Charlemagne was crowned
On the morning of Christmas in 800 AD, a great monarch, Frankish monarch Charles, put on the crown of The Roman Emperor, who was the most deserved ruler of Western Europe at that time, and was historically honored as Charlemagne, that is, Charlemagne.
Barbarian kingdom
The Western Roman Empire was eventually washed away with the tide of great migration, bringing the history of Western Europe into the Middle Ages.
The Germanic peoples who entered the territory of the empire had not yet completely separated from the tribal organization, and the degree of civilization development was far behind that of Rome, so they destroyed the political entity of the empire at the same time, but also almost destroyed the institutional civilization of the empire.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Germanic people who migrated south established a series of small kingdoms based on military conquest, which Western scholars called barbarian kingdoms. Later, among these small kingdoms, the Frankish kingdom arose.
The father of Europe - Charlemagne
Clovis, the founder of the Frankish kingdom, converted to Christianity at the end of the fifth century and became the protector of the Church of Rome, realizing the political and religious cooperation between the Frankish rulers and the Church of Rome, and establishing a solid rule. Most of Clovis's descendants were weak and incompetent, causing power to fall into the hands of the palace ministers in charge of the affairs of the court. In the late seventh century, the Franks were revitalized under the leadership of the chancellor Charles Matt, whose son Pepin succeeded him as chancellor, deposed Clovis's descendants in 751, ascended the throne, and founded the Carolingian dynasty. In 771, Charles, the son of Pepin the Dwarf, ruled all of the Frankish kingdom and became the great Charlie the Great who would later threaten Western Europe and go to the city of Rome to receive the crown. Charles's rise to the stage of history pushed the Franks to their peak, and the political situation in western Europe in the early Middle Ages was greatly improved. During his 46-year reign, he waged more than 50 wars.
Frankish Empire
Around 800 AD, the Frankish territory was roughly equivalent to the European part of the Roman Empire, and the Western European continent was unified under charles's power. As the most important feudal state in Western Europe, charles's empire gradually developed a new social system, that is, the feudal system of Western Europe, thus laying the foundation of medieval Western European civilization.
The kingdom after the split
The Charlemagne Empire had a profound influence on the subsequent historical path of Europe, and it is for this reason that historians have conferred the honor of the father of Europe on Charlemagne. In 843, Charlemagne's three grandsons concluded a treaty in Verdun, known as the Treaty of Verdun. It formally divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts: East Frank, West Francia and Middle Francia. East and West Francia evolved into the Kingdom of Germany and the Kingdom of France in the tenth century. However, Middle Francia, which owns the Italian peninsula, did not develop a worthy Italian state in the Middle Ages, and Italy as a state began in modern times.
The Three Kingdoms struggle for hegemony
The Great Migration between the fifth and sixth centuries changed the face of Britain. Beginning in the middle of the fifth century, several branches of the Germanic people, such as the Anglo, Saxon and Judeans, crossed the sea from the mainland to Britain, opening the first act of the withdrawal of the Roman legion on the stage of British history - the Anglo and Saxon periods.
By the beginning of the seventh century, the Germans had established about seven major states on the island, and they competed with each other for supremacy, performing a scene of small countries competing for hegemony, in which Northumbria, Messia and Wessex competed for supremacy, forming a historical situation of alternate hegemony. In the ninth century, Wessex swept away the kingdoms and for a time dominated all of England, and the Kingdom of England was formed.
In the history of British feudal politics, Alfred was an outstanding monarch, and During his reign from 871 to 901, Alfred played an active role in resisting the Dane invasion and occupation of England. In the process of plundering England, the Danes once occupied Northumbria, Eastern Yangria and even the southwestern part of England, and after the Danes occupied these areas, they settled here, and then the Scandinavian Danes continued to flock to England. In 878 Alfred's army severely damaged the Danish army at the Battle of Adingen. Soon the Danish pirate fleet was hit by a storm at sea, and a large number of pirate ships were almost completely destroyed, in this case, Alfred forced the Danes to conclude a treaty in 886, which was to demarcate the border, and all the areas south of the Thames were ruled by the Kingdom of Wessex, to which Alfred was located, while the Northern and Eastern Regions remained inhabited by the Danes.
However, the Danes continued to invade from their occupied territories and forced Messianajin to make peace in the tenth century. In the second half of the eleventh century, the Dane Cnut became king of England, establishing a Danish dynasty in British history. After 1042, the Wessex dynasty returned to power, but more than 20 years later it was again conquered by its foreign enemy, the Normans.
