opposition to further Arnulfing dominance of the highest offices. Only Austrasia (green) supported an Arnulfing mayor, first Theudoald then Charles. Note that the German duchies to the east of the Rhine were de facto outside of Frankish suzerainty at this time. In December 714, Pepin of Heristal died. Prior to his death, he had, at his wife Plectrude's urging, designated Theudoald, his grandson by their son Grimoald, his heir in the entire realm. This was immediately opposed by the nobles because Theudoald was a child of only eight years of age. To prevent Charles using this unrest to his own advantage, Plectrude had him imprisoned in Cologne, the city which was destined to be her capital. This prevented an uprising on his behalf in Austrasia, but not in Neustria. Civil war of 715-718 In 715, the Neustrian noblesse proclaimed Ragenfrid mayor of their palace on behalf of, and apparently with the support of, Dagobert III, the youngest of which, who in theory had the legal authority to select a mayor, though by this time the Merovingian dynasty had lost most such powers. The Austrasians were not to be left supporting a woman and her young son for long. Before the end of the year, Charles Martel had escaped from prison and been acclaimed mayor by the nobles of that kingdom. The Neustrians had been attacking Austrasia and the nobles were waiting for a strong man to lead them against their invading countrymen. That year, Dagobert died and the Neustrians proclaimed Chilperic II king without the support of the rest of the Frankish people. In 717, Chilperic and Ragenfrid together led an army into Austrasia. The Neustrians allied with another invading force under Radbod, King of the Frisians and met Charles in battle near Cologne, which was still held by Plectrude. Charles had little time to gather men, or prepare, and the result was the only defeat of his life. According to Strauss and Gustave, Martel fought a brilliant battle, but realized he could not prevail because he was outnumbered so badly, and retreated. In fact, he fled the field as soon as he realized he did not have the time or the men to prevail, retreating to the mountains of the Eifel to gather men, and train them. The king and his mayor then turned to besiege their other rival in the city and took it and the treasury, and received the recognition of both Chilperic as king and Ragenfrid as mayor. Plectrude surrendered on Theudoald's behalf. Military genius At this juncture, however, events turned in favour of Charles. Having made the proper preparations, he fell upon the triumphant army near Malmedy as it was returning to its own province, and, in the ensuing Battle of AmblÃ¨ve, routed it. The few troops who were not killed or captured, fled. Several things were notable about this battle, in which Charles set the pattern for the remainder of his military career: first, he appeared where his enemies least expected him, while they were marching triumphantly home and far outnumbered him. He also attacked when least expected, at midday, when armies of that era traditionally were resting. Finally, he attacked them how they least expected it, by feigning a retreat to draw his opponents into a trap. The feigned retreat, next to unknown in Western Europe at that time - it was a traditionally eastern tactic - required both extraordinary discipline on the part of the troops and exact timing on the part of their commander. Charles, in this battle, had begun demonstrating the military genius that would mark his rule. The result was an unbroken victory streak that lasted until his death. In Spring 717, Charles returned to Neustria with an army and confirmed his supremacy with a victory at the Battle of Vincy, near Cambrai. He chased the fleeing king and mayor to Paris, before turning back to deal with Plectrude and Cologne. He took her city and dispersed her adherents. However, he allowed both Plectrude and the young Theudoald to live and treated them with kindness-unusual for those times, when mercy to a former gaoler, or a potential rival, was rare. On this success, he proclaimed Chlotar IV king of Austrasia in opposition to Chilperic and deposed the archbishop of Reims, Rigobert, replacing him with Milo, a lifelong supporter. Consolidation of power After subjugating all Austrasia, he marched against Radbod and pushed him back into his territory, even forcing the concession of West Frisia (later Holland). He also sent the Saxons back over the Weser and thus secured his borders-in the name of the new king Clotaire, of course. In 718, Chilperic responded to Charles' new ascendancy by making an alliance with Odo the Great (or Eudes, as he is sometimes known), the duke of Aquitaine, who had made himself independent during the civil war in 715, but was again defeated, at the Battle of Soissons, by Charles. The king fled with his ducal ally to the land south of the Loire and Ragenfrid fled to Angers. Soon Clotaire IV died and Odo gave up on Chilperic and, in exchange for recognising his dukedom, surrendered the king to Charles, who recognised his kingship over all the Franks in return for legitimate royal affirmation of his mayoralty, likewise over all the kingdoms (718). Foreign wars from 718-732 The ensuing years were full of strife. Between 718 and 723, Charles secured his power through a series of victories: he won the loyalty of several important bishops and abbots (by donating lands and money for the foundation of abbeys such as Echternach), he subjugated Bavaria and Alemannia, and he defeated the pagan Saxons. Having unified the Franks under his banner, Charles was determined to punish the Saxons who had invaded Austrasia. Therefore, late in 718, he laid waste their country to the banks of the Weser, the Lippe, and the Ruhr. He defeated them in the Teutoburg Forest. In 719, Charles seized West Frisia without any great resistance on the part of the Frisians, who had been subjects of the Franks but had seized control upon the death of Pippin. Although Charles did not trust the pagans, their ruler, Aldegisel, accepted Christianity, and Charles sent Willibrord, bishop of Utrecht, the famous "Apostle to the Frisians" to convert the people. Charles also did much to support Winfrid, later Saint Boniface, the "Apostle of the Germans." When Chilperic II died the following year (720), Charles appointed as his successor the son of Dagobert III, Theuderic IV, who was still a minor, and who occupied the throne from 720 to 737. Charles was now appointing the kings whom he supposedly served, rois fainÃ©ants who were mere puppets in his hands; by the end of his reign they were so useless that he didn't even bother appointing one. At this time, Charles again marched against the Saxons. Then the Neustrians rebelled under Ragenfrid, who had left the county of Anjou. They were easily defeated (724), but Ragenfrid gave up his sons as hostages in turn for keeping his county. This ended the civil wars of Charles' reign. The next six years were devoted in their entirety to assuring Frankish authority over the dependent Germanic tribes. Between 720 and 723, Charles was fighting in Bavaria, where the Agilolfing dukes had gradually evolved into independent rulers, recently in alliance with Liutprand the Lombard. He forced the Alemanni to accompany him, and Duke Hugbert submitted to Frankish suzerainty. In 725 and 728, he again entered Bavaria and the ties of lordship seemed strong. From his first campaign, he brought back the Agilolfing princess Swanachild, who apparently became his concubine. In 730, he marched against Lantfrid, duke of Alemannia, who had also become independent, and killed him in battle. He forced the Alemanni capitulation to Frankish suzerainty and did not appoint a successor to Lantfrid. Thus, southern Germany once more became part of the Frankish kingdom, as had northern Germany during the first years of the reign. But by 731, his own realm secure, Charles began to prepare exclusively for the coming storm from the south and west. In 721, the emir of CÃ³rdoba had built up a strong army from Morocco, Yemen, and Syria to conquer Aquitaine, the large duchy in the southwest of Gaul, nominally under Frankish sovereignty, but in practice almost independent in the hands of the Odo the Great, the Duke of Aquitaine, since the Merovingian kings had lost power. The invading Muslims besieged the city of Toulouse, then Aquitaine's most important city, and Odo (also called Eudes, or Eudo) immediately left to find help. He returned three months later just before the city was about to surrender and defeated the Muslim invaders on June 9, 721, at what is now known as the Battle of Toulouse. This critical defeat was essentially the result of a classic enveloping movement by Odo's forces. (After Odo originally fled, the Muslims became overconfident and failed to maintain strong outer defenses and continuous scouting.) Thus, when Odo returned, he was able to launch a near complete surprise attack on the besieging force, scattering it at the first attack, and slaughtering units caught resting or that fled without weapons or armour. Due to the situation in Iberia, Martel believed he needed a virtually fulltime army-one he could train intensely-as a core of veteran Franks who would be augmented with the usual conscripts called up in time of war. (During the Early Middle Ages, troops were only available after the crops had been planted and before harvesting time.) To train the kind of infantry that could withstand the Muslim heavy cavalry, Charles needed them year-round, and he needed to pay them so their families could buy the food they would have otherwise grown. To obtain money he seized church lands and property, and used the funds to pay his soldiers. The same Charles who had secured the support of the ecclesia by donating land, seized some of it back between 724 and 732. Of course, Church officials were enraged, and, for a time, it