Read Online A Short History of the World by Christopher Lascelles - Free Book Online

is often recognised as the greatest king of the European Early Middle Ages, and with good reason: he united the Frankish tribes and kingdoms in the West into the largest European empire since Rome, an empire which included much of present-day France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium Switzerland, Austria, Poland and Italy.  

    Charlemagne was rewarded for being on good terms with the Pope, whom the Franks had helped on more than one occasion, by being crowned Roman emperor in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome on Christmas Day in AD 800. Although Charlemagne reigned for 46 years his empire was short lived; his son split the empire into three parts – one for each of his own sons – and the result was an empire divided into numerous feudal states and threatened by enemies on its frontiers – Muslims to the south, Slavs to the east and Vikings to the north.
    One of Charlemagne’s accomplishments was to bring back to public consciousness the idea of a renewed and reinvigorated Roman Empire. While his immediate successors failed to do justice to the title, the coronation of the German king, Otto I, by Pope John XII in AD 962, marks the beginning of an unbroken line of emperors that lasted for the next eight centuries, nominally ruling a territory encompassing most of present-day Germany and parts of Italy. In 1157, Frederick I added the word ‘Holy’ to ‘Roman Empire’ in recognition of his role as defender of the faith.

    German sovereigns who ruled over a confederation of hundreds of independent entities, large and small, held this title at all times. The largest of these ruling families was the Austrian House of Habsburg, with which the title stayed from 1452 until 1806. Looking back on the Empire in the 18th century, the Enlightenment philosopher, Voltaire, rightly commented that it was ‘neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire’.  

    Viking and Norman Invasions (AD 793–1066)
    In AD 793, while Charlemagne was doing his best to rule his vast kingdom in Europe and while the Abbasid Caliphate was blossoming in the East, a group of sea warriors – or Vikings – from Scandinavia landed on the small island of Lindisfarne off the east coast of England. After summarily butchering the local population and robbing the monastery of its treasures, they departed. This marked the beginning of a large number of raids throughout Europe, raids that gradually grew in both magnitude and frequency.  
    The key advantage the Vikings had was the element of surprise; their boats had shallow keels, allowing them to penetrate farther up rivers than other boats of the time. Not only were they skilled sailors, but also ruthless warriors.

    The Vikings were also explorers, traders and settlers, and in their wanderlust they travelled farther afield than any other Europeans, discovering Greenland and Iceland and even establishing a short-lived settlement on the northeast coast of America around AD 1000. This made the Vikings, not Columbus and his men, the first Europeans to land in America. In general, those travelling west – from present-day Denmark and Norway – were driven by the search for loot and conquest, while those travelling south – generally from present-day Sweden – were driven predominantly by trade, venturing south along the great rivers that conveniently flowed in a north-south direction and linked the Baltic to the Caspian and Black Seas.
    Those travelling south were known to the Arabs as the ‘Rus’, and were instrumental in establishing the principalities of Kiev in present-day Ukraine and Great Novgorod in present-day Russia. The development of trade around these cities laid the foundation for the Russian nation. The city of Kiev dominated the state of Kievan Rus for the next two centuries, and its trade links with Constantinople played a significant role in bringing the Eastern Orthodox religion to the area in AD 988.  
    Vikings from Norway established a Norse kingdom in Ireland and a few decades later Danish