[Dana Carleton Munro, The Middle Ages, 395-1272 (New York: The Century Company, 1921), 101-111]
Difficult Position of the Pope. The labors of Boniface had been very serviceable to the Frankish kings, and had brought about a close connection between them and the Roman Church. This association was now to bear its fruit for the pope, who was in great difficulties, as the Lombards had conquered Ravenna and were threatening to seize Rome. The emperor at Constantinople did nothing to aid Italy, and the pope was wholly unable to defend the menaced territory. A few years before, fruitless appeals had been made to Charles Martel, who was in alliance with the Lombards and unwilling to make any hostile movement against them. Hoping for better success, in 754 Pope Stephen II went to France to ask assistance from Pippin.
Donation of Pippin. The latter received him gladly. There had been some rebellious movements and Pippin's position was not entirely secure. He desired to strengthen it and to obtain a stronger position for his family than he already had. Consequently Stephen anointed Pippin, his wife, and his children, and forbade the Franks in the future, under penalty of excommunication, to choose a king from any other family. Titus the Carolingian line obtained a sanction which the Merovingian had never possessed: they were God's anointed, and rebellion against them was rebellion against the church. In addition the pope conferred on Pippin and his two sons the title of " patricians of the Romans "; this was an empty honor, conferring no power, and Pippin seems to have set little store by its possession. The pope probably hoped that it would interest the king in the fate of Rome, and begged him unceasingly for protection from the Lombards in return for all the favors showered upon him. The Frankish nobles were opposed to this war, but were finally won over and two expeditions were made, in 754 or 755, and in 756. Each time the Franks were victorious and each time the Lombards, yielding temporarily to force, gave up certain cities, including Ravenna, and promised to refrain from attacking Rome. In 756 the keys to these cities were solemnly carried to Rome and placed upon St. Peter's tomb, together with a deed of gift. This was the famous donation of Pippin. Donation Until the Lombards were thoroughly subdued the gift was of little value; but later it served as a very important precedent and helped to influence Charles the Great to make his donation.
Pippin's Victories. Pippin fought other successful wars; he expelled the Saracens from Narbonne in 759; after eight years of fighting he succeeded in reducing all Aquitaine to submission, thus completing the work of Charles Martel; he put down a revolt in Bavaria, and led a victorious campaign against the Saxons. In other respects he showed himself an able ruler and won recognition from the caliph at Bagdad and the emperor at Constantinople. His work prepared the way for his son Charles the Great, whose renown has to a great extent obscured the services of the father.
Donation of Charles. Pippin left two sons, Charles and Carloman, between whom the realm was divided. Carloman, however, died after reigning only three years; his infant sons were excluded from the succession and Charles received the whole kingdom. He was obliged 0 throughout his reign to carry on the work, begun by his grandfather and father, of really subduing the peoples who either were nominally under the Frankish rule or else were hostile neighbors. His first war was occasioned by a revolt in Aquitaine which had been so recently conquered by his father; he was successful and the province was firmly annexed. His second war was a continuation of Pippin's work in aiding the pope against the Lombards. This policy was no more popular at first with the Frankish nobles than in the days of Pippin. Carloman had been a friend of Desiderius, the Lombard king. Pippin's widow had been anxious that Charles should marry a Lombard princess. In vain had the pope protested against "this diabolical union"; Charles had married the Lombard king's daughter, but soon repudiated her. About the same time Carloman's widow fled to Desiderius and sought his aid in securing her children's inheritance. He had already reconquered the cities which he had been compelled by Pippin to surrender to the pope, and now he espoused her quarrel. Consequently Charles felt that there was ample cause for war. Early in his reign he had entitled himself "Charles by the grace of God, king and rector of the kingdom of the Franks, devoted defender of the Holy Church, and its aider in all things." When the pope implored him " to succor the church of God, the aMicted province of Rome, and the exarchate of Ravenna, as Pippin, his father of holy memory, had done," Charles was ready. In order to satisfy the reluctant nobles, he proposed terms of peace which the Lombard ruler refused, and then war was proclaimed. Desiderius was soon taken prisoner and confined in a monastery, and Charles became king of the Lombards in 774. At the pope's request he renewed the donation made by Pippin; " granted the same cities and territories to St. ; Peter, and promised that they should be conveyed to the pope with their boundaries set forth as contained in the aforesaid donation, namely: From Luna with the island of Corsica, thence to Suriano, thence to Mons Bardonis, thence to Parma, thence to Reggio, and from thence to WIantua and Mons Elice, and also the whole exarchate of Ravenna, such as it was in old time, and the provinces of Venetia and Istria; and also the duchies of Spoleto and Beneventum." If this donation is taken literally it means that Charles gave most of Italy to the pope; as a matter of fact he never reXinquished his actual control over the territory included in the grant. The difficulties of reconciling the donation with the actions of Charles have been so great that many scholars have suspected that interpolations were later made in the document.