looked as though Charles might even be excommunicated for his actions. But then came a significant invasion. Eve of Tours Historian Paul K. Davis wrote, "Having defeated Eudes, he turned to the Rhine to strengthen his northeastern borders - but in 725 was diverted south with the activity of the Muslims in Acquitane." Martel then concentrated his attention to the Umayyads, virtually for the remainder of his life. Indeed, 12 years later, when he had thrice rescued Gaul from Umayyad invasions, Antonio Santosuosso noted when he destroyed an Umayyad army sent to reinforce the invasion forces of the 735 campaigns, "Charles Martel again came to the rescue." Charles Martel could have pursued the wars against the Saxons-but he was determined to prepare for what he thought was a greater danger. The Muslims were not aware, at that time, of the true strength of the Franks, or the fact that they were building a disciplined army instead of the typical barbarian hordes that had dominated Europe after Rome's fall. The Arab Chronicles, the history of that age, show that Arab awareness of the Franks as a growing military power came only after the Battle of Tours when the Caliph expressed shock at his army's catastrophic defeat. Battle of Tours Lead-up and importance It was under one of their ablest and most renowned commanders, with a veteran army, and with every apparent advantage of time, place, and circumstance, that the Arabs made their great effort at the conquest of Europe north of the Pyrenees. -Edward Shepherd Creasy, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World The Cordoban emirate had previously invaded Gaul and had been stopped in its northward sweep at the Battle of Toulouse, in 721. The hero of that less celebrated event had been Odo the Great, Duke of Aquitaine, who was not the progenitor of a race of kings and patron of chroniclers. It has previously been explained how Odo defeated the invading Muslims, but when they returned, things were far different. The arrival in the interim of a new emir of Cordoba, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, who brought with him a huge force of Arabs and Berber horsemen, triggered a far greater invasion. Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi had been at Toulouse, and the Arab Chronicles make clear he had strongly opposed the Emir's decision not to secure outer defenses against a relief force, which allowed Odo and his relief force to attack with impunity before the Islamic cavalry could assemble or mount. Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi had no intention of permitting such a disaster again. This time the Umayyad horsemen were ready for battle, and the results were horrific for the Aquitanians. Odo, hero of Toulouse, was badly defeated in the Muslim invasion of 732 at the battle prior to the Muslim sacking of Bordeaux, and when he gathered a second army, at the Battle of the River Garonne-Western chroniclers state, "God alone knows the number of the slain"- and the city of Bordeaux was sacked and looted. Odo fled to Charles, seeking help. Charles agreed to come to Odo's rescue, provided Odo acknowledged Charles and his house as his overlords, which Odo did formally at once. Charles was pragmatic; while most commanders would never use their enemies in battle, Odo and his remaining Aquitanian nobles formed the right flank of Charles's forces at Tours. The Battle of Tours earned Charles the cognomen "Martel" ('Hammer') for the merciless way he hammered his enemies. Many historians, including Sir Edward Creasy, believe that had he failed at Tours, Islam would probably have overrun Gaul, and perhaps the remainder of Western Europe. Gibbon made clear his belief that the Umayyad armies would have conquered from Japan to the Rhine, and even England, having the English Channel for protection, with ease, had Martel not prevailed. Creasy said "the great victory won by Charles Martel ... gave a decisive check to the career of Arab conquest in Western Europe, rescued Christendom from Islam, [and] preserved the relics of ancient and the germs of modern civilization." Gibbon's belief that the fate of Christianity hinged on this battle is echoed by other historians including John B. Bury, and was very popular for most of modern historiography. It fell somewhat out of style in the 20th century, when historians such as Bernard Lewis contended that Arabs had little intention of occupying northern France. More recently, however, many historians have tended once again to view the Battle of Tours as a very significant event in the history of Europe and Christianity. Equally, many, such as William Watson, still believe this battle was one of macrohistorical world-changing importance, if they do not go so far as Gibbon does rhetorically. In the modern era, Matthew Bennett and his co-authors of Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World, published in 2005, argue that "few battles are remembered 1,000 years after they are fought ... but the Battle of Poitiers, (Tours) is an exception ... Charles Martel turned back a Muslim raid that had it been allowed to continue, might have conquered Gaul." Michael Grant, author of History of Rome, grants the Battle of Tours such importance that he lists it in the macrohistorical dates of the Roman era. It is important to note however that modern Western historians, military historians, and writers, essentially fall into three camps. The first, those who believe Gibbon was right in his assessment that Martel saved Christianity and Western civilization by this battle are typified by Bennett, Paul Davis, Robert Martin, and educationalist Dexter B. Wakefield who writes in An Islamic Europe: A Muslim France? Historically, it nearly happened. But as a result of Martelâ€™s fierce opposition, which ended Muslim advances and set the stage for centuries of war thereafter, Islam moved no farther into Europe. European schoolchildren learn about the Battle of Tours in much the same way that American students learn about Valley Forge and Gettysburg." The second camp of contemporary historians believe that a failure by Martel at Tours could have been a disaster, destroying what would become Western civilization after the Renaissance. Certainly all historians agree that no power would have remained in Europe able to halt Islamic expansion had the Franks failed. William E. Watson, one of the most respected historians of this era, strongly supports Tours as a macrohistorical event, but distances himself from the rhetoric of Gibbon and Drubeck, writing, for example, of the battle's importance in Frankish and world history in 1993: There is clearly some justification for ranking Tours-Poitiers among the most significant events in Frankish history when one considers the result of the battle in light of the remarkable record of the successful establishment by Muslims of Islamic political and cultural dominance along the entire eastern and southern rim of the former Christian, Roman world. The rapid Muslim conquest of Palestine, Syria, Egypt and the North African coast all the way to Morocco in the seventh century resulted in the permanent imposition by force of Islamic culture onto a previously Christian and largely non-Arab base. The Visigothic kingdom fell to Muslim conquerors in a single battle at the Battle of Guadalete on the Rio Barbate in 711, and the Hispanic Christian population took seven long centuries to regain control of the Iberian Peninsula. The Reconquista, of course, was completed in 1492, only months before Columbus received official backing for his fateful voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Had Charles Martel suffered at Tours-Poitiers the fate of King Roderick at the Rio Barbate, it is doubtful that a "do-nothing" sovereign of the Merovingian realm could have later succeeded where his talented major domus had failed. Indeed, as Charles was the progenitor of the Carolingian line of Frankish rulers and grandfather of Charlemagne, one can even say with a degree of certainty that the subsequent history of the West would have proceeded along vastly different currents had â€˜Abd ar-Rahman been victorious at Tours-Poitiers in 732. The final camp of Western historians believe that the importance of the battle is dramatically overstated. This view is typified by Alessandro Barbero, who writes, "Today, historians tend to play down the significance of the battle of Poitiers, pointing out that the purpose of the Arab force defeated by Charles Martel was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy monastery of St-Martin of Tours". Similarly, TomaÅ¾ Mastnak writes: Modern historians have constructed a myth presenting this victory as having saved Christian Europe from the Muslims. Edward Gibbon, for example, called Charles Martel the savior of Christendom and the battle near Poitiers an encounter that changed the history of the world... This myth has survived well into our own times... Contemporaries of the battle, however, did not overstate its significance. The continuators of Fredegar's chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens - moreover, as only one in a series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory... One of Fredegar's continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule. However, it is vital to note, when assessing Charles Martel's life, that even those historians who dispute the significance of this one battle as the event that saved Christianity, do not dispute that Martel himself had a huge effect on Western European history. Modern military historian Victor Davis Hanson acknowledges the debate on this battle, citing historians both for and against its macrohistorical placement: Recent scholars have suggested Poitiers, so poorly recorded in contemporary sources, was a mere raid and thus a construct of western myth-making or that a Muslim victory might have been preferable