CHARLESTON
630
CHARLESTON
Christian civilization should continue or Mohamme-
danism prevail throughout Europe. It was this bat-
tle, it is said, that gave Charles his name, Martcl
(Tudites) "The Hammer", because of the merciless
way in which he smote the enemy.
The remainder of Charles Martel's reign was an uninterrupted series of triumphant combats. In 733-734 he suppressed the rebellion instigated by the Frisian duke, Bobo, who was slain in battle, and definitively subdued Friesland, which finally adopted Christianity. In 735, after the death of Eudes, Charles entered Aquitaine, quelled the revolt of Hatto and Hunold, sons of the deceased duke, and left the duchy to Hunold, to be held in fief (736). He then banished the Mohammedans from Aries and Avignon, defeated their army on the River Berre near Nar- bonne, and in 739 checked an uprising in Provence, the rebels being under the leadership of Maurontus. So great was Charles' power during the last, years of his reign that he did not take the trouble to appoint a successor to King Thierry IV, who died in 737, but assumed full authority himself, governing without legal right. About a year before Charles died, Pope Gregory III, threatened by Luitprand, King of Lom- bardy, asked his help. Now Charles was Luitprand's ally because the latter had promised to assist him in the late war against the Mohammedans of Provence, and, moreover, the Frankish king may have already suffered from the malady that was to carry him off — two reasons that are surely sufficient to account for the fact that the pope's envoys departed without gaining the object of their errand. However, it would seem that, according to the terms of a public act published byCharlemagne, Charles had, at least in prin- ciple, agreed to defend the Roman Church, and death alone must have prevented him from fulfilling this agreement. The reign, which in the beginning was so full of bloody conflicts and later of such incessant strife, would have been an impossibility had not Charles procured means sufficient to attract and compensate his partisans. For this purpose he con- ceived the idea of giving them the usufruct of a great many ecclesiastical lands, and this spoliation is what is referred to as the secularization by Charles Martel. It was an expedient that could be excused without, however, being justified, and it was pardoned to a certain extent by the amnesty granted at the Council of Lestines, held under the sons of Charles Martel in 743. It must also be remembered that the Church remained the legal owner of the lands thus alienated. This spoliation and the conferring of the principal ecclesiastical dignities upon those who were either totally unworthy or else had naught but their mili- tary qualifications to recommend them — as, for in- stance, the assignment of the episcopal Sees of Reims and Trier to Milon — were not calculated to endear ( lharles Martel to the clergy of his time. Therefore, in the ninth century Hincmar of Reims related the story of the vision with which St . Eucher was said to have been favoured and which showed Charles in hell, to which lie had been condemned for robbing the Church of its property.
But notwithstanding i he almost exclusively warlike character of his reign, Charles Martel was not indif- ferent to the superior interests of civilization and Christianity. Like Napoleon after the French Revo- lution, upon emerging from the years 715-71'.), Charles, who had not only tolerated but perpetrated many an act of violen -e against the Church, set about the re-establishment o. social order and endeavoured to restore the rights of the Catholic hierarchy. This
explains the protection which in 723 he accorded St.
Boniface (Wmfrid), the great apostle of Germany, a
protection all the more salutary as the saint himself
explained to his old friend, Daniel of Winchester, that
without it he could neither administer his church, defend his clergy, nor prevent idolatry. Hence Charles
Martel shares, to a certain degree, the glory and merit
of Boniface's great work of civilization. He died
after having divided the Frankish Empire, as a
patrimony, between his two sons, Carloman and
Pepin.
Chronicorum Fredegarii scolastici continuntio, in Scriplores rrrum mrrnringicarum, II; Cauer, De Karolo Martello, (Berlin. 1S4H1; Veltman, DeKaroli Martelli pntriatihi , (Minister, 1836); Breysig, Jahrbucher des frdnkisrh, n /iVcV. i Leipzig. 1S69); Richter, Annalen der deutveh. Grech. im M. A . (Halle. 1873), I; Buchanan in Diet, of Christian Biog. (Boston, 1877), I, 461-63. GODEFROID KURTH.
Charleston, Diocese of (Carolopolitana), now comprises the entire State of South Carolina, U. S. A. (area 30,170 sq. miles). It was established 12 July, 1820, and then included both Georgia and North Carolina. The former state became the terri- tory of the new Diocese of Savannah in 1850, and in 1S6S North Carolina became a vicariate Apostolic. Mass was first .-aid in Charleston in 1 780, by an Italian
of St. John the Baptist
priest on his way to South America, for a congrega-
tion of twelve persons. A year or two later the con-
gregation numbered about 200, at which time an
Irish priest named O'Reilly (according to Ramsay)
or Ryan (according to Shea) celebrated Mass for 200
Catholics in an abandoned Methodist meeting-house.
In 1789 this property was purchased by the Rev.
Thomas Keating and the building renovated as St.
Mary's Church. Religious disabilities were still on
the law-books, but in 1791 an Act of the Legislature
incorporated the Roman Catholic Church of Charles-
ton. The first Bishop of Charleston, the Rt. Rev.
John England, was consecrated in Cork, Ireland. 21
Sept., 1820, and reached Charleston in December of
that year. Because of dissensions in St. Mary's con-
gregation he erected a plain wooden structure in 182] ,
and made it his cathedral under the title of St. John
and St. Finbar. His admirable administration marks
in epoch not only in the history of the diocese, but
also in that of the Catholic Church in the United
States, and is more fully treated in the article ENG-
LAND, John. He died 11 April, 1842, lamented by
all. His former coadjutor, the Rt. Rev. William
Clancy was transferred in 1843 to the Vicariate Apos-
tolic of Guiana. The second Bishop of Charleston,
th. Rt. Hev. Ignatius A. Reynolds, was consecrated in Cincinnati, 10 March. 1X11. and signalized his epis- copate by the publication of an edition (in five vol- umes) of the works of his predecessor and tic erection
of a new cathedral. He was a very ascetic man and tireless worker, and died 9 March. 1855. lie third
bishop of the see was the Rt. Hev. Patrick Neisen Lynch, a brilliant graduate of the Propaganda Col-
