Carolingian dynasty in the context of "Francia"

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, comparable with the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.

Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralised authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in Late antiquity (c. ~3rd–8th centuries) and into the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th centuries). The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was incomplete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or "Code of Justinian", was rediscovered in Northern Italy in the 11th century. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions. Monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise the remaining pagans across Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south.

The Carolingian Empire (800–887) was a Frankish-dominated empire in Western and Central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800 Pope Leo III crowned King Charlemagne as Roman emperor in return for political protection, disregarding the universalist claims of the weakened Byzantine Empire. The Carolingian Empire is sometimes considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire.

After a civil war from 840 to 843 following the death of Emperor Louis the Pious, the empire was divided into autonomous kingdoms, with one king still recognised as emperor but with little authority outside his own kingdom. The unity of the empire and the hereditary right of the Carolingians continued to be acknowledged. In 884 Charles the Fat reunited all the Carolingian kingdoms for the last time, but he was deposed by the Frankish nobility in 887 and died in 888, and the empire immediately fractured. With the only remaining legitimate male of the dynasty a child, the nobility elected regional kings from outside the dynasty or, in the case of the eastern kingdom, an illegitimate Carolingian. The illegitimate line continued to rule in the east until 911, while in the western kingdom the legitimate Carolingian dynasty was restored in 898 and ruled until 987 with an interruption from 922 to 936.

Bulgarian Battle of Versinikia (Bulgarian: Битката при Версиникия; Greek: Μάχη της Βερσινικίας) was a battle fought in 813 AD between the Byzantine Empire and the Bulgarian Empire, near the city of Adrianople (Edirne), in modern-day Turkey.

The Bulgarian army, led by Krum of Bulgaria, defeated the Byzantine forces. Following this defeat, Michael I Rangabe abdicated, with Leo V the Armenian taking the Byzantine throne. The battle further strengthened Bulgarian control in the region after their victory over Nikephoros I two years earlier. After the battle, the Bulgarians controlled the whole region of Eastern Thrace (until the Byzantine–Bulgarian Treaty of 815), with the exception of a few castles that remained in Byzantine control. Krum died on 13 April 814, but his muster of "5,000 iron-plated wagons [ . . . ] to carry the siege equipment" alarmed the Byzantine court to such an effect that they asked for the aid of the Carolingian Emperor Louis the Pious. These large-scale military preparations were Krum's attempt to avenge his failure at the Second Bulgarian Siege of Constantinople one year prior.

Charlemagne (/ˈʃɑːrləmeɪn/ SHAR-lə-mayn; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800. He united most of Western and Central Europe and was the first recognised emperor to rule from the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. Charlemagne's reign was marked by political and social changes that had lasting influence on Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

A member of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty, Charlemagne was the eldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon. With his brother Carloman I, he became king of the Franks in 768 following Pepin's death and became the sole ruler three years later. Charlemagne continued his father's policy of protecting the papacy and became its chief defender, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy in 774. His reign saw a period of expansion that led to the conquests of Bavaria, Saxony, and northern Spain, as well as other campaigns that led Charlemagne to extend his rule over a large part of Europe. Charlemagne spread Christianity to his new conquests (often by force), as seen at the Massacre of Verden against the Saxons. He also sent envoys and initiated diplomatic contact with Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid caliph in the 790s, due to their mutual interest in Iberian affairs.

The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony (Latin: Antiqua Saxonia) which became a Carolingian "stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany, between the lower Rhine and Elbe rivers. Many of their neighbours were, like them, speakers of West Germanic dialects, including both the Franks and Thuringians to the south, and the coastal Frisians and Angles to the north who were among the peoples who were originally referred to as "Saxons" in the context of early raiding and settlements in Roman Britain and Gaul. To their east were Obotrites and other Slavic-speaking peoples.

The political history of these continental Saxons is unclear until the 8th century and the conflict between their semi-legendary hero Widukind and the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. They do not appear to have been politically united until the generations of conflict leading up to that defeat, before which they were reportedly ruled by regional "satraps". Previous Frankish rulers of Austrasia, both Merovingian and Carolingian, fought numerous campaigns against Saxons, both in the west near the Lippe, Ems and Weser, and further east, near Thuringia and Bohemia, including the area which later medieval sources referred to as "North Swabia". Charlemagne conquered all the Saxons after winning the long Saxon Wars (772–804 AD) and forced them to convert to Christianity, annexing Saxony into the Carolingian domain. Under the Carolingian Franks, Saxony became a single duchy, fitting it within the basic political structure of the later Holy Roman Empire. The early rulers of this Duchy of Saxony expanded their territories—and therefore those of the Holy Roman Empire—to the east, at the expense of Slavic-speaking Wends.