CHARLATAN (Ital. _ciarlatano_, from _ciarlare_, to chatter), originally

one who "patters" to a crowd to sell his wares, like a "cheap-jack" or

"quack" doctor--"quack" being similarly derived from the noise made by a

duck; so an impostor who pretends to have some special skill or

knowledge.

CHARLEMAGNE [CHARLES THE GREAT] (c. 742-814), Roman emperor, and king of

the Franks, was the elder son of Pippin the Short, king of the Franks,

and Bertha, or Bertrada, daughter of Charibert, count of Laon. The place

of his birth is unknown and its date uncertain, although some

authorities give it as the 2nd of April 742; doubts have been cast upon

his legitimacy, and it is just possible that the marriage of Pippin and

Bertha took place subsequent to the birth of their elder son. When

Pippin was crowned king of the Franks at St Denis on the 28th of July

754 by Pope Stephen II., Charles, and his brother Carloman were anointed

by the pope as a sign of their kingly rank. The rough surroundings of

the Frankish court were unfavourable to the acquisition of learning, and

Charles grew up almost ignorant of letters, but hardy in body and

skilled in the use of weapons.

In 761 he accompanied his father on a campaign in Aquitaine, and in 763

undertook the government of several counties. In 768 Pippin divided his

dominions between his two sons, and on his death soon afterwards Charles

became the ruler of the northern portion of the Frankish kingdom, and

was crowned at Noyon on the 9th of October 768. Bad feeling had existed

for some time between Charles and Carloman, and when Charles early in

769 was called upon to suppress a rising in Aquitaine, his brother

refused to afford him any assistance. This rebellion, however, was

easily crushed, its leader, the Aquitainian duke Hunold, was made

prisoner, and his territory more closely attached to the Frankish

kingdom. About this time Bertha, having effected a temporary

reconciliation between her sons, overcame the repugnance with which Pope

Stephen III. regarded an alliance between Frank and Lombard, and brought

about a marriage between Charles and a daughter of Desiderius, king of

the Lombards. Charles had previously contracted a union, probably of an

irregular nature, with a Frankish lady named Himiltrude, who had borne

him a son Pippin, the "Hunchback." The peace with the Lombards, in which

the Bavarians as allies of Desiderius joined, was, however, soon broken.

Charles thereupon repudiated his Lombard wife (Bertha or Desiderata) and

married in 771 a princess of the Alamanni named Hildegarde. Carloman

died in December 771, and Charles was at once recognized at Corbeny as

sole king of the Franks. Carloman's widow Gerberga had fled to the

protection of the Lombard king, who espoused her cause and requested the

new pope, Adrian I., to recognize her two sons as the lawful Frankish

kings. Adrian, between whom and the Lombards other causes of quarrel

existed, refused to assent to this demand, and when Desiderius invaded

the papal territories he appealed to the Frankish king for help.

Charles, who was at the moment engaged in his first Saxon campaign,

expostulated with Desiderius; but when such mild measures proved useless

he led his forces across the Alps in 773. Gerberga and her children were

delivered up and disappear from history; the siege of Pavia was

undertaken; and at Easter 774 the king left the seat of war and visited

Rome, where he was received with great respect.

During his stay in the city Charles renewed the donation which his

father Pippin had made to the papacy in 754 or 756. This transaction has

given rise to much discussion as to its trustworthiness and the extent

of its operation. Our only authority, a passage in the _Liber

Pontificalis_, describes the gift as including the whole of Italy and

Corsica, except the lands north of the Po, Calabria and the city of

Naples. The vast extent of this donation, which, moreover, included

territories not owning Charles's authority, and the fact that the king

did not execute, or apparently attempt to execute, its provisions, has

caused many scholars to look upon the passage as a forgery; but the

better opinion would appear to be that it is genuine, or at least has a

genuine basis. Various explanations have been suggested. The area of the

grant may have been enlarged by later interpolations; or it may have

dealt with property rather than with sovereignty, and have only referred

to estates claimed by the pope in the territories named; or it is

possible that Charles may have actually intended to establish an

extensive papal kingdom in Italy, but was released from his promise by

Adrian when the pope saw no chance of its fulfilment. Another

supposition is that the author of the _Liber Pontificalis_ gives the

papal interpretation of a grant that had been expressed by Pippin in

ambiguous terms; and this view is supported by the history of the

subsequent controversy between king and pope.

Returning to the scene of hostilities, Charles witnessed the

capitulation of Pavia in June 774, and the capture of Desiderius, who

was sent into a monastery. He now took the title "king of the Lombards,"

to which he added the dignity of "Patrician of the Romans," which had

been granted to his father. Adalgis, the son of Desiderius, who was

residing at Constantinople, hoped the emperor Leo IV. would assist him

in recovering his father's kingdom; but a coalition formed for this

purpose was ineffectual, and a rising led by his ally Rothgaud, duke of

Friuli, was easily crushed by Charles in 776. In 777 the king was

visited at Paderborn by three Saracen chiefs who implored his aid

against Abd-ar-Rahman, the caliph of Cordova, and promised some Spanish

cities in return for help. Seizing this opportunity to extend his

influence Charles marched into Spain in 778 and took Pampeluna, but

meeting with some checks decided to return. As the Frankish forces were

defiling through the passes of the Pyrenees they were attacked by the

Wascones (probably Basques), and the rear-guard of the army was almost

annihilated. It was useless to attempt to avenge this disaster, which

occurred on the 15th of August 778, for the enemy disappeared as quickly

as he came; the incident has passed from the domain of history into that

of legend and romance, being associated by tradition with the pass of

Roncesvalles. Among the slain was one Hruodland, or Roland, margrave of

the Breton march, whose death gave rise to the _Chanson de Roland_ (see

ROLAND, LEGEND OF).

Charles now sought to increase his authority in Italy, where Frankish

counts were set over various districts, and where Hildebrand, duke of

Spoleto, appears to have recognized his overlordship. In 780 he was

again in the peninsula, and at Mantua issued an important _capitulary_

which increased the authority of the Lombard bishops, relieved freemen

who under stress of famine had sold themselves into servitude, and

condemned abuses of the system of vassalage. At the same time commerce

was encouraged by the abolition of unauthorized tolls and by an

improvement of the coinage; while the sale of arms to hostile peoples,

and the trade in Christian slaves were forbidden. Proceeding to Rome,

the king appears to have come to some arrangement with Adrian about the

donation of 774. At Easter 781, Carloman, his second son by Hildegarde,

was renamed Pippin and crowned king of Italy by Pope Adrian, and his

youngest son Louis was crowned king of Aquitaine; but no mention was

made at the time of his eldest son Charles, who was doubtless intended

to be king of the Franks. In 783 the king, having lost his wife

Hildegarde, married Fastrada, the daughter of a Frankish count named

Radolf; and in the same year his mother Bertha died. The emperor

Constantine VI. was at this time exhibiting some interest in Italian

affairs, and Adalgis the Lombard was still residing at his court; so

Charles sought to avert danger from this quarter by consenting in 781 to

a marriage between Constantine and his own daughter Rothrude. In 786 the

entreaties of the pope and the hostile attitude of Arichis II., duke of

Benevento, a son-in-law of Desiderius, called the king again into Italy.

Arichis submitted without a struggle, though the basis of Frankish

authority in his duchy was far from secure; but in conjunction with

Adalgis he sought aid from Constantinople. His plans were ended by his

death in 787, and although the empress Irene, the real ruler of the

eastern empire, broke off the projected marriage between her son and

Rothrude, she appears to have given very little assistance to Adalgis,

whose attack on Italy was easily repulsed. During this visit Charles

had presented certain towns to Adrian, but an estrangement soon arose

between king and pope over the claim of Charles to confirm the election

to the archbishopric of Ravenna, and it was accentuated by Adrian's

objection to the establishment by Charles of Grimoald III. as duke of

Benevento, in succession to his father Arichis.

These journeys and campaigns, however, were but interludes in the long

and stubborn struggle between Charles and the Saxons, which began in 772

and ended in 804 with the incorporation of Saxony in the Carolingian

empire (see SAXONY). This contest, in which the king himself took a very

active part, brought the Franks into collision with the Wiltzi, a tribe

dwelling east of the Elbe, who in 789 was reduced to dependence. A

similar sequence of events took place in southern Germany. Tassilo III.,

duke of the Bavarians, who had on several occasions adopted a line of

conduct inconsistent with his allegiance to Charles, was deposed in 788

and his duchy placed under the rule of Gerold, a brother-in-law of

Charles, to be governed on the Frankish system (see BAVARIA). Having

thus taken upon himself the control of Bavaria, Charles felt himself

responsible for protecting its eastern frontier, which had long been

menaced by the Avars, a people inhabiting the region now known as

Hungary. He accordingly ravaged their country in 791 at the head of an

army containing Saxon, Frisian, Bavarian and Alamannian warriors, which

penetrated as far as the Raab; and he spent the following year in

Bavaria preparing for a second campaign against them, the conduct of

which, however, he was compelled by further trouble in Saxony to entrust

to his son king Pippin, and to Eric, margrave of Friuli. These deputies

succeeded in 795 and 796 in taking possession of the vast treasures of

the Avars, which were distributed by the king with lavish generosity to

churches, courtiers and friends. A conspiracy against Charles, which his

friend and biographer Einhard alleges was provoked by the cruelties of

Queen Fastrada, was suppressed without difficulty in 792, and its

leader, the king's illegitimate son Pippin, was confined in a monastery

till his death in 811. Fastrada died in August 794, when Charles took

for his fourth wife an Alamannian lady named Liutgarde.

