Battle of Tours

[Christa Jenneman]

“    Modern historians have constructed a myth presenting this victory as having saved Christian Europe from the Muslims. Edward Gibbon, for example, called Charles Martel the savior of Christendom and the battle near Poitiers an encounter that changed the history of the world... This myth has survived well into our own times... Contemporaries of the battle, however, did not overstate its significance.

[Christa Jenneman]

The continuators of Fredegar's chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens - moreover, as only one in a series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory... One of Fredegar's continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule.[60]

[Christa Jenneman]

The Christian Lebanese-American historian Philip Hitti believes that "In reality nothing was decided on the battlefield of Tours. The Moslem wave, already a thousand miles from its starting point in Gibraltar - to say nothing about its base in al-Qayrawan - had already spent itself and reached a natural limit."[61]

[Christa Jenneman]

The view that the battle has no great significance is perhaps best summarized by Franco Cardini[62] says in Europe and Islam
“    Although prudence needs to be exercised in minimizing or 'demythologizing' the significance of the event, it is no longer thought by anyone to have been crucial. The 'myth' of that particular military engagement survives today as a media cliché, than which nothing is harder to eradicate. It is well known how the propaganda put about by the Franks and the papacy glorified the victory that took place on the road between Tours and Poitiers...[63]    ”

[Christa Jenneman]

 In their introduction to The Reader's Companion to Military History Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker summarise this side of the modern view of the Battle of Tours by saying “The study of military history has undergone drastic changes in recent years. The old drums-and-bugles approach will no longer do. Factors such as economics, logistics, intelligence, and technology receive the attention once accorded solely to battles and campaigns and casualty counts. Words like "strategy" and "operations" have acquired meanings that might not have been recognizable a generation ago.

[Christa Jenneman]

Changing attitudes and new research have altered our views of what once seemed to matter most. For example, several of the battles that Edward Shepherd Creasy listed in his famous 1851 book The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World rate hardly a mention here, and the confrontation between Muslims and Christians at Poitiers-Tours in 732, once considered a watershed event, has been downgraded to a raid in force."[64]

[Christa Jenneman]

Conclusion

A number of modern historians and writers in other fields agree with Watson, and continue to maintain that this Battle was one of history's pivotal events. Professor of religion Huston Smith says in The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions "But for their defeat by Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours in 733, the entire Western world might today be Muslim." Historian Robert Payne on page 142 in "The History of Islam" said "The more powerful Muslims and the spread of Islam were knocking on Europe’s door. And the spread of Islam was stopped along the road between the towns of Tours and Poitiers, France, with just its head in Europe."

[Christa Jenneman]

Popular conservative military historian Victor Davis Hanson shares his view about the battle's macrohistorical placement:
“    Recent scholars have suggested Poitiers, so poorly recorded in contemporary sources, was a mere raid and thus a construct of western mythmaking or that a Muslim victory might have been preferable to continued Frankish dominance.

[Christa Jenneman]

What is clear is that Poitiers marked a general continuance of the successful defense of Europe, (from the Muslims). Flush from the victory at Tours, Charles Martel went on to clear southern France from Islamic attackers for decades, unify the warring kingdoms into the foundations of the Carolingian Empire, and ensure ready and reliable troops from local estates.".[65]

[Christa Jenneman]

Paul Davis, another modern historian who addresses both sides in the debate over whether or not this Battle truly determined the direction of history, as Watson claims, or merely was a relatively minor raid, as Cardini writes, says "whether Charles Martel saved Europe for Christianity is a matter of some debate. What is sure, however, is that his victory ensured that the Franks would dominate Gaul for more than a century."[66] Davis writes, "Moslem defeat ended the Moslem’s threat to western Europe, and Frankish victory established the Franks as the dominant population in western Europe, establishing the dynasty that led to Charlemagne."[67]

[Christa Jenneman]

