DECLINE OF THE MEROVINGIAN PRINCES.—THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE.—PEPIN OF LANDEN.—PEPIN OF HERISTAL.—CHARLES MARTEL.—THE BATTLE OF TOURS.
When the Roman empire had ceased to exist, the Frankish kings had, in imitation of the Roman rulers, begun to surround themselves with a court, and a great many high officers, and charges had been created, among the most important of which may be mentioned the office of Lord High Chancellor (archicancellarius, referendarius); Lord High Chamberlain, or High Treasurer (thesaurarius, camerarius); Master of the royal stables (marescalchus); Lord Justice (comes palatii); Steward of the royal household (senescalchus); and more particularly that of Mayor of the palace (præfectus palatii, or major-domus, or comes domûs regiæ). The functions of the latter officer had originally been confined to the general superintendence of the palace, and the administration of the royal domains; but had speedily been extended also to the command of the household troops. In the course of the domestic wars between the Merovingian princes, the mayors of the palace had gradually acquired a power and influence second only to that of the king; so that, after the assassination of Sigebert, in 575, Gogo, the then mayor of the palace of Austrasia, had actually been named regent during the minority of Sigebert’s son, Childebert. So powerful indeed had these domestic officers grown, that Clotaire II. was positively forced to bind himself by oath to Warnachar, the mayor of the palace of Burgundy, to leave him for his life in undisturbed possession of his office; he was obliged also to acknowledge the learned and valiant Arnulf, the Austrasian, mayor of the palace, and subsequently—when that officer embraced the ecclesiastical profession, and became Bishop of Metz—the energetic Pepin of Landen,[92] as his representative with sovereign powers in Austrasia. Even when Clotaire had ceded the kingdom of Austrasia to his son Dagobert (622), Pepin continued to exercise almost unlimited sway in that part of the Frankish empire. After Clotaire’s death, in 623, Dagobert succeeded also to the Neustrian kingdom; and in 631, after his brother Charibert’s death,[93] who had held some of the south-western provinces, he became sole king of France. He died in 638; he was a compound of sensuality and indolence; still his character and life were not stained with the horrible crimes perpetrated by his predecessors, and more particularly by his own father; he was the last of the descendants of Clovis, who exhibited even the faintest spark of that fierce and energetic spirit which made the founder of the Frank monarchy, however so abhorrent as a man, yet respectable, and even great, as a king. Dagobert built and richly endowed the Church of St. Denys, which gained him the surname “The Great,” from a grateful clergy; but history has refused to register the ill-deserved epithet. Pepin of Landen died a year after his king (689). His son, Grimoald, deemed the power of his family already so firmly established, that, taking advantage of the tender age of Dagobert’s sons, Sigebert (second of the name in the list of the Merovingian kings), and Clovis (II.), he attempted to deprive them of their father’s succession, and to place his own son (Childebert) on the throne; both father and son paid with their lives the failure of the ambitious plan. But the overthrow of Grimoald led simply to a change of persons; the power of the mayors of the palace remained undiminished, and from this time forward, the Merovingian kings were mere ciphers. “They ascended the throne without power, and sunk into the grave without a name.” (Gibbon.) Sigebert died in 650; his brother Clovis six years after. One of the sons of the latter, Clotaire (III.), succeeded to the Neustrian, another, Childeric (II.), to the Austrasian part of the empire. After Clotaire’s death, in 670, the third brother, Theodoric, or Thierry (III.), was for a short time king of Neustria; but he was speedily dispossessed by his brother Childeric (or to speak more correctly, his mayor of the palace was compelled to give way to Childeric’s mayor of the palace). Childeric was murdered in 673; when Thierry was reinstated in Neustria, Austrasia being given to Dagobert (II.), a son of Sigebert II., but who had hitherto been kept out of his inheritance.
After the death of Dagobert in 678, the Austrasians refused to submit to Thierry, the King of Neustria and Burgundy, or rather to his haughty mayor of the palace, Ebroin. Pepin d’Heristal, the grandson of Pepin of Landen, and his cousin, Martin, were at the head of the insurgent Austrasian nobility. Martin fell into the hands of Ebroin, and was killed. Ebroin himself was soon after assassinated, (682). His successor, Giselmar, defeated Pepin at Namur, but the Austrasian notwithstanding maintained his position. The Neustrian nobility, discontented with the rule of Giselmar’s successor, Berthar or Berchar, ultimately called Pepin to their aid.
