A line of do-nothing-kings from the Merovingian dynasty rule the Franks, which forces the creation of mayors of the palace, an office of chief household officials. In time, these mayors seize more and more control, and Pepin III is finally crowned king, beginning the new Carolingian dynasty. Charles Martel (“the Hammer”) would follow, and Charles the Great, better known as Charlemagne, would achieve the greatest height among them.
Show Transcript
Shalom, and welcome to our history podcast. This is a production of Kingdom Preppers.org. I’m your host, Kingdom Prepper, and you’re listening to: Churchianity: Two Thousand Years of Leaven. We continue with our history.
Part 17: The Carolingians
In Francia, the land of the Franks—the mightiest of all the barbarian kingdoms—a king named Clovis had risen to power and united them, thus expanding the Merovingian dynasty, named after a fifth-century Frankish ruler, Meroveus (also known as Merovech) the grandfather of Clovis. We touched on Clovis’s reign in episode 11. As a final act, Clovis divided his kingdom between his four sons, who successfully completed their father’s work of conquering all of Gaul, which extended to Burgundy and Provence, but infighting among the four brothers followed. With the death of his three brothers, Clothar gained control of Clovis’s kingdom, but he too divided it as an inheritance among his four sons, who were established in four capital cities. One of the sons, who was King of Paris (a city among the four capitals) died, leaving Neustria in the western Frankish territory, Germanic Austrasia in the eastern portion, and Burgundy, with its capital in Orleans.
During the seventh century, the Frankish kingdom was in serious decline, but Clothar’s grandson, Clothar II, managed to unite the kingdom once more, and he was succeeded by a powerful ruler, his son Dagobert; but thereafter, the Merovingian dynasty would finally lose steam. What followed was a series of juvenile “Do-Nothing-Kings,” as they were famously labeled. Because of their age and inexperience, these young kings forced the creation of a new office, the mayor of the palace, taken up by the chief officials of each royal household. The mayors of Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy soon superseded the authority of the kings and made the three regions more independent. In time, the mayors of Austrasia became a hereditary office, much like a royal dynasty, but their authority was still checked by a collection of nobles.
The founder of this new mayoral dynasty was an ancestor of the Carolingians named Pepin, who was mayor when Dagobert was a young king over Austrasia. When Pepin’s son Grimoald became mayor in his stead, he made a vain attempt to seize the throne of the Merovingian king, but the Austrasian nobility thwarted his efforts and had him executed. Though the kings were weak, they were not to be deposed. Of this, Professor Thomas F. Madden says:
“The kings of the Franks were a family which historians refer to as the Merovingians. And these kings were completely powerless, and had been powerless for a long time, but Frankish law, or Germanic law, did not allow someone to depose these kings because—from a Germanic perspective—the kingship of these kings was in their blood; they were born with this special royal blood, and getting rid of them would be bad.”
In 687, Pepin’s grandson, Pepin II, became mayor of the palace and amassed near absolute power in his position. Pepin II further consolidated his power by warring with the rival mayor of Neustria, whom he defeated in a battle that marked the end of Merovingian opposition. Pepin II successfully united the Frankish kingdom yet again, this time establishing his grandsons as mayors of Neustria and Austrasia. His grandsons, however, proved to be less capable than he had hoped, and after his death, it fell to Pepin’s illegitimate son, Charles Martel, to restore order.
“And Martel is not his last name, it’s a nickname: ‘the Hammer.’ ”
Says Christopher M. Bellitto, professor of history at Kean University in Union, NJ.
“And he had this name ‘the Hammer,’ because—kind of like Stonewall Jackson—he could stop anybody that other people couldn’t stop. And Charles Martel’s greatest exercise of his ‘Hammer’ capability came in the year 732 at the battle of—well—Poitiers or Tours. It takes place on a field in between the two, and each of them tries to claim the city for tourism dollars. But the Muslims are taking over what is today Saudi Arabia in the modern boundaries; taking over what had been the eastern: the area of the Holy Land; southern: North Africa; and western: Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal)—portions of the Roman Empire. Now they’re going into Europe and nobody can stop them. And Charles Martel brings a group of people together; he’s allowed to stop them like a hammer. They fall back over the Pyrenees, and then the story of Medieval Spain and Portugal—from 732 – 1492—is the story of what is called the Reconquista—the Spanish Catholics pushing the Muslims out.”