Saxon War. The conquest of the Saxons, whose lands extended from beyond the Elbe almost to the Rhine, was Charles' greatest military achievement. '* No war ever undertaken by the Frank nation was carried on with such persistence and bitterness, or cost so much labor, because the Saxons, like almost all the tribes of Germany, were a fierce people, given to the worship of devils, and hostile to our religion and did not consider it dishonorable to transgress and violate ali law, human and divine. Then there were peculiar circumstances, that tended to cause a breach of peace every day. Except in a few places, where large forests or mountain-ridges intervened and made the bounds certain, the line between ourselves and the Saxons passed almost in its whole extent through an open country, so that there was no end to the murders, thefts, and arsons on both sides. In this way the Franks became so embittered that they at last resolved to make reprisals no longer, but to open war with the Saxons. Accordingly war was begun against them, and was waged for thirty-three successive years with great fury; more, however, to the disadvantage of the Saxons than of the Franks. It could doubtless have been brought to an end sooner, had it not been for the faithlessness of the Saxons. It is hard to say how often they were conquered, and humbly submitting to the king promised to do what was enjoined upon them, gave without hesitation the required hostages, and received the officers sent them from the king. They were sometimes so much weakened and reduced that they promised to renounce the worship of devils, and to adopt Christianity: but they were no less ready to violate these terms than prompt to accept them, so that it is impossible to tell which came easier to them to do; scarcely a year passed from the beginning of the war without such changes on their part. But the king did not suffer his high purpose and steadfastness "firm alike in good and evil fortune" to be wearied by any fickleness on their part, or to be turned from the task that he had undertaken- on the contrary, he never allowed their faithless behavior to go un punished, but either took the field against them in person, or sent his counts with an army to wreak vengeance and exact righteous satisfaction. At last, after conquering and subduing all who had offered resistance, he took ten thousand of those that lived on the banks of the Elbe, and settled them, with their wives and chil dren, in many different bodies here and there in Gaul and Ger many. The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and union with the Franks to form one people."[1]
Roncesvalles. The wars which have been mentioned were due to the necessity of carrying on the work which Charles' father had begun. Of the other wars which were waged one of the less important was destined to live in song because of the famous defeat at Ronces valley After an expedition into Spain to aid some emirs who 0 . were in revolt against the caliph of Cordova, Charles was obliged. to retreat hastily. In the valley of Roncesvalles the rear-guard was attacked by the Gascons and completely annihilated and Count Roland was slain.[2] Possibly this defeat made a greater impress sion upon the contemporaries because it was never avenged by Charles.
Other Wars. For about forty years Charles was engaged in war almost con- tinuously. " He so largely increased the Frank kingdom, which was already great and strong when he received it at his father's hands, that more than double its former territory was added to it. The authority of the Franks was formerly confined to that part of Gaul included between the Rhine and the Loire, the ocean and the Balearic Sea; to that part of Germany which is inhabited by the so-called Eastern Franks, and is bounded by Saxony and the Danube, the Rhine and the Saale,...and to the country of the Alamanni and Bavarians. By the wars above mentioned he first made tributary Aquitaine, Gascony, and the whole of the region of the Pyrenees as far as the river Ebro. He next reduced and ' made tributary all Italy from Aosta to lower Calabria, where the boundary line runs between the Beneventans and the Greeks, a territory more than a thousand miles long; then Saxony, which constitutes no small part of Germany, and is reckoned to be twice as wide as the country inhabited by the Franks, while about equal to it in length; in addition, both Pannonias, Dacia beyond the Danube, and Istria, Liburnia, and Dalmatia, except the cities on the coast, which he left to the Greek emperor for friendship's sake, and because of the treaty that he had made with him. In fine, he vanquished and made tributary all the wild and barbarous tribes dwelling in Germany between the Rhine and the Vistula, the ocean and the Danube."[3]
The Pope's Need. These conquests had given Charles the kingship over many nations and a territory which even before his coronation might be spoken of as an empire. At the end of the eighth century events were ripe for the installation of a new emperor in the West. Every one believed in the continued existence of the Roman Empire and up to this time had looked to the emperor at Constantinople as the head of the Christian world. But Irene had usurped the Empire and blinded her son, in whose name she had been ruling, so that many were unwilling to accept her and considered the Empire to be without a legal ruler. At the same time the pope, Leo III, was greatly in need of a powerful protector. In 799 he had been attacked in the streets of Rome, in the midst of a religious procession, and had been blinded, as his enemies believed. He set out for the court of Charles and returned with the guard furnished by the latter. But the presence of the guard was only temporary, and there was no one in the city of Rome who had a legal right to inflict the death-penalty. Consequently Leo realized that his position amidst his enemies would continue to be a perilous one unless some strong and legal power should be established in the city of Rome.