to continued Frankish dominance. What is clear is that Poitiers marked a general continuance of the successful defense of Europe, (from the Muslims). Flush from the victory at Tours, Charles Martel went on to clear southern France from Islamic attackers for decades, unify the warring kingdoms into the foundations of the Carolingian Empire, and ensure ready and reliable troops from local estates. After Tours In the subsequent decade, Charles led the Frankish army against the eastern duchies, Bavaria and Alemannia, and the southern duchies, Aquitaine and Provence. He dealt with the ongoing conflict with the Frisians and Saxons to his northeast with some success, but full conquest of the Saxons and their incorporation into the Frankish empire would wait for his grandson Charlemagne, primarily because Martel concentrated the bulk of his efforts against Muslim expansion. So instead of concentrating on conquest to his east, he continued expanding Frankish authority in the west, and denying the Emirate of CÃ³rdoba a foothold in Europe beyond Al-Andalus. After his victory at Tours, Martel continued on in campaigns in 736 and 737 to drive other Muslim armies from bases in Gaul after they again attempted to get a foothold in Europe beyond Al-Andalus. Wars from 732-737 Between his victory of 732 and 735, Charles reorganized the kingdom of Burgundy, replacing the counts and dukes with his loyal supporters, thus strengthening his hold on power. He was forced, by the ventures of Radbod, duke of the Frisians (719-734), son of the Duke Aldegisel who had accepted the missionaries Willibrord and Boniface, to invade independence-minded Frisia again in 734. In that year, he slew the duke, who had expelled the Christian missionaries, in the battle of the Boarn and so wholly subjugated the populace (he destroyed every pagan shrine) that the people were peaceful for twenty years after. The dynamic changed in 735 because of the death of Odo the Great, who had been forced to acknowledge, albeit reservedly, the suzerainty of Charles in 719. Though Charles wished to unite the duchy directly to himself and went there to elicit the proper homage of the Aquitainians, the nobility proclaimed Odo's son, Hunald of Aquitaine, whose dukedom Charles recognised when the Umayyads invaded Provence the next year, and who equally was forced to acknowledge Charles as overlord as he had no hope of holding off the Muslims alone. This naval Arab invasion was headed by Abdul Rahman's son. It landed in Narbonne in 736 and moved at once to reinforce Arles and move inland. Charles temporarily put the conflict with Hunold on hold, and descended on the ProvenÃ§al strongholds of the Umayyads. In 736, he retook Montfrin and Avignon, and Arles and Aix-en-Provence with the help of Liutprand, King of the Lombards. NÃ®mes, Agde, and BÃ©ziers, held by Islam since 725, fell to him and their fortresses were destroyed. He crushed one Umayyad army at Arles, as that force sallied out of the city, and then took the city itself by a direct and brutal frontal attack, and burned it to the ground to prevent its use again as a stronghold for Umayyad expansion. He then moved swiftly and defeated a mighty host outside of Narbonnea at the River Berre, but failed to take the city. Military historians believe he could have taken it, had he chosen to tie up all his resources to do so-but he believed his life was coming to a close, and he had much work to do to prepare for his sons to take control of the Frankish realm. A direct frontal assault, such as took Arles, using rope ladders and rams, plus a few catapults, simply was not sufficient to take Narbonne without horrific loss of life for the Franks, troops Martel felt he could not lose. Nor could he spare years to starve the city into submission, years he needed to set up the administration of an empire his heirs would reign over. He left Narbonne therefore, isolated and surrounded, and his son would return to liberate it for Christianity. Notable about these campaigns was Charles' incorporation, for the first time, of heavy cavalry with stirrups to augment his phalanx. His ability to coordinate infantry and cavalry veterans was unequaled in that era and enabled him to face superior numbers of invaders, and to decisively defeat them again and again. Some historians believe the Battle against the main Muslim force at the River Berre, near Narbonne, in particular was as important a victory for Christian Europe as Tours. Further, unlike his father at Tours, Rahman's son in 736-737 knew that the Franks were a real power, and that Martel personally was a force to be reckoned with. He had no intention of allowing Martel to catch him unawares and dictate the time and place of battle, as his father had, and concentrated instead on seizing a substantial portion of the coastal plains around Narbonne in 736 and heavily reinforced Arles as he advanced inland. They planned from there to move from city to city, fortifying as they went, and if Martel wished to stop them from making a permanent enclave for expansion of the Caliphate, he would have to come to them, in the open, where, he, unlike his father, would dictate the place of battle. All worked as he had planned, until Martel arrived, albeit more swiftly than the Moors believed he could call up his entire army. Unfortunately for Rahman's son, however, he had overestimated the time it would take Martel to develop heavy cavalry equal to that of the Muslims. The Caliphate believed it would take a generation, but Martel managed it in five years. Prepared to face the Frankish phalanx, the Muslims were totally unprepared to face a mixed force of heavy cavalry and infantry in a phalanx. Thus, Charles again championed Christianity and halted Muslim expansion into Europe. These defeats, plus those at the hands of Leo in Anatolia, were the last great attempt at expansion by the Umayyad Caliphate before the destruction of the dynasty at the Battle of the Zab, and the rending of the Caliphate forever, especially the utter destruction of the Umayyad army at River Berre near Narbonne in 737. Interregnum In 737, at the tail end of his campaigning in Provence and Septimania, the king, Theuderic IV, died. Martel, titling himself maior domus and princeps et dux Francorum, did not appoint a new king and nobody acclaimed one. The throne lay vacant until Martel's death. As the historian Charles Oman says (The Dark Ages, pg 297), "he cared not for name or style so long as the real power was in his hands." Gibbon has said Martel was "content with the titles of Mayor or Duke of the Franks, but he deserved to become the father of a line of kings," which he did. Gibbon also says of him, "in the public danger, he was summoned by the voice of his country." The interregnum, the final four years of Charles' life, was more peaceful than most of it had been and much of his time was now spent on administrative and organisational plans to create a more efficient state. Though, in 738, he compelled the Saxons of Westphalia to do him homage and pay tribute, and in 739 checked an uprising in Provence, the rebels being under the leadership of Maurontus. Charles set about integrating the outlying realms of his empire into the Frankish church. He erected four dioceses in Bavaria (Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising, and Passau) and gave them Boniface as archbishop and metropolitan over all Germany east of the Rhine, with his seat at Mainz. Boniface had been under his protection from 723 on; indeed the saint himself explained to his old friend, Daniel of Winchester, that without it he could neither administer his church, defend his clergy, nor prevent idolatry. It was Boniface who had defended Charles most stoutly for his deeds in seizing ecclesiastical lands to pay his army in the days leading to Tours, as one doing what he must to defend Christianity. In 739, Pope Gregory III begged Charles for his aid against Liutprand, but Charles was loath to fight his onetime ally and ignored the Papal plea. Nonetheless, the Papal applications for Frankish protection showed how far Martel had come from the days he was tottering on excommunication, and set the stage for his son and grandson to rearrange Italian political boundaries to suit the Papacy, and protect it. Death Charles Martel died on October 22, 741, at Quierzy-sur-Oise in what is today the Aisne dÃ©partement in the Picardy region of France. He was buried at Saint Denis Basilica in Paris. His territories were divided among his adult sons a year earlier: to Carloman he gave Austrasia and Alemannia (with Bavaria as a vassal), to Pippin the Younger Neustria and Burgundy (with Aquitaine as a vassal), and to Grifo nothing, though some sources indicate he intended to give him a strip of land between Neustria and Austrasia. Gibbon called him "the hero of the age" and declared "Christendom ... delivered ... by the genius and good fortune of one man, Charles Martel." Legacy At the beginning of Charles Martel's career, he had many internal opponents and felt the need to appoint his own kingly claimant, Clotaire IV. By his end, however, the dynamics of rulership in Francia had changed, no hallowed Meroving was needed, neither for defence nor legitimacy: Charles divided his realm between his sons without opposition (though he ignored his young son Bernard). In between, he strengthened the Frankish state by consistently defeating, through superior generalship, the host of hostile foreign nations which beset it on all sides, including the non-Christian Saxons, which his grandson Charlemagne would fully subdue, and Moors, which he halted on a path of continental domination. Though he never cared about titles, his son Pippin did, and finally asked the Pope "who should be King, he who has the title, or he who has the power?" The Pope, highly dependent on Frankish armies for his independence from Lombard and Byzantine