Footnotes

   1. ^ Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain, Translated with notes and introduction by KENNETH BAXTER WOLF.
   2. ^ The earliest Muslim source for this campaign is the Futūh Miṣr of Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam (c. 803-71) — see Watson, 1993 and Torrey, 1922.
   3. ^ Hanson, 2001, p. 141.
   4. ^ Oman, 1960, p. 167.
   5. ^ Henry Coppée writes, "The same name (see ante) was given to the battle of Toulouse and is applied to many other fields on which the Moslemah were defeated: they were always martyrs for the faith" (Coppée, 1881/2002, p. 13.)
   6. ^ Bachrach, 2001, p. 276.
   7. ^ Fouracre, 2002, p. 87 citing the Vita Eucherii, ed. W. Levison, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum VII, pp. 46–53, ch. 8, pp. 49–50; Gesta Episcoporum Autissiodorensium, extracts ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores XIII, pp. 394–400, ch. 27, p. 394.
   8. ^ a b Riche, 1993, p. 44.
   9. ^ Hanson, 2001, p. 143.
  10. ^ a b Schoenfeld, 2001, p. 366.
  11. ^ Hanson, 2001, p. 166.
  12. ^ Ranke, Leopold von. "History of the Reformation," vol. 1, 5

[Christa Jenneman]

  13. ^ Davis, 1999, p. 106.
  14. ^ The patriotic and religious fresco project and its cultural implications are discussed by Albert Boime, A Social History of Modern Art 2004, pp 62ff.
  15. ^ "There were no further Muslim invasions of Frankish territory, and Charles Martel's victory has often been regarded as decisive for world history, since it preserved western Europe from Muslim conquest and Islamization." [1]
  16. ^ Cowley and Parker, 2001, p. xiii.
  17. ^ a b Davis, Paul K. "100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present"
  18. ^ Davis, p. 105.
  19. ^ Hanson, Victor Davis. “Culture and Carnage: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power"
  20. ^ Fouracre, 2000, p. 85 citing U. Nonn, 'Das Bild Karl Martells in Mittelalterliche Quellen', in Jarnut, Nonn and Richeter (eds), Karl Martel in Seiner Zeit, pp. 9–21, at pp. 11–12.
  21. ^ Fouracre, 2000, p. 88.
  22. ^ Eggenberger, 1985, p. 3.
  23. ^ Saudi Arabia's Aramco historical site, ""The Arabs in Occitania."". http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199302/the.arabs.in.occitania.htm. Retrieved 2006-06-15.
 

[Christa Jenneman]

24. ^ Saudi Aramco World : The Arabs in Occitania
  25. ^ previously attributed to Isidorus Pacensis, Bishop of Béja — see, O'Callaghan, 1983, p. 189.
  26. ^ Wolf, 2000, p. 145.
  27. ^ From the Anon Arab Chronicler: The Battle of Poitiers, 732.
  28. ^ Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts
  29. ^ Watson, 1993.
  30. ^ Fouracre, 2000, p. 149.
  31. ^ Bede, 1847, p. 291.
  32. ^ Creasy, 1851/2001, p. 163.
  33. ^ quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, p. viii.
  34. ^ Fouracre, 2000, p. 96.
 

[Christa Jenneman]

 35. ^ Roberts,J.M.. “The New History of the World
  36. ^ Santosuosso, 2004, p. 126
  37. ^ The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Chapter LII.
  38. ^ quoted in Frank D. Gilliard, The Senators of Sixth-Century Gaul, Speculum, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Oct., 1979), pp. 685-697
  39. ^ quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, p. 158.
  40. ^ quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, p. 158.
  41. ^ History of the later Roman Commonwealth, vol ii. p. 317, quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, p. 158.
  42. ^ Cambridge Medieval History p.374.
  43. ^ Lewis, 1994, p. 11.
  44. ^ von Grunebaum, 2005, p. 66.
 

[Christa Jenneman]

45. ^ Coppée, 1881/2002, p. 13.
  46. ^ Watson, William, E. (1993). The Battle of Tours-Poitiers Revisited. Providence: Studies in Western Civilization v.2 n.1.
  47. ^ Famous Men of The Middle Ages by John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D. Project Gutenberg Etext.
  48. ^ The Timetables of History p.275.
  49. ^ Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University, and author of History of Rome
  50. ^ Civilization of the Middle Ages p.136.
  51. ^ The Battle of Tours (732)
  52. ^ University of St. Andrews.
  53. ^ Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: Political History of Al-Andalus, p. 28.
  54. ^ Davis, Paul 1999, p. 105.
  55. ^ Leaders & Battles Database.
  56. ^ Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Western Ontario, considered an expert historian in the era in dispute.
  57. ^ Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Piemonte Orientale in Vercelli, Italy.