Pippin d’Eristal had recently completed the occupation of Neustria and Aquitaine, with the help of the proud people of Austrasia, whom he led as chief. The ancient Franks had become effeminate in the southern and middle cities of Gaul; they were no longer the warriors of the Rhine and the Meuse, and having become too Roman, they had broken away from their ancient martial customs under the influence of the more benign civilization of the bishops, the Cheriches and the Gauls. Pippin d’Eristal, as he came from Swabia and Thuringia, ensured the primacy of Germanic customs and habits, and as Duke of Austrasia and Palatine Prefect of the whole nation of the Franks, he made them accept as king their three young men of the lineage of Meroveo, who were: Clovis III, Childebert III and Dagobert III.
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In his life, although so agitated, Pippin of Cristallo held more women in his palaces, the bishops in vain opposing this custom of the early days of Germany; the Austrian kings and dukes had wives, concubines and companions and slaves whom they changed and divorced in their own way. Two sons, Drogone and Grimoaldo, had given birth to Pletrude, one of these wives, and two Alpaide, another concubine or his wife, the first of whom was named Carlo or Karl, used in the Austrasia lineage; who, raised with his father, was, as a baby, the most caressed by his father, because he had a beautiful mother, and he was the last. St. Lambert, bishop of Maestricht, denounced the union of Pepin and Alpapid for adultery and incest: but his Christian voice was not heard, and she continued to be loved and caressed as before, and Odone, Count Austrasius, brother of the outraged woman, stabbed the pious Saint Lambert inside the same sanctuary, and left him dead on the threshold of the cathedral. Drogone and Grimoaldo died before Pippin, leaving some children at a very tender age, who by hereditary right to call themselves to the government of the Austrasiians, the Neustri and the Burgundians; something contrary to custom, however, that the prefects of the palace had to be robust and able to lead the people in arms; nor was it possible that an intrepid generation, such as the Franks were, suffered kings without strength and child prefects of the palace. To carry out therefore his plan, which was to give those dukes to the Franks under the tutelage of a woman,
But Charles did not remain imprisoned there for long, but rather fled from the zeal of the faithful of Pippin of Austrasia, who recognized him, assumed the title of Duke of Austrasia, and for such a short time the Franks cried out, similar as’ he was in all respects his father Pippin of Crystal. Made in this way military leader of Austrasia, Charles locked up the arrogant woman, who had wanted to become regent, in a monastery, and left the treasures among the armed men. Here then is Charles Duke of Austrasia; meanwhile the Neustri, who did not want a child as their prefect, elected Ranfredi as head, and he and Carlo, one man at arms; and man at arms the other, broke war between them. Ranfredi, with the help of the Frisians, a nation competing with the Austrasiians, vigorously attacked Carlo, who at first touched a defeat; but then he returned to battle and his Germanic Franks slaughtered the Neustri and the Frisians. It was a question of peace, and Charles said to Ranfredi: “Leave me the lands of Austrasia, keep Neustria, and it will be truce between us.” But Ranfredi, speaking in the name of Chilperico, a de ‘Merovei, wanted to govern everything, and refused the pacts. So they wanted to oppose a king [52]another king, who such was the custom of the Franks, so Charles also takes a Meroveus, making him king under the name of Clotaire, and having done this, he moves with his warriors of Germanic race, comes to day with the Neustri to Vincy and defeats them, diffuses towards Reims, finds in the plain the people of Neustria joined with those of Aquitaine, comes to battle with them, and for the value of his Nordic hosts, less effeminate, less used to the softness of life, another bright victory [106] .