power (the Byzantine Emperor still considered himself to be the only legitimate "Roman Emperor", and thus, ruler of all of the provinces of the ancient empire, whether recognised or not), declared for "he who had the power" and immediately crowned Pippin. Decades later, in 800, Pippin's son Charlemagne was crowned emperor by the Pope, further extending the principle by delegitimising the nominal authority of the Byzantine Emperor in the Italian peninsula (which had, by then, shrunk to encompass little more than Apulia and Calabria at best) and ancient Roman Gaul, including the Iberian outposts Charlemagne had established in the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees, what today forms Catalonia. In short, though the Byzantine Emperor claimed authority over all the old Roman Empire, as the legitimate "Roman" Emperor, it was simply not reality. The bulk of the Western Roman Empire had come under Carolingian rule, the Byzantine Emperor having had almost no authority in the West since the sixth century, though Charlemagne, a consummate politician, preferred to avoid an open breach with Constantinople. An institution unique in history was being born: the Holy Roman Empire. Though the sardonic Voltaire ridiculed its nomenclature, saying that the Holy Roman Empire was "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire," it constituted an enormous political power for a time, especially under the Saxon and Salian dynasties and, to a lesser, extent, the Hohenstaufen. It lasted until 1806, by which time it was a nonentity. Though his grandson became its first emperor, the "empire" such as it was, was largely born during the reign of Charles Martel. Charles was that rarest of commodities in the Middle Ages: a brilliant strategic general, who also was a tactical commander par excellence, able in the heat of battle to adapt his plans to his foe's forces and movement - and amazingly, to defeat them repeatedly, especially when, as at Tours, they were far superior in men and weaponry, and at Berre and Narbonne, when they were superior in numbers of fighting men. Charles had the last quality which defines genuine greatness in a military commander: he foresaw the dangers of his foes, and prepared for them with care; he used ground, time, place, and fierce loyalty of his troops to offset his foe's superior weaponry and tactics; third, he adapted, again and again, to the enemy on the battlefield, shifting to compensate for the unforeseen and unforeseeable. Gibbon, whose tribute to Martel has been noted, was not alone among the great mid era historians in fervently praising Martel; Thomas Arnold ranks the victory of Charles Martel even higher than the victory of Arminius in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in its impact on all of modern history: Charles Martel's victory at Tours was among those signal deliverances which have affected for centuries the happiness of mankind. -History of the later Roman Commonwealth, vol ii. p. 317. German historians are especially ardent in their praise of Martel and in their belief that he saved Europe and Christianity from then all-conquering Islam, praising him also for driving back the ferocious Saxon barbarians on his borders. Schlegel speaks of this "mighty victory" in terms of fervent gratitude, and tells how " the arm of Charles Martel saved and delivered the Christian nations of the West from the deadly grasp of all-destroying Islam", and Ranke points out, as one of the most important epochs in the history of the world, the commencement of the eighth century, when on the one side Mohammedanism threatened to overspread Italy and Gaul, and on the other the ancient idolatry of Saxony and Friesland once more forced its way across the Rhine. In this peril of Christian institutions, a youthful prince of Germanic race, Karl Martell, arose as their champion, maintained them with all the energy which the necessity for self-defence calls forth, and finally extended them into new regions. In 1922 and 1923, Belgian historian Henri Pirenne published a series of papers, known collectively as the "Pirenne Thesis", which remain influential to this day. Pirenne held that the Roman Empire continued, in the Frankish realms, up until the time of the Arab conquests in the 7th century. These conquests disrupted Mediterranean trade routes leading to a decline in the European economy. Such continued disruption would have meant complete disaster except for Charles Martel's halting of Islamic expansion into Europe from 732 on. What he managed to preserve led to the Carolingian Renaissance, named after him. Professor Santosuosso perhaps sums up Martel best when he talks about his coming to the rescue of his Christian allies in Provence, and driving the Muslims back into the Iberian Peninsula forever in the mid and late 730s: After assembling forces at Saragossa the Muslims entered French territory in 735, crossed the River Rhone and captured and looted Arles. From there they struck into the heart of Provence, ending with the capture of Avignon, despite strong resistance. Islamic forces remained in French territory for about four years, carrying raids to Lyon, Burgundy, and Piedmont. Again Charles Martel came to the rescue, reconquering most of the lost territories in two campaigns in 736 and 739, except for the city of Narbonne, which finally fell in 759. The second (Muslim) expedition was probably more dangerous than the first to Poitiers. Yet its failure (at Martel's hands) put an end to any serious Muslim expedition across the Pyrenees (forever). In the Netherlands, a vital part of the Carolingian Empire, and elsewhere in the Low Countries, he is considered a hero. In France and Germany, he is revered as a hero of epic proportions. Skilled as an administrator and ruler, Martel organized what would become the medieval European government: a system of fiefdoms, loyal to barons, counts, dukes and ultimately the King, or in his case, simply maior domus and princeps et dux Francorum. ("Mayor of the Palace, Duke of the Franks") His close coordination of church with state began the medieval pattern for such government. He created what would become the first western standing army since the fall of Rome by his maintaining a core of loyal veterans around which he organized the normal feudal levies. In essence, he changed Europe from a horde of barbarians fighting with one another, to an organized state. Beginning of the Reconquista Although it took another two decades for the Franks to drive all the Arab garrisons out of Septimania and across the Pyrenees, Charles Martel's halt of the invasion of French soil turned the tide of Islamic advances, and the unification of the Frankish kingdoms under Martel, his son Pippin the Younger, and his grandson Charlemagne created a western power which prevented the Emirate of CÃ³rdoba from expanding over the Pyrenees. Martel, who in 732 was on the verge of excommunication, instead was recognised by the Church as its paramount defender. Pope Gregory II wrote to him more than once, asking his protection and aid, and he remained, till his death, fixated on stopping the Muslims. Martel's son Pippin the Younger kept his father's promise and returned and took Narbonne by siege in 759. His grandson, Charlemagne, actually established the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. Carolingians called this region of modern-day Spain "The Moorish Marches", and saw it as more than a simple check on the Muslims in Hispania. It formed a permanent buffer zone against Islam and became the basis, along with the efforts of Pelayo (Latin: Pelagius) and his descendants, for the Reconquista. Military legacy Heavy infantry and permanent army Victor Davis Hanson argues that Charles Martel launched "the thousand year struggle" between European heavy infantry and Muslim cavalry. Of course, Martel is also the father of heavy cavalry in Europe, as he integrated heavy armoured cavalry into his forces. This creation of a real army would continue all through his reign, and that of his son, Pepin the Short, until his Grandson, Charlemagne, would possess the world's largest and finest army since the peak of Rome. Equally, the Muslims used infantry - indeed, at the Battle of Toulouse most of their forces were light infantry. It was not till Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi brought a huge force of Arab and Berber cavalry with him when he assumed the emirate of Al-Andulus that the Muslim forces became primarily cavalry. Martel's army was the first standing permanent army since the fall of Rome in 476. " At its core was a body of tough, seasoned heavy infantry who displayed exceptional resolution at Tours. The Frankish infantry wore as much as 70 pounds of armour, including their heavy wooden shields with an iron boss. Standing close together, and well disciplined, they were unbreakable at Tours. Martel had taken the money and property he had seized from the church and paid local nobles to supply trained ready infantry year round. This was the core of veterans who served with him on a permanent basis, and as Hanson says, "provided a steady supply of dependable troops year around." While other Germanic cultures, such as the Visigoths or Vandals, had a proud martial tradition, and the Franks themselves had an annual muster of military aged men, such tribes were only able to field armies around planting and harvest. It was Martel's creation of a system whereby he could call on troops year round that gave the Carolingians the first standing and permanent army since Rome's fall in the west. Charles Martel's most important military achievement was the victory at Tours. Creasy argues that the Martel victory "preserved the relics of ancient and the germs of modern civilizations." Gibbon called those eight days in 732, the week leading up to Tours, and the battle itself, "the