battle of tours time period

History Classics
Your Profile
Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
This Day In History
History Podcasts
History Vault

This Day In History : October 10

Changing the day will navigate the page to that given day in history. You can navigate days by using left and right arrows

Battle of Tours

At the Battle of Tours near Poitiers, France, Frankish leader Charles Martel, a Christian, defeats a large army of Spanish Moors, halting the Muslim advance into Western Europe. Abd-ar-Rahman, the Muslim governor of Cordoba, was killed in the fighting, and the Moors retreated from Gaul, never to return in such force.

Charles was the illegitimate son of Pepin, the powerful mayor of the palace of Austrasia and effective ruler of the Frankish kingdom. After Pepin died in 714 (with no surviving legitimate sons), Charles beat out Pepin’s three grandsons in a power struggle and became mayor of the Franks. He expanded the Frankish territory under his control and in 732 repulsed an onslaught by the Muslims.

Victory at Tours ensured the ruling dynasty of Martel’s family, the Carolingians. His son Pepin became the first Carolingian king of the Franks, and his grandson Charlemagne carved out a vast empire that stretched across Europe.

Also on This Day in History October | 10

Malala yousafzai, 17, wins nobel peace prize.

This Day in History Video: What Happened on October 10

Us naval academy opens, vice president agnew resigns, whitesnake’s “here i go again” tops the charts, us navy fighter jets intercept italian cruise ship hijackers.

Wake Up to This Day in History

Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Get all of today's events in just one email featuring a range of topics.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

Colonel George Custer’s funeral is held at West Point

“porgy and bess,” the first great american opera, premieres on broadway, superman christopher reeve dies at age 52, a former postal worker commits mass murder, president dwight d. eisenhower apologizes to african diplomat, william howe named commander in chief of british army, eight hundred children are gassed to death at auschwitz.

Sign Up Today

Start your 14 day free trial today

The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

Battle of Tours: Its Significance and Historical Implications

Celeste Neill

01 oct 2018.

On 10 October 732 Frankish General Charles Martel crushed an invading Muslim army at Tours in France , decisively halting the Islamic advance into Europe.

The Islamic advance

After the death of the Prophet Muhammed in 632 AD the speed of the spread of Islam was extraordinary, and by 711 Islamic armies were poised to invade Spain from North Africa. Defeating the Visigothic kingdom of Spain was a prelude to increasing raids into Gaul, or modern France, and in 725 Islamic armies reached as far north as the Vosgues mountains near the modern border with Germany .

Opposing them was the Merovingian Frankish kingdom , perhaps the foremost power in western Europe. However given the seemingly unstoppable nature of the Islamic advance into the lands of the old Roman Empire further Christian defeats seemed almost inevitable.

Map of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750 AD. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 731 Abd al-Rahman, a Muslim warlord north of the Pyrenees who answered to his distant Sultan in Damascus, received reinforcements from North Africa. The Muslims were preparing for a major campaign into Gaul.

The campaign commenced with an invasion of the southern kingdom of Aquitaine, and after defeating the Aquitanians in battle Abd al-Rahman’s army burned their capital of Bordeaux in June 732. The defeated Aquitanian ruler Eudes fled north to the Frankish kingdom with the remnants of his forces in order to plead for help from a fellow Christian, but old enemy: Charles Martel .

Martel’s name meant “the hammer” and he had already many successful campaigns in the name of his lord Thierry IV, mainly against other Christians such as the unfortunate Eudes, who he met somewhere near Paris . Following this meeting Martel ordered a ban , or general summons, as he prepared the Franks for war.

14th century depiction of Charles Martel (middle). Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Battle of Tours

Once his army had gathered, he marched to the fortified city of Tours, on the border with Aquitaine, to await the Muslim advance. After three months of pillaging Aquitaine, al-Rahman obliged.

His army outnumbered that of Martel but the Frank had a solid core of experienced armoured heavy infantry who he could rely upon to withstand a Muslim cavalry charge.

With both armies unwilling to enter the bloody business of a Medieval battle but the Muslims desperate to pillage the rich cathedral outside the walls of Tours, an uneasy standoff prevailed for seven days before the battle finally began. With winter coming al-Rahman knew that he had to attack.

The battle began with thundering cavalry charges from Rahman’s army but, unusually for a Medieval battle, Martel’s excellent infantry weathered the onslaught and retained their formation. Meanwhile, Prince Eudes’ Aquitanian cavalry used superior local knowledge to outflank the Muslim armies and attack their camp from the rear.

Christian sources then claim that this caused many Muslim soldiers to panic and attempt to flee to save their loot from the campaign. This trickle became a full retreat, and the sources of both sides confirm that al-Rahman died fighting bravely whilst trying to rally his men in the fortified camp.

The battle then ceased for the night, but with much of the Muslim army still at large Martel was cautious about a possible feigned retreat to lure him out into being smashed by the Islamic cavalry. However, searching the hastily abandoned camp and surrounding area revealed that the Muslims had fled south with their loot. The Franks had won.

Despite the deaths of al-Rahman and an estimated 25,000 others at Tours, this war was not over. A second equally dangerous raid into Gaul in 735 took four years to repulse, and the reconquest of Christian territories beyond the Pyrenees would not begin until the reign of Martel’s celebrated grandson Charlemagne.

Martel would later found the famous Carolingian dynasty in Frankia, which would one day extend to most of western Europe and spread Christianity into the east.

Tours was a hugely important moment in the history of Europe, for though the battle of itself was perhaps not as seismic as some have claimed, it stemmed the tide of Islamic advance and showed the European heirs of Rome that these foreign invaders could be defeated.

Mac and Cheese in 1736? The Stories of Kensington Palace’s Servants

The Peasants’ Revolt: Rise of the Rebels

10 Myths About Winston Churchill

Medusa: What Was a Gorgon?

10 Facts About the Battle of Shrewsbury

5 of Our Top Podcasts About the Norman Conquest of 1066

How Did 3 People Seemingly Escape From Alcatraz?

5 of Our Top Documentaries About the Norman Conquest of 1066

1848: The Year of Revolutions

What Prompted the Boston Tea Party?

15 Quotes by Nelson Mandela

The History of Advent

The Battle of Tours - 732 AD fr de , en ,

Charles Martel was a ruler of the Carolingian Frankish Empire in the early 8 th century AD. The empire encompassed the territories of much of modern day France, western Germany, Switzerland, as well as Belgium and the Netherlands, and was the dominant Christian power in Western Europe at the time. Having won a civil war between two competing kingdoms in 724, Charles had secured his position as head ruler of the entire Carolingian Empire, but had not yet been granted the title of King.

Although he was constantly repelling Saxon and Bavarian armies, as well as other threats, the empire was for the most part secure. Charles supported St. Boniface and other missionaries in their efforts to convert all remaining German tribes to Christianity as a way of uniting his region. The European continent was slowly becoming more prosperous and stable. But a new threat had begun working its way towards the heart of Western Civilization 100 years prior to Charles’ rule.

Islam Expanding

In the Middle East, the religion of Islam was formed in 622 AD. The region was quickly united under the new religion and then began to conquer more distant lands. By 711 Islamic armies had crossed the Gibraltar Straight and entered into Europe by way of present day Spain. It was from here that they began to set up new kingdoms and seek to conquer other parts of Europe, primarily for plunder of any type of treasure they could find.

The indigenous peoples of Europe referred to the Islamic invaders as the Saracens. From Spain the door stood wide open for the Saracens to enter into France, the conquest of which would have likely been followed by all the rest of Europe, and might have resulted in the banishment of Christianity from the Earth. At this time Christianity was not universally known or practiced, even by those nations which we today regard as the foremost in civilization. Great parts of Britain, Germany, Denmark, and Russia were still pagan and barbarous.

In 712 the Saracens entered into France and began pillaging the region for treasure. In 725 Anbessa, the Saracen governor of Spain, personally leads an army across the Pyrenees Mountains into France and takes the strongly fortified town of Carcassone. During the battle he receives a fatal wound, and the Saracen army retires into the nearby town of Narbonne before retreating back to the safety of Spain.

In 732 the Saracens invade France again under the command of Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman. They reach Bordeaux and begin to lay siege to the town when they get word of rich treasures in the Basilica of St. Martin in the city of Tours. They set off towards this area with the intent to plunder it for all it's worth.

Up to this point, the Carolingian Empire, ruled by King Charles, had no need to oppose the Saracens since they had not invaded any of his territories. The area of the Saracens plunder had been Aquitaine, an independent kingdom in southwestern France ruled by King Eude. Having learned of the damage being done to his neighboring kingdom, Charles becomes convinced of the danger presented to his territories. If Aquitaine were to be defeated, his kingdom would surely be next. Charles begins to march an army towards the Saracen invaders to confront them on his own terms.

While Abd al Rahman is advancing towards Tours, he receives intelligence regarding the advance of Charles and his army. He decides to fall back on Poitiers in order to occupy a more advantageous field of battle. Charles, leading an army of such size rarely seen in Europe, crosses the Loire River and joins the remains of the army of Aquitaine.

They come in sight of the Arabs on October 10 th , 732. The enemy spots Charles and his army and at first hesitates. The two armies remain camped, staring each other down, for seven days. Abd al Rahman at last gives the signal to attack. The Saracens rush the Franks with all their might but the Frankish front line holds. The battle rages on until late in the day, when a terrible clamor is heard from behind the Saracen army. It is King Eude, attacking the Saracen camp, stealing all of their ill-gotten plunder. The Saracen army frantically rushes back to protect their possessions.

In this moment of confusion the Franks advance. Abd al Rahman is killed in the chaos. The Saracens regain control of their camp. By this time the sun is beginning to set, and Charles decides to wait until the next day to resume combat, not wanting to risk losing any more troops at night.

The next morning the Franks awake early and assemble their army, expecting to rejoin battle with their enemy. They wait, but no enemy appears. They cautiously approach the Saracen camp and find it completely empty. The Saracens had taken advantage of the night and begun their retreat back towards Spain, leaving most of their plunder behind. As the battlefield was surveyed that day, it was realized that a vast number of Saracen men had been slain. The Franks counted their losses and found that only 1500 of their men had been killed.

Charles is finally proclaimed King of the Carolingian Empire, and for his enormous victory he receives the surname of Martel, "The Hammer". He would later become the grandfather of Charlemagne. The Carolingian Empire becomes the Holy Roman Empire, with Charlemagne proclaimed Emperor by the Pope on Christmas Day, 800 AD. This empire survives for over 1000 years until it is formally dissolved in 1806.

The battle of Tours marks a major turning point in the history of Western Civilization. One where the spread of Islam into Europe was reversed, and Christianity begins to give the people of Europe something more in common with each other. By the year 1000 AD, the continent would be doing fairly well. It would be generally free from foreign attack and steadily creating a more prosperous future.

Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34

« Previous Post

Johannes Kepler

Welcome new readers!

In a hope to share any interesting historical stories I come across in the future I will be writing and posting articles whenever I can. Hopefully quite often.

I'll also be keeping you up to date on any good reads I come across in the Recommended section.

Looking for something in particular? Find it more quickly on the Search page.

And here is a complete list of all articles since the beginning.

Recent Articles

The Battle of Lepanto - 1571 God Rest You Merry Gentlemen The Druids The Gartan Mother's Lullaby Earth's Axial Precession Bronze Age Civilization Collapse Winterfylleth (Ƿinterfylleþ) David Livingstone Jettying - Unique Architectural Style Good King Wenceslas The Christmas Star Captain Henry Morgan Indo-European Migration The Siege of Paris - 1870 European Forests

"It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn."

~ H.G. Wells

The Discovery of the Future

Personal Blog | Recipes | Donate

73 - 209 - Thanks for the detailed story of the Battle of Lepanto… as a dedicated lover-of-Venice, I have seen the paintings in the Doges Palace and knew of its significance. Here are the details. As noted, this ranks w/the defense of Vienna in 1683(?); check,as well, the legendary defense of Malta sometime in the late 1400’s; as deep as it gets.

71 - 187 - Thank you so much for this.

71 - 189 - You're welcome. Thank you for reading.

71 - 204 - Too kind :) Thanks for reading Karen.

71 - 203 - Wonderful precise information, Thanks so much !

71 - 217 - Thanks for sharing inspiring rare history on Druids. Even I'm Indonesian..don't know why I like to.learn on old European belief systems such as paganism & druids :)

69 - 177 - Sorry, but I do wish people who write articles mentioning astrology would go to the trouble of actually learning about astrology. The zodiac has nothing whatsoever to do with constellations, apart from the Greeks giving names to the signs from some of the constellations at that time. The zodiac was designed by ancient Babylonians, based on their calendar of 12 (and occasionally 13) lunar months, with 12 equal signs fixed to the March equinox. It has always been about the signs. The Western Tropical Zodiac will always begin with 0 degrees Aries on the March equinox and the stars have no relevance to this at all. The precession of the equinoxes and the alleged astrological ages are a minor oddity which astrologers generally have very little interest in.

69 - 186 - If the stars have no relevance to astrology, what relevance do the planets have? Are the positions of the planets determined in relation to the “signs” as given by astrology, or are their positions determined in relation to their apparent positions relative to the ecliptic and the stars visible in that celestial band.? If we’re to disregard the apparent positions of the stars, why bother to observe the positions of the planets, either?

69 - 199 - This article is about precession, which is obviously tangential to astrology, but the article never mentions the word. I'm not sure what you're going on about. The subject matter, especially in reference to constellations, is absolutely appropriate, as the ancients clearly were concerned about the positions of stars and planets, to think otherwise is absurd. The Egyptians understood the ages beginning and ending with certain star positions, whoever built the lion sphinx statue aimed it at Leo (the Lion CONSTELLATION), which tells us that it was likely built during that zodiacal age. I'm not sure how you can disregard the obvious tie-ins to key moments in history with what's marked out in the sky via constellations.

69 - 218 - Very understandable article , just what I was looking for as I have no background in astronomy. Thanks for your efforts.

66 - 176 - Truly David Livingstone was a greatest missionary and explorer in Africa no one else other than him from Europe has left such a record. He will always be remembered for his great work in Africa.

64 - 128 - Wonderful story. Excellent history. Great Christmas Song too! Especially Luke 6:38

64 - 130 - I enjoyed playing piano recitals of Good King Wenceslas as a child - for the old folks in the nursing homes in our town. Thank you for the history on this beloved King.

64 - 135 - Thank you Teresa for your kindness to the elderly. Nursing homes are filled with lonely souls who sincerely appreciate such acts of generosity.

64 - 210 - I’ve played this for years! even posted a recording on YouTube under “Safe Sax Trio” from December 2020. it has a special connotation as Mi amor,Blanka, is Czech, born and grew up in Prague,Bohemia…St.Wenceslas being the patron Saint of the Czech People.????

61 - 95 - h

60 - 125 - "The Indo-Europeans were a people group originating in the plains of Eastern Europe, north of the Baltic and Caspian Seas in present day Ukraine and southern Russia." Surely you meant the Black sea and not the Baltic....

60 - 126 - Ha, yes I meant the Black Sea. Thanks Pgolay.

56 - 83 - Wild temperature swings throughout the years!

56 - 84 - Indeed! All the more reason to be thankful for the forests we are enjoying today.

55 - 137 - Interesting article! I'm curious, what were the sources about Hippocrates and his communications with Athens and Persia in regard to the plague?

55 - 138 - Thank you! Hippocrates' own writings on this subject have been translated into English. Wesley D. Smith has some good modern English translations: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674995260 Artaxerxes sends a letter to Hippocrates begging for help: "the renown of whose techne has reached even to me, as much gold as he wants, and anything else that he lacks in abundance, and send him to me" Hippocrates replies: "Tell the King I have sufficient food, clothing, and shelter, and all the necessities that I require for life, and that I have no wish for Persian wealth or to save foreigners from disease, since they are enemies of the Greeks."

55 - 145 - I really like Athens because it is truly a unique place with a rich history and unique distinctive features. Of course, there are a great deal of reasons to fall in love with this city because it’s a true calling card of Greece. After reading your article, I became more convinced that it is an incredible city in which ancient traditions and modernity harmoniously intertwine with each other into a single whole. It is so cool that you mentioned the Temple of Poseidon because I think that it’s such a wonderful way to delve into the history of Athens and feel the atmosphere of ancient times. I think that Athens is the best city in Greece for wine connoisseurs because it seems to me that you can try delicious and rare Greek wines there, getting unforgettable impressions. Art and culture in Athens are so incredible and multifaceted that it can’t leave you indifferent. It is an indisputable fact that the halls of the Museum of Cycladic Art are impressive in their scope and they have very interesting interactive expositions. It is so cool that there are so many incredible things and I think you will always find something to look at.

43 - 14 - Interesting article. An enjoyable read. Thanks

43 - 15 - Glad you enjoyed it!

40 - 149 - I was wondering where that cross at the top of the page is located? It is quite impressive and I stare at it a great deal! If you can help me I would greatly appreciate it! God bless you!!!

40 - 152 - William, The peak is Punta Selassa in the province of Cuneo, Italy. You can hike to the cross starting from the village of Calcinere on the Po River in the valley below. God bless you too!

39 - 81 - IS IT Possible to buy a hybrid checknut IMMUNE TO THE BLIGHT?

