Daily Medieval

First, some background. In what is now eastern Belgium there was a territory called Hasbania. In French it is now referred to as Hesbaye. Th...

In order to preserve Western Europe for Christendom and repel the Muslim invasions, Charles Martel enlisted the aid of Liutprand, King of t...

During the Battle of Toulouse in 721 and the defeat of the Muslim attempt to make inroads to Aquitaine and Gaul, the Muslim general was kil...

As the army of the Umayyad Caliphate, led by Abd-al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, moved north into Gaul from Aquitaine in 732, their progress was slowe...

On 10 October 732, the next attempt by the Umayyad Caliphate to invade Gaul was stopped at the Battle of Tours. This was the second attempt...

The expansion by the Umayyad Caliphate brought Muslims into the first major conflict with Western Europe in 721 CE. The Umayyads had alread...

About 675 CE in Wessex, England, a boy named Wynfrid was born to a noble family. Educated in the Benedictine abbeys of Exeter and Nursling, ...

Gregory of Tours mentions, regarding an event in which the body of King Clovis I was exhumed, "Though I did not know who he was, I reco...

The Umayyad Caliphate at the time of Odo This blog has mentioned several men named Odo in the past, but never "the Great." He...

Notker Balbulus (the Stammerer) Yesterday's post on cheese included an anecdote about Charlemagne, attributed to Notker the Stammer...

To round out the Merovingian/Carolingian week we've been having, let's take a look at some of the other women and children whose liv...

Bertrada of Laon Properly speaking, the Carolingian Era started with Carolus Martellus, Charles "the Hammer" Martel (c.688-741...

Nicknames: so easy to get, so hard to get rid of. When Mayor of the Palace and military genius  Charles Martel presented his 12-year-old s...

Kings cannot run every administrative detail of their household themselves, so they appoint people to do it for them. Chamberlain, senescha...

What do you do when a dynasty seems to become useless? You name them Le Rois fainéants (The do-nothing Kings). The Merovingians are the...