Attempted invasion of southwest Francia by the Umayyad Caliphate (719–759 AD)
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The Umayyad invasion of Gaul, also known as the Islamic invasion of Gaul, refers to a series of military campaigns by Muslim forces to expand their territory into the region of Gaul (roughly modern-day France) following their successful conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula in 711-718, a territory they called Al-Andalus.
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 719 Umayyad invasion of Gaul was the continuation of their conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania into the region of Septimania, the last unconquered province of the Visigothic Kingdom.[1] The next stage of their expansion was motivated by the need to secure these gains. Septimania in southern Gaul was the last unconquered remnant of the Visigothic Kingdom and became a rump state to where many Visigothic nobles withdrew. To eliminate the remaining Visigothic influence that threatened their newly gained territories in northern Iberia, Muslim armies began to campaign in Septimania in 719. After the fall of Narbonne, the capital of the Visigothic rump state, in 720, Umayyad armies composed of Arabs and Berbers turned north against Aquitaine. Their advance was stopped at the Battle of Toulouse in 721, but they sporadically raided southern Gaul as far as Avignon, Lyon and Autun.[1]
A major Umayyad raid directed at Tours was defeated in the Battle of Tours in 732. After 732, the Franks asserted their authority in Aquitaine and Burgundy, but only in 759 did they manage to take the Mediterranean region of Septimania, due to Muslim neglect and local Gothic disaffection.[1]
After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate and the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate, internal conflicts within Al-Andalus, including revolts and the establishment of the Emirate of Córdoba under Abd al-Rahman I, shifted the focus of Al-Andalusi Muslim leaders towards internal consolidation. However, sporadic military expeditions were still launched into Gaul. Some of these raids resulted in temporary Muslim settlements in remote areas, but they were not integrated into the emirate's authority and soon vanished from historical records.
A later Muslim incursion into Gaul, in the ninth century, resulted in the establishment of Fraxinetum, a fortress in Provence that lasted for nearly a century.
Umayyad conquest of Septimania
By 716, under the pressure of the Umayyad Caliphate from the south, the Kingdom of the Visigoths had been rapidly reduced to the province of Narbonensis (Septimania), a region which corresponds approximately to the modern Languedoc-Roussillon. In 713 the Visigoths of Septimania elected Ardo as king. He ruled from Narbonne. In 717, the Umayyads under al-Hurr ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Thaqafi crossed the Pyrenees for the first time on a reconnaissance mission. The following campaign of conquest in Septimania lasted three years.[2][3] Late Muslims sources, such as Ahmad al-Maqqari, describe Musa ibn Nusayr (712–714) as leading an expedition to the Rhône at the far east of the Visigothic kingdom, but these are not reliable.[2]
The next Umayyad governor, al-Samh, crossed the Pyrenees in 719 and conquered Narbonne (Arbuna to the Arabs) in that year or the following (720).[2] According to the Chronicle of Moissac, the inhabitants of the city were slaughtered.[4] The fall of the city ended the seven-year reign of Ardo and with it the Visigothic kingdom, but Visigothic nobles continued to hold the Septimanian cities of Carcassonne and Nîmes.[2][3] Nevertheless, al-Samh established garrisons in Septimania (721), intending to incorporate it permanently into al-Andalus.[3]
However, the Umayyad tide was temporarily halted by the large-scale Battle of Toulouse (721), when al-Samh (Zama in the Christian chronicles) was killed by Odo of Aquitaine. The Gothic Septimania surrendered to the Muslims on generally favourable terms, allowing the Umayyads to rule the region with the conditional support of the local population and the Gothic nobles.
In 725, his successor, Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi, besieged the city of Carcassonne, which had to agree to cede half of its territory, pay tribute, and make an offensive and defensive alliance with Muslim forces. Nîmes and all the other main Septimanian cities fell too under the sway of the Umayyads. In the 720s the savage fighting, the massacres and destruction particularly affecting the Ebro valley and Septimania unleashed a flow of refugees who mainly found shelter in southern Aquitaine across the Pyrenees, and Provence.[5]
Sometime during this period, the Berber commander Uthman ibn Naissa ("Munuza") became governor of the Cerdanya (also including a large swathe of present-day Catalonia). By that time, resentment against Arab rulers was growing within the Berber troops.