Here then is Charles, the lord of the two realms of Austrasia and Neustria, like Pippin, here as duke, there as prefect of the palace. Clotaire then dies, made king by him, and he, from political right, offers to the two peoples to govern them, like his father Pippin under the simple authority of prefect, leaving Chilperico king of the Franks raised to the throne of the Neustri. The vanquished Ranfredi accepts these conditions, becomes Duke of Anjou, renounces the prefecture of the palace, and Charles governs Neustria and Austrasia together, intent more than ever to defend himself against all the enemies, which are not few, of the Frankish lordship in the Gallie. From there began his tiring and military life for the defense of the nation; the peoples hostile to the Franks are very numerous; the indomitable Saxons attack the Gauls from the Belgica side, and Charles, running there with his, forces the Barbarians to return to their lands of Elba and Frisia. Five times the Saxons return to the Rhine, and Carlo Martello pushes the Franks of Austrasia and Neustria on them as many times. The chronicles also recount his wars in Aquitaine, and we see him now on the Elbe, or on the Loire, or on the Rhine, or on the Rhone; he is the most perfect prototype of the Frankish warriors, a wandering race that he is: city life bores him, he is only well off between wars and distant expeditions. These qualities worthy of a prefect of the palace help him to better preserve his authority over the Franks, a people who did not live in the cities except unwillingly, as if he were suffocated in the circle of the walls and under the weight. of the towers and fortresses;
But Carlo’s name is about to ring out much more famous; the invasions of the Saracens from Africa and Spain threaten the center of Gaul; not content with running the South, they are now moving against the North. The race of the Goths in Spain has already fallen under those swift conquerors; except for some ancient Christians holed up in the mountains of Asturias and the counts of Castile, the Hispanic peoples, obey the lieutenants of the caliphs: Cordoba and Seville are made seats of the Emirs [53]sent by the Commandator of the believers to occupy the lands of the infidels. Fifteen years ago the Saracens had crossed the Pyrenees, and ouch! with how many massacres and ruin to the detriment of Christians! What torment to read in the legends and in the papers of the abbeys, the breakdowns and desertions that the cities of Arli and Nimes suffered with those inexorable bands always on their necks. Here basilicas destroyed, reliquaries looted there; the cities of the Languedoc, although so splendid before, the municipalities, in brotherhood with Rome, now prey to all sorts of desolations!
The first regular invasion of the Moors in Gaul was led by an emir named Musa. “The wind of Islamism, says an Arab chronicle, began to blow against all Christians.” The Rhone heard on its banks the neighing of the horses of Africa and Spain, and in these daring expeditions the Saracens were helped by the weakness and discord of the Christians, and also by the treason of the Jews, very numerous then in the cities of southern Gaul, who, having familiar the Arabic and Syriac languages, understood it with the sons of the East, of whose passage we still see vestiges in Vienna, Lyons, Macone, and as far as Chalons alla Saone. The pure records of Dijon narrate the failures of these men in the realm of Burgundy; except that sometimes the chronicles, not contemporary, confuse the invasions of the Hungarians, race of Vandals, who came to the ninth and tenth century, with those of the Saracins of the eighth century. The sectarians of the prophet, a people of ardent imagination, had devised a broad plan of conquest, similar to those which Muhammad imagined knew in his ambitious mind. The Arab armies had to seize, so to speak, by career, like the knights of the desert, of the kingdom of the Franks (Austrasia and Neustria); they had to rise for an instant on the Rhine, then pass through the lands of Alemagna, descend on Italy and Greece, so as to convert the Mediterranean into a lake in the feud of the race of the Prophet. similar to those that Muhammad imagined knew in his ambitious mind. The Arab armies had to seize, so to speak, by career, like the knights of the desert, of the kingdom of the Franks (Austrasia and Neustria); they had to rise for an instant on the Rhine, then pass through the lands of Alemagna, descend on Italy and Greece, so as to convert the Mediterranean into a lake in the feud of the race of the Prophet. similar to those that Muhammad imagined knew in his ambitious mind. The Arab armies had to seize, so to speak, by career, like the knights of the desert, of the kingdom of the Franks (Austrasia and Neustria); they had to rise for an instant on the Rhine, then pass through the lands of Alemagna, descend on Italy and Greece, so as to convert the Mediterranean into a lake in the feud of the race of the Prophet.
