Posted on 09/28/2001 6:03:51 PM PDT by Mahone
Perhaps you should start signing you replys "the hammer" in honor of your desecendant! ;)
http://www.ghg.net/shetler/oldimp/214.html
An excerpt: "Charles Martel became Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia when his father, Pepin II, died in 714. That year he was imprisoned by his step-mother Plectudis, but escaped later in the year to lead the Austrasian and Neustrian nobles. "
Charles Martel is ordinarily referred to as a "barbarian" by many historians, and he and his fellow Franks are reported to have not been terribly popular with the populations over which they ruled - the Governor of Spain being held in high esteem particularly by the Moslem people already living in France.
Moslem missionaries had been active in France for quite some time, and Islam proved to be popular. The Moslem army which invaded France was doing so in accordance with their moral imperative to provide protection to innocent co-religionists. I really don't know what the Franks had done to French Moslems, but whatever it was, it was sufficient to attract foreign attention. More than likely it was something along the lines of what Osama Bin Laden did the other day.
You have to watch out drawing parallels with the Dark Ages and early Middle Ages and the modern world. After all, in those days Western Europe, except for Brezh, Cymru, Scota, Cornouille and Galiza, was a barbarous wilderness or in the control of Moslems. Then, too, this business of Charles Martel is overreported way behind it's importance. The arrival of San Cho Noe from Cornouille to Galiza was of far greater importance to history, yet almost no one knows of this refined gentleman (one of my ancestors).
Point of information only: make that several HUNDREDS of thousands (circa 300,000 WWII US military fatalities I think.)
He would have been the King of Castille, I believe? Came from Cornwall?
Then there's the crowd who thinks the first King of Castile was named "Sancho" ~~ but it's "San Cho Noe".
This has been a wake-up call for me, and hopefully for many others. The people who said that the next confrontation would be between Islam and the West were exactly right.
Silly me!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.