39 - 116 - very good information,we have many of these trees in our neighborhood. they were originally planted in the 1930's when the area was a berry farm and orchard. they have now spread over about a 50 acre residential area growing in just about any vacant space and producing huge amounts of nuts. Gig harbor washington.

39 - 180 - god, I had never heard of this. what a tragic story. Those forests must have been a true sight to see.

39 - 181 - I appreciate that you mentioned that chestnut trees are included in our holiday experience. My aunt mentioned last night that she and my mother planned to have information about hybrid chestnut trees for the farm project development they want. She asked if I had any idea what would be the best option to consider. I love this helpful article, I'll tell her she can consult a trusted hybrid chestnut trees service in town as they can provide information about their trees.

39 - 184 - This is incredibly sad. We have lost so much….thank you…anyone who has protected this wonderful, God given tree.

38 - 65 - Wow! That was quite an ordeal.

38 - 124 - Amazing story! Growing up in the Antelope Valley (Edwards AFB's location), we heard of a great number of accidents as really smart and competent test pilots pushed the limits of technology. My dad knew one "sled driver" who flew sailplanes as a hobby!

37 - 61 - The Frost Fair sounds like fun.

37 - 62 - Interesting article. This is the first I've heard of " Frost Fair ".

37 - 63 - I imagine it would be a lot of fun. Spontaneous community events like this always have a unique feeling to them.

37 - 64 - It was definitely a special phenomenon in the history of England.

36 - 11 - Very informative article. I love watching the lady play the organ at church and have always wondered what's under the hood.

36 - 12 - A very interesting and informative article. I have often wondered what the stops were for. The history and description of operation answered many questions.Thankyou.

36 - 13 - Glad it could help Kim. There is certainly quite a bit going on inside of these beautiful machines.

36 - 79 - Very well thought out article. I ran a small organ shop for 40 years that built some major organs around the world - one in Toyota-shi Concert Hall with about 4000 pipes. I am now retired, but want to write a book to pass my thoughts on to future generations of organ builders. Could I borrow some of the historical information you put together as you have said so much with less words and really good. Thanks!

36 - 80 - Thanks for your kind words John. Yes please use whatever you feel would be useful, just reference this website as a source. The goal of this website is to simply pass on our history to future generations. So if I can help with your book at all please reach out to me. Use any of the images or references in this article if you think they would be useful.

36 - 87 - A most helpful article which has answered many questions The organ is fascinating and invaluable. It hasn’t yet replaced orchestras

36 - 88 - A very interesting article, but who squeezed the bellows? Was it done by boys and how many and would they have been building up the air pressure for a time before the organ was to be played?

36 - 89 - In all my research I found that a volunteer from the church would power the smaller organs. For larger organs someone was paid to pump the bellows. These larger ones would have 3 or more bellows.

36 - 96 - Liked it! Very useful

36 - 140 - The article mentions that Roman and Byzantine organs were made of bronze (copper + tin) pipes, but there's nothing mentioned about modern organs. Are they made of brass (copper + zinc)?

36 - 188 - Thanks for this great article

35 - 58 - Such an incredible voyage.

35 - 59 - you should write an article about cook's third voyage

35 - 60 - Its in the works, check back here in a few months. Glad you enjoyed this one.

34 - 54 - This article is a nice little gift for the upcoming Christmas season.

34 - 55 - The song touches my life day by day and I needed musical copy of the same (notation). Thanx

34 - 56 - thanks NOEL! I pick a theme for Christmas each year and this is it for 2019. Christmas is everyday - as Jesus is with us everyday, renewing us with his love! Noel! Maria

34 - 57 - Great choice! True that Jesus is with us every day, not only around Christmas. Merry Christmas Maria

33 - 52 - Nice article!!!

33 - 53 - Thank you! It was a lot of work but I think it turned out not half bad.

31 - 46 - This makes me curious as to why Christianty succeeded spreading predominately westward from its Roman epicenter, yet failed doing the same eastward. Any ideas?

31 - 47 - How does the basilica and its parts like the nav relate to the Christian ceremony?

31 - 48 - Hi! I'm an architecture student and I would like to know what are other examples of Early Christian Churches and also their parts (name of the rooms, space, etc.); I just wanted them as references for my future subjects :D Thanks a lot

31 - 49 - I would have to do some more research on the later years of Christianity, but I would say that Christianity did spread eastward. This was likely halted by the pushback of Islam in the seventh century. Egypt was as much of a Christian stronghold as Rome until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century.

31 - 50 - The Nave is a space specifically reserved for procession of the choir or acolytes from the entrance towards the front of the church. Church goers sit in pews on the outer sides of the nave. Next is the Transept, which is where a priest or minister gives the sermon. Above that and at the front of the sanctuary is the choir loft.

31 - 51 - I spent quite a bit of time researching the churches in this article and these were the oldest ones I could find. If I find more I will certainly add them to the article. See the comment above for a list of the separate rooms of a church. Thanks for reading and good luck to you in architecture school!

31 - 75 - Are there any other examples of early Christians of this time period translating roman civic buildings into their new society?

31 - 76 - Ben, the churches listed in this article are the earliest ones that I could find that were constructed originally for the specific purpose of housing Christian worship services. Other churches exist from this time period that were simply converted from the worship of Roman gods. The Temple d'Auguste et de Livie in France is one such example. So old Roman temples were converted to churches but there is very little evidence that Roman civic buildings were converted to churches.

31 - 90 - Hello, thank you for an intresting article. Would you recommend any online resources or books one could use to explore Christian Architecture space? I will appreciate your feedback.

31 - 91 - Monuments of the Early Church by Walter Lowrie was my main source for this article. You can read it here . Other than this book, there are very few sources available for architecture of the early church, so I had to look at individual churches and compare them to established architectural norms from the rest of society at the time. There are plenty of resources available for church architecture after 1000 AD, such as Britannica.

31 - 97 - hi,this is malar.thank you for your wonderful and helpfull article. i need an article about egptian civilization like this. did you have any idea about preparing it?

31 - 98 - Glad you enjoyed it Malar. I have not thought of looking into Egyptian architecture. But it would certainly be interesting to see if the architecture made some kind of progression as the centuries went on. I may look into that in the future, thanks for your suggestion!

31 - 101 - Hi, i enjoyed reading your post. I wanted to know in what period does Paleo-Christian architecture took place?

31 - 103 - Thanks! Paleo-Christian describes the time period before the Byzantine Era. This could be before the dedication of Constantinople in 330, or before the Age of Justinian in the 6th century.

31 - 105 - A roof is arguably the most important aspect of every house - it protects your property and those living in it. As time goes by, the structure or appearance of the roof may be damaged, and need repairs or maintenance. Contact our roofing experts today for a free, no-obligation appointment and estimate. https://www.stgeorgeroofing.com.au/

31 - 117 - Hi, thank you for all the historic information here. Please can you throw more light on how the church started under the trees and haw they transcended to church buildings. Thanks.

31 - 200 - One of the most iconic features of early Christian architecture is the basilica plan, characterized by a rectangular nave, side aisles, and an apse.

30 - 112 - Thank you for the story of 3 amazing musicians

30 - 113 - Thanks for reading David!

30 - 133 - beautiful story! i love her work and im so happy her storys getting told more and more

30 - 178 - I was watching the movie song of Love and I wanted to find out some different questions and this website popped up and I was mesmerized. I love this! Thank you for sharing this

30 - 179 - Thank you for reading! I have never seen that movie, thanks for recommending it.

30 - 190 - Wonderful story, on May 7th I am going to Toronto for the concert in memory of Brahms(it his birthday),very excited !

30 - 191 - That sounds amazing! I hope you enjoy the concert, thanks for reading.

30 - 212 - i first learnt it from my piano teacher,but i love this story,so i decided to search it up.Your web was the first to pop up, so i clicked in and discovered a lot more deeper in their relationship.Overall,i love your informational text!

30 - 213 - i first learnt it from my piano teacher,but i love this story,so i decided to search it up.Your web was the first to pop up, so i clicked in and discovered a lot more deeper in their relationship.Overall,i love your informational text!

30 - 219 - Thank you Sara! I'm happy you enjoyed it.

29 - 44 - What a beautifully written and illustrated article.

29 - 45 - Thanks Paul. Its a lot of fun to put yourself in the shoes of people in the past, and try to see the Universe from their perspective.

29 - 104 - I enjoyed your paper very much. Thank you for writing it.

29 - 201 - Thanks for the wrintings please provide more coz i loved these ones.

28 - 42 - Makes one wonder: without horrific barbarism, would have global civilization expansion been delayed?

28 - 43 - The threat of unexpected attacks probably did motivate people to work together a little more for the purpose of defense. I would say that adversity of any kind betters individuals as well as civilization as a whole.

27 - 40 - Wowzers! I can't wait till the next solar eclipse!!!

27 - 41 - I loved your blog article. Really Cool. dkekkcedkdca

26 - 37 - This website really helped me when doing an assignment on James Cook! Thanks so much for the great information on here

26 - 38 - write an article about his third voyage as well

26 - 39 - Glad it could help Ben! I have an article about Cook's third voyage in the works so check back here in the future. Thanks for reading!

25 - 36 - Thank you Janet! I try to make these articles as short and concise as possible but most of the time they end up being so long because there's just so much to say. Glad to hear I accomplished those goals on this article and I'm glad you enjoyed it!

25 - 35 - Enjoyed your history of personal wealth. Quick, easy to read and understand and interesting! Looking forward to reading the other articles. Thank you for sharing Janet ( In California )

25 - 169 - Very nice… I really like your blog as well as website. Very useful information and worth reading. Thanks.

24 - 71 - Thank you for your summation of the Christmas Truce. I was searching for the hymn, "Dona Nobis", when I came across your article. Now I can share both historical items with my nine-year-old granddaughter who is very interested in what our soldiers have endured and done for us.

24 - 72 - Thank you for reading Susan. I'm happy to hear that younger people are interested in our ancestor's sacrifice for us. Its wonderful that you're taking the time to talk to her about these kinds of things, they are not easy to hear or completely understand. When she is older you could share another article I have regarding The Great War titled Western Civilization prior to World War I .

24 - 93 - I heard about this truce many years ago and just had to try and find the background. I have thought of this for many many years and it pulls at my heart strings every time I hear Silent Night. Nit being directly connected to Military I wonder, “do this truce still happen each year on Christmas Eve?” I sure hope it do. War is such a terrible thing. My wish is for everyone lot live in peace. What a wonderful world it would be.

24 - 214 - very cool article.

24 - 215 - Hi, why this passage

23 - 25 - Years ago we sang with a quire the song Dona Nobis. During that song I had to sing English text. The words were if I rember well If I had word... Do you happen to know where I can find this version of Dona Nobis. Gr, Frans Pennings Cuijk. Holland.

23 - 26 - If this is in reference to the Mozart traditional Dona Nobis Pacem that is commonly featured many times on U Tube etc, The one with 5 verses each of different melody. why can it not be found as a recording, cd or whatever for sale, anywhere. Do you know a source? John P. Thank you.

23 - 27 - lovely

23 - 28 - I live in a retirement village and am aged 80. Eight of us, with the aid of one who was a music teacher, are trying to learn Dona Nobis Pacem to sing at our village's annual variety concert - without an accompanist! Please wish us luck! :)

23 - 29 - 1. Snobbish attitude towards "folk Music) 2. Peace is welcomed all the year round, not only at Christmastime.

23 - 30 - Frans, If you are wanting to download the version on this page you should try this link below. They have three versions of the song there. If you are looking for a version of the text in another language please let me know and I will make a page with the text in that language for you. http://www.westminsterdayton.org/music/listen.html

23 - 31 - More like a distain for what is called "academic." I agree but the point still stands that it is sung more often around Christmastime.

23 - 32 - Good luck Margaret. Our Men's choir in Sydney sang another (non-Mozart) version of Pacem. Halfway through, we froze, and only slowly found our peace.

23 - 33 - Thank you, John. Hope we don't freeze, but then it's warmer up here in Brisbane. :)

23 - 34 - Good luck to you Margaret! Post a link to your performance if at all possible. This is a beautiful song and every rendition is unique.

23 - 92 - no

23 - 121 - I must say I'm really impressed by the nice write-up you have here. You actually did a great job, unlike most bloggers I've seen on the internet talking about this same topic. Just reading the first few paragraphs, I was already locked in the content. Bravo and keep up the good work. If you have the time, I would appreciate it if you could help me rate my blog .

23 - 127 - Thank you for providing this service! My husband and I are doing a concert at a retirement home tomorrow (voice and Ukrainian bandura) with a mixture of Ukrainian and other music,and I couldn't locate the sheet music to check what to say about this song's origins in the introduction. I typed Dona Nobis Pacem into Google, and boom, there was your article with exactly what I needed! 16th-17th century unknown German composer.

23 - 134 - Bach's "Dona Nobis Pacem" in his great B minor mass is as beautiful as music or man can get.

22 - 119 - not good

21 - 22 - Abd al Rahman needed just a little more patience. Islam would take over Europe. Sadly,the pride, heritage and national boundaries of these countries are disappearing.

21 - 23 - Damn i love history i hope i dont die soon so i can see the advancement of modern society.

21 - 24 - That does appear to be the case at the moment. But it is anyone's guess what the next era in history will be like.

21 - 82 - This is a great summary of the Battle of Tours. It amazes me that this great battle is not more known to western society. As you say in the final para "a major turning point in western civilisation" yet very few know it.

21 - 86 - Thanks Peter. I wish we were taught more history in general but especially events like this one. We all have an amazing story.

21 - 85 - If you do then make sure to write your experiences down somehow. People in the future will be very interested in your perspective.

21 - 114 - Tg

21 - 171 - Thanks, I love history and believe that it is important for us all to understand our past so that we can learn from our mistakes. This article gave me heaps of info. Thanks for being willing to take the time to help others learn about our past. It truly is amazing - Anonymous

19 - 18 - Thanks for an astute summary. I am currently reading Barbara Tuchman's book on this period "The Proud Tower". What an amazing era. Such hubris. Such arrogance. Unfortunately, as always those taking the risks and making idiot decisions did not pay the bill. In fact they became more wealthy out of the war. What do you thing the next period in world history will bring? At least today there is no irrational optimism about the future as at the end of the nineteenth century. Maybe that is a start?

19 - 19 - Very interesting and insightful. Perhaps an article on the Lost Generation would be a good companion piece. I believe WW2 broke out in 1939, not 1940 (unless one counts the Asian-Pacific theater in which hostilities began in 1937).

19 - 20 - The end of any era in history severely challenges a culture's values. If you were to question national pride or absolute duty to your country prior to WWI you would likely have been executed. This shows just how entrenched cultural values can be. That being said, any prediction of what the next era in our history will be would be offensive to just about anyone who read it. I will guess that a civil war in England will be the event at which historians in the future will determine as the marker for the end of the Modern Era. I tend to wish there was more irrational optimism about the future in our time. WWI was a tremendous event matched only by the 30 years war or the Plague in its destructiveness. Maybe quite a bit of our cultural energy was destroyed as a result of the Great War. Thank you for the book recommendation, I'll definitely give it a look.

19 - 21 - Thanks for the suggestion! I will add that to my list of future articles. The great thing about writing these is that in doing the research you find so many ideas for new articles. Fixed the date too, thank you RT.

19 - 136 - Hitler was not good!

19 - 173 - What is a troy a reference to?

18 - 17 - This explanation is an oft-repeated myth. The bedrock is deeper below the surface in the areas below Canal Street than it is in region from the Flatiron district up to 42nd between. See http://observer.com/2012/01/uncanny-valley-the-real-reason-there-are-no-skyscrapers-in-the-middle-of-manhattan/

18 - 198 - Engaging read! This post brilliantly unpacks the geological foundations of NYC, underpinning its architectural prowess. It's the unseen hero of the city's skyline.

17 - 70 - A very interesting piece of history.

17 - 73 - Glad you enjoyed it!

17 - 74 - Love reading history raise of christianity.

17 - 99 - wow! so interesting. helped so much!

17 - 100 - is this site credible?

17 - 102 - It is as credible as the available source material. I list all references on each article. If you have a different perspective please feel free to email me or leave a comment. Thanks for reading!

17 - 107 - Thanks for this information. This helped me a lot! :D

17 - 108 - Thanks for this information. This helped me a lot! :D

17 - 111 - HI

17 - 115 - Very interesting information. How the living religion, Christianity has spread around the world like this miracle is an open proof that JESUS is living and He changes lives and a help in times of helplessness.

17 - 118 - Constantine was a jerk

17 - 120 - thanks

17 - 139 - Very nice article I am a student and this helped me learn a lot in the 6th grade!

17 - 144 - Very Good!

17 - 142 - Very interesting about his conversion to Christianity

17 - 143 - learning heaps

17 - 146 - Interesting

17 - 147 - Constantine is a very interesting bloke. Thanks to all the chaps at Classic History!

17 - 148 - thanks

17 - 156 - This is a great resource of knowledge for my kindergarteners!!!

17 - 158 - Thanks Ian! I'm happy it has helped!

17 - 159 - I love this cite! very credible 10/10 great resource for some fun reading!

17 - 175 - love it !!!

17 - 185 - i dont like this cause it didnt talk about MLK

17 - 206 - ????????????

17 - 205 - stupid

17 - 202 - You are so fake. There is no god. Shut up, just, shut up!

