![]() The culture would have spread across those plains, as well as up and down the rivers. ![]() Aachen and the southern lowlands thus became the centre of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance, where art and intellectual life began to flourish in the 9th century. He therefore made his capital, Aachen, located right in between these two plains. Although his empire was massive, big plains stretched across it from the south-west to the north-east, across modern France and Germany, coming together in the lowlands. He was well known for going around his empire and checking the loyalty and administrative capabilities of his subjects. Out of his loosely configured empire, he would create the feudal system, which would structure European political forces for centuries to come.Ĭharlemagne created a vassal system which needed constant oversight. His was a territory inhabited by many different groups, loosely tied together under labels like ‘the Franks’, but separated by rivers, forests, coasts and mountains. His empire stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea, and as far east as the Danube river. He immediately set out to expand it and, after winning some 50 battles, Charles managed to claim almost the entire mainland of modern day Europe, earning his epithet ‘the great’. Tension would grow between the two brothers until Carloman conveniently died in 771 CE, with Charles becoming the sole ruler of his father’s kingdom. When he died, his two sons Charles and Carloman had to share the entirety of the empire with each other. Pepin, being a Frank, followed the custom of dividing his land and titles between his sons. ![]() Pepin had the Merovingian king sent to a monastery, and became the king of the Franks himself - the first of what would become known as the Carolingian dynasty. Pepin would finally cast off the facade of the ruling Merovingian dynasty that had emerged out of the Salian Franks. As mentioned in our last episode, Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne and the Christianiser of the Frisians, had a son named Pepin.
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