1.1b.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Charles (The Hammer) Martel , Mayor of Austrasia 
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| Birth |
0676, HERISTAL, LEIGE, FRANCE |
| Death |
22 Oct 0741, QUIERZY, AISNE, FRANCE |
Charles Martel, the first leader of the Carolingian dynasty, initiated the
expansion
of the Franks' kingdom and stopped the Muslim advanced from Spain in 732.
Charlemagne ( 742- 814 ) continued this expansion and conquered most of Germany
and Italy to reunite most of the former Roman Empire. Shortly after his death,
however, his kingdom was divided under the pressure of invaders such as the
Normans (Vikings) and the Magyars (Hungarians).
Towards the end of the first millenium, France consisted of numerous feudal
Lordships. The Carolingian dynasty died out in 987 when Hugues Capet was elected
to the throne of France by the Lords, starting the Capetian Dynasty. The early
Capetian Kings had very linited power over the independent Lords. In 1066,
William Duke of Normandy invaded England while the first Crusades started in
1095.
BATTLE OF TOURS, ALSO CALLED BATTLE OF POITIERS, (732)
Victory won by Charles Martel, Carolingian mayor of the palace and de factoruler
of the Frankish kingdoms, over Muslim invaders from Spain. The battlefield
cannot be exactly located, and the battle may possibly have consisted of a
serious of running engagements. Abd-ar-Rahman, Governor of Cordoba, had invaded
Aquitaine (present southwestern France) and defeated its Duke, Eudes. Eudes
appealed for help to Charles Martel, who had already stationed his cavalry to
defend the city of TOURS. According to tradition, the muslim attack was broken
by Charles's cavalry near Poitiers. Abd-ar-Rahman was killed, and the Arabs
retired. There were no futher Muslim invasions of Frankish territory, and
Charles's victory has sometimes been regarded as decisive for world history. The
Muslim advance, however, was really ended by internal dissensions and the revolt
of the Berbers in North Africa. Charles derived profit as well as glory from the
engagement; he was able to assert his authority in Aquitaine, where Eudes swore
allegiance to him.
THE RISE OF ISLAM
Early in the Seventh Century there came out of Arabia another religion, Islam
(meaning "submission" ). This passionately monotheistic faith, which numbers
Jesus among the true prophets but exalts it founder Mohammed as the greatest of
all Allah's interpreters to man, quickly overran Syria, Persia, Egypt, Palestine
and North Africa. Then crossed the Mediterranean, conquered Spain and was
pressing northward when, in 732, near Tours in France, an army under Charles
Martel drove it back in one of history's decisive battles. The Moors stayed in
Spain until their last stronghold fell into the hands of the Christian Monarchs
Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, just before Columbus sailed for the New World.
Moslem and Christian fought bitterly in Europe and around the Mediterranean for
a thousand years. The Turks besieged Vienna as late as 1683, holding Greece and
much of the Balkans into the 19th Century habit of making pilgrimages to the
shrines there. For some 200 years Christian crusaders fought bloodily---and
sometimes successfully---to win back the Holy places. The First Crusade
recaptured Jerusalem in 1099, and after a hideous massacre of its inhabitants, a
French knight was proclaimed "Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre." A whole
Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, with vassal principalities and a religious
allegiance to Rome. It lasted for nearly a century. But the First Crusade
succeeded largely because internal dissensions were then weakening the Moslems.
When Islam put its full strength in the field, however, it soon obliterated the
Christian principalities in Asia Minor.
One Crusade after another was launched to push back the Moslem counterattack,
but in vain. The crusaders' motives kept deteriorating. Their campaigns became
mere marauding forays, and once they did not even fight the Moslems, but instead
sacked their fellow-Christian city of Constantinople which never fully recovered
from this pillage and in turn fell to the Turks in 1453. Christians and Jews
alike along the crusader's line march learned to dread their approach. By the
end of the 13th Century. the crusading impulse in western Europe was exhausted.
If it left any religious legacy, that might be the firm resistance since the of
Moslems to Christian efforts at conversion.
It must not be thought, however, that the struggle to establish the authority of
the Popes over the brawling Nobles and Monarchs, or to suppress the Moslem
rivalry by force, was all there was to Western Church life in medieval Europe.
There was, to be sure, rising popular criticism of the life lived by some
clerics.
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