He also gave St Boniface a safe conduct for his missions in Thuringia, Alemannia and Bavaria.
During the government of Charles Martel important changes appear to have been made in the internal administration. Under him began the great assemblies of nobles known as the champs de Mars. To attach his leudes Charles had to give them church lands as precarium, and this had a very great influence in the development of the feudal system. It was from the precarium, or ecclesiastical benefice, that the feudal fief originated. Vassalage, too, acquired a greater consistency at this period, and its rules began to crystallize. Under Charles occurred the first attempt at reconciliation between the papacy and the Franks. Pope Gregory III., menaced by the Lombards, invoked the aid of Charles (739), sent him a deputation with the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and the chains of St Peter, and offered to break with the emperor and Constantinople, and to give Charles the Roman consulate (ut a partibus imperatoris recederet et Romanum consulatum Carolo sanciret). This proposal, though unsuccessful, was the starting-point of a new papal policy. Since the death of Theuderich IV. in 737 there had been no king of the Franks. In 741 Charles divided the kingdom between his two sons, as though he were himself master of the realm. To the elder, Carloman, he gave Austrasia, Alemannia and Thuringia, with suzerainty over Bavaria; the younger, Pippin, received Neustria, Burgundy and Provence. Shortly after this division of the kingdom Charles died at Quierzy on the 22nd of October 741, and was buried at St Denis. The characters of Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne offer many striking points of resemblance. Both were men of courage and activity, and the two men are often confused in the chansons de geste.
See T. Breysig, Jahrbücher d. fränk. Reichs, 714—741; die Zeit Karl Martells (Leipzig, 1869); A. A. Beugnot, “Sur la spoliation des biens du clergé attribuée à Charles Martel,” in the Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, vol. xix. (Paris, 1853); Ulysse Chevalier, Bio-bibliographie (2nd ed., Paris, 1904). (C. Pf.)
CHARLESTON, a city and the county-seat of Coles county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the E. part of the state, about 45 m. W. of Terre Haute, Indiana. Pop. (1900) 5488; (1910) 5884. It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Toledo, St Louis & Western railways, and by interurban electric lines. It is the seat of the Eastern Illinois state normal school (opened in 1899). The city is situated in an important broom-corn raising district, and has broom factories, a tile factory and planing mills. The water-works are owned and operated by the municipality. Charleston was settled about 1835, was incorporated in 1839, and was reincorporated in 1865. One of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was held here in 1858.
CHARLESTON, the largest city of South Carolina, U.S.A., the county-seat of Charleston county, a port of entry, and an important South Atlantic seaport, on a narrow peninsula formed by the Cooper river on the E. and the Ashley on the W. and S.W., and within sight of the ocean about 7 m. distant. Pop. (1890) 54,955; (1900) 55,807, of whom 31,522 were of negro descent and 2592 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 58,833. It is served by the Atlantic Coast Line and the Southern railways, the Clyde Steamship Line to New York, Boston and Jacksonville, the Baltimore & Carolina Steamship Co. to Baltimore and Georgetown, and a branch of the North German Lloyd Steamship Co., which brings immigrants from Europe direct to the Southern states; there are freight boat lines to ports in the West Indies, Central America and other foreign countries.
The city extends over 3.76 sq. m. of surface, nowhere rising more than 8 or 10 ft. above the rivers, and has about 9 m. of water front. In the middle of the harbour, on a small island near its entrance, is the famous Fort Sumter; a little to the north-east, on Sullivan’s Island, is the scarcely less historic Fort Moultrie, as well as extensive modern fortifications; on James Island, opposite, is Fort Johnson, now the United States Quarantine Station, and farther up, on the other islands, are Fort Ripley and Castle Pinckney (now the United States buoy station). Viewed from any of these forts, Charleston’s spires and public buildings seem to rise out of the sea. The streets are shaded with the live oak and the linden, and are ornamented with the palmetto; and the quaint specimens of colonial architecture, numerous pillared porticoes, spacious verandas—both upper and lower—and flower gardens made beautiful with magnolias, palmettoes, azaleas, jessamines, camelias and roses, give the city a peculiarly picturesque character.
King Street, running north and south through the middle of the peninsula, and Market Street, crossing it about 1 m. from its lower end, are lined with stores, shops or stalls; on Broad Street are many of the office buildings and banks; the wholesale houses are for the most part on Meeting Street, the first thoroughfare east of King; nearly all of the wharves are on the east side; the finest residences are at the lower end of the peninsula on East Battery and South Battery, on Meeting Street below Broad, on Legare Street, on Broad Street and on Rutledge Avenue to the west of King. At the south-east corner of Broad and Meeting streets is Saint Michael’s (built in 1752–1761), the oldest church edifice in the city, and a fine specimen of colonial ecclesiastical architecture; in its tower is an excellent chime of eight bells. Beneath the vestry room lie the remains of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and in the churchyard are the graves of John Rutledge, James Louis Petigru (1789–1863), and Robert Young Hayne. At the intersection of the same streets are also the massive United States post office building (Italian Renaissance in style), with walls of granite; the county court house, the city hall and Washington Square—in which stand a statue of William Pitt (one arm of which was broken off by a cannon shot during the British bombardment in 1780), and a monument to the memory of Henry Timrod (1829–1867), the poet. At the foot of Broad Street is the Colonial Exchange in which the South Carolina convention organized a new government during the War of Independence; and at the foot of Market Street is the large modern custom house of white marble, built in the Roman-Corinthian style. Saint Philip’s church, with admirable architectural proportions, has a steeple nearly 200 ft. in height, from which a beacon light shines for the guidance of mariners far out at sea. In the west cemetery of this church are the tombs of John C. Calhoun, and of Robert James Turnbull (1775–1833), who was prominent locally as a nullifier and under the name of “Brutus” wrote ably on behalf of nullification, free trade and state’s rights. The French Protestant Church, though small, is an attractive specimen of Gothic architecture; and the Unitarian, which is in the Perpendicular style and is modelled after the chapel of Edward VI. in Westminster, has a beautiful fan-tracery ceiling.
Of the few small city squares, gardens or parks, the White Point Garden at the lower end of the peninsula is most frequented; it is shaded with beautiful live oaks, is adorned with palmettoes and commands a fine view of the harbour. About 1½ m. north of this on Meeting Street is Marion Square, with a tall graceful monument to the memory of John C. Calhoun on the south side, and the South Carolina Military Academy along the north border. The largest park in Charleston is Hampton Park, named in honour of General Wade Hampton. It is situated in the north-west part of the city and is beautifully laid out. The Isle of Palms, to the north of Sullivan’s Island, has a large pavilion and a wide sandy beach with a fine surf for bathing, and is the most popular resort for visitors. The Magnolia Gardens are about 8 m. up the Ashley. Twenty-two miles beyond is the town of Summerville (pop. in 1900, 2420), a health resort in the pine lands, with one of the largest tea farms in the country. Magnolia Cemetery, the principal burial-place, is a short distance north of the city limits; in it are the graves of William Washington (1732–1810) and Hugh Swinton Legaré. Charleston was the home of the Pinckneys, the Rutledges, the Gadsdens, the Laurenses, and, in a later generation, of W. G. Simms. A trace of the early social organization of the brilliant colonial town remains in the St Cecilia Society, first formed in 1737 as an amateur concert society.
Charleston has an excellent system of public schools. Foremost among the educational institutions is the college of Charleston, chartered in 1785 and again in 1791, and opened in 1790;