Coronation Of Charles. Accordingly, when Charles went to Rome the following year it "seemed both to Leo the pope himself and to all the holy fathers who were present in the self-same council, as well as to the rest of the Christian people, that they ought to take to be emperor Charles king of the Franks, who held Rome herself, where the Caesars had always been wont to sit, and all the other regions which he ruled through Italy and Gaul and Germany; and, inasmuch as God had given all these lands into his hands, it seemed right that with the help of God and at the prayer of the whole Christian people he should have the name of emperor also."[4] On Christmas day, 800, as Charles knelt in prayer before the altar in old St. Peter's, Pope Leo suddenly placed upon his head a crown, and the people proclaimed him emperor. If we can trust an account written a little later, they cried three times, " To Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned of God, the great and peace-giving emperor, be life and victory."[5]
Charles' Unwillingness. His secretary Einhard says that Charles had such an aversion to the pope's action at this time that he declared he would not have set foot in the church the day that he was crowned emperor, although it was a great feast, if he had foreseen the design of the pope. This has been a difficult passage to explain because it raises a question as to Charles' own purpose, which cannot be answered. The pope's action may have interfered with his plans. It was sure to displease the authorities in the eastern Empire. One of the Greek sources says that Charles proposed to marry Irene; this is possible, although Charles was already married. Einhard's statement is probably accurate; if so, the coronation was wholly the act of the pope without any previous consultation with Charles.
Description of Charles. When he was crowned emperor Charles was about fifty-eight years of age. He " was large and strong, and of lofty stature, though not disproportionately tall (his height is well known to have been seven times the length of his foot); the upper part of his head was round, his eyes very large and animated, nose a little long, hair fair, and face laughing and merry. Thus his appearance was always stately and dignified, whether he was standing or sitting; although his neck was thick and somewhat short, and his belly rather prominent; but the symmetry of the rest of his body concealed these defects. His gait was firm, his whole carriage manly, and his voice clear, but not so strong as his size led one to expect. His health was excellent.... In accordance with the national custom, he took frequent exercise on horseback and in the chase.... He enjoyed the exhalations from natural warm springs, and often practised swimming, in which he was such an adept that none could surpass him; and hence it was that he built his palace at Aix-la-Chapelle, and lived there constantly during his latter years until his death. He used not only to invite his sons to his bath, but his nobles and friends, and now and then a troop of his retinue or body guards, so that a hundred or more persons sometimes bathed with him.
His Habits. "Charles was temperate in eating, and particularly so in drink- cH^P x ing, for he abominated drunkenness in anybody, much more in himself and those of his household; but he could not easily abstain from food, and often complained that fasts injured his health. His meals ordinarily consisted of four courses, not counting the roast, which his huntsmen used to bring in on the spit; he was more fond of this than of any other dish. While at table, he listened to reading or music. The subjects of the readings were the stories and deeds of olden times: he was fond, too, of St. Augustine's books, and especially of the one entitled The City of God. He was so moderate in the use of wine and all sorts of drinks that he rarely allowed himself more than three cups in the course of a meal. In summer, after the midday meal, he would eat some fruit, drain a single cup, put off his clothes and shoes, just as he did for the night, and rest for two or three hours."[6]
His Ideals. He took his new position as emperor very seriously. His ideals are well brought out in the general instructions which he issued in 802. Each one of his subjects who was twelve years old or more was to take an oath of fidelity to him as emperor. Charles defined this fidelity to include living a highly moral life as well as the fulfilment of the ordinary duties of a subject. Throughout the instructions he lays stress upon the maintenance of morality and piety; e. g.: " that bishops and priests shall live according to the canons and shall teach others to do the same "; " that monks shall live firmly and strictly in accordance with the rule "; " monasteries for women shall be firmly ruled "; 'i no bishops, abbots, priests, deacons, or other members of the clergy shall presume to have dogs for hunting, or hawks, falcons and sparrow hawks "; " the canonical clergy shall observe fully the canonical life, and shall be instructed at the episcopal residence or in the monastery, with all diligence according to the canonical discipline." As these quotations indicate, Charles felt himself to be the head of the church in his dominions and to be responsible for the conduct of its members. By a writer of two generations later who recorded many anecdotes of the great emperor he was styled episcopus episcoporurn.