Some contemporary historians have set the date for the Battle of Tours as October of 733, which is the year we decided on in our last episode. Charles Martel was a Christian, and he looked favorably upon the church, which he endowed and supported. He even encouraged Anglo-Saxon missionary efforts to the north, in the hopes of converting yet more barbarians to the Catholic faith, in this case, Germans in Thuringia. On the other hand, he viewed himself as the head of the Frankish church, which was a direct challenge to the authority of the bishop of Rome: the pope. But he controlled lands that supported warriors and soldiers who were the church’s main line of defense, so who was going to argue with Charles Martel? Though he was not a king in name (he still held the office of mayor of the palace) Charles Martel ruled like his father Pepin II: autocratically, but he too divided his lands between his sons Carloman and Pepin III.
Charles Martel used his power to depose bishops and funnel ecclesiastical revenue to himself, which he used to finance his own enterprises. So large a figure was he that the Carolingian dynasty is named for him, not the more famous Charles, or Charlemagne, who would later succeed him. Unlike other mayors of the palace, Charles Martel also used his authority to leave the throne of the Merovingian king vacant, which paved the way for the Carolingians to assume totalitarian supremacy over Frankish territories. Writing in Medieval Christianity, Kevin Madigan adds:
“When the titular Merovingian king died in 737, Charles chose not to replace him. This, perhaps more than the Battle of Tours, was to have great significance for the future of Europe and for the church. For this non-act was to allow his son to claim a vacant throne, announce that he was king, and begin to establish the Carolingian dynasty … which would change the face of Europe and shape the history of early-medieval Christianity.”
This is no exaggeration. We see the beginnings of this historic change with Charles Martel’s direct successor, his son, Pepin III. His other son, Carloman, retired to a monastery in 747, leaving Pepin—also called “the Short,” or “the Younger”—sole house mayor during the reign of the last “do-nothing” Merovingian king, Childeric III, who had filled the vacant throne. Pepin was not content with the idea of being mayor only. He wanted to sit a king, since the actual king was less powerful than he was. Intent on affixing the royal title to himself to go along with his rulership, the very year his brother abdicated, Pepin sent a Frankish council to inquire into canon law by obtaining an audience with Pope Zachary. By making this overture to the papacy, a new page was being written with regard to Frankish-Papal relations, which had suffered under previous mayors of the palace.
So Pepin’s council put a few questions to the pope.
“And one of the questions he’s really interested in is: is it really right for someone who has no power to call himself the king, and someone who has all the power to not be the king?”
Says Professor Thomas F. Madden.
“And the pope, Zachary, understood what this meant, and he affirmed that in his judgment, Pepin, because he had all of the authority, could depose the Merovingian king and be crowned himself. Now, Pepin took that and ran with it.”
Notwithstanding the centuries of tradition that had held within Frankish society, where the blood of kings was revered, all of the players involved in overthrowing the old order had something to gain from establishing the Carolingians as the new dynasty. Whatever might be said of Pepin’s drive to seek the throne—though he sought the blessing of the pope to achieve his end, and was given it—the move was not according to Germanic protocol.
“However little power the Merovingians had by now … the tradition of their rule was 250 years old; … this was a coup.”
Writes Chris Wickham in his book, Medieval Europe.
“Pippin and his heirs spent time covering this up, and so did their historians; maybe the pope himself had agreed to it in advance; maybe the aristocracy had agreed to Pippin being anointed by Archbishop Boniface of Mainz.… This set the tone for Carolingian political action ever after, for, without the support of the church, they were just another aristocratic family, even if by far the most prominent one in Francia. The commitment to an ecclesiastical vision of politics followed.”
