In the last issue, we introduced the young Pepin, who is also Charlemagne's father, nicknamed the short man, and everyone calls him Pepin the short. Under the rule of Pepin the Dwarf, the centralization of power in the Frankish kingdom was strengthened, and frankish status was restored, laying the foundation for Charlemagne's career.
Charlemagne is the peach K in the playing cards, the king founded the Holy Roman Empire in Germany, and was the founder of Charlemagne's Empire and the founder of European history. After the death of Pepin the Dwarf in 768, the Frankish kingdom was divided between Charlemagne and his brother Carloman, who became king of the Carolingian dynasty. Charlemagne was a passionate Christian, a Catholic of Christianity, who during his reign allied with the Church of Rome, using and supporting each other, which was often emulated before the later kings of Europe. At the same time, Charlemagne vigorously promoted Christianity, so that the power of the church in Europe has been unprecedented. Charlemagne was able to read and write at the same time, not to think that this was nothing, in an age when the common ruler would only draw crosses at the sign when signing documents, which was a very competitive skill, Charlemagne founded the first public school, taught astronomy, theology and law, and paid great attention to the protection of literary texts, issuing orders to bishops, counts, magistrates and rulers through the Compendium of Decrees organized by Charlemagne, in these ways gathering a large literary elite around him.
Charlemagne was committed to the unification of the Franks and the concentration of power, transforming the original blood-related alliance into a regional rule model, turning Gao into a county or district, when the Franks established a total of 98 counties, and the highest governor of the county was each count, also became the count of the county. The king of the kingdom and the various regional governors met many times a year to discuss public affairs, at that time there was no concept of the capital of the country, the king traveled mostly as a palace, where the king was the center, exercising the function of the capital, at that time in the western region of present-day Germany, Aachen because Charlemagne settled here for a long time, thus becoming the capital in the real sense. In terms of economic model, from the initial commercial economy to the agricultural economy, so that the city began to decline, and the traditional feudal system also began to transform into a military mining system, what does it mean? It is the original system of dividing up hereditary lands that has been abolished and replaced by vassal relations, and the courtiers are obliged to provide taxes and military service for the king, and as the king, they are responsible for providing protection and living materials for the courtiers, and the courtiers divide the land among their subordinates to achieve the same duties and rights. Basically equivalent to the structure of a pyramid, the king is the first level of the spire, the second level is the lord of the great middle including the duke, bishop, marquis, earl, baron, the third level is a lower level is mostly the knight class, the fourth level belongs to the free people, semi-free people, slaves and other peasant classes, this system has also become an important reference for the social structure of Europe in the future.
Of course, Charlemagne's contribution is not only these cultural things, after all, he has nearly fifty years of combat career, although he is a lover of peace, but his road to reunification is full of fighting and blood, after all, he cannot succumb to the enemy by words.
When Charlemagne's brother Carloman died in 771, Charlemagne advanced into Carloman's domain of East Francia, merging the Franks again, and Charlemagne declared himself King of Franks. However, at this time Carloman's wife traveled to Lombard with her young son in hopes of gaining the support of the Lombard Emperor Di Sidrius to support Carloman's younger son as king, and Di Sidrius had been planning independence due to the death of his short son Pepin. Here we will introduce the relationship between Lombard and Frank, in the time of Pepin the Dwarf, Franks invaded Lombard and defeated it, and gave part of Lombard's land to the church for support, this time "Pepin Land", and the other part of the land was assigned to Franks and administered by Charlemagne, but Lombard was not conquered at this time. When Disidrius took the opportunity to declare independence and attack the part of the land given to the Church, Pope Hadrian asked Charles for help, and in 772 Charlemagne led a large army to invade Lombard.
