Ask The History Doc: France & Islam?
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Dear Enquiring:
No, you were wrong. And now I suppose you want to hear an explanation of why you were wrong, right?
You see, by the 700s, the forces of Islam were bent on conquering Europe. You may recall that after the fall of the Roman Empire, the area that became Europe was not exactly a world-class power for quite a long time. It was a period of every-man-for-himself and good luck on surviving. At various times and places, there were invasions and all the attendant fun events carried out by Visigoths, Vandals, Saxons, Huns, and others too numerous to mention. It didn’t help when the forces of Islam decided that it might be a great time to invade the area of Spain.
By the time that decision was made, the Islamic presence was already formidable in the present-day Middle East and in northern Africa. Starting with Arabia, Islamic armies had managed to take over Persia, Armenia, the area then called Syria, Egypt, Tripoli, and Mauretania, all the way across the African coast to the Atlantic. At the eastern end of their holdings, these armies butted up against the Byzantine Empire, which held on to today’s Turkey and Greece.
In 711 a mixture of Arabs and Berbers, led by Tariq, sailed from Africa, bent on defeating the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain. They did not have much trouble accomplishing their goal. They easily defeated the last Visigothic ruler Roderick and took over the Visigoth’s holdings in the south. (Incidentally, in the process they gave Gibralter its name: Gebel al-Tariq.) They swept northward, and by 720 they had reached the Pyrenees. Their next goal was the Frankish Kingdom to the north.
France appeared to be vulnerable. The Merovingian rulers in France had faced a declining power structure for some time, with incompetent royal leaders and decentralizing tendencies leading to the rise of several so-called Mayors of the Palace, who increasingly represented the real power at the top even though they were not kings—yet. One of the earliest important Mayors was Pepin of Heristal, who tried to stem the tide of disintegration by supporting the Church and in turn receiving the Church’s gratitude. In the early Middle Ages, where the Church’s gratitude was given, power could not be far behind.
Pepin’s son Charles Martel continued to pursue a policy of close cooperation with the Church, but he faced opposition from the other nobles in France, who preferred to be able to do their own thing instead of having to acknowledge any sort of central authority. The Mayor of the Palace also took note of the advancing threat from the Islamic armies, which, by 730, were busy attacking Aquitaine. At the time Aquitaine was headed by Eudes, a rival of Charles Martel, so Martel stood back and waited while one of his enemies pounded on the other. By 731, the Islamic armies were attacking Poitiers and beginning an assault on Tours. Eudes could take no more; he was forced to ask for assistance from Martel.
After that, everything just seemed to fall into place. Martel "hammered" the forces of Islam, earning his nickname of "the hammer," and chased them out of Aquitaine in 732.
And how does all this make you wrong? Well, today historians pretty much agree that the Battle of Tours (as it is known in U.S. history books) or the Battle of Poitiers (in French books) stemmed the tide of the Islamic advance. The Islamic military leader Abd al-Rahman had been killed in the battle, and his troops retreated back into their holdings to the south and did not try again to conquer Europe by marching through France. They had hoped to join their eastern holdings with their western holdings by marching north through the Kingdom of the Franks, then sweeping eastward and over to at least the boundary of the Byzantine Empire in Greece. This accomplishment might have allowed them to overwhelm the Byzantine Empire in the 700s. Of course that would have meant that the entire Mediterranean world would have been subject to Islam.
As it turned out, however, they had to fall back to Plan B, which was to conquer Europe from east to west instead of from west to east. They tackled the Byzantine Empire several times but did not get the job done until 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Islamic forces, thus beginning the Ottoman Empire. From time to time they managed to penetrate a bit farther into central Europe but they were not able to hold on to those areas permanently.
By the way, this all worked out pretty well for the family of Charles Martel. Aquitaine acknowledged his authority, which gave his power base a big boost. A few years later, Martel assisted the Pope against the Lombards, thus virtually assuring that his successors would have the blessing of the Church to oust the failing Merovingian dynasty. As planned, his successor Pepin the Short became ruler of the Franks with the approval of the Church. And his son was Carolus Magnus, aka Charlemagne.
So you see, Enquiring, that if it had not been for Charles Martel, much of Europe–if not all of it–would have fallen to the growing power of Islam in the 8th century. There is probably some sort of lesson to be learned here, but I think I’ll just let you figure out what it might be.
—Jean England Freeland is a now-retired professor of history presently living on a real farm raising real fruit and veggies. After struggling to learn French for four years, she has at last reached the point where, whenever she visits Paris and actually speaks the language, the natives no longer flee screaming. She considers this one of the major accomplishments of her life.
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Dear Enquiring:
No, you were wrong. And now I suppose you want to hear an explanation of why you were wrong, right?
