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| Umayyad invasion of Gaul | |||||||||
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| Part ofearly Muslim conquests and theReconquista | |||||||||
 Map of the main military operations of the conflict | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Umayyad Caliphate Emirate of Cordoba | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani † Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi # Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi † Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri | |||||||||
TheUmayyad invasion of Gaul in modern-day France followed theUmayyad conquest of the Iberian peninsula (711–718). The Umayyad invasion occurred in two main phases, from AD 719 and from 732. Although theUmayyads secured control ofSeptimania, their incursions beyond this region into theLoire andRhône valleys failed. In 759, Muslim forces lost Septimania to the ChristianFrankish Empire and retreated to theIberian Peninsula which they calledal-Andalus.
The 719 Umayyad invasion of Gaul was the continuation of theirconquest of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania. Septimania, in southern Gaul, was the last unconquered province of theVisigothic Kingdom.[1] Muslim armies began to campaign in Septimania in 719. After the fall, in 720, ofNarbonne, the capital of the Visigothicrump state, Umayyad armies composed ofArabs andBerbers turned north againstAquitaine. Their advance was stopped at theBattle of Toulouse in 721, but they sporadically raided the southern half of Gaul as far asAvignon andLyon.[1]
A major Umayyad raid directed atTours was defeated in theBattle of Tours in 732. After 732, the Franks asserted their authority in Aquitaine andBurgundy, but only in 759 did they manage to take the Mediterranean region of Septimania, due to Muslim neglect and local Visigothic disaffection.[1]
After the fall of theUmayyad Caliphate and the rise of theAbbasid Caliphate in 750, internal conflicts within al-Andalus, including revolts and the establishment of theEmirate of Córdoba underAbd al-Rahman I, shifted the focus of AndalusiMuslim leaders towards internal consolidation. However, sporadic military expeditions were still launched into Gaul. Some of these raids resulted in temporary Muslim settlements in remote areas, but they were not integrated into the emirate's authority and soon vanished from historical records.
A Muslim incursion into Gaul in the ninth century resulted in the establishment ofFraxinetum, a fortress inProvence that lasted for nearly a century.
By 716, under the pressure of theUmayyad Caliphate from the south, theKingdom of the Visigoths had been rapidly reduced to a rump state in the province ofNarbonensis (Septimania), a region which corresponds approximately to the modernLanguedoc-Roussillon. In 713 the Visigoths of Septimania electedArdo as king. He ruled fromNarbonne. In 717, the Umayyads underal-Hurr ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Thaqafi crossed the Pyrenees for the first time on a reconnaissance mission. The following campaign of conquest in Septimania lasted three years.[2][3] Late Muslims sources, such asAhmad al-Maqqari, describeMusa ibn Nusayr (712–714) as leading an expedition to theRhône at the far east of the Visigothic kingdom, but these are not reliable.[2]
The next Umayyad governor,al-Samh, crossed the Pyrenees in 719 and conquered Narbonne (Arbuna to the Arabs) in that year or the following (720).[2] According to theChronicle of Moissac, the inhabitants of the city were slaughtered.[4] The fall of the city ended the seven-year reign of Ardo and with it the Visigothic kingdom, but Visigothic nobles continued to hold the Septimanian cities ofCarcassonne andNîmes.[2][3] Nevertheless, al-Samh established garrisons in Septimania in 721, intending to incorporate it permanently into the territories of al-Andalus.[3]
However, the Umayyad tide was temporarily halted by the large-scaleBattle of Toulouse (721), when al-Samh (Zama in the Christian chronicles) was killed byOdo of Aquitaine. Despite the defeat at Toulouse, the Umayyads still controlled Narbonne and had a strong military presence in Septimania. The Umayyads were far from their core territory in Iberia and needed local support so they offered the local Gothic nobles favorable terms and some autonomy in exchange for tribute and recognition of Umayyad authority. The Visigothic resistance was fragmented and weakened after years of war and the loss of their king. For many Gothic nobles, the agreement was preferable to continued war or subjugation by the Franks or Aquitanians, who were also regional rivals. As a result, many of the Gothic nobles of the Visigothic rump state in Septimania aligned themselves with the Muslims.
In 725, al-Samh's successor,Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi, moved against Gothic nobles resisting surrender. The city of Carcassonne was besieged and its Gothic ruler forced to cede half of his territory, pay tribute, and make an offensive and defensive alliance with Muslim forces. The Gothic rulers of Nîmes and the other resisting Septimanian cities also eventually fell under the sway of the Umayyads. In the 720s the savage fighting, the massacres and destruction particularly affecting theEbro valley and Septimania unleashed a flow of refugees who mainly found shelter in southern Aquitaine across the Pyrenees, andProvence.[5]
Sometime during this period, the Berber commanderUthman ibn Naissa ("Munuza") became governor of theCerdanya (also including a large swathe of present-day Catalonia). By that time, resentment against Arab rulers was growing within the Berber troops.
