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The Carolingian Empire

Conquests: Summary

The territories conquered were important and affected the shape of politics throughout the rest of the Middle Ages and beyond: the tying of northern Italy to the Empire, the claim of French kings to Navarre (the Spanish March), the elimination of the Saxons and Lombards and Avars, the claims of French kings to parts of what would later be Germany. But the campaigns carried a more immediate result, too.

Take a look at the pace of the wars:

That adds up to twenty years of campaigning, and this short list overlooks the lesser battles that occurred almost annually. Any one of these campaigns would have sufficed for another king; taken together, they mean a whole generation grew up with Charlemagne as their (ever-victorious) commander and king.

The wars gave Charlemagne immense prestige among his barons. It brought him land and tribute money and plunder with which to satisfy their greed and ambitions. And 20 years of warfare forced Charles to rely on a governmental structure that could support not only the wars but the victories. The Frankish royal tradition had not much to say about ruling foreign peoples and vast territories.

Charlemagne found it necessary to improvise as he went.