17 - 207 - Very good

17 - 211 - All thanks to Jesus,for his mercy

17 - 216 - this app is so amazing it js makes me want to slap eian

16 - 16 - Meine Mutter war eine geborene Bach.Besteht Event.eine Verbindung zu Johann Sebastian?Ich wurde es unbedingt wissen wollen .Irgend wo ist mir das ubermittelt worden.Bitte helfen Sie mir.Danke im Voraus-

15 - 182 - I'd like to use the above graphic as a sidebar to an upcoming equinox post at EarthSky. My article informs the reader of the intriguing fact that the tip of a shadow stick (gnomon) follows a straight (west-to-east) path on the day of an equinox. If given permission, I plan to credit the graphic to Classic History and to provide a link to this Eratosthenes page. Thank you for your consideration!

15 - 183 - Bruce, Yes please feel free to use anything you want so long as you reference this website as a source. Here is a slightly larger resolution image. Thanks for reading!

13 - 166 - Please include date of publication as I am trying to cite this article for school

12 - 10 - I was intrigued by Origin of Romanticism, how it changed its meaning over in a short span of time. From its lovers escapade into beautiful spots of nature to non- tangent expression of emotion and dramatism. thank you very much for this insight. grateful - sheera Betnag

12 - 69 - And wonder how it might change in the future as well. Glad you enjoyed the article and thank you for reading Sheera.

12 - 150 - This post was truly worthwhile to read. I wanted to say thank you for the key points you have pointed out as they are enlightening.

12 - 208 - As a Chinese, I've got the origin of romance! Thank u a lot.

9 - 0 - test'

5 - 151 - how should i reference this website?

5 - 153 - You could use Source: www.ClassicHistory.net Author: Thomas Acreman

4 - 7 - Keep on writing, great job!

4 - 8 - Congratulations. Agrees with the Welsh versions I was taught at school in the 1930s and 40s and what I read and gathered afterwards. I am now interested in finding out how much effect would 350 year of Roman rule have had on the Britons and why was it that the Romano Britons were so complacent and lax to be overtaken by the pagan immigrant settlers from Saxony in c400B.C.

4 - 9 - Thanks so much! I plan to keep on writing for years. My goal is to write at least one article per month.

4 - 78 - Thanks Gordon. I should have read my own title, where it was named Britain.

4 - 77 - "The island nation currently known as England?!" That's funny; I live here, and we call it Great Britain.

4 - 131 - Misspellings: "every forrest and hillside" (forest) "the furry of battle" (fury) "He employed them all to weather their captivity with bravery and courage, and to be strong men and women" (implored? impelled?) "an ivory thrown" (throne)

4 - 132 - Thanks JD. This is one of the first articles I wrote for this website and I really need to rewrite it.

4 - 167 - This story does, at least, acknowledge that the tale of Julius Caesar conquering Britain is not true! JC was ejected more than once. It was Cartimandua who betrayed Caradoc.. in the time of Claudius. BTW… No celts in Britain which was named for Brutus, grandson of Anaeas of Troy. Anaeas also features in the story of the founding of Rome. I.e., the peoples were related. The Cymry were not ‘primitive’!

3 - 1 - I love visiting the cross but, there's one thing that drives me nuts. Vietnam was not a war it was an armed conflict, not one of the 5 presidents that were in office during this time [1945 to 1972] did NOT declare war on the Viet Cong nor on North Vietnam.

3 - 3 - Are small weddings allowed Infront of the cross ?

3 - 4 - What camera was used here?

3 - 2 - Indeed, but the purpose of the cross is to remember those who answered their call to service and how much better the world is for their sacrifice. To that goal I think the cross does a fine job.

3 - 5 - I am not affiliated with Sewanee in any way but yes, I have seen a wedding there. It looked very peaceful and beautiful. There is a link to their website on this page which would be a good place to look for a contact number for the University.

3 - 6 - I believe I just used an old iPhone 4s for both of these photos.

3 - 109 - Why are those who severed in the Civil War not memorialized as well?

3 - 110 - Because the cross was originally built to memorialize those who served and died in World War I. Plaques were only added for those who served in wars after WWI. It was ultimately decided that the cross would only serve as a memorial for those who served and died in wars during the 20th century. From The University of the South: "Sewanee’s Memorial Cross honors the students and alumni of the University of the South and the Sewanee Military Academy and the citizens of Franklin County who fought and those who lost their lives in service to their country in the wars of the last century."

3 - 161 - Can someone in a wheelchair be able to get to the cross fairly easy?

3 - 162 - Yes, parking is available at the cross and the walkway to the cross is only slightly uphill.

2 - 0 - Nice article. The lake actually rarely freezes and only enough to walk on less than once every 10 years and only for a few days. In 2006 it was 29 days but otherwise it is clear and the ferries run year round.

-1 - 66 - Thanks for sharing your thoughts on History. Regards

-1 - 67 - I enjoyed your article on Charles Martel. Thank you for maintaining this beautiful site!

-1 - 68 - Thank you! I enjoyed researching and writing that one too. Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas.

-1 - 193 - Thanks very much for this mentally engaging, attention-grabbing articles. This content is right up mu intellectual alley, and I'll be a regular frequenter.

-100024 - 106 - test comment!! ©

The Battle of Tours - 732 AD Comments:

Your email address is not required and will not be published.

If you would like to leave a comment or a reply, please answer this security question:

The Battle of Tours - A Decisive Fight for Europe’s Future

Read Later

The early medieval world of our ancestors was built upon struggles and decisive battles. The emerging nations united the broken tribes, expanded their borders, conquered their enemies, and often enough - fended off invaders. But rare are the battles that really left a long lasting impact that echoed through the generations that followed.

Rare are such conflicts that changed the history of the world with their importance and decided the future of us all for centuries to come. And one of those rare, world-changing battles is the Battle of Tours - fought in 732 AD between the Christian Frankish forces and the invading Muslim Umayyad Caliphate.

This fierce and destructive conflict, that shaped the future of Europe and echoed through time, was a great gamble, fought against all odds. But it remains as one of the biggest lessons of Europe’s past, and today we are going in detail about that fated day in 732.

A triumphant Charles Martel (mounted) faces Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi (right) at the Battle of Tours. Source: Bender235 / Public Domain .

The Prelude to the Battle of Tours

Around the very beginning of the 8 th century, in the year 700 AD, the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate was rapidly spreading its empire around the world. It was the second of the four great caliphates that emerged after the death of Muhammad and was one of the largest empires of the world at the time.

After conquering the lands of North Africa, they saw mainland Europe as the next prey for their conquests. From the shores of North Africa, they had a clear passage - in the form of the Gibraltar Strait. This would allow their forces to cross over onto the Iberian Peninsula , from which they would spread further inland.

At the time, Iberia was under the control of the Visigothic Kingdom, a centralized state under the rule of King Roderic. Nonetheless, the Umayyads crossed the strait in the year 711 AD, under the leadership of one Tariq ibn Ziyad, and soon after clashed with the Visigothic army in the Battle of Guadalete, in the same year, in the very south of Iberia.

The "Age of the Caliphs", shows the Umayyad dominance stretched from the Middle East to the Iberian Peninsula, including the port of Narbonne, c. 720. (McZusatz / Public Domain )

At the time of the Umayyad invasion, King Roderic was far in the north, attempting to fight a Basque rebellion. This unfortunately placed him in a bad situation, as he was forced to a long march south, to face this much bigger enemy. In the end, the Visigoths were defeated in the face of the overwhelming Muslim cavalry.

In the battle, King Roderic and most of the nobles of his kingdom lost their lives, which allowed the Umayyads to effectively conquer Iberia, step by step. This they managed in just a little under seven years. And once Iberia was theirs, Frankish Gaul was just a step away.

The only thing that divided the Umayyads from their prey - the Frankish Kingdom - were the Pyrenees Mountains . This was a fitting natural barrier - but it was in no way untraversable. In time, the Umayyads began crossing over and making incursions into the very south of Gaul. By 720 they conquered the southern province of Septimania.

In the following year, they focused on the large city to the immediate west, Toulouse, which they besieged. This siege was brought to an end by the prominent Frankish Duke Odo - who managed to overwhelm the Umayyad forces outside Toulouse and defeat them. Nonetheless, large numbers of Umayyads kept crossing over the Pyrenees and laying waste to the southern provinces of Gaul.

The Duchy of Aquitaine laid in the south and faced the brunt of this invasion. Its largest towns, Bordeaux and Toulouse were ravaged, and in no time the invaders reached even the Duchy of Burgundy to its north.

But it wasn’t until 732 that the Umayyad Caliphate truly amassed its forces with proper conquering intentions and adequate strength. The man that was at the head of this force was Abdul Rahman al Ghafiqi, the then-Governor General of Muslim Iberia. He led his forces across the Pyrenees once again and plundered the land and all the cities he came across.

Unique Iberian Male DNA was Practically Wiped Out by Immigrant Farmers 4500 Years Ago [New Study]
Raiders of Hispania: Unravelling the Secrets of the Suebi
Was the First Islamic Siege of Constantinople (674 – 678 AD) a Historical Misnomer?

Abdul Rahman al Ghafiqi led his troops over the Pyrenees Mountains toward the Battle of Tours. (Jean-Christophe BENOIST / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

The Umayyads greatly coveted riches, and their main activity during this conquest was plunder. After completely ransacking Bordeaux once again, the Umayyad forces faced Duke Odo once more. Odo led his army in an attempt to stop the invasion as he did a few years before.

But this time, he was terribly outnumbered and outmaneuvered, and his forces were crushed. Realizing the gravity of the situation, and that his own lands of Aquitaine were overrun, Odo fled to the north seeking assistance from the de-facto ruler of the Frankish Kingdom - Charles Martel.

Before the Umayyad invasion Odo and Charles were enemies. Charles sought to expand his lordship over Aquitaine and Odo saw the Franks as invaders. But with this new and much greater threat, Odo had no choice but to seek help from the Franks. Charles Martel agreed to join up with him, but the “price” was Odo’s acceptance of Frankish overlordship. Odo agreed.

The Hammer Enters the Fray

Charles Martel was a seasoned ruler and a battle hardened veteran. His troops were equally experienced having been in constant clashes along the eastern borders of their kingdom, fighting neighboring tribes.

Charles also understood how important the situation was and began gathering his levies from all over the north. And he would show his shrewdness as a battle commander, when he carefully understood the intentions of his enemy.

Meanwhile, the Umayyad forces moved slowly across the Frankish lands, their forces spread into war parties that ravaged the countryside and amassed an enormous amount of plunder. This “greedy” focus on war booty would greatly influence their future undoing. They had to take their time, as they greatly depended on the crop season for their food source.

But their destination was clear to Charles Martel. It was the rich city of Tours - prominent and wealthy, filled with abbeys of great importance. Thus, Charles placed his Frankish forces directly on the path of the coming Umayyads. He situated his army roughly in between the city of Tours and the ravaged town of Poitiers further south.

The Franks were placed close to the confluence of rivers Clain and Vienne, on a slightly elevated and forested hill. Charles Martel deliberately and shrewdly chose this position. First of all - he was outnumbered and knew it.

Map of the Battle of Tours with the position of Charles Martel's army. (Evzen M / Public Domain )

Thus he chose the cover of the forest to displace his troops and hide his number in hope to not reveal his disadvantage. Secondly - he chose a place where the Umayyads would have to enter into battle, as the only crossing over the rivers was behind the Frankish forces. Thirdly - the forest protected his troops - mainly the second lines - from the full brunt of a cavalry charge, and somewhat protected his sides from flanking attacks.

When the Umayyads approached the assembled Christian army, their leader Abdul Rahman al Ghafiqi - also a seasoned commander - knew that Charles Martel took the upper hand, by choosing his preferred place of battle. Even so, al Ghafiqi trusted in his strength and deployed for battle.

One thing he must have noticed is the difference in the troops - Umayyads relied heavily on cavalry, while the Franks were mostly footmen. But he failed to take several things into account.

The Muslim cavalry was lightly armored - they preferred to adorn themselves with chainmail and not much else in terms of armor. Riches and trinkets were much more to their liking.

They also rode willful Arabic horses, which were difficult to break in, and thus not the truly perfect cavalry mounts. Some historians also mention that this cavalry was in large part armed with spears - which were unseasoned and would break on first impact.

The Muslim cavalry rode willful Arabic horses during the Battle of Tours. (Trzęsacz / Public Domain )

On the other hand, the Frankish infantry was thoroughly seasoned. Most of the army were veterans, with only a small part of fresh recruits reserved in the second lines. They were well armored for the time, and well-armed as well. They stood packed in tight lines and ready for a cavalry charge.

But the battle did not begin immediately. The opposing forces “tested the waters”, with sporadic small skirmishes going on for seven days.

This was in truth a deliberate stalling from al Ghafiqi, who waited for his whole army to assemble fully. In the end, with the Umayyads fearing the approaching winter, they commenced battle on the seventh day - on the 10th of October 732 AD.

The Umayyad Wave That Broke On the Frankish Rock

The Umayyad commander, al Ghafiqi, heavily relied on his cavalry, even though he didn’t possess much knowledge about the assembled enemy. He sent waves of cavalry charges in an attempt to break the Frankish lines - but this did not happen. The seasoned Franks were tightly packed - shoulder to shoulder - and withstood all assaults.

The rare combination of slight elevation, good arms and armor, and tree cover allowed them to hold their ground - when it was almost impossible for infantry to hold against cavalry in medieval times. Even when some small parts of the line faltered and broke under the cavalry, the fresh second lines were quick to react - sealing the gap.

Frankish knight fighting against an Umayyad horseman. (Helix84 / Public Domain )

As the battle went on in that way, Duke Odo commenced a crucial flanking operation that greatly tipped the scales in Frankish favor. He gathered a cavalry force and flanked wide - reaching the distant Muslim encampment - i.e. their rear. This was where the Umayyad tents were and all of their abundant plunder.

Odo managed to inflict great losses here, retrieve the precious plunder, free around 200 captive Franks, and draw the eye of the enemy. But what happened next was more than he hoped for. Upon realizing that their camp and their plunder were under attack, many Umayyad units from the central battlefield rushed back in a frenzy to save their loot.

This was an unprecedented situation, one that al Ghafiqi never expected. His attempts at rallying his troops were in vain, and Charles Martel - who knew exactly what he was doing - seized this opportunity.

As the Umayyad forces dissipated to retrieve the loot, he swung his forces from left, right, and center, and engaged in both pursuit and encirclement. The remaining body of the Umayyads was surrounded and suffered immense casualties.

The chief of these was al Ghafiqi himself - who fell in battle while attempting to rally his troops. Meanwhile, Duke Odo swung north again and cut off the fleeing Umayyads, inflicting great losses. In effect, the Umayyad forces fled.

The Heroic Story of Roland: A Valiant Knight With an Unbreakable Sword
Cataphracts: Armored Warriors and their Horses of War
The Mighty Magyars, a Medieval Menace to the Holy Roman Empire

Charles Martel gathered his cavalry at Battle of Tours and attacked the Umayyad encampment. (Levan Ramishvili / Public Domain )

Now, Charles Martel expected a second day of battles and remained in his position, treating the wounded and re-organizing. But another day never came. The Umayyads, with their commander dead, could not successfully organize another attack or choose a fitting leader. They had suffered great losses as well.

Charles Martel feared an ambush and would not descend from the hill at any cost. Eventually, he sent out extensive reconnaissance parties to survey the Umayyad forces - but only to learn that there were none. They had gathered all the remaining plunder they could and fled during the night - extremely hastily. They had returned to Iberia.

Charles Martel won a crushing and glorious victory that cemented his reputation of a noble and capable leader. He was praised all across Europe as the savior of the Christendom and the “Hammer that Broke the Muslims”. Thus he earned his nickname - Martel - meaning Charles the Hammer.

He subsequently expanded his rule over Aquitaine and successfully isolated the invaders to the southern region of Septimania, where they remained for another 27 years and were completely unable to break through. Charles’ wealth, influence, power, and ability led to the emergence of the Carolingian dynasty , which would rise and last for centuries to follow.

Charles Martel's military campaigns in Aquitaine, Septimania, and Provence after the Battle of Tour-Poitiers (734–742). (Iñaki LLM / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Changing the Future of the World

The Europe of the early 18 th century desperately needed a capable and strong commander that would stop the Muslim Umayyad invaders dead in their tracks. And that commander was Charles Martel. He stood up to ravaging flood of conquerors and using his superior tactics, shrewdness, and reputation, he managed to win a crushing battle - against all odds. Like a beacon that kept burning throughout a storm, his Frankish warriors defied their enemy in battle. And it is this battle that changed the course of European history, and with that - the history of the World.

Top image: Medieval soldier at war. Credit: Andrey Kiselev / Adobe Stock

By Aleksa Vučković

Creasy, E. 2016. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World . Enhanced Media.

Neiberg, M. 2003. Warfare in World History . Taylor & Francis.

Scott, J. 2011. Battle of Tours - A New Look at an Old Enemy . eBookIt.

I am a published author of over ten historical fiction novels, and I specialize in Slavic linguistics. Always pursuing my passions for writing, history and literature, I strive to deliver a thrilling and captivating read that touches upon history's most... Read More

Military History

Political Science
Public Health
Renaissance and Reformation
Social Work
Urban Studies
Victorian Literature
Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Battle of Tours (732?)

