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of Arabic Conquests

      The Arabs in Spain.

      The kingdom of the West Goths was in no condition to defend itself when a few Arabs and a much larger number of Berbers, inhabitants of northern Africa, ventured to cross over. Some of the Spanish towns held out for a time, but the invaders found allies in the numerous Jews who had been shamefully treated by their Christian countrymen. As for the innumerable serfs who worked on the great estates of the aristocracy, a change of landlords made very little difference to them. In 711 the Arabs and Berbers gained a great battle, and the peninsula was gradually overrun by new immigrants from Africa. In seven years the Mohammedans were masters of almost the whole region south of the Pyrenees. They then began to cross into Gaul and took possession of the district about Narbonne. For some years the duke of Aquitaine kept them in check, but in 732 they collected a large army, defeated the duke near Bordeaux, advanced to Poitiers, where they burned the church, and then set out for Tours.

      

      Battle of Tours, 732.

      Charles Martel at once sent out a summons to all who could bear arms and, in the same year, met and repulsed the Mohammedans near Tours. We know very little indeed of the details of the conflict, but it is certain that the followers of Mohammed retreated and that they never made another attempt to conquer western Europe.

      Pippin and Carloman.

      Abdication of Carloman.

      26. Charles was able, before his death in 741, to secure the succession to his office of mayor of the palace for his two sons, Pippin and Carloman. The brothers left the nominal king on the throne; but he had nothing to do, as the chronicler tells us, "but to be content with his name of king, his flowing hair and long beard; to sit on his throne and play the ruler, listening to the ambassadors who came from all directions, and giving them the answers that had been taught him, as if of his own sovereign will. In reality, however, he had nothing but the royal name and a beggarly income at the will of the mayor of the palace." The new mayors had succeeded in putting down all opposition when, to the astonishment of every one, Carloman abdicated and assumed the gown of a monk. Pippin took control of the whole Frankish dominion, and we find the unusual statement in the Frankish annals that "the whole land enjoyed peace for two years" (749–750).

      Pippin assumes the crown with the approbation of the pope, 752.

      Pippin now felt himself strong enough to get rid of the "do-nothing" king altogether and assume for himself the nominal as well as the real kingship of the Franks. It was, however, a delicate matter to depose even a quite useless monarch, so he determined to consult the head of the Church. To Pippin's query whether it was fitting that the Merovingian king of the Franks, having no power, should continue to reign, the pope replied: "It seems better that he who has the power in the state should be king and be called king, rather than he who is falsely called king."

      It will be noticed that the pope in no sense created Pippin king, as later writers claimed. He sanctioned a usurpation which was practically inevitable and which was carried out with the approbation of the Frankish nation. Raised on the shields of the counts and dukes, anointed by St. Boniface, and blessed by the pope, Pippin became in 752 the first king of the Carolingian family, which had already for several generations ruled the Franks in all but name.

      A new theory of kingship.

      This participation of the pope brought about a very fundamental change in the theory of kingship. The kings of the Germans up to this time had been military leaders selected, or holding their office, by the will of the people, or at least of the aristocracy. Their rule had had no divine sanction, but only that of general acquiescence backed up by sufficient skill and popularity to frustrate the efforts of rivals. By the anointing of Pippin in accordance with the ancient Jewish custom, first by St. Boniface and then by the pope himself, "a German chieftain was," as Gibbon expresses, it "transformed into the Lord's anointed." The pope uttered a dire anathema of divine vengeance against any one who should attempt to supplant the holy and meritorious race of Pippin. It became a religious duty to obey the king. He came to be regarded by the Church, when he had duly received its sanction, as God's representative on earth. Here we have the basis of the later idea of monarchs "by the grace of God," against whom, however bad they might be, it was not merely a political offense, but a sin, to revolt.

      27. The sanction of Pippin's usurpation by the pope was but an indication of the good feeling between the two greatest powers in the West—the head of the ever-strengthening Frankish state and the head of the Church. This good feeling quickly ripened into an alliance, momentous for the history of Europe. In order to understand this we must glance at the motives which led the popes to throw off their allegiance to their ancient sovereigns, the emperors at Constantinople, and turn for help to Pippin and his successors.

      

      Controversy over the veneration of images and pictures—the so-called iconoclastic controversy.

      For more than a century after the death of Gregory the Great his successors continued to remain respectful subjects of the emperor. They looked to him for occasional help against the Lombards in northern Italy, who showed a disposition to add Rome to their possessions. In 725, however, the emperor Leo III aroused the bitter opposition of the pope by issuing a decree forbidding the usual veneration of the images of Christ and the saints. The emperor was a thoughtful Christian and felt keenly the taunts of the Mohammedans, who held all images in abhorrence and regarded the Christians as idolaters. He therefore ordered all sacred images throughout his empire to be removed from the churches, and all figures on the church walls to be whitewashed over. This aroused serious opposition even in Constantinople, and the farther west one went, the more obstinate became the resistance. The pope refused to obey the edict, for he held that the emperor had no right to interfere with practices hallowed by the Church. He called a council which declared all persons excommunicated who should "throw down, destroy, profane or blaspheme the holy images." The opposition of the West was successful, and the images kept their places.[38]

      The popes and the Lombards.

      The pope turns to the Franks for aid.

      In spite of their abhorrence of the iconoclastic Leo and his successors, the popes did not give up all hope that the emperors might aid them in keeping the Lombards out of Rome. At last a Lombard ruler arose, Aistulf, a "son of iniquity," who refused to consider the prayers or threats of the head of the Church. In 751 Aistulf took Ravenna and threatened Rome. He proposed to substitute his supremacy for that of the eastern emperor and make of Italy a single state, with Rome as its capital. This was a critical moment for the peninsula. Was Italy, like Gaul, to be united under a single German people and to develop, as France has done, a characteristic civilization? The Lombards had progressed so far that they were not unfitted to organize a state that should grow into a nation. But the head of the Church could not consent to endanger his independence by becoming the subject of an Italian king. It was therefore the pope who prevented the establishment of an Italian kingdom at this time and who continued for the same reason to stand in the way of the unification of Italy for more than a thousand years, until he was dispossessed of his realms not many decades ago by Victor Emmanuel. After vainly turning in his distress to his natural protector, the emperor, the pope had no resource but to appeal to Pippin, upon whose fidelity he had every reason to rely. He crossed the Alps and was received with the greatest cordiality and respect by the Frankish monarch, who returned to Italy with him and relieved Rome (754).

      Pippin subdues the Lombards.

      No sooner had Pippin recrossed the Alps than the Lombard king, ever anxious to add Rome to his possessions, again invested the Eternal City. Pope Stephen's letters to the king of the Franks at this juncture are characteristic of the time. The pope warmly argues that Pippin owes all his victories to St. Peter and should now hasten to the relief of his successor. If the king permits the city of the prince of the apostles to be lacerated and tormented by the Lombards, his own soul will be lacerated and tormented in hell by the devil and his pestilential angels. These arguments proved effective; Pippin immediately undertook a second expedition to Italy, from which he did not return until the kingdom of the Lombards had become tributary to his own, as Bavaria

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