Practice question · Multiple choice
Charles Martel defeated a Muslim force near Poitiers in 732. Muslim garrisons nevertheless held Narbonne until 759. What does that later date tell us about the battle?
Hints
- If the battle had ended a conquest of Gaul, ask what a Muslim garrison was still doing on the Mediterranean coast a generation later.
- Raiding expeditions gather plunder and go home; conquering armies bring settlers and administrators.
Show the answer
B. It was fought against a raiding expedition, not an invasion aimed at holding Gaul
Why
A campaign stopped in 732 does not leave a garrison in place for twenty-seven more years. Poitiers checked a large raid, and the eventual withdrawal from Septimania owed more to civil conflict inside al-Andalus than to Frankish arms. Gibbon inflated it, and the inflation has outlived his evidence.
Practise The Making of an Islamic World
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