Under the pen of some Western historians, Western Europe in the fifth to eleventh centuries was a dark era, not only was The economy and culture of Western Europe backward, but also the country was relatively primitive, and there was no unified nation-state or sovereign state in the sense of modern political science at that time.
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Western European society was in chaos, and the kings and nobles at that time had to raise a group of armed men in order to maintain their power. Initially, these masters provided these families with food, clothing, and equipment, and later gave them a piece of land, and this land was called feudal land, and these people who received the land were called feudal vassals, and the master who granted the land was the feudal lord, so that a relationship of mastership and subordination was formed between the vassal and the vassal, and the two sides had mutual rights and obligations.
Vassals were loyal to the vassals and held great powers in their fiefs. The feudal lord protects the vassal, and the two sides have mutual rights and obligations. Based on this system, the entire feudal lord class of Western Europe constituted a hierarchical group containing different classes of high and low, and according to feudal law, the king was at the highest level of the hierarchy and was the supreme lord.
In an era when a unified state administration had not yet been formed, the royal family's income came mainly from the royal territory. Lords wielded economic and political power, and they were obligated only to their direct vassals, and even the king's direct vassals often did not control all his lands, and it was not uncommon or surprising that a duke or earl was more powerful than the king. Although they were de jure vassals of the king, their actual power was above that of the king, and in this socio-political context, lords at all levels wielded arrows and swords to expand their power or defend their territories.
Kafili Castle
Historians often use lords, knights, and castles to describe the socio-political landscape of Western Europe before the eleventh century. Castles were both military strongholds and residences for the lords, and these tall buildings rose from dangerous terrain and flat land.
After the eleventh century, the social and political situation in Western Europe gradually stabilized, the development of feudal countries entered a new stage, and countries gradually entered the development track with their own characteristics.
Britain and France, which began its feudal history in the late tenth century, began the process of strengthening central power.
In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, crossed the sea to conquer Britain, seized the English throne, and established a relatively powerful kingdom. Successive generations of British kings after William continued to implement measures to strengthen the royal power, but they were also constantly resisted by the great nobles, and in the second half of the thirteenth century, the British Parliament was formed, and a hierarchical monarchy was established in England.
France's struggle to strengthen the crown was evident by the end of the thirteenth century. By this time the French king was able to control most of France, and its material power was not comparable to that of any nobleman.
The Hundred Years' War
From 1337 to 1453, England and France fought a war that lasted for more than a hundred years, the Hundred Years' War. France became a battlefield for many years of fighting between the two sides, and the war ended with the victory of France and the further strengthening of the royal power after the war. Although the development path of the French monarchy was quite tortuous, it eventually achieved national unity and established the most typical absolute monarchy in Western Europe.
After the Hundred Years' War, a brutal civil war broke out in Britain, and the result of the desperate struggle within the ruling clique was to push the Duyi dynasty onto the political stage. The rule of the new dynasty pushed Britain to the stage of absolute monarchy, and the royal power developed to the peak during Queen Elizabeth's reign.
Queen Elizabeth, also known as Elizabeth I, was a famous monarch and an important politician in the late period of British feudal society, who ruled England for 45 years. Her political achievements can be summed up in three sentences: first, she strengthened the autocratic monarchy; second, it encouraged the development of British industry and commerce and overseas trade, which objectively promoted the growth of British capitalist relations; third, it dealt a heavy blow to the maritime hegemony of Spain at that time, and initially established Britain's superiority at sea. From the above, it can be seen that Elizabeth was indeed a pivotal politician in England during the transition from feudal to modern society.
The Kingdom of Germany embarked on a different path of national development in the Middle Ages than in England and France. In 936, the majestic Otto succeeded to the throne, and he also adopted a policy of culture and martial arts, subdued the dukes, and established a relatively powerful royal power. Otto then conquered the west and expanded his territory In 961, Otto sent an army south to occupy northern Italy, and the following year, the Pope crowned Otto emperor at St. Peter's Basilica.
The political structure in Germany became increasingly complex, the imperial power continued to weaken, the princes became more and more powerful, and the princes' territories developed rapidly in the direction of independent political entities, resulting in the entire German state becoming a scattered sand, and the division of the german state continued into modern times. When the British and French monarchies were strengthened and national unity gradually became a reality, the German emperor became weaker and weaker.
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