History of Toulouse - 768–877: Carolingian Franks and The Kingdom of Aquitaine

768–877: Carolingian Franks and The Kingdom of Aquitaine

Toulouse and Aquitaine (as well as Gascony) were once again part of the kingdom of the Franks. Following his victory, Pippin the Short died in 768 and was followed by his sons Charlemagne and Carloman. With Pippin having died, Hunald, son of the late Duke Waifer, raised an insurrection against Frankish power in Aquitaine. Charlemagne soon intervened and defeated him. In 771, Carloman died and Charlemagne was left as the only ruler of the Frankish realm. In 778, Charlemagne led his army into Spain against the Arabs. On his way back there happened the famous event of Roncesvalles (Roncevaux in French): Charlemagne's rear-guard was attacked in the pass of the same name by some Basque warriors. This led Charlemagne to realize that Frankish power in Gascony and Aquitaine was still feeble, and that the local populations were not entirely loyal to the Franks. Consequently, that same year he completely reorganized the administration of the region: direct Frankish administration was imposed, and Frankish counts (deputies of the Frankish king) were created in key cities, such as Toulouse.

In 781, he set up the Kingdom of Aquitaine, comprising the whole of Aquitaine (including Gascony, formally) plus the Mediterranean coast from Narbonne to Nîmes (area then known as Gothia), and gave the crown of Aquitaine to his three-year-old son Louis. Other such kingdoms were created inside the wider Carolingian empire in places such as Bavaria or Lombardy. They were meant to ensure the loyalty of local populations in territories freshly conquered and with strong local idiosyncrasies. Crowns were given to the sons of Charlemagne. The people of Aquitaine were known in the whole empire for their strong spirit of independence, as well as their wealth. Indeed, the region was quite prosperous during that period, past the recovery from the war of conquest.

Charlemagne in turn saw he could not trust the local nobility of the Vasconia, whose ties and loyalty to the Franks were flimsy. He took to appoint Frankish counts of his trust and create counties (e.g. Fezensac) that could fight the power of regional lords, like the duke Lupus. General supervision of this Basque frontier seems to have been placed in the hands of Chorson, count or duke of Toulouse. These politics displeased the Basques, and in 787 or 789 we learn that Chorson was captured by Odalric "the Basque", probably son of duke Lupus, who forced Chorson to an agreement which Charlemagne considered so shameful that replaced him by the Count William in 790.

The reign of Charlemagne in general saw a great recovery of western Europe after the Dark Ages preceding it, and Toulouse was no exception. Toulouse was a major Carolingian military stronghold in front of Muslim Spain. Military campaigns against the Muslims were launched from Toulouse almost every year during the reign of Charlemagne. Barcelona was conquered in 801, as well as a large part of Catalonia. Together with the northern areas of Aragon and Navarre along the Pyrenees, the region became the southern march (the Spanish March) of the Frankish empire.

In 814, Charlemagne died, and his only surviving son was Louis, king of Aquitaine, who became Emperor Louis the Pious (Louis le Pieux). The Kingdom of Aquitaine was transmitted to Pippin, the second son of Louis the Pious. Gothia was detached from the Kingdom of Aquitaine and administered directly by the emperor, thus recreating the limits of the former duchy of Aquitaine. Problems soon arose. Louis the Pious had three sons, and in 817 he arranged an early allocation of the shares in the future inheritance of the empire: Pippin was confirmed king in Aquitaine (Pippin I of Aquitaine), Louis the German was made king in Bavaria, while the eldest son Lothar was made co-emperor with future authority over his brothers.

In 823, Charles the Bald (Charles le Chauve) was born from the second wife of Louis the Pious. Soon enough, she wished to place her son in the line of succession. Louis the Pious was rather weak, and fight started between the three sons on one side, and their father and his new wife on the other side, which eventually would lead to the total collapse of the Frankish empire. Louis the Pious was toppled from power, then reinstalled, then toppled, then reinstalled again. In 838 Pippin I of Aquitaine died, and Louis the Pious and his wife managed to install Charles the Bald as the new king of Aquitaine. At the Assembly of Worms in 839 the empire was re-divided like this: Charles the Bald was given the western part of the empire, Lothar the central and eastern part, while Louis the German was keeping only Bavaria. Pippin II of Aquitaine, the son of Pippin I, was not going to accept such a decision. He was hailed king by the Aquitanians (but not by the Basques, who by then had seceded and detached Vasconia from Aquitaine), and he resisted his grandfather. Louis the German in Bavaria also opposed the decision of his father.