This marvelous design was in keeping with the manner of the extensive conquests which the Arabs, erring, had already accomplished in Africa and Spain. Moving they from Syria, they forced Egypt to submit to their dominion, chased the Berbers of Africa back into the burning sands of the desert, and nothing helped to stop this devastating torrent. Masters who were of Africa, they had subjected Spain in less than two years; the Goths now obeyed their laws, and now they yearned for Italy and Greece, to take Constantinople from behind. The traces of this immense move of the Saracens still persist in the Arab geographies, who, in breaking through with all their strength, knew cunning with valor in battle. At the intimation of the sacred war, everyone got on horseback, but that the [54]command of the Prophet was law for the Muslims; They used the peoples of the conquered countries to swell their masses more and more, the emirs, as auxiliaries of the conquest, led innumerable throngs of African Berbers, who formed their agile and intrepid cavalry, and with them the Jews too, always ready in the southern cities to betray. If the chronicles are to be trusted, they held practices with the enemies of the Franks, only out of hatred against the Christians, whom they would have wanted to give into the hands of their enemies, in the manner that Judas did with Christ; in fact, almost all the cities of Gotia were sold by the Jews. These innumerable armies of the Saracens drew women with them; children, all that was necessary to found colonies, with the plan of settling in the middle of Europe, and Islam with thousands and thousands of sectarians. It was a time of constant conflict between race and race, between domination and domination, between belief and belief. Victory was about to decide who would occupy this land, which would be the winners and which would be the losers.
Eudi, Duke of Aquitaine, was the first of the war leaders to oppose the rapid invasion of the Saracens, and is indebted to give him back a part of the glory that posterity had only for Carlo Martello. The Saracens had under the emir Alsama, made the city of Narbonne, situated near the sea between the Pyrenees and Aquitaine, the principal seat of their dominion, whence masses of infidels spread in Septimania, and came to besiege Toulouse, yes that Eudi of the Frankish race, and, to say the least, coming out of the same Merovei, called the southern populations to arms, while the Saracens were besieging Toulouse, fell on their quarters, broke them and forced them to retreat in disorder in the Pyrenees towards Narbonne. Emir Alsama made a show of great valor, and while fighting he was repeating that verse from the Koran: “If God is with us, who will be against us?” but he was landed by a fort launched by one of the Aquitan warriors; and after him Abd-Alrahman, from the ancient chronicles, called Abderamo, assumed command of the few leftovers of those Saracens.
The victory of Count Eudi, and related it to the pope, was so decisive that from that day onwards the Saracins no longer show themselves except in a few isolated expeditions, in the work of plunder rather than of formed hosts and armies. You can follow in their footsteps in the sad lamentations of the monasteries, for the damages they made to the arch covered with gold and for the sizes they imposed on all the abbeys of Aquitaine. A few years later Ambiza, governor of Spain for the Caliph, decided to cross the Pyrenees with a formidable army all covered with refined weapons, and preceded by a swarm of Berbers. He held not so much the way of the violent [55]conquest, as much as that of imposing tributes on the vanquished, as had already been done in Spain, whereby most of the cities of Languedoc repurchased with money, to satisfy the greed of Ambiza, who sent mountains of gold to Seville and Cordoba , until he died on one of his expeditions. On his death the Saracins returned to their looting, then there was a mixture of peoples, and Eudi himself, just overcoming the Saracens, consented to a league of peoples and families. Munuza, an emir full of tolerance, had, in his expeditions against Aquitaine, kidnapped his own daughter Eudi, named Lampegia, of masculine beauty, and falling in love with her, made her his wife, though a Christian. The duke and the emir thus joined interests and family, symbol of always natural union between the conquering and conquered races, as it had already happened in Spain between the Saracens and the Visigoths, and in Gaul between the Franks and the Romans, because an ancient society is never completely even from violent conquest, defeat, but there always follow transactions of their own between races. The fervent Saracens and Christians, devoted to church worship[107] , did not admit this union of cults and souls, and Munuza was reproached, for his progress, in the Meschites of Córdoba and Seville, and accused as perjury, while the count Eudi, on the other side, came for his worse excommunicated.
