The siege of Avignon was contested in 737. Frankish forces led by Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad garrison of Avignon and destroyed the stronghold.
The siege of Avignon was contested in 737. Frankish forces led by Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad garrison of Avignon and destroyed the stronghold.
Arabs had occupied the city of Avignon in 734, after it had been surrendered to Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, Umayyad governor of Narbonne, by Duke Maurontus of Provence. [1] According to the Continuations of Fredegar , Maurontus probably invited Yusuf into the city after forming an alliance with him against Martel. The Chronicle of Moissac confirms that Yusuf's forces moved peacefully from Arab-held Septimania into Provence and entered Avignon without a fight. In reaction, Martel sent his brother Duke Childebrand south in 736, accompanied by fellow dukes and counts. Childebrand laid siege to Avignon and held the field until his brother was ready to storm the city. [2]
Martel's forces used rope ladders and battering rams to attack the walls of Avignon, which was burned to the ground following its capture. [3] [4] The army then crossed the Rhône River into Septimania in order to lay siege to Narbonne. [5]
This siege was part of the campaigns of 736–737 during which Charles Martel for the second time engaged Arab armies from Al-Andalus beyond the Pyrenees. Unlike the invasion of 732–733, the Arabs came this time by sea. Notable at these battles was the use of heavy cavalry in addition to Martel's vaunted veteran Frankish infantry. Though he had some catapults, the city of Avignon was largely taken by a simple, brutal, frontal assault using rams to smash through the gates, and ladders to scale the walls.
Anthony Santosuosso, an expert in the Dark Ages and Medieval Europe, has argued that these events were as important macrohistorically as Martel's victory at the Battle of Tours. The campaigns, which ended with the complete destruction of a large Arab force, attempting to relieve Narbonne, at the Battle of the River Berre in 737, crushed any hope of expansion while the Umayyad Caliphate was still united, before the Battle of the Zab, at which the Umayyads were defeated by their Abbasid rivals. [6]
In Paul Fouracre's account, however, both the extent and the importance of Martel's victories are said to have been greatly exaggerated by Paul the Deacon and the Continuations of Fredegar in which Martel came to be depicted as the progenitor of later Frankish success and the Franks as "God's people". [7] Other historians point to Charles' interests in the region, who in 736 had just occupied the Lyonnais and the Middle Rhone, and may have seen his newly conquered Burgundy in danger. At any rate, it seems apparent that the local magnates of Provence, ruling semi-autonomously, saw the impending danger coming from the north, and may have in turn called in the Muslim forces from bordering Septimania. [8]
Charles Martel, Martel being a sobriquet in Old French for "The Hammer", 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 the Franks from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles 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".
Year 714 (DCCXIV) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 714 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.
The 730s decade ran from January 1, 730, to December 31, 739.
The 720s decade ran from January 1, 720, to December 31, 729.
Year 737 (DCCXXXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 737 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.
The Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of the Highway of the Martyrs, was fought on 10 October 732, and was an important battle during the Umayyad invasion of Gaul. It resulted in victory for the Frankish and Aquitanian forces, led by Charles Martel, over the invading Umayyad forces, led by Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, governor of al-Andalus. Several historians, such as Edward Gibbon, have credited the Christian victory in the battle as an important factor in curtailing the spread of Islam in Western Europe.
Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah Al-Ghafiqi, was an Arab Umayyad commander and governor who led Andalusian Muslim forces against the Franks. His invasion failed, and he was killed in action against the forces of Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours on October 10, 732 AD.
Septimania is a historical region in modern-day southern France. It referred to the western part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed to the control of the Visigoths in 462, when Septimania was ceded to their king, Theodoric II. During the Early Middle Ages, the region was variously known as Gallia Narbonensis, Gallia, or Narbonensis. The territory of Septimania roughly corresponds with the modern French former administrative region of Languedoc-Roussillon that merged into the new administrative region of Occitanie. In the Visigothic Kingdom, which became centred on Toledo by the end of the reign of Leovigild, Septimania was both an administrative province of the central royal government and an ecclesiastical province whose metropolitan was the Archbishop of Narbonne. Originally, the Goths may have maintained their hold on the Albigeois, but if so it was conquered by the time of Chilperic I. There is archaeological evidence that some enclaves of Visigothic population remained in Frankish Gaul, near the Septimanian border, after 507.
