Ten Minute History - Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire (Short Documentary) transcript

7:15 and the Frankish Kingdom is embroiled in a civil war it's quite complicated but to summarize it was a civil war not between men fighting for the crown but for men fighting for the title of mayor of the palace who was in charge of the Kings household in Frankia the King was basically a puppet to whoever held this position and so people wanted it there was supposed to be two mayors one for Austrasia which was hereditary and another for nutria there was an attempt to merge both mayor Alice's by giving them both to an eight-year-old and revolt a man named Charles Martel seize the opportunity that the chaos brought her managed to defeat his enemies in 718 Charles was given the title Duke of the franks by King Chilperic the second who again didn't have any real power Chilperic died in 720 and was replaced by Theodore rich the fourth who Charles had appointed Charles saw to increasing the size of the kingdom and by 730 it had expanded to this with Charles conquering many of the german-speaking people's to the east to the west and the south though things weren't so rosy the Duchy of Aquitaine had previously been part of the Frankish Kingdom but had broken away in the Civil War and was now having trouble with their shared southern neighbor this southern neighbor was the Umayyad Caliphate which was at this point the largest and wealthiest Empire ever assembled the Caliphate after numerous attempts has started to conquer Aquitaine forcing its Duke Otto to ask Charles for assistance he granted it in return for Aquitaine submission and Charles mobilised his army and met the caliphates here at the famous Battle of Tours sometimes called the Battle of poitiers it was a decisive Frankish victory and was thus cemented forever as one of the most famous battles in history the exact importance of the battle is fiercely debated with opinions ranging from it merely halting further raiding to saving Christianity and Western Europe anyway the Caliphate would try again in the following years but failed and my 740 ceased to be an existential threat to Frankie er so in 737 King Theodore rich the fourth had died and Charles decided he didn't need to appoint another king and so he didn't he didn't take the crown for himself though and still ruled as mayor until his death in 741 before his death the territories of the kingdom had been split between his sons carlomon and Pippin in 743 they're both chosen new King childress the third but as expected he had no authority the first half a decade of their joint rules or several revolts in the east and some clashes in the south but it was largely stable in 747 carlomon renounced his title and became a monk leaving Pippin as the sole ruler by 751 Pippin didn't really see the point of childerik remaining on the throne and so with the consent of Pope Zachary got rid of him he proclaimed himself King Pippin the third the fur of the new Carolingian dynasty named after his father Pippin was an accomplished general and leader but not as much as his father or his son and so he isn't very well remembered he did importantly begin the close relationship between the Frankish Kings and the Pope's Pippin lacked legitimacy which he could gain from the Pope who in return would gain Frankish protection from the lombards Pippin aided Rome against the lombard kingdom several times and carved out these territories for the Pope to govern personally the papal States Pippin reigned until 768 when he died he divided the kingdom between his two sons Charlemagne the eldest and carlomon Charlemagne's name comes from the Latin careless Magnus meaning Charles the great so Charlemagne and his brother didn't like each other but fortunately this wouldn't be a problem for long since in 771 column and found himself slightly dead as such Charlemagne gained the rest of the kingdom beginning his transformative sole rule Charlemagne's first priority was war an expansion over the course of his reign Charlemagne went to war with pretty much everyone but the reasons for these Wars weren't exclusively territorial but also religious to the northeast of the kingdom of the Saxons who were pagans and had raided the kingdom for centuries in 772 Charlemagne noticed a raid to destroy the sacred Saxon tree could aim insel beginning decades of warfare and forced conversions in the region 773 saw conflict between the kingdom of the Lombards and the Pope and Charlemagne who wanted to maintain this prestigious relationship between the Franks and the papers he came to the Pope's aid it was a quick war in the lombards were defeated the next year when Charlemagne captured its capital pavia he thereafter proclaimed himself as the king of the Lombards but did keep the territory separate from Frankie a proper he also conquered the Duchy of Spoleto and gave some authority over it to the Pope the war with the Saxons continued as a grindingly slow pace until they rallied behind a man could video Kent Charlemagne was unhappy with this and so in 782 he ordered the execution of over 4,000 Saxon prisoners and in 785 widok and accepted baptism the decades following this saw a major expansion of the kingdom starting in 787 with the subjugation of Benevento here the next year the kingdom expanded further east with the integration of bavaria and the conquest of Carinthia which brought the franks into contact with the very wealthy Avars it wasn't long before war broke out between the two and the franks led by Charlemagne son Pippin invaded the Ava's had lost by 796 in their royal residents called the ring was sacked immediately after this sha'lame subjugated Croatia in these areas the next year sha'lame finished subjugating the Saxon so we could finally tick that off in 799 he did the same to the Breton's thus making nicer to look at and he also conquered Barcelona thus on the cusp of the Year 800 the kingdom looked like this and it's no wonder that is sometimes referred to as the Carolingian Empire running this massive Kingdom required ever more complex and capable methods of administration the running of the kingdom revolved around the royal court which regularly moved around the Empire to various royal palaces the most notable being here at Aachen arkem was not as is often believed the capital of the kingdom but was an extremely important city in terms of administration and religious reform as well as being Charlemagne's favored