In this midst, Abderamo caused the holy war to cry out in the cities of Africa and Spain, and in a short time infinite crowds of Saracens crossed the Pyrenees again, disorderly and confusedly, like all the other expeditions en masse, drawing women with them, children, booty, and herds, similar to settling as shepherds in the conquered lands. Abderamo then destroyed the domain of Munuza beyond the Pyrenees, removed him from his seat as a traitor of the law, and had his head cut off, sent it to Damascus, while Lampegia, his young wife, was placed in the hands of the damsels of Cordoba, and kept for the caliph’s menagerie. From the top of the mountains the Saracins spread out throughout the week; they saw Arli and Bordò bowing before them; then took the way to the Loire, without anything resisting the impetus them. A count of Poitiers, who only dared to oppose the invasion, was taken and taken off, and the topazes and emeralds of his treasure were, in a reliquary of his churches, sent to Damascus. “Abderamo, says an Arab historian, was like a storm that knocks down everything, and a two-edged sword.”
Count Eudi of Aquitaine, unable to resist this flood of [56]arms, came to Charles, Duke of Austrasia, prefect of the palace, after the Franks who held his court in Cologne. Neustria was under threat; after the Loire, the empire of the Franks would be attacked; if the war of the Saxons in the north was terrible, no less so was that of the Saracins at noon, whereby Charles roared around the cry of an expedition to Aquitaine, and in his voice so well known to the races of Austrasia, the people soon gathered from the sturdy complexion, the iron armor and the heavy club, of the Danube, Elbe, Rhine, Seine and Ocean; and he took them, passing through Paris and Orleans, to the Loire, but that the Saracens were advancing towards Tours, knowing that in this city a rich booty of gold vases and silky ornaments was enclosed, what they wanted to decorate their mosques. Abderamo, however, stood between the two for a while, fearful of the outcome of the battle at the sight of the luxury that his people explained, and of the indolence and indiscipline that had introduced between them. They were no longer the conquering Saracens of Spain, but confused masses and a bustle of Berbers, Arabs, Jews, and all had to fight against the ready and brawny men of the Rhine and the Meuse, no longer against the soft Peaceful inhabitants of the Roman cities of Nimes, Arli, Toulouse and Narbonne.
What was the battlefield in which the conflict between the Christians of the Germanic race was resolved, and the Saracens enervated in the menageries of Cordoba and Seville, under the Spanish sun? The Arabs place it in the vicinity of Tours; the cartulars of the monasteries point to it at Poitiers, in a vast plain not far from the gates of this city, nor is it known what to believe in these two traditions, except that perhaps the battle began in Tours, and ended in Poitiers, similarly of those other long conflicts, of which even modern history was a spectator, which extend over a space of several leagues, and include more than one battlefield. The Saracens were suddenly expelled from the suburbs of Tours, then Charles crossed the Loire, spread his ranks, always victorious over Vienna, and Poitiers became a large tomb of the infidels. This day, which followed in October, was notable for the firmness shown in it by the northern nations, who, according to Isidore of Beja, a chronicler who often has much of the poet, stood firm as walls to the enemy impetus, and they stood closed like a circle of ice. Although the Saracens drew a large light cavalry, made up of Arabs and Berbers, who went straight and circling left, nevertheless it was never that they could move the Austrasian balances. “These Nordic people, continues Isidore of Beja, fought vigorously, and the sword of the Arabs sprouted against their chests.” they stood firm as walls to the enemy impetus, and were locked as a circle of ice. Although the Saracens drew a large light cavalry, made up of Arabs and Berbers, who went straight and circling left, nevertheless it was never that they could move the Austrasian balances. “These Nordic people, continues Isidore of Beja, fought vigorously, and the sword of the Arabs sprouted against their chests.” they stood firm as walls to the enemy impetus, and were locked as a circle of ice. Although the Saracens drew a large light cavalry, made up of Arabs and Berbers, who went straight and circling left, nevertheless it was never that they could move the Austrasian balances. “These Nordic people, continues Isidore of Beja, fought vigorously, and the sword of the Arabs sprouted against their chests.”