The continuous interest taken by the king in ecclesiastical affairs was

shown at the synod of Frankfort, over which he presided in 794. It was

on his initiative that this synod condemned the heresy of _adoptianism_

and the worship of images, which had been restored in 787 by the second

council of Nicaea; and at the same time that council was declared to

have been superfluous. This policy caused a further breach with Pope

Adrian; but when Adrian died in December 795, his successor, Leo III.,

in notifying his elevation to the king, sent him the keys of St Peter's

grave and the banner of the city, and asked Charles to send an envoy to

receive his oath of fidelity. There is no doubt that Leo recognized

Charles as sovereign of Rome. He was the first pope to date his acts

according to the years of the Frankish monarchy, and a mosaic of the

time in the Lateran palace represents St Peter bestowing the banners

upon Charles as a token of temporal supremacy, while the coinage issued

by the pope bears witness to the same idea. Leo soon had occasion to

invoke the aid of his protector. In 799, after he had been attacked and

maltreated in the streets of Rome during a procession, he escaped to the

king at Paderborn, and Charles sent him back to Italy escorted by some

of his most trusted servants. Taking the same journey himself shortly

afterwards, the king reached Rome in 800 for the purpose (as he

declared) of restoring discipline in the church. His authority was

undisputed; and after Leo had cleared himself by an oath of certain

charges made against him, Charles restored the pope and banished his

leading opponents.

The great event of this visit took place on the succeeding Christmas

Day, when Charles on rising from prayer in St Peter's was crowned by Leo

and proclaimed emperor and _augustus_ amid the acclamations of the

crowd. This act can hardly have been unpremeditated, and some doubt has

been cast upon the statement which Einhard attributes to Charles, that

he would not have entered the building had he known of the intention of

Leo. He accepted the dignity at any rate without demur, and there seems

little doubt that the question of assuming, or obtaining, this title had

previously been discussed. His policy had been steadily leading up to

this position, which was rather the emblem of the power he already held

than an extension of the area of his authority. It is probable therefore

that Charles either considered the coronation premature, as he was

hoping to obtain the assent of the eastern empire to this step, or that,

from fear of evils which he foresaw from the claim of the pope to crown

the emperor, he wished to crown himself. All the evidence tends to show

that it was the time or manner of the act rather than the act itself

which aroused his temporary displeasure. Contemporary accounts lay

stress upon the fact that as there was then no emperor, Constantinople

being under the rule of Irene, it seemed good to Leo and his counsellors

and the "rest of the Christian people" to choose Charles, already ruler

of Rome, to fill the vacant office. However doubtful such conjectures

concerning his intentions may be, it is certain that immediately after

his coronation Charles sought to establish friendly relations with

Constantinople, and even suggested a marriage between himself and Irene,

as he had again become a widower in 800. The deposition and death of the

empress foiled this plan; and after a desultory warfare in Italy between

the two empires, negotiations were recommenced which in 810 led to an

arrangement between Charles and the eastern emperor, Nicephorus I. The

death of Nicephorus and the accession of Michael I. did not interfere

with the relations, and in 812 an embassy from Constantinople arrived at

Aix-la-Chapelle, when Charles was acknowledged as emperor, and in return

agreed to cede Venice and Dalmatia to Michael.

Increasing years and accumulating responsibilities now caused the

emperor to alter somewhat his manner of life. No longer leading his

armies in person he entrusted the direction of campaigns in various

parts of his empire to his sons and other lieutenants, and from his

favourite residence at Aix watched their progress with a keen and

sustained interest. In 802 he ordered that a new oath of fidelity to him

as emperor should be taken by all his subjects over twelve years of age.

In 804 he was visited by Pope Leo, who returned to Rome laden with

gifts. Before his coronation as emperor, Charles had entered into

communications with the caliph of Bagdad, Harun-al-Rashid, probably in

order to protect the eastern Christians, and in 801 he had received an

embassy and presents from Harun. In the same year the patriarch of

Jerusalem sent him the keys of the Holy Sepulchre; and in 807 Harun not

only sent further gifts, but appears to have confirmed the emperor's

rights in Jerusalem, which, however, probably amounted to no more than

an undefined protectorate over the Christians in that part of the world.

While thus extending his influence even into Asia, there was scarcely

any part of Europe where the power of Charles did not make itself felt.

He had not visited Spain since the disaster of Roncesvalles, but he

continued to take a lively interest in the affairs of that country. In

798 he had concluded an alliance with Alphonso II., king of the

Asturias, and a series of campaigns mainly under the leadership of King

Louis resulted in the establishment of the "Spanish march," a district

between the Pyrenees and the Ebro stretching from Pampeluna to

Barcelona, as a defence against the Saracens. In 799 the Balearic

Islands had been handed over to Charles, and a long warfare was carried

on both by sea and land between Frank and Saracen until 810, when peace

was made between the emperor and El-Hakem, the emir of Cordova. Italy

was equally the scene of continuous fighting. Grimoald of Benevento

rebelled against his overlord; the possession of Venice and Dalmatia was

disputed by the two empires; and Istria was brought into subjection.

With England the emperor had already entered into relations, and at one

time a marriage was proposed between his son Charles and a daughter of

Offa, king of the Mercians. English exiles were welcomed at his court;

he was mainly instrumental in restoring Eardwulf to the throne of

Northumbria in 809; and Einhard includes the Scots within the sphere of

his influence. In eastern Europe the Avars had owned themselves

completely under his power in 805; campaigns against the Czechs in 805

and 806 had met with some success, and about the same time the land of

the Sorbs was ravaged; while at the western extremity of the continent

the Breton nobles had done homage to Charles at Tours in 800. Thus the

emperor's dominions now stretched from the Eider to the Ebro, and from

the Atlantic to the Elbe, the Saale and the Raab, and they also included

the greater part of Italy; while even beyond these bounds he exercised

an acknowledged but shadowy authority. In 806 Charles arranged a

division of his territories among his three legitimate sons, but this

arrangement came to nothing owing to the death of Pippin in 810, and of

the younger Charles in the following year. Charles then named his

remaining son Louis as his successor; and at his father's command Louis

took the crown from the altar and placed it upon his own head. This

ceremony took place at Aix on the 11th of September 813. In 808 the

Frankish authority over the Obotrites was interfered with by Gudrod

(Godfrey), king of the Danes, who ravaged the Frisian coasts and spoke

boastfully of leading his troops to Aix. To ward off these attacks

Charles took a warm interest in the building of a fleet, which he

reviewed in 811; but by this time Gudrod had been killed, and his

successor Hemming made peace with the emperor.

In 811 Charles made his will, which shows that he contemplated the

possibility of abdication. The bulk of his possessions were left to the

twenty-one metropolitan churches of his dominions, and the remainder to

his children, his servants and the poor. In his last years he passed

most of his days at Aix, though he had sufficient energy to take the

field for a short time during the Danish War. Early in 814 he was

attacked by a fever which he sought to subdue by fasting; but pleurisy

supervened, and after partaking of the communion, he died on the 28th of

January 814, and on the same day his body was buried in the church of St

Mary at Aix. In the year 1000 his tomb was opened by the emperor Otto

III., but the account that Otto found the body upright upon a throne

with a golden crown on the head and holding a golden sceptre in the

hands, is generally regarded as legendary. The tomb was again opened by

the emperor Frederick I. in 1165, when the remains were removed from a

marble sarcophagus and placed in a wooden coffin. Fifty years later they

were transferred by order of the emperor Frederick II. to a splendid

shrine, in which the relics are still exhibited once in every six years.

The sarcophagus in which the body originally lay may still be seen at

Aix, and other relics of the great emperor are in the imperial treasury

at Vienna. In 1165 Charles was canonized by the antipope Paschal III. at

the instance of the emperor Frederick I., and Louis XI. of France gave

strict orders that the feast of the saint should be observed.

The personal appearance of Charles is thus described by Einhard:--"Big

and robust in frame, he was tall, but not excessively so, measuring

about seven of his own feet in height. His eyes were large and lustrous,

his nose rather long and his countenance bright and cheerful." He had a

commanding presence, a clear but somewhat feeble voice, and in later

life became rather corpulent. His health was uniformly good, owing

perhaps to his moderation in eating and drinking, and to his love for

hunting and swimming. He was an affectionate father, and loved to pass

his time in the company of his children, to whose education he paid the

closest attention. His sons were trained for war and the chase, and his

daughters instructed in the spinning of wool and other feminine arts.

