Introduction
When Rome fell in 476, Western Europe became mired in the Dark Ages. Falling far from the once lofty standards of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, most learning, trade, and travel grounded to a stop. Instead the land was filled with war, crime and ignorance. During this dark time the assorted tribal barbaric bands of Europe battled for supremacy and survival, while the people yearned for the past and the civilization, progress and the order of the fallen empire.
Out of the rubble, the Franks rose above the other barbarian bands. Under the rule of Clovis I in the years following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the tribes of the Franks are united for the first time and the Merovingian dynasty is founded. Along with a new political order, Clovis also brought Christianity to his pagan brethren and began a struggle to once again unify the lands once were under the banner of Rome and return them to peace and prosperity.
At the dawn of the eighth century, the last of the Merovingian rulers, the boy-king, Thierry IV, assumed the throne under the guidance of the Mayor of the Palace, an awe-inspiring warrior named Charles Martel, “the Hammer,” upon whom real power in the Frankish kingdom rested. Under the leadership of Charles, the boundaries of the Frankish Kingdom were expanded with victories over many of the competing tribes of Europe including the Frisians, the Bavarians, and the Saxons. Despite his success, keeping the Frankish kingdom together is a constant struggle, resulting in never ending bloodshed.
As Western Europe struggled to rebuild, the Muslim World is on a meteoric rise. Unlike Europe of the Dark Ages, the people of the Muslim world have begun a golden age full of trade, learning, art, and expansion under the rule of one man, the Caliph, the Dar al-Islam, the leader of the Umayyad Dynasty.
Not yet a hundred years old, the religion of Islam spread by word and by the sword from its capital in Damascus throughout much of the known world. In short order, the ancient kingdoms and empires of Arabia, Persia, Syria, Egypt, and the rest of Northern Africa fall to the Muslim armies of the Umayyad dynasty. Only the massive walls of Constantinople and the miraculous invention of Greek fire save the Christian Byzantine Empire from joining the fates of the vanquished empires.
At the beginning of the eight-century, the Umayyad Empire turned its massive armies in Africa north, across the Pillars of Hercules, toward the lands of Western Europe. In 711, the Iberian Peninsula is the first European land to fall to the forces of the Crescent Moon. Soon after, they looked to cross the Pyrenees and plunged into the heart of Western Europe and Christianity.
This is the story of a terrible battle and a major turning point in the struggle waged for more than a millennium between two great creeds and two great cultures. This is the story of the Crescent and the Cross.
