571, Mahomet was born, and here, at the age of forty, he
proclaimed himself the prophet of God, in dignity as superior to
Christ as Christ had been to Moses. Having obtained by slow
degrees a considerable number of disciples, he resorted to arms to
diffuse his religion. The energy and zeal of his followers, aided
by the weakness of the neighboring nations, enabled him and his
successors to spread the sway of Arabia and the religion of
Mahomet over the countries to the east as far as the Indus,
northward over Persia and Asia Minor, westward over Egypt and the
southern shores of the Mediterranean, and thence over the
principal portion of Spain. All this was done within one hundred
years from the Hegira, or flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina,
which happened in the year 622, and is the era from which
Mahometans reckon time, as we do from the birth of Christ.

From Spain the way was open for the Saracens (so the followers of
Mahomet were called) into France, the conquest of which, if
achieved, would have been followed very probably by that of all
the rest of Europe, and would have resulted in the banishment of
Christianity from the earth. For Christianity was not at that day
universally professed, even by those nations which we now regard
as foremost in civilization. Great part of Germany, Britain,
Denmark, and Russia were still pagan or barbarous.

At that time there ruled in France, though without the title of
king, the first of those illustrious Charleses of whom we have
spoken, Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne. The
Saracens of Spain had made incursions into France in 712 and 718,
and had retired, carrying with them a vast booty. In 725, Anbessa,
who was then the Saracen governor of Spain, crossed the Pyrenees