Battle Of Compiègne
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Battle Of Compiègne
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. Dagobert III had appointed one Ragenfrid as mayor of the palace in opposition to Pepin's choice as his successor: his grandson Theudoald. Ragenfrid engaged in battle with Theudoald, then young, and defeated him, sending him fleeing back to his grandmother Plectrude in Cologne. According to the ''Liber Historiae Francorum'', Theudoald lost his "innocent life" soon after, but other sources indicate him surviving for many years. Whatever the case, Charles Martel, Pepin's illegitimate son, soon escaped Plectrude's prison and Dagobert III soon died. The new king, Chilperic II, reappointed Ragenfrid, whose power was affirmed by the people of Neustria while the magnates of Austrasia elected Charles mayor. Plectrude remained holed up in Cologne, still with some supporters in Austrasia, and t ...
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Charles Martel
Charles Martel ( – 22 October 741) 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" (in Old French, ''Martel''), 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". Martel gained a very consequential victory against an Umayyad invasion of Aquitaine at the Battle of Tours, at a time when the Umayyad Caliphate ...
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Pepin Of Heristal
Pepin II (c. 635 – 16 December 714), 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. The son of the powerful Frankish statesman Ansegisel, Pepin worked to establish his family, the Pippinids, as the strongest in Francia. He became Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia in 680. Pepin subsequently embarked on several wars to expand his power. He united all the Frankish realms by the conquests of Neustria and Burgundy in 687. In foreign conflicts, Pepin increased the power of the Franks by his subjugation of the Alemanni, the Frisians, and the Franconians. He also began the process of evangelisation in Germany. Pepin's statesmanship was notable for the further diminution of Merovingian royal authority, and for the acceptance of the undisputed right to rule for his family. Therefor ...
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Duke Of The Franks
The title Duke of the Franks ( la, dux Francorum) has been used for three different offices, always with "duke" implying military command and "prince" implying something approaching sovereign or regalian rights. The term "Franks" may refer to an ethnic group or to the inhabitants of a territory called Francia. The first office was that of the mayors of the palace of the Merovingian kings of the Franks, whose powers increased as those of the kings declined. The second was that of the second-in-command to the early kings of France, the last incumbent of which succeeded to the throne in 987. This title was sometimes rendered as Duke of France (). The third instance was that of the rulers in East Francia (now Germany), the so-called "tribal" duchy of Franconia. ''Dux et princeps Francorum'' Up until the time after Dagobert I, the title ''princeps'' (prince) had royal connotations. The first time it was used to describe the mayors of the palace of Neustria was in mid-7th-century sai ...
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Dagobert III
Dagobert III (c.699–715) was Merovingian king of the Franks (711–715). He was a son of Childebert III. He succeeded his father as the head of the three Frankish kingdoms—Neustria and Austrasia, unified since Pippin's victory at Tertry in 687, and the Kingdom of Burgundy—in 711. Real power, however, still remained with the Mayor of the Palace, Pippin of Herstal, who died in 714. Pippin's death occasioned open conflict between his heirs and the Neustrian nobles who elected the mayors of the palace. As for Dagobert himself, the Liber Historiae Francorum reports he died of illness, but otherwise says nothing about his character or actions. While attention was focused on combatting the Frisians in the north, areas of southern Gaul began to secede during Dagobert's brief time: Savaric, the fighting bishop of Auxerre, in 714 and 715 subjugated Orléans, Nevers, Avallon, and Tonnerre on his own account, and Eudo in Toulouse and Antenor in Provence were essentially ...
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Ragenfrid
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. Dagobert III appointed him in opposition to Theudoald, grandson and heir of Pepin, and his grandmother Plectrude, but he was ignored by both Plectrude and Charles. In 716, Ragenfrid and Dagobert's successor, Chilperic II, fought deep into the heartland of Peppinid power: the mid-Meuse and Ardennes. They allied with Dagobert's old enemy, Duke Radbod of Frisia Frisia is a cross-border cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. The region is traditionally inhabited by the Frisians, a West Ger ...
, and defeated their rival ...