His ideas of sexual morality were primitive. Many concubines are spoken

of, he had several illegitimate children, and the morals of his

daughters were very loose. He was a regular observer of religious rites,

took great pains to secure decorum in the services of the church, and

was generous in almsgiving both within his empire and without. He

reformed the Frankish liturgy, and brought singers from Rome to improve

the services of the church. He had considerable knowledge of theology,

took a prominent part in the theological controversies of the time, and

was responsible for the addition of the clause _filioque_ to the Nicene

Creed. The most attractive feature of his character, however, was his

love of learning. In addition to his native tongue he could read Latin

and understood Greek, but he was unable to write, and Einhard gives an

account of his futile efforts to learn this art in later life. He loved

the reading of histories and astronomy, and by questioning travellers

gained some knowledge of distant parts of the earth. He attended

lectures on grammar, and his favourite work was St Augustine's _De

civitate Dei_. He caused Frankish sagas to be collected, began a grammar

of his native tongue, and spent some of his last hours in correcting a

text of the Vulgate. He delighted in the society of scholars--Alcuin,

Angilbert, Paul the Lombard, Peter of Pisa and others, and in this

company the trappings of rank were laid aside and the emperor was known

simply as David. Under his patronage Alcuin organized the school of the

palace, where the royal children were taught in the company of others,

and founded a school at Tours which became the model for many other

establishments. Charles was unwearying in his efforts to improve the

education of clergy and laity, and in 789 ordered that schools should be

established in every diocese. The atmosphere of these schools was

strictly ecclesiastical and the questions discussed by the scholars were

often puerile, but the greatness of the educational work of Charles will

not be doubted when one considers the rude condition of Frankish society

half a century before. The main work of the Carolingian renaissance was

to restore Latin to its position as a literary language, and to

reintroduce a correct system of spelling and an improved handwriting.

The manuscripts of the time are accurate and artistic, copies of

valuable books were made and by careful collation the texts were

purified.

Charles was not a great warrior. His victories were won rather by the

power of organization, which he possessed in a marked degree, and he was

eager to seize ideas and prompt in their execution. He erected a stone

bridge with wooden piers across the Rhine at Mainz, and began a canal

between the Altmuhl and the Rednitz to connect the Rhine and the Danube,

but this work was not finished. He built palaces at Aix (his favourite

residence), Nijmwegen and Ingelheim, and erected the church of St Mary

at Aix, modelled on that of St Vitalis at Ravenna and adorned with

columns and mosaics brought from the same city. He loved the simple

dress and manners of the Franks, and on two occasions only did he assume

the more stately attire of a Roman noble. The administrative system of

Charles in church and state was largely personal, and he brought to the

work an untiring industry, and a marvellous grasp of detail. He

admonished the pope, appointed the bishops, watched over the morals and

work of the clergy, and took an active part in the deliberations of

church synods; he founded bishoprics and monasteries, was lavish in his

gifts to ecclesiastical foundations, and chose bishops and abbots for

administrative work. As the real founder of the ecclesiastical state, he

must be held mainly responsible for the evils which resulted from the

policy of the church in exalting the ecclesiastical over the secular

authority.

In secular affairs Charles abolished the office of duke, placed counts

over districts smaller than the former duchies, and supervised their

government by means of _missi dominici_, officials responsible to

himself alone. Marches were formed on all the borders of the empire, and

the exigencies of military service led to the growth of a system of

land-tenure which contained the germ of feudalism. The assemblies of the

people gradually changed their character under his rule. No longer did

the nation come together to direct and govern, but the emperor summoned

his people to assent to his acts. Taking a lively interest in commerce

and agriculture, Charles issued various regulations for the organization

of the one and the improvement of the other. He introduced a new system

of weights and measures, which he ordered should be used throughout his

kingdom, and took steps to reform the coinage. He was a voluminous

lawgiver. Without abolishing the customary law of the German tribes,

which is said to have been committed to writing by his orders, he added

to it by means of _capitularies_, and thus introduced certain Christian

principles and customs, and some degree of uniformity.

The extent and glamour of his empire exercised a potent spell on western

Europe. The aim of the greatest of his successors was to restore it to

its pristine position and influence, while many of the French rulers

made its re-establishment the goal of their policy. Otto the Great to a

considerable extent succeeded; Louis XIV. referred frequently to the

empire of Charlemagne; and Napoleon regarded him as his prototype and

predecessor. The empire of Charles, however, was not lasting. In spite

of his own wonderful genius the seeds of weakness were sown in his

lifetime. The church was too powerful, an incipient feudalism was

present, and there was no real bond of union between the different races

that acknowledged his authority. All the vigilance of the emperor could

not restrain the dishonesty and the cupidity of his servants, and no

sooner was the strong hand of their ruler removed than they began to

acquire territorial power for themselves.

AUTHORITIES.--The chief authorities for the life and times of

Charlemagne are Einhard's _Vita Karoli Magni_, the _Annales

Laurissenses majores_, the _Annales Fuldenses_, and other annals,

which are published in the _Monumenta Germaniae historica_.

_Scriptores_, Band i. and ii., edited by G.H. Pertz (Hanover and

Berlin, 1826-1892). For the capitularies see _Capitularia regum

Francorum_, edited by A. Boretius in the _Monumenta. Leges_. Many of

the songs of the period appear in the _Poetae Latini aevi Carolini_,

edited by E. Dummler (Berlin, 1881-1884). The _Bibliotheca rerum

Germanicarum_, tome iv., edited by Ph. Jaffe (Berlin, 1864-1873),

contains some of the emperor's correspondence, and Hincmar's _De

ordine palatii_, edited by M. Prou (Paris, 1884), is also valuable.

The best modern authorities are S. Abel and B. Simson, _Jahrbucher des

frankischen Reiches unter Karl dem Grossen_ (Leipzig, 1883-1888); G.

Richter and H. Kohl, _Annalen des frankischen Reichs im Zeitalter der

Karolinger_ (Halle, 1885-1887); E. Muhlbacher, _Deutsche Geschichte

unter den Karolingern_ (Stuttgart, 1886); H. Brosien, _Karl der

Grosse_ (Leipzig and Prague, 1885); J.I. Mombert, _History of Charles

the Great_ (London, 1888); M. Lipp, _Das frankische Grenzsystem unter

Karl dem Grossen_ (Breslau, 1892); J. von Dollinger, _Das Kaiserthum

Karls des Grossen und seiner Nachfolger_ (Munich, 1864); F. von Wyss,

_Karl der Grosse als Gesetzgeber_ (Zurich, 1869); Th. Sickel, _Lehre

von den Urkunden der ersten Karolinger_ (Vienna, 1867); E. Dummler in

the _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, Band xv.; Th. Lindner, _Die

Fabel von der Bestattung Karls des Grossen_ (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1893);

J.A. Ketterer, _Karl der Grosse und die Kirche_ (Munich and Leipzig,

1898); and J.B. Mullinger, _The Schools of Charles the Great and the

Restoration of Education in the 9th century_ (London, 1877).

The work of the monk of St Gall is found in the _Monumenta_, Band ii.;

an edition of the _Historia de vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi_, edited

by F. Castets, has been published (Paris, 1880), and an edition of the

_Kaiserchronik_, edited by E. Schroder (Hanover, 1892). See also P.

Clemen, _Die Portratdarstellung Karls des Grossen_ (Aix-la-Chapelle,

1896). (A. W. H.*)

THE CHARLEMAGNE LEGENDS

Innumerable legends soon gathered round the memory of the great emperor.

He was represented as a warrior performing superhuman feats, as a ruler

dispensing perfect justice, and even as a martyr suffering for the

faith. It was confidently believed towards the close of the 10th century

that he had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and, like many other great

rulers, it was reported that he was only sleeping to awake in the hour

of his country's need. We know from Einhard (_Vita Karoli_, cap. xxix.)

that the Frankish heroic ballads were drawn up in writing by

Charlemagne's order, and it may be accepted as certain that he was

himself the subject of many such during his lifetime. The legendary

element crept even into the Latin panegyrics produced by the court

poets. Before the end of the 9th century a monk of St Gall drew up a

chronicle _De gestis Karoli Magni_, which was based partly on oral

tradition, received from an old soldier named Adalbert, who had served

in Charlemagne's army. This recital contains various fabulous incidents.