Berthar, and his puppet, Thierry, were defeated by the Austrasian ruler in the famous battle of Testry, near Peronne and St. Quentin, in 687. Berthar was slain as he fled from the field of battle: and although the name of king was left to Thierry, he was compelled to acknowledge Pepin as sole, perpetual, and hereditary Mayor of the Palace, in the three kingdoms of Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy, under the style and title of Duke and Prince of the Franks, (Dux et Princeps Francorum). Pepin was now, to all intents and purposes, the actual ruler of the Frankish empire—king in all but the name. The nominal sovereigns had, henceforth, a residence[94] assigned them, which they dared not even quit without the sanction of their master; nay, even the paltry consolation of the pomp and glitter of royalty was not vouchsafed them—except once a year in the month of March,[95] when the royal puppet was conducted in state in the old Frankish fashion, in a waggon drawn by two oxen, to the great annual assembly of the nation; to give audience to foreign ambassadors, or to receive plaints and petitions—and to place his organ of speech, for a time, at the disposal of the Mayor of the Palace, and give utterance to the replies or decisions of the real ruler of France. The assembly over, the “King” was reconducted to his residence or prison, where a feeble retinue and a strong guard insulted the fallen majesty of the house of Clovis. It would even appear, that the civil list assigned to the “King,” was only a precarious grant, and that the nominal master of three kingdoms, was often left without the means of defraying the expenses of his humble household.[96] The epithet of the “do-nothing kings,” (les rois fainéans) has been felicitously applied to the last princes of the Merovingian line. Besides Thierry III, (✠621), three of them lived in the reign of Pepin of Heristal, viz: Clovis III, (✠695); Childebert III, (✠711); and Dagobert III., all of them minors.
Pepin was an able and energetic ruler; he restored in some measure the respect of the law. Liberal rewards secured him the allegiance of the nobility; munificent endowments to churches and monasteries, and the aid and encouragement which he gave to the Christian missionaries, who were endeavoring to convert the heathen Germans, gained him the favor and support of the clergy: his good sword put down the discontented; and last, though certainly not least, he deserved the grateful affection of the people by alleviating their burthens, and by protecting them, in some measure, against the despotic oppression of the nobility. The expulsion of some Christian missionaries from Friesland, gave Pepin a pretext for endeavoring to subject the Frisons to the Frankish sway. He invaded Friesland in 689, and defeated the Frison duke, or prince, Radbodus, at Dorestadt, or Dorsted; in consequence of which defeat, the latter was compelled to cede West Friesland to the Duke of the Franks; but all attempts to obtain the conversion of Radbodus[97] to Christianity failed.
In 697, a new war broke out between the Duke of the Franks and the Prince of the Frisons,[98] in which the latter is stated to have been again defeated, and compelled to acknowledge, by the payment of an annual tribute, the supremacy of the Franks. It is added, also, that he gave his daughter in marriage to Pepin’s son Grimoald.
Pepin of Heristal made also several expeditions, though, it would appear, with indifferent success only, against the Alemanni, the Thuringians, and the Bojoarii, or Bavarians, who had taken advantage of the internal dissensions and disorder of the Frankish empire, to shake off the yoke of their masters.
In the beginning of the year 714, Pepin fell seriously ill, at his estate Jopila, on the Meuse. He sent for his only surviving (legitimate) son, Grimoald, whom he had made (after the death of his friend Nordbert) major domûs in Neustria, and (after the death of Drogo, another of his sons) Duke of Burgundy and Champagne, and whom he intended to name his successor in the government of the entire monarchy. But on his way to his father, Grimoald was assassinated at Liège, in the church of St. Lambert, by a Frison; at the instigation, it would appear, of some discontented nobles. He left an illegitimate infant son, Theudoald, or Theudebaud. Pepin was unfortunately persuaded by his wife, the ambitious Plectrudis[99], who expected to wield the government during the minority of her little grandson, to name this infant his successor, instead of either of his own two illegitimate sons (Charles and Childebrand)[100], and of whom the latter, more especially, possessed his father’s great qualities, and that amount of physical and intellectual vigor indispensable to keep together and to rule over an empire composed of such heterogeneous and antagonistic elements, as the Frankish. Soon after this fatal step, which, we may safely assume the love of his country and of his glory, would never have permitted the aged ruler to take, had not his faculties been greatly impaired at the time by long illness and by the bitter grief of his son’s death, Pepin of Heristal died on the 16th of December, 714.
