Hello everyone and welcome back to the Viking Age podcast.

My name is Lee and this is episode 25.

The Carolingians finally get their crown.

This is part three of our series on the Carolingian Viking Age.

Now this is, as I'm sure you are all well too aware by now, a community-supported podcast.

And that means that we are reliant upon listeners just like you to help us keep this show running.

Now, there are a lot of ways which you can help us out, and I've talked about those a lot

before.

But today, I'm happy to announce that there is a new way for you to support the show, and

you can do this by becoming a patron on Patreon.

I will take some time at the end of today's show to talk about the gritty details of all of this.

So please stick around till then to learn how you can ensure that we can keep telling stories from

the Viking age week after week. For now, though, let's go on to the history.

Last time out, we talked about the decline of Merovingian power in the Frankish kingdoms and the subsequent rise of the Carolingian dynasty, beginning during the rule of Pippin of

Hurstahl, and escalating dramatically under the reign of his bastard son, Charles Martel.

We witnessed how, after emerging victorious from a bloody civil war,

Charles managed to unite the Frankish realm and effectively ruled it from his position as mayor

of the palace. In spite of his dramatic rise, it is

important to note that Charles still felt the need to preserve a Merovingian upon the Frankish

throne. The presence of this figurehead monarch allowed Charles to maintain the pretense

that he was preserving the traditional

Merovingian system of rule, while in reality it was he who was the true power in Francia.

...