Battle of Tours

Seven days of watching

Traditionally dated to 10 October 732 — though many scholars prefer late 733 or 734 — the battle followed Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi’s invasion of Aquitaine and his defeat of Duke Eudo. Eudo sought help from Charles Martel, and the Frankish and Umayyad armies met on the road between Poitiers and Tours. The Chronicle of 754 describes seven days of manoeuvring or harassment before the pitched battle.

Charles’s forces held their formation and killed Abd al-Rahman during the fighting. The chronicler calls Charles’s troops “Europeans” — one of the earliest surviving Latin uses of that collective label.

The empty camp

Fighting ended at nightfall. At dawn the Franks found the Umayyad tents still standing, but the army had withdrawn in good order.

Charles had won the field. Muslim forces nonetheless retained positions in southern Gaul and conducted later raids.

How little is actually known

10 October 732 is the traditional exact date, not a contemporary attestation; Oxford Bibliographies notes that many scholars prefer late 733 or 734 on the basis of Iberian chronology. The precise battlefield is unknown beyond the broad area between the two cities.

No trustworthy troop-strength or casualty totals survive, and the composition of Charles’s army is incompletely recorded — “Frankish and Burgundian” is not a precise order of battle. Even Abd al-Rahman’s aim, whether large raid, punitive campaign or territorial conquest, remains debated.

Charles did not demonstrably receive the name Martel that day either: the epithet was recorded later and was not linked to this battle until the eleventh century.