Introduction, general overviews.

The Continuations of the Chronicle of Fredegar
The Chronicle of 754
Other Early Sources
Muslims and Christians in the Eighth Century
Frankish Politics
Muslims in Early Medieval Francia
Frankish Warfare
Andalusi Warfare
The Brunner Thesis
The End of Muslim Expansion in Gaul
The Memory of the Battle of Tours

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

Pre-Revolutionary Mexican Armed Forces
Private Military and Security Companies
Third Battle of Panipat
Find more forthcoming articles...
Export Citations
Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Battle of Tours (732?) by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024 LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0247

Despite being one of the most famous engagements of the medieval period, there are many uncertainties about the Battle of Tours, including its date, precise location, and significance. The traditional dating of the battle to October 732 has been questioned by scholars on the basis of Iberian sources, with many preferring to place it in late 733 or 734. Because the encounter took place between Tours and Poitiers, it is sometimes also named after the latter city. What is known is that the battle took place because the Muslim governor of al-Andalus, ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAbd Allah al-Ghafiqi, invaded Aquitaine, motivated by an alliance between its Duke, Eudo, and the rebel Berber border lord ʿUthman b. Naissa. After being defeated, Eudo turned to the Frankish Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel. The Frankish and Muslim armies met on the road to Tours, with the former being victorious. Al-Ghafiqi was killed, but his army retreated in good order. The significance of this clash has long been debated. The battle has been hailed as one of the most important in history for halting the expansion of the caliphate in western Europe and cementing the prestige and power of Charles Martel and his descendants, the Carolingians. More recent scholars have questioned this assessment, pointing to the continuation of Muslim raids into Frankish territory in subsequent years and the limited presence of the battle in Carolingian history writing. Beyond dispute is the modern importance of the Battle of Tours, inspiring numerous books, works of art, and political movements.

While the Battle of Tours has occasioned much interest, sober scholarly accounts are harder to come by. Collins 1994 addresses the subject from an Iberian perspective, drawing heavily on the Chronicle of 754 . Fouracre 2000 , a biography of Charles Martel, approaches the battle from a Frankish background.

Collins, Roger. The Arab Conquest of Spain 711–797 . Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.

Offers an extremely useful account of the battle within the context of al-Andalus. Argues strongly in favor of a date in 733 or 734 on the basis of the Chronicle of 754 .

Fouracre, Paul. The Age of Charles Martel . Harlow: Longman, 2000.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315845647

The best overview of the career of Charles Martel, good for situating the Battle of Tours within wider Frankish politics, with a greater emphasis on the Frankish sources.

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

About Military History »
Meet the Editorial Board »
1916 Easter Rising, The
1812, War of
Aerial Bombardment, Ethics of
Afghanistan, Wars in
Africa, Gunpowder and Colonial Campaigns in
African Military History and Historiography
African Wars of Independence
Air Transport
Allenby, Edmund
All-Volunteer Army, Post-Vietnam Through 2016
American Colonial Wars
American Indian Wars
American War of Independence
Animals and the Military
Antietam, Battle of
Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-Present
Arctic Warfare
Argentine Armed Forces
Armed Forces of the Ottoman Empire, 1683–1918
Armored War
Arms Control and Disarmament
Army, Roman
Artists and War Art
Assyrian Warfare
Attila and the Huns
Australia from the Colonial Era to the Present
Austrian Succession, War of the
Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces
Balkan Liberation, 1878–1913, Wars of
Battle of Plassey, 1757
Battle of Route Coloniale 4, 1950: France’s first devastat...
Battle of Salamis: 480 BC
Battle of Tours (732?)
Bonaparte, Napoleon
Brazilian Armed Forces
Britain and the Blitz
British Armed Forces, from the Glorious Revolution to Pres...
British Army in World War II
British Army of the Rhine, The
British-India Armies from 1740 to 1849
Canada from World War I to the Present
Canada in World War II
Canada through World War I
Cavalry since 1500
China's Modern Wars, 1911-1979
Chinese Civil War, 1945-1949
Churchill, John, 1st Duke of Marlborough
Churchill, Winston
Clausewitz, Carl von
Coalition and Alliance War
Cold War, 1945-1990
Commemoration
Communications, French Revolution to the Present
Conflict and Migration
Conquest of Mexico and Peru
Conscription
Cornwallis, Charles
Counterinsurgency in the Modern World
Crimean War, 1853–1856
Cromwell, Oliver
Crusades, The
Cuban Missile Crisis
Defense Industries
Dien Bien Phu, Battle of
Dominion Armies in World War II
Douhet, Giulio, airpower theorist
Eisenhower, Dwight
Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide
European Wars, Mid-Nineteenth-Century
Finland in World War II
France in World War I
Frederick the Great
French Armies, Early Modern
French Military, 1919-1940
French Revolutionary Wars, The
Gender Issues
German Air Forces
German Army, 1871–1945
German Sea Power, 1848-1918
German Unification, Wars of
Germany's Eastern Front in 1941
Grant, Ulysses S.
Greek and Roman Navies
Guerrilla Warfare, Pre-20th-Century
Haig, Douglas
Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, Jacques Antoine
Hiroshima/Nagasaki
History of Intelligence in China
Hundred Days Campaign of 1918
Hundred Years War
Hungary, Warfare in Medieval and Early Modern
Imperial China, War in
India 'Mutiny' and 'Revolution,' 1857-1858
Indian Army in World War I
Indian Warfare, Ancient
India-Pakistan Wars
Indochina Wars, 1946-1975
Information Warfare
Intelligence, Military
International Efforts to Control War
Iraq Wars, 1980s-Present
Irish Civil War, 1922–1923
Irish Revolution, 1911-1923, The
Italian Armed Forces in the Modern Age
Italian Campaign, World War I
Japanese Army in the World War II Era, The Imperial
Japanese Navy
Jomini, Antoine-Henri
Justice, Military, the Anglo-American Tradition
Justice of War and Justice in War
Khan, Genghis
Kursk, Battle of
Learning and Adapting: The British Army from Somme to the ...
Lee, Robert E.
Lepizig, Battle of
Literature and Drama, War in
Loos, Battle of
Louis XIV, Wars of
Low-Intensity Operations
Manzikert, Battle of
Maratha Navy
Medicine, Military
Medieval Japan, 900-1600
Mercenaries
Meuse-Argonne Offensive
Mexico and the United States, 1836–1848, Wars of
Midway, Battle of
Military Officers, United States
Military Revolutions
Modern Piracy
Mongol Wars
Montgomery, Bernard Law
Music and War
Napoleonic Wars, The
Napoleonic Wars, War and Memory in the
Navy, British
Nelson, Horatio
New Zealand
Nimitz, Chester
Nuclear Culture
Nuclear Weapons
Occupations and Military Government
Operational Art
Ottoman Navy
Passchaendale, Battle of
Patton, George
Peacekeeping
Peninsular War
Polish Armed Forces, 1918-present
Political Purges in the 20th Century
Poltava, Battle of
Popular Culture and Modern War
Prehistoric Warfare
Prince Eugene of Savoy
Psychiatric Casualties
Race in the US Military
Religio-Military Orders
Revolt in the Spanish Netherlands: 1561–1609 (Dutch Revolt...
Roman Empire
Roman Republic
Roses, Wars of the
Russian and Soviet Armed Forces
Russian Campaign of 1812
Russian Civil War, 1918–1921
Russian Military History
Russian Military History, 1762-1825
Russo-Japanese War
Safavid Army
Sailing Warships
Science and Technology in War
Science Fiction, Military
Semi-Military and Paramilitary Organizations
Seven Years' War
Seven Years' War in North America, The
Sino-Japanese Wars, 1895-1945
South Africa's Apartheid Wars
South West Pacific, 1941–1945, Campaigns in
Southeast Asian Military History, Colonial
Southeast Asian Military History, Precolonial
Space and War
Spain since the Reconquista
Spanish Civil War
Special Operations Forces
Stalingrad, Battle of
Steppe Nomadic Warfare
Submarine Warfare
Swedish Armed Forces
Tet Offensive
The Allied Bombardment of Occupied Europe During World War...
The United States and the Middle East, 1945-2001
Thirty Years War, 1618–1648
Trench Warfare
Uganda–Tanzania War, 1978–1979
United States Marine Corps, The
Urban Warfare
US Air Force
US Air Power
Verdun, Battle of
Victorian Warfare, 1837–1902
Vietnam War
Vietnam War in Hollywood Feature Films
War at Sea in the Age of Napoleon
War, Chemical and Biological
War Correspondents
War, Culture of
War in Mughal India
War of the Spanish Succession, 1701–1714
Warfare, Precolonial, in Africa
Warships, Steam
Women in the Military
World War I in Film
World War I Origins
World War I: The Eastern Front
World War I: The Western Front
World War II and the Far East
World War II in Film
World War II in the Mediterranean and Middle East
World War II, Indian Army in
World War II Origins
World War II, Russo-German War
Yugoslavian Civil War, 1991–1999
Zhukov, Georgii
Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy
Legal Notice
Accessibility

[66.249.64.20|91.193.111.216]
91.193.111.216

Battle of Tours 732 Charles Martel

What was the battle of tours.

The Battle of Tours was fought in 732 between a sizable Moorish invading force and a Frankish army under Charles Martel.

The Saracen army prepares for battle near Paris

Martel was able to check the Moorish advance by routing the Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732.

The battle is considered highly significant in that it was crucial in stemming the tide of Muslim advance into north-eastern Europe after the Moors had successfully taken over southern Iberia.

Moors in various costumes

Modern historians believe that had Martel not defeated the Moorish army at Tours, Christianity may have lost a vital sphere of influence in Western Europe.

The outcome of the battle was the routing of the Muslim army and a resounding victory for Charles Martel, earning him the title of being the “Savior of Christianity”.

Prelude to the Battle of Tours

Muslim forces were defeated at the 721 Battle of Toulouse in their advance into northern Iberia. Duke Odo of Aquitaine secure this victory but by 732, another sizable Muslim army arrived to invade northern Iberia.

Odo attempted to stem the tide but was defeated and fled. He then turned to the Franks who were conventionally considered rivals of Aquitaine.

Charles Martel, the Frankish military general, agreed to come to Odo’s help if Odo agreed to bend the knee to Frankish authority. Between the threats of a complete Muslim invasion and the condition of submitting to the Franks, Odo chose the latter.

Charles Martel *Frankish Military General

Battle Tactics Battle of Tours

The key advantage that the invading Moorish army had over the Franks was its highly mobile cavalry.

Martel, on the other hand, had thousands of veteran troops. While the Frankish had no cavalry advantage over Muslims, Martel managed a crucial advantage by setting up his army at the ridge of a hill.

The Battle of Tours was also known as the Battle of Poitiers

The phalanx-like formation of his infantry, surrounded by trees on both sides, ensured that any charge from the Muslim cavalry would have little advantage against the Frankish infantry.

Being able to choose the terrain and the condition of the battle played the most central role in ensuring the subsequent Frankish victory in the battle.

Frankish Troops

Battle of Tours Battle

The Muslim army was led by Abd er Rehman. He had been able to victories in many previous battles using the might of Muslim heavy cavalry. At the Battle of Tours , the importance of Rehman’s cavalry was greatly diminished.

The Muslim army was positioned at the foot of the hill while the Frankish stood in a defensive formation atop the ridge of the hill. After waiting for six days, Ab der Rehman made the tactical mistake of making his troops charge uphill.

This negated the cavalry advantage the Muslims had. The Franks, on the other hand, stood in highly organized formations and withstood one cavalry charge after another from the Muslims.

Although the Muslim army was able to pierce through the Frankish formations, they couldn’t penetrate deep enough and sustained heavy losses at the hands of the Frankish infantry.

After the battle which had lasted nearly a day, rumors spread that the Franks had attacked the Muslim camp.

A sizable portion of the Muslim army immediately broke off to reach the camp. Muslim general, Ab der Rehman, was consequently killed while trying to restore order in his army.

Medieval Battles | Wars
10 Key Facts About the Battle of Hastings
10 Key Facts About the Hundred Years’ War
10 Medieval Battles That Shaped the Course of History
A Brutal and Transformative Conflict: Exploring the Battles & Sieges of the Hundred Years’ War
Battle for the Crown: Stephen and Matilda’s Epic Conflict
Battle of Agincourt 1415
Battle of Bannockburn 1314
Battle of Bosworth Field 1485
Battle of Bouvines 1214
Battle of Castillon 1453
Battle of Courtrai 1302 ‘Golden Spurs’
Battle of Crécy 1346 – 100 Years War
Battle of Edington took place in 878 AD
Battle of Falkirk *1298
Battle of Grunwald: An Epic Conflict That Shaped Medieval Europe
Battle of Hastings *1066 *Norman Conquest
Battle of Nicopolis *1396
Battle of Poitiers 1356
Battle of Shrewsbury 1403: History, Tactics and Key Players
Famous Medieval Battles List
Famous Naval Battles
Famous Siege List – Medieval Period
Hundred Years War 1337- 1453 *116 Years of Warfare!
Medieval Battles Timeline
Medieval Battles Wars and Sieges Questions & Answers
Medieval War Tactics
Medieval Warfare
Pivotal Moments in History: 10 Fascinating Facts About the Battle of Hastings
Relive the Epic Battles and Sieges of the Middle Ages
The 10 Worst Medieval Battles
The Battle of Crécy and the ‘Rain of Arrows’ 10 Fascinating Facts
The Battle of Halidon Hill: Scotland’s Fateful Defeat
The Battle of the Standard *Battle of Northallerton
The Bloody Military Campaigns of Vlad the Impaler
The Hundred Years’ War: Key Moments and Decisive Battles
The Mongol Onslaught: The Battle of Legnica
The Top 10 Events of the Hundred Years’ War: A Decade-by-Decade Account
The Wars of the Roses 1455 – 1487 *37 Year War
Top 10 Bloodiest Battles of the Medieval Period: Fierce Clashes and Heavy Casualties
Top 10 Fascinating Facts about the Battle of Hastings
Top 10 Most Historically Important Medieval Battles
Top 10 Most Historically Important Medieval Wars
Top 10 Most One-Sided Battles of the Medieval Period: Devastating Defeats
What was the Burgundian War?
What were the Social and Economic Impacts of Medieval Wars on the General Population?

The making of a world historical moment: The Battle of Tours (732/3) in the nineteenth century

Original Article
Published: 17 July 2019
Volume 10 , pages 206–218, ( 2019 )

Cite this article

James T. Palmer 1

450 Accesses

5 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

The Battle of Tours (or Poitiers) in 732/3 is frequently cited as a turning point in world history, when the advance of Muslim Arabs was decisively halted by the Christian army of Frankish mayor Charles Martel. Yet the battle and its reputation seem relatively modest in the earliest sources, with little sense that conquest or religious tensions were key issues. This paper explores how the importance of the battle became amplified in grand historical narratives produced across Europe and in the U.S. in the nineteenth century, as historians contributed to arguments about national and religious identities. It highlights in particular the ways that historians, from Michelet to Oman, were led by their own dispositions in speculating about what could have happened had the result been different. In the process, although their interpretations often differed, debate about the battle generated the legend popular in modern political discourse.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Multiple Modernities and Political Millenarianism: Dispensational Theology, Nationalism, and American Politics

Where Does “Axial Breakthrough” Take Place? In the Past, or in Present Narratives of the Past?

Myths and History: The Treaty of Waitangi as “The Magna Charta of New Zealand”

Later writers would also have the Spanish nationalist work of Conde ( 1820 –1).

‘Saracens’ is the common pejorative Latin term for Arabs from Late Antiquity: see Tolan ( 2002 ).

‘Europeans’ is a highly unusual collective term in this period.

See Price ( 2008 , 88–90) and Wood ( 2013 , 188–9).

Monod later wrote a biographical study of Michelet: Monod ( 1923 ).

Borgolte, M. 2006. Christen, Juden, Muselmanen. Die Erben der Antike und der Aufstieg des Abendlandes 300 bis 1400 n. Chr. Munich, Germany: Siedler.

Breysig, T. 1869. Jahrbücher des fränkischen Reiches 714–741: Die Zeit Karls Martells . Leipzig, Germany: Dunder & Humblot.

Google Scholar

Brunner, H. 1887. Der Reiterdienst und die Anfänge des Lehnwesens. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanische Abteilung 8: 1–38.

Article Google Scholar

Burckhardt, J. 1843 . Questions alioquot Caroli Martelli historiam illustrantes. Basel, Germany: Mast.

Cardonne, D.D. 1765. Histoire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne sous la domination des Arabes . Paris, Franc: Saillant.

Collins, R. 1989. The Arab Conquest of Spain 710–797 . Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Conde, J. 1820–1. Historia de la Dominación de los Árabes en España . Madrid, Spain: Garcia.

Creasy, E. 1851. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo . New York: Harper & Brothers.

Davis, W.S. 1913. Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources , 2 vols. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Davis, W.S. 1926. Europe since Waterloo. New York: Century.

Duchesne, L. 1886. Le Liber Pontificalis . Paris, France: Thorin.

Fouracre, P. 2000. The Age of Charles Martel . Harlow, UK: Longman.

Gibbon, E. [1788] 1906. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , 12 vols. Ed. J. B. Bury. New York: DeFau.

