United Franco dynasties invasions
dynasty Merovingian
Since the second century the Franks came invading the Roman borders, eventually occupy a small portion of Gaul. The first dynasty of the Franks, the Merovingian , owes its name to Meroveus, frank hero in the battle of Catalúnicos Campos against the Huns of Attila. However , it was Clovis , the grandson of Meroveus that through successful military campaigns conquered in Gaul, regions occupied by other barbarians, attaching them to its vast territory. In 496, Clovis converted to Christianity, thus gaining the support of the clergy and the majority of the population of Gaul, made up of Christians.
The alliance between Clovis and the Church was instrumental in the unification of Gaul, in that it strengthened the king's authority and contributed to the merger between conquerors and conquered. On the other hand, the support of the king allowed the church to free itself from the influence of the Byzantine emperors and gain new adherents among the barbarians of Western Europe.
During the Merovingian dynasty, was developing the process of formation offeudalism , intensifying the ruralization and the power of large landowners. As there was the notion of the state, public good, the lands of the kingdom were constantly distributed among the clergy and nobility as a reward for services rendered. Thus, from the mid-seventh century, the kings of the Merovingian dynasty were losing authority and subject to feudal lords. These kings are known as Indolent Kings because of the incompetence that ruled.
At that time, power was passing to the mayors (or butlers) palace, prime ministers true.Among them stood out Carlos Martel , who barred the expansion of the Arabs in Europe, winning them at Poitiers in 732.
Carolingian dynasty
In 751, the son of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short , taking advantage of the prestige of his office of mayor and getting the papal support, ousted last sovereign Merovingian, starting the dynasty Carolingian , whose name is due to its greatest exponent: Charlemagne . In return the pope's support, Cucumber supported him in the fight against the Lombards and gave the Papacy the territory of Ravenna, reinforcing the Church's temporal power. The territories of the Church, called the Patrimony of St. Peter, gave rise to the Papal States, which remained until the nineteenth century.
In 768, Charlemagne, son of Pepin, took the throne, ruling until 814. held numerous wars of conquest, which greatly expanded the boundaries of the Frankish kingdom and secured the interdependency between the central government and the nobility: part of the conquered lands they were donated to the aristocracy, who took in exchange obligations and commitments of loyalty to the king-overlord. Thus, although they continued to be the decentralization forces, due to the increased formation of fiefdoms, temporarily controlled by strong political centralization of his government.
The success of military campaigns of Charlemagne is mainly due to the support of the Church. Alongside the expansion of the Frankish kingdom, made up the spread of Christianity. With the expansion of its domains, the Frankish kingdom became the most extensive in Western Europe, recovering in part the limits of the former Western Roman Empire, which was reborn design empire. Pope Leo III, driven by interests and the spread of Christianity and the consequent strengthening of the Church of Rome, crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the New Roman Empire of the West.
The Carolingian Empire was organized in political and administrative units called counties and brands. Most of the imperial land was divided into counties , whose managers - the earls - were directly appointed by the emperor and connected to it by the oath of allegiance. The brands , border units entrusted with the defense of the empire, were governed by the marquis, who held great military power.There were the barons, who, of their strengths located at strategic points, helped in the defense of borders.
Both counties as brands subjected them to the supervision of the missi dominici - the "emissaries of the Lord" - Emperor of the officials in charge of curb abuses of earls and marquises and ensure the implementation of Capitulares laws, decrees issued in chapters by Carlos Great.
The political and administrative success of the reign of Charlemagne was accompanied by great cultural development, encouraged by the emperor himself and called Renaissance Carolingian . Since the end of the Roman Empire, the culture was succumbing to wars and barbaric. Pepin the Short, did not write the name, and Charlemagne only learned in adulthood. The reversal of this situation has been one of its goals. Brought together scholars, in order to promote education, and, in collaboration with the Church, gave new impetus to the letters to the arts, with the foundation of several schools such as the School Palate, located in the palace itself dependencies. In this school, run by the English theologian and educator Alcuin, was taught grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry and music. The cultural effervescence of the time allowed for the preservation of several works of Greco-Roman antiquity, patiently copied by students of church schools.
Division of the Frankish kingdom and the barbarian invasions
After the death of Charlemagne in 814, the government passed to his son Louis the Pious, which would rule until 841.
In the dispute over the succession, his sons Lothair, Charles the Bald and Louis the German have exhausted the great Empire in battles that would end only with the Treaty of Verdun in 843.
He divided the empire into three, breaking the imperial unit conquered by Charlemagne.
The Louis fell to call France orientai or Germania (now Germany): Carlos inherited the Western France (modern France): Lothair received land strip of located between these two kingdoms (the center of the current Italy until March North), which It was renamed Lotharingia.
The division imposed by the Treaty of Verdun contributed to the real weakening, favoring earls, dukes and marquis, who now have greater autonomy. Concretized be frank feudalism, reinforced in the ninth century by new barbarian invasions, which definitely consolidate the European feudalism. The Normans or Vikings , coming from Scandinavia, penetrated the European coast, founded in France the small kingdom of Normandy. Later also invaded England, winning it in 1066.
Other new invaders were the Magyars , descendants of the Huns, that the Asian steppes reached Eastern Europe. Also came the Arabs , since the eighth century had closed the Mediterranean to European trade and occupied Corsica and Sicily, where organized looting expeditions to southern Europe.
Thus, formed to European feudal society, a process that began with the first barbarian invasions to the areas of the Western Roman Empire in the fourth century, which was consolidated with the invasions of the ninth century.
The kingdoms originated in Verdun, the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire, followed different paths. In 936, the Carolingian dynasty extinct, the throne of Germany was occupied by Otto I or Otto.Allying the Church, Otho sought the centralization of power policy. Expanded to east the borders of his reign, attaching the Lotharingia to Germany. In 962, he was crowned Emperor of the West by Pope John XII, thus resulting in the Holy Roman Empire.After his death in 973, the Empire underwent completely feudalism.
In western France, the Carolingian weakened so deeply after Verdun, in 987, Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, ended that dynasty, starting a new phase of French politics, typical of the Low Middle Ages.
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Category: General history
