Astudy On The Spanish Expedition Of Carolingian Empire At The Age Of Charlemagne (778-814)

At the age of Charlemagne,the Spanish expedition,which began in 778,was divided into two phases with various forces involved in.In the first phase,Charlemagne led his army as far as Zaragoza,then they withdrew to the Frankish Kingdom before confronting the Emir of the Post Umayyad Dynasty.On their return journey,the Frankish rearguard were attacked by the Basques in the valley of Roncesvalles and failed with heavy losses.The second phase of the war,from 785 to 814,was led by Louis of Aquitaine.In this period,the Carolingian Empire washed away the humiliation of defeats in 778 and established the Spanish March which played an important role not only in diminishing the Muslim threat to the core of the Carolingian Empire,but also in expanding the southern territory of empire.On the religious,Charlemagne got rid of the heretical Christian thought(Adoptionism)in the northeast of Spain,and the orthodox faith of Christianity was spread here.On the whole,the Spanish expedition of Carolingian Empire in Charlemagne’s era ended in victory with twists and turns.In these processes,the rebels of the Post Umayyad Dynasty and the rulers of the Carolingian Empire established a military alliance against the Emir for the sake of secular interests.During this period,the war between Carolingian Empire and Post Umayyad Dynasty was not caused by irreconcilable religious differences.Facing with such problems as strong Gothic factors,special residents and obvious centrifugal force of the count in Spanish March,Charlemagne innovated on the basis of the traditional ruling strategies,so that a short unified situation of checks and balances of all forces was formed.After the death of Charlemagne,especially after the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire,the links between the Spanish March and the imperial core areas became increasingly weak.At the end of 10 th century,the Spanish March became independent from the rule of the Frankish Kingdom.The cities of northeast Spain conquered by Louis of Aquitaine were collectively known as Catalonia in the 12 th century.Later,the region became the base of Spanish reconquest movement.During the confrontation between the Muslim and the Christian civilizations,the embryonic form of the modern Spanish nation and diversified regional culture was formed.This paper takes the Spanish expedition of Carolingian Empire at Charlemagne’s era as the research object,then puts it in the background of the 6th to the 9th century,sorts out the process and result of the war,analyzes its motivations and characteristics,and finally discusses the subsequent development and influence of the Spanish March.