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The Franks: From Clovis to Charlemagne (Medieval Europe)

9/21/2019

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The Fall of Rome

After the Fall of the Roman Empire left Western Europe in chaos, the Franks rose to prominence to fill the power vacuum in the Early Middle Ages and had a lasting effect on the development of Western Europe.

Ever since Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul in the first century B.C., the Romans had ruled the area that is today France, Switzerland, and Belgium. In the fifth century A.D., the Roman Empire was crumbling and failing to defend itself against invasions by barbarian tribes. In 455, the Vandals sacked Rome, pillaging the city so thoroughly that the term, vandalism, had become synonymous with the destruction of property. In 476 A.D., Rome was conquered by barbarian invaders and several tribes, including the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, and the Franks, divided the spoils.

This lecture is available on my
YouTube channel.

Over the following three centuries, the Franks would come out on top, building an empire that stretched from present-day Spain to present-day Germany.

Clovis and the Frankish Kingdom

In 509, Clovis I became the first King of the Franks, unifying the allied Frankish tribes under one leader. In addition to conquering new territories, expanding the Frankish Kingdom to cover most of present-day France, Clovis also converted to Catholic Christianity (as opposed to Arian Christianity, which taught that Jesus was not fully God) after crediting Jesus Christ with a victory in a hard-fought battle. Today, France gets its name from the Franks and Catholicism remains the nation’s predominant religion, making Clovis a very important and influential figure in French history.

The Baptism of Clovis, King of the Franks

Over the following two centuries, the Frankish Kingdom grew powerful – powerful enough to halt the expansion of the Islamic Caliphate which had conquered the entirety of North Africa and Spain. In 732, Charles Martel commanded the victorious Frankish army in the decisive Battle of Tours, which halted the Caliphate’s expansion and cemented the Frankish Kingdom’s place as Western Europe’s preeminent power. In recognition of his victory, Charles was given the honorific nickname, “the Hammer.”

The Carolingian Dynasty

Charles Martel’s son, Pepin the Short, overthrew the Frankish king, usurping the throne with the Pope’s blessing, establishing the Carolingian Dynasty (The House of Charles). The close ties between the Franks and the Papacy would continue into the reign of Pepin’s son, Charles the Great, popularly remembered by his French name, Charlemagne. Charlemagne expanded the Frankish Kingdom through military conquests, including a campaign into Italy to assist the Pope against his enemies. In appreciation for Charlemagne’s support, the Pope crowned him “Emperor of the Romans” in 800. A thousand years later, Napoleon, the Emperor of France, would honor Charlemagne in the iconic series of paintings by Jacques-Louis David of Napoleon Crossing the Alps. Etched into the stones in the bottom left corner of the painting are Napoleon’s name, along with the names of Hannibal, who had crossed the Alps to attack Rome, and Charlemagne (written in Latin as KAROLVS MAGNVS), who had crossed the Alps to help the Pope and expand the Frankish Empire into Italy – just as Napoleon was, at the time, expanding the French Empire into Italy.

Map of the Frankish Kingdom from Clovis to Charlemagne

At the time of Charlemagne’s death, the Frankish Empire was the most powerful political entity in Europe, rivaling the Byzantine (or Eastern Roman) Empire and the Islamic Caliphate in power. However, it was not to last. Charlemagne’s empire was divided between his sons after his death and after a series of civil wars, the Frankish Empire was formally divided by the Treaty of Verdun in 843 and it would never be reunited.

The Western Europe of the High Middle Ages would not be governed as a centralized state, but as a patchwork quilt of feudal kingdoms where local lords held more authority than the kings to whom they swore allegiance. But the Franks were not without impact. They laid the foundation for the Kingdom of France, secured the Pope’s position as the leader of Christians in Western Europe, and led indirectly to the medieval institution of a Holy Roman Empire ruled by Germans.

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Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power

5/29/2016

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Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power is a frequently searched topic on Google and YouTube, but until this week, there was little to be found in terms of an academic lecture on the subject. This week, I released a half hour lecture on Hitler's Rise to Power that is divided into three parts and is availabe on my YouTube channel.

Part I (1889-1921)

Click above to view the first part of my lecture on Hitler's Rise to Power.

The first part of the lecture starts at the beginning with Hitler's birth in Austria. As a boy, he encountered two philosophies that would impact him for the rest of his life: Pan-Germanism and Antisemitism. One of the most prominent politicians in Austria during Hitler's youth was Karl Lueger, the mayor of Vienna, whose Christian Social Party employed antisemitic propaganda in its campaign posters.

Hitler left Austria for Bavaria shortly before World War I and after the war broke out, he enlisted in the German Army. For a brief time after the war ended, Hitler continued his military service, embedding himself in the radical German Workers Party as a government agent. In this capacity, he became sympathetic to the party's anti-capitalist, anti-Marxist, and anti-Semitic messages and continued as an active member after he was discharged from the army.

Far-right parties like the German Workers Party embraced conspiracy theories, such as the "stabbed in the back" myth, which held Jews and Marxists responsible for the German defeat in World War I. Those who subscribed to this way of thinking believed that Germany had lost World War I because of internal enemies. After all, how else could Germany have been defeated by a coalition of British, French, and American forces representing two of the three largest industrialized nations of the day?

In 1920, the German Workers Party re-branded itself as the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). Hitler played a key role in expanding the radical party's appeal both in his capacity as a gifted public speaker and in designing the party's swastika logo himself. In 1921, Hitler was elected as the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Stabbed in the Back - Hitler's Rise to Power

This 1919 Austrian cartoon is representative of propaganda promoting the "Stabbed in the Back" myth after World War I.

Hitler and the Nazi Party

Part II (1921-1929)

Click above to view the second part of my lecture on Hitler's Rise to Power.

The 1920s transformed Hitler's National Socialist German Workers Party from a relatively unknown fringe party into one of the leading political parties in Germany. In 1923, the Nazis attempted a paramilitary coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. This attempt to overthrow the German government by force was unsuccessful and led to the imprisonment of Hitler and other Nazi Party leaders. While in prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a two volume work that was part biography and part political manifesto. Mein Kampf became a hugely popular work that allowed Hitler to share his political ideology with the disaffected classes in Weimar Germany.

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