Gil, J. 1973. Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum . Madrid, Spain: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas.

Haaren, J.H., and A. B. Poland. 1904. Famous Men of the Middle Ages. New York: American Book Company.

Hallam, H. [1818] 1900. History of Europe during the Middle Ages. New York: Colonial Press.

Halphen, L. 1926. Les barbares. Des grandes invasions aux conquêtes Turques du XI e siècle . Paris: Alcan.

Hauck, A. [1887] 1898. Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands 1 . Leipzig, Germany: Hinrischs’sche Buchhandlung.

Katz, E. 1889. Annalium Laureshamensium editio emendata . Sankt Paul im Lavanttal: Selbstverlag des Stiftes.

König, D. 2015. Arabic-Islamic Views of the West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Krusch, B. 1888. Fredegarii et aliorum chronica. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores rerum Merowingicarum 2 . Hanover, Germany: Hahn.

Mango, C. 1985. Le développement urbain de Constantinople, IVe-VIIe siècles . Paris, France: Boccard.

Meneghini, R. and R. Santangeli Valenzani. 2004. Roma nell’altomedioevo: topografia e urbanistica della città dal V al X secolo. Rome, Italy: Volpe.

Michelet, J. 1833. Histoire de France 1. Paris, France: Hachette.

Monod, G. 1891. Histoire de l’Europe et en particulier de la France de 395 à 1270, with C. Bémont. Paris, France: Alcan.

Monod, G. 1923. La vie et la pensée de Jules Michelet (1798-1852). Paris, France: Champion.

Oman, C. 1905. The Dark Ages, 476–918. London: Rivingtons.

Palmer, J.T. 2015. The Otherness of Non-Christians in the Early Middle Ages. Studies in Church History 51: 33–52.

Pertz, G. 1911 Einhardi Vita Karoli Magni. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatism editii 25 , ed. G. Waitz and O. Holder-Egger. Hanover, Germany: Hahn.

Pirenne, H. 1937. Mahomet et Charlemagne . Paris, France: Alcan.

Price, A.B. 2008. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Richter, G. 1873. Annalen der deutschen Geschichte im Mittelalter 1 . Halle, Germany: Waisenhaus.

Rodriguez, J. 2015. Muslim and Christian Contact in the Middle Ages: A Reader . Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Said, E. 1978. Orientalism . London: Routledge.

Teubner, M. 2008. Historismus und Kirchengeschichtsschreibung. Leben und Werk Albert Haucks (1845–1918) bis zu seinem Wechsel nach Leipzig 1889. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.

Tolan, J. 2002. Saracens. Islam in the Medieval European Imagination . New York: Columbia University Press.

White, H. 1973. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Wood, I. 2013. The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Book Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of History, University of St Andrews, Fife, UK

James T. Palmer

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to James T. Palmer .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Palmer, J.T. The making of a world historical moment: The Battle of Tours (732/3) in the nineteenth century. Postmedieval 10 , 206–218 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-019-00126-y

Download citation

Published : 17 July 2019

Issue Date : 01 June 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-019-00126-y

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Find a journal
Publish with us
Track your research

Battle of Tours (732 A.D.)

The Battle of Tours (often called the Battle of Poitiers, but not to be confused with the Battle of Poitiers, 1356) was fought on October 10, 732 between forces under the Frankish leader Charles Martel and a massive invading Islamic army led by Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman, near the city of Tours, France. During the battle, the Franks defeated the Islamic army and Emir Abd er Rahman was killed. This battle stopped the northward advance of Islam from the Iberian peninsula, and is considered by most historians to be of macrohistorical importance, in that it halted the Islamic conquests, and preserved Christianity as the controlling faith in Europe, during a period in which Islam was overrunning the remains of the old Roman and Persian Empires.

Franks, led by Charles Martel. Estimates of the Frankish army defending Gaul vary, but by most accounts were between 15,000 and 75,000. Losses according to St. Denis were about 1,500.

Muslims, between 60,000 and 400,000 cavalry, (most likely closer to the lower number) under Abd er Rahman; besides source differences, this army is difficult to estimate in size, since it was often fractured into raiding parties to carry out the pillaging and plundering of various richly cultured Frankish centers; however, the entire Muslim army was present at Tours by Arab accounts. During the six days he waited to begin the Battle, Abd er Rahman recalled all those columns raiding and pillaging, so that on the seventh day, when by both eastern and western accounts the Battle began, both armies were at full strength.

The Muslims in northern Spain had easily overrun Septimania, had set up a capital at Narbonne which they called Arbuna, giving its largely Arian inhabitants honorable terms, and quickly pacified the south and for some years threatened Frankish territories. Duke Odo of Aquitaine, also known as Eudes the Great, had decisively defeated a major invasion force in 721 at the Battle of Toulouse, but Arab raids continued, in 725 reaching as far as the city of Autun in Burgundy. Threatened by both the Arabs in the south and by the Franks in the north, in 730 Eudes allied himself with Uthman ibn Naissa, called "Munuza" by the Franks, the Berber emir in what would later become Catalonia. As a gage, Uthman was given Eudes's daughter Lampade in marriage to seal the alliance, and Arab raids across the Pyrenees, Eudes' southern border, ceased [1].

However, the next year, Uthman rebelled against the governor of al-Andalus, Abd er Rahman. Abd er Rahman quickly crushed the revolt, and next directed his attention against the traitor's former ally, Eudes. According to one unidentified Arab, "That army went through all places like a desolating storm." Duke Eudes (called King by some), collected his army at Bordeaux, but was defeated, and Bordeaux was plundered. The slaughter of Christians at the River Garonne was evidently horrific; Isidorus Pacensis commented that "solus Deus numerum morientium vel pereuntium recognoscat", 'God alone knows the number of the slain' (Chronicon). The Muslim horsemen then utterly devastated that portion of Gaul, their own histories saying the "faithful pierced through the mountains, tramples over rough and level ground, plunders far into the country of the Franks, and smites all with the sword, insomuch that when Eudo came to battle with them at the River Garonne, and fled." Eudes appealed to the Franks for assistance, which Charles Martel only granted after Eudes agreed to submit to Frankish authority.

In 732, the Arab advance force was proceeding north toward the River Loire having already outpaced their supply train and a large part of their army. Essentially, having easily destroyed all resistance in that part of Gaul, the invading army had split off into several raiding parties, simply looting and destroying, while the main body advanced more slowly. A military explanation for why Eudes was defeated so easily at Bordeaux, after having won 11 years earlier at Battle of Toulouse, was simple. At Toulouse, Eudes managed a basic surprise attack against an overconfident and unprepared foe, all of whose defensive works were aimed inward, while he attacked from the outside. The Arab cavalary never got a chance to mobilize and meet him in open battle. At Bordeaux, they did, and resulted in absolute devastation of Eudes army, almost all of whom were killed, with minimal losses to the Muslims. Eudes forces, like other European troops of that era, lacked stirrups, and therefore had no armoured cavalry. Virtually all of their troops were infantry. The Muslim heavy cavalry broke the Christian infantry in their first charge, and then simply slaughtered them at will as they broke and ran. The invading force then went on to devastate southern Gaul, preparing it for complete conquest. One of the major raiding parties advanced on Tours. A possible motive, according to the second continuator of Fredegar, was the riches of the Abbey of Saint Martin of Tours, the most prestigious and holiest shrine in western Europe at the time. Upon hearing this, Austrasia Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel, collected his army of an estimated 15-75,000 veterans, and marched south avoiding the old Roman roads hoping to take the Muslims by surprise.

Despite the great importance of this battle, its exact location remains unknown. Most historians assume that the two armies met each other where the rivers Clain and Vienne join between Tours and Poitiers.

Charles chose to begin the battle in a defensive, phalanx-like formation. According to the Arabian sources they drew up in a large square. Certainly, given the disparity between the armies, in that the Franks were mostly infantry, all without armour, against mounted and Arab armored or mailed horsemen, (the Berbers were less heavily protected) Charles Martel fought a brilliant defensive battle. In a place and time of his choosing, he met a far superior force, and defeated it.

For six days, the two armies watched each other with just minor skirmishes. The Muslims waited for their full strength to arrive, which it did, but they were still uneasy. No good general, and Abd er Rahman was one, liked to let his opponent pick the ground and conditions for battle -- and Martel had done both. Creasy says, and his theory is probably best, that the Muslims best strategic choice would have been to simply decline battle, depart with their loot, garrisoning the captured towns in southern Gaul, and return when they could force Martel to a battleground more to their liking, one that maximized the huge advantage they had of the first true "knights" mailed and amoured horsemen -- the Franks, without stirrups in wide use, had to depend on unarmoured foot soldiers. Martel gambled everything that Abd er Rahman would in the end feel compelled to battle, and to go on and loot Tours. Neither of them wanted to attack. The Franks were well dressed for the cold, and had the terrain advantage. The Arabs were not as prepared for the intense cold, but did not want to attack what they thought might be a numerically superior Frankish army. (most historians believe it was not) Essentially, the Arabs wanted the Franks to come out in the open, while the Franks, formed in a tightly packed defensive formation, wanted them to come uphill, into the trees, (negating at once some of the advantages of their cavalry). It became a waiting game, which Martel won. The fight commenced on the seventh day, as Abd er Rahman did not want to postpone the battle indefinitely.

Abd er Rahman trusted the tactical superiority of his cavalry, and had them charge repeatedly. This time the faith the Muslims had in their cavalry, armed with their long lances and swords which had brought them victory in previous battles, was not justified.

In one of the rare instances where medieval infantry stood up against cavalry charges, the disciplined Frankish soldiers withstood the assaults, though according to Arab sources, the Arab cavalry several times broke into the interior of the Frankish square. But despite this, Franks did not break, and it is probably best expressed by a translation of an Arab account of the battle from the Medieval Source Book: "And in the shock of the battle the men of the North seemed like North a sea that cannot be moved. Firmly they stood, one close to another, forming as it were a bulwark of ice; and with great blows of their swords they hewed down the Arabs. Drawn up in a band around their chief, the people of the Austrasians carried all before them. Their tireless hands drove their swords down to the breasts of the foe."

It might have been different, however, had the Muslim forces remained under control. According to Muslim accounts of the battle, in the midst of the fighting on the second day, scouts from the Franks began to raid the camp and supply train (including slaves and other plunder). A large portion of the army broke off and raced back to their camp to save their plunder. What appeared to be a retreat soon became one. While attempting to restore order to his men, who had managed to break into the defensive square, Abd er Rahman was surrounded by Franks and killed.

According to a Frankish source, the battle lasted one day. Frankish histories claim that when the rumor went through the Arab army that Frankish cavalry threatened the booty they had taken from Bordeaux, (Charles supposedly had sent scouts to cause chaos in the Muslim base camp, and free as many of the slaves as possible, hoping to draw off part of his foe, it succeeded beyond his wildest dreams), many of the Muslim Cavalry returned to their camp. This, to the rest of the Muslim army, appeared to be a full-scale retreat, and soon it was one. Both histories agree that while attempting to stop the retreat, Abd er Rahman became surrounded, which led to his death, and the Muslims returned to their camp.

The next day, when the Muslims did not renew the battle, the Franks feared an ambush. Only after extensive reconnaissance by Frankish soldiers of the Muslim camp was it discovered that the Muslims had retreated during the night.

The Arab army retreated south over the Pyrenees. Charles earned his nickname Martel, meaning hammer, in this battle. He continued to drive the Muslims from France in subsequent years. After Eudes died, who had been forced to acknowledge, albeit reservedly, the suzerainty of Charles in 719, his son wished independence. Though Charles wished to unite the duchy directly to himself and went there to elicit the proper homage of the Aquitainians, the nobility proclaimed Odo's son, Hunold, whose dukedom Charles recognised when the Arabs invaded Provence the next year. Hunold, who originally resisted acknowledging Charles as overlord, had no choice when the Muslims returned.

In 736 the Caliphate launched another massive invasion -- this time by sea. This naval Arab invasion was headed by Abdul Rahman's son. It landed in Narbonne in 736 and took Arles. Charles, the conflict with Hunold put aside, descended on the Proven�al strongholds of the Muslims. In 736, he retook Montfrin and Avignon, and Arles and Aix-en-Provence with the help of Liutprand, King of the Lombards. N�mes, Agde, and B�ziers, held by Isalm since 725, fell to him and their fortresses destroyed. He smashed a Muslim force at the River Berre, and prepared to meet their primary invasion force at Narbonne. He defeated a mighty host outside of that city, using for the first time, heavy cavalry of his own, which he used in coordination with his planax. He crushed the Muslim army, though outnumbered, but failed to take the city. Provence, however, he successfully rid of its foreign occupiers.

Notable about these campaigns was Charles' incorporation, for the first time, of heavy cavalry with stirrups to augment his phalanx. His ability to coordinate infantry and cavalry veterans was unequaled in that era and enabled him to face superior numbers of invaders, and decisively defeat them again and again. Some historians believe Narbonne in particular was as imporant a victory for Christian Europe as Tours. Charles was that rarest of commonities in the dark ages: a brilliant stategic general, who also was a tactical commander par excellance, able in the crush and heat of battle to adapt his plans to his foes forces and movement -- and amazingly, defeated them repeatedly, especially when, as at Tours, they were far superior in men and weaponry, and at Berre and Narbonne, when they were superior in numbers of brave fighting men. Charles had the last quality which defines genuine greatness in a military commander: he foresaw the dangers of his foes, and prepared for them with care; he used ground, time, place, and fierce loyalty of his troops to offset his foes superior weaponry and tactics; third, he adapted, again and again, to the enemy on the battlefield, cooly shifting to compensate for the foreseen and unforeseeable.

The importance of these campaigns, Tours and the later campaigns of 736-7 in putting an end to Muslim bases in Gaul, and any immediate ability to expand Islamic influence in Europe, cannot be overstated. Gibbons and his generation of historians, and the majority of modern experts agree with them that they were unquestionably decisive in world history. Despite these victories, the Arabs remained in control of Narbonne and Septimania for another 27 years, but could not expand further than that. The treaties reached earlier with the local population stood firm and were further consolidated in 734 when the governor of Narbonne, Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, concluded agreements with several towns on common defense arrangements against the encroachments of Charles Martel, who had systematically brought the south to heel as he extended his domains. He believed, and rightly so, that it was vital to keep the Muslims in Iberia, and not allow them a foothold in Gaul itself. Though he won the battle of Narbonne when the army there came out to meet him, Charles failed in his attempt to take Narbonne by siege in 737, when the city was jointly defended by its Muslim Arab and Christian Visigoth citizens. It was left to his son, Pippin the short, to force the city's surrender, in 759, and to drive the Arabs completely back to Iberia, and bring Narbonne into the Frankish Domains. His Grandson, Charlamagne, became the first Christian ruler to actually begin what would be called the Reconquista from Europe proper. In the east of the peninsula the Frankish emperors established the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. This formed a buffer zone against Islam across the Pyrenees.

Tours in history

In Western history

Christian contemporaries, from Bede to Theophanes carefully recorded the battle and were keen to spell out what they saw as its implications. Later scholars, such as Edward Gibbon, would contend that had Martel fallen, the Moors would have easily conquered a divided Europe. Gibbon wrote that "A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Qur'an would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammed." Certainly, the Islamic invasions were an enormous danger during the window of 721 from Toulouse to 737 at the Arab defeat at Narbonne. But the window was closing. The unified Caliphate collapsed into civil war in 750 at the Battle of the Zab which left the Umayyad dynasty literally wiped out except for the Princes who escaped to Africa, and then Iberia, where they established the Umayyad Emirate in opposition to the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad.

Both ancient, mid, and modern historians agree that Martel was the father of western heavy cavalry, and literally stole the technoloy from his slain foe! He had no trouble using his enemies tools against them, no pride stopped him from seizing any advantage he could in defending his faith, his father's home and homeland, and his people, from what he saw was a danger that would destroy them if not checked. His foresight in moving to strike first, to stop them short of his "front door," reminds one of Winston Churchill's famous statement, that "it is better to fight in your neighbors back yard, than have to defend your own front door." In 5 short years, from the Battle of Tours, to the Battle of Narbonne, he fathered western heavy cavalry, and used it in conjunction with his planax with devastating effect.

In the modern era, Norwich, the most widely read authority on the Eastern Roman Empire, says the Franks halting Muslim Expansion at Tours literally preserved Christianity as we know it. A more realistic viewpoint may be found in Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels by Antonio Santosuosso, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Western Ontario, and considered an expert historian in the era in dispute in this article. It was published in 2004, and has quite an interesting modern expert opinion on Charles Martel, Tours, and the subsequent campaigns against Rahman's successor in 736-737. Santosuosso makes a compelling case that these defeats of invading Muslim Armies, were at least as important as Tours in their defense of western Christianity, and the preservation of those Christian monastaries and centers of learning which ultimately led Europe out of the dark ages. He also makes a compelling case that while Tours was unquestionably of macrohistorical importance, the later battles were at least equally so. Both invading forces defeated in those campaigns had come to set up permanent outposts for expansion, and there can be no doubt that these three defeats combined broke the back of European expansion by Islam while the Caliphate was still united. While some modern assessments of the battle's impact have backed away from the extreme of Gibbon's position, Gibbons's conjecture is supported by other historians such as Edward Shepard Creasy and William E. Watson. Most modern historians such as Norwich and Santosuosso generally support the concept of Tours as a macrohistorical event favoring western civilization and Christianity . Military writers such as Robert W. Martin, "The Battle of Tours is still felt today", also argue that Tours was such a turning point in favor of western civilization and Christianity that its aftereffect remains to this day.