events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbours of Gaul [France], from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran." Paul Akers, in his editorial on Charles Martel, says for those who value life and freedom "you might spare a minute sometime today, and every October, to say a silent 'thank you' to a gang of half-savage Germans and especially to their leader, Charles 'The Hammer' Martel." Martel analysed what would be necessary for him to withstand a larger force and superior technology (the Muslim horsemen had adopted the armour and accoutrements of heavy cavalry from the Sassanid warrior class, which made the armored mounted knight possible). Not daring to send his few horsemen against the Islamic cavalry, he had his army fight in a formation used by the ancient Greeks to withstand superior numbers and weapons by discipline, courage, and a willingness to die for their cause: a phalanx. He had trained a core of his men year round, using mostly Church funds, and some had been with him since his earliest days after his father's death. It was this hard core of disciplined veterans that won the day for him at Tours. Hanson emphasizes that Martel's greatest accomplishment as a general may have been his ability to keep his troops under control. Iron discipline saved his infantry from the fate of so many infantrymen - such as the Saxons at Hastings - who broke formation and were slaughtered piecemeal. After using this infantry force by itself at Tours, he studied the foe's forces and further adapted to them, initially using stirrups and saddles recovered from the foe's dead horses, and armour from the dead horsemen. The defeats Martel inflicted on the Muslims were vital in that the split in the Islamic world left the Caliphate unable to mount an all-out attack on Europe via its Iberian stronghold after 750. His ability to meet this challenge, until the fragmentation of authority within the Muslims, is considered by most historians to be of macrohistorical importance, and is why Dante writes of him in Heaven as one of the "Defenders of the Faith." H. G. Wells says of Charles Martel's decisive defeat of the Muslims in his "Short History of the World: The Muslim when they crossed the Pyrenees in 720 found this Frankish kingdom under the practical rule of Charles Martel, the Mayor of the Palace of a degenerate descendant of Clovis, and experienced the decisive defeat of Poitiers (732) at his hands. This Charles Martel was practically overlord of Europe north of the Alps from the Pyrenees to Hungary." However, when the Muslim first crossed the Pyrenees, Aquitaine was actually an independent realm under duke Odo's leadership and the Gothic Septimania remained out of Frankish rule. Odo, who was Charles's southern rival, had struck a peace treaty after the Frankish civil wars in Neustria and Austrasia, and garnered much popularity and the Pope's favour for his victory on the 721 Battle of Toulouse against the Moors. On the eve of the Muslim expedition north (731), Charles Martel crossed the Loire and captured the Aquitanian city of Bourges, while Odo re-captured it briefly after. John H. Haaren says in â€œFamous Men of the Middle Agesâ€ The battle of Tours, or Poitiers, as it should be called, is regarded as one of the decisive battles of the world. It decided that Christians, and not Moslems, should be the ruling power in Europe. Charles Martel is especially celebrated as the hero of this battle. Just as his grandson, Charlemagne, would become famous for his swift and unexpected movements in his campaigns, Charles was renowned for never doing what his enemies forecast he would do, and for moving far faster than his opponents believed he could. It is notable that the Northmen did not begin their European raids until after the death of Martel's grandson, Charlemagne. They had the naval capacity to begin those raids at least three generations earlier, and constructed defenses against counterattacks by land, but chose not to challenge Martel, his son Pippin, or his grandson, Charlemagne. This was probably fortunate for Martel, who despite his enormous gifts, would probably not have been able to repel the Vikings in addition to the Muslims, Saxons, and everyone else he defeated. Conclusion J.M. Roberts says of Charles Martel in his note on the Carolingians on page 315 of his 1993 History of the World: It (the Carolingian line) produced Charles Martel, the soldier who turned the Arabs back at Tours, and the supporter of Saint Boniface, the Evangelizer of Germany. This is a considerable double mark to have left on the history of Europe." Gibbon perhaps summarized Charles Martel's legacy most eloquently: "in a laborious administration of 24 years he had restored and supported the dignity of the throne..by the activity of a warrior who in the same campaign could display his banner on the Elbe, the Rhone, and shores of the ocean." Family and children Charles Martel married twice: His first wife was Rotrude of Treves, (690-724) (daughter of Leudwinus, Bishop of Trier). They had the following children: Hiltrud (d. 754), married Odilo I, Duke of Bavaria Carloman Landrade (Landres), married Sigrand, Count of Hesbania Auda, Aldana, or Alane, married Thierry IV, Count of Autun and Toulouse Pepin the Short His second wife was Swanhild. They had the following child: Grifo Charles Martel also had a mistress, Ruodhaid. They had the following children: Bernard (b. before 732-787) Hieronymus Remigius, archbishop of Rouen (d. 771)	Martel, Charles King of the Franks (I765)
230	Charles of Lorraine (Laon, 953-993 in OrlÃ©ans) was the son of Louis IV of France and Gerberga of Saxony and younger brother of King Lothair. He was a sixth generation descendant of Charlemagne. Charles was excluded from the throne of France, and the German Emperor Otto II, made him Duke of Lower Lorraine in 977. His father probably gave him royal powers in Burgundy, but Lothair took them back upon reaching his majority. In 977, he accused Lothair's wife, Emma, daughter of Lothair II of Italy, of infideility with Adalberon, Bishop of Laon. The council of Sainte-Macre at Fismes (near Reims) exonerated the queen and the bishop, but Charles maintained his claim and was driven from the kingdom, finding refuge at the court of his cousin, Otto II. Otto promised to crown Charles as soon as Lothair was out of the way and Charles paid him homage, receiving back Lower Lorraine. In August 978, Lothair invaded Germany and captured the imperial capital of Aachen, but failed to capture either Otto or Charles. In October, Otto and Charles in turn invaded France, devastating the land around Rheims, Soissons, and Laon. In the latter city, the chief seat of the kings of France, Charles was crowned by Theodoric I, Bishop of Metz. Lothair fled to Paris and was there besieged. But a relief army of Hugh Capet's forced Otto and Charles to lift the siege on 30 November. Lothair and Capet, the tables turned once more, chased the German king and his liege back to Aachen and retook Laon. As he had been a vassal also of Lothair, Charles' acts on behalf of Otto were considered treason and he was thereafter excluded from the throne. On Lothair's death (986), the magnates elected his son Louis V and on the latter's death (987), Hugh Capet. Thus, the House of Capet came to the throne over the disgraced and ignored Charles. Charles' marriage to the lowborn daughter of a vassal of Hugh was championed by his opponents as a cardinal reason to deny him the throne. In order to have free hand towards France, he resigned his duchy to regency of his eldest son Otto. Charles made war on Hugh, even taking Rheims and Laon. However, on Maundy Thursday 991 26 March, he was captured, through the perfidy of the Bishop Adalberon, and with his young second son Louis imprisoned by Hugh in OrlÃ©ans, where he died a short while later, in or before 993. In 1666, the sepulchre of Charles was discovered in the Basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht. His skin appears to have been interred there only in 1001, but that is not the date of his death, as some scholars assumed. Though Charles ruled Lower Lorraine, the Dukes of Lorraine (Upper Lotharingia) counted him as Charles I of Lorraine. Family Charles married firstly (970) a daughter of Robert of Vermandois, count of Meaux and Troyes. He married secondly Adelais, the daughter of low-ranking vassal of Hugh Capet. He may have married thirdly Bonne, daughter of Godfrey I, Count of Verdun. His children with his second and first wives were: Otto, succeeded him as Duke of Lower Lotharingia Adelaide Gerberga of Lower Lorraine, countess of Brussels, who married Lambert I, Count of Leuven Louis, followed his father to France and died in prison Charles (b. 989) Ermengarde, married Albert I, Count of Namur (various sources assign paternity of Ermengarde alternatively to Charles, or to his son Otto)	Charles Duc de Basse-Lorraine (I790)