The Spanish March or Hispanic March was a military buffer zone established c.795 by Charlemagne in the eastern Pyrenees and nearby areas, to protect the new territories of the Christian Carolingian Empire—the Duchy of Gascony, the Duchy of Aquitaine, and Septimania—from the Muslim Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba in al-Andalus.
The Battle of Toulouse (721) was a victory of an Aquitanian Christian army led by Odo the Great, Duke of Aquitaine over an Umayyad Muslim army besieging the city of Toulouse, led by al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, the Umayyad wāli (governor-general) of al-Andalus. The decisive Aquitanian victory checked the spread of Umayyad control westward from Narbonne into Aquitaine.
Hunald I, also spelled Hunold, Hunoald, Hunuald or Chunoald, was the Duke of Aquitaine from 735 until 745. Although nominally he was an officer of the Merovingian kings of Francia, in practice Aquitaine was completely autonomous when he inherited it. His rule corresponds to the lowest point of the Merovingian monarchy, when the kingdom was in fact ruled by the mayors of the palace. Hunald was forced at the outset of his reign to accept the authority of the mayor of the palace Charles Martel, but he tried three times to throw it off in open revolt. He was unsuccessful, although he did manage to retain Aquitaine undiminished. In 745, he retired to a monastery, giving power to his son Waiofar. He later went to Rome, where he died during an attack on the city.
The siege of Nîmes took place shortly after the capture and destruction of Avignon in 736. Charles Martel failed to capture the Umayyad city of Narbonne but devastated most of the other principal settlements of Septimania, including Nîmes, Agde, Béziers and Maguelonne, which he viewed as potential strongholds of the Saracens.
The siege of Narbonne was fought in 737 between the Arab and Berber Muslim forces of Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, Arab Umayyad Muslim governor of Septimania on behalf of al-Andalus, and the Frankish Christian army led by the Carolingian duke Charles Martel.
Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri was an Umayyad governor of Narbonne in Septimania and the governor of al-Andalus from 747 to 756, ruling independently following the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750. He was a descendant of Uqba ibn Nafi, the founder of Kairouan.
The Battle of the River Berre was fought in 737 between the Arab and Berber Muslim forces of Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, Arab Umayyad Muslim governor of Septimania on behalf of al-Andalus, and the Frankish Christian army led by the Carolingian duke Charles Martel during the siege of Narbonne. The battle, which took place at the mouth of the River Berre, was a significant victory for Charles Martel in the military campaigns of 736–737. During this period, Martel effectively prevented greater Umayyad expansion beyond the Pyrénées.
Maurontus was the Duke or Patrician of Provence in the early 8th century. He aspired to independence in the face of Charles Martel, Duke of the Franks, and the Provençal patrician Abbo.
Septimania was the western region of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed under the control of the Visigoths in 462. It passed briefly to the Emirate of Córdoba in the eighth century before its reconquest by the Franks, who by the end of the ninth century termed it Gothia. This article presents a timeline of its history.
Saint Pardulphus was a Frankish saint and Benedictine abbot. The Vita Pardulfi, was written by an anonymous monk around the middle of the eighth century. It is notable for the insight it provides into life in Aquitaine at the time.
The Umayyad invasion of Gaul occurred in two phases, in 719 and 732 AD. Although the Umayyads secured control of Septimania, their incursions beyond this into the Loire and Rhône valleys failed. By 759 Muslim forces had lost Septimania to the Christian Frankish Empire and retreated to Iberia.
The siege of Narbonne took place in France between 752 and 759, led by the Frankish king Pepin the Short against the Umayyad stronghold defended by an garrison of Arab and Berber Muslim troops who had invaded Septimania and occupied the Visigothic Kingdom and its Gallo-Roman inhabitants since 719. The siege remained as a key battlefield in the context of the Carolingian expedition south to Provence and Septimania starting in 752.