In Arab history

Contemporary Arab historians and chroniclers are much more interested in the second Umayyad siege Arab defeat at Constantinople in 718, which ended in a disastrous defeat. After the first Arab siege of Constantinople (674-678) ended in complete failure, the Arabs Umayyad Caliphate attempted a second decisive attack on the city. An 80,000 strong army led by Maslama, the brother of Caliph Umar II, crossed the Bosporus from Anatolia to besiege Constantinople by land, while a massive fleet of Arab war galleys, estimated between 1,800 and 2,000, sailed into the Sea of Marmara to the south of the city. Fortunately for the Byzantines, the great chain kept the fleet from entering the inner harbor, and the Arab galleys were unable to sail up the Bosporus as they were under constant attack and harassment by the Greek fleet, who used Greek fire to level the differences in numbers. (The Byzantine fleet was less than a third of the Arab, but Greek fire swiftly evened the numbers). Emperor Leo III was able to use the famed Walls of Constantinople to his advantage and the Arab army was unable to breach them. (it must be noted that Bulgar forces had come to the aid of the Byzantines, and constantly harassed the Muslim army, and definitely disrupted resupply to the point that much of the army was close to starvation by the time the siege was abandoned. Some Muslim historians have argued that had the Caliph recalled his armies from Europe to aid in the siege, the city might have been taken by land, despite the legendary walls - such a recall would have doubled the army laying siege, allowed a full attack while still beating off Bulgar forces attempting to end the siege by harassing the army from outside while the defenders held the walls.

Some contemporary historians argue that had the Arabs actually wished to conquer Europe they could easily have done so. Essentially these historians argue that the Arabs were not interested enough to mount a major invasion, because Northern Europe at that time was considered to be a socially, culturally and economically backward area with little to interest any invaders. Some western scholars, such as Bernard Lewis, agree with this stance, though they are in a minority.

This is also disputed by Arab histories of the period circa 722-850 which mentioned the Franks more than any other Christian people save the Byzantines, (The Arabian chronicles were compiled and translated into Spanish by Jos� Antonio Conde, in his "Historia de la Dominaci�n de los �rabes en Espa�a", published at Madrid in 1820, and in dealing specifically with this period, the Arab chronicles discuss the Franks as one of two non-Muslim Powers then concerning the Caliphate). Further, this is disputed by the records of the Islamic raids into India and other non-Muslim states for loot and converts. Given the great wealth in Christian shrines such as the one at Tours, Islamic expansion into that area would have been likely had it not been sharply defeated in 732, 736, and 737 by Martel, and internal strife in the Islamic world prevented later efforts. Other relevant evidence of the importance of this battle lies in Islamic expansion into all other regions of the old Roman Empire -- except for Europe, and what was retained by Byzantium, the Caliphate took all of the old Roman and Persian Empires. It is not likely Gaul would have been spared save by the campaigns by, and the loyalty of, Charles Martel's veteran Frankish Army. Finally, it ignores that 4 separate Emirs of al-Andalus, over a 25 year period used a Fatwa from the Caliph to levy troops from all provinces of Africa, Syria, and even Turkomens who were beginning conversion, to raise 4 huge invading armies, well supplied and equipped, with the intention of permanent expansion across the Pyrenees into Europe. No such later attempts however were made as conflict between the Umayyad Emirate of Iberia and the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad prevented a unified assault on Europe.

Given the importance Arab histories of the time placed on the death of Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman and the defeat in Gaul, and the subsequent defeat and destruction of Muslim bases in what is now France, it seems reasonably certain that this battle did have macrohistorical importance in stopping westward Islamic expansion. Arab histories written during that period and for the next seven centuries make clear that Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman's defeat and death was regarded, and most scholars believe, as a catastrophe of major proportions. Their own words record it best: (translated from Arabic) "This deadly defeat of the Moslems, and the loss of the great leader and good cavalier, Abderrahman, took place in the hundred and fifteenth year." (Islamic Calendar) This, from the portion of the history of the Umayyad Caliphate, and the great Arab period of expansion, also translated into Spanish by Don Jose Antonio Conde, in his "Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabos en Espa�a," appears to put the importance of the Battle of Tours in macrohistorical perspective.

Contemporary analysis

Had Martel fallen at Tours the long term implications for European Christianity may have been devastating. His victory there, and in the following campaigns, may have literally saved Europe and Christianity as we know it, from conquest while the Caliphate was unified and able to mount such a conquest. Had the Franks fallen, no other power existed stopping Muslim conquest of Italy and the effective end of what would become the modern Catholic Church. In addition, Martel's incorporation of the stirrup and mailed cavalry into the Frankish army gave birth to the armoured Knights which would form the backbone of western armies for the next five centuries. But had Martel failed, there would have been no Charlemagne, no Holy Roman Empire or Papal States. The majority view argues that all these events occurred because Martel was able to contain Islam from expanding into Europe while it could. His son retook Narbonne, and his Grandson Charlamagne actually established the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. This formed a permanent buffer zone against Islam, with Frankish strongholds in Iberia, which became the basis, along with the King of Asturias, named Pelayo (718-737, who started his fight against the Moors in the mountains of Covadonga 722) for the origins of the Reconquista until all of the Muslims were expelled from the Iberia.

No later Muslim attempts against Asturias or the Franks was made as conflict between what remained of the Umayyad Dynasty, (which was the Umayyad Emirate and then Caliphate of Iberia) and the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad prevented a unified assault on Europe. It would be another 700 years before the Ottomans managed to invade Europe via the Balkans.

The Battle of Tours: A Turning Point in Early Medieval History

Post author By Library Author
Post date February 15, 2023

Table of Contents

History is just that: a story . It follows people, the characters, through their environment, the setting, and the things that happen to them, the plot.

Like any story, it moves along thanks to specific events. And while they might not seem so significant at the moment, when we look back, we can use them to connect the dots to how we got where we are today.

One such event was the Battle of Tours. Fought between the invading, Muslim-run Umayyad Caliphate and the Christian Kingdom of the Franks, this battlefield duel drew a “line in the sand” in European history that is still alive and well in the 21st century.

The Advancing Muslim Kingdoms

To understand the Battle of Tours, the first place to look is the Middle East in the three centuries before the fighting began. Something was happening in these lands east of the Mediterranean and in the foothills of Asia.

In a word: Islam.

Founded in the 7th century by the Arabian prophet Muhammad, the monotheistic religion that descended from Judaism and Christianity had taken the Middle East by storm. Not only had huge swaths of territory converted to this new faith, its leaders, starting with Muhammad himself, had created a new empire.

As they spread their version of the word of God, they conquered new lands, spreading throughout Mesopotamia, western Asian lands such as Pakistan and India, as well as North Africa.

By the end of the 8th century, they had one of the largest empires in history. But they weren’t interested in stopping in North Africa, so they didn’t. In 711 AD, they crossed the Mediterranean and crashed onto the shores of Spain. Their armies quickly advanced through Spain, defeating the Visigoths and establishing a new province of their empire: Al-Andalus.

After so much success, why would they stop there?

Well, they didn’t. They crossed over the Pyrenees Mountains and into what is now France and kept on fighting.

Things were looking good for the Muslim caliphate. Until they weren’t.

The Christians Respond

The Battle of Tours is ultimately a story about the battle between Christianity and Islam. As Islam grew, it did so mainly in non-Christian lands.

The tribes of Arabia that united under Muhammad had been polytheistic, meaning they believed in many gods. As Islam spread, though, it came into contact with more and more Christian territories.

This worried the people of Europe. Not only did they devoutly believe their religion was the one true religion, but a threat to the Christian faith was a threat to the rulers of Europe who used faith as a source of their power.

So, when the Muslim-led armies crashed into Spain, a largely Christian territory, conquered it in the blink of an eye (historically speaking…it was more like a period of 50 years), there had to be a response.

The one to answer the call was a man named Charles Martel. He was the ruler of the Franks, a Germanic people who populated much of western Europe.

A Christian, Martel commanded a considerable army and rose to power as Islam was spreading into Europe. His decisions and the results of these decisions left a lasting mark on European history.

The Battle of Tours

The Battle of Tours itself took place in 732 AD, just twenty years after the Umayyad Caliphate had crossed into Spain. In just that short time, Muslim armies had made their way into what is now central France.

The lack of political unity at the time made it easy for the strong, unified army of the Caliphate to march across Europe. Kingdoms next to one another would often not come to the support of each other due to feuds both past and present.

This was exactly what the Umayyad army was hoping for when they attacked Tours, a wealthy city on the Loire River in central France. Technically part of Aquitaine, which Charles Martel had invaded for his own purposes, no one thought Martel would fight for the defense of Tours.

But Martel was a true man of mystery and did exactly what no one expected him to do.

The battle, which lasted more than a week, came as a surprise to the Umayyads army. Not only did they not really know that Martel and his army of Franks were waiting there, they had no idea how many people were in the army and how strong they really were.

So, the Umayyad commander, Abdul Rahman Al-Ghafiqi , sent his cavalry, or horse-mounted units, into the city for what he thought would be a quick victory.

Talk about wishful thinking.

The mainly-Frankish army was as big if not bigger than the invading force, and they fought them back handedly.

Martel’s force remained in the forest in the highlands, forcing Al-Gfaiqi’s army to try and charge uphill, something that never works, not even for Anakin Skywalker.

Numbers of casualties are impossible to know for sure, but by the end of the seventh day, the Umayyad army had lost.

Once beaten back, they turned and ran. Al-Gafiqi was killed in battle and the Muslim invasion of Europe was in big, big trouble.

Frankish Conquest of Gaul and the Early Stages of the Holy Roman Empire

After failing to beat back Martel, the Umayyad force ran south in retreat. Martel followed them, chasing them further and further from his people. Eventually, the Umayyad army crossed the Pyrenees.

“Finally!” he shouted. “Now down through Hispania and back to North Africa!”

Wrong.

Instead of making the same mistake his enemies had made by chasing them through foreign territory, Martel decided to call it a day once he felt safe.

He drew a line in the map, right through the Pyrnees and said “I’m done.”

This move had two major impacts.

First, it allowed him to maintain the gains he just made against the advancing Umayyad army.

Second, it allowed him to consolidate power in France. He just chased away the “evil” Muslims advancing with their army, outdoing his rival kings in the area, proving his strength to the people.

By stopping his pursuit, he made himself the most powerful man in western Europe.

The Rise of the Catholic Church

This victory, and the moves Martel made after it, put an end to the advance of Islam into Europe. The Umayyads would try again a few years later, but Martel’s position was too strong to defeat.

Internal strife in the Umayyad Caliphate also caused interest in a European invasion to stop. Eventually, Al-Andalus split off from its leaders in Damascus and became its own independent Caliphate.

The fact that this line that Martel “drew” also separated two very popular religions is why the Battle of Tours is so significant. From this moment on, the lands east of the Pyrenees were to be Christian. South of the Pyrenees were primarily Muslim.

Recognizing this divide, Martel did one more thing to cement his power. He went to the Pope, the leader of the Christian faith and one of the only authorities everyone would listen to and asked for his blessing to rule the land he had just conquered, or, as he might have put it, liberated from Muslim rule.

The Pope went along with this and the Frankish empire was born.

A New Era in Medieval History

The acknowledgement by the Church in Rome gave Europe its largest central authority since the fall of the Roman Empire. Many at the time still longed for the “glory days” or Rome, and were waiting for someone to take its place. For someone to fill that power vacuum.

The Frankish kingdom turned empire established by Martel helped fill this vacuum, at least for the time. Martel’s successors combined forces with the church to revive the title “Roman emperor” in an effort to unite Europe and Christianity.

In addition to proving the foundation for the Frankish empire, the Battle of Tours set the stage for the epic religious battle that was about to take place throughout the 11th and 12th centuries.

Stricken with fear over the threat of a Muslim invasion into Christian lands, the Pope and the kings of Europe would go on to organize the Crusades.

These wars sought to “take back” lands seen as rightfully Christian, which included the Holy Land of Jerusalem and the recently conquered Spain.

The Battle of Tours helped define the boundaries between the Christian and Muslim worlds and set the stage for conflicts that defined much of Medieval history.

Written by Matthew Jones

Illustrated by Jean Galvao

About the History Guy
Our Sponsors

The Battle of Tours: a turning point in European History

Charles Martel led his forces to victory over Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi in a struggle in France in 732. The History Guy remembers the battle of Tours, also called Battle of Poitiers, and the start of the Reconquista. It was a turning point in European history.

The episode discusses events and shows some artwork depicting a period of war, which some viewers may find disturbing. All events are described for educational purposes and are presented in historical context.

The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration.

Skip Intro: 00:10

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryGuyYT/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy

The History Guy: Five Minutes of History is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.

Subscribe for more forgotten history: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4sEmXUuWIFlxRIFBRV6VXQ?sub_confirmation=1.

Awesome The History Guy merchandise is available at: https://teespring.com/stores/the-history-guy

The episode is intended for educational purposes. All events are presented in historical context.

#battleoftours #militaryhistory #thehistoryguy

Support The History Guy

If you love history, this is the channel to support! Generous contributions from supporters allow The History Guy team to continue creating the snippets of forgotten history that have been seen by viewers all around the world. You'll be supporting this record of the past that helps to inform our present. Making The History Guy takes time, effort, and equipment. It is history that deserves your help!

Premium Tee

The history guy ship merchandise.

The History Guy Car Mug

The History Guy Official Tee

Premium Hoodie

The history guy official apparel.

Corrections

What Were the Major Battles and Conflicts of the Medieval Period?

From the Battle of Tours to the Spanish Reconquista, these are the major battles that took place during the Medieval period.

major battles conflicts of medieval period

In 476, the year Rome fell, heralded the Medieval Period, lasting until around 1492 when Christopher Columbus reached the Americas . Like any timespan, this Period was not immune to wars and protracted conflicts. Some took decades for resolution, while a single engagement could decide fate. It’s always interesting to see the impact of battles and conflicts on Europe.

The Battle of Tours – Muslim Expansion Stopped

Charles Martel versus the Moors at Tours, by Jean Fouquet, 15th century.

Seven hundred and thirty-two marked the Battle of Tours as one of the most significant pivotal battles. The Muslim Moors invaded from Spain, seeking to expand into Frankish lands. France’s most powerful leader, Charles Martel, stealthily marched south to Tours. There, his army fought the Moorish cavalry force from a hillside, defeating and killing their leader. This battle checked the Moors’ rapid growth into Europe, preserving Christianity in the West. Charles later became the King of France, helping to establish feudalism.

The Reconquista – Spain Unites

the capitulation of granada early modern period

When the Pope’s call for a Crusade went out in 1095, Spain’s version had been ongoing for nearly two centuries. An invading Moorish army had seized the Iberian Peninsula, pushed out the Visigoth nobility, and established the Ummayad Caliphate in 711. Only Charles Martel’s victory over a Muslim army in the Battle of Tours in 732 pushed the Moors back.

Get the latest articles delivered to your inbox

Please check your inbox to activate your subscription.

The Reconquista, or “reconquering” of Spain, commenced in 718. It differed from the later Crusades by being a territorial expansion, not a religious war. The Moors granted Jews and Christians freedoms, preventing much hatred. Meanwhile the wars in Iberia lasted for hundreds of years as the Christians went south, capturing swathes of land.

The Reconquista only took on a religious tone as the Crusades to the Holy Land began. Their final campaign was the capture of Granada, the Moor’s last stronghold in Spain, in 1492. This final victory led to the expulsion of Jews and Muslims .

The Crusades – The Popes’ Call

The Crusades started in 1095, with Pope Urban II asking for volunteers to retake the Holy Lands from Islam. This Holy City and surrounding lands had fallen several years before. The First Crusade retook Jerusalem in 1099, establishing kingdoms, touching off a religious war until 1291. The Crusades seized back the Holy Lands and became de facto rulers. By doing so, the Crusaders encountered a very different culture. New food, trading routes, and ideas like a better numbering system soon spread back home. Eight Crusades reached the Middle East, primarily to defend their kingdoms. By 1291, the Muslim armies from Egypt and Syria under the famous Saladin gained had retaken most of the Holy Land.

The Mongol Invasions – Unstoppable

Genghis Khan wax image. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Mongols , the dreaded horse lords, swarmed out from the Asian plains beginning around 1206 under the infamous Genghis Khan. Their armies reached Eastern Europe by the 1220s, devastating the Rus Principality in 1223. The Mongols, after pausing in the 1230s, pushed further into central Europe. After defeating several Polish, Hungarian, and Russian armies, they sacked Kiev and invaded Hungary. Mongols used terror tactics such as mass slaughter and enslavement. One-half of Hungary’s population was killed during this conflict.

Their armies reached Dalmatia by 1240. One leader, Subutai Khan, lay poised in eastern Austria when the Great Khan died back in Mongolia. This forced leaders to return home and select a new Khan. Their armies raided deep into Europe, even to Lithuania. The Mongols settled in southern Russia, establishing khanates. Europeans didn’t defeat the Mongols until the late 1300s.

