The next event that profoundly affected the history of Europe was the rise of Mahommedanism. In A.D. 622, sixteen years after Gregory’s death, occurred the flight (Hijra) of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina, which fixed the memorable era of the Hegira. The full force of the The Hegira, A.D. 622. Rise of Mahommedanism. militant religion founded by the Arab prophet was not felt till after his death (632). The emperor Heraclius, the vigour of his manhood passed, was unable to meet this new peril; the Arabs, strong in their hardy simplicity, and new-born religious fanaticism, and aided by the treason and cowardice of the decadent Roman governing classes, overran Asia Minor, conquered Egypt and the whole of northern Africa, overwhelmed the Gothic kingdom in Spain, and even penetrated beyond the Pyrenees to the conquest of the province of Narbonne. One of the chief effects of these Arab conquests was that Christian civilization became gradually confined to Europe, another was that the trade routes to the East were closed to the Western nations. The conquest of Narbonne marked the limit of the advance of Islam in western Europe, for in 732 the Arabs were overthrown by Charles Martel in the battle of Tours, and a few years later were driven out of Gaul. In Spain, however, they succeeded in maintaining themselves throughout the middle ages; developing a high type of civilization which had a considerable influence on the intellectual life of medieval Europe; and it was not till 1494 that Granada, their last possession in the peninsula, was conquered by the Christian monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella.
The battle of Tours emphasized and increased the power and reputation of Charles Martel. As a mayor of the palace to the decadent Merovingian successors of Clovis, he was virtually ruler of the Franks, and, after his death, the last of the rois fainéants of the house of Merovech The Carolingians. was deposed, and Pippin, Charles’s son, was elected king of the Franks. The prestige of the Carolingian house (to give it the name it was later known by) was increased when, at the urgent entreaty of Pope Stephen III., Pippin marched into Italy and saved Rome from the Lombards, who were endeavouring to extend their power southwards. Pippin’s son Charles (Charlemagne) finally conquered the Lombards in 774 and thus added part of northern Italy to his dominions.
Charlemagne's empire at its greatest extent.
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In 797 an event of the highest importance to the European
world took place. The emperor Constantine VI. was deposed
by his mother Irene, who seized the throne. Thereupon
Pope Leo and the Roman people definitely threw
off the authority of the emperors of Constantinople,
The coronation of Charles the Great
as emperor. 800.
on the ground that a woman could not hold the position
of Caesar. In 800 Leo crowned Charlemagne emperor
at Rome, and henceforth till 1453, when Constantinople
was conquered by the Turks, there was an Eastern and a Western
empire. Till his death in 814 Charlemagne was king of the
Franks as well as emperor. His kingdom embraced not only all
German and modern France, but included a large part of
Italy and Spain as far as the Ebro. Under his rule western
Europe was united in a powerful empire, in the organization of
which the principles of Roman and Teutonic administration
were blended; and, after his death, he left to his successors,
the Frankish and German kings, the tradition of a centralized
government which survived the chaos of the period that followed,
and the prescriptive right to the title and prestige of Roman
emperors—a tradition and a claim that were to exercise a
notable effect on the development of European history for
centuries to come. (See France: History and Charlemagne.)
The period from the death of Charlemagne (814) to the 12th
century is characterized in western Europe by the general
weakening of the idea of central government and by
the rise of feudalism. During the same period the
East Roman or Byzantine empire escaped disruption
Europe after
the death of Charlemagne.
and, preserving the traditions of Roman civil and
military administration, formed an effective barrier
for Europe and Christendom against the advancing tide of Islam.
At the same time, however, the growing divergence between
the Eastern and Western Churches, which had been accentuated
by the iconoclastic controversy (see Iconoclasts), and was
destined in 1053 to culminate in a definite schism, was gradually
widening the breach between the two types of European civilization,
which came into violent conflict at the beginning of the
13th century, when crusaders from western Europe captured
Constantinople and set up a Latin empire in the East (see
Roman Empire, Later; Church History; Crusades). In
western Europe, meanwhile, the unity of the empire did not long
survive Charlemagne. Its definite break-up dates from the treaty
of Verdun (843), by which Charles the Bald received Neustria,
Aquitaine and western Burgundy, Louis the German Bavaria,
Swabia, Saxony and Thuringia, and the emperor Lothair the
middle kingdom known by his name, the regnum Lotharii or
Lotharingia (see Lorraine). By the partition of Mersen (870)
Lotharingia itself was divided between the West and East
Frankish realms—France and Germany, terms which from this
time begin to represent true national divisions. With the
treaties of Verdun and Mersen the history of the European state
system may be said to begin.
The Western Empire after the Partition of Mersen 870
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At first, indeed, it seemed as though the nascent states were about to be dissolved by disruption from within and attacks from without. All alike were subject to the attacks of the Norse sea-rovers, hardy pirates who not only scourged all the coasts of Europe but penetrated, Rise of feudalism. burning and harrying, far inland up the great waterways. Meanwhile, the weakening of central government due to dynastic
