20 - Beginning of the Middle Ages by Richard William Church

In 395 A.D., the last emperor of the undivided Roman Empire, Theodosius, passed away, leaving his inept son, Honorius, to govern the western half. Honorius relied heavily on the formidable general Stilicho to fend off the Visigoths led by the relentless Alaric. However, when palace intrigues led to Stilichos execution, Alaric seized the moment, culminating in the sack of Rome in 410 A.D. This marked the dawn of an era characterized by chaotic leadership, social upheaval, and barbarian invasions that once bore the ominous label of the Dark Ages. Amidst this turmoil, the Franks rose to prominence, laying the groundwork for the Papacys temporal power. Charlemagne later unified a vast empire and sparked a revival of learning, but his reigns final years were marred by the terrifying incursions of the Vikings, who navigated their shallow-draft vessels through France‚s rivers and established a foothold across England. - Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section nineteen of the Beginning of the Middle Ages by
Richard William Church. This librovox recording is in the public
domain recording by Pamelinagami, Chapter eight The Carolingians Successors of Charles,
Part three. But in the North and West it was different.

(00:21):
The movement in Denmark and Scandinavia toward the beginning of
the ninth century had disquieted the mind of Charles the Great,
a Danish king, had stirred up war and defied him.
On the Elba and the Barks of the northmen were
beginning to scare the coasts of Gaul, as they had
already begun to burn churches and plunder monasteries on the

(00:42):
English coasts. They were the forerunners of a tremendous tempest,
of a descent of the Barbarians, which, in its widespread havoc,
in its obstinate continuance, in its aims and consequences, was
as eventful as the invasions of the Goths and Francs,
or the conquests of the Angles and Saxons. It caused

(01:06):
the last great change in the population of Western Europe
till the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. We are
familiar with the Danes in England, and we know that
the Northmen created the great province of Normandy. But the
Danes and the Northmen were the same, and what they
did in England and in Gaul were but parts simultaneously

(01:29):
carried on of one great system of adventurous exploring, of
plunder and of attempted conquest. The havoc that they made
in Gaul was as wide, as terrible, and as unintermitted
as their havoc in England. In Gaul they had a
yet wider field, and they ravaged wherever rivers could float

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their ships from the Rhine to the Seine, the Loire
and the Garun, and up the Rhine in Mozelle as
far as Coblenz and trev up the French rivers far
into the interior to Paris or Leon Bourge. The attempts
of the frank kings to arrest or limit the mischief,

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even on the Rhine and much more in Gaul were unavailing.
Summer after summer, as the ninth century wore on and
as the next began, the Northern adventurers came with increased force,
with more daring leaders, with larger designs, with more clear superiority.

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Even if defeated, they only changed their object of attack.
Discomfited and beaten off in England, they crossed over to
Gaul if the local resistance was too strong for them.
In Gaul they tried their fortune on the opposite shores.
The deepest discouragement and terror took possession of the populations

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of Gaul, who seemed for the most part helpless. We
are hardly accustomed to the thought that it was within
but little that half France could become a Normandy, and
that Danish kings should rule in the land of the
Franks as they did in the land of the English.
Things pointed in that direction toward the end of the

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ninth century under Charles the Bald and his children. Perhaps
what prevented it was the comparative smallness of the numbers
of the invaders. Consequent on their mode of access. The
largest of their fleets could not transport the Barbarian hosts
who marched by land. The first serious danger from the

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Northmen in Gaul coincided with the outbreak of intestined dissensions
in the family of Louis the Pious, just after the
catastrophe of the Lugenfeld in eight thirty three, they appear,
burning churches and plundering monasteries at the mouth of the Sheelt,
and even threatening the cities of the Rhine. In May

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eight forty one, amid the civil broils between them and
the Carolingian brothers, a month before the Fight of Fontenai Oscar,
the Northmen entered the Seine, which was soon to be
specially the Norman River, plundered and burned rural and retired
ransoming or destroying towns and monasteries on his way back

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to the sea. From this time the Northmen learned that
the broad rivers of Gaul were more worth exploring than
the coasts the Seine because it was nearest and led
up to Paris, now becoming a place of great importance
in the new West Frankish realm. The Loire and the
Gerun because they led through cornlands and vineyards and the