The Battle of Agincourt – The Longbow

Few history buffs have not heard of Agincourt, one of the most famous medieval battles. This battle was one of many during the Hundred Years’ War. On October 25, 1415, near Agincourt in northern France, an outnumbered English army led by King Henry V clashed with a larger French one.

Henry V campaigned in France through the fall to press his claim to the French throne. His army weakened from continual fighting and disease, sought to return to England—the pursuing French army, led by knights, caught up and fought in a muddy field.

The English killed many charging French knights with powerful longbows as they forced their way through thick mud. In the melee, the English infantry overran the knights, killing thousands. But the longbow, with its range and killing power, was the prime reason for victory. The defeat helped secure England’s hold on their French territories, leaving the French in disarray. It took until 1453 for the French to reduce England’s possessions to Calais.

What Did Christopher Columbus Discover?

By Matt Whittaker BA History & Asian Studies Matt Whittaker is an avid history reader, fascinated by the why, how and when. With a B.A. in History and Asian Studies from University of Massachusetts, he does deep dives into medieval, Asian and military history. Matt’s other passion besides family is the long-distance Zen-like runs.

Frequently Read Together

The Battle of Tours: How Europe Could Have Been Islamic

The Holy Lance & The First Crusade: Can Faith Win a War?

What Was the Spanish Inquisition?

'Last line of defense': Cold War reheats at Nike missile museum at Sandy Hook

During the Cold War, the Army maintained a missile base at Fort Hancock on the northern end of Sandy Hook, the last line of defense against an attack on New York.
While no hot war ever broke out with the Soviet Union, accidents at the base and elsewhere in the region killed multiple people protecting the U.S.
A group of veterans are keeping the memories alive, giving tours of what's left of the missile base.

SANDY HOOK - It was a typical day at work for Bill Jackson until an electric heater malfunctioned and a fire broke out.

But this wasn’t just any job, and it wasn’t just any fire.

It happened at the Nike missile site at Fort Hancock, the U.S. Army base on the northern end of Sandy Hook. And Jackson’s task at that moment was to emergency-disarm the Hercules missiles that sat perilously close to the flames.

“The heater was shooting flames out just above the missiles,” the Asbury Park resident recalled. “We had to get that fire out in a hurry.”

Fort Hancock: How Sandy Hook base protected New York City from being bombarded

This was in the late 1960s, about a decade after the chain-reaction explosion of eight Ajax missiles killed 10 men at the nearby Nike base in Middletown , so Jackson was acutely aware of the danger. The Hercules missile was bigger and nastier than the Ajax — and came equipped with nuclear warheads.

“During that period of time like most young men, I was young, dumb and felt indestructible,” said Jackson, now 77. “But there were a couple of times where I had the (crap) scared out of me.”

Like in the summer of 1970, when the alarm blared and all personnel got called to “battle stations” as a Soviet bomber entered U.S. airspace off the East Coast.

“The job was a lot of repetition and boredom, punctuated by periods of terror,” Jackson said.

It’s one thing to tell these fascinating Cold War stories. It’s another to show civilians the actual launch button, to sound the alarm for them, to walk them past the radar that tracked enemy targets, to invite them to pose for photos with an actual Ajax or Hercules missile.

Jackson and a bunch of fellow veterans have made all of that possible, keeping the Project Nike story alive 50 years after Fort Hancock closed and the program was deactivated in 1974. Though there were once more than 250 Nike bases around the country, Fort Hancock’s (known as Nike Missile Site NY-56) is one of the few the public can experience to this extent. Last month, Jackson and his nonprofit organization — the Fort Hancock Nike Site NY-56 Volunteers Association — opened a museum next to Parking Lot L near Sandy Hook’s Horseshoe Cove Beach.

Sandy Hook Fort Hancock Officers Row: Are these crumbling, stately homes doomed? Apartment plan in trouble

“People who come here are engrossed,” said Sal DiFede, an Air Force veteran who lives in Little Silver and volunteers with the nonprofit. “This is history — the threat was real.”

As tour guides, these veterans dive deep into that threat and its repercussions, from the engineering details to top-secret close calls to tragedies of the era (always important to remember, especially on Memorial Day).

“We could be ready to go to war in 15 minutes,” Jackson said. “This was the last line of defense against a surprise attack from the Soviet Union.”

'We got within five minutes of a launch'

Occasionally, when a longtime Bayshore resident tours the site, there will be questions about the disaster on May 22, 1958.

That’s when eight fully armed Ajax missiles at the Nike base in the Chapel Hill section of Middletown blew up “in a furious mushroom of fire and death,” as the Associated Press reported. The accident killed 10 men — six soldiers and four civilian contractors. It actually could have been worse; one missile nearly landed in a backyard three-quarters of a mile away, falling just a stone’s throw shy of a home-lined street.

Jackson said contractors were performing maintenance modifications on the arming system of the missiles.

“They were hurrying so they could get it done and punch out without incurring overtime,” he said. “They had all the missiles out and lined up — and they were going from one missile to the next, making this modification. Part of the modification required drilling into the missile.”

'It shouldn't be forgotten': Middletown fireman who died in Nike missile explosion honored

He added, “While we don’t know exactly what happened because the missiles were destroyed and the people, they were pretty much shredded, one of the theories is as they were drilling in, the man who was drilling hit a detonation cord, which detonated that missile, which in turn detonated all the other missiles.”

The tragedy changed Nike procedures “radically,” said Jackson, who worked at Fort Hancock’s Nike base from 1968-1972.

“After that you would never bring more than one missile up at a time to perform a maintenance modification,” he said. “You literally went by the book. One man would read the step, and another man would perform the step. No one was allowed to rely on their memory.”

The U.S. Air Defense early warning system was dangerous business. In 1960 a helium tank’s explosion caused a fire in a nuclear-tipped BOMARC missile in Plumsted, causing radioactive contamination. In 1961, Texas Tower 4, a radar station off the coast of Long Beach Island, sank during a nor’easter, killing all 28 men who worked there.

Keeping memories alive: Mystery man who honored pilot killed in Pine Barrens fighter jet crash comes forward

The stakes were highest with the introduction of the Hercules, a 41-foot, 10,000-pound missile that reached a sound barrier-puncturing speed of Mach 2 by the time it left the launchpad. Hercules’ range was 100 miles with an altitude up to 150,000 feet. In the summer of 1970 at Fort Hancock there were 24 of them armed with nuclear warheads, the largest of which was 40 kilotons — nearly three times the power of the bomb that leveled Nagasaki in World War II.

The point of going nuclear, Jackson said, was that the missile didn’t have to hit the exact target to take it out. Just detonating “in the neighborhood” could fell an approaching enemy bomber, or an entire fleet of them.

As the Soviet bomber approached that summer day, Jackson said, “we got within five minutes of a launch. We had 16 missiles topside, all still horizontal. Ready to elevate, we were told ‘hold fire, hold fire!’”

Air Force jets “were able to get him turned back toward the Soviet Union,” Jackson said. As the jets escorted the rogue bomber east, “we stayed (at battle stations) for an hour to make sure he didn’t come back.”

Finally the order came to “stand down” and “do not talk about this to anyone.”

The brush with calamity never appeared in the press.

Bayshore battles: From World War to Cold War in Highlands

A herculean effort

With the blessing of the National Park Service, which maintains Sandy Hook and Fort Hancock’s remnants, Jackson began giving tours of the Nike site two decades ago. Over time he recruited fellow veteran volunteers to help him. In 2012 Superstorm Sandy ransacked the peninsula, rendering the launch pad inaccessible, but Jackson and his cohorts painstakingly restored the Integrated Fire Control Area that served as the nerve center.

They acquired a first-generation Nike Ajax missile from Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County , where it had been rusting away outside, and spent nearly 1,000 hours refurbishing it. Today it gleams white as the museum’s centerpiece — 34 feet long, including rocket booster, it sports a 12-inch diameter and weighs 2,400 pounds. Its guidance system is removed and on display nearby, along with a protective suit used by soldiers during the fueling process.

Visitors also can walk through the nearby control room, which still lights up as it did during that close encounter of 1970. That’s next to the workshop where the veterans are restoring the second-generation Hercules they garnered with much effort from the New Jersey National Guard.

Memorial Day: Remember this Freehold 21-year-old helicopter pilot who vanished in Vietnam

“We’ve had this for six years,” said Richard “Dusty” Griffith, a Little Silver resident and master machinist who is leading the restoration. “It was in bad shape.”

The hope is it will be ready for display within two years. Griffith also has plans to get one of the site’s three radars rotating again.

All of this is a herculean effort, so to speak, by an incredibly dedicated group of retirees whose last mission is to keep this chapter of American military history alive. They fund it almost entirely through donations, with some material help from the National Park Service.

“We need more volunteers. We’re going to need younger people to give the tours in the future,” Jackson said. “I would love to be able to pass on the knowledge that we have.”

For more information about the Fort Hancock Nike Site NY-56 Volunteers Association, their free tours, getting involved or making donations, visit www.ny56nike.weebly.com , find them on Facebook ( Ft. Hancock Nike Association ) or email president Bill Jackson at [email protected] .

Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at [email protected].

Share full article

A man with short hair wearing glasses, a dark suit and light-colored shirt sits on cabinet in an office next to a window.

How a Profane Joke on Twitter Spawned a Legal Army

A litigation team built from the sharpest, funniest tweeters is suing Elon Musk.

Akiva Cohen at his Manhattan office. He turned a one-off joke into something much larger. Credit... Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Supported by

By John Leland

May 26, 2024

Here’s one way to build a legal team: Interview graduates from the top law schools or firms, then hire the most qualified.

Akiva Cohen, a trial lawyer at a small New York firm, tried a different way: Spend way too much time on Twitter, talking trash about other lawyers’ cases, then hire the people who post the smartest, most biting comments.

Now, from his suburban family room on Long Island, Mr. Cohen, 45, is leading this small team of Twitter adepts against an almost comically outsized adversary in a $500 million lawsuit against Elon Musk.

Their saga begins in 2019, far from Long Island, in a Texas defamation case that took an unintentionally comic turn, then blew up on Twitter.

That January, a voice actor named Vic Mignogna, who made a career dubbing English dialogue for Japanese anime cartoons, was accused on Twitter of sexual misconduct. He denied the allegations and sued three of his accusers for defamation.

His lawyer, Ty Beard of Texas, sent notification letters to the defendants, citing the tweets he considered defamatory.

He wrote that a tweet by one of Mr. Mignogna’s accusers, which made a scatological reference to his client, was “defamatory and false,” because “that is another name for feces, thus it is impossible for him to be a ‘piece of’” the word at issue.

Mr. Beard was not done.

Of another tweet attacking Mr. Mignogna — “What would Jesus do? Light him on fire and send him to hell” — Mr. Beard wrote that this too was defamatory and false on the following grounds: “There is not a single place in the Bible where Jesus states that he would ‘light someone on fire and send him to hell.’ Jesus spread the message of love for everyone, not vindictiveness and defamation.”

Theological considerations aside, this is the sort of thing that made Twitter the theater it was.

Mr. Cohen was scrolling through his Twitter feed on June 5, 2019, when he saw a screen shot that someone had posted from one of Mr. Beard’s letters. For Mr. Cohen, Twitter at the time was a water cooler where he could exchange useful or useless information with other lawyers. Mr. Beard’s letter was sheer delight — a reward for the many hours he had spent reading dry posts about legal issues.

He retweeted it, figuring that some of his lawyer friends would have a good laugh at another lawyer’s expense, then return to the serious business of lawyering.

A lawyer in North Carolina retweeted Mr. Cohen’s post, adding: “Who is Vic? And why does he have a moron representing him on a bumptious defamation claim?”

The battle was on.

“It was just sort of a one-off joke,” Mr. Cohen said in an interview. “And then it turned into a war.”

Posts about legal cases on Twitter, which is now called X, typically draw little participation from non-lawyers. Mr. Mignogna’s case was something different.

“It triggered this avalanche of people who were fans of Vic Mignogna, who came in looking to defend Vic’s honor,” Mr. Cohen said. Some waged harassment and threat campaigns against Mr. Mignogna’s accusers and other women who had criticized him.

Mr. Cohen, joined by other lawyers on the thread, started to gleefully dismantle Mr. Beard’s legal arguments, sniping alternately at him, Mr. Mignogna and Mr. Mignogna’s supporters. “And it just sort of exploded from there,” Mr. Cohen said.

Comments on the thread piled up — a thousand, two thousand, five thousand. One lawyer claimed his cellphone got so many notifications that it thawed a frozen burrito in his briefcase.

Someone decided the thread needed a name. Thus was christened the Threadnought.

“It was kind of at the intersection of different cultures,” said Ken White, a California lawyer and titan of legal Twitter who posts as PopeHat . “You’ve got the anime culture, and then you’ve got this online troll culture, and then you’ve got law Twitter culture. And they intersected with spectacular results.”

Vic Mignogna, a voice actor, stands in front of a backdrop with company logos wearing a purple jacket and shiny black shirt while smiling slightly.

‘I Don’t Like Bullies’

Mr. Cohen is a partner at a boutique New York law firm called Kamerman, Uncyk, Soniker & Klein , where in 2019 he handled a modest book of litigation cases. Like many people who are warriors online, he is genial in conversation: a New York Jets fan, a former high school drama kid, a son of a nurse and a Jewish philanthropy worker. All he ever wanted to be, he said, was a lawyer.

When he started posting about the defamation case, it seemed like something fun to do in his spare time. But things soon got more serious.

Mr. Mignogna’s supporters posted Mr. Cohen’s home address and photos of his house and his children. Someone, perhaps noticing that he wore a yarmulke, sent a Chinese pork dish to his home.

Other lawyers who had posted on the thread got similar treatment, he said. “We pretty quickly realized as a group that we were taking a lot of the vitriol that was going to be aimed at more vulnerable people,” Mr. Cohen said. It gave the lawyers reasons to keep posting about the case. It also brought them closer together.

Lawyers on the thread — strangers in real life — began to have conversations unrelated to anime or Vic Mignogna. Privately, they began to muse: Wouldn’t it be fun if we could work together for real?

One of the Threadnought’s fiercest voices belonged to Kathryn Tewson, a self-described “unemployed housewife,” with no legal training but a gift for argument. She had her own reasons for jumping on the thread.

“I don’t like bullies and I don’t like fraud,” she said from her home outside Seattle. “I saw a bunch of people harassing and bullying the women who were the target of this lawsuit. And that just did not sit well with me.”

Ms. Tewson, 49, entered the fray with undisguised relish.

“I love fighting on the internet,” she said, almost chuckling. “I have loved fighting on the internet almost since there was an internet to fight on.”

In 2019, her children were getting older and she had time on her hands. What else should you know about Ms. Tewson? A friend once described her as “the kind of person who will take a guy out from two miles away with a sniper rifle and then hike over rough terrain for hours just to slit the corpse’s throat.” Ms. Tewson then posted this description of herself on social media.

Ms. Tewson started to privately question Mr. Cohen and another lawyer, Dylan Schmeyer, about defamation law, so she could make better arguments. Mr. Cohen was impressed.

“She was astoundingly quick to pick up and understand legal concepts, ferociously curious and intelligent, quick on her feet and good with words, and excellent at asking the right questions — over and over and over again,” Mr. Cohen said. On the thread he tweeted: “Kathryn, are you sure you don’t want to go to law school so I can hire you?”

One problem: She did not have a college degree. “So Akiva said, ‘Would you go to paralegal school?’” she recalled. Mr. Cohen told her that when she finished, he would either hire her or make sure someone else did.

So she went.

At his firm, Mr. Cohen was working on a complex estate case worth more than $300 million and he needed help. This is where Twitter started to leak into real life.

Mr. Cohen realized that, amid the trash talk and snark, the Threadnought offered a rare look into how other lawyers’ minds worked, how they broke down cases or constructed arguments. It was much more revealing, he figured, than looking at a lawyer’s résumé or law school background. Plus, he saw that they cared enough to do this analysis for free, in their spare time.

When he posted on Twitter that he might need assistance with a big case, Mr. Schmeyer piped up.

“I replied to that just sort of flippantly, with, ‘Man, wouldn’t that be fun?’” he said, speaking from his home in Colorado. “He called me at like 8 a.m. the next morning with, basically, ‘It would; get in, loser, we’re going ass-kicking.’”

Mr. Schmeyer, 34, had worked on a few personal injury cases after law school, but had quickly given up practicing law to start a business consulting firm. He had no track record, no real legal credentials — but oh, those Threadnought tweets.

“I knew from seeing him break down the cases and talk about the law that he had the right brain for this,” Mr. Cohen said. “And I knew we got along.” At this point, Mr. Cohen and his firm’s managing partner had interviewed one or two candidates through traditional channels. “And then I went, Why am I being stupid? I know of this amazing pool of talent.”

In January 2021, Mr. Schmeyer became Mr. Cohen’s first hire at the Kamerman firm. Ms. Tewson, who was still in the middle of paralegal training, came almost immediately after.

There was no great plan to build a litigation team from Mr. Cohen’s Twitter feed, said Hilton Soniker, the firm’s managing partner. He said he was impressed with the people Mr. Cohen brought in.

