EUROPE AT TILE TIM E OF CIIARLEIIIAGNE. ( See Map, EUROPE AT TILE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE.) The empire of Charles the Great included all Christian Europe except the British Islands, where the German invaders had been converted in the seventh century; northwestern Spain, where Christian chieftains of Gothic or Suevie blood were holding out against the Arabs; a-nd the Greek Empire. The Panes and Scandinavians on the north, the Slays and Ava•s on the east were still heathens. The Frankish Empire in cluded all the German tribes of central Europe; but it did not include all the territory of modern Germany, since its northeastern frontier ran be tween the Elbe and the Oder. The only other Euro pean powers were the Greek Empire and the Emirate of Cordova. The territory north of the Balkans had fallen into the hands of Slavic and Asiatic hordes (Servians and Bulgarians) ; but the Emperor at Constantinople still ruled the rest of the Balkan Peninsula, together with southern Italy, the principal islands of the Medi terranean, and the greater part of Asia Minor.
The Greeks still had sea-power, and the trade be tween Europe and the Orient was mainly in their hands. Until after the crusades their coin, the 'besant,' was the standard of Mediterranean values. South of Christendom, from Spain through North Africa to Syria, curved the cres cent of Islam. In the West. where the emirs of Cordova had made themselves independent of the caliphs at Bagdad, Mohammedanism had reached the limit of its forward movement ; but in the islands of the Mediterranean, in Asia Minor. and in southeastern Europe it was still to win ground from the Greeks. Plated in touch with the Greek civilization in Syria and in Egypt, Islam was de veloping, in letters and in science, a vulture which, until nearly the close of the Middle Ages, was superior to that of western Europe. See SAnAcENs.
Dissom Tiorg FitANKisii EmeinE.