residence the kingdom was divided into counties and miss Attica which were administrative districts they were often inspected by Charlemagne's emissaries called the Missy Dominica which is Latin for n voice of the Lord the Lord in this case being Charlemagne and not you know God the Missy were made up of two officials one ecclesiastical often a bishop and one secular often account who would make sure the Kings Authority remained intact and would report back on any potential issues the church was extremely important to maintaining order and running the kingdom bishops and learners men of the church had very prestigious positions at court and Charlemagne who was a very pious man to a great interest in church reform in order to push through reforms Charlemagne with issue capitularies which were edicts enforcing changes to church practices the most famous of these capitularies was the admin ETO generalís which basically dictated the rules for the everyday lives of Charlemagne subjects and standardized Church practices it decreed that the Christian nature of the kingdom was immutable and that there was to be a kingdom wide revival of learning which we will get to in a minute the Year 800 saw the most famous event of Charlemagne's reign when he went to Rome after Pope Leo the 3rd had fled to him because some of his enemies had tried to blind him Charlemagne went back to Rome with him to sort things out which he did and whilst he was there Leo the 3rd crowned him in pirata romanum or the Roman Emperor Charlemagne thus became the first emperor in the West since the fall of Roma for 3 centuries prior this title didn't really do much except grant a bunch of prestige and wind up those in they're still very much alive Eastern Roman Empire the eastern empire often called the Byzantine Empire was at this point being run by a woman Irene who had fallen out with the papacy and so instead of patching things up they simply picked a new Emperor the big debate surrounding Charlemagne's coronation hinges on whether or not he was the first Holy Roman Emperor or if it was also the first in 962 those living at the time saw no difference between the title bestowed on Charlemagne or Otto the first and the distinction exists in the mind of historians only who like to categorize things in fact the title Racine is no different to the one bestowed on Augustus so previously stated Charlemagne wanted to ensure that learning was revived in his kingdom and so he oversaw a period known as the Carolingian Renaissance the reason for this much like Charlemagne's conquests were religious since it was believed that you couldn't be a good Christian until you knew what a good Christian was it was seen as the duty of rulers to oversee the salvation of this subject Souls and so the exercise of power had to be combined with greater knowledge a concept known as correct EO from across Europe he sponsored scholars to come to his court such as au kawin from Northumbria pulled the Deacon from the old lombard kingdom and Einhard a frank ein Hart who was close to Charlemagne wrote the life of Charles the Great which is one of the major sources about his reign schools were founded across the kingdom the most notable being Metz wasan and st. gall and greater emphasis was given to learning the curriculum was standardized literacy rates amongst the nobility improved in a new means of writing was created Carolingian minuscule this would see the implementation of many grammatical conventions such as introducing lowercase letters question marks and standardizing letter forms all of this led to a massive increase in the number of texts produce and a strengthening of the church whose literacy rate made it indispensable to leaders Charlemagne undertook much of this learning himself and there is a common belief that he was illiterate he probably wasn't but there is an overwhelming evidence either way he didn't learn Latin which was an official administrative language until his later life there were nine hurt claim that he could speak and read Greek but the truth of that is less clear so now that Charlemagne was an emperor who performed his empire and conquered most of his neighbors there was only one thing left to do conquer more neighbors in 805 after some raiding Charlemagne took his forces to these and subjugated all of these people notably the Bohemians in the south there were some more conflicts with the Muslims and by a 12th the franks had expanded to here the only power in europe the catalan Charlamagne now was the eastern roman empire which held this territory most notably venice in 812 Charlemagne won a diplomatic victory when the Byzantines recognized him as the legitimate Emperor in the West which might have had something to do with the fact that he had Nami just outside of Venice whilst the size of the Frankish Kingdom may have dissuaded aggression by the Byzantines it didn't deter the Danes pretty much immediately after Frankie's borders had expanded to reach Denmark's rating had begun up and down the coast these raids were pretty devastating but ultimately were nothing compared to what Charlemagne successors would have to endure Charlemagne's 47 year reign would come to an end when he died in 814 his eldest son Pippin had died in 811 and so he had only one son left Louie better known as Louis the pious his reign was somewhat less successful than his father's though and he ended up dividing the kingdom up between his sons which led to the rise of two major states in the West the kingdom of France and in the east the Holy Roman Empire so Charlemagne is remembered as many things a conqueror a patron of scholars as a reformer and as a protector of the church after his grandsons divided the Empire between them Charlemagne was considered the father figure of the new States which came out of it much of his reign was driven by his desire to be a great Christian King he believed it was his duty to subjugate the surrounding areas and force conversions within them in order to save the souls of those who lived there it is important to remember that much of his great legacy was built upon the work of his forebears Pippin and Charles Martel without whom there may not have been a Frank here at all one thing is almost universally agreed upon though Charles most certainly deserve to be remembered as the great I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching there are some book recommendations in the description below if you'd like to know more you