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Ragenfrid (also Ragenfred, Raganfrid, or Ragamfred) (died 731) was the mayor of the palace of Neustria and Burgundy from 715, when he filled the vacuum in Neustria caused by the death of Pepin of Heristal, until 718, when Charles Martel finally established himself over the whole Frankish kingdom.
His original centre of power was the Véxin. The Neustrian nobles named Ragenfrid mayor of the palace [1] in opposition to Theudoald, grandson and heir of Pepin, and his grandmother Plectrude, but he was ignored by both Plectrude and Charles.
They allied with Dagobert's old enemy, Duke Radbod of Frisia, allied with Ragenfrid in a campaign against the Austrasians. On 26 September 715, Ragenfrid engaged in battle with Theudoald's forces at the Battle of Compiègne, and defeated them, sending Theudoald fleeing back to his grandmother Plectrude in Cologne. [1]
In 716, Ragenfrid and Dagobert's successor, Chilperic II, fought deep into the heartland of Peppinid power: the mid-Meuse and Ardennes. Ragenfrid and Radbod converged on Cologne, where Pepin's son, Charles Martel he had been besieging Plectrude and Theudoald. The Frisians held off Charles, who retreated to the Eifel mountains to regroup. Chilperic and Ragenfrid then besieged Plectrude who was forced to acknowledged Chilperic as king, surrender a substantial portion of the Austrasian treasury, and abandoned her grandson's claim to the mayoralty. [1] The Neustrians then withdrew.
By April 716, having rallied his supporters, Charles returned and pursued Chilperic and Ragenfrid, and defeated them at the Battle of Amblève, recovering much of his father's treasure. [2]
After Amblève, King Chilperic and Ragenfrid returned in defeat to Neustria. Instead of following them immediately, took the next several months gathering more men. [3] Both sides spent the winter in preparations.
On 21 March 717, Martel dealt a serious blow to the Neustrians at the Battle of Vincy. The King and Ragenfrid fled to Paris, with Charles following, but as he was not yet prepared to hold the city, he turned back to deal with Plectrude and Cologne. Plectrude surrendered the city and was allowed to retire to a convent. Her grandson, Theudoald, lived under his uncle's protection until Martel's death in 741.
In 718 Ragenfrid and Chilperic allied with Odo the Great, duke of Aquitaine independent since 715. French historian Pierre Riché suggests that he may have been offered recognition as king of Aquitaine. [4] The allies were defeated at the Battle of Soissons. Chilperic and Odo fled south; Ragenfrid, now decisively out of power, went to Angers with remains of the Neustrian army. When Paris and the Loire Valley were taken and Odo gave up Chilperic, who Charles finally accepted in 719, Ragenfrid then gave himself up and, deprived of his office, left only with lands in Anjou.
In 724, the Neustrians rebelled under Ragenfrid, who defended Angers so well, that Charles decided to treat with him. Ragenfrid was allowed to keep his county for life, on condition that he give his son as hostage to ensure his conduct. Ragenfrid lived until 731.
The military defeats of the Neustrian army, under the leadership of Ragenfrid, at the Amblève, Vinchy and Soissons marked the shift in the balance of power from Neustria to Austrasia. From then on the Carolingians (the descendants of Charles Martel) would rule the whole of the Frankish kingdom from their heartland around the mid-Meuse, namely Herstal and later Aachen with Charlemagne.
Charles Martel was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and Pepin's mistress, a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles, also known as "The Hammer", successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle".
The 710s decade ran from January 1, 710, to December 31, 719.
Year 716 (DCCXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 716 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Pepin II, commonly known as Pepin of Herstal, was a Frankish statesman and military leader who de facto ruled Francia as the Mayor of the Palace from 680 until his death. He took the title Duke and Prince of the Franks upon his conquest of all the Frankish realms.
Austrasia was a territory which formed the north-eastern section of the Kingdom of the Franks from the 6th to 8th centuries, ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine, and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of the Franks, including both the so-called Salians and Rhineland Franks, which Clovis I, King of the Franks (481–511) conquered after first taking control of the bordering part of Roman Gaul, which is sometimes described in this period as Neustria.
Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks.
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Germanic Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. His death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Under the Merovingian dynasty, the mayor of the palace was the manager of the household of the Frankish king.
Chilperic II, known as Daniel prior to his coronation, was the youngest son of Childeric II and his half-cousin wife, Bilichild. He reigned as king of Neustria from 715 and sole king of the Franks from 718 until his death.
Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks, Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire, was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages. Francia was among the last surviving Germanic kingdoms from the Migration Period era.
Odo the Great, was the Duke of Aquitaine by 700. His territory included Vasconia in the south-west of Gaul and the Duchy of Aquitaine, a realm extending from the Loire to the Pyrenees, with the capital in Toulouse. He fought the Carolingian Franks and made alliances with the Moors to combat them. He retained this domain until 735. He is remembered for defeating the Umayyads in 721 in the Battle of Toulouse. He was the first to defeat them decisively in Western Europe. The feat earned him the epithet "the Great". He also played a crucial role in the Battle of Tours, working closely with Charles Martel, whose alliance he sought after the Umayyad invasion of what is now southern France in 732.
The Battle of Compiègne was fought on 26 September 715 and was the first definite battle of the civil war which followed the death of Pepin of Heristal, Duke of the Franks, on 16 December 714.
Theudoald was the Frankish mayor of the palace, briefly unopposed in 714 after the death of his grandfather, Pepin of Herstal. In 715, the nobility acclaimed Ragenfrid mayor of Neustria and Charles Martel mayor of Austrasia.
Plectrude was the consort of Pepin of Herstal, the mayor of the palace and duke of the Franks, from about 670. She was the daughter of Hugobert, seneschal of Clovis IV, and Irmina of Oeren. She was the regent of Neustria during the minority of her grandson Theudoald from 714 until 718.
The Battle of Amblève took place in 716 near Amel. The mayor of the palace of Austrasia, Charles Martel, defeated his Neustrian and Frisian rivals who were led by King Chilperic II, his mayor Ragenfrid, and Redbad, King of the Frisians. It was the first major victory of Martel in a long career of victories. In this battle Martel began demonstrating the military genius which would mark the remainder of his life.
The Battle of Vincy was a battle of the Frankish civil war of 715–18 fought near Cambrai, in the modern département of Nord. It was a contest between Charles Martel and the Austrasians on one side and the king of the Franks, Chilperic II, and his mayor of the palace, Ragenfrid, on the other.
The Battle of Cologne was fought near the city of Köln in the year 716 CE. The battle is known chiefly as the first battle of Charles Martel's command and is the only defeat of his life.
The Battle of Soissons of 718 CE was the last of the great pitched battles of the civil war between the heirs of Pepin of Heristal. Since Pepin's death in December 714, his grandson and heir Theudoald, his widow Plectrude, his bastard son Charles Martel, his successor as mayor of the palace in Neustria Ragenfrid, and the new king Chilperic II had been waging a war for ascendancy. Though Ragenfrid and Chilperic had begun with successes and Plectrude and Theudoald were removed early, Martel turned the tide of war and eventually forced the surrender of all his opponents.
Silva Carbonaria, the "charcoal forest", was the dense old-growth forest of beech and oak that formed a natural boundary during the Late Iron Age through Roman times into the Early Middle Ages across what is now western Wallonia. The Silva Carbonaria was a vast forest that stretched from the rivers Zenne and the Dijle in the north to the Sambre in the south. Its northern outliers reached the then marshy site of modern Brussels.
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