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The battle lasted several days making the Saracens impetuous from right and left without fruit, and the people of the Germanic race always advancing steadfast in their ordinances and without leaving any void between them. A daring diversion resolved the victory, and it was that while the Saracens rejected by Carlo Martello, wavered, Eudi, with the Aquitani, attacked them from the side, and took possession of their camp and the emir’s tent, a sudden assault that placed in great confusion. Meanwhile Abderamo, seeing the danger, threw his Berber horses on the Aquitani, but after an arrow shot by a vigorous hand he fell dead on the field; Carlo sees the decisive moment, moves forward with impetus; the ranks of the infidels are disordered, and soon put all to blood and slaughter. Having obtained the victory, Charles proceeded to distribute the booty among his soldiers, as was the custom; nor did he go beyond Poitiers, for those southern provinces were not under his jurisdiction, and other enemies he had to repel to the north. After Abderamo’s rout, the nickname of Martello was confirmed to Carlo. “But, according to the chronicle of Saint Dionysius, as the hammer beats and breaks iron, steel and every other kind of metal, so he beat and broke all those enemies and strange nations in battle”. And in truth the Duke de ‘Franchi had led the the nickname of Martello was confirmed to Carlo. “But, according to the chronicle of Saint Dionysius, as the hammer beats and breaks iron, steel and every other kind of metal, so he beat and broke all those enemies and strange nations in battle”. And in truth the Duke de ‘Franchi had led the the nickname of Martello was confirmed to Carlo. “But, according to the chronicle of Saint Dionysius, as the hammer beats and breaks iron, steel and every other kind of metal, so he beat and broke all those enemies and strange nations in battle”. And in truth the Duke de ‘Franchi had led thehammer , as the number of Saracins killed was infinite, causing the Christian chroniclers to rise to more than one hundred thousand; where the Arab chroniclers, always fatalists, without cursing their fate, content themselves with calling the funereal campaign where the battle followed, with the name of Pavement of the Martyrs .
The race of Austrasia serbar thus knew its military supremacy in the battle of Tours and Poitiers, with little loss of the Germanic peoples, so difficult it was to injure them under their well-tempered Swabian armadas, and the name of Charles Martel went to the stars. The religious nature of this expedition made it popular in all the countries of Christianity; now Duke of Austrasia and prefect of the Franks who he was, could he not aspire to sovereign dignity? In a March camp, which was held at Cologne, he then felt the men-at-arms who had followed him, to see if they would make him king; but either the ancient name of the Merovei still had such power over the Franks, or the authority of duke and prefect of the palace was indispensable for the service of war, Carlo cangiar could not have this military title in the royal dignity, more religious then and venerated; and yet he used all the ways, the best of which was to acquire the soldiers with large distributions of booty and land, the only pay that the militias would then have, as the use of those Germanic lineages brought. Charles had also drawn his Counts to war, or what rewards would he give them? He agreed to por [58]the hand on the possessions of the cherici, or, better said, to field his warriors on the well cultivated lands of the bishops and abbeys, and to depart them among themselves, so that this or that count was given to a bishopric, and a proud and blond Austrasio had this or that abbey. Universal was the lament of the churchmen, but the material force could more, nor was there any way to resist these armed occupations. Many of the bishoprics fell to the lot of lay people, and even some abbeys of women fell into the hands of Frankish warriors. It was not, however, as some supposed, a general system, however, that such usurpations had their