“We just took it step by step,” Mr. Soniker said. “I had a lot of confidence in Akiva. He’s a very bright lawyer. He’d say, ‘I know this person, I think that he could be a valuable addition,’ and I would meet him, and we would agree to retain him. There was no real grand plan.”

In Texas, Mr. Mignogna’s suit was dismissed in court, and again on appeal. The Threadnought lawyers began looking for other cases to pick apart.

They quickly turned their attention to lawsuits filed by supporters of former President Donald J. Trump challenging the 2020 presidential election results, criticizing them as frivolous and dissecting the legal arguments behind them. All of the suits ultimately failed, but not before Mr. Cohen and others gave them a working over on Twitter. Mr. Cohen called these exegeses Litigation Disaster Tours .

Where the Threadnought was about fighting with trolls, the Litigation Disaster Tours were about explaining complex legal cases to lay Twitter users.

‘Weirdly Meritocratic’

One reader of these Disaster threads was Don McGowan, who was the general counsel for Bungie , a video game company based near Seattle.

Bungie had a problem. People were selling software that enabled players to cheat at the company’s popular game Destiny 2, which ruined the game for those who chose to play by the rules. Bungie wanted to sue. The cases would require a lawyer who could explain technical details in terms a jury could understand.

Mr. McGowan thought Mr. Cohen’s Twitter dissections did just that. “I said, ‘Wow, if he’s this able to make this nonsense comprehensible, he must be so good in front of a jury,’” Mr. McGowan said. He retained Mr. Cohen to handle the case.

Mr. Cohen’s reaction: “‘You’re joking, right?’ Like, that’s not a thing that happens.”

In the Bungie case, the lawyers applied a novel use of federal racketeering law. They won a $16 million judgment and established that sellers of cheat codes could be criminally prosecuted for copyright infringement and money laundering. It brought them attention and more business.

With the added case work, Mr. Cohen needed another lawyer. Again he turned to the people he had met through Twitter. Mike Dunford, a Threadnought regular, was finishing a Ph.D. program in copyright law and planning to enter academia. Like Mr. Schmeyer, he had virtually no legal experience — in fact, no interest in practicing law. But he knew a lot about intellectual property and copyright law, areas where Mr. Cohen was getting work.

“Given how bizarre my background is, I’m not sure that a traditional firm would have thought that I was a good fit for it,” Mr. Dunford, who lives in Hawaii, said in an interview. He added: “Akiva actually dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of practice.”

Mr. Cohen, who before the Threadnought had barely enough cases to keep himself busy, soon expanded his team to six lawyers and three support staff members — all working virtually; all but one he had met through Twitter.

It was a ridiculous way to build a litigation team. But it made a kind of sense, said David Lat, who founded the legal website Above the Law and now writes the newsletter Original Jurisdiction .

“On the one hand, a lot of people would think you’re just hiring a bunch of randos you met online,” Mr. Lat said. “On the other hand, what he has been doing is weirdly meritocratic. Instead of hiring people based on where they went to law school, which is how a lot of legal hiring is done, he’s hiring based on seeing how people think and write in real time and under pressure. I think it’s gutsy, but it seems to be working for him.”

Their biggest case was yet to come. It, too, would emerge from the Twitter threads.

Taking on Elon

Lauren Pringle, the editor of Chancery Daily , a trade publication that covers corporate litigation in Delaware, was an avid reader of the Litigation Disaster Tours, and was covering Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover of Twitter, which played out in Delaware’s Court of Chancery.

She considered Ms. Tewson’s posts to be brilliant, and she thought Mr. Cohen was brilliant for hiring her. “I really like seeing other lawyers who step outside the box and take risks,” she said.

Through her coverage of Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, she had gotten to know a number of the company’s former employees. They complained that Mr. Musk was not paying them the severance to which they were entitled. Could she recommend a good lawyer? She sent them to Mr. Cohen and Ms. Tewson.

Soon, Mr. Cohen and his small team, all scattered around the country — in Hawaii, Colorado, Washington State, Long Island — were representing more than 200 former Twitter employees in two lawsuits and arbitration. The cases involved mountains of work against an adversary with seemingly bottomless resources, with no money coming in unless or until they prevail.

But if Mr. Cohen felt daunted by the task, he did not show it. “To be clear, Elon, you will lose, and you know it,” he wrote in an opening letter to Mr. Musk, outlining his clients’ demands. And “deposing you will be a joy.” The letter went viral — on Twitter, of course.

The cases are now working their way through various courts and arbitration bodies. The company has moved to dismiss the suits, arguing in court papers that Mr. Cohen’s clients are not entitled to severance pay under the merger agreement between Mr. Musk’s company and Twitter, “because they are neither parties to it nor intended third-party beneficiaries.”

Mr. Cohen said: “Thank God we’ve got other work, that we do have income coming in.”

For the lawyers, the case against Mr. Musk closes a period in their collective lives. After meeting one another on Twitter, they have now scattered to other social media platforms, including BlueSky. Legal Twitter, through which they found one another, is no longer the place to be. “It’s not what it was two or three years ago,” Mr. Lat said.

Mr. Cohen softened his tone to note the irony. “Twitter was what made it possible for us to get together,” he said. “And now we’re suing it.”

He blames Mr. Musk for what he considers the deterioration of a platform that had once allowed his group of square pegs to find one another and to thrive. “In a very large sense, he broke our home,” Mr. Cohen said.

“So there would be a certain poetic justice,” he added, “to get a victory for these clients.”

Citing the continuing litigation, Mr. Cohen declined to say more about the Twitter cases. But in a story that began with Vic Mignogna and the trolls of anime, that produced the Threadnought and the meaning of feces, is a little poetry too much to ask?

Mr. Cohen thought it was not. “It would be,” he said, “the perfect ending.”

John Leland is a reporter covering life in New York City for The Times. More about John Leland

The World of Elon Musk

The billionaire’s portfolio includes the world’s most valuable automaker, an innovative rocket company and plenty of drama..

X: Elon Musk has increasingly been using his social media platform to criticize President Biden for his health and immigration policies , according to a New York Times analysis.

Neuralink: A litigation team built from the sharpest, funniest tweeters is suing Elon Musk . Here’s a look at the saga that began in 2019.

Neuralink: Elon Musk’s first human experiment with a computerized brain device developed significant flaws, but the subject Noland Arbaugh, who is paralyzed and the first patient to take part in the human clinical trial , has few regrets.

Wooing World Leaders: Musk has fostered relationships with a constellation of right-wing heads of state — including Argentina’s Javier Milei and India’s Narendra Modi — to push his own politics and expand his business empire .

Tesla: Musk has gutted the part of the carmaking company responsible for building charging stations for electric vehicles , sowing uncertainty about the future of the largest and most reliable U.S. charging network.

IMAGES

Pin on War History Online
cropped-battle-of-tours.jpg
The Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours
Important Dates in Medieval History timeline
dark ages timeline

VIDEO

Battle of Tours A Turning Point in History
Battle of Tours #historyfacts #medievalhistory #medievaleurope
2022 Battlefield Tour
Arcade Belgium @ FACTS Spring 2024
Age of Empires II
The Battle of Tours: Shaping the Future of Europe #youtubeshorts#ytshorts #amazingfacts (part 4)

COMMENTS

Battle of Tours
Charles Martel. Battle of Tours, (October 732), victory won by Charles Martel, the de facto ruler of the Frankish kingdoms, over Muslim invaders from Spain. The battlefield cannot be exactly located, but it was fought somewhere between Tours and Poitiers, in what is now west-central France.
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of the Highway of the Martyrs (Arabic: معركة بلاط الشهداء, romanized: Maʿrakat Balāṭ ash-Shuhadā'), was fought on 10 October 732, and was an important battle during the Umayyad invasion of Gaul.It resulted in victory for the Frankish and Aquitanian forces, led by Charles Martel, over the invading Muslim ...
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours (October 10, ... and to have preserved Christianity in Europe during a period when Muslim rule was overrunning the remains of the old Roman and Persian Empires. ... ended. The Umayyad Caliphate, at the time of the Battle of Tours, was perhaps the world's foremost military power. Great expansion of the Caliphate occurred ...
Battle of Tours
At the Battle of Tours near Poitiers, France, Frankish leader Charles Martel, a Christian, defeats a large army of Spanish Moors, halting the Muslim advance into Western Europe. Abd-ar-Rahman, the ...
Battle of Tours: Its Significance and Historical Implications
01 Oct 2018. Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours. Painting by Charles de Steuben, 1837. Image Credit: Charles de Steuben, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. On 10 October 732 Frankish General Charles Martel crushed an invading Muslim army at Tours in France, decisively halting the Islamic advance into Europe.
The Legacy of Charles Martel & the Battle of Tours
The Battle of Poitiers aka the Battle of Tours took place over roughly a week in early October of 732. The opposing sides consisted of a Frankish army led by Charles Martel (r. 718-741) against an invading Muslim army under the nominal sovereignty of the Umayyad Caliphate (c. 661-750) based in Damascus, Syria.. These two forces came together as Umayyad power sought expansion and plunder in ...
The Battle of Tours
In 725 Anbessa, the Saracen governor of Spain, personally leads an army across the Pyrenees Mountains into France and takes the strongly fortified town of Carcassone. During the battle he receives a fatal wound, and the Saracen army retires into the nearby town of Narbonne before retreating back to the safety of Spain. Western Europe - 732 AD.
Battle Report: Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours is unquestionably a noteworthy battle, but what exactly were its impacts om history. First, and most importantly, the Battle of Tours halted the spread of Islam into Western Europe. The Battle ended the First Umayyad invasion of modern-day France. The second invasion occurred from 735-739CE and arguably posed a greater threat.
The Battle of Tours
And one of those rare, world-changing battles is the Battle of Tours - fought in 732 AD between the Christian Frankish forces and the invading Muslim Umayyad Caliphate. This fierce and destructive conflict, that shaped the future of Europe and echoed through time, was a great gamble, fought against all odds. But it remains as one of the biggest ...
Battle of Tours
Battle of Tours. From the caliphate's north-western African bases, a series of raids on coastal areas of the Visigothic Kingdom paved the way to the permanent occupation of most of Iberia by the Umayyads (starting in 711), and on into south-eastern Gaul (last stronghold at Narbonne in 759). The Battle of Tours was fought on 10 October 732, and ...
Battle of Tours (732?)
Despite being one of the most famous engagements of the medieval period, there are many uncertainties about the Battle of Tours, including its date, precise location, and significance. The traditional dating of the battle to October 732 has been questioned by scholars on the basis of Iberian sources, with many preferring to place it in late 733 ...
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours was fought in 732 between a sizable Moorish invading force and a Frankish army under Charles Martel. Martel was able to check the Moorish advance by routing the Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732. The battle is considered highly significant in that it was crucial in stemming the tide of Muslim advance into north ...
Battle of Tours
Battle of Tours. The Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers and, was fought on 10 October 732, resulted in the victory for the Frankish and Aquitanian forces, led by Charles Martel, over the invading forces of the Umayyad Caliphate, led by Abdul Rahman Al-Ghafiqi, governor of al-Andalus. Details of the battle, including the number ...
The making of a world historical moment: The Battle of Tours (732/3) in
The Battle of Tours (or Poitiers) in 732/3 is frequently cited as a turning point in world history, when the advance of Muslim Arabs was decisively halted by the Christian army of Frankish mayor Charles Martel. Yet the battle and its reputation seem relatively modest in the earliest sources, with little sense that conquest or religious tensions were key issues. This paper explores how the ...
Battle of Tours (732 A.D.)
The Battle of Tours (often called the Battle of Poitiers, but not to be confused with the Battle of Poitiers, 1356) was fought on October 10, 732 between forces under the Frankish leader Charles Martel and a massive invading Islamic army led by Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman, near the city of Tours, France. ... during a period in ...
Internet History Sourcebooks: Medieval Sourcebook
The defeat of the Saracen invaders of Frankish lands at Tours (more properly Poitiers) in 732 A.D. was a turning point in history. It is not likely the Muslims, if victorious, would have penetrated, at least at once, far into the north, but they would surely have seized South Gaul, and thence readily have crushed the weak Christian powers of ...
Medieval History
At the time of the Battle of Tours, the Umayyad Caliphate was at the height of its power. The Franks - The Emerging Empire. During Charles Martel's tenure as commander-in-chief of the Franks, the Frankish realm had become the foremost military power in western Europe. This realm consisted of north and eastern France, most of western Germany ...
The Battle of Tours: A Turning Point in Early Medieval History
The Battle of Tours. The Battle of Tours itself took place in 732 AD, just twenty years after the Umayyad Caliphate had crossed into Spain. In just that short time, Muslim armies had made their way into what is now central France. The lack of political unity at the time made it easy for the strong, unified army of the Caliphate to march across ...
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours was a significant conflict in 732 C.E. between the North African forces of the Umayyad Caliphate led by 'Abd al-Rahman and the Frankish army led by Charles Martel.
The Battle of Tours Reconsidered
Since the 18th century and the seminal works of Edward Gibbons, the battle of. Tours/Poitier has been seen as a turning point in the wars between Roman Catholic Europe and. the Islamic world. The location of the battle was close to the border between the Frankish. kingdom and the then independent Duchy of Aquitaine.
The Battle of Tours: a turning point in European History
The Battle of Tours: a turning point in European History. Charles Martel led his forces to victory over Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi in a struggle in France in 732. The History Guy remembers the battle of Tours, also called Battle of Poitiers, and the start of the Reconquista. It was a turning point in European history.
What Were the Major Battles and Conflicts of the Medieval Period?
From the Battle of Tours to the Spanish Reconquista, these are the major battles that took place during the Medieval period. Dec 8, 2023 • By Matt Whittaker, BA History & Asian Studies. In 476, the year Rome fell, heralded the Medieval Period, lasting until around 1492 when Christopher Columbus reached the Americas.
Anglo-Saxon Timeline
The Battle of Tours, also known as the Battle of Poitiers, was fought on October 10th between the Frankish forces under the leadership of Charles Martel and the invading Muslim army of Abd al-Rahman. The battle took place near the city of Tours in France and was a decisive victory for the Frankish forces.
Nike missile museum at Sandy Hook Fort Hancock revives Cold War danger
During the Cold War, the Army maintained a missile base at Fort Hancock on the northern end of Sandy Hook, the last line of defense against an attack on New York. While no hot war ever broke out ...
These Lawyers Found One Another on Twitter. Now They're Suing Elon Musk
For the lawyers, the case against Mr. Musk closes a period in their collective lives. After meeting one another on Twitter, they have now scattered to other social media platforms, including BlueSky.

Battle of Tours

Also on This Day in History October | 10

This Day in History Video: What Happened on October 10

Wake Up to This Day in History

Colonel George Custer’s funeral is held at West Point

Sign Up Today

Battle of Tours: Its Significance and Historical Implications

Celeste Neill

The Islamic advance

The Battle of Tours

You May Also Like

Mac and Cheese in 1736? The Stories of Kensington Palace’s Servants

The Peasants’ Revolt: Rise of the Rebels

10 Myths About Winston Churchill

Medusa: What Was a Gorgon?

10 Facts About the Battle of Shrewsbury

5 of Our Top Podcasts About the Norman Conquest of 1066

How Did 3 People Seemingly Escape From Alcatraz?

5 of Our Top Documentaries About the Norman Conquest of 1066

1848: The Year of Revolutions

What Prompted the Boston Tea Party?

15 Quotes by Nelson Mandela

The History of Advent

The Battle of Tours - 732 AD fr de , en ,

Islam Expanding

You May Also Like:

Leave a Reply

The Battle of Tours - A Decisive Fight for Europe’s Future

The Prelude to the Battle of Tours

The Hammer Enters the Fray

The Umayyad Wave That Broke On the Frankish Rock

Changing the Future of the World

Related Articles on Ancient-Origins

Military History

How to Subscribe

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Battle of Tours (732?)

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

Other Subject Areas

Battle of Tours (732?) by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024 LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0247

Battle of Tours 732 Charles Martel

Prelude to the Battle of Tours

Battle Tactics Battle of Tours

Battle of Tours Battle

Main Categories

The making of a world historical moment: The Battle of Tours (732/3) in the nineteenth century

Cite this article

Access this article

Similar content being viewed by others

Multiple Modernities and Political Millenarianism: Dispensational Theology, Nationalism, and American Politics

Where Does “Axial Breakthrough” Take Place? In the Past, or in Present Narratives of the Past?

Myths and History: The Treaty of Waitangi as “The Magna Charta of New Zealand”

Author information

Corresponding author

Additional information

Rights and permissions

About this article

Share this article

The Battle of Tours: A Turning Point in Early Medieval History

The Advancing Muslim Kingdoms

The Christians Respond

The Battle of Tours

Frankish Conquest of Gaul and the Early Stages of the Holy Roman Empire

The Rise of the Catholic Church

A New Era in Medieval History

Other Videos

The Battle of Tours: a turning point in European History

Support The History Guy

Premium Tee

The History Guy Car Mug

The History Guy Official Tee

Premium Hoodie

What Were the Major Battles and Conflicts of the Medieval Period?

The Battle of Tours – Muslim Expansion Stopped

The Reconquista – Spain Unites

Get the latest articles delivered to your inbox

The Crusades – The Popes’ Call

The Mongol Invasions – Unstoppable

The Battle of Agincourt – The Longbow

What Did Christopher Columbus Discover?

Frequently Read Together