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richest cities deepest into the heart of the country, became
the scenes of periodic visitations from the Danish adventurers and
pirates before the eyes of Charles the Bald, who was
powerless to hinder them. The Danes at Easter eight forty
five pillaged the monasteries of Paris, and then extorted the

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Danegeld the tribute paid for peace, or rather respite. They
came again twelve years later in eight fifty seven, this
time burning the monasteries and scattering the bones of Clovis
and Clotilds. Their third Easter visit in eight sixty one
was followed by a partial settlement under a leader who,

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like Guthrum in England, received baptism, and by the creation
of a barrier and bulwark against them, a frontier duchy,
of which the chief seat was Paris, and the holder
a valiant soldier, Robert the Strong. From the Duchy of
Paris and from the house of Robert the Strong proceeded

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the line which was to displace the Carolingians and to
become the Kings of France. Paris was fortified the Great
Siege of eight eighty five, in which kings and emperors
did so little to relieve the city, and Duke Odo,
Robert's son, kept the Northmen so gallantly at bay was
the turning point of deliverance and hope to the Franks,

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and the title in due time of Odo to supplant
the Carolingian king. But the Northmen still prevailed the County
of Flanders, created like Paris as a frontier defense in
eight sixty two, could not prevent an invasion of the
Frankish rivers in eight eighty one and eight eighty two,
in which the Danes pillaged and burnt the most famous

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cities Maiestrich, Cologne, Coblence, Liege, Antwerp, even Achen, Schwassel and Reims.
But in Germany they were at length checked. Gaul was
an easier prey, and they began to occupy their conquests.
Three times had the Frankish kings granted to Danish chiefs

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the countship of the Frisian shore from the mouth of
the Mouse to the Vaser, The lands where they settled
began to receive the name in France Normandy the land
of the Northmen Terra Normanorum, answering to what in England
was called the Dane Lagu the land of Danish law.

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Besides the Normandy, which they founded on the Seine, other
Normandys were attempted on the Loire round Amiens in Burgundy
and in Auvergne, round Chartre in Brittany, even in Germany
on the western bank of the Rhine. As far as Copelenz. Godfrey,
the Danish Count of Friesland, would have created a Danish

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rey if he had not been murdered by Charles the
Fat in eight eighty five, who had himself made a
grant of the territory. It was in vain that they
were beaten, and that songs of triumph were made over
some rare victory of the Franks. One of these songs
has survived in the German tongue of the Franks of
that time, the Ludwigsliet, in honor of a victory won

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by Louis, the third king of the West Franks. But
the Danes reappeared, and the continual Danegeld was the proof
of their success. At length, amid a crowd of chiefs,
some of the same name, we hear of Ralph or Rolo.
At first he is hard to distinguish, but he is

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apparently to be discerned in those disastrous days when Charles
the Bald, unable to restrain the Northmen, yet found leisure
to attack his brother's children and attempt the imperial crown.
In eight seventy six, Charles was defeated ignominiously at Andernach
by his nephew Louis the Saxon on October eighth, and

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a month before the battle. On September sixteenth, Rollo sailed
up the Seine, just as Oscar had first led the
Danes to rule. A month before the murderous Battle of
Fontenaie between the grandsons of Charles the Great, Charles humbled
on the Rhine, thinking now only of Italy, and on
the eve of a miserable end, confirmed a treaty by

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which Rolo be besides having his Danegeld, was to occupy rule.
Rolo was henceforth under Charles's successors, master of Ruel and
the Sene. This did not prevent him from joining his
countrymen in their ravages, but his name is not prominent
till amid the strife between Charles the Simple, the grandson

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of Charles the Bald, and the Dukes of Paris, he reappears.
He had then become strong enough to be worth bargaining with.
As an ally, Charles the Simple and Duke Robert of
Paris joined in giving Rolo a legal position in the
lands which he occupied. A formal conference took place between
the Northmen with his chieftains and the frank king on

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the banks of the Ept. Afterwards the boundary stream of Normandy.
Rollo demanded, after some bargaining, obtained all from the EPT
to the sea westwards, including Brittany. A doubtful story says
that he also received King Charles's daughter for this territory.
He performed homage, he placed his hands between the King's

(10:09):
hands and became the King's man, and the next year
he was baptized at rule. The land of the Normans
had become a part of the frank Kingdom. The Duke
of the Normans, though long sneered at as a Duke
of the Pirates, took rank with Dukes of Paris and
counts of Flanders, and was in time to be the