limits; but well having to reward those who had waged war, they rewarded themselves by stripping the cherics, who had nothing left but to protest in the face of heaven, and invoke God, just avenger of human injustices. They therefore composed that famous legend of the damned, which narrates the torments of the stripper in hell, as if they wanted to the people, the Romans, the Gauls, the settlers dedicated to the cultivation of the land “Here is the unjust man who has kidnapped your goods, here he is damned in the other life ». What a pledge of security for the weak and defenseless lovers! The armed Austrasius could not drive them from their land without being seized by the hand of God! The legends that put Carlo Martello among the damned, were in this way a guarantee for the poor settlers, against the arrogance and rapacity of the men of war. to the Gauls, to the settlers dedicated to the cultivation of the land “Here is the unjust man who has kidnapped your goods, here he is damned in the next life”. What a pledge of security for the weak and defenseless lovers! The armed Austrasius could not drive them from their land without being seized by the hand of God! The legends that put Carlo Martello among the damned, were in this way a guarantee for the poor settlers, against the arrogance and rapacity of the men of war. to the Gauls, to the settlers dedicated to the cultivation of the land “Here is the unjust man who has kidnapped your goods, here he is damned in the next life”. What a pledge of security for the weak and defenseless lovers! The armed Austrasius could not drive them from their land without being seized by the hand of God! The legends that put Carlo Martello among the damned, were in this way a guarantee for the poor settlers, against the arrogance and rapacity of the men of war.
Nonetheless, some diplomas of Carlo Martello as prefect of the palace still last, almost all of which are for donations to monasteries and abbeys. He endows the cathedrals with several lands, and for a diploma given on Easter day, Saint Dionysius, in France, receives a small field adjacent to the monastery; for another diploma of his as well, the apostle of Germany, St. Boniface, is recommended to the dukes and counts everywhere where he will lead the preaching of the Gospel. All this believing allows this system of stripping applied mainly to vacant abbeys and fiscal assets, which Carlo Martello confided to the Franks he needed in war and to the men who depended on him, hiding his purposes, who aimed to become king, as he had already tried his father and predecessor in the prefecture of the palace, Pippin d’Eristal. After his great victory over the Saracens, he estimated to be able to deserve the crown, but the attempt was still in vain, however that the royal dignity at that time had something religious and priestly, quite differently from the prefecture of the palace, office all of arms and war; the strongest and most firm was duke and prefect. The cherics and the people made kings, accounts; the Franks and the soldiers served as prefects of the palace, and the last Merovingians, weak and bad as they were, were protected by the well-intentioned nature weapons and warfare; the strongest and most firm was duke and prefect. The cherics and the people made kings, accounts; the Franks and the soldiers served as prefects of the palace, and the last Merovingians, weak and bad as they were, were protected by the well-intentioned nature weapons and warfare; the strongest and most firm was duke and prefect. The cherics and the people made kings, accounts; the Franks and the soldiers served as prefects of the palace, and the last Merovingians, weak and bad as they were, were protected by the willed disposition [59]religious of the royal dignity. Carlo Martello had also offended the bishops and the cherics so as not to attempt to put himself definitively in the place of the Merovingians, and therefore he renounced it in the assembly of the Campo di Marzo; only the Franks made no one king, and there was a long interregnum, during which Carlo Martello ruled without the Merovei yes, but also without a crown.