Eventually Louis the Pious died in 840. Lothar the eldest son claimed the whole empire, general war broke out. First allied with his nephew Pippin II, Louis the German soon allied with his half-brother Charles the Bald and they jointly defeated Lothar. Then in August 843, they signed probably the most important treaty in European history, the Treaty of Verdun. The empire was divided in three: Charles the Bald was given the western part, Francia Occidentalis (Western Frankland, soon to be called France), Louis the German was given the eastern part, Francia Orientalis (Eastern Frankland, soon to become the German Holy Roman Empire), while Lothar was given the central part, soon to be conquered and divided by his two brothers.

The family feud had left the empire weak and undefended. Some invaders rightly analyzed the situation and took advantage of it: the Vikings. Following the Treaty of Verdun, Charles the Bald moved south to defeat Pippin II and add Aquitaine to his territory. First he conquered Gothia over its rebelled count (who had taken advantage of the Carolingian feud) and had him executed. In 844, he set west and was besieging Toulouse, the capital of King Pippin II of Aquitaine. However, he had to withdraw without being able to capture the city. That same year, the Vikings entered the mouth of the Garonne River, took Bordeaux, and sailed up as far as Toulouse, plundering and killing all along the Garonne River valley. They moved back when they reached Toulouse, without attacking the city. It is still a matter of debate among historians whether they were called by Pippin II in his fight against Charles the Bald (as Charles' propaganda later claimed), helped defeat Charles the Bald, and left with due payment from Pippin II, or whether they just took advantage of the war to invade unchecked but moved back at the sight of the strong garrison of Toulouse who had just resisted successfully Charles the Bald.

Following these events, Charles the Bald in 845 signed a treaty with King Pippin II of Aquitaine whereby he recognized him as king of Aquitaine, in exchange of which Pippin II was relinquishing the northern part of Aquitaine (county of Poitiers) to Charles the Bald. However, the Aquitanians grew very unhappy with their king Pippin II, perhaps for his friendliness towards the Vikings who inflicted terrible damage on the population, and so in 848 they called Charles the Bald to topple Pippin II. In 849 Charles the Bald was south again, and he was handed over the capital of Aquitaine, Toulouse, by Frédelon, the count of Toulouse recently appointed by Pippin II. Charles the Bald then officially confirmed Frédelon as count of Toulouse. Soon the whole of Aquitaine was submitting to Charles the Bald, and in 852, Pippin II was made prisoner by the Basques and handed over to his uncle Charles the Bald who put him in a monastery.

In 852, Count Frédelon of Toulouse died, and Charles the Bald appointed Frédelon's brother Raymond (Raimond) as the new count. This was a special favor, normally counts were only administrative agents not chosen in the same family. However, it would prove to be the start of the dynasty of the counts of Toulouse, who were all descendants of Count Raymond I of Toulouse (Raimond I). In 855, following the example of his grandfather Charlemagne, Charles the Bald recreated the kingdom of Aquitaine (without Gothia), and he gave the crown to his son Charles the Child (Charles l'Enfant). Meanwhile, Pippin II of Aquitaine had escaped from his monastery in 854, and he was raising an insurrection in Aquitaine. It did not prove very popular among Aquitanians though, and he was unsuccessful. He then resorted to calling the Vikings for help. In 864, at the head of a Viking army, Pippin II of Aquitaine besieged Toulouse where the count of Toulouse resisted fiercely. The siege failed, and the Vikings left to plunder other areas of Aquitaine. Pippin II, abandoned by all, saw the ruins of his ambitions. He was captured and again put in a monastery by his uncle, where he died soon after.

In 866, Charles the Child died. Charles the Bald then made his other son, Louis the Stammerer (Louis le Bègue), the new king of Aquitaine. By then, the central state in the kingdom of France was rapidly losing authority. Charles the Bald was rather unsuccessful at containing the Vikings, local populations had to rely on their local counts to resist the Vikings, and the counts soon became the main source of authority, challenging the central authority of Charles the Bald in Paris. As they grew in power, they started to be succeeded in the same family and establish local dynasties. Wars between the central power and the counts arose, as well as wars between the competing counts, which further debilitated the defenses against the Vikings. Western Europe, France in particular, were again entering a new dark age, which would prove even more disastrous than the one of the 6th and 7th centuries.

In 877, Charles the Bald had to give in: he signed the Capitulary of Quierzy, which allowed counts to be succeeded by their sons when they died. This was the founding stone of feudalism in western Europe. Charles the Bald died four months later. The new king of France was his son Louis the Stammerer, formally king of Aquitaine. Louis the Stammerer did not choose any of his sons to become the new king of Aquitaine, thus in effect putting an end to the kingdom of Aquitaine, which would never be revived again. Louis the Stammerer died shortly after in 879 and was succeeded by his two sons, Louis III and Carloman. Louis III inherited northwest France, while Carloman inherited Burgundy and Aquitaine. In practice however, during the years 870-890 the central power was so weakened that the counts in southern France achieved complete autonomy. The dynasties they established ruled independently. The central state in Paris would not be able to reassert its authority over the south of France for the next four centuries.