IMPERIAL UNITY AND REGIONAL POWER
Hans Hummer
By all appearances Carolingian rulers from Charles Martel to Louis the Pious had united Frankish world under their stern lordship. Potential rivals and factions been suppressed, fortunes of great families were made or unmade according needs royal power, abbots bishops became partners in rulership and, perhaps most importantly, Carolingians victorious battle. also presided over a sweeping reform church society which reached its apogee Pious's councils (816–19) his elegant conception ‘Christian Empire’. Working undermine imperial unity number structural tensions. The transition expansion Charlemagne defence diminished opportunities acquire spoils necessary for maintaining patronage networks that sustained edifice. As flow plunder tribute dissipated, aristocrats began vie honores wealth within empire. It probably is no coincidence, as Timothy Reuter has observed, this competition internal was marked by noticeable uptick allegations abuse property. These complaints not driven antagonism between clerics laity; they predictable byproduct political empowerment abbeys during Carolingians' rise power elaboration flexible system property transfers bound kin-groups, monks, kings one another.
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