The Lombard duchy was no permanent acquisition for the
Franks, but that of Bavaria was suppressed, in consequence of a second plot
(788). The addition of this large and wealthy province made the eastern half of
the Frankish kingdom practically coextensive with medieval Germany, and almost
equal in importance to the Romanised provinces of Gaul.
(4) As a natural precaution for the defence of
Bavaria, Charles then turned against the Avars, a race akin to the Huns, who
had settled on the middle Danube after the departure of the Lombards for Italy.
The Avars invaded Bavaria and Friuli as allies of Tassilo (788); they were punished
by three campaigns of extirpation (791-796), which broke their power and spared
only a miserable remnant of their people. Their land was annexed but not
settled; for Germany offered a more tempting field to the Frankish pioneers.
Indeed, some of the surviving Avars were planted in the Ostmark (Austria),
which Charles established as an outpost of Bavaria, to keep watch upon the
Slavs.
(5) To Spain the Emperor first turned his attention
in 777, when he was invited by the discontented emirs on the north of the Ebro
to free them from the Caliph of Cordova. The next year saw his abortive march
through the pass of Roncesvalles to the walls of Saragossa - an expedition immortalised
in the Chanson de Roland, the earliest and most famous epic of the
Charlemagne cycle, but fabulous from first to last, except in recording the
fact that there was a certain Roland (warden of the Breton Mark) who fell in
the course of the Frankish retreat. More substantial work was done in Spain
during the last years of the reign. Navarre declared for the Franks and
Christianity; the eldest son of Charles captured Tortosa at the mouth of the
Ebro (811), and founded the Spanish Mark.