The author relates a conversation between Otkar the Frank (Ogier the

Dane) and the Lombard king Desiderius (Didier) on the walls of Pavia in

view of Charlemagne's advancing army. To Didier's repeated question "Is

this the emperor?" Otkar continues to answer "Not yet," adding at last

"When thou shalt see the fields bristling with an iron harvest, and the

Po and the Ticino swollen with sea-floods, inundating the walls of the

city with iron billows, then shall Karl be nigh at hand." This episode,

which bears the marks of popular heroic poetry, may well be the

substance of a lost Carolingian _cantilena_.[1]

The legendary Charlemagne and his warriors were endowed with the great

deeds of earlier kings and heroes of the Frankish kingdom, for the

romancers were not troubled by considerations of chronology. National

traditions extending over centuries were grouped round Charlemagne, his

father Pippin, and his son Louis. The history of Charles Martel

especially was absorbed in the Charlemagne legend. But if Charles's name

was associated with the heroism of his predecessors he was credited with

equal readiness with the weaknesses of his successors. In the earlier

_chansons de geste_ he is invariably a majestic figure and represents

within limitations the grandeur of the historic Charles. But in the

histories of the wars with his vassals he is often little more than a

tyrannical dotard, who is made to submit to gross insult. This picture

of affairs is drawn from later times, and the sympathies of the poet are

generally with the rebels against the monarchy. Historical tradition was

already dim when the hypothetical and much discussed _cantilenae_, which

may be taken to have formed the repository of the national legends from

the 8th to the 10th century, were succeeded in the 11th and the early

l2th centuries by the _chansons de geste_. The early poems of the cycle

sometimes contain curious information on the Frankish methods in war, in

council and in judicial procedure, which had no parallels in

contemporary institutions. The account in the _Chanson de Roland_ of the

trial of Ganelon after the battle of Roncesvalles must have been adopted

almost intact from earlier poets, and provides a striking example of the

value of the _chansons de geste_ to the historian of manners and

customs. In general, however, the trouvere depicted the feeling and

manners of his own time.

Charlemagne's wars in Italy, Spain and Saxony formed part of the common

epic material, and there are references to his wars against the Slavs;

but especially he remained in the popular mind as the great champion of

Christianity against the creed of Mahomet, and even his Norman and Saxon

enemies became Saracens in current legend. He is the Christian emperor

directly inspired by angels; his sword Joyeuse contained the point of

the lance used in the Passion; his standard was Romaine, the banner of

St Peter, which, as the oriflamme of Saint Denis, was later to be borne

in battle before the kings of France; and in 1164 Charles was canonized

at the desire of the emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa by the anti-pope

Pascal III. This gave him no real claim to saintship, but his festival

was observed in some places until comparatively recent times.

Charlemagne was endowed with the good and bad qualities of the epic

king, and as in the case of Agamemnon and Arthur, his exploits paled

beside those of his chief warriors. These were not originally known as

the twelve peers[2] famous in later Carolingian romance. The twelve

peers were in the first instance the companions in arms of Roland in the

Teutonic sense.[3] The idea of the paladins forming an association

corresponding to the Arthurian Round Table first appears in the romance

of _Fierabras_. The lists of them are very various, but all include the

names of Roland and Oliver. The chief heroes who fought Charlemagne's

battles were Roland; Ganelon, afterwards the traitor; Turpin, the

fighting archbishop of Reims; Duke Naimes of Bavaria, the wise

counsellor who is always on the side of justice; Ogier the Dane, the

hero of a whole series of romances; and Guillaume of Toulouse, the

defender of Narbonne. Gradually most of the _chansons de geste_ were

attached to the name of Charlemagne, whose poetical history falls into

three cycles:--the _geste du roi_, relating his wars and the personal

history of himself and his family; the southern cycle, of which

Guillaume de Toulouse is the central figure; and the feudal epic,

dealing with the revolts of the barons against the emperor, the rebels

being invariably connected by the trouveres with the family of Doon de

Mayence (q.v.).

The earliest poems of the cycle are naturally the closest to historical

truth. The central point of the _geste du roi_ is the 11th-century

_Chanson de Roland_ (see ROLAND, LEGEND OF), one of the greatest of

medieval poems. Strangely enough the defeat of Roncesvalles, which so

deeply impressed the popular mind, has not a corresponding importance in

real history. But it chanced to find as its exponent a poet whose genius

established a model for his successors, and definitely fixed the type of

later heroic poems. The other early _chansons_ to which reference is

made in _Roland--Aspremont, Enfances Ogier, Guiteclin, Balan_, relating

to Charlemagne's wars in Italy and Saxony--are not preserved in their

original form, and only the first in an early recension. _Basin_ or

_Carl el Elegast_ (preserved in Dutch and Icelandic), the _Voyage de

Charlemagne a Jerusalem_ and _Le Couronnement Looys_ also belong to the

heroic period. The purely fictitious and romantic tales added to the

personal history of Charlemagne and his warriors in the 13th century are

inferior in manner, and belong to the decadence of romance. The old

tales, very much distorted in the 15th-century prose versions, were to

undergo still further degradation in 18th-century compilations.

According to _Berte aus grans pies_, in the 13th-century _remaniement_

of the Brabantine trouvere Adenes li Rois, Charlemagne was the son of

Pippin and of Berte, the daughter of Flore and Blanchefleur, king and

queen of Hungary. The tale bears marks of high antiquity, and presents

one of the few incidents in the French cycle which may be referred to a

mythic origin. On the night of Berte's marriage a slave, Margiste, is

substituted for her, and reigns in her place for nine years, at the

expiration of which Blanchefleur exposes the deception; whereupon Berte

is restored from her refuge in the forest to her rightful place as

queen. _Mainet_ (12th century) and the kindred poems in German and

Italian are perhaps based on the adventures of Charles Martel, who after

his father's death had to flee to the Ardennes. They relate that, after

the death of his parents, Charles was driven by the machinations of the

two sons of Margiste to take refuge in Spain, where he accomplished his

_enfances_ (youthful exploits) with the Mussulman king Galafre under the

feigned name of Mainet. He delivered Rome from the besieging Saracens,

and returned to France in triumph. But his wife Galienne, daughter of

Galafre, whom he had converted to the Christian faith, died on her way

to rejoin him. Charlemagne then made an expedition to Italy (_Enfances

Ogier_ in the Venetian _Charlemagne_, and the first part of the

_Chevalerie Ogier de Dannemarche_ by Raimbert of Paris, 12th century) to

raise the siege of Rome, which was besieged by the Saracen emir

Corsuble. He crossed the Alps under the guidance of a white hart,

miraculously sent to assist the passage of the army. _Aspremont_ (12th

century) describes a fictitious campaign against the Saracen King

Agolant in Calabria, and is chiefly devoted to the _enfances_ of Roland.

The wars of Charlemagne with his vassals are described in _Girart de

Roussillon, Renaus de Montauban_, recounting the deeds of the four sons

of Aymon, _Huon de Bordeaux_, and in the latter part of the _Chevalerie

Ogier_, which belong properly to the cycle connected with Doon of

Mayence.

The account of the pilgrimage of Charlemagne and his twelve paladins to

the Holy Sepulchre must in its first form have been earlier than the

Crusades, as the patriarch asks the emperor to free Spain, not the Holy

Land, from the Saracens. The legend probably originated in a desire to

authenticate the relics in the abbey of Saint Denis, supposed to have

been brought to Aix by Charlemagne, and is preserved in a 12th-century

romance, _Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Jerusalem et a Constantinople_.[4]

This journey forms the subject of a window in the cathedral of Chartres,

and there was originally a similar one at Saint-Denis. On the way home

Charles and his paladins visited the emperor Hugon at Constantinople,

where they indulged in a series of _gabs_ which they were made to carry

out. _Galien_, a favourite 15th-century romance, was attached to this

episode, for Galien was the son of the amours of Oliver with Jacqueline,

Hugon's daughter. The traditions of Charlemagne's fights with the

Norsemen (Norois, Noreins) are preserved in _Aiquin_ (12th century),

which describes the emperor's reconquest of Armorica from the "Saracen"

king Aiquin, and a disaster at Cezembre as terrible in its way as those

of Roncesvalles and Aliscans. _La destruction de Rome_ is a 13th-century

version of the older _chanson_ of the emir Balan, who collected an army

in Spain and sailed to Rome. The defenders were overpowered and the city

destroyed before the advent of Charlemagne, who, however, avenged the

disaster by a great battle in Spain. The romance of _Fierabras_ (13th

century) was one of the most popular in the 15th century, and by later

additions came to have pretensions to be a complete history of

Charlemagne. The first part represents an episode in Spain three years

before Roncesvalles, in which Oliver defeats the Saracen giant Fierabras

in single combat, and converts him. The hero of the second part is Gui

de Bourgogne, who recovers the relics of the Passion, lost in the siege

of Rome. _Otinel_ (13th century) is also pure fiction. _L'Entree en

Espagne_, preserved in a 14th-century Italian compilation, relates the

beginning of the Spanish War, the siege of Pampeluna, and the legendary

combat of Roland with Ferragus. Charlemagne's march on Saragossa, and

the capture of Huesca, Barcelona and Girone, gave rise to _La Prise de

Pampelune_ (14th century, based on a lost _chanson_); and _Gui de

Bourgogne_ (12th century) tells how the children of the barons, after

appointing Guy as king of France, set out to find and rescue their

fathers, who are represented as having been fighting in Spain for

twenty-seven years. The _Chanson de Roland_ relates the historic defeat

of Roncesvalles on the 15th of August 778, and forms the very crown of

the whole Carolingian legend. The two 13th-century romances, _Gaidon_,

by Herbert Leduc de Dammartin, and _Anseis de Carthage_, contain a

purely fictitious account of the end of the war in Spain, and of the

establishment of a Frankish kingdom under the rule of Anseis.