After all was said and done, the last Merovingian king, Childeric, was deposed and sent to a monastery. Pepin, not wanting to seem presumptuous among his own people, called an assembly of the Franks, consisting of the church laity, who unanimously chose him as the new king. To make things official, Archbishop Boniface anointed and crowned Pepin, declaring the act the grace of the Almighty. For Pepin, however, this was still not enough. To fully legitimize his crowning, Pepin, in 754, was honored with a visit from the next pope, Stephen II, who traveled north to personally anoint him and his two sons in a papal ceremony at an abbey near Paris. The anointing was seen as something divine, replacing the pagan traditions that had preceded it in Frankish history.
While Pepin wore ecclesiastical vestments, Pope Stephen blessed his sword, scepter, ring, and crown, and he was anointed with the same oil used in the consecration of bishops. Pepin, however, felt himself above both bishops and priests. During the anointing, Pope Stephen declared Pepin and his sons to be the “patricians of Rome,” their responsibility as royals chiefly being to protect Rome from its main enemy: the Lombards. In return, Pepin openly declared that lands stretching from Rome to Ravenna was the rightful property of the papacy. These lands actually belonged to the eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople, but it was argued that he had failed to properly defend them and so his ownership had been forfeited.
Pope Stephen, greatly advanced in age, had traveled north for another purpose. He sought to enlist the aid of Pepin in making good on his new Roman patrician status by facing off against the Lombards for control of the contested papal lands that would form “the Patrimony of Peter,” which would go from being papal private lands to lands under papal civil jurisdiction, thanks to the Franks. Pepin led his army toward Italy in the spring of 755, and he successfully outmaneuvered the Lombards and lay siege to the town of its king, on whom he subsequently forced a harsh set of terms. When the king refused to keep his pledge, Pepin marched toward Italy again and handily defeated the Lombards.
Before long, envoys from Byzantium, sent by the eastern emperor Constantine V, visited Pepin and demanded, on behalf of the emperor, that Ravenna be restored to him. Ravenna, they claimed, had once been in the emperor’s possession prior to the Lombard conquest of northern Italy. But Pepin, who had already given the land to the pope—an act known as “the Donation of Pepin”—refused. He had won back the land for Peter in an attempt to have his sins pardoned, he explained, and nothing would induce him to take back what he had given to Peter. The Byzantine envoys withdrew and Constantine V had to live with the decision. East and west were further divided as a result, but the alliance between the Franks and the Roman papacy was forged, and the papal states had officially come into existence as a legal entity.
We’ll be back with more exciting scriptural history . . . in a moment.
[MUSICAL INTERLUDE]
We now continue with our podcast.
In his book, Germany: A History, author Francis Russell gives us the next development in our Carolingian narrative.
“Charles was twenty-six and Carloman barely sixteen when their father died. Pepin left no will. But ancient Frankish tradition, confirmed by tribal assembly, determined the division of Frankland. Austrasia with part of Neustria and the north German lands went to Charles, while Carloman received western Neustria, Provence, and the Swabian country of the Alemans. Carloman died within three years. Because there were rumors that he had been plotting against his brother, his widow fled to Italy with her two infant sons when Carloman died. Charles simply ignored them. Another national assembly of the Franks unanimously confirmed him as sovereign of the country, which was united once again.”
Charles—later called Charlemagne, meaning “Charles the Great”—became ruler of a united Francia in his prime, at age thirty. He spoke German, which was his native tongue, in addition to traditional Latin and a Neustrian Latin-Celtic dialect that had lately emerged. He also understood Greek, so he could readily decipher the speech of envoys from Byzantium. Charlemagne envisioned a Frankish-Roman empire along the lines of an idealistic description given in a book written by Augustine of Hippo. In short order, he began a series of military campaigns to expand his empire.
In the year 774, Charlemagne faced off against Rome’s fiercest and main enemy, the Lombards, and he ended them, absorbing their kingdom. The Lombards ceased to be, and all that remained of them were their name, which the northern region of Italy still bears, and their blood, which the people of that region carried for generations. Around this time, the current pope, Hadrian, minted coins in his own name and dated official documents based on the date of his papal ascension. This marked a clear separation from the eastern empire; Rome was now independent of Byzantium thanks to the Franks.
