I was having a pleasant day farming in the fields when I smelled the smoke.

That was my first observation of the event. I was taught when I was young to run whenever I encountered that, so I did. I made a mistake, because what I saw I could never prepare for -- the familiar flames at such a high level and mass were what was shocking. But the carnage really had me in. I saw burning bodies and thankfully I caught the perpetrators. Out on the dock near our village were ships still being unloaded. All of the possessions in our town were being knocked out of their places. A raid! But there hadn't been a raid on our village in hundreds of years!

I stayed curled up in a bush near the hills for safety. I had a good view, and thankfully I didn't recognize any faces. My family and most of the other townspeople must have evacuated -- smart move. The wreckage was monumental, but after a few hours, I began to see the sails moving away. I recognized them. Vikings.

I felt like I was going to be sick. I thought they were only a legend. There were still no people clearing back into the village. What had they done? Had anyone killed? What was left, if anything? I wanted to know. But I was thankful that I didn't.

Our Core Concentration blog assignment for today is to write about Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, and his contributions as well as his importance to the history of the Middle Ages. This ties into our History class quite well as we are beginning our unit on Europe during the Early Middle Ages and following the fall of Rome.

Charlemagne was the leader of the Franks, whose culture would later blend with the Romans' to create the French. He is a significant part of English history, but after his death he adapted the French title "Charlemagne". The "-magne" suffix comes from the Latin root "magna", which means "great" or "large", so "Charlemagne" is a portmanteau title that literally translates to "Charles the Great" in English. Some others who have been given the title are Alexander the Great and Catherine the Great. He was honored with it because of his involvement with the spread of Christianity and development of early European civilizations in England, Ireland, and Gaul (now France/Spain). 

I'm not sure when Charlemagne was actually born, but he seized control of Ireland and other key parts of Europe in the 790s, roughly the same time that Viking raids were taking place to the north. He had a lot of great visions and ideas for keeping his states and other areas of rules intact and was known for being kind to his allies, but merciless toward evildoers. His establishment and development of England and Ireland proved to be the basis of Early Middle Age civilization especially in regards to justice and religion, the latter of which he was quite devoted to. His discoveries and contributions have also given us a clearer knowledge of Europe's human geography and a better understanding of the world after the fall of Rome. Usually when thinking in a linear fashion, Charlemagne will be one of the first figures to pop up after Byzantium's fall to the Turks. 

This period in history especially interests me because a lot of other history units that we have studied were taking place or flourishing near it. This was before the Heian period in Japan and during a rapid spread in Islam.