Charlemagne was recalled from Spain by the news of the outbreak of the

Saxons. The contest between Charlemagne and Widukind (_Guiteclin_)

offered abundant epic material. Unfortunately the original _Guiteclin_

is lost, but the legend is preserved in _Les Saisnes_ (c. 1300) of Jehan

Bodel, which is largely occupied by the loves of Baudouin and Sibille,

the wife of Guiteclin. The adventures of Blanchefleur, wife of

Charlemagne, form a variation of the common tale of the innocent wife

falsely accused, and are told in _Macaire_ and in the extant fragments

of _La Reine Sibille_ (14th century). After the conquest of the Saracens

and the Saxons, the defeat of the Northmen, and the suppression of the

feudal revolts, the emperor abdicated in favour of his son Louis (_Le

Couronnement Looys_, 12th century). Charles's harangue to his son is in

the best tradition of epic romance. The memory of Roncesvalles haunts

him on his death-bed, and at the moment of death he has a vision of

Roland.

The mythic element is practically lacking in the French legends, but in

Germany some part of the Odin myth was associated with Charles's name.

The constellation of the Great Bear, generally associated with Odin, is

Karlswagen in German, and Charles's Wain in English. According to

tradition in Hesse, he awaits resurrection, probably symbolic of the

triumph of the sun over winter, within the Gudensberg (Hill of Odin).

Bavarian tradition asserts that he is seated in the Untersberg in a

chair, as in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle. His white beard goes on

growing, and when it has thrice encircled the stone table before him the

end of the world will come; or, according to another version, Charles

will arise and after fighting a great battle on the plain of Wals will

reign over a new Germany. There were medieval chroniclers who did not

fear to assert that Charles rose from the dead to take part in the

Crusades. In the MS. _Annales S. Stephani Frisingenses_ (15th century),

which formerly belonged to the abbey of Weihenstephan, and is now at

Munich, the childhood of Charlemagne is practically the same as that of

many mythic heroes. This work, generally known as the chronicle of

Weihenstephan, gives among other legends a curious history of the

emperor's passion for a dead woman, caused by a charm given to Charles

by a serpent to whom he had rendered justice. The charm was finally

dropped into a well at Aix, which thenceforward became Charles's

favourite residence. The story of Roland's birth from the union of

Charles with his sister Gilles, also found in German and Scandinavian

versions, has abundant parallels in mythology, and was probably

transferred from mythology to Charlemagne.

The Latin chronicle, wrongly ascribed to Turpin (Tilpinus), bishop of

Reims from 753 to 800, was in reality later than the earlier poems of

the French cycle, and the first properly authenticated mention of it is

in 1165. Its primary object was to authenticate the relics of St James

at Compostella. Alberic Trium Fontium, a monk of the Cistercian

monastery of Trois Fontanes in the diocese of Chalons, embodied much

poetical fiction in his chronicle (c. 1249). A large section of the

_Chronique rimee_ (c. 1243) of Philippe Mousket is devoted to

Charlemagne's exploits. At the beginning of the 14th century Girard of

Amiens made a dull compilation known as _Charlemagne_ from the _chansons

de gests_, authentic history and the pseudo-Turpin. _La Conqueste que

fit le grand roi Charlemaigne es Espaignes_ (pr. 1486) is the same work

as the prose compilation of _Fierabras_ (pr. 1478), and Caxton's _Lyf of

Charles the Grete_ (1485).

The Charlemagne legend was fully developed in Italy, where it was to

have later a great poetic development at the hands of Boiardo, Ariosto

and Tasso. There are two important Italian compilations, MS. XIII. of

the library of St Mark, Venice (c. 1200), and the _Reali di Francia_ (c.

1400) of a Florentine writer, Andrea da Barberino (b. 1370), edited by

G. Vandelli (Bologna, 1892). The six books of this work are rivalled in

importance by the ten branches of the Norse _Karlamagnus saga_, written

under the reign of Haakon V. This forms a consecutive legendary history

of Charles, and is apparently based on earlier versions of the French

Charlemagne poems than those which we possess. It thus furnishes a guide

to the older forms of stories, and moreover preserves the substance of

others which have not survived in their French form. A popular

abridgment, the _Keiser Karl Magnus Kronike_ (pr. Malmo, 1534), drawn up

in Danish, serves in some cases to complete the earlier work. The 2000

lines of the German _Kaiserchronik_ on the history of Charlemagne belong

to the first half of the 12th century, and were perhaps the work of

Conrad, the poet of the _Ruolantes Liet_. The German poet known as the

Stricker used the same sources as the author of the chronicle of

Weihenstephan for his _Karl_ (c. 1230). The earliest important Spanish

version was the _Chronica Hispaniae_ (c. 1284) of Rodrigo de Toledo.

The French and Norman-French chansons circulated as freely in England as

in France, and it was therefore not until the period of decadence that

English versions were made. The English metrical romances of Charlemagne

are:--_Rowlandes Song_ (15th century); _The Taill of Rauf Coilyear_ (c.

1475, pr. by R. Lekpreuik, St Andrews, 1472), apparently original; _Sir

Ferumbras_ (c. 1380) and the _Sowdone of Babylone_ (c. 1400) from an

early version of _Fierabras_; a fragmentary _Roland and Vernagu_

(Ferragus); two versions of _Otuel_ (Otinel); and a _Sege of Melayne_

(c. 1390), forming a prologue to Otinel unknown in French.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The most important works on the Charlemagne cycle of

romance are:--G. Paris, _Hist. poetique de Charlemagne_ (Paris, 1865;

reprint, with additional notes by Paris and P. Meyer, 1905); L.

Gautier, _Les Epopees francaises_ (Paris, 4 vols. new ed., 1878, 1892,

1880, 1882) and the supplementary _Bibliographie des chansons de

geste_ (1897). The third volume of the _Epopees francaises_ contains

an analysis and full particulars of the _chansons de geste_

immediately connected with the history of Charlemagne. See also G.

Rauschen, _Die Legende Karls des Grossen im 11ten und 12ten

Jahrhundert_ (Leipzig, 1890); Kristoffer Nyrop, _Den oldfranske

Heldedigtning_ (Copenhagen, 1883; Ital. trans. Turin, 1886); Pio

Rajna, _Le Origini dell' epopea francese_ (Florence, 1884); G.T.

Graesse, "Die grossen Sagenkreise des Mittelalters," in his

_Litterargeschichte_ (Dresden, 1842); _Histoire litteraire de la

France_ (vol. xxii., 1852); H.L. Ward, _Catalogue of Romances in the

Dept. of MSS. in the British Museum_ (1883), vol. i. pp. 546-689; E.

Muntz, _La Legende de Charlemagne dans l'art du moyen age_ (Paris,

1885); and for the German legend, vol. iii. of H.F. Massmann's edition

of the _Kaiserchronik_ (Quedlinburg, 1849-1854). _The English

Charlemagne Romances_ were edited (extra series) for the Early Eng.

Text Soc. by Sidney J. Herrtage, Emil Hausknecht, Octavia Richardson

and Sidney Lee (1879-1881), the romance of _Duke Huon of Bordeaux_

containing a general account of the cycle by Sidney Lee; the

_Karlamagnussaga_, by C.R. Unger (Christiania, 1860), see also G.

Paris in _Bibl. de l'Ecole des Charles_ (1864-1865). For individual

_chansons_ see _Anseis de Carthage_, ed. J. Alton (Tubingen, 1892);

_Aiquin_, ed. F. Jouon des Longrais (Nantes, 1880); _Aspremont_, ed.

F. Guessard and L. Gautier (Paris, 1885); _Basin_, or _Charles et

Elegast_ or _Le Couronnement de Charles_, preserved only in foreign

versions (see Paris, _Hist. Poet._ pp. 315, seq.); _Berta de li gran

pie_, ed. A. Mussafia, in _Romania_ (vols. iii. and iv., 1874-1875);

_Berte aus grans pies_, ed. A. Scheler (Brussels, 1874);

_Charlemagne_, by Girard d'Amiens, detailed analysis in Paris, _Hist.

Poet._ (Appendix iv.); _Couronnement Looys_, ed. E. Langlois (Le Puy,

1888); _Desier_ (Desiderius or Didier), lost songs of the wars of

Lombardy, some fragments of which are preserved in _Ogier le Danois;

Destruction de Rome_, ed. G. Grober in _Romania_(1873); A. Thomas,

_Nouvelles recherches sur "l'entree de Spagne_," in _Bibl. des ecoles

francaises de Rome_ (Paris, 1882); _Fierabras_, ed. A. Krober and G.

Servois (Paris, 1860) in _Anciens poetes de la France_, and Provencal

text, ed. I. Bekker (Berlin, 1829); _Galien_, ed. E. Stengel and K.

