At that time, the Christian church maintained a strong power and exercised spiritual rule over the people. In order to consolidate his position, Clovis led 3000 soldiers to convert to Christianity in 496. Since then, he has joined the church. At that time, the arius Sect of Christianity had spread to other Germanic peoples. It is different from the Roman church in doctrine and is regarded as a "heresy" by the church. Clovis often used this as an excuse to conquer them. The church strongly supported him and praised his aggression as a "gratifying" act in line with God's will.
At the beginning of the sixth century, the Franks had conquered most parts of Gaul. Clovis destroyed other Frankish tribal leaders by cruel means and established a unified Frankish kingdom. Established the rule of Mai Tam dynasty in the Frankish kingdom.
Clovis's descendants continued to expand their territory, and the Kingdom of Burgundy, Provence in the south and Thuringia, east of the Rhine, were all included in Frank's territory.
On the eve of the feudal conquest of Gaul, Franks lived in the clan commune and didn't know that the land was private. Long-term expedition and constant migration confuse the original clan organizations. Franks who settled in the newly conquered land no longer formed clan communes according to their blood relationship, but formed rural communes according to their living areas. At first, rural communes practiced public ownership of land, and cultivated land was distributed to generations for use, but it could not be freely transferred. At the end of the sixth century, cultivated land gradually became transferable private property, and only pastures, Woods and ponds were used by commune members. At that time, the rural commune of free peasants was the basic organization of Frankish society.
In the newly conquered land, in addition to the establishment of rural communes, the huge real estate originally belonging to the western Roman royal family, as well as many uncultivated land, were privately owned by King Frank. The king divided part of the land among his soldiers and officials. These people inherited a lot of real estate from the Roman ruling class and followed the primitive way of exploitation. They exploited slave owners and surplus slave labor on occupied real estate. In this way, the private ownership of large areas of land appeared among the Franks.
King Frank also gave the Christian church land. Many Roman landlords in Gaul were also preserved. They gradually merged into Frank's upper class. These emerging Frankish nobles and the old Gaul-Roman nobles became the ruling class of the Frankish kingdom.
After Clovis, the land ownership of the Frankish kingdom continued to change. Clovis's descendants fought for years and paid a lot of taxes. Farmers bear the burden of military service and go out for a long time, which delays the farming season. The army burned and looted along the way, which made the land barren and failed crops year after year, threatening the survival of farmers in rural communes. Now that the land can be transferred, the big landlords took advantage of people's danger to annex the poor peasants' land to their own hands. The church also used religious superstitions or forged documents to seize farmers' land. Many farmers are forced to "dedicate" their land to nearby nobles or churches, demanding "shelter", and then demanding that their land be "sent" to their own cultivation on the condition of paying rent and labor. This practice is called "commitment". Since then, farmers have become "people" of secular aristocrats, lost their land ownership and personal freedom, and become serfs attached to their masters and fixed on the land to be exploited and enslaved by their masters. At the same time, the original slave owners and the remaining slaves gradually turned into serfs.
Frank's free peasants have the obligation to perform military service. With the continuous growth of large real estate, the number of free farmers is decreasing, which greatly affects the country's financial and military strength. In order to cope with this situation, in the middle of the eighth century, the Frankish countries implemented the fief system. The king no longer gave land unconditionally, but took the land as a fief and enfeoffed it with the farmers who cultivated the land to close nobles. A sealed nobleman must swear allegiance to the king. When fighting, he will lead his men, ride his own horse, and bring his own weapons at his disposal. The fief cannot be hereditary, and those who have been blocked should be returned to the fief if they have not performed military service. Because farmers were fenced off with the land, with the popularization of the land fief system, more and more farmers were pushed to the position of serfs.
After Clovis died in Charlemagne Empire, the Frankish kingdom was divided up by his four sons. After that, his descendants were divided into different places to be kings, and few of them could become kings of the whole kingdom. Moreover, many of them indulge in happiness and do nothing, and power gradually falls into the hands of palace officials. In 75 1 year, Pippin became the king of the Frankish kingdom, and the Carolingian dynasty replaced the Morovian dynasty. Charles, who succeeded Pepin, is the most famous king in the Frankish country. During his reign (768-8 14), the country was stronger than ever. He reigned for forty-six years and waged more than fifty wars. In order to occupy more land and enslave more farmers, he quickly ascended the throne and attacked a Germanic-Saxon who lived between the lower Rhine and the Elbe. Saxons bravely resisted and stubbornly defended their freedom. Although Charlie defeated the Saxons several times, a new uprising broke out there as soon as the Frankish army retreated. In order to crush Saxon resistance, Charlie used both violent repression and religious means, while brutally burning, killing and looting, enforcing harsh laws, while forcibly preaching Christianity and imposing the death penalty on those who refused to accept Christianity, broke into churches and robbed or stole. It took more than 30 years (772-804) to conquer the Saxons.
Bronze statue of Charlie
Saxons were forced to be baptized. See the chart (14).
