718 Pelayo, a noble Visigoth who has been elected king, defeats the Muslim Army in Alcama in the neighbourhood of Covadonga, thus beginning the Christian Reconquest of Spain. 735 Venerable Bede, an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine scholar, writes the History of the English Church and People in Latin, generally regarded as the best historical writing of medieval history. The first great English epic poem, Beowulf , is written in Old English. The work is anonymous and untitled until 1805. It is a Christian poem that exemplifies early medieval society in England and shows roots in Old Testament Law.
Irish monks establish early medieval art.
The greatest surviving product of these monks is the Book of Kells , a Gospel book of decorative art. 751 St. Boniface anoints Pepin the Short as a divinely sanctioned king, and thus the Frankish monarchy becomes fused into the papal order. The western European empire, based on the alliance between the Frankish monarchy and the Latin Church, provides an image of Western cultural unity for Europeans lost since the fall of the Roman Empire, though it does not last long. 756 Donation of Pepin - the papal domains in Italy are created and established as territory under the soveriegn control of popes. His empire, known as the Carolingian dynasty, eventually includes much of central Europe, northern Italy and central Italy in addition to realms already conquered by Frankish rule.