Battle of Tertry
| date | June 687 |
|---|---|
| place |
Tertry , Hauts-de-France 
|
| output | Victory of the troops of Pippin the Middle , Pippin spreads power on Neustria and Burgundy |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Austrasia |
Neustria |
| Commander | |
|
Berchar , caretaker of the Merovingian king Theuderich III.
|
|
The battle of Tertry was fought in 687 between the troops of Pippin the Middle , House Meier of Australia , on the one hand, and those of the Merovingian king Theuderic III. and his Neustrian caretaker Berchar (Berthar), on the other hand, near the present-day community of Tertry in Picardy in northern France . The place and year of the battle (not the exact time) are documented in contemporary sources (although the later Annales Mettenses priores date the event to the year 690), but they only briefly describe the battle itself.
Theuderic III. was king of the Frankish sub-kingdoms of Burgundy , Neustria and Austrasia. The de facto power in Austrasia, however, was held by Pippin in his function as the caretaker there. To enforce overall rule, Theuderich III attacked. and Berchar Austrasia. Pippin not only won the battle, but Theuderich III lost as a result. power over Neustria and Burgundy to Pippin. Pippin thus became the caretaker of the Frankish empire as a whole , which was the prerequisite for the rise of the Pippinids .
Some of the losers fled to the nearby abbeys of Péronne and Saint-Quentin , while the rest, including Berchar and King Theuderic III, withdrew to Paris . Pippin followed them and concluded a peace agreement with them in the city, about the contents of which nothing is known, except that Berchar and Theuderich de jure were left in office. In fact, power was now entirely with Pippin, as reflected in the sources. In the research, however, some warnings against drawing too fast conclusions from the partisan accounts, especially since Pippin did not dare to reach for the Franconian royal crown. It is only certain that a power struggle that had lasted for years between Neustria and Austrasia was decided in favor of the latter part of the empire.
Since 1987 a monument in front of the church of Tertry commemorates the battle. It consists of three stone blocks that symbolize the three kingdoms of that time ( Austrasia , Neustria and Burgundy ). In front of it is a round stone with the inscription Tertry 687.
literature
- Ulrich Nonn : Tertry. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 30, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-018385-4 , p. 356f.
Remarks
- ^ Eugen Ewig : The Merovingians and the Franconian Empire. Stuttgart 2006, pp. 185-186.
- ^ Paul J. Fouracre: Observations on the outgrowth of Pippinid influence in the Regnum Francorum after the battle of Tertry (687-715). In: Medieval Prosopography 5, 1984, pp. 1–31, here p. 3ff.