Charles joined his forces with Duke Odo’s to face the Saracens, and, thanks to his military brilliance, the Franks turned back the Moors at the Battle of Tours in 732. The illegitimate son of a Frankish noble, Charles Martel had become ruler of the Frankish Kingdom. Though able to delay them at Toulouse in 721, Odo of Aquitaine, a Frankish duke, failed to halt the Muslim advance and sent out for the assistance of another Frank, Charles Martel-Charlemagne’s grandfather. The Muslims crossed the Pyrenees mountains and marched into the Frankish Kingdom, gaining yet another name: Saracens. Muslims now had nearly complete economic and political control of the Mediterranean. Backed by the powerful caliph of Damascus, Berber Muslims-native peoples of North Africa, also known as Moors-occupied Spain in 711 and remained there for more than 700 years. In the time before Charlemagne, Muslim forces moved north into Europe. More commonly known as Charlemagne, the heir to the Carolingian dynasty, he went on to become one of Europe’s greatest leaders, making strides toward establishing a more enlightened, higher civilization. In the midst of these trying times, a boy named Carolus Magnus-Charles the Great-was born in 742. Europe entered the Dark Ages, a chaotic period of the early Middle Ages. Citizens struggled to survive, the arts and education all but disappeared. Without any central authority, fractured kingdoms waged intense warfare. The fall of the Roman Empire in 476 left a giant rift in Western Europe.
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