Pfeil (Marburg, 1890); _Gaydon_, ed. F. Guessard and S. Luce (_Anciens

poetes_ ... 1862); _Gui de Bourgogne_, ed. F. Guessard and H.

Michelant (same series, 1859); _Mainet_ (fragments only extant), ed.

G. Paris, in _Romania_ (1875); _Otinel_, ed Guessard and Michelant

_(Anciens poetes_, 1859), and _Sir Otuel_, ed. S.J. Herrtage

(_E.E.T.S._, 1880); _Prise de Pampelune_ (ed. A. Mussafia, Vienna,

1864); for the Carolingian romances relating to Roland, see ROLAND;

_Les Saisnes_, ed. F. Michel (1839); _The Sege of Melaine_,

introductory to Otinel, preserved in English only (ed. _E.E.T.S._,

1880); _Simon de Pouille_, analysis in _Epop. fr._ (iii. pp. 346 sq.);

_Voyage de C. a Jerusalem_, ed. E. Koschwitz (Heilbronn, 1879). For

the chronicle of the Pseudo-Turpin, see an edition by Castets (Paris,

1881) for the "Societe des langues romanes," and the dissertation by

G. Paris, _De Pseudo-Turpino_ (Paris, 1865). The Spanish versions of

Carolingian legends are studied by Mila y Fontanals in _De la poesia

heroico-popular castellana_ (Barcelona, 1874). (M. Br.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A remnant of the popular poetry contemporary with Charlemagne and

written in the vernacular has been thought to be discernible under

its Latin translation in the description of a siege during

Charlemagne's war against the Saracens, known as the "Fragment from

the Hague" (Pertz, _Script._ iii. pp. 708-710).

[2] The words _douze pairs_ were anglicized in a variety of forms

ranging from douzepers to dosepers. The word even occurred as a

singular in the metrical romance of _Octavian_:--"Ferst they sent out

a doseper." At the beginning of the 13th century there existed a

_cour des pairs_ which exercised judicial functions and dated

possibly from the 11th century, but their prerogatives at the

beginning of the 14th century appear to have been mainly ceremonial

and decorative. In 1257 the twelve peers were the chiefs of the great

feudal provinces, the dukes of Normandy, Burgundy and Aquitaine, the

counts of Toulouse, Champagne and Flanders, and six spiritual peers,

the archbishop of Reims, the bishops of Laon, Chalons-sur-Marne,

Beauvais, Langres and Noyon. (See Du Cange, _Glossarium_, s.v.

"Par.").

[3] See J. Flach, _Le Compagnonnage dans les chansons de geste_

(Paris, 1891).

[4] For clerical accounts of Charles's voyage to the Holy Land see

the _Chronicon_ (c. 968) of Benedict, a monk of St Andre, and

_Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coronam Domini ...

detulerit_, by an 11th-century writer.

CHARLEMAGNE, JEAN ARMAND (1753-1838), French dramatic author, was born

at Bourget (Seine) on the 30th of November 1753. Originally intended for

the church, he turned first to being a lawyer's clerk and then a

soldier. He served in the American War of Independence, and on returning

to France (1783) began to employ his pen on economic subjects, and later

in writing for the stage. He became the author of a large number of

plays, poems and romances, among which may be mentioned the comedies _M.

de Crac a Paris_ (1793), _Le Souper des Jacobins_ (1795)and _L'Agioteur_

(1796) and _Observations de quelques patriotes sur la necessite de

conserver les monuments de la litterature et des arts_ (1794), an essay

written in collaboration with M.M. Chardin and Renouard, which induced

the Convention to protect books adorned with the coats of arms of their

former owners and other treasures from destruction at the hands of the

revolutionists. He died in Paris on the 6th of March 1838.

CHARLEMONT, JAMES CAULFEILD, 1ST EARL OF (1728-1799), Irish statesman,

son of the 3rd viscount Charlemont, was born in Dublin on the 18th of

August 1728, and succeeded his father as 4th viscount in 1734. The title

of Charlemont descended from Sir Toby Caulfeild (1565-1627) of

Oxfordshire, England, who was given lands in Ireland, and created Baron

Charlemont (the name of a fort on the Blackwater), for his services to

King James I. in 1620, and the 1st viscount was the 5th baron (d. 1671),

who was advanced by Charles II. Lord Charlemont is historically

interesting for his political connexion with Flood and Grattan; he was

a cultivated man with literary and artistic tastes, and both in Dublin

and in London his amiable character gave him considerable social

influence. For various early services in Ireland he was made an earl in

1763, but he disregarded court favours and cordially joined Grattan in

1780 in the assertion of Irish independence. He was president of the

volunteer convention in Dublin in November 1783, having taken from the

first a leading part in the embodiment of the volunteers; and he was a

strong opponent of the proposals for the Union. He died on the 4th of

August 1799; his eldest son, who succeeded him, being subsequently

(1837) created an English baron.

His _Life_, by F. Hardy, appeared in 1810.

CHARLEROI (_Carolus Rex_), a town in the province of Hainaut, Belgium.

Pop. (1904) 26,528. It was founded in 1666 on the site of a village

called Charnoy by the Spanish governor Roderigo and named after his

sovereign Charles II. of Spain. Charleroi is the centre of the iron

industry of Belgium. It is connected by a canal with Brussels, and from

its position on the Sambre enjoys facilities of communication by water

with France as well as Belgium. It was ceded soon after its foundation

to France by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and Vauban fortified it.

During the French occupation the town was considerably extended, and the

fortifications were made so strong that Charleroi twice successfully

resisted the strenuous attacks of William of Orange. In 1794 Charleroi

again fell into the hands of the French, and on this occasion instead of

fortifying they dismantled it. In 1816 Charleroi was refortified under

Wellington's direction, and it was finally dismantled in 1859. Some

portions of the old ramparts are left near the railway station. There is

an archaeological museum with a miscellaneous collection of Roman and

Frank antiquities.

CHARLEROI, a borough of Washington county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the

Monongahela river, near the S.W. corner of the state, about 20 m. S. of

Pittsburgh. Pop. (1900) 5930, (1749 foreign-born); (1910) 9615. It is

served by the Pennsylvania railway. The surrounding country has good

farming land and large coal mines. In 1905 the borough ranked fifth

among the cities of the United States in the manufacture of glass

(plate-glass, lamp chimneys and bottles), its product (valued at

$1,841,308) being 2.3% of that of the whole country. Charleroi was

settled in 1890 and was incorporated in 1891.

CHARLES (Fr. _Charles_; Span. _Carlos_; Ital. _Carlo_; Ger. _Karl_;

derived from O.H.G. _Charal_, latinized as _Carolus_, meaning originally

"man": cf. Mod. Ger., _Kerl_, "fellow," A.S. _ceorl_, Mod. Eng.

"churl"), a masculine proper name. It has been borne by many European

princes, notices of the more important of whom are given below in the

following order: (1) Roman emperors, (2) kings of England, (3) other

kings in the alphabetical order of their states, (4) other reigning

princes in the same order, (5) non-reigning princes. Those princes who

are known by a name in addition to Charles (Charles Albert, &c.) will be

found after the private individuals bearing Charles as a surname.

CHARLES II.[1] called THE BALD (823-877), Roman emperor and king of the

West Franks, was the son of the emperor Louis the Pious and of his

second wife Judith and was born in 823. The attempts made by his father

to assign him a kingdom, first Alamannia (829), then the country between

the Meuse and the Pyrenees (839), at the expense of his half-brothers

Lothair and Louis led to a rising on the part of these two (see LOUIS

I., the Pious). The death of the emperor in 840 was the signal for the

outbreak of war between his sons. Charles allied himself with his

brother Louis the German to resist the pretensions of the emperor

Lothair, and the two allies conquered him in the bloody victory of

Fontenoy-en-Puisaye (25 June 841). In the following year, the two

brothers confirmed their alliance by the celebrated oaths of Strassburg,

made by Charles in the Teutonic language spoken by the subjects of

Louis, and by Louis in the Romance tongue of Charles's subjects. The war

was brought to an end by the treaty of Verdun (August 843), which gave

to Charles the Bald the kingdom of the western Franks, which practically

corresponded with what is now France, as far as the Meuse, the Saone

and the Rhone, with the addition of the Spanish March as far as the

Ebro. The first years of his reign up to the death of Lothair I. (855)

were comparatively peaceful, and during them was continued the system of

"confraternal government" of the sons of Louis the Pious, who had

various meetings with one another, at Coblenz (848), at Meersen (851),

and at Attigny (854). In 858 Louis the German, summoned by the

disaffected nobles, invaded the kingdom of Charles, who fled to

Burgundy, and was only saved by the help of the bishops, and by the

fidelity of the family of the Welfs, who were related to Judith. In 860

he in his turn tried to seize the kingdom of his nephew, Charles of

Provence, but met with a repulse. On the death of Lothair II. in 869 he

tried to seize his dominions, but by the treaty of Mersen (870) was

compelled to share them with Louis the German. Besides this, Charles had

to struggle against the incessant rebellions in Aquitaine, against the

Bretons, whose revolt was led by their chief Nomenoe and Erispoe, and

who inflicted on the king the defeats of Ballon (845) and Juvardeil

(851), and especially against the Normans, who devastated the country in

the north of Gaul, the valleys of the Seine and Loire, and even up to

the borders of Aquitaine. Charles was several times compelled to

purchase their retreat at a heavy price. He has been accused of being

incapable of resisting them, but we must take into account the

unwillingness of the nobles, who continually refused to join the royal

army; moreover, the Frankish army does not seem to have been

sufficiently accustomed to war to make any headway against the pirates.

