Under Clotaire II. the French monarchy was re-established and united. The Chartrain territory was joined to Neustria and thus passed under the government of Pépin d’Heristal, Charles Martel and Pépin-le-Bref[22] successively. And Charles, before becoming King and Emperor under the name of Charlemagne, also ruled Neustria. Pépin, his father, who with the aid of the Pope Zachary, had added to the authority of Charles Martel the crown of Clovis, proved by many gifts to the Church that the gratitude of the Carlovingians could be adequate to its obligations. Among his gifts it is recorded that he assigned to Notre-Dame de Chartres part of the forest of Yveline. Ten years before Pépin was established on the Merovingian throne Chartres had suffered from one among many bitter experiences of the violence of the times.
The annals of Metz record that Hunald, son of Eudes, Count of Aquitane, revolting against Pépin and Carloman, threw himself upon Chartres in 745, sacked and burnt it, and ‘did not spare the church consecrated to the Mother of God.’ This incident was but a fore-taste of the long and ruinous struggle which the Chartrains were destined to maintain against the invasions of those men of the North, whose appearance on the shores of the Baltic had drawn prophetic tears, it was said, from the eyes of the invincible and enlightened Charlemagne.
The church damaged by Hunald was doubtless the one which had been built in the fourth century. The wooden roof and supports were probably consumed by the flames on this occasion, but the thick Roman walls of the ancient basilica--such as you see in the martyrium--would survive many a burning. The church therefore was easily and quickly restored by Bishop Godessald, and was ere long the scene of a memorable event.
Charles, son of Pépin, King of Aquitaine, had been made prisoner in the kingdom of his uncle, Charles-le-Chauve. He was taken before the meeting of the Estates held at Chartres (849), and there he made a declaration aloud from the ambo of the church to the effect that if he turned ecclesiastic it was of his own free will and for the love of God. He was blessed by the bishops and shorn, clad in the garb of a monk and sent to the Monastery of Corbie. Such was one of the ways in which one got rid of a dangerous rival in those days.