When Pepin of Heristal, the greatest
territorial lord of Austrasia, took upon himself the office of
major-domus, he compelled the Merovingian King, at the battle of
Testry in 687, to invest him with the powers of that office in the
three Frankish states, Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy. This
being accomplished Pepin was practically dictator, and the
Merovingians, though allowed to remain on the throne, were simply
figure-heads from that time forth. Charles Martel was a son worthy
of Pepin of Heristal. His most notable achievement was the defeat
of the Saracen invaders at the battle of Tours, A.D. 732, which
ended the advance of Mahometanism through Western Europe.
Charles Martel died October 22, 741, at Kiersey-sur-Oise, aged fifty-two
years, and his last act was the least wise of his life. He had spent it
entirely in two great works: the reestablishment throughout the whole of
Gaul of the Franco-Gallo-Roman Empire, and the driving back, from the
frontiers of his empire, of the Germans in the North and the Arabs in
the South.
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