At any rate, Charles led various expeditions against the invaders, and

tried to put a barrier in their way by having fortified bridges built

over all the rivers. In 875, after the death of the emperor Louis II.,

Charles the Bald, supported by Pope John VIII., descended into Italy,

receiving the royal crown at Pavia and the imperial crown at Rome (29th

December). But Louis the German, who was also a candidate for the

succession of Louis II., revenged himself for Charles's success by

invading and devastating his dominions. Charles was recalled to Gaul,

and after the death of Louis the German (28th August 876), in his turn

made an attempt to seize his kingdom, but at Andernach met with a

shameful defeat (8th October 876). In the meantime, John VIII., who was

menaced by the Saracens, was continually urging him to come to Italy,

and Charles, after having taken at Quierzy the necessary measures for

safeguarding the government of his dominions in his absence, again

crossed the Alps, but this expedition had been received with small

enthusiasm by the nobles, and even by Boso, Charles's brother-in-law,

who had been entrusted by him with the government of Lombardy, and they

refused to come with their men to join the imperial army. At the same

time Carlo man, son of Louis the German, entered northern Italy.

Charles, ill and in great distress, started on his way back to Gaul, and

died while crossing the pass of the Mont Cenis on the 5th or 6th of

October 877. He was succeeded by his son Louis the Stammerer, the child

of Ermentrude, daughter of a count of Orleans, whom he had married in

842, and who had died in 869. In 870 he had married Richilde, who was

descended from a noble family of Lorraine, but none of the children whom

he had by her played a part of any importance. Charles seems to have

been a prince of education and letters, a friend of the church, and

conscious of the support he could find in the episcopate against his

unruly nobles, for he chose his councillors for preference from among

the higher clergy, as in the case of Guenelon of Sens, who betrayed him,

or of Hincmar of Reims. But his character and his reign have been judged

very variously. The general tendency seems to have been to accept too

easily the accounts of the chroniclers of the east Frankish kingdom,

which are favourable to Louis the German, and to accuse Charles of

cowardice and bad faith. He seems on the contrary not to have lacked

activity or decision.

AUTHORITIES.--The most important authority for the history of

Charles's reign is represented by the _Annales Bertiniani_, which were

the work of Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, up to 861, then up to 882 of

the celebrated Hincmar, archbishop of Reims. This prince's charters

are to be found published in the collections of the _Academie des

Inscriptions_, by M.M. Prou. The most complete history of the reign

is found in E. Dummler, _Geschichte des ostfrankischen Reiches_ (3

vols., Leipzig, 1887-1888). See also J. Calmette, _La Diplomatie

carolingienne du traite de Verdun a la mort de Charles le Chauve_

(Paris, 1901), and F. Lot, "Une Annee du regne de Charles le Chauve,"

in _Le Moyen-Age_, (1902) pp. 393-438.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] For Charles I., Roman emperor, see CHARLEMAGNE; cf. under Charles

I. of France below.

CHARLES III., THE FAT[1] (832-888), Roman emperor and king of the West

Franks, was the youngest of the three sons of Louis the German, and

received from his father the kingdom of Swabia (Alamannia). After the

death of his two brothers in succession, Carloman (881) and Louis the

Young (882), he inherited the whole of his father's dominions. In 880 he

had helped his two cousins in the west Frankish realm, Louis III. and

Carloman, in their struggle with the usurper Boso of Provence, but

abandoned them during the campaign in order to be crowned emperor at

Rome by Pope John VIII. (February 881). On his return he led an

expedition against the Norsemen of Friesland, who were entrenched in

their camp at Elsloo, but instead of engaging with them he preferred to

make terms and paid them tribute. In 884 the death of Carloman brought

into his possession the west Frankish realm, and in 885 he got rid of

his rival Hugh of Alsace, an illegitimate son of Lothair II., taking him

prisoner by treachery and putting out his eyes. However, in spite of his

six expeditions into Italy, he did not succeed in pacifying the country,

nor in delivering it from the Saracens. He was equally unfortunate in

Gaul and in Germany against the Norsemen, who in 886-887 besieged Paris.

The emperor appeared before the city with a large army (October 886),

but contented himself by treating with them, buying the retreat of the

invaders at the price of a heavy ransom, and his permission for them to

ravage Burgundy without his interfering. On his return to Alamannia,

however, the general discontent showed itself openly and a conspiracy

was formed against him. He was first forced to dismiss his favourite,

the chancellor Liutward, bishop of Vercelli. The dissolution of his

marriage with the pious empress Richarde, in spite of her innocence as

proved by the judicial examination, alienated his nobles still more from

him. He was deposed by an assembly which met at Frankfort or at Tribur

(November 887), and died in poverty at Neidingen on the Danube (18th

January 888).

See E. Dummler, _Geschichte des ostfrankischen Reiches_ vol. iii.

(Leipzig 1888).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This surname has only been applied to Charles since the 13th

century.

CHARLES IV. (1316-1378), Roman emperor and king of Bohemia, was the

eldest son of John of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia, and Elizabeth, sister

of Wenceslas III., the last Bohemian king of the Premyslides dynasty. He

was born at Prague on the 14th of May 1316, and in 1323 went to the

court of his uncle, Charles IV., king of France, and exchanged his

baptismal name of Wenceslas for that of Charles. He remained for seven

years in France, where he was well educated and learnt five languages;

and there he married Blanche, sister of King Philip VI., the successor

of Charles IV. In 1331 he gained some experience of warfare in Italy

with his father; and on his return to Bohemia in 1333 he was made

margrave of Moravia. Three years later he undertook the government of

Tirol on behalf of his brother John Henry, and was soon actively

concerned in a struggle for the possession of this county. In

consequence of an alliance between his father and Pope Clement VI., the

relentless enemy of the emperor Louis IV., Charles was chosen German

king in opposition to Louis by some of the princes at Rense on the 11th

of July 1346. As he had previously promised to be subservient to Clement

he made extensive concessions to the pope in 1347. Confirming the papacy

in the possession of wide territories, he promised to annul the acts of

Louis against Clement, to take no part in Italian affairs, and to defend

and protect the church. Meanwhile he had accompanied his father into

France and had taken part in the battle of Crecy in August 1346, when

John was killed and Charles escaped wounded from the field. As king of

Bohemia he returned to Germany, and after being crowned German king at

Bonn on the 26th of November 1346, prepared to attack Louis. Hostilities

were interrupted by the death of the emperor in October 1347, and

Gunther, count of Schwarzburg, who was chosen king by the partisans of

Louis, soon abandoned the struggle. Charles, having made good use of the

difficulties of his opponents, was recrowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the

25th of July 1349, and was soon the undisputed ruler of Germany. Gifts

or promises had won the support of the Rhenish and Swabian towns; a

marriage alliance secured the friendship of the Habsburgs; and that of

Rudolph II., count palatine of the Rhine, was obtained when Charles, who

had become a widower in 1348, married his daughter Anna.

In 1350 the king was visited at Prague by Cola di Rienzi, who urged him

to go to Italy, where the poet Petrarch and the citizens of Florence

also implored his presence. Turning a deaf ear to these entreaties,

Charles kept Rienzi in prison for a year, and then handed him as a

prisoner to Clement at Avignon. Four years later, however, he crossed

the Alps without an army, received the Lombard crown at Milan on the 6th

of January 1355, and was crowned emperor at Rome by a cardinal on the

5th of April in the same year. His sole object appears to have been to

obtain the imperial crown in peace, and in accordance with a promise

previously made to Pope Clement he only remained in the city for a few

hours, in spite of the expressed wishes of the Romans. Having virtually

abandoned all the imperial rights in Italy, the emperor recrossed the

Alps, pursued by the scornful words of Petrarch but laden with

considerable wealth. On his return Charles was occupied with the

administration of Germany, then just recovering from the Black Death,

and in 1356 he promulgated the Golden Bull (q.v.) to regulate the

election of the king. Having given Moravia to one brother, John Henry,

and erected the county of Luxemburg into a duchy for another, Wenceslas,

he was unremitting in his efforts to secure other territories as

compensation and to strengthen the Bohemian monarchy. To this end he

purchased part of the upper Palatinate of the Rhine in 1353, and in 1367

annexed Lower Lusatia to Bohemia and bought numerous estates in various

parts of Germany. On the death in 1363 of Meinhard, duke of Upper

Bavaria and count of Tirol, Upper Bavaria was claimed by the sons of the

emperor Louis IV., and Tirol by Rudolph IV., duke of Austria. Both

claims were admitted by Charles on the understanding that if these

families died out both territories should pass to the house of

Luxemburg. About the same time he was promised the succession to the

margraviate of Brandenburg, which he actually obtained for his son

Wenceslas in 1373. He also gained a considerable portion of Silesian

territory, partly by inheritance through his third wife, Anna, daughter

of Henry II., duke of Schweidnitz. In 1365 Charles visited Pope Urban V.

at Avignon and undertook to escort him to Rome; and on the same occasion

was crowned king of Burgundy, or Arles, at Arles on the 4th of June

1365.