In the general administration of his empire Charles followed and developed the methods of his Merovingian predecessors. He employed counts as his chief officials and he summoned the religious assemblies regularly. His most important changes were the institution of the privy council and the extent to which he employed the missi dominici. The latter were used to check counts from abusing their great powers. The Empire was divided into various districts; into each division each year two missi, one a layman the other a clerk were sent to represent the emperor and in his name to hold court, to correct abuses, and to inquire generally into the adminstration of the counts. They were required to make written reports of their work. These missi performed a very useful service and did much to centralize effectively the authority in the hands of Charles.[7]
Exhaustion ot Franks. Changes in the judicial and military matters which Charles was compelled to make were due to the exhaustion of the free men in his constant warfare. The rule that all should attend the judicial assemblies in their district was a hardship because such assemblies were held very frequently. Charles was obliged to restrict the number to two or three each year. The rule that each free man must serve in the army was also a great hardship for the poor, as they were not only required to furnish their own equipment, food for three months and arms and clothing for half a year, but also frequently had to neglect their farms during the entire agricultural season. Consequently this rule was gradually modified, until in 808 all those who held four mansi [8] or more were required to serve in the army; those who held a less amount were obliged to join together in bearing the expense of equipping one of their number so that there should be a representative for each unit of four mansi.
Finances. There were few public expenses to be paid by the imperial treasury. As noted above, the soldiers in the army had to furnish their own equipment and food, and there was no navy. The maintenance of the highways, bridges, and other public works was attended to, if at all, by the people of each locality. The administration of justice brought in a revenue, as almost all offenses were punished by fines, of which two-thirds were supposed to go to the emperor and one-third to the count who presided over the court. As a matter of fact, the administration of justice was very venal; one bishop boasted that when he sat as a judge he accepted only trifling presents from the suitors, instead of the rich bribes which other judges were accustomed to receive. But Charles probably did not profit by these bribes. His income consisted almost entirely of the fines levied, of the " free gifts " which his officials were required to make each year, and of the produce of his estates. The last were very extensive and probably furnished the largest part of the emperor's income.
Capitulary de VillisThe famous capitulary de villis, in which Charles gave directions for the management of his estates, throws much light upon the economic and social conditions. Each Christmas every steward was required to make a statement of all the income and resources of each estate; of the extent of land under cultivation and the waste lands; of the number of pigs, hens, eggs, geese, colts, and fillies; of the amount of hay, fire-wood, torches, planks, and other kinds of lumber; of vegetables, wool, flax, and hemp; of the fruits, turnips, hides, skins, and horns; of the honey, wax, fat, tallow, and soap; of the mead, vinegar, and beer; of the products of the mines; and of the workmen of various kinds. " Of the food-products other than meat, two-thirds shall be sent each year for our own use, that is of the vegetables, fish, cheese, butter, honey, mustard, vinegar, millet, panic, dried and green herbs, radishes, and in addition of the wax, soap, and other small products." The stewards were to keep up the necessary buildings; to provide, " for the sake of ornament, swans, peacocks, pheasants, ducks, pigeons, partridges, turtle doves." The chambers were to be provided with " counterpanes, cushions, pillows, bedclothes, coverings for the tables and benches; vessels of brass, lead, iron, and wood; andirons, chains, pot-hooks, adzes, axes, augers, cutlasses, and all other kinds of tools, so that it shall never be necessary to go elsewhere for them, or to borrow them."
Actual Conditions. One inventory which has been preserved furnishes a useful commentary upon the extent to which Charles' orders were executed. It reads, in part: "We found in the domain estate of Asnapium a royal house built of stone in the best manner, three rooms; the whole house surrounded with balconies, with eleven apartments for women; beneath, one cellar; two porticoes; seventeen other houses built of wood within the court-yard with as many rooms and other appurtenances, well built; one stable, one kitchen, one mill, one granary, three barns....Vestments: coverings for one bed, one table-cloth, one towel. Utensils: two brass kettles, two drinking-cups, two brass caldrons, one iron one, one frying-pan, one gramalmin, one pair of andirons, one lamp, two hatchets, one chisel, two augers, one ax, one knife, one large plane, one plane, two scythes, two sickles, two spades tipped with iron. Enough wooden utensils for use." In addition the steward gives a long list of all the numerous products, garden herbs, and other articles which he found.