Raid into Aquitaine and Poitou
Umayyad Hispania in 732, Septimania is to the northeast, around Carcassonne
Uthman ibn Naissa's revolt
By 725, all of Septimania was under Umayyad rule. Uthman ibn Naissa, the Pyrenean Berber ruler of the eastern Pyrenees, detached himself from Cordova and established a principality based on a Berber power base in 731. The Berber leader allied with the Aquitanian duke Odo, who was eager to stabilize his borders, and is reported to have married Odo's daughter Lampegia. Uthman ibn Naissa went on to kill Nambaudus, the bishop of Urgell,[6] an official acting on the orders of the Church of Toledo.
The new Umayyad governor in Cordova, Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, mustered an expedition to punish the Berber commander's insubordination, surrounding and putting him to death in Cerdanya, according to the Mozarabic Chronicler, a just retribution for killing the Gothic bishop.
Umayyad expedition over Aquitaine
Emboldened by his success, he attacked Uthman ibn Naissa's Aquitanian ally Duke Odo, who had just encountered Charles Martel's devastating offensive on Bourges and northern Aquitaine (731). Still managing to recruit the necessary number of soldiers, the independent Odo confronted al-Ghafiqi's forces that had broken north by the western Pyrenees, but could not hold back the Arab commander's thrust against Bordeaux. The Aquitanian leader was beaten at the Battle of the River Garonne in 732. The Umayyad force then moved north to invade Poitou in order to plunder the Basilica of Saint-Martin-de-Tours.
Battle of Poitiers (732)
Odo still found the opportunity to save his grip on Aquitaine by warning the rising Frankish commander Charles of the impending danger against the Frankish sacred city of Tours. Umayyad forces were defeated in the Battle of Poitiers in 732, considered by many the turning point of Muslim expansion in Gaul. With the death of Odo in 735 and after putting down the Aquitanian detachment attempt led by duke Hunald, Charles Martel went on to deal with Burgundy (734, 736) and the Mediterranean south of Gaul (736, 737).
Expansion to Provence and Charles Martel
Departure of Umayyad troops from Narbonne to Pépin le Bref, in 759, after 40 years of occupation.
Nevertheless, in 734 Umayyad forces (called "Saracens" by the Europeans at the time) under Abd el-Malik el Fihri, Abd al-Rahman's successor, received without a fight the submission of the cities of Avignon, Arles, and probably Marseille, ruled by count Maurontus. The patrician of Provence had called Andalusi forces in to protect his strongholds from the Carolingian thrust, maybe estimating his own garrisons too weak to fend off Charles Martel's well-organised, strong army made up of vassi enriched with Church lands.
Charles faced the opposition of various regional actors. To begin with the Gothic and Gallo-Roman nobility of the region, who feared his aggressive and overbearing policy.[7] Charles decided to ally with the Lombard King Liutprand in order to repel the Umayyads and the regional nobility of Gothic and Gallo-Roman stock. He also underwent the hostility of the dukes of Aquitaine, who jeopardized Charles' and his successor Pepin's rearguard (737, 752) during their military operations in Septimania and Provence. The dukes of Aquitaine in turn largely relied on the strength of the Basque troops, acting on a strategic alliance with the Aquitanians since mid-7th century.
In 737, Charles captured and reduced Avignon to rubble, in addition to destroying the Umayyad fleet. However, Charles' brother, Childebrand, failed in the siege of Narbonne. Charles attacked several other cities which had collaborated with the Umayyads, and destroyed their fortifications: Beziers, Agde, Maguelone, Montpellier, Nîmes. Before his return to northern Francia, Charles had managed to crush all opposition in Provence and Lower Rhone. Count Maurontus of Marseille fled to the Alps.
