The emperor, after inaugurating the Iconoclastic policy,…

Suluk, who in 728 had taken Bukhara and later on still had inflicted painful defeats such as the Battle of the Defile upon the Arabs, has discredited Umayyad rule and perhaps laid the foundations for the Abbasid Revolt.

The Turgesh state is at its apex of glory, controlling Sogdiana, the Ferghana Valley.

It is only in 732 that two powerful Arab expeditions to Samarkand manage, if with heavy losses, to reestablish Caliphal authority in the area; Suluk renounces his ambitions over Samarkand and abandons Bukhara, withdrawing north.

The Khazars and Arabs fight each other directly in Armenia in the 720s, and, though victory passes repeatedly from one side to the other, Arab counterattacks eventually compel the Khazars to permanently withdraw north of the Caucasus.

(The Khazars' initial victories have the effect of permanently blocking Arab expansion northward into eastern Europe.)

The prominence and influence of the Khazar state continues to be reflected in its close relations with the Roman emperors.

The future emperor Constantine V takes a Khazar wife in 732, as had Justinian II in 704.

A comparatively peaceful period follows, during which Gregory encourages the Christianizing of the German tribes and in 732 appoints Boniface, organizer of the Frankish church, as metropolitan of Germany.

The Battle of Tours (732): Charles Martel Halts the Moorish Advance

Following their devastation of Aquitaine, the Moors, under the skilled Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, push north of Poitiers, threatening Frankish lands. Unable to stop their advance, Duke Odo of Aquitaine turns to his overlord, Charles Martel, for aid. At the time, Charles is stationed near Orléans with his army, but upon receiving Odo’s urgent plea, he swiftly marches south to intercept the invading force.

The Battle Between Tours and Poitiers

In early October 732, Charles positions his forces at a strategic location between Tours and Poitiers, blocking the Moorish advance. He arranges his Frankish infantry into tight, disciplined squares, a formation designed to withstand the relentless cavalry charges of the Umayyad horsemen. Armed with swords, axes, and heavy shields, his soldiers endure repeated attacks, their discipline and cohesion proving decisive against the more mobile but fragmented Moorish forces.

The battle lasts between two days (according to Muslim sources) and seven days (according to Christian accounts). The turning point comes when Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi is slain in combat, throwing the Moorish army into disarray. With their leader dead, the invaders break and flee south toward Spain, but Charles, choosing caution over pursuit, holds his ground to secure the victory rather than risk an overextended counteroffensive.

The Consequences of Victory

With this decisive triumph, Charles Martel earns the honorific surname "Martel" ("The Hammer"), reinforcing his status as the most formidable military leader of his age. While the battle itself may have been a series of engagements rather than a single pitched confrontation, its impact is profound:

• Islamic expansion into Western Europe is permanently halted—there are no further major Moorish invasions of Frankish lands.
• A new balance of power emerges between Western Europe, the Islamic world, and the Byzantine Empire, shaping the geopolitical landscape of the medieval world.
• Charles Martel consolidates his authority over the Franks, strengthening his control and laying the foundation for Carolingian rule.
• Duke Odo of Aquitaine, now recognizing Charles’s supremacy, swears allegiance to him, formally bringing Aquitaine under Frankish control and further expanding Charles’s influence.

The Battle of Tours-Poitiers thus stands as a pivotal moment in European history, cementing Charles Martel’s dominance over Francia and marking a crucial step in the rise of the Carolingian dynasty.

Leo is an able diplomat: by arranging the marriage of his thirteen-year-old son Constantine in 733 to a daughter of the Khagan of the Khazars, he gains a valuable military alliance with the Khazars in the trans-Caucasus against the Umayyads.

Leo III responds to the defiance of Gregory II in 732/33 by confiscating all papal patrimonies in south Italy and Sicily, together constituting most papal income at this time.

He further removes the bishoprics of Thessalonica, Corinth, Syracuse, Reggio, Nicopolis, Athens, and Patras from papal jurisdiction, instead subjecting them to the Patriarch of Constantinople.

This is, in effect, an act of triage: although it strengthens the imperial grip on the southern empire, it all but guarantees the eventual destruction of the Exarchate of Ravenna.

The break between the papacy and the Empire is nearly complete.

Liutprand had turned from his former Agilolfing allies, following the death of Theodo of Bavaria, to bind himself to Charles, duke of the Franks, whose son, Pepin the Short, he adopts and girds with arms at his coming of manhood.

In 733, Liutprand promulgates the Notitia de actoribus regis, a series of six laws, presaging the later Frankish capitulary in structure, which seek to curb the usurpation by local administrators of public lands.

King Æthelbald of Mercia enlarges his kingdom in 733 by conquering and occupying the Somerset district of British Dumnonia, thereby confining the southern Britons to Devon and Cornwall.

China’s Tang dynasty, under Emperor Xuanzong, controls a pan-Asian empire stretching from Korea to the borders of Persia.

During the glorious and tolerant period of the Tang dynasty at its zenith, Chinese Buddhism reaches its greatest heights and Islam, Manichaeanism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Nestorian Christianity all enter China.

The Tang capital, Changan, supports one million residents within its walls and another one million in its suburbs.

In 730, Xuanzong has four palace walls in the northeast sector of the capital city torn down and reassembled to construct a new Taoist abbey, the grounds of which were formerly a large garden for the governmental Bureau of Agriculture.

By the year 735, 149,685,400 kg (165,000 short tons) of grain are shipped annually along China’s Grand Canal.

The world’s first printed book sees production under the Tang dynasty.

In literature, the greatest glory of the Tang period is its poetry.

By the eighth century, poets had broken away from the artificial diction and matter of the court poetry of the southern dynasties and achieved a new directness and naturalism.

The reign of Xuanzong—known as Ming-huang, the Brilliant Emperor—is the time of the great figures of Li Po, Wang Wei, and Tu Fu.

The rebellion of An Lu-shan and Tu Fu's bitter experiences in it bring a new note of social awareness to his later poetry.

Li Bo (Li Po or Li Pai, also known by his courtesy name, Taibo), born in 701 in Central Asia, had grown up in present Sichuan (Szechwan); displaying an early taste for knight-errantry as well as poetry, he had left home about the age of twenty to roam the mountains, eventually moving into southern and central China, where he establishes various friendships.

Although not pursuing a conventional official career, Li Bo aspires to high military service.

He serves as court poet to the pleasure-loving emperor T'ang Xuandong, but the experience leaves him disappointed, and he returns to the life of a wanderer.