In 773 AD, Charlemagne crossed the Alps, occupied the territory of Carloman, Charlemagne's brother who was sheltered by Disidius, and began to besiege Pavia in Lombard, Lombard's army could not compete with Charlemagne's Frankish army, which was why Desidius chose to attack the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but he underestimated Charlemagne's determination to unify the cause, Charlemagne eventually conquered Pavia, became Desidius alive, and imprisoned him in a monastery. In 774 of the following year Charles traveled to Rome to confirm the "Pepin Increase" to the Church and proclaimed himself "King of Frank and Lombard", and Lombard perished. However, in 776, Lombard rebelled again, and in 780 AD, Charlemagne once again conquered Lombard and established his son as King of Lombard.
At the same time as the battle against Lombard, Charlemagne was also engaged in another more important, and 32-year-long war, that is, the conquest of the Saxons, but at the beginning, Charlemagne was a passive attack, the Saxons were located between the lower Rhine and the Elbe, Charlemagne was still at the end of the clan society, but the Saxons also accepted Christianity, and while Charlemagne's brother was still alive, the Saxons continued to invade Ostrassia in East Francia. After Charlemagne merged east and west Francia, he first sent troops to Saxony in 772 AD, and the purpose of this army was mainly to retaliate strongly against the Saxons for harassing East Francia. Charlemagne destroyed the Saxon tree god IrminSur Optimus Prime in this invasion, but also met with stubborn resistance from the Saxons, and Charlemagne temporarily halted the invasion. In 775, Charlemagne decided to use cannibalism to conquer the Saxons because of his first attempt, and sent missionaries into Saxony to spread Christianity, under military pressure, the Saxon nobles expressed their willingness to surrender, and held several collective baptisms to convert to Christianity. However, Vidugin, the leader of the Westphalians, the rival of the Saxon nobility, continued to invade Charlemagne after receiving assistance from the Danes and the Slavs, and in 782 Charlemagne collectively executed 4,500 Saxons at Felden am Aarar, all of whom were vidugin's subordinates who were unwilling to surrender. Although Charlemagne had already defeated Saxony, but the rebellion continued, in 792 AD Saxony once again a large-scale rebellion, Charlemagne personally went to quell the rebellion, but there was basically a rebellion every year, and Charlie had to go to the court every year. Charlemagne finally forced Saxony to abandon Nordalbinga in 804, and the Saxon conquest was completed.
In 800 AD, Leo, bishop of Rome, because he was threatened by opposition clergy in the church, asked Charlemagne for help, and Charlemagne entered Rome to help Leo get control of the opposition. Perhaps out of gratitude or out of exploitation, when Charlemagne was doing Mass at St. Peter's Church in Rome, Leo suddenly put on a golden crown for Charlemagne and proclaimed Charlemagne the "Emperor of the Romans" and became Charlemagne the Great, and it was at this time that Leo got rid of the constraints of the Byzantine Eastern Church and became pope, and it is said that Charlemagne was very unhappy at the time, and others may not understand his cause of unifying Europe in his heart.
In Charlemagne's later years, due to the long war, the bankruptcy of a large number of freedmen, and the weakening of the country to a great extent, the Frankish separatist forces began to rise, but there was no major movement due to Charlemagne's rule, but in 814 AD, Charlemagne died in Aachen at the age of 72, and according to Charlemagne's will in 806, the country was divided equally among three sons: Charlie, Pepin, and Louis the Pious. After Charlemagne's death, the Frankish separatist forces began to move and gradually split into two parts, one part of which was that the Franks on the left bank of the Rhine began to Romanize and speak Romance, and the Franks on the right bank of the Rhine began Germanic fusion, speaking the national language, that is, the early German language.
Charlemagne greatly promoted the historical process of Europe in terms of culture, religion and institutional concepts, so that the Germans entered the period of agrarian society, and also brought the Germans into the era of civilization, and at the same time had a profound impact on the later European pattern.
In this issue, we introduce the frankish unification and the final division by introducing Charlemagne in general, and the prototype of the modern state in Europe has begun to emerge.