While it must have burned at Eudo’s pride to beg Charles for help, he really had no other choice. The foundation of power in Early Medieval Europe was the ability to protect the lands and lives of one’s subjects. Thus, allowing one’s domain to be pillaged by a marauding foreign army – even temporarily -- was too often a recipe for disaster as rulers in this period were raised and removed by the local nobility with little (if any) apprehension. Humbling himself before Charles (and likely accepting some humiliating terms in return for Charles’ aid) was thus a far more preferable fate for Eudo than being murdered at the hands of his own nobility.

However much it must have burned Eudo’s pride to appeal to Charles for help, he did choose wisely, for there was no more powerful – or capable – man in all of Western Christendom. That this was so would hardly have seemed possible just 20 years earlier.