Interest in Education. Charles was intensely interested in education. He most zealously cultivated the liberal arts, held those who taught them in great esteem, and conferred great honors upon them. He took lessons in grammar of the deacon Peter of Pisa, at that time an aged man. Another deacon, Albin of Britain, surnamed Alcuin, a man of Saxon extraction, who was the greatest scholar of the day, was his teacher in other branches of learning. The king spent much time and labor with him studying rhetoric, dialectics, and especially astronomy; he learned to reckon, and used to investigate the motions of the heavenly bodies most curiously, with an intelligent scrutiny. He also tried to write, and used to keep tablets and blanks in bed under his pillow, that at leisure hours he might accustom his hand to form the letters; however, as he did not begin his efforts in due season, but late in life, they met with ill success."[9]
Schools. Alcuin was not only the teacher of Charles but also of the palace school, which was attended by the children of Charles and of the leading nobles. Other schools were established and were open to the nobles and to bright youths of humble birth who had shown marked ability. A pleasing anecdote told by the Monk of St. Gall shows Charles visiting and examining the pupils. All who had done well in their work he placed on his right; those who had been idle he placed on his left; when he had concluded the examination all the young nobles were on his left, while those of lowly extraction were on the right. The latter Charles thanked and urged to continue their work, promising them that if they were diligent he would make them powerful bishops and abbots. Then, turning his wrathful glances on the idle, he told them that in spite of their birth and fine appearance they need not expect anything from him unless they mended their ways. The same author says that Alcuin and the other teachers had been so successful that " the Gauls and the Franks were then the equals of the old Romans and Athenians."
The Academy. Charles assembled at his court all the learned men whom he could find. Alcuin was from the episcopal school at York in Northumbria; Paul the deacon was a Lombard f rom Friuli; Theodulf was a Goth and was bishop of Orleans; Angilbert was a Frank; Peter was from Pisa; Paulinus was from Aquitaine; Einhard, who has been quoted so extensively, was a Frank. These men together with Charles and others formed a so-called academy. They assumed names drawn either from the Bible or from the classical authors: Charles was known as David; Angilbert as Homer; Aluin as Horace; others took less pretentious but equally curious names. The members of this academy discussed all kinds of questions and prided themselves upon their great learning. For the most part they imitated the writings Of antiquity; yet their work was not sterile, and the cause of education as a whole was greatly furthered by this earnest band at the court of Charles the Great.
Reform in Writing. The reformation in which the influence of the new learning can be most visibly traced was in the handwriting. The books of the Merovingian age are very badly written and very difficult to read. Charles in a general admonition ordered that all the books used in the church service should be carefully written by men of mature age, because some often desired to pray to God properly, but prayed badly because of the incorrect books. Following out this idea, Charles had intrusted to Alcuin the reformation in the handwriting, and the results are seen in the beautiful manuscripts written in the school at Tours while Alcuin was the abbot. These manuscripts are perfectly legible at the present day and many of the forms of the individual letters are still in use.
Why Charles was Great. In spite of his enthusiasm for the Roman education, Charles was a thorough German. His greatness was due largely to his keen appreciation of the actual conditions and of what it was possible to accomplish. His aim was to graft upon the German stock and the German customs all that was best in the older civilization. He seems to have realized the strength which would result from the union of the best qualities in both societies. This is why men have agreed to call him great, so that his name is commonly written Charlemagne, Charles the Great.
NOTES:
1. From the contemporary biography of Charles, by Einhard. (Turner's translation).
2. He is not mentioned elsewhere in historical documents, but is renowned as the hero of the Song of Roland.
3. From Einhard.
4. Translation from the Annales Laureshamenses, by Tames Blyce (Holy Roman Empire, Chap. V).
5. From the Life of Leo III.
6. From Einhard.
7. Brunner sees the origin of the circuit judges of England, and consequently of those of the United States, in these missi and the courts which they held during their circuit. But Stubbs and others deny that the missi had any influence, even indirect, upon the English institution.
8. A mansus was, according to Platz, 720 rods long and 30 broad.
9. From Einhard.