Duke and prefect of the palace as he was, he had practices, like all the Carolingians, with three great powers outside: the kings and emperors of Constantinople, the pope and the Lombards. In Byzantium Leo the Isaurian reigned, originally a soldier, on a par with Carlo Martello; that Lion odiator of images, that barbarian who tore apart the gold statues of the saints in churches, and the reliquaries adorned with topazes and emeralds. He wrote to Carlo Martello to draw him into the heresy of the iconoclasts: he put the images to pieces , told him, that he would have the means to keep his soldiers, and to distribute to them in cash the gold that uselessly adorns the blessed arks. Except that Carlo does not dare to hold back in this thought; he uses cautiously with the Greeks, but does not want to antagonize the popes, in spiritual correspondence, as he finds himself, with Gregory III who reigns in Rome; meanwhile the pontiff feared both the Greeks, the Lombards and the Saracens, and papal policy has already resorted to the help of the Carolingians. The fantasies of the barbarians want to be shaken with material objects, so Gregory sends the keys of St. Peter to Carlo Martello [108], and the fetters that bound the apostle in his dark prison, symbolizing in the fetters the suggestion of the Holy See, and in the keys the ways to free it; and he invokes as protector of the Roman Church that proud and brave captain, to whom he gives the title of exarch, to Carlo Martello decreed by the senate and the people gathered now, in the basilicas, as one day in the Forum; and yet the exarchate is a Greek title. The pope, wanting to destroy the Byzantine domination in Italy, confers the exarchate on the head of the Franks, so far from the affairs of Italy that he cannot give him fear.
Carlo Martello’s reputation had risen so high after the victory of Tours and Poitiers, that the Lombards themselves try to have him as a confederate against the Saracins, who are already threatening their Mediterranean possessions. “Come on, the Franks come to the Adriatic, and they will find rich cities waiting for them, and fertile countryside, where thousands of horses can graze freely”.
Carlo Martello was therefore the first to illustrate the Carolingians, and Pippin with Charlemagne only continued his work with the Popes, the Lombards and the Greeks. He was still young, but that [60]as soon as he had reached the fiftieth year of his age, and was buried in the churchyard. Then came later the legends around his death and damnation, for example to stop the military violence of the war leaders. “Carlo Martello, wrote the archbishop of Rouen a century later, was damned forever, because the first of the Frankish kings, who did this, took the ecclesiastical lands from the cherici, and Saint Eucharist, bishop of Orleans, who was kidnapped to the earth in the last century, he saw him amidst torments in hell, and questioned his angel, he had in response, that God had damned him to eternal pain, because he had placed his hand on things consecrated to the love of God, to his divine worship, to the poor and to the servants of Christ. Of which having spread the cry, St. Boniface and Fulrado abbot of St. Dionysius, they visited the tomb of Carlo Martello, and found a dragon in place of his body, and all damaged inside the monument, as if it had been burned by flames, and we too have known people, adds the legendary, who lived up to our days , and bear witness in the terms said of what they had seen and heard ». Now this proud symbol of the dragon that fills an empty tomb is a lesson that is meant to be given to the injustice and violence of others, as if it were saying to the arrogant men of the Rhine and the Meuse: “Do not touch the goods consecrated to God and the poor, otherwise your burial will be empty, and a filthy snake will devour your flesh in the pit of death. ” as if it had been dried up by the flames, and we too have known people, adds the legendary, who lived up to our days, and bear witness in the terms said to what they had seen and heard ». Now this proud symbol of the dragon that fills an empty tomb is a lesson that is meant to be given to the injustice and violence of others, as if it were saying to the arrogant men of the Rhine and the Meuse: “Do not touch the goods consecrated to God and the poor, otherwise your burial will be empty, and a filthy snake will devour your flesh in the pit of death. ” as if it had been dried up by the flames, and we too have known people, adds the legendary, who lived up to our days, and bear witness in the terms said to what they had seen and heard ». Now this proud symbol of the dragon that fills an empty tomb is a lesson that is meant to be given to the injustice and violence of others, as if it were saying to the arrogant men of the Rhine and the Meuse: “Do not touch the goods consecrated to God and the poor, otherwise your burial will be empty, and a filthy snake will devour your flesh in the pit of death. ”
Carlo Martello had, like Pippin d’Eristallo, more women. Rotrude (this is the name given to her in the annals) gave birth to Charlemagne and Pippin, who were raised, like him, in the camps; from a second wife named Sonnichilde, he had a third son called Grifone, and according to the Germanic custom the inheritance started between them in the following way: Charlemagne touched Austrasia with the lands of the Rhine and the Meuse, Neustria a Pippin, both with the title of duke or leader of men; Grifone, the third of the sons, had some suburbs in the midst of the states of his brothers. Thus ended the mayor of Carlo Martello, preparing the future greatness of the Carolina lineage, making it rise in the highest reputation, and placing it above the Merovingians. The Saracens were at that times the implacable enemies of the Frankish as well as Germanic race, and they burst in hordes from Syria, Africa and Spain in search of conquests; but Charles Martello was able to arrest them at Poitiers, and the Franks of Neustria and Austrasia never forgot that service afterwards.
