Their Defeat by Charles Martel
It was in the hour of need that Charles Martel appeared as a champion for Christendom. Gathering a powerful army, he met the Saracens between Tours and Poitiers (pwät-yea´). A desperate battle, which lasted for seven days, ensued; but on the seventh day the Saracens were defeated with great slaughter, A.D. 732.
This victory arrested forever the progress of the Mohammedan arms in Europe, and procured for Charles the expressive surname of “the Hammer” (Martel), by which he is known in history.
While the Saracens were stopped from pushing their conquests farther into Europe, they firmly established themselves in Spain, where they founded a kingdom that lasted for seven hundred years,—that is, till the very close of the Middle Ages.