Loss of Septimania
Muslims maintained their authority over Septimania for another 15 years. However, in 752, the newly proclaimed King Pepin, the son of Charles, led a new campaign into Septimania, when regional Gothic allegiances were shifting in his favour. That year, Pepin conquered Nimes and went on to subdue most of Septimania up to the gates of Narbonne. In his quest to subdue the region, Charles met the opposition of another actor, the Duke of Aquitaine. The Duke Waiffer, aware of Pepin's expansionist ambitions, is recorded as attacking him on the rearguard with an army of Basques during the siege of Narbonne.
It was ultimately the Frankish king who managed to take Narbonne in 759, after vowing to respect the Gothic law and earning the allegiance of the Gothic nobility and population, thus marking the end of the Muslim presence in southern Gaul. Furthermore, Pepin directed all his war effort against the Duchy of Aquitaine immediately after subduing Roussillon.
Pepin's son, Charlemagne, fulfilled the Frankish goal of extending the defensive boundaries of the empire beyond Septimania and the Pyrenees, creating a strong barrier state between the Umayyad Emirate and Francia. This buffer zone known as the "Spanish March" would become a focus for the Reconquista.
Legacy
Arabic words were borrowed, such as tordjman (translator) which became drogoman in Provençal, and is still in use in the expression "par le truchement de"; charaha (to discuss), which became "charabia". Some place names were also derived from Arabic or in memory of past Muslim inhabitance, such as Ramatuelle and Saint-Pierre de l'Almanarre (from al-manar i.e. 'the lighthouse').[8]
Fouracre, Paul (2013). The Age of Charles Martel. Routledge.
Lewis, Archibald R. (1965). The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718–1050. University of Texas Press.
Planhol, Xavier de; Claval, Paul (1994). An Historical Geography of France. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521322089.
Watson, William E. (1990). The Hammer and the Crescent: Contacts between Andalusi Muslims, Franks, and their Successors in Three Waves of Muslim Expansion into Francia (PhD thesis). University of Pennsylvania.
Watson, William E. (2003). Tricolor and Crescent: France and the Islamic World. Praeger.
The 730s decade ran from January 1, 730, to December 31, 739.
The 720s decade ran from January 1, 720, to December 31, 729.
The 710s decade ran from January 1, 710, to December 31, 719.
Year 720 (DCCXX) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 720 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 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. He is most famous for leading the Muslim forces during the Battle of Tours in 732. This battle, fought against the Frankish forces led by Charles Martel, was a significant moment in European history as it marked the halting of the Muslim expansion into Western Europe.
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 history of Toulouse, in Occitania, southern France, traces back to ancient times. After Roman rule, the city was ruled by the Visigoths and Merovingian and Carolingian Franks. Capital of the County of Toulouse during the Middle Ages, today it is the capital of the Midi-Pyrénées region.
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.
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.
Uthman ibn Naissa better known as Munuza, was an Umayyad governor depicted in different contradictory chronicles during the Muslim conquest of Hispania.
The Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, also known as the Arab conquest of Spain, by the Umayyad Caliphate occurred between approximately 711 and the 720s. The conquest resulted in the destruction of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom of Spain and led to the establishment of a Muslim Arabian-Moorish state, Al-Andalus.
Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani was the Arab governor general of Al-Andalus from between 719 and 721. In 720, under his governorate he minted the first purely Arab coins in Al-Andalus as part of his fiscal reforms.
The Battle of the River Garonne, also known as the Battle of Bordeaux, was fought in 732 between an Umayyad army led by Abdul Rahman Al-Ghafiqi, governor of Al-Andalus, and Aquitanian forces led by Duke Odo of Aquitaine.
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.
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.
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.
Al-Ḥurr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Thaqafi was an early Umayyad governor who ruled the Muslim province of Al-Andalus from between 716 and 718. He was the third successor to Musa bin Nusair, the North African governor who had directed the conquest of Visigothic Hispania several years earlier in 711. Al-Hurr was the first Muslim commander to cross the Pyrenees in 717, leading a small raiding party into Septimania. His incursions were largely unsuccessful, for which he was deposed in 718.
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.
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