231	Charles the Bald (13 June 823 - 6 October 877), Holy Roman Emperor (875-877, as Charles II) and King of West Francia (840-877, as Charles II, with the borders of his land defined by the Treaty of Verdun, 843), was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith. Struggle against his brothers He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder brothers were already adults and had been assigned their own regna, or subkingdoms, by their father. The attempts made by Louis the Pious to assign Charles a subkingdom, first Alemannia and then the country between the Meuse and the Pyrenees (in 832, after the rising of Pepin I of Aquitaine) were unsuccessful. The numerous reconciliations with the rebellious Lothair and Pepin, as well as their brother Louis the German, King of Bavaria, made Charles's share in Aquitaine and Italy only temporary, but his father did not give up and made Charles the heir of the entire land which was once Gaul and would eventually be France. At a diet near CrÃ©mieux in 837, Louis the Pious bade the nobles do homage to Charles as his heir. This led to the final rising of his sons against him and Pepin of Aquitaine died in 838, whereupon Charles received that kingdom, finally once and for all. Pepin's son Pepin II would be a perpetual thorn in his side. The death of the emperor in 840 led to the outbreak of war between his sons. Charles allied himself with his brother Louis the German to resist the pretensions of the new emperor Lothair I, and the two allies defeated Lothair at the Battle of Fontenay-en-Puisaye on 25 June 841. In the following year, the two brothers confirmed their alliance by the celebrated Oaths of Strasbourg. The war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Verdun in August 843. The settlement gave Charles the Bald the kingdom of the West Franks, which he had been up till then governing and which practically corresponded with what is now France, as far as the Meuse, the SaÃ´ne, and the RhÃ´ne, with the addition of the Spanish March as far as the Ebro. Louis received the eastern part of the Carolingian Empire, known as the East Francia and later Germany. Lothair retained the imperial title and the kingdom of Italy. He also received the central regions from Flanders through the Rhineland and Burgundy as king of Middle Francia. Reign in the West The first years of Charles's reign, up to the death of Lothair I in 855, were comparatively peaceful. During these years the three brothers continued the system of "confraternal government", meeting repeatedly with one another, at Koblenz (848), at Meerssen (851), and at Attigny (854). In 858, Louis the German, invited by disaffected nobles eager to oust Charles, invaded the West Frankish kingdom. Charles was so unpopular that he was unable to summon an army, and he fled to Burgundy. He was saved only by the support of the bishops, who refused to crown Louis the German king, and by the fidelity of the Welfs, who were related to his mother, Judith. In 860, he in his turn tried to seize the kingdom of his nephew, Charles of Provence, but was repulsed. On the death of his nephew Lothair II in 869, Charles tried to seize Lothair's dominions, but by the Treaty of Mersen (870) was compelled to share them with Louis the German. Besides these family disputes, Charles had to struggle against repeated rebellions in Aquitaine and against the Bretons. Led by their chiefs NomenoÃ« and ErispoÃ«, who defeated the king at the Battle of Ballon (845) and the Battle of Jengland (851), the Bretons were successful in obtaining a de facto independence. Charles also fought against the Vikings, who devastated the country of the north, the valleys of the Seine and Loire, and even up to the borders of Aquitaine. Several times Charles was forced to purchase their retreat at a heavy price. Charles led various expeditions against the invaders and, by the Edict of Pistres of 864, made the army more mobile by providing for a cavalry element, the predecessor of the French chivalry so famous during the next 600 years. By the same edict, he ordered fortified bridges to be put up at all rivers to block the Viking incursions. Two of these bridges at Paris saved the city during its siege of 885-886. Reign as emperor In 875, after the death of the Emperor Louis II (son of his half-brother Lothair), Charles the Bald, supported by Pope John VIII, traveled to Italy, receiving the royal crown at Pavia and the imperial insignia in Rome on 29 December. Louis the German, also a candidate for the succession of Louis II, revenged himself by invading and devastating Charles' dominions, and Charles had to return hastily to Francia. After the death of Louis the German (28 August 876), Charles in his turn attempted to seize Louis's kingdom, but was decisively beaten at Andernach on 8 October 876. In the meantime, John VIII, menaced by the Saracens, was urging Charles to come to his defence in Italy. Charles again crossed the Alps, but this expedition was received with little enthusiasm by the nobles, and even by his regent in Lombardy, Boso, and they refused to join his army. At the same time Carloman, son of Louis the German, entered northern Italy. Charles, ill and in great distress, started on his way back to Gaul, but died while crossing the pass of Mont Cenis at Brides-les-Bains, on 6 October 877. According to the Annals of St-Bertin, Charles was hastily buried at the abbey of Nantua, Burgundy because the bearers were unable to withstand the stench of his decaying body. He was to have been buried in the Basilique Saint-Denis and may have been transferred there later. It was recorded that there was a memorial brass there that was melted down at the Revolution. Charles was succeeded by his son, Louis. Charles was a prince of education and letters, a friend of the church, and conscious of the support he could find in the episcopate against his unruly nobles, for he chose his councillors from among the higher clergy, as in the case of Guenelon of Sens, who betrayed him, and of Hincmar of Reims. Baldness It has been suggested that Charles' nickname was used ironically and not descriptively; i.e. that he was not in fact bald, but rather that he was extremely hairy. In support of this idea is the fact that none of his enemies commented on what would be an easy target. However, none of the voluble members of his court comments on his being hairy; and the Genealogy of Frankish Kings, a text from Fontanelle dating from possibly as early as 869, and a text without a trace of irony, names him as Karolus Caluus ("Charles the Bald"). Certainly, by the end of the 10th century, Richier of Reims and Adhemar of Chabannes refer to him in all seriousness as "Charles the Bald". An alternative or additional interpretation is based on Charles' initial lack of a regnum. "Bald" would in this case be a tongue-in-cheek reference to his landlessness, at an age where his brothers already had been sub-kings for some years. Marriages and children Charles married Ermentrude, daughter of Odo I, Count of OrlÃ©ans, in 842. She died in 869. In 870, Charles married Richilde of Provence, who was descended from a noble family of Lorraine. With Ermentrude: Judith (844-870), married firstly with Ethelwulf of Wessex, secondly with Ethelbald of Wessex (her stepson) and thirdly with Baldwin I of Flanders Louis the Stammerer (846-879) Charles the Child (847-866) Lothar (848-865), monk in 861, became Abbot of Saint-Germain Carloman (849-876) Rotrud (852-912), a nun, Abbess of Saint-Radegunde Ermentrud (854-877), a nun, Abbess of Hasnon Hildegard (born 856, died young) Gisela (857-874) With Richilde: Rothild (871-929), married firstly to Hugues, Count of Bourges and secondly to Roger, Count of Maine Drogo (872-873) Pippin (873-874) a son (born and died 875) Charles (876-877)	Charles the Bald (I983)
232	Charles-Constantine (died 962) was the Count of Vienne, son of Louis the Blind, King of Provence, and the Holy Roman Emperor. Name and maternity About his name, he was never called "Charles Constantine". Rather Flodoard, copied later by Richar, calls him "Constantinus". We know that his proper name was "Carolus" (Charles) from a diploma of his father, and from his own charters. Modern scholars have typically called him Charles Constantine, but this was not a name used during his lifetime. Some modern genealogical scholars speculated that his mother was Anna of Constantinople, daughter of Leo VI the Wise and his second wife Zoe Zaoutzaina. However, his father's marriage to this princess is much disputed and rather unlikely. Christian Settipani postulates that his name refers to the founders of the empires governed by his father and maternal grandfather, i.e., to Charlemagne and Constantine the Great. Regarding his birthyear, or age, we have few datapoints. He was Count of Vienne and acting as an adult by (but not in) December 927. This evidences that his father must have had a prior union. Some speculation would place him born in 901/3 but this is just a force-fit to allow Anna to be his mother and his father's wife. Life When Charles' father Louis died in 929, Hugh of Arles, who was already king of Italy, took over Provence and gave it, in 933, to King Rudolf II of Burgundy. Charles-Constantine for whatever reason, could not inherit his father's right to the imperial throne or his right to rule Provence. This has led many to believe he was, in fact, a bastard. He did however rule the county of the Viennois, until his death in 962. He was married to Thiberge de Troyes. It has been speculated that Constance, wife to Boso II of Arles and grandmother of Queen Constance of Arles, was their daughter. Through her, Charles Constantine would be an ancestor of the Capetian kings of France and the Norman and Plantagenet kings of England (through Queen Constance's daughter Adela Capet, and Adela's daughter Queen Matilda of Flanders, who married William the Conqueror).	of Vienne, Charles Constantine (I5655)
233	Chief Justice of England. Second son of Sir John Mowbray, Chief Justice of the Kings Bench.	de Mowbray, Sir Alexander (I976)
234	Church of England Parish Registers, 1538-1812, London, England: London Metropolitan Archives	Source (S103)
235	Church of England Parish Registers, 1538-1812, London, England: London Metropolitan Archives	Source (S319)
236	ClÃ©mence d'Aquitaine (1060 - 4 January 1142) was a daughter of Pierre-Guillaume VII, duke of Aquitaine, and his wife Ermesinde. She married firstly around 1075 to Conrad I of Luxembourg (1040 â€ 1086), count of Luxembourg, and had: Henri III (â€ 1086), comte Ã Luxembourg Konrad, citÃ© en 1080 Mathilde (1070 â€ ), married Godefroy (1075 â€ ), comte de Bleisgau Rodolphe (â€ 1099), abbot of Saint-Vannes at Verdun Ermesinde (1075 â€ 1143), married in 1096 to Albert II (â€ 1098), count of Egisheim and of Dagsbourg, in 1101 to Godefroy (1067 â€ 1139), count of Namur William I (1081 â€ 1131), count of Luxembourg Widowed, she remarried to Gerard I (â€ 1129), count of Wassenberg and of Guelders. This count married twice and had two children, neither of whose mothers has been identified. These two children, perhaps born to ClÃ©mence, were : Yolande, married around 1107 to Baldwin III (â€ 1120), count of Hainaut, then to Godefroy de Bouchain, vicomte of Valenciennes GÃ©rard II (â€ 1131), count of Guelders and of Wassenberg.	of Aquitaine, Clementia (I5268)
