The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

As the Frankish dominion plays so great a part in European history and geography, a part in truth second only to that played by the Roman dominion, it will be needful to consider the historical position of the Franks. Their dominion was that of a German people who had made themselves dominant alike in Germany and in Gaul. But it was only in a small part of the Frankish territory that the Frankish people had actually settled. ♦The cession of Gaulish possessions.♦ It was only in northern Gaul and central Germany, in the countries to which they have permanently given their name, that the Franks can be looked on as really occupying the land. In their German territory they of course remained German; in northern Gaul their position answered to that of the other Teutonic nations which had formed settlements within the Empire. They were a dominant Teutonic race in a Roman land. Gradually they adopted the speech of the conquered, while the conquered in the end adopted the name of the conquerors. ♦Slow fusion of Franks and Romans.♦ But the fusion of German and Roman was slower in the Frankish part of Gaul than elsewhere, doubtless because elsewhere the Teutonic settlements were cut off from their older Teutonic homes, while the Franks in Gaul had their older Teutonic home as a background. ♦German and Gaulish dependencies of the Franks.♦ Beyond the bounds of these more strictly Frankish lands, German and Gaulish, the dominion of the Franks was at most a political supremacy, and in no sense a national settlement. In Germany Bavaria was ruled by its vassal princes; in Gaul south of the Loire the Frank was at most an external ruler. Aquitaine had to be practically conquered over and over again, and new dynasties of native princes were constantly rising up. ♦Ethnology of Southern Gaul.♦ The Teutonic element in these lands, an element much slighter than the Teutonic element in Northern Gaul, is not Frankish, but Gothic and Burgundian. The native Romance speech of those lands is wholly different from the Romance speech of Northern Gaul. In short, there was really nothing in common between the two great parts of Gaul, the lands south and the lands north of the Loire, except their union, first under Roman and then under Frankish dominion. And in Armorica the old Celtic population, strengthened by the settlers from Britain, formed another and a yet more distinct element.

♦Divisions of the Frankish dominions.♦

Thus there were within the Frankish dominions wide national diversities, containing the germs of future divisions. It needed a strong hand even to keep the Teutonic and the Latin Francia together, much less to keep together all the dependent lands, German and Gaulish. During the ages while the Empire was being cut short by Lombards, Goths, Slaves, and Saracens, the Frankish dominion was never in the like sort cut short by foreign settlements; but its whole history under the Merowingian dynasty is a history of divisions and reunions. The tendencies to division which were inherent in the condition of the country were strengthened by endless partitions among the members of the reigning house. ♦Austria and Neustria.♦ Speaking roughly, it may be said that the more strictly Frankish territory showed a tendency to divide itself into two parts, the Eastern or Teutonic land, Austria or Austrasia, and Neustria, the Western or Romance land. These were severally the germs which grew into the kingdoms of Germany and France. ♦Use of the name Francia.♦ As for the mere name of Francia, like other names of the kind, it shifted its geographical use according to the wanderings of the people from whom it was derived. After many such changes of meaning, it gradually settled down as the name for those parts of Germany and Gaul where it still abides. There are the Teutonic or Austrian Francia, part of which still keeps the name of Franken or Franconia, and the Romance or Neustrian Francia, which by various annexations has grown into modern France.

♦The Karlings. Dukes, 687-752; Kings, 752-987.♦

At last, after endless divisions, reconquests, and reunions of the different parts of the Frankish territory, the whole Frankish dominion was again, in the second half of the eighth century, joined together under the Austrasian, the purely German, house of the Karlings. The Dukes and Kings of that house consolidated and extended the Frankish dominion in every direction. Under Pippin and Charles the Great, the power of the ruling race was more firmly established over the dependent states, such as Bavaria and Aquitaine. ♦Pippin conquers Septimania. 752.
Conquests of Charles the Great. 768-814.♦ Under Pippin the conquest of the Saracen province of Septimania extended the Frankish power over the whole of Gaul; and under Charles the Great, the Frankish dominion was extended by a series of conquests in every direction. Of these, his Italian conquests were rather the winning of a new crown for the Frankish king than the extension of the Frankish kingdom. But the conquest of Saxony at the one end and of the Spanish March at the other, as well as the overthrow of the Pannonian kingdom of the Avars, were in the strictest sense extensions of the Frankish dominions. ♦German character of the Frankish power.♦ The Frankish power which now plays so great a part in the world was a power essentially German. The Franks and their kings, the kings who reigned from the Elbe to the Ebro, were German in blood, speech, and feeling; but they bore rule over other lands, German, Latin, and Celtic, in many various degrees of incorporation and subjection.

♦The three great powers of the eighth century; Romans, Franks, Saracens.♦

Thus the effect of the Saracen conquests was to leave in Europe one purely European power, namely the kingdom of the Franks, one power both European and Asiatic, namely the Roman Empire with its seat at Constantinople, and one power at once Asiatic, African, and European, namely the Saracen Caliphate. Through the eighth century these three are the great powers of the world, to which the other nations of Europe and Asia form, as far as we are concerned, a mere background. ♦Character of the Caliphate.♦ But the Caliphate, as a Semitic and Mahometan power, could be European only in a geographical sense. ♦The Saracen dominion in Spain.♦ Even after the establishment of the independent Saracen dominion in Spain, the new power still remained an exotic. A great country of Western Europe was no longer ruled from Damascus or Bagdad; but the emirate, afterwards Caliphate, of Cordova, and the kingdoms into which it afterwards broke up, still remained only geographically European. They were portions of Asia—in after times rather of Africa—thrusting themselves into Europe, like the Spanish dominion of Carthage in earlier times. The two great Christian powers, the two great really European powers, are the Roman and the Frankish. We now come to the process which for a while caused the Roman and Frankish names to have the same meaning within a large part of Europe, and by which the two seats of Roman dominion were again parted asunder, never to be reunited.

♦Relations of the Franks and the Empire.♦

The way by which the Roman and Frankish powers came to affect one another was through the affairs of Italy. ♦The Imperial possessions in Italy.♦ The steps by which the Imperial power was, during the eighth century, weakened step by step in the territories which still remained to the Empire in central Italy are, either from an ecclesiastical or from a strictly historical point of view, of surpassing interest. But, as long as the authority of the Emperor was not openly thrown off, no change was made on the map. ♦Lombard conquest of the Exarchate.
Overthrow of the Lombards by Charles. 774.♦ The events of those times which did make a change on the map were, first the conquest of the Exarchate by the Lombards, and secondly, the overthrow of the Lombard kingdom itself by the Frank king Charles the Great. The Frankish power was thus at last established on the Italian side of the Alps, but it must be remarked that the new conquest was not incorporated with the Frankish dominion. ♦Lombardy a separate kingdom.♦ Charles held his Italian dominion as a separate dominion, and called himself King of the Franks and Lombards. He also bore the title of Patrician of the Romans; but, though the assumption of that title was of great political significance, it did not affect geography. ♦Title of Patrician.♦ The title of Patrician of itself implied a commission from the Emperor, and, though it was bestowed by the Bishop and people of Rome without the Imperial consent, the very choice of the title showed that the Imperial authority was not formally thrown off. Charles, as Patrician, was virtually sovereign of Rome, and his acquisition of the patriciate practically extended his dominion from the Ocean to the frontiers of Beneventum. ♦Nominal authority of the Empire.♦ But, down to his Imperial coronation in the last week of the eighth century, the Emperor who reigned in the New Rome was still the nominal sovereign of the old. The event of the year 800, with all its weighty significance, did not practically either extend the territories of Charles or increase his powers.

♦Effect of the Imperial coronation of Charles. 800.♦