Sculpture in the Imperial Forum of Rome
When it comes to the Charlemagne Empire, it is necessary to mention its predecessor, the Frankish Kingdom. In 395 AD, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I divided the vast empire in two, giving rise to the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire).
Although both empires inherited the glory of the Roman Empire, their national strength was already inferior to that of before, and they were often invaded by the surrounding barbarians, of which the Western Roman Empire suffered the most serious aggression. Although the Western Roman Emperor tried to gain a foothold in Europe, the barbarian invasions were too frequent and eventually collapsed. In 476 AD, the Western Roman Empire was declared extinct.
When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the surrounding barbarians flocked to it and divided up its land. Among them, the Frankish tribes among the Germans seized the Gaul region and became the new owners of the land. In 481 AD, Clovis established the Frankish kingdom here, and the dynasty he founded was also known as the Merovingian dynasty.
The establishment of the Frankish Kingdom had a major impact on European history, and it can be said that the Frankish Kingdom was the second country after the Roman Empire to influence the entire course of European history. However, the early Frankish kingdom was not so important, and the time node that really affected the development of Europe began when Charles the Great ruled the Frankish kingdom.
Clovis, the founder of the Frankish kingdom
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > integrate the Frankish kingdom and inherit Pepin's legacy</h1>
As early as the 4th century AD, the Franks came to the fringes of the Roman Empire. By this time the Roman Empire was already in decline and could not expel the Franks as in the past. At the same time, the Roman Empire could no longer wage large-scale wars as frequently as in the past, so the Franks were allowed to settle in the Roman Empire in a compromise gesture. In exchange, the Franks took on the responsibility of protecting the territory of the Roman Empire in Gaul.
With the passage of time, the status quo of the Roman Empire deteriorated even more, even the functioning of the state apparatus was difficult, and the ability to control the border areas was naturally weakened. Soon, the Western Roman Empire collapsed completely, and the previous agreement with the Franks naturally had no meaning. Against this backdrop, the Franks decided to begin expanding their territory in order to break away from the control of the Roman Empire.
In 486 AD, Clovis became the leader of the Franks and led the tribe to completely eliminate the remaining roman forces in Gaul and become the de facto ruler of the land. Shortly thereafter, Clovis established a frankish state on this land, the Frankish kingdom. However, Clovis was not very satisfied with the current size of the territory, and soon after the founding of the state, he continued to launch a campaign of conquest and expansion, and his primary target was the kingdom of Burgundy.
The surrounding situation at the beginning of the establishment of the Frankish kingdom
The development of the Kingdom of Burgundy was very similar to that of the Frankish Kingdom, but it was only a small state established by the Burgundians. Although Clovis was good at leading troops, he could not annex the similar kingdom of Burgundy, so he turned his target to the Visigothic kingdom. Seven years later, the Visigothic kingdom collapsed, and the territory of the Frankish kingdom was expanded.
At the same time that Clovis launched a war of foreign conquest, in order to consolidate his position and win over the noble groups among the Franks, he gave the lands acquired in the conquest to the noble groups in his own name, which formed the basis of the caiyi system. However, the system of caiyi in this period was not yet customized, and it was not until the reign of Charlie Matt that it became a system fixed, which is a later story. The reason why this matter is mentioned is that the later customized caiyi system has a very far-reaching impact on Europe, and it is precisely because of the implementation of the caiyi system that Europe has entered the feudal era.
Clovis holding a scepter
As mentioned earlier, the Frankish kingdom at this time was still relatively weak. In order to strengthen himself, Clovis chose to ally with the Christian emperor and became a Christian. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the influence of the Papacy began to decline significantly.
When Clovis threw an olive branch to the Pope, the Pope was naturally overjoyed, and not only agreed to support the expansion of the Frankish kingdom, but also gave Clovis the power to appoint bishops, which was a very rare phenomenon.
Clovis who is being baptized
Since then, the Frankish kingdom has expanded at an astonishing rate, gradually becoming one of the most influential countries in Europe. However, after Clovis's death, the entire Frankish kingdom became divided, and his heirs divided the entire kingdom into four small kingdoms for their own interests (which was also the tradition of the Franks), and the power of the state was weakened, until the appearance of Pepin reversed all this.
