Customer Reviews

Age of Charles Martel, The

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Since there is little biographical info on Martel,except for church propoganda(ala Medieval style),this book looks at the age as well as the man.After the breakup of the Roman Empire western Europe was even more destabilized with warring factions competing for the spoils.Martel emerges as the "strong man".He was never a king but a "mayor of the palace" which means he was the top Warlord of western Europe.He cut deals with the popes that were beneficial to the church as well as the Frankish kingdom.
The book refutes the propoganda that Martel stole church property and is currently "burning in hell"in fact he helped the church grow and as far as his bad qualities go he is as"good as the best and no worse than the worse". So we need not worry about the "Hammer" going ouch(in hell) every time someone reads an an acoount of him stealing church property.I don't think anyone suffers anyway from the self justifying abstaction of the "verdict of history".One has to be aware of the times the person lived in and this book gives a 5 star account of Charles and his times.His victory as Tours is represented in the book as just another battle not much different than his numerous ones with the (christianized?) Saxons.In fact Tours may have been small scale compared to them.