The name of Carlo Martello was then so famous that minstrels and troubadours sang him in competition, and we see him nobly celebrated in the first song of the knightly epic of Garino il Loreno in which [61]everything is confused as in heroic songs [109]of the Middle Ages. The Saracens together with the Vandals and the Hungarians, all those Barbarians, who left their unfortunate footsteps in society with the conquest, are placed there in front of Carlo Martello; who pursues him victorious, and dies on the battlefield; nor is there any attention to dates or facts. “O ancient song, do you want to hear, says the troubadour, do you want to know the great and wonderful story, how the Vandals came to this country, destroyed Reims, and besieged Paris?” Carlo Martello opposed these invasions, and marched against the infidels in time for the black monks of San Benedetto to seize lands and mills for themselves, and the people were poor and the cherics rich. And yet Carlo Martello leaves, and goes straight to see the pope in Lyons, where there were more than three thousand cherici and twenty thousand knights, and throws himself at the feet of the holy father, and says to him: “Sere apostle, my country is invaded by the enemy, the archbishops and bishops are killed, and with them my knights”. The apostle weeps at this discourse, and is advised with his cherics. “You are rich, and you can well give something for Christianity.” The archbishop of Reims and the other prelates reject the pope’s petitions, and then Loreno Ervigi stands up, frowning, and says: “The cherici possess all the ovens and mills, it is therefore advisable to take a party to have money.[110]”. – “For St. Martin, the archbishop bursts out, that I won’t put a penny in it!” The abbot of Cluny, on the other hand, replies: «We are rich in good lands; or well each one puts at least a stalk of his own ». The pope, saddened by all this, turns to Carlo Martello, and: “Beautiful son, he says to him, I grant you the gold and silver that are in the hands of the cherici, the palafreni, the mules, and in the meantime also the tithes, until you have won the Saracens ». And then Loreno Ervigi again bursts out: “And the armor of the chericis again.” Carlo Martello then brings together his ranks, moves with his French against the Saracens, and fights from the right and from the left, like a wolf hunting the lambs in front of itself. After that, confusing the Vandals with the Saracens together, the battle of Soissons with that of Poitiers, the poet recounts glorious and chivalrous facts of the Lorenians, the Franks and the Burgundians; Carlo Martello holds the spear, the timbales sound, and there in the midst of that great slaughter he is hit by two blows of the spit, one to the back and the other to the chest; that [62]desolation among the French army! “Let’s run up to help Martello, the king of San Dionigi!” shouts Loreno Ervigi; and suddenly his death was avenged, and Marzofio, emir of the Saracins, of gigantic stature, landed by a launch. “On! on me gentlemen, the French cry, that the king is dead [111] ». And then the knights, all in tears, give Carlo Martello a great funeral.
This heroic song about Carlo Martello has no character of historical truth; everything is confused together, as we see in most parts of the epic of the Middle Ages: the times, the places, the names of the characters, who are made to live and die in the midst of events of which they did not even participate. And yet a great historical truth emerges, and it is that the name of Carlo Martello still shone very bright three centuries later. When Garino il Loreno composed this song, the prosapia de ‘Carolingi was already extinguished, and that of the Capeti reigned, so that no more reasons for flattery, and yet the memory of the great things done by that prosapia still persisted in the minds, and the name of Carlo Martello was popular on a par with that of Pipino and Charlemagne in the manors of the noble cavalry.
