Saracens
Nation | Defunct
700 CE to 1268 CE
Saracen is a term for Muslims widely used in Europe during the later medieval era.
The term's meaning evolves during its history.
In the early centuries CE in Greek and Latin it referred to a people who lived in desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia, and who were specifically distinguished from Arabs.
In Europe during the Early Medieval era, the term begins to be used to describe Arab tribes as well.
By the 12th century, Saracen has become synonymous with Muslim in Medieval Latin literature.
This expansion of the meaning had begun centuries earlier among the Byzantine Greeks, as evidenced in Byzantine Greek documents from the 8th century.
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Saracen raiders take advantage of the confusion in Constantinople to briefly occupy Rhodes in 717–718.
The Moorish Raid on Luxeuil Abbey (731)
In 731, a raiding party of Moors, led by the skilled Umayyad general Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, penetrates deep into Burgundy from Arles, demonstrating the vulnerability of the Frankish frontier. Their campaign brings them to the famed Abbey of Luxeuil, one of the most important monastic centers in early medieval Gaul.
The Moors briefly take possession of the abbey, but rather than holding it, they massacre most of the monastic community, leaving only a few survivors. The devastation is profound, yet the monks who escape later rebuild Luxeuil, ensuring its spiritual and scholarly traditions endure.
A Monastery Ravaged by Centuries of Raids
Though Luxeuil is restored, it will face further destruction in the coming centuries. In the 9th century, the Norse will devastate both the monastery and the small town that had grown around its walls, pillaging the region on multiple occasions.
The repeated burning of the abbey and the ravaging of its surroundings serve as a powerful illustration of the insecurity of medieval Europe during the era of Islamic, Viking, and Magyar invasions, highlighting that no place—no matter how sacred or remote—was truly safe.
It seems apparent that the local magnates of Provence, ruling semiautonomously, had seen the impending danger coming from the north, and may have in turn called in the Muslim forces from bordering Septimania.
Arabs had occupied the city of Avignon in 734, after it had been surrendered to Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, Umayyad governor of Narbonne, by Duke Maurontus of Provence.
According to the Continuations of Fredegar, Maurontus probably invited Yusuf into the city after forming an alliance with him against Martel.
The Chronicle of Moissac confirms that Yusuf's forces moved peacefully from Arab-held Septimania into Provence and entered Avignon without a fight.
In reaction, Martel had sent his brother Duke Childebrand south in 736, accompanied by fellow dukes and counts.
Childebrand had laid siege to Avignon, holding the field until his brother is ready to storm the city.
This battle is part of the campaigns of 736-737 during which Charles Martel for the second time keeps invading Muslim armies from Al-Andalus occupying further territory beyond the Pyrenees.
Unlike the invasion of 732-733, the Arabs come this time by sea, and force the Franks to come to them.
Notable at these battles is the use of heavy cavalry in addition to Martel's vaunted veteran Frankish infantry.
Though he has some catapults, the city of Avignon is largely taken by a simple, brutal, frontal assault using rams to smash through the gates, and ladders to scale the walls.
The city is burned to the ground following its capture.
The army then crosses the Rhône River into Septimania in order to lay siege to Narbonne.
Narbonne had been renamed Arbunah by Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, governor of Al-Andalus, after the capture of the city in 719 or 720, and turned into a military base for future operations.
Charles Martel besieges Narbonne following his success at the Battle of Avignon, but his forces are unable to take the city.
However, when the Arabs send reinforcements from Spain, the Franks intercept them at the mouth of the River Berre, in the present-day département of Aude, and score a significant victory, after which they march on Nîmes.
Charles may have been able to take Narbonne had he been willing to commit his army and full resources for an indefinite siege, but he was not willing or able to do so.
Probably he found that the duke of Aquitaine Hunald was threatening his line of communication with the north.
Furthermore, Maurontius, patrician of Provence, from his unconquered city of Marseille, has raised a revolt against him from the rear.
The Frankish leader may have considered accomplished his primary goals by destroying the Arab armies, and leaving the remaining Arabs confined to Narbonne.
On his way back out of the region of Septimania, his army destroys a string of cities and strongholds (Avignon, etc.)
that had failed to support him against the Muslims.
Charles Martel, though having failed to capture the Umayyad city of Narbonne, has devastated most of the other principal settlements of Septimania, including Nîmes, …
…Agde, …
…Béziers and …
…Maguelonne, which he views as potential strongholds of the Saracens.
He has accomplished his primary goals by destroying the Arab armies.
The Arabs are temporarily contained to the city of Narbonne, though a second expedition will be needed later this year to regain control of Provence after Arab forces return.
According to Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum, the Arabs retreated when they learned that Martel had formed an alliance with the Lombards.
Martel will spend his remaining years—he has only four more to live—in setting up and strengthening the administrative structure that will become the Carolingian Empire, and the feudal state that will persist through the so-called Dark Ages.
His son will return in 759 and finish his father's work by taking Narbonne and driving the Emirate of Cordova back over the Pyrenees.
The Frankish monarch, having just occupied the Lyonnais and the Middle Rhone, may have seen his newly conquered Burgundy in danger; he fights steadily hereafter in the south of Gaul.
The Moors continue to raid Gaul, briefly occupying Arles and attacking up the valley of the Rhône River, but the Franks had halted their advance at Valence in 737 and …