>>Although Tours is **sometimes** presented as a decisive check on Muslim expansion... LOL **By the eighteenth century, historians such as Edward Gibbon** had begun to portray the Frankish leader as the saviour of Christian Europe from a full-scale Islamic invasion. In Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire he wonders whether without Charles' victory, "Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford".[34] **Many twentieth-century European historians continued to develop Gibbon's perspectives**, such as French medievalist Christian Pfister, who wrote in 1911 that "Besides establishing a certain unity in Gaul, Charles saved it from a great peril. In 711 the Arabs had conquered Spain. In 720 they crossed the Pyrenees, seized Narbonensis, a dependency of the kingdom of the Visigoths, and advanced on Gaul. By his able policy Odo succeeded in arresting their progress for some years; but a new vali, Abdur Rahman, a member of an extremely fanatical sect, resumed the attack, reached Poitiers, and advanced on Tours, the holy town of Gaul. In October 732—just 100 years after the death of Mahomet—Charles gained a brilliant victory over Abdur Rahman, who was called back to Africa by revolts of the Berbers and had to give up the struggle. ...After his victory, Charles took the offensive".[36] **Similarly, William E. Watson** who wrote of the battle's importance in Frankish and world history in 1993, suggested that "Had Charles Martel suffered at Tours-Poitiers the fate of King Roderick at the Rio Barbate, it is doubtful that a "do-nothing" sovereign of the Merovingian realm could have later succeeded where his talented major domus had failed. Indeed, as Charles was the progenitor of the Carolingian line of Frankish rulers and grandfather of Charlemagne, **one can even say with a degree of certainty that the subsequent history of the West would have proceeded along vastly different currents had ‘Abd al-Rahman been victorious at Tours-Poitiers in 732."[37]** **Other recent historians** however argue that the importance of the battle is dramatically overstated, both for European history in general and for Charles Martel's reign in particular. This view is typified by Alessandro Barbero, who in 2004 wrote, "Today, historians tend to play down the significance of the battle of Poitiers, pointing out that the purpose of the Arab force defeated by Charles Martel was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy monastery of St-Martin of Tours".[38] >>It was just about looting only one monestarylol!Dindu nuffin! Similarly, in 2002 Tomaž Mastnak wrote: "The continuators of Fredegar's chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, **pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens**—moreover, as only one in a series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory... One of Fredegar's continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule."[39] >>So it wasn't just about one monestary???!!!! More recently, the memory of Charles Martel has been appropriated by **far right and white nationalist groups**, such as the 'Charles Martel Group' in France, and by Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.[40] >>OMG THE HORROR NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...