You see, by the 700s, the forces of Islam were bent on conquering Europe. You may recall that after the fall of the Roman Empire, the area that became Europe was not exactly a world-class power for quite a long time. It was a period of every-man-for-himself and good luck on surviving. At various times and places, there were invasions and all the attendant fun events carried out by Visigoths, Vandals, Saxons, Huns, and others too numerous to mention. It didn’t help when the forces of Islam decided that it might be a great time to invade the area of Spain.
By the time that decision was made, the Islamic presence was already formidable in the present-day Middle East and in northern Africa. Starting with Arabia, Islamic armies had managed to take over Persia, Armenia, the area then called Syria, Egypt, Tripoli, and Mauretania, all the way across the African coast to the Atlantic. At the eastern end of their holdings, these armies butted up against the Byzantine Empire, which held on to today’s Turkey and Greece.
In 711 a mixture of Arabs and Berbers, led by Tariq, sailed from Africa, bent on defeating the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain. They did not have much trouble accomplishing their goal. They easily defeated the last Visigothic ruler Roderick and took over the Visigoth’s holdings in the south. (Incidentally, in the process they gave Gibralter its name: Gebel al-Tariq.) They swept northward, and by 720 they had reached the Pyrenees. Their next goal was the Frankish Kingdom to the north.
France appeared to be vulnerable. The Merovingian rulers in France had faced a declining power structure for some time, with incompetent royal leaders and decentralizing tendencies leading to the rise of several so-called Mayors of the Palace, who increasingly represented the real power at the top even though they were not kings—yet. One of the earliest important Mayors was Pepin of Heristal, who tried to stem the tide of disintegration by supporting the Church and in turn receiving the Church’s gratitude. In the early Middle Ages, where the Church’s gratitude was given, power could not be far behind.
Pepin’s son Charles Martel continued to pursue a policy of close cooperation with the Church, but he faced opposition from the other nobles in France, who preferred to be able to do their own thing instead of having to acknowledge any sort of central authority. The Mayor of the Palace also took note of the advancing threat from the Islamic armies, which, by 730, were busy attacking Aquitaine. At the time Aquitaine was headed by Eudes, a rival of Charles Martel, so Martel stood back and waited while one of his enemies pounded on the other. By 731, the Islamic armies were attacking Poitiers and beginning an assault on Tours. Eudes could take no more; he was forced to ask for assistance from Martel.
After that, everything just seemed to fall into place. Martel "hammered" the forces of Islam, earning his nickname of "the hammer," and chased them out of Aquitaine in 732.
And how does all this make you wrong? Well, today historians pretty much agree that the Battle of Tours (as it is known in U.S. history books) or the Battle of Poitiers (in French books) stemmed the tide of the Islamic advance. The Islamic military leader Abd al-Rahman had been killed in the battle, and his troops retreated back into their holdings to the south and did not try again to conquer Europe by marching through France. They had hoped to join their eastern holdings with their western holdings by marching north through the Kingdom of the Franks, then sweeping eastward and over to at least the boundary of the Byzantine Empire in Greece. This accomplishment might have allowed them to overwhelm the Byzantine Empire in the 700s. Of course that would have meant that the entire Mediterranean world would have been subject to Islam.
As it turned out, however, they had to fall back to Plan B, which was to conquer Europe from east to west instead of from west to east. They tackled the Byzantine Empire several times but did not get the job done until 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Islamic forces, thus beginning the Ottoman Empire. From time to time they managed to penetrate a bit farther into central Europe but they were not able to hold on to those areas permanently.
By the way, this all worked out pretty well for the family of Charles Martel. Aquitaine acknowledged his authority, which gave his power base a big boost. A few years later, Martel assisted the Pope against the Lombards, thus virtually assuring that his successors would have the blessing of the Church to oust the failing Merovingian dynasty. As planned, his successor Pepin the Short became ruler of the Franks with the approval of the Church. And his son was Carolus Magnus, aka Charlemagne.
So you see, Enquiring, that if it had not been for Charles Martel, much of Europe–if not all of it–would have fallen to the growing power of Islam in the 8th century. There is probably some sort of lesson to be learned here, but I think I’ll just let you figure out what it might be.
—
Jean England Freeland is a now-retired professor of history presently living on a real farm raising real fruit and veggies. After struggling to learn French for four years, she has at last reached the point where, whenever she visits Paris and actually speaks the language, the natives no longer flee screaming. She considers this one of the major accomplishments of her life.
Jean England Freeland is a now-retired professor of history presently living on a real farm raising real fruit and veggies. After struggling to learn French for four years, she has at last reached the point where, whenever she visits Paris and actually speaks the language, the natives no longer flee screaming. She considers this one of the major accomplishments of her life.
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