The Creation of the Kingdom of Aquitaine and the Crowning of Louis (781)

In 781, Louis, the three-year-old son of Charlemagne, is crowned King of Aquitaine and sent to rule from the region, accompanied by regents and a court. This move is part of Charlemagne’s broader territorial strategy, aimed at securing the southwestern border of the Frankish kingdom after decades of conflict with the Aquitanians and Basques.

Strategic Importance of the Kingdom of Aquitaine

The decision to establish a subkingdom in Aquitaine follows the destructive war against Duke Waifer (768) and the subsequent rebellion of Hunald II, culminating in the disastrous Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778), where Charlemagne’s rear guard was ambushed and annihilated by Basque forces. By placing his son in Aquitaine, Charlemagne ensures that Louis grows up in the land he is to govern, fostering stronger regional ties and loyalty while maintaining Frankish control over the volatile region.

Territorial Composition and Governance

The new Kingdom of Aquitaine, while formally subordinate to Francia, is larger than Aquitaine proper and includes:

• Aquitaine itself,
• Gothia (Septimania),
• Frankish possessions in Spain, forming the early Spanish March, a key frontier against Muslim Al-Andalus.

While Louis resides in the northern palaces of the kingdom, the actual administration is centered in Toulouse, governed by Count Guilhèm de Gellona (William of Gellone), one of Charlemagne’s most trusted vassals and military commanders.

Palaces of the Young King

To ensure proper governance and regional integration, Louis’s court moves among various Carolingian palaces in the northern part of the kingdom, including:

• Limoges / Le Palais-sur-Vienne,
• Poitiers / Chasseneuil,
• Ebreuil,
• Bourges,
• Angeac-sur-Charente / Angoulême,
• Doué-La-Fontaine.

Long-Term Impact

By establishing Louis as King of Aquitaine, Charlemagne creates a more stable administration in the region while ensuring a direct Carolingian presence in a previously rebellious area. This move also lays the foundation for future Frankish expansion into Muslim-held Spain, as the Spanish March develops into a key military frontier. Ultimately, Louis will grow into his role, later ascending as Louis the Pious, the sole heir to the Carolingian Empire after Charlemagne’s death.

The young Alcuin had come to the cathedral church of York during the golden age of Archbishop Egbert and Northumbrian King Eadberht.

Egbert had been a disciple of the Venerable Bede, who had urged him to raise York to an archbishopric.

King Eadbert and his brother Egbert had overseen the reenergizing and reorganization of the English church, with an emphasis on reforming the clergy and on the tradition of learning that Bede had begun.

Egbert had been devoted to Alcuin, who thrived under his tutelage.

The York school is renowned as a center of learning in the liberal arts, literature, and science, as well as in religious matters.

Alcuin had graduated during the 750s to become a teacher.

His ascendancy to the headship of the York school, the ancestor of St Peter's School, began in 767 after Aelbert became Archbishop of York.

Alcuin around the same time became a deacon in the church.

He was never ordained as a priest and there is no real evidence that he became an actual monk, but he lived his life as one.

King Elfwaldhad had sent Alcuin to Rome in 781 to petition the Pope for official confirmation of York's status as an archbishopric and to confirm the election of the new archbishop, Eanbald I.

At some point he either met or was summoned by Charles I, who seeks to inspire the revival of education in the hope of forming one great Christian empire of all the Germanic peoples.

Alcuin's love of the church and his intellectual curiosity allows him to be reluctantly persuaded to join Charles's court.

He joins an illustrious group of scholars that Charles has gathered around him, the mainsprings of the Carolingian Renaissance: Peter of Pisa, Paulinus of Aquileia, Rado, and Abbot Fulrad.

Alcuin will later write that "the Lord was calling me to the service of King Charles."

Charles is determined to have his children educated, including his daughters, as he himself is not.

His children are taught all the arts, and his daughters are learned in the way of being a woman.

His sons take archery, horsemanship, and other outdoor activities.

Alcuin is welcomed by Charles to the Palace School in Aachen (Urbs Regale) in 782, founded by the king's ancestors as a place for the education of the royal children (mostly in manners and the ways of the court).

However, Charles wants to include the liberal arts and, most importantly, the study of the religion that he holds sacred.

Drawing inspiration from the York school, he revives the Palace School with the trivium and quadrivium disciplines, writing a codex on the trivium, while his student Hraban will write one on the quadrivium.

Charles begins construction on his palace chapel at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in 782, designed and supervised by the architect Odo of Metz.

The new chapel, modeled after a centralized Byzantine model, Justinian's octagonal Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, rejects the simple Merovingian church plan in favor of imperial echoes.

Returning to Saxony in 782, Charles institutes a code of law and appointed counts, both Saxon and Frank.

The laws are severe on religious issues, namely the native paganism of the Saxons.

This stirs a renewal of the old conflict.

In autumn, Widukind returns and leads a revolt that results in many assaults on the church.

The Saxons invade the area of the Chatti, a Germanic tribe already converted by Boniface and firmly in Charles's empire.

Widukind annihilates a Frankish army at the Süntel while Charles is campaigning against the Sorbs.

It is in response to this setback that Charles, in the Massacre of Verden, orders the beheading of forty-five hundred Saxons who had been caught practicing paganism after converting to Christianity, while Widukind escapes to Denmark again.

Charles’ severe and uncompromising position, which earns him the title "butcher of Saxons", causes his close adviser Alcuin of York to urge leniency, as he believes God's word should be spread not by the sword but by persuasion; but the wars continue.

Charles’s action leads to what will be two straight years of constant warfare; he winters in central Saxony, at Minden.

Al-Muqanna, espousing a mixture of Shiite, Zoroastrian and Manichaean belief systems, has commanded his rebel troops in battles with Abbasid forces or about three years in the field until forced to withdraw to his fortress of Sanam, near Kesh, whence he carries on warfare for another two years before he is eventually defeated.

He poisons himself in 738 rather than surrender to the Abbasids, who had set fire to his house when he was on the verge of being captured.

The Romans had initiated another war with the Bulgarians in 780, pushing the Bulgarian frontier to the north by 783, when hostilities cease.

The caliph's teenaged son, Harun al-Rashid, has led a number of charges against the Romans, his several victories enabling the Muslims' westward advance.

Reaching the Bosporus in 783, the Muslims defeat the Romans at Nicomedia (Izmit of Kocaeli).

Trapped on his return march, he is rescued by the defection of the imperial general Tatzates, with many of his men.

His defection, however, is kept secret for a while, allowing Harun to seize the imperial envoys, Staurakios among them, who had come to negotiate a truce.

The Abbasid commander was thus able to dictate harsh terms to Empress-regent Irene of Athens, who promises tribute.

Harun appoints Tatzates as governor of Armenia.

Charles creates a bishopric in 783 of Saxon-settled Osnabrück, in northwestern Germany on the Hase River.

A devout Christian, Charles protects and helps develop Jewish culture and commerce in his kingdom.

Regarding the Jews as an economic asset, he prevents the Church from placing excessive restrictions on them.

Jews are permitted to employ Christians and can freely practice their religion.

As the Muslims control much of the Mediterranean, the Jews begin to take on the role of commercial mediators.