CARLO MARTELLO

CARLO MARTELLO. - Illegitimate son of Pipino d'Héristal, he succeeded after a long struggle lasting from 714 to 717 in securing the paternal office of mayor of the palace of Austrasia and then of Neustria, and in bringing about the union of the Salians and Ripuarian Franks; he also managed to ward off the danger of attacks from the Frisians and Saxons of the north. He then turned to fight the Arabs of Spain who for years had been invading southern France and in 732 he decisively defeated ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān at Poitiers, thereby freeing the country from danger forever, although the fighting did not entirely cease. In 723 Pope Gregory II entrusted St Boniface to his protection as the latter set out to evangelize Hesse and Thuringia, though in those years, in order to reward his companions and defenders in the kingdom, he confiscated a large part of the goods of the Frankish Church and without scruple distributed bishoprics and abbeys as rewards to rough soldiers, thereby creating a warrior and violent clergy that dragged the hierarchy and the people toward barbarism. When Liutprand, king of the Lombards, set out to occupy the duchy of Rome, pushing as far as the outskirts of Rome, Gregory III in 739 appealed in a letter to C.’s intervention, but he, bound by friendship with Liutprand, did not heed the Pope’s invitation. He died on 22 October 741, leaving the kingdom to his sons Pippin and Carloman.