Among Charlemagne’s most bitter foes were the Saxons, whom he battled in eighteen separate military campaigns over thirty-three years. In 782, four thousand Saxons were slaughtered by his forces and compelled to convert to Christianity. Charlemagne then set his sights on Bavaria, annexing the territory in 787. He battled the Avars and sought to Christianize them. His empire extended south to the Pyrenees and he even subdued the people of northern Spain. By 790, Frisia too was conquered.
The spirit of conquest that had possessed the Arabs seemed to possess Charlemagne as well, and his many campaigns spilled much blood. But more than that:
“Charlemagne’s endless warring consumed a fortune.”
Writes Johannes Fried in his book, Charlemagne.
“There was no cheaper way to secure peace. Charlemagne understood full well though, that a successful king had to run a successful economy too. Yet how could he afford both war and peace? How might they be financed? There was plenty of money for sure, in the form of pure silver coinage, but it was never enough to pay all his fighting men, or even his administrators, estate managers, or noblemen. As a result, other instruments of remuneration had to be deployed. So, how then were revenues generated and the costs of a standing army met? A king had many mouths to feed, including, not just his own royal household, but also the clergy, guests at court, foreign legations, and countless others, all in a manner befitting both their station and his own royal rank. He was expected to put on a display of grandeur, power, and wealth, and to exude an air of splendor through bounteous generosity and conspicuous expenditure. None of this came cheaply.”
The financing came from the very lands he had either conquered or inherited. Since there was no system of direct taxation in place and citizens were required to render service to the state in place of this system, revenue was generated from the land itself. And where coin could not be used to satisfy payment to those in the king’s service, land was donated. Johannes Fried goes on to say:
“The huge extent of this property portfolio, which steadily increased over the decades, together with the land seized through conflict against the Saxons, Lombards, and Avars, may well have made the king magnanimous and open-handed. War turned out to be a profitable enterprise for those who took part. Charlemagne rewarded his followers, secular magnates, dioceses, and monasteries with generous donations of land. He also never neglected to bestow new territory on the Roman papacy. These institutions all received a share of the booty.”
When Charlemagne ascended the throne, the empire he inherited comprised what is today France (which is named for the Franks), Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and a large portion of Germany across the Rhine. But so successful was he at seizing new land that in forty-three years of rule the empire doubled in size. He added Saxon territory, Bohemia, the vast Danubian plain inhabited by the Avars—which the Romans called Pannonia—the Lombard region of northern Italy, and Spanish territory across the Pyrenees.
Important changes came during Charlemagne’s rule and during the subsequent time of Carolingian supremacy as well. While the term “archbishop” was used as a title for patriarchs and bishops who acted as special representatives of the Roman pontiff, it adopted a new specific use. It was now reserved for metropolitan bishops—that is, bishops who were granted important sees, like provincial capitals. Once appointed to the office of archbishop, they were given the pallium, which was a band of white wool worn on the shoulders and had four crosses worked on it. They could then be considered something like the pope’s deputies.
As a sign of his commitment to the Christian cause, eight new dioceses were established during Charlemagne’s reign. But unlike the early church, ecclesiastical dioceses were now decided jointly by the secular power and the papacy. Bishops, however, were named by Charlemagne, which continued Frankish customs initiated by the legendary Merovingian king, Clovis I.
Bishops were expected to travel often, visiting the local parishes that formed an intricate network throughout the realm. The cathedral (from the Greek kathedra, meaning “seat”) was now the church of the bishop, which was where he had his seat. The place in which a cathedral stands is also called a bishop’s see, a word derived from a Latin root that also means “seat.” If you are familiar with the language of Revelation, you’ll take special note of these little tidbits.
Canonical clergies were also formed during the Carolingian period. Ordinarily, there was the secular clergy (saeculus)—referring to clergy who lived in the world, like in large cities—and the regular clergy—referring to those who lived in monasteries as monks and abided by a monastic rule (regula). But the Carolingian period saw the rise of the canonical clergy, which combined these two features and introduced a clergy that fulfilled parish responsibilities in the world but lived by a monastic rule.
