Читать книгу Western Civilization - Paul R. Waibel - Страница 50

It was the Kingdom of the Franks that proved to be the most important for the future emergence of a new European civilization. Unlike the other major Germanic kingdoms, only the Franks retained contact with their homeland along the eastern bank of the Rhine River. Thus, the Franks were able to receive continued growth from further Frankish immigrants. The other Germanic kingdoms were cut off from their places of origin. More important, most of the Germanic tribes that were converted to Christianity were converted to Arian Christianity. Only the Franks were orthodox Christians.

The Franks were united by Clovis I (c. 466–511) after his succession to the throne in 481. In 493, he married a Burgundian princess who was an orthodox Christian. Clovis converted to orthodox Christianity in 506. Their king's conversion meant the conversion of the Franks, also. By becoming Roman Catholic Christians, the Franks gained the support of the native population and the Roman Catholic Church with its organized bureaucracy throughout Western Europe. Clovis could, and did, lead his Frankish armies into battle against the other German tribes as the defender of the true Christian faith.

Gregory of Tours (c. 538–594), bishop and author of History of the Franks, recorded how Clovis' wars with the Arian Germans were seen as crusades to liberate Christians suffering under the rule of Arian heretics. Not only did the Christian population view Clovis as God's warrior, so too did the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I (c. 431–518). Anastasius granted Clovis the title Counsel following Clovis' defeat of the Arian Visigoths in 501. The relationship between the Franks and the Roman Catholic Church was mutually advantageous. The Franks gained the support of the Christian population, while the Roman Catholic Church gained a military defender.

The Merovingian dynasty continued to rule the Kingdom of the Franks until 751, when Clovis' kingdom was divided into three parts: Neustria, Gaul, and Austrasia. During the sixth and seventh centuries the Merovingian kings grew weak. Real power passed into the hands of those who held the office of Mayor of the Palace, manager of the king's household.

Pepin of Herstal (635–714) became Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia in 680. He united all of the Franks through a military victory in 687. Pepin did not become king. He remained Mayor of the Palace in all three of the Frankish kingdoms, plus Burgundy. He was succeeded as Mayor of the Palace by his illegitimate son, Charles Martel (c. 688–741).

In early October 732, Charles Martel stopped an invasion of Western Europe by an Arab‐Muslim army that crossed the Pyrenees Mountains from Spain into France. Today, historians dispute the military significance of the Battle of Tours, but what is certain is that throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, Charles Martel and the Franks were credited with saving Christendom from conquest by Islam. The perception that the Franks had saved Christianity further cemented the alliance between the Franks and the Catholic Church.

Charles Martel was succeeded by his son, Pepin III (714–768), also known as Pepin the Short, who deposed the last Merovingian king and became the first Carolingian king of the Franks. Pope Zachary (r. 741–752), who was dependent upon the Franks to protect the Church from the Arian Lombards who were threatening Rome, gave his blessing to the transition of power.

Pope Zachary's successor, Stephen II (r. 752–757) crossed the Alps in 753 to seek Pepin's aid. He anointed and crowned Pepin King of the Franks and conferred upon him and his sons the title “Patrician of the Romans.” Pepin invaded Italy in 756, defeated the Lombards, and gave Stephen the territories in central Italy formerly belonging to the Byzantine Empire.

The grant of territory to the papacy, known as the Donation of Pepin, later became the Papal States. It was a mixed blessing for the papacy. The papacy was henceforth free of secular control, at least in theory, but the pope was required to wear two hats, one spiritual and one political. He was both the head of the Christian church and ruler of the Papal States. The need to defend the independence of the Papal States and, with it, the independence of the Roman Catholic Church, became a major issue during the Middle Ages and beyond to the twentieth century.

Pepin's son and successor, Charlemagne (742–814) was the most significant figure during the early Middle Ages. During his long reign of 46 years, he created an empire that stretched from the Pyrenees in the west to the Ebro River in the east, and from the North Sea to central Italy. Though it did not long survive him, no other European leader would impose such unity in Europe until Napoleon Bonaparte at the beginning of the nineteenth century and Adolf Hitler in the middle of the twentieth century.

Charlemagne was in Rome during the Christmas season in 800. His journey was due, in part, to the alliance between the Franks and the papacy established by his grandfather and father. Pope Leo III (r. 795–816) was facing a rebellion in Rome by a political faction that was opposed to his reign. Leo called upon Charlemagne for aid. Upon his arrival in Rome, Charlemagne heard the charges brought against Leo III by his enemies. Leo swore that he was innocent. Charlemagne declared Leo innocent and banished his enemies.

On Christmas Day, Charlemagne attended mass in St. Peter's Basilica. As he knelt before the tomb of the apostle to pray, Leo placed a crown upon his head. Then those present in the church shouted three times in unison: “To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, great and peace‐giving emperor, life and victory.” For the first time since 476, there was once again a Roman Emperor in the West. Charlemagne's new title, Emperor of the Romans, was not recognized by the Byzantine emperor until 812.

Charlemagne's empire had a semblance of centralized government and administration. There were 350 counties, each under an administrator with the title of Count, who was charged with administering justice, keeping the peace, providing soldiers for Charlemagne's campaigns, collecting taxes, and seeing that crops were planted and harvested. Royal inspectors, called missi dominici, visited the counties to ensure that the counts were carrying out their duties honestly and to report back to Charlemagne on the state of the kingdom. Charlemagne issued laws that were a blend of German customs and Christian principles.

Charlemagne's interest in educational reform led him to found a palace school at his capital in Aachen, also known as Aix‐la‐Chapelle. He sent to York in Northumbria, the cultural center of Western Christendom at the time, for the Anglo‐Saxon scholar, Alcuin (735–804) to oversee his school. Under Alcuin's tutelage, the palace school became the nucleus of an intellectual and cultural revival known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Monks were put to work copying (and thus preserving) the Latin classics. Nearly all of the earliest known manuscripts of classical literature are copies made by the medieval monks, many of them Carolingian copies. Monks were sent out from the palace school to revive the monastic and cathedral schools.

Charlemagne's empire was not a true rebirth of the old Roman Empire in the West. There were no urban centers, and no rebirth of trade, commerce, or banking. The old Roman cities continued to decay into ruins. The old Roman aqueducts and roads were used as stone quarries to build castles. At the beginning of the ninth century, there were less than 20 000 people living in Rome, a city that during the second century had a population of over one million.

Charlemagne's empire was a Germanic kingdom supersized, a vast area temporarily held together by the force of Charlemagne's personality. Those within the empire gave personal loyalty to Charlemagne. There was no revival of the Roman concept of a state, as summed up in the motto, “The Senate and People of Rome.” Such concepts were totally foreign to the German mind in the ninth century. Hence, the empire did not survive his death, but it did serve an important function. It kept alive the idea of a universal Christian empire.