237	Clerk.	Strickland, Thomas (I4254)
238	Clotaire II of Neustria was born posthumously in 584. He was the son of Chilperic I of Neustria and Fredegund. He married, firstly, Haldetrude. He gained the title of King of all the Franks in 613.	of Neustria, Clotaire II (I4529)
239	Conon I de Rennes, Duc de Bretagne also went by the nick-name of Conon 'le Tort' (or in English, the Crooked). He gained the title of Duc de Bretagne in 990. He gained the title of Comte de Rennes. Conan I (927 - June 27, 992) was the count of Rennes from 958 and duke of Brittany from 990 to his death. He had first succeeded his father Judicael Berengar, as count of Rennes and later became duke of Brittany following his attack on Nantes and the subsequent death of Alan, duke of Brittany. Family and children He married Ermengarde of Anjou, daughter of Geoffrey I of Anjou and Adele of Vermandois and had the following issue: Judith (982-1017), married Richard II, Duke of Normandy Judicael, count of Porhoet (died 1037) Geoffrey, the eventual heir Catuallon, abbot of Redon Hernod Conan died in battle against his brother-in-law Fulk Nerra, count of Anjou at the Battle of Conquereuil and is buried in Mont Saint Michel Abbey. Conan I (927 - June 27, 992) nicknamed Le Tort was the duke of Brittany from 990 to his death. Life He was the son of Judicael Berengar and Gerberga, and succeeded his father as Count of Rennes in 970. He assumed the title of Duke of Brittany in the spring of 990 following his attack on Nantes and the subsequent death of Count Alan. In a charter dated 28 July 990, Conan gave the lands of VillamÃ©e, Lillele and Passille to Mont Saint-Michel, all of which later became part of the seigneury of FougÃ¨res. Conan married Ermengarde-Gerberga of Anjou, in 973 daughter of Geoffrey I of Anjou and Adele of Vermandois. Conan died fighting against his brother-in-law Fulk Nerra, count of Anjou at the Battle of Conquereuil on 27 June 992. Conan is buried at Mont Saint Michel Abbey. Family By his wife Ermengarde-Gerberga he had the following issue: Geoffrey (c.980-1008), the eventual heir. Judith (982-1017), married Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Judicael, count of Porhoet (died 1037). Hernod.	Rennes, Conan I of (I181)
240	Conrad (died 27 February 906), called the Old or the Elder, was the Duke of Thuringia from 892 until his death. He was the namesake of the Conradiner family and son of Udo of Neustria. His mother (probably) was a daughter of Conrad I of Logenahe (832-860). He was the count of the Oberlahngau (886), Hessengau (897), Gotzfeldgau (903), Wetterau (905), and Wormsgau (906). He united all of Hesse under his political control and thus bequeathed to his heirs what would be the Duchy of Franconia. Early in his career, Conrad feuded with the Babenbergs Henry of Franconia and Adalbert. Conrad's chief residence was Friedeslar in Hesse. He was a comes (count) and ministerialis of Arnulf of Germany in 891. In 892, Duke Poppo was deposed from his offices and replaced in Thuringia and the Sorbian March by Conrad. He only held the dukedom briefly before he was replaced by Burchard. The reason for his appointment probably represent a change in Arnulf's policy in favour of the Conradines over the Babenbergs; but Conrad's short tenure may reflect his lack of support in Thuringia or an unwillingness on his part to be confined there. Conrad sent his son, later Conrad I of Germany, against his enemies, the brothers Gerard and Matfrid, in 906. He himself was killed in battle near Fritzlar and was buried in the church of Saint Martin at Weilburg. He left a widow named Glismod or Glismuot, who died 26 April 924 and was buried next to him. Glismod may have been a relative of the earlier Thuringian dukes (perhaps a daughter of Thachulf), thus giving her husband a hereditary claim to Thuringia. Conrad left three sons: Conrad, Eberhard, and Otto, Count of the Ruhrgau.	Conrad Duke of Thuringia (I5373)
241	Conrad I (died August 20, 997) was Duke of Swabia from 983 until 997. His appointment as duke marked the return of Conradine rule over Swabia for the first time since 948. When Duke Otto I unexpectedly died during the Imperial campaign in Italy of 981-982, he left no heirs. To fill the vacancy, Emperor Otto II appointed Conrad as Duke of Swabia. Conrad is notable for being the first Swabian duke to keep the title in the family; after his death in 997 he was succeeded by his son Hermann II. There is considerable confusion about Conrad's family. The identities of his parents are not known for sure. This same situation exists for his wife, who is unlikely to have been a daughter of Liudolf, Duke of Swabia, the son of Emperor Otto I. He had at least six children, including his successor, Hermann II.	Conrad I Duke of Swabia (I5413)
242	Conrad I the Elder (died 876) was the count of several counties, most notably the Aargau and Auxerre, around Lake Constance, as well as Paris from 859 to 862/4. He was also the lay abbot of Saint-Germaine in Auxerre. Conrad's father was Welf. He was one of the early Welfs, a member of the Bavarian branch, and his sister Judith was the second wife of Louis the Pious. In 858, he and his family - his wife Adelaide of Tours and his sons Hugh and Conrad the Younger - abandoned their sovereign Louis the German and went over to Charles the Bald, Judith's son. They were generously rewarded and Conrad was appointed to many countships. Louis the German confiscated his Bavarian fiefs and lands. The Miracula Sancti Germani calls Conrad Chuonradus princeps (prince, sovereign), when recording his marriage. By some accounts his wife re-married to Robert the Strong after his death.	Conrad I Count of Auxerre (I5255)
243	Conrad I, Count of Luxembourg (c. 1040 - 8 August 1086) was count of Luxembourg (1059-1086), succeeding his father Giselbert of Luxembourg. He was embroiled in an argument with the archbishop of Trier as to the abbaye Saint-Maximin in Trier which he had avowed. The archbishop excommunicated him Conrad had to make honourable amends and set out on pilgrimage for Jerusalem. He died in Italy on the return journey. He founded many abbeys: the abbaye d'Orval in 1070, with Arnoul I, count of Chiny. a Benedictine convent in Munster in 1083 Marriage and issue Around 1075 he married Clementia (1060 â€ 1142), suggested to have been daughter of Pierre-Guillaume VII, duke of Aquitaine and of Ermesinde. They had : Henri III (â€ 1086), comte Ã Luxembourg Konrad, citÃ© en 1080 Mathilde (1070 â€ ), married Godefroy (1075 â€ ), comte de Bleisgau Rodolphe (â€ 1099), abbot of Saint-Vannes at Verdun Ermesinde (1075 â€ 1143), married in 1096 to Albert II (â€ 1098), count of Egisheim and of Dagsbourg, in 1101 to Godefroy (1067 â€ 1139), count of Namur. They were parents of Henry IV of Luxembourg William I (1081 â€ 1131), count of Luxembourg	Conrad I Count of Luxembourg (I5263)
244	Conrad II (Konrad) (c. 990 - 4 June 1039) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1027 until his death. The son of a mid-level nobleman in Franconia, Count Henry of Speyer and Adelaide of Alsace, he inherited the titles of count of Speyer and of Worms as an infant when Henry died at age twenty. As he matured he came to be well known beyond his power base in Worms and Speyer, so when the Saxon line died off and the elected monarchy for the German realm stood vacant, he was elected King in 1024 at the respectably old age of thirty-four years and crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on 26 March 1027, becoming the first of four kings and emperors of the Salian Dynasty. Early life During his reign, he proved that the German monarchy had become a viable institution. Survival of the monarchy was no longer dependent on contracts between sovereign and territorial nobles. The father of Conrad II, Henry of Speyer was a grandson of Liutgarde, a daughter of the great Emperor Otto I who had married the Salian Duke Conrad the Red of Lorraine. Despite his bloodline in that age when people died young and younger, the orphaned Conrad grew up poor by the standards of the nobility and was raised by Burchard, Bishop of Worms. He was reputed to be prudent and firm out of consciousness of deprivation. In 1016, he married Gisela of Swabia, a widowed duchess. Both parties claimed descent from Charles the Great (Charlemagne) and were thus distantly related. A daughter named Matilda became the first wife of Henry I of France, King of the Franks. Strict canonists took exception to the marriage, and Emperor Henry II used this to force Conrad into temporary exile. They became reconciled, and upon Henry's death in 1024, Conrad appeared as a candidate before the electoral assembly of princes at Kamba, an historical name for an area on the East banks of the river Rhine and opposite to the German town Oppenheim (Today the position of Kamba is marked by a small monument, which displays Conrad on a horse). He was elected by the majority and was crowned king in Mainz on 8 September 1024, arguably in the prime of life. It was equally obvious that the Saxon line of Emperors was at an end, and all of Europe speculated and maneuvered to influence the Prince-electors in unseemly disrespect for the aging Henry II. That same year, Conrad commissioned the construction of the Speyer Cathedral in Speyer which was started in 1030. The Italian bishops paid homage at Conrad's court at Konstanz in June 1025, but lay princes sought to elect William V of Aquitaine, as