Pepin's significance to the Frankish kingdom was extraordinary, and without his presence, it would have been difficult for the entire Frankish kingdom to regain its former compactness and unity. In 751 AD, Pepin was recognized by the Pope as king of the Frankish kingdom and ushered in a new era, the Carolingian dynasty. In this regard, Qi Ji of the School of International Relations of Peking University once mentioned in the article "On the Integration and Win-Win Situation of the Frankish Carolingian Dynasty and Christianity":
At that time, Pi Pi, the dwarf, was the de facto ruler of the Merovin dynasty. And this kind of rule is also a kind of unstable rule, its sole legitimacy is based on power, and people are ultimately loyal to the Clovis family, and the Pepin and Pepin families may lose their rule at any time. Pepin must therefore find a stronger legitimacy for his rule, or at least a double insurance. So Pepin approached the Pope, hoping that the Pope would cloak his rule in a sacred guise to deceive the populace and believers and transform illegal rule into legal rule. "
Pepin the Dwarf, the founder of the Carolingian dynasty of the Frankish kingdom
From the above materials, it can be seen that Pepin did not have a legal inheritance right from beginning to end, and his succession process was no different from rebellion. However, Pepin had the Pope as a backing, so his rebellious behavior was also cloaked in legitimacy. To thank the Pope for his support, Pepin chose to give a small piece of land in Italy to the Pope for permanent use, which is now the Vatican.
Since then, the Franks have formed a close alliance with the Pope, which not only helped Christianity to continue to spread after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, but also contributed to the development of the Frankish kingdom.
Today's Vatican
It should be admitted that Pepin was indeed a promising monarch, and without the foundation he laid, Charlemagne could not achieve a meritorious career, and the name of the emperor did not have much to do with him. Pepin died in 768 AD, and according to Frankish tradition, this complete kingdom was to be divided into two again, with charles inheriting part and caroman in the other, which would undoubtedly divide the frankish kingdom that had just flourished.
However, at this critical point in time, Carloman suddenly died of illness, so the territory that originally belonged to Carloman was naturally assigned to Charles, and the Frankish kingdom was once again unified after a brief split. I have to say that Charlie can really be described as the "chosen son".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > conquered most of Europe and was crowned Roman Emperor</h1>
Long before the unification of the Frankish kingdom, Charlemagne had begun to expand outward, when he set his sights on northern Italy, preparing to expel the Lombards who occupied it and establish his rule over the land.
In 774 AD, the Franks defeated the Lombards in Italy, but the Lombards still had remnants here and still needed a lot of time to liquidate. At the same time, Charlemagne transferred the main force of his army to Saxony, launching as many as eighteen large-scale attacks on it. Although the battle against the Saxons was cloaked by Charlemagne as "exterminating the infidels", Charlemagne used this as an excuse to expand his territory.
King of the Franks, Founder of the Holy Roman Empire Charles the Great
After the conquest of the Saxons, Charlemagne launched an attack on other barbarian or divided regimes in the surrounding area. Under the strong offensive of the Frankish army, the surrounding areas chose to surrender. Even resistance could not stop Charlemagne from moving forward.
By 778, Charlemagne had expanded much more than before, and austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and much of France were now under the rule of the Frankish kingdom. However, this was not the peak of Charlemagne's life, and in 800 AD, Charlemagne and the entire Frankish kingdom ushered in an important historical turning point.
On Christmas Day of that year, Pope Leo III suddenly made a move that shocked the European countries, that is, he personally put the crown symbolizing the status of the emperor on the head of Charlemagne and declared him emperor of Rome. In this regard, Wang Zhongwen of the First Vocational High School of Daqing Petrochemical General Plant once mentioned in "Charlemagne and the Roman Empire":
In 799, Pope Leo III was expelled by the Roman nobility and went to Charles to beg for help, and Charles marched into Rome and restored the papacy. The interdependent relationship between the Frankish kings and the pope, which had been established since the pepin period of the Dwarf, was further developed. In return for Charles, Leo III was crowned in the Basilica of Santo d'Or in Rome on Christmas Day 800 as the 'Roman Emperor'. Thus Charles became Emperor of Western Europe, and the Frankish Kingdom became the 'Holy Roman Empire'. "
Leo III is crowning Charlemagne
It should be mentioned that the so-called "Roman Emperor" is only a title, not that the Frankish kingdom was transformed into the Roman Empire. For Europeans, the title of Roman Emperor is the supreme honor, meaning European Emperor. When Charlemagne received this title, it meant that he was no longer the same as all the other secular monarchs of Europe.
In 814, Charlemagne contracted a wind chill while out hunting and soon passed away with his unfinished business. After that, Charlemagne's empire gradually fell apart, mainly because his descendants "followed the ancestral system" and broke down the Charlemagne Empire he had established by his own hands into three major parts, and the glory of Charlemagne's Empire disappeared.