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Theudoald
Theudoald (or Theodald; c. 708 – 741)''Monumenta Epternacensia'' ("''Theodaldum, filium Grimoaldi…ex Theodesina filia regis Rabodi''"). ''Monumenta Epternacensia'', MGH SS XXIII, p. 59. 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. Theudoald was the legitimate but later claimed illegitimate son of Grimoald II (son of Pepin II of Herstal and Plectrude) and Theudesinda of Frisia (daughter of king Radbod). Thus, he was a grandson of the Frisian king. His grandmother Plectrude tried to have him recognised by his grandfather as the legitimate heir to all the Pippinid lands, instead of Charles Martel. His grandmother surrendered on his behalf in 716 to Chilperic II Chilperic II (c. 672 – 13 February 721), known as Daniel prior to his coronation, was the youngest son of Childeric II and his half-cousin wif ...
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Plectrude
Plectrude ( la, Plectrudis; german: Plektrud, Plechtrudis) (died 718) 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. Biography Marriage and children Plectrude was described as politically active and influential upon her husband and his reign. She brought a large amount of property to the Arnulfing house. Plectrude was the daughter of Hugobert, seneschal of Clovis IV, and lady Irmina of Oeren. While there is no hard evidence for the identification of Irmina as her mother, it is highly probable as both women held land which was inherited from the same source. Irmina came from one of the most powerful families in the Merovingian kingdom. After the death of Hugobert in 697, Irmina gave the monk Willibrord the land on which to build the Abbey of Echternac ...
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Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 million people in the Cologne Bonn Region, urban region. Centered on the left bank of the Rhine, left (west) bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about southeast of NRW's state capital Düsseldorf and northwest of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. The city's medieval Catholic Cologne Cathedral (), the third-tallest church and tallest cathedral in the world, constructed to house the Shrine of the Three Kings, is a globally recognized landmark and one of the most visited sights and pilgrimage destinations in Europe. The cityscape is further shaped by the Twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne, and Cologne is famous for Eau de Cologne, that has been produced in the city since 1709, and "col ...
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Liber Historiae Francorum
''Liber Historiae Francorum'' ( en, link=no, "The Book of the History of the Franks") is a chronicle written anonymously during the 8th century. The first sections served as a secondary source for early Franks in the time of Marcomer, giving a short of events until the time of the late Merovingians. The subsequent sections of the chronicle are important primary sources for the contemporaneous history. They provide an account of the Pippinid family in Austrasia before they became the most famous Carolingians. The ''Liber Historiae Francorum'' uses a lot of material from the earlier ''Historia Francorum'' by bishop and historian Gregory of Tours, completed in 594. Author, date, and agenda Richard Gerberding, a modern editor of the text, vindicates the coherence and accuracy of its account while giving reasons for locating the anonymous author in Soissons, who was likely a part of the royal monastery of Saint-Medard. Richard Gerberding characterizes the author as Neustrian and ...
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Chilperic II
Chilperic II (c. 672 – 13 February 721), 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. As an infant, he was spirited to a monastery to protect his life from the internecine feuding of his family. There, he was raised as Daniel until the death of Dagobert III in 715, when he was taken from the monastery – at the age of forty-three – and raised on the shield of the Neustrian warriors as king, as was the custom. He took the royal name of Chilperic, though due to his monastic upbringing, he was a very different man from Chilperic I. First, it appears he was supposed to be but a tool in the hands of Ragenfrid, the mayor of the palace of Neustria, acclaimed in 714 in opposition to Theudoald, Pepin of Heristal's designated heir. Chilperic, however, was his own man: both a fighter and a leader, always at the foref ...
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Neustria
Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks. Neustria included the land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, approximately the north of present-day France, with Paris, Orléans, Tours, Soissons as its main cities. It later referred to the region between the Seine and the Loire rivers known as the ''regnum Neustriae'', a constituent subkingdom of the Carolingian Empire and then West Francia. The Carolingian kings also created a March of Neustria which was a frontier duchy against the Bretons and Vikings that lasted until the Capetian monarchy in the late 10th century, when the term was eclipsed as a European political or geographical term. Name The name ''Neustria'' is mostly explained as "new western land", although Taylor (1848) suggested the interpretation of "northeastern land". '' Nordisk familjebok'' (1913) even suggested "not the eastern land" (''icke östland''). Augustin Thierry (1825) assumed ''Neustria'' is simply a corruption of ''Westria'', fr ...
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