king instead. However early in 1026 Conrad went to Milan, where Ariberto, archbishop of Milan, crowned him king of Italy. After overcoming some opposition of the towns Conrad reached Rome, where Pope John XIX crowned him emperor on Easter, 1027. Politics He formally confirmed the popular legal traditions of Saxony and issued new constitutions for Lombardy. In 1028 at Aachen he had his son Henry elected and anointed king of Germany. Henry married Gunhilda of Denmark, daughter of King Canute the Great of England, Denmark and Norway by Emma of Normandy. This was an arrangement that Conrad had made many years prior, when he gave Canute the Great parts of northern Germany to administer[citation needed]. Henry, the later Emperor Henry III, became chief counselor of his father. Conrad campaigned unsuccessfully against Poland in 1028-1030, but in 1031 in a combined action with the Kievan Rus' forced King Mieszko II, son and heir of Boles?aw I, to make peace and return the land that Boles?aw had conquered from the Empire during Henry II's reign. Mieszko II was compelled to give up his royal title and for the remainder of his troubled rule became the Duke of Poland and Conrad's vassal. In 1029 some Bavarian border conflicts undermined the good relations with Stephen I of Hungary. One year later Conrad launched a campaign against Hungary. The Hungarians successfully used the scorched earth tactics and the emperor had to withdraw with his army. Finally the Hungarian army forced him to surrender at Vienna. After his defeat Conrad was obliged to cede some border territory to Hungary. When Rudolph III, King of Burgundy died on 2 February 1032, Conrad claimed the Kingship on the basis of an inheritance Emperor Henry II extorted from the former in 1006, after having invaded Burgundy to enforce his claim after Rudolph attempted to renounce it in 1016. Despite some opposition, the Burgundian and ProvenÃ§al nobles paid homage to Conrad in ZÃ¼rich in 1034. This Kingdom of Burgundy, which under Conrad's successors would become known as the Kingdom of Arles, corresponded to most of the southeastern quarter of modern France and included western Switzerland, the Franche-ComtÃ© and DauphinÃ©. It did not include the smaller Duchy of Burgundy to the north, ruled by a cadet branch of the Capetian King of France. (Piecemeal over the next centuries most of the former Kingdom of Arles was incorporated into France - but King of Arles remained one of the Holy Roman Emperor's subsidiary titles until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806.) Conrad upheld the rights of the valvassores (knights and burghers of the cities) of Italy against Archbishop Aribert of Milan and the local nobles. The nobles as vassal lords and the bishop had conspired to rescind rights from the burghers. With skillful diplomacy and luck Conrad restored order. Last years In 1038, Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno requested his adjudication in a dispute over Capua with its Prince Pandulf, whom Conrad had released from imprisonment in 1024, immediately after his coronation. Hearing that Michael IV the Paphlagonian of the Byzantine Empire had received the same request, Conrad went to Southern Italy, to Salerno and Aversa. He appointed Richer, from Germany, as abbot of Monte Cassino, the abbot Theobald being imprisoned by Pandulf. At Troia, he ordered Pandulf to restore stolen property to Monte Cassino. Pandulf sent his wife and son to ask for peace, giving 300 lb of gold and a son and daughter as hostages. The Emperor accepted Pandulf's offer, but the hostage escaped and Pandulf holed up in his outlying castle of Sant'Agata de' Goti. Conrad besieged and took Capua and gave it to Guaimar with the title of Prince. He also recognised Aversa as a county of Salerno under Ranulf Drengot, the Norman adventurer. Pandulf, meanwhile, fled to Constantinople. Conrad thus left the Mezzogiorno firmly in Guaimar's hands and loyal, for once, to the Holy Roman Empire. During the return trip to Germany an epidemic broke out among the troops. Conrad's daughter-in-law and stepson died. Conrad himself returned safely and held several important courts in Solothurn, Strasbourg and in Goslar. His son Henry was invested with the kingdom of Burgundy. A year later in 1039 Conrad fell ill and died of gout in Utrecht. His heart and bowels are buried at the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht. His body was transferred to Speyer via Cologne, Mainz and Worms, where the funeral procession made stops. His body is buried at Speyer Cathedral, which was still under construction at this time. During a major excavation in 1900 his sarcophagus was relocated from his original resting place in front of the altar to the crypt, where it is still visible today along with those of seven of his successors. A biography of Conrad II in chronicle form, Gesta Chuonradi II imperatoris, was written by his chaplain Wipo of Burgundy, and presented to Henry III in 1046, not long after the latter was crowned. Family and children Depictions of Conrad II The Basilica of Aquileia (northern Italy) contains an apse fresco (c. 1031) showing emperor Conrad II, his wife Gisela of Swabia and Patriarch Poppone of Aquileia.	Conrad II Holy Roman Emperor (I5366)
245	Conrad II the Younger was the Count of Auxerre from 864 until his death. He was a son of Conrad I of Auxerre, and Adelaide of Tours; an older brother of Hugh the Abbot; and a member of the Bavarian branch of the Welfs. In 858, at the coaxing of Charles the Bald, his cousin, he and his brother betrayed Louis the German when he sent them on an espionage mission and went over to Charles, who rewarded them handsomely because he had lost his Bavarian honores. He acted as Duke of Transjurane (Upper) Burgundy from then until about 864. He married Judith, daughter of Eberhard of Friuli, and later Waldrada of Worms, by whom he left a son, Rudolf, who later became King of Transjurane Burgundy, and a daughter, Adelaide of Auxerre. Conrad II the Younger was the Count of Auxerre from 864 until his death. He was a son of Conrad I of Auxerre, and Adelaide; an older brother of Hugh the Abbot; and a member of the Bavarian branch of the Welfs. In 858, at the coaxing of Charles the Bald, his cousin, he and his brother betrayed Louis the German when he sent them on an espionage mission and went over to Charles, who rewarded them handsomely because he had lost his Bavarian honores. He acted as Duke of Transjurane (Upper) Burgundy from then until about 864. He married Judith, daughter of Eberhard of Friuli, and later Waldrada of Worms, by whom he left a son, Rudolf, who later became King of Transjurane Burgundy, and a daughter, Adelaide of Auxerre.	Conrad II Duke of Transjurane Burgundy (I5397)
246	Conrad the Red (German: Konrad der Rote) (c. 922 - 10 August 955) was a Duke of Lorraine from the Salian dynasty. He was the son of Werner V, Count of the Nahegau, Speyergau, and Wormsgau. His mother was a sister of Conrad I of Germany. In 941, he succeeded his father in his counties and obtained an additional territory, the Niddagau. In 944 or 945, he was also invested with Lorraine by King Otto I. In 947, he married Liutgarde, daughter of Otto and Edith, daughter of Edward the Elder, King of England. He and Liutgard had one son, Otto of Worms, later duke of Swabia and Carinthia. In 953, Conrad joined his brother-in-law, Liudolf, Duke of Swabia, in rebellion against Otto, who bitterly complained about Conrad's ingratitude. The rebellion was quashed and Conrad was deprived of Lorraine, which was instead granted to Otto's brother, Bruno I, Archbishop of Cologne. Eventually Conrad and Otto were reconciled. In 954 Conrad participated in a successful campaign against the Ukrani of the Uckerland. In 955, Conrad was killed in the Battle of Lechfeld while fighting alongside Otto against the Magyars. According to the chronicler Widukind of Corvey: Duke Conrad, the foremost of all in combat, suffering from battle fatigue caused by an unusually hot sun, loosened the straps of his armor to catch his breath when an arrow pierced his throat and killed him instantly. Conrad's body was carried in state to Worms, where he was given a lavish funeral and buried at Worms Cathedral by his son Otto. Conrad was the great-grandfather of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor.	Conrad Duke of Lorraine (I5369)
247	Constable of Dover Castle; Lord Steward of the King's Household.	de Eure, Sir John (I5759)
248	Constantine succeeded to the kingship upon his uncle Donald I's death in 862. His reign was marked by Viking raid and expansion into Strathclyde. In 872 the Annals of Ulster record that 'Artgal, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, (and the father in law of Constantine's sister to boot) was killed at the instigation of Constantine son of Cinaed'. Constantine suffered from the raids of his possible brother-in-law Olaf of Dublin in 866, and again in 870-71. In 875, he was defeated by a portion of the 'Great Army' that had invaded England in previous years. He died in 876, and was succeeded by his brother Aed. He had at least one son.	Mac Cinaed, King Of Picts And Scots, Causantin (Constantine I) (I927)
249	CONVOY HG-73 - Gibraltar - UK On 26/27th September 1941, the allied convoy HG-73 was attacked by German submarines U-124, U-201 and U-203, sinking: Varangberg (nor. 2.842 grt. 21â€ /27), Avoceta (br. 3442 grt. 123â€ /166), Cortes (br. 1.374 grt. 43/43â€ ), Petrel (br. 1.354 grt. 22â€ /31), Lapwing (br. 1.348 grt. 24â€ /34), Cervantes (br. 1.810 grt. 8â€ /40), Springbank (br. 5.155 grt. 32â€ /233), Siremalm (nor. 2.468 grt. 27â€ /27)	Bosdet, Jack Percival (I890)
250	Cook County Clerk, comp, Cook County Clerk Genealogy Records, Cook County Clerkâ€™s Office, Chicago, IL: Cook County Clerk, 2008	Source (S91)

Bosdet Family History

The Genealogy of Paul Bosdet and the Bosdet Family

Notes