(10:30):
premier Duke of France. The treaty or agreement of Saint
Clair Surept was probably, at the time not different from
many transactions of the same kind, but it was the
starting point of great changes. It formerly introduced into the
Latin world a new German race which rapidly unlearned its
old habits and language, becoming more Latin than the Latins

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round it. And it added to western France estate which
was to be its most powerful election. A people of
singular strength versatility and ambition, who were to exercise an
influence without example, on the fortunes of all their neighbors.
When the settlement of Normandy had been finally recognized and

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had attained, as it did in another generation, its full
limits northward and westwards, the Danish attempts to settle elsewhere
in Gaul gradually slackened, though their ravages continued for some
time longer. The Northmen received some severe lessons. Twice in
their efforts to penetrate to the central highlands of Overgna

(11:36):
and Burgundy. They were defeated with great slaughter. In time,
the Danish re on the Loire and the Somme melted
into the surrounding population. But the great result of their invasion,
Rollo's almost royal dukedom, grew and prospered. It held the
balance between Frank parties and kings vainly by force or

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entree zeige. The king of the Franks, Louis du Tremaire,
son of Charles the Simple, endeavored to undo his own
and his father's work. Ignominia's failure was the result, and
twice within two years nine forty three through nine forty five,
the Normans held the king of the Franks a prisoner

(12:21):
in their hands. From the time of Charles the Simple
and the establishment of the Norman duchy, the Carolingians played
a varied but losing game against the rising house, the
counts and Dukes of Paris, the descendants of Duke Robert.
The royal authority was undermined by the growth of great
local potentates, and among them the lords of Paris and

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the adjoining territory were the most formidable, from the remembrance
of their exploits against the Northmen, from their ambition, and
from their ability. They had their rivals on the north
and east, the new Danish masters of the Valley of
the Sea, the counts of Vermontois, descendants of the Great Charles.

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These rivalries, though at times they gave great advantages to
the king, also marked his weakness and chattered the unity
of the realm. The Carolingians had, henceforth to fight for
their kingdom with their great nobles. They were overthrown, driven
into exile, supplanted by strangers. Restored. They were not without

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gallantry and spirit, but they owed their crown when they
held it, less to their own power than to the
jealousies of the great territorial princes round them, whom a
few more turns of titaning custom and stiffening precedent were
to change into the great feudatories of the later ages.
Charles the Simple, after a life of vicissitude and fruitless conflict,

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perished miserably in prison by the treachery of one of
the great rival nobles, Herbert of Vermontois. In nine twenty eight.
His his infant son, nephew of the English Athelstan, saved
with difficulty and brought up in England. Louis the Stranger
Louis du Tremaier from Oversea, owed his recall from exile

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in nine thirty six to the mutual suspicions of his
father's enemies, Herbert of Vermontois and Hugh of Paris, who
both counted on being able to use him for their
own purposes. He came back to Waste a gallant spirit
and a reign of eighteen years from nine thirty six
to nine fifty four in fruitless efforts, fruitless even when

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he was victorious to shake off the crushing pressure of
the great dukes and counts who in Paris, Normandy, Flanders,
Vermontois low Taringia, Burgundy, Poitau, Aquitaine, hemmed In, the King
of the Franks, in his fortress of Laos and its
narrow surrounding district. All that remained besides the name of

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king to the family of Charles the Great. Nothing proves
more certainly the failing powers of the Carolingian house than
the contrast between Louis and the German king of the
New Saxon Line Otto or Otho nine fifty one to
nine seventy three. Both were equally surrounded by the formidable

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rivalry of powerful local chiefs, by confusion, selfishness, treason, by
terrible outbreaks of Barbarian invasion. But what the Carolingians could
not do Otto did. He asserted his mastery over the
turbulence round him. He conceived and carried out worthy political aims.

