The conquest of Italy brought Charlemagne in contact with the Saracens who, at t he time, controlled the Mediterranean.

Pippin, his son, was much occupied with S aracens in Italy. Charlemagne conquered Corsica and Sardinia at an unknown date and in 799 the Balearic Islands. The islands were often attacked by Saracen pira tes, but the counts of Genoa and Tuscany (Boniface) kept them at bay with large fleets until the end of Charlemagne's reign. Charlemagne even had contact with t he caliphal court in Baghdad. In 797 (or possibly 801), the caliph of Baghdad, H arun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas an d a clock.[37] In Hispania, the struggle against the Moors continued unabated throughout the la tter half of his reign. His son Louis was in charge of the Spanish border. In 78 5, his men captured Girona permanently and extended Frankish control into the Ca talan littoral for the duration of Charlemagne's reign (and much longer, it rema ined nominally Frankish until the Treaty of Corbeil in 1258). The Muslim chiefs in the northeast of Islamic Spain were constantly revolting against Cordovan aut hority, and they often turned to the Franks for help. The Frankish border was sl owly extended until 795, when Girona, Cardona, Ausona, and Urgell were united in to the new Spanish March, within the old duchy of Septimania. In 797 Barcelona, the greatest city of the region, fell to the Franks when Zeid, its governor, rebelled against Cordova and, failing, handed it to them. The Uma yyad authority recaptured it in 799. However, Louis of Aquitaine marched the ent ire army of his kingdom over the Pyrenees and besieged it for two years, winteri ng there from 800 to 801, when it capitulated. The Franks continued to press for ward against the emir. They took Tarragona in 809 and Tortosa in 811. The last c onquest brought them to the mouth of the Ebro and gave them raiding access to Va lencia, prompting the Emir al-Hakam I to recognize their conquests in 812.