Portrait of Charlemagne
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > empire split, forming the prototype of Germany, Italy and France</h1>
Charlemagne was able to achieve this precisely because the Frankish kingdom was reunited shortly after he succeeded to the throne. Perhaps the vast majority of Franks did not understand the importance of unity, but in Charlemagne's later years, he followed the Frankish tradition of making an early will to divide the empire equally among his three sons. However, Gao Guojun, lecturer of the Department of Political Science and Law of Zhoukou Normal University, put forward a new view on the reasons for the division of Charlemagne's Empire in "Analysis of the Reasons for the Split of the Charlemagne Empire":
"The division of Charlemagne's empire was a historical necessity. This can be attributed to the bad habits of dealing with the legacy of the empire, the lack of strong economic and cultural ties between the empire, the misalignment of the roles of the central and local governments, and the internal and external pressures faced by the empire, coupled with the contradictions and conflicts between the successors of the empire after Charlemagne over the land issue. In general, the division of Charlemagne's empire was the result of a combination of causes, but its internal disharmony was an important reason for its division. "
However, Charlemagne's successor, Louis I (also known as Louis the Pious), was a "man of understanding" who refused to carry out his father's "plan of equal division" and instead wanted to maintain the unity of the Frankish kingdom. But even if he understood the importance of unity, he could not go against the times. For the Franks at the time, division was a matter of course, which led to Louis I becoming the enemy of the people from the day of his succession, and the defeat was expected.
Louis the Pious King of the Franks who refused to divide
After the death of Louis I in 840 AD, his son decided to divide up the entire Frankish kingdom. In 843, Lothair, Louis the Germans, and Charles the Bald signed the Treaty of equal division of the Frankish kingdom, also known as the Treaty of Verdun.
The Treaty of Verdun provided that Lothair continued to retain the title of Roman Emperor (hereditary) that had been conferred on Charlemagne and to acquire land from central to northern Italy and from the Rhine to the western part of the Alps; Louis the Germans acquired land in the eastern rhine; and Charles the Bald acquired the area west of Lothair's territory (the remainder).
King Charles the Bald of West Francia
Since then, the Kingdom of Franconia has been officially divided into three kingdoms, the kingdom of Lothair is called Middle Francia, the kingdom of Louis the German is called East Francia, and the kingdom of Charles the Bald is called West Francia.
If you look at the names alone, it seems difficult to understand which regions the three kingdoms controlled. When they are mapped to the present names of the countries, everything becomes very clear: the so-called Kingdom of Middle Francia, which encompasses the central region of Italy; the Kingdom of East Francia, which encompasses the mid-western region of present-day Germany, as well as Austria and Switzerland; and the Kingdom of West Francia, which includes Aquitaine, Brittany, Burgundy, etc., which constitute the prototype of today's France.
King Louis of The Germanic of East Francia
The fate of the Frankish kingdom can be described as ups and downs, because of the existence of its traditional custom of "equalizing the territory", the prosperity and strength of the Frankish kingdom are only short-lived. Although a successful monarch could make a country go from poor to strong, once divided, all splendor would cease to exist, which is an important reason why Charlemagne's Empire went into decline immediately after the Treaty of Verdun.
The borders of the three countries as defined in the Treaty of Verdun
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
In evaluating Charlemagne, it is absolutely impossible to overdo his exploits. It must be admitted that an important reason why Charlemagne was able to create such a great achievement was that the short pepin laid an important foundation for him. If Pepin had not completed the centralization of power and integrated the otherwise loose Frankish kingdoms together, Charlemagne would have to spend a great deal of time completing Pepin's work after he succeeded to the throne. Of course, Carloman's sudden death also created a perfect opportunity for Charlemagne to realize his ambitions, which could build a huge Charlemagne Empire.
The Frankish kingdom, after undergoing Pepin's reforms, already had a tendency to turn to a feudal monarchy. After succeeding to the throne, Charlemagne pushed this trend to the peak, completely transforming the Frankish kingdom into a feudal empire. Coupled with the pope's coronation of him as Emperor of Rome, it laid an important foundation for the establishment of the later Holy Roman Empire. It can be said that although the Charlemagne Empire lasted for a relatively short time, its impact on European history was no less than that of the Roman Empire.
Charlemagne had the ability to make the empire larger and even unify all of Europe. However, the long years of foreign wars had seriously depleted the national strength of the empire, making it difficult for him to launch large-scale foreign conquest operations in his later years. However, if the Charlemagne Empire can continue to be maintained, and under the rule of some effective monarchs, it may indeed be able to expand its territory further. Unfortunately, his descendants insisted on dividing the empire into several smaller countries for their own benefit. The Charlemagne Empire, which had once looked at the countries of Europe, lost all hope of unifying Europe after the signing of the Treaty of Verdun.
bibliography:
1. "On the Integration and Win-Win Situation between the Frankish Carolingian Dynasty and Christianity", by Qi Ji
2. In "Charlemagne and the Roman Empire", by Wang Zhongwen
3. "Analysis of the Reasons for the Split of Charlemagne's Empire", by Gao Guojun
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