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He attempted and partly accomplished the reform of abuses in
government and in the church. And with no more advantage
than Louis, he left a great name as a king
and a ruler. The founder a second time of the
new Roman Empire, Louis son Lo tar inherited the kingdom
on the same terms as his father nine fifty four

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to nine eighty six, the Great Duke of Paris claimed,
as in his father's case, to be the protector of
the king. He still preferred to make control the spoil
torment the kings of the Franks, than to be king himself.
Lotar's reign was wasted, like his father's, in ignoble and

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unprofitable trials of strength. There was much fighting, much crime,
much intrigue, much vicissitude of fortune, but everything contributed to
the growing strength and the independence of the Duke of
the Normans and of his ordinary ally the Duke of Paris.
Louis and Lotar, between them reigned for fifty years, but

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in vain. At length, the time of the Carolingians was exhausted.
Hugh the Great in nine fifty six, who would not
be a king himself, left the son Hugh Cape for
whom he prepared a kingdom, and who was ready when
the last Carolingian became king, to follow the example of

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the founder of the Carolingian line. The last Carolingian, Boyish
Profligate Restless, reigned, but a year nine eighty seven he died,
probably poisoned. The great line ended in a Louis, whom
the historians have nicknamed le feyneon der Foul, the good
for nothing. His death was followed by the election of

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Hugh Capey in vain. Did Charles Louis's brother from the
impregnable rock of Laol, the last refuge of the Carolingians,
strike desperately for his inheritance. The great interests round him,
the political and ecclesiastical treachery of the time, were against him.

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After an obstinate struggle, he was at last entrapped by
the Bishop of Laoen, betrayed, and delivered into the hands
of Hugh Capey. He died in prison, and the Carolingians
disappear from history. With the end of the Carolingian line,
and indeed long before it was extinct, came the end

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of that Frank power which, after the fall of Rome,
had for four centuries played the foremost part in the West,
and which had culminated in Charles's empire. The Franks had
outstripped and defeated all their great rivals, the Gothic and
then the Lombard race, in the competition for the leadership
of the new world. They had been the conquerors and

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tamers of kindred Barbarians, Alamans, Bavarians, Frisians, Saxons. Their manifest superiority,
their brilliant successes seemed to themselves and to their contemporaries
to raise them to the greatness of the ancient Romans.
The popes are never tired of celebrating their glory, and

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their own feeling about it breaks out with a kind
of lyrical enthusiasm in the barbarous Latin of the prolog
to the collection cause the Salik Law. The illustrious race
of the Franks, created by the hand of God mighty
in arms, deep in counsel, stable in the bond of peace,
in body, noble and stalwart, in fairness and beauty, matchless,

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daring and swift and stern, newly come to the Catholic
faith free from heresy, while it was still in the
barbarian state. Yet by God's inspiration it sought the key
of knowledge, and according to the bent of its own qualities,
desiring righteousness and holding fast piety, its chiefs dictated the

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selic law. Long live we WoT. Whoever loves the Franks.
May Christ keep their realm and fill their rulers with
the light of his grace. May He protect their host,
May He grant them the memorials of the faith, the joys,
and the felicity of peace. May Jesus Christ, the Lord
of Lords, by his mercy guide their time. For this

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is that race, which, when it was little in number,
yet being mighty in valor and strength, broke off by
fighting the tyrannous yoke of the Romans from its neck,
and after it had made the confession of baptism by it,
the bodies of the holy martyrs, which the Romans had
burned with fire or slain with the sword, were cast

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forth to be torn by wild beasts, were magnificently enshrined
with gold and precious stones. But their day as a
race was over. As that single and foremost nation which
had controlled and directed the fortunes of all around them,
they were to dissolve and disappear. They were merged and

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lost in the two great rival peoples which arose after
them and partly from them, and who divided their heritage.
It was long before they learned that they were no
longer one, that they were to be divided. Long after
the Treaty of Verdant in eight forty three and the
death of the last legitimate Carolingian emperor in eight eighty eight.

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Even the Saxon kings of Germany claimed to interfere in
the affairs of Gaul as representing the old kingdom and
leadership of the Franks, but their claim no longer answered
to the realities of the case. There was still to
be a great Phroncia, appropriating the name and fame of
the Franks of Clovis and the Great Charles, but it

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was no longer German but Latin. There were still to
be Franks who were Germans, from whose dukes and kings
were to come emperors of the Romans, a Phroncia in
the heart of Germany and on both sides of the Rhine,
retaining the name when it shrank up to the circle
of Franconia of later times. But the Franks who had

(21:47):
ruled in Europe and established the power of the popes,
the Franks who prepared the way for the Middle Ages,
the Franks on whom for a time seemed to devolve
the Roman Empire. The United Franks of Charles v. The Great,
broken up and separated, are known no more in history
after the failure and extinction of the family of their

(22:09):
greatest Man. End of section nineteen