That said, the Carolingian period saw its share of intrigue. In Rome, where ecclesiastical power was concentrated in the papacy, treachery abounded as many vied for the top seat. Professor Thomas F. Madden adds:
“The next pope, Leo III, was elected in 795. He had a great political skill and he was also known to be a very wise and pious man. It’s in this period, as we get to the end of the eighth century, that the papacy—because it’s such an important secular position in Rome—it means the Roman families (the powerful Roman aristocratic families and the various political factions in the city of Rome) are naturally now, going to be focusing on the papacy. ’Cause, that’s how you get to be boss; you get hold of the papacy, you get hold of the pope. You become the pope, one way or the other. And so, there’s a lot of intrigue, backstabbing—literally, backstabbing—and the like.”
Years earlier, Pope Adrian died, but his surviving relatives, the nobility of Rome, failed to get their desired candidate elected to the papal throne. They bitterly resented Leo III, and so hired a gang who attacked him as he was on his way to service. He was hauled off to prison and charged with all manner of evils, but agents of Charlemagne’s court, who happened to be in the city, rescued the pope, who fled north to Aachen, to secure the king’s help.
The king sent the pope back to Rome and kept him under guard, and by the end of the year 800, the king crossed the Alps and, on December 23, presided over a trial that allowed Leo to clear himself of his accusations.
“This course of events had signified a dreadful humiliation for the pope and his abnegation before the Carolingian ruler …”
Writes Norman F. Cantor, in his book, The Civilization of the Middle Ages.
“… and he determined to try to regain the prestige and authority of his office by carrying out the imperial coronation of Charlemagne.
“On Christmas day, 800, as Charlemagne rose from prayer … Pope Leo suddenly placed the crown on the king’s head, and the well-rehearsed Roman clergy and people shouted, ‘Charles Augustus, crowned great and peace-giving emperor of the Romans, life and victory!’ ”
Charlemagne ruled as emperor for fourteen years, and then, like his Carolingian predecessors, and the Merovingian kings before them, he divided his empire between his three sons. Two of them died before he did, however, and so the empire went to his surviving son, Louis the Pious. At its height, the Carolingian empire was impressive. In fact:
“No empire in Europe from the early Middle Ages to the time of Napoleon was to be so grand in sheer territorial scope as the Carolingian.”
Writes Kevin Madigan in Medieval Christianity. But with the death of Charlemagne the empire was weakened, and it started on a steady decline until it ultimately disintegrated. Kevin Madigan goes on to say:
“By the death in 840 of Charlemagne’s son, Louis, who had inherited the crown at his father’s death, civil war among three of his heirs weakened the monarchy still further. At the same time, Europe was being attacked from three sides.”
By the Muslims, Vikings, and Magyars. But eventually, the Carolingians would run out of descendants to sit the throne, and a French dynasty would give way to a German one, leading to what would be considered The First Reich.
“In the wake of these internal and external threats the old Carolingian Empire collapsed and split into three large territories: the East Frankish kingdom, the West Frankish kingdom, and the kingdom of Italy.”
Writes Kevin Madigan.
“The last Carolingian in the eastern line died without heirs in 911. There, the political future lay with three kings, each named Otto, and to the dynasty (Ottonian) to which they gave their name.
“With the loss of an effective protector, the papacy became the object of jealous competition among the noble families of central Italy and the kings of Germany.”
And thus, the papacy would experience its own decline, prior to reform and resurgence on its quest to fulfilling yet other prophecies.
That wraps it up for this episode of Churchianity: Two Thousand Years of Leaven. A production of Kingdom Preppers.org, this episode was written, produced, and hosted by yours truly, Kingdom Prepper. All praise, honor, and glory are due to my boss, Yah Elohim, and to his right hand, Yahushua HaMashiach. You can access the transcript for this episode on our website. Yah willing, our history will continue in the next podcast. Shalom.
Keywords: Meroveus, Merovech, Burgundy, Provence, Francia, Neustria, Austrasia, Clothar II, Merovingian, Childeric, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, do-nothing-kings, Rois Faineants, Mayor of the Palace, Dagobert, Pepin, Boniface of Mainz, saeculus, kathedra, Frisia churchianity, two thousand years of leaven, history of Christianity, church history, Hebrew history, kp, kingdom preppers
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