By 725, all ofSeptimania was under Umayyad rule.Uthman ibn Naissa, the Pyrenean Berber ruler of the eastern Pyrenees, detached himself from Cordova and established a principality based on a Berber power base in 731. The Berber leader allied with the Aquitanian duke Odo, who was eager to stabilize his borders, and is reported to have married Odo's daughter Lampegia. Uthman ibn Naissa went on to kill Nambaudus, thebishop of Urgell,[6] an official acting on the orders of the Church of Toledo.
The new Umayyad governor in Cordova,Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, mustered an expedition to punish the Berber commander's insubordination, surrounding and putting him to death in Cerdanya, according to theMozarabic Chronicle, a just retribution for killing the Gothic bishop.
Emboldened by his success, Al-Ghafiqi attacked Uthman ibn Naissa's Aquitanian ally Duke Odo, who had just encountered Charles Martel's devastating offensive onBourges and northern Aquitaine (731).[citation needed] Still managing to recruit the necessary number of soldiers, the independent Odo confronted al-Ghafiqi's forces that had broken north by the western Pyrenees, but could not hold back the Arab commander's thrust against Bordeaux. The Aquitanian leader was beaten at theBattle of the River Garonne in 732. The Umayyad force then moved north to invadePoitou in order to plunder theBasilica of Saint-Martin-de-Tours.
Odo still found the opportunity to save his grip on Aquitaine by warning the rising Frankish commander Charles Martel of the impending danger against the Frankish sacred city of Tours.Umayyad forces were defeated in theBattle of Tours in 732, considered by many the turning point of Muslim expansion inGaul. With the death of Odo in 735 and after putting down the Aquitanian detachment attempt led by dukeHunald,Charles Martel went on to deal with Burgundy (734, 736) and the Mediterranean south of Gaul (736, 737).
Nevertheless, in 734 Umayyad forces (called "Saracens" by the Europeans at the time) underAbd el-Malik el Fihri,Abd al-Rahman's successor, received without a fight the submission of the cities ofAvignon,Arles, and probablyMarseille, ruled by countMaurontus. The patrician of Provence had called Andalusi forces in to protect his strongholds from the Carolingian thrust, maybe estimating his own garrisons too weak to fend off Charles Martel's well-organised, strong army made up ofvassi enriched with Church lands.
Charles faced the opposition of various regional actors. To begin with the Gothic and Gallo-Roman nobility of the region, who feared his aggressive and overbearing policy.[7] Charles decided to ally with theLombard KingLiutprand in order to repel the Umayyads and the regional nobility of Gothic and Gallo-Roman stock. He also underwent the hostility of the dukes of Aquitaine, who jeopardized Charles' and his successor Pepin's rearguard (737, 752) during their military operations in Septimania and Provence. The dukes of Aquitaine in turn largely relied on the strength of theBasque troops, acting on a strategic alliance with the Aquitanians since mid-7th century.
In 737, Charles captured and reduced Avignon to rubble, in addition to destroying the Umayyad fleet. However, Charles' brother,Childebrand, failed in the siege of Narbonne. Charles attacked several other cities which had collaborated with the Umayyads, and destroyed their fortifications:Beziers,Agde,Maguelone,Montpellier,Nîmes. Before his return to northern Francia, Charles had managed to crush all opposition in Provence and Lower Rhone. Count Maurontus of Marseille fled to the Alps.
Muslims maintained their authority over Septimania for another 15 years, but shifted the focus of their efforts towards the internal divisions within al-Andalus, that had been caused by the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750. In 752, the newly proclaimed Frankish kingPepin, the son of Charles, launched an invasion of Septimania to take advantage of the internal troubles of the Muslims in al-Andalus and the growing disaffection of the Gothic nobility with their Muslim rulers. That year, Pepin conquered Nimes and went on to subdue most of Septimania up to the gates of Narbonne. In his quest to subdue the region, Charles met the opposition ofWaiffer theDuke of Aquitaine. Waifer, aware of Pepin's expansionist ambitions, is recorded as attacking the Frankish rearguard with an army of Basques during the siege of Narbonne.
It was ultimately the Frankish king who managed totake Narbonne in 759, after vowing to respect Gothic law and earning the allegiance of the Gothic nobility, thus marking the end of the Muslim presence in southern Gaul. Furthermore, Pepin directed all his war effort against the Duchy of Aquitaine immediately after subduingRoussillon.
Pepin's son,Charlemagne, fulfilled the Frankish goal of extending the defensive boundaries of the empire beyond Septimania and thePyrenees, creating a strongbuffer zone known as theSpanish March between the Frankish Empire and the Umayyad Emirate. The Spanish March would in the long run become a base, along with theKingdom of Asturias, for the eventualChristian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
Arabic words were borrowed, such astordjman (translator) which becamedrogoman in Provençal, and is still in use in the expression "par le truchement de";charaha (to discuss), which became "charabia". Some place names were also derived from Arabic or in memory of past Muslim inhabitance, such asRamatuelle andSaint-Pierre de l'Almanarre (fromal-manar i.e. 'the lighthouse').[9]
