Back to the salt mines

Well my dreams of millions have been dashed, (I didn't win Megamillions last night.) Back to my usual toil.

But to start my day (and yours) off right, here's Louis Prima:




Here is your Today in History -

Back in the eighth century, countries had not yet been formally invented. That part of western Europe known today as France was simply called Frankland. This helped distinguish it from neighboring areas, such as Georgeland to the north and Hansland to the east. The Franks had allowed themselves to be ruled for several generations by the Merovingians. The Franks hoped that the Merovingians would someday make them a country, preferably France.

Unfortunately the Merovingians had names like Merowig, Dagobert, and Childeric, and were therefore unlikely to produce a serious nation, such as France, but more likely Luxembourg or Liechtenstein.

Working directly beneath the kings of the Merovingian line, however, was a family that had been increasing its power and influence in the Frankish court for several generations. These were the descendants of Arnulf, and they were much more serious than the flaky Merovingians.

The Arnulfians were all named either Pepin or Charles, and they all served as Mayors of the Palace. It wasn’t much of a title, but it let them siphon power from the Merovingians until the kings had no power left at all.

The last Merovingian king was Childeric III. When he realized he was finally powerless, that the office of the palace mayor had usurped all the power of the monarchy, he became upset and refused to trim his whiskers.

He was shaved, and sent off to live in a monastery.

The first Arnulfian king was Pepin the Short, son of Charles "the Hammer" Martel, son of Pepin the Easily Confused. Pepin the Short had two sons, Charles and Carloman. The boys were too young to have acquired official nicknames, but were almost certainly referred to affectionately as Chuckie and Carlo, possibly in that order.

King Pepin got the Pope’s approval to be king, and immediately afterward began exterminating Saracens. This was a favorite recreation of European royalty at the time. History is ambiguous about these so-called Saracens, who afflicted southern and eastern Europe during this period. They may have been an aggressive species of deer, fierce carnivorous birds, or even swarms of disease-carrying rodents. Some historians call them "Mussel-men"--presumably half-mussel, half-man: such a monster is too terrible to imagine, especially if you like seafood. We know only that it was necessary to kill them, and that Pepin did this admirably.

Finally he died.

Chuckie and Carlo divided the Frankland between them until Carlo died, at which point Chuckie became king of everything.

It seemed inappropriate to call him Chuckie from that point forward, and so he came to be known as Big Chuck. As he got older, he became Charles the Great, and eventually, of course, he turned out to be Charlemagne.

He conquered a lot of territory, killed a lot of Saracens, and is often credited with the invention of France, or at least something that closely resembled it.

He was born on April 2. I forgot to mention that.



And so it goes