He had scarcely departed life when Plectrudis, who dreaded the aspiring genius of Charles, had the latter seized, and confined in the city of Cologne. She now deemed herself in safe possession of the government; but she was soon awakened from her ambitious dream. The Neustrians were indignant that they should thus be handed over to the sway of a child and to the rule of a woman: they could bear infant-kings, indeed, but they refused to put up with an infant mayor of the palace. They, therefore, made Raganfried, a powerful Neustrian noble, their mayor of the palace, and prepared to resist by force of arms, any attempt which Plectrudis might make to compel their submission. The widow of Pepin showed indeed that, if she had had the ambition to seize the sceptre, she had also the spirit to wield, and the requisite energy to defend it. She collected a powerful army, and sent the puppet-King Dagobert (III.), and his infant minister Theudebaud, with it against, what she was pleased to call, the Neustrian rebels. But the fortune of war declared against her: the Austrasian forces were totally routed by Raganfried, and “King” Dagobert fell into the hands of the Neustrian mayor of the palace. The infant on whose tiny shoulders Pepin’s ill-judged partiality, or uxoriousness, had thrown the burthen of three kingdoms, died soon after this reverse (715). Radbodus took advantage of the position of affairs, to re-annex West Friesland to his dominions; and, in conjunction with the Saxons, invaded the Frankish territories from the north east, whilst the Merovingian princes of Aquitaine ravaged them in the south west; the Alemanni and the Bavarians threw off the Frankish yoke, and resumed their ancient independence. Matters were looking dark indeed for the house of the Pepins, and though Mistress Plectrudis most gallantly braved the storm, her utmost efforts could have availed but little against such a multitude of foes, had not Pepin’s son, Charles, meanwhile found his way out of the prison to which the ambition of his father’s widow had confined him.
Charles, who was destined afterwards to play so important a part in history, was, at this time, about 25 years of age (he was born in 690). Nature had been most bountiful to him: tall even among the tall nation of the Franks, of a most commanding figure, and of a compact and beautifully symmetrical frame, he might be said to present in his physical conformation a compound of Hercules and Antinöus; his features were regular and expressive, and the lightning glance of his large blue eyes reflected, as in a mirror, the energy of his mind and the vigor of his intellect. He possessed enormous bodily strength combined with surprising agility. The remembrance of his great father, and his own manly beauty and grace, gained him the hearts of the Austrasians; and he soon found himself at the head of a formidable body of troops, with which he proceeded first to attack the Frisons, but with rather indifferent success, it would appear, as, we find Radbodus and his Frisons soon after laying siege to Cologne, in conjunction with the Neustrians under Raganfried. Plectrudis, however, purchased the retreat of the besieging forces; and the Frisons and Neustrians having separated again, Charles fell upon the latter at Ambleva. But, although he exhibited all the qualities of a great general, and that the fearful execution which his heavy sword did in the hostile ranks struck terror into the foe, and made ever after his war-cry “Here Charles and his sword,” ring as the prelude of inevitable defeat on the affrighted ears of his enemies: yet the superiority of numbers was too great on the side of Raganfried, and the battle terminated at last rather in favor of the Neustrians than otherwise (716). Soon after his capture by the Neustrians, Dagobert had passed from his royal prison to the grave (715), and another unlucky scion of the race of Pharamond, the Monk Daniel, had been dragged from the repose of his cloistral cell, to figure, as Chilperic II., in the line of the “titular” kings of France. Charles would have acquiesced in the arrangement, had not Raganfried steadily refused to acknowledge him as Duke of Austrasia; he determined, therefore, to appeal once more to the decision of arms. A fierce and sanguinary battle was fought between the Austrasians and the Neustrians, at Vincy, between Arras and Cambray (21st of March, 717): and this time, Charles’ valor and generalship were rewarded with a brilliant and decisive victory, which made him master of the country up to Paris. But, wisely declining to pursue his conquests in this quarter, and to court perhaps the chance of a defeat far away from his resources, he led his victorious army swiftly back to the Rhine, and compelled Plectrudis to give up to him the city of Cologne, and his paternal treasures; which latter he turned to excellent account in increasing the number and efficiency of his forces. Plectrudis took refuge in Bavaria.