Medieval France
(ca. 688/9–741). The founder of the Carolingian dynasty, Charles Martel was the dominant figure of western Europe in the first half of the 8th century. As sole mayor of the palace, he ruled the Frankish kingdom as a virtual monarch, and in his active career he re-established Frankish unity and restored Frankish authority over most of the surrounding regions. His most celebrated victory was over a Muslim raiding expedition, near Poitiers in 732, the first serious check on the advance of Islam in Europe. His activities paved the way for the even greater careers of his son Pepin the Short and his grandson Charlemagne.
Charles was the illegitimate son of Pepin II of Heristal, the last of the Pippinid, or Arnulfing, mayors of the palace. Pepin II’s death in 714, with the only legitimate heirs his young grandchildren, led to an intense power struggle within the Frankish kingdom and invasions by Frisians and Aquitanians. Aided by the powerful Austrasian rela-tives of his mother, Alpaide, Charles was able to defeat his opponents and by 723 had established himself as the sole mayor of the palace under the nominal kingship of the Merovingian Theuderic IV.
Charles, now usually styled princeps, then extended his rule over the neighboring regions, waging successful campaigns against the Frisians, Saxons, and Alemanni. As part of his effort to dominate the Germanic territories, he supported Anglo-Saxon missionaries, especially the disciples of Willibrord in Frisia and Boniface in Thuringia and Hesse. Boniface’s close ties to the papacy led to warm relations between Charles and popes Gregory II and Gregory III.
The advance of the Muslims into southern France after the fall of the Visigothic kingdom threatened the Aquitanians, whose duke, Eudes, appealed to Charles for military assistance. The victory won by Charles at Moussais, near Poitiers, on October 25, 732, was not the battle that saved Europe from Islam, but it did lead to his being given the sobriquet Martel—from the Latin martellus ‘hammer’—in the 9th century. His campaigns in the south for the rest of the 730s did halt Muslim advances and led to his conquest of Provence, which realized the old Frankish dream of gaining direct access to the Mediterranean. Charles, however, was not able to bring Aquitaine fully under his authority. He paid for manpower for his many wars in the 730s in part by appropriating church lands and giving them to his military followers, supposedly to be held from the church. Historians consider these grants the beginning of feudal institutions in the Frankish kingdom.
King Theuderic IV died in 737. Charles did not allow a Merovingian successor to be recognized, and he ruled the last four years of his life without a nominal king. In 739, Pope Gregory III recognized Charles’s position as the most powerful Christian ruler of western Europe by appealing to him for assistance against the Lombard king Liutprand. But Charles and Liutprand were close allies, and this initial effort to bring in the Franks as papal allies against the Lombards failed.
Charles’s death in 741 temporarily broke the unity of the Frankish kingdom. His elder son, Carloman, was made mayor over Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia, while the younger, Pepin the Short, received Neustria, Burgundy, and Provence. Charles was buried in Merovingian royal style at Saint-Denis.
Steven Fanning
[See also: CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY; MAYOR OF THE PALACE]
Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., ed. and trans. The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with Its Continuations. London: Nelson, 1960.
Gerberding, Richard A. The Rise of the Carolingians and the “Liber Historiae Francorum.” Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
McKitterick, Rosamond. The Frankish Kingdoms Under the Carolingians, 751–987. London: Longman, 1983.
Riché, Pierre. The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe, trans. Michael I.Allen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
Roi, Jean-Henri, and Jean Devoisse. La bataille de Poitiers. Paris: Gallimard, 1966.
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