Charlemagne Unites Germanic Kingdoms

Slide 1:

1. Fall of the Roman empire ushers in an age called the middle ages or medieval period
2. Spanned from 500-1500. A new society slowly emerged
3. It had roots in classical heritage of Rome
4. Beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church
5. Customs of various Germanic Tribes
6. In the 6th century, Germanic invaders overran the western half of the Roman Empire

Slide 2:

• Invasions caused a series of changes that altered the economy, government, and culture

1. Disruption of trade: merchants faced invasions from land and sea. businesses collapsed
2. Downfall of cities: cities were abandoned as centers of administration
3. Population shifts: nobles retreated to rural areas. Roman cities left without strong leadership.
4. Population became mostly rural

Slide 3: 

1. Germanic invaders could not read or write.
2. Even among Romans, the level of learning sank as family left for rural areas
3. Few people aside priests and other church officials were literate
4. Germanic tribes did not have a written language.

Slide 4:

1.  Latin was a common language, but once it mixed with the German speaking population, it changed
2. No one understood the language. Different dialects developed as new words and phrases became part of speech
3. By the 800s French, Spanish, and other roman based languages evolved from latin.
4. Development of languages mirrored the break up of a once unified empire

Slide 5:

1. Between 400 and 600, Germanic kingdoms replaced Roman provinces
2. Borders of these kingdoms changed constantly with fortunes of war.
3. During this time of political chaos, the church offered order and security

Slide 6:

1. Concept of government changed too. Loyalty to public government and written law had unified Roman society.
2. Family ties and personal loyalty, instead of citizenship in a public state, held Germanic society together
3. Germanic peoples lived in small communities that were governed by unwritten rules and traditions

Slide 7:

1. Every Germanic chief led a band of warriors who pledged loyalty to him
2. They lived in their lord’s hall during peacetime. He gave them food, weapons and treasure.
3. It was considered a disgrace to outlive your lord in battle.
4. Germanic warriors felt no loyalty to a king they did not even know.
5.  They would not obey an official sent to collect taxes or administer justice
6. Germanic stress on personal ties made it impossible to establish an orderly government for large territories

Slide 8:

1. In the Roman province of Gaul (now France and Switzerland) the Germanic franks held power
2. Leader is Clovis and he brings Christianity to the region.
3. rumored his wife made him convert
4. Clovis calls on God to help him win. He wins. He and 3,000 soldiers asked to get baptised by a bishop after

Slide 9:

1.  Church in Rome welcomes Clovis’s conversion and supported his military campaign against Germanic peoples
2. Clovis united the Franks into one kingdom
3. Strategic alliance between Clovis’ Frankish kingdom and the church marked the start of a partnership between the two

Slide 10:

1.  Church spread its message through government and missionaries
2. Missionaries carried the message to other lands but risked their lives doing so.
3. In southern Europe, the fear of Muslim attacks made many convert to Christianity

Slide 11:

1. To adapt to rural condition, the church built religious communities called monasteries
2. Christian men called monks gave up their private possessions and devoted their lives to serving god.
3. Women who follow this way of life were called nuns and lived in convents

Slide 12:

1. Around 520, an Italian monk named Benedict wrote a book on a set of rules for monasteries.
2. His sister Scholastica headed a convent and adapted the same rules for women
3. Guidelines became a model for many other religious communities in Western Europe
4. Monks and nuns devoted their lives to prayer and good works

Slide 13: 

1. Monasteries became Europe’s best educated communities. Monks opened schools, maintained libraries and copied books
2. In 731, the Venerable Bede, an English Monk, wrote a history of England
3. Scholars still consider it the best historical work of the early middle ages.

Slide 14:

1. 590, Gregory I aka Gregory the Great, became Pope.
2. He broaden the papacy (Pope’s office), beyond its spiritual role.
3. Papacy became secular, worldly, power involved in politics
4. Georgy used the church revenues to raise armies, repair roads and help the poor
5. he even negotiated peace treaties

Slide 15: 

1. Gregory said his region extended from Italy to England and from Spain to Germany.
2. He did strengthened the vision of Christianity. A spiritual kingdom that was fanning out from Rome and spreading
3. Idea of a churchly kingdom, ruled by a pope, would be a central theme of the middle ages.

Slide 16:

1. Some secular rulers expanded their political kingdoms as well
2. After the Roman empire dissolved, small kingdoms sprang up all over Europe.
3. England broke up into seven tiny kingdoms
4. Franks controlled the largest and strongest of Europe’s kingdoms
5. King Clovis died in 511, he extended Frankish rule over now what is France

Slide 17:

1. An official known as Major domo “Mayor of the palace” became the most powerful in the Frankish Kingdom, He was Charles Martel and he had more power than the king
2. Also known as Charles the hammer
3. Extended the Frank territory
4. Defeated the Muslim raiders at the Battle of Tours
5. Defeating the Muslims was significant because if the Muslims won, then western Europe would be part of the Muslim empire.
6. Charles Martel’s victory made him a Christian hero

Slide 18:  

1. After he died martel passed power to his son, Pepin the short
2. Pepin wanted to be king and agreed to fight the Lombards, who invaded Italy and threatened Rome
3. Pope anointed Pepin “King by the grace of God”
4. This began the Carolingian (kar-uh-lihn-juhn) dynasty.
5. This family would rule the Franks from 136 years 751-873

Slide 19:

1. When Pepin died in 768, he left the Frankish kingdom to his two sons, Carloman and Charles
2. Carloman died in 771 and Charles, also known as Charlemagne, or Charles the great, ruled the kingdom
3. He was 6’4 and imposing. He built an empire greater than any since Rome.

Slide 20:

1. In the summer he led armies against enemies that surrounded his kingdom
2. Fought Muslims in Spain
3. Tribes from Germanic kingdoms
4. Conquered new lands to the south and east
5. Each conquest he spread Christianity.

Slide 21:

1. His empire was larger than the Byzantine empire. He became the most powerful king in western europe
2. Charlemagne traveled to Rome in 800 and crushed a mob that attacked the pope
3. Pope Leo III, then crowned him Roman Emperor
4. Significant because this signaled the joining of Germanic power, the church and the heritage of the Roman Empire

Slide 22:

1. Charlemagne strengthened his power by weakening the nobles.
2. Sent our royal agents to make sure powerful landholders, called counts, governed their counties justly.
3. He himself also regularly visited each part of his kingdom and managed his huge estates, which was the source of his wealth and power

Slide 23: 

1. Greatest accomplishment was the encouragement of learning
2. Surrounded himself with English, German, Italian and Spanish scholars.
3. He even opened a palace school. Ordered monks to make a school to train future monks and nuns

Slide 24:

• He crowned his son, Louis the Pious, as emperor before he died in 814.
• Louis was a religious man but terrible realer.
• He had three sons, who fought for control of the empire:

1. Charles the bald
2. Louis the german
3. Lothair

Slide 25:

1. In 843, the brothers signed the treaty of Verdun, diving the empire into three kingdoms
2. Carolingian kings lost power and central authority broke down
3. This leads to a new type of governing system and landholding- Feudalism