200 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE after one year divorced his Lombard bride and became Desiderius's bitter enemy. The pope was soon again at war with the Lombard king, and appealed to Charles for aid. The result was that Desiderius was overthrown in 774 and that Charles became King of the Lombards in his stead. He was never able, however, to bring the Duchy of Bene- ventum in the south really under his control, although he made several attempts. He visited the pope at Rome, kiss- ing every step of the basilica of St. Peter like a pilgrim, and seems to have renewed the donation of Pepin. The pope, however, did not receive from Charles quite as much terri- tory nor quite so many towns as he had hoped, and Charles himself kept the supreme control over Rome and its neigh- borhood. Already in Spain had begun to appear the divisions that were ultimately to ruin the Mohammedan power there The Span- The governor of Barcelona now again sought ish March w j t j 1 Charles the alliance against Cordova which he had proposed to Pepin. As Pepin had occupied Aqui- taine and driven the Moslems out of Septimania, the wa> was prepared. Charles crossed, the Pyrenees in 778, but his Arab allies did not come up to his expectations, and, aftei taking some towns, he retreated. His rear guard was de stroyed in the passes by the Christian Basques inhabiting that locality. Among the slain was Hruodland, one o Charles's chief friends and lieutenants and the hero of th< later Song of Roland. Later in his reign Charles was mor< ; successful and established the Spanish Majch, a strip o land extending as far south of the Pyrenees as the importan seaport of Barcelona. Mark or march was the name for i frontier territory. Apparently without much excuse, Charles deprived th< Duke of Bavaria of his possessions and annexed them Eastward This brought him into contact with the Avars whose nomadic empire was now on the decline After several years of war they were defeated by the Frank whose territory in this direction extended into Carinthia But Charles's hardest fighting was with the Saxons, whop
