The Carolingian Empire it was the Empire of Charlemagne or Charles the Great, which produced a true renaissance of the time. Elements from Christianity, the barbarian world and Greco-Roman culture intermingled to give rise to our current Western culture.
One of the most important Germanic kingdoms was the Frankish kingdom, unified by Clodoveo . With him began the reign of the Merovingian dynasty , name given in honor of his grandfather Meroveo.
When Clovis died, in the year 511, the kingdom was divided into four:Neustria west of France; Austrasia To the East; Burgundy in the center south and Aquitaine southwest. However, the struggles between the Merovingians led, little by little, to their losing prestige and power, which is why they were called the lazy kings .
Before the decline of the kings, the nobles became the true holders of power. They received the title of mayordomos de Palacio . In the early 7th century, the Austrasian stewards of the Heristal family gained supremacy.
To this family belonged Carlos Martel , who stopped the advance of the Arabs at the battle of Poitiers (France, 732), and his son Pepin the Short , who dethroned the last of the Merovingian kings in 751, united the kingdom again and crowned himself King of the Franks. Then the Merovingian dynasty ended and the Carolingian dynasty began. . Charlemagne was born into this family, the first German king to attempt to rebuild the Western Roman Empire.
King Charlemagne
In 768, Pepin divided his kingdom between his sons Charles and Carloman. However, three years later, the latter died and Carlos inherited the entire kingdom.
The new Frankish king was known as Charlemagne which means Charles the Great and he was one of the most prestigious monarchs of medieval Europe.
TherebirthoftheRomanEmpire
Upon coming to the throne, Charlemagne set out to restore the political unity of the Roman Empire and consolidate Christianity in Europe. To achieve this, he subdued the Saxons (772-804), who lived in northern Germany, until they converted to Christianity.
At the same time, and after much battle, he exterminated the Avars , people of Mongolian origin that threatened the area of Bavaria, Germany.
At the same time, to the south, Charlemagne took over the kingdom of the Lombards in Italian (774 AD), as they harassed the Pope, and he crossed the Pyrenees, penetrating Muslim Spain with little success (778). In this region he occupied a small territory to the north, in which he established a border province:the Marca Hispánica .
With these conquests, Charlemagne created a vast empire that stretched from the Atlantic to the Elbe River and from the Baltic Sea to Spain and Italy. Then, Pope Leo III crowned him emperor on Christmas of the year 800 . This is how the Carolingian Empire was born. and Charlemagne became the armed wing of the Church.
TheauthorityoftheEmperor
The Carolingian Empire felt deeply Roman and Christian , but its organizational model was Germanic. Charlemagne ruled his empire absolutely, in the style of the Roman emperors. However, the free men of his empire met twice a year, in the Germanic way, in an assembly that approved the laws called capitular .
Charlemagne, like other Germanic kings, lived in his country estates, although he often resided in the city of Aachen , which is considered, therefore, the capital of his Empire.
In Aachen, Charlemagne had a group of officials who helped him in his tasks, such as the chancellor , who was his secretary, and the chamberlain , who was in charge of everything concerning the personal service of the ruler.
The territorial administration was organized in provinces or counties in which agriculture was mainly developed , at the head of which there was a count, with civil and military power over his region. The border provinces, called marcas They protected the empire from invaders and were governed by the marquises.
Both these and the counts were guarded by the missi dominici – a layman and a priest – who on his visits to the provinces ensured compliance with the emperor's orders.
TheCarolingianRenaissance
Other elements of Charlemagne's political domination was culture. In those times it was difficult to find someone who could read and write:Charlemagne himself was illiterate.
For this reason, the emperor promoted the opening of schools for the training of public and religious officials. One of them was the famous Palatine School, which operated in Aachen and was used for the instruction of future state officials.
Schools were also founded in churches and monasteries, which came to form important libraries , in which the Western world preserved a large part of the Latin cultural tradition.
In order to promote this movement of cultural revival, Charlemagne surrounded himself with prominent figures, such as the English Alcuin of York and the French Eginard , who wrote the biography of him. He was also concerned with the arts:he had many churches built that imitated the Roman and Byzantine style as, for example, the chapel of the palace of Aachen.
The so-called Carolingian Renaissance he produced a series of works that forged the cultural foundation of the Middle Ages. However, despite its importance, this revival only affected a very limited number of people:the nobles and the clergy.
The Palatine School of Aachen
To carry out his cultural enterprise, Charlemagne gathered in the Palatine School of Aachen the wisest men of the time:the Anglo-Saxon historian and theologian Alcuin, the Spanish poet Teodulfo, the historians Eginardo and Pedro Deacono and the theologian Rabano Mauro. These men did not think of composing great works, but of rescuing the works of antiquity. That is why they made an effort, in the first place, to rescue the purity of the Latin language by writing grammars. In addition, they taught the so-called liberal arts formed by the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric and dialectics) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy). These disciplines became the basis of all medieval learning.
The disintegration of the Carolingian Empire
After the death of Charlemagne in the year 814, the power of the emperor suddenly diminished:the growing independence of the nobles, the great extension of the territories, the difficulty of communications and the regional particularities threatened the stability of the Carolingian Empire.
The counts and marquises made their positions hereditary and sought to separate themselves from the monarchs. Therefore, Charlemagne's son, Ludovico Pío, reigned in the midst of violent conflicts with the nobility.
Treaty of Verdum
Upon Ludovico's death, his three sons, Lothair, Louis the Germanic and Charles the Bald, divided up the territory in the Treaty of Verdun (843). Through this pact the empire was fragmented into three kingdoms:
- Charles the Bald was given western Francia which roughly corresponds to today's France.
- Louis the German obtained East Francia or Germania equivalent to today's Germany.
- Lothario acquired the title of emperor and the territories between those of brothers, which became known as Lotharingia:the Netherlands, Alsace, Switzerland and Italy.
This treaty ratified the progressive disintegration of the empire dreamed of by Charlemagne. In addition, a series of episodes contributed to accelerate the decline of the empire:the invasions of barbarians, Normans, Saracens and Hungarians. These episodes, added to the growing power of the nobility, led to the weakening of the monarchy , most notorious during the eleventh century.