During the Saxony War, Charles also conquered Lombardy and brought northern Italy into the territory. He crossed the Pyrenees twice, marched into Spain and seized a piece of land in the northeast of Spain. In the east, his influence extended to the upper and middle reaches of the Danube. After a series of wars, the territory of the Frankish Kingdom reaches the Urbro River in Spain in the west, the North Sea in the north, the Elbe River and the Danube River in the east, and a large area of Italy in the south, which is vast and prosperous. In 800, the Pope awarded Charles the title of "Emperor of Rome" to symbolize that he inherited the Roman Empire in Western Europe. In history, Charlie was called Charlemagne, which means Charlemagne. The country he ruled was called Charlemagne Empire or Charlemagne Empire, and its capital was Aachen.
The Pope crowned Charles, as shown (15).
Charlie distributed most of the land captured in the war to his relatives and ministers, and the fief system gradually became popular. Coupled with the plunder of powerful nobles and churches, in the ninth century, the free peasants who formed Frank Rural Commune almost disappeared, and feudal land ownership occupied the dominant position.
The division of Charlemagne Empire was established by military force and did not have a centralized economic base. The lack of economic ties between different regions, the dominant natural economy in the manor, and the underdeveloped cities and businesses have all become factors for the division of the empire. After Charlie's death, his son Louis succeeded to the throne (8 14-840). At this time, the big feudal lords were powerful and no longer obeyed the rule. Louis's sons waged a war against their father for power and land, and then they began to scuffle with each other. After the death of Louis, his three sons concluded a treaty in Verdun in 843, which divided the empire into three parts. Generally speaking, Charlie (nicknamed bald Charlie) got some land west of the Del River, the Thorne River and the Rhone River, which is the West Frank Kingdom; Louis (nicknamed the Germanic Louis) got the land east of the Rhine, that is, the Eastern Frankish Kingdom; Rotour, the eldest son, got the land between the eastern and western Frankish kingdoms and the territory in Italy, and inherited the title of emperor. These three parts are the embryonic form of three big countries in western Europe, France, Germany and Italy. In Germany and Italy, Caroline's regime was lost in the early tenth century. It remained in France until the end of the tenth century. At that time, the feudal separatist regime in Europe was flourishing, and feudal princes of all sizes dominated the country.
The division of Charlemagne empire
The Kingdom of England was formed on the British Island across the sea from the European continent, where people lived for a long time. In the middle of 1 century, Roman troops invaded Britain. Rome stationed legions here, built blockhouses and ruled the local people. The Roman emperor Hadrian (reigned at117-138) personally visited Britain and built the Great Wall of Defense across the whole island in northern England. Its remains are still visible today. Rome controlled the south and middle of England, and its power remained until the beginning of the fifth century. By that time, the Germans invaded the Roman Empire on a large scale, and Rome had to gradually withdraw its legions stationed in Britain in order to defend the imperial border. In the mid-5th century, Germanic tribes such as Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the sea to Britain, but they met with fierce resistance from local residents. It took them about 150 years to conquer most of southern and central England. After the Anglo-Saxons came to England, they established many small kingdoms, which were constantly at war and merged with each other. At the beginning of the seventh century, they merged into seven small kingdoms, known in history as the "Seven Kingdoms Period". At about the same time, Roman Christianity took root among Germanic peoples such as Anglo-Saxon.
The ruins of the Great Wall built by Rome in Britain
Like what happened in continental Europe, in the process of conquest and national formation, the clan system gradually disintegrated and was replaced by rural communes. Feudalism gradually formed in various kingdoms.
At the end of the eighth century, a Norman Dane invaded the British Island. Wessex, one of the seven countries in England, unified the kingdoms in the early ninth century and formed a unified kingdom of England in the process of resisting the Danes. King Alfred (87 1-899) became a legendary hero in his later struggle with the Danes.
The Normans invaded Scandinavia, Northern Europe and present-day Denmark, where they lived. In the eighth and ninth centuries, they were still in the stage of clan society and mainly lived a life of fishing and hunting. Normans were good at shipbuilding and sailing. They often take a big wooden boat with wooden dragon headdress, and under the leadership of military leaders, sometimes cross the ocean and sometimes go upstream to engage in trade activities in other places, exchanging locally produced dried fish and fur for food, wine and weapons, or looting by pirates. They often invade Britain, Ireland, France and other places, and even harass and rob in London and Paris. In 886, they besieged Paris for eight months.
Norman ship
Normans migrated to some parts of western Europe and gradually settled there. At the beginning of the ninth century, the Normans established the Danish area in the northeast of England. At the beginning of the tenth century, the king of West Frank wanted to give a place in the northwest to the Normans, and the leader of the Normans, as a vassal of the king, owned the land as a duke. This place was named Normandy, which is the origin of the Principality of Normandy. 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, claimed the British throne and led an army across the Strait to invade Britain. In the First World War near Hastings, William defeated the army of King Harold of England, then entered London and landed on British soil in June 5438+February of the same year. He is William the conqueror in English history. Since then, Normans have flooded in and become an important part of British residents.
1 1 At the beginning of the century, Normans entered Sicily and southern Italy from the sea, and 12 century established two Sicilian kingdoms here. After the Normans settled in these places, they gradually merged with the local residents.