His second journey to Italy took place in 1368, when he had a meeting

with Urban at Viterbo, was besieged in his palace at Siena, and left the

country before the end of the year 1369. During his later years the

emperor took little part in German affairs beyond securing the election

of his son Wenceslas as king of the Romans in 1376, and negotiating a

peace between the Swabian league and some nobles in 1378. After dividing

his lands between his three sons, he died on the 29th of November 1378

at Prague, where he was buried, and where a statue was erected to his

memory in 1848.

Charles, who according to the emperor Maximilian I. was the step-father

of the Empire, but the father of Bohemia, brought the latter country to

a high state of prosperity. He reformed the finances, caused roads to be

made, provided for greater security to life and property, and introduced

or encouraged various forms of industry. In 1348 he founded the

university of Prague, and afterwards made this city the seat of an

archbishop, and beautified it by the erection of several fine buildings.

He was an accomplished diplomatist, possessed a penetrating intellect,

and was capable of much trickery in order to gain his ends. By refusing

to become entangled in Italian troubles and confining himself to

Bohemia, he proved that he preferred the substance of power to its

shadow. Apparently the most pliant of men, he had in reality great

persistence of character, and if foiled in one set of plans readily

turned round and reached his goal by a totally different path. He was

superstitious and peace-loving, had few personal wants, and is described

as a round-shouldered man of medium height, with black hair and beard,

and sallow cheeks.

His autobiography the "Vita Caroli IV.," which deals with events down

to the year 1346, and various other documents relating to his life and

times, are published in the _Fontes rerum Germanicarum_, Band I.,

edited by J.F. Bohmer (Leipzig, 1885). For other documents relating to

the time see _Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Kaiser Karl IV._,

edited by J.F. Bohmer and A. Huber (Innsbruck, 1889); _Acta Karoli IV.

imperatoris inedita_ (Innsbruck, 1891); E. Werunsky, _Excerpta ex

registris Clementis VI. et Innocentii VI._ (Innsbruck, 1885). See also

E. Werunsky, _Geschichte Kaiser Karls IV. und seiner Zeit_ (Innsbruck,

1880-1892); H. Friedjung, _Kaiser Karl IV. und sein Antheil am

geistigen Leben seiner Zeit_ (Vienna, 1876); A. Gottlob, _Karls IV.

private und politische Beziehungen zu Frankreich_ (Innsbruck, 1883);

O. Winckelmann, _Die Beziehungen Kaiser Karls IV. zum Konigreich

Arelat_ (Strassburg, 1882); K. Palm, "Zu Karls IV. Politik gegen

Baiern," in the _Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte_, Band XV.

(Gottingen, 1862-1866); Th. Lindner, "Karl IV. und die Wittelsbacher,"

and S. Stienherz, "Die Beziehungen Ludwigs I. von Ungarn zu Karl IV.,"

and "Karl IV. und die osterreichischen Freiheitsbriefe," in the

_Mittheilungen des Instituts fur osterreichische Geschichtsforschung_

(Innsbruck, 1880).

CHARLES V. (1500-1558), Roman emperor and (as CHARLES I.) king of Spain,

was born at Ghent on the 24th of February 1500. His parents were Philip

of Burgundy and Joanna, third child of Ferdinand and Isabella. Philip

died in 1506, and Charles succeeded to his Netherland possessions and

the county of Burgundy (Franche Comte). His grandfather, the emperor

Maximilian, as regent, appointed his daughter Margaret vice-regent, and

under her strenuous guardianship Charles lived in the Netherlands until

the estates declared him of age in 1515. In Castile, Ferdinand, king of

Aragon, acted as regent for his daughter Joanna, whose intellect was

already clouded. On the 23rd of January 1516 Ferdinand died. Charles's

visit to Spain was delayed until the autumn of 1517, and only in 1518

was he formally recognized as king conjointly with his mother, firstly

by the cortes of Castile, and then by those of Aragon. Joanna lived to

the very eve of her son's abdication, so that he was only for some

months technically sole king of Spain. During this Spanish visit

Maximilian died, and Charles succeeded to the inheritance of the

Habsburgs, to which was shortly added the duchy of Wurttemberg.

Maximilian had also intended that he should succeed as emperor. In spite

of the formidable rivalry of Francis I. and the opposition of Pope Leo

X., pecuniary corruption and national feeling combined to secure his

election in 1519. Charles hurriedly left Spain, and after a visit to

Henry VIII. and his aunt Catherine, was crowned at Aix on the 23rd of

October 1520.

The difficulty of Charles's reign consists in the complexity of

interests caused by the unnatural aggregate of distinct territories and

races. The crown of Castile brought with it the two recently conquered

kingdoms of Navarre and Granada, together with the new colonies in

America and scattered possessions in northern Africa. That of Aragon

comprised the three distinct states of Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia,

and in addition the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, each with a

separate character and constitution of its own. No less than eight

independent cortes or parliaments existed in this Spanish-Italian group,

adding greatly to the intricacy of government. In the Netherland

provinces again the tie was almost purely personal; there existed only

the rudiments of a central administration and a common representative

system, while the county of Burgundy had a history apart. Much the same

was true of the Habsburg group of states, but Charles soon freed himself

from direct responsibility for their government by making them over,

together with Wurttemberg, to his brother Ferdinand. The Empire entailed

serious liabilities on its ruler without furnishing any reliable assets:

only through the cumbrous machinery of the diet could Charles tap the

military and financial resources of Germany. His problem here was

complicated by the growth of Lutheranism, which he had to face at his

very first diet in 1521. In addition to such administrative difficulties

Charles had inherited a quarrel with France, to which the rivalry of

Francis I. for the Empire gave a personal character. Almost equally

formidable was the advance of Sultan Suliman up the Danube, and the

union of the Turkish naval power with that of the Barbary States of

northern Africa. Against Lutheran Germany the Catholic emperor might

hope to rely upon the pope, and against France on England. But the

attitude of the popes was almost uniformly disagreeable, while from

Henry VIII. and Edward VI. Charles met with more unpleasantness than

favour.

The difficulty of Charles himself is also that of the historian and

reader of his reign. It is probably more instructive to treat it

according to the emperor's several problems than in strict chronological

order. Yet an attempt to distinguish the several periods of his career

may serve as a useful introduction. The two best dividing lines are,

perhaps, the coronation as emperor at Bologna in 1530, and the peace of

Crepy in 1544. Until his visit to Italy (1529) Charles remained in the

background of the European stage, except for his momentous meeting with

Luther at the diet of Worms (1521). This meeting in itself forms a

subdivision. Previously to this, during his nominal rule in the

Netherlands, his visit to Spain, and his candidature for the Empire, he

seemed, as it was said, spell-bound under the ferule of his minister

Chievres. Almost every report represented him as colourless, reserved

and weak. His dependence on his Flemish counsellors provoked the rising

in Castile, the feebleness of his government the social war in Aragon.

The religious question first gave him a living interest, and at this

moment Chievres died. Aleander, the papal nuncio at Worms, now

recognized that public opinion had been wrong in its estimate of

Charles. Never again was he under tutelage. The necessity, however, of

residence in Spain prevented his taking a personal part in the great

fight with Francis I. for Italy. He could claim no credit for the

capture of his rival at Pavia. When his army sacked Rome and held Pope

Clement VII. prisoner, he could not have known where this army was. And

when later the French overran Naples, and all but deprived him of his

hold on Italy, he had to instruct his generals that they must shift for

themselves. The world had become afraid of him, but knew little of his

character. In the second main division of his career Charles changed all

this. No monarch until Napoleon was so widely seen in Europe and in

Africa. Complexity of problems is the characteristic of this period. At

the head of his army Charles forced the Turks backwards down the Danube

(1532). He personally conquered Tunis (1535), and was only prevented by

"act of God" from winning Algiers (1541). The invasion of Provence in

1536 was headed by the emperor. In person he crushed the rebellion of

Ghent (1540). In his last war with Francis (1542-44) he journeyed from

Spain to the Netherlands, brought the rebellious duke of Cleves to his

knees, and was within easy reach of Paris when he made the peace of

Crepy (1544). In Germany, meanwhile, from the diet of Augsburg (1530)

onwards, he had presided at the diets or conferences, which, as he

hoped, would effect the reunion of the church.

Peace with France and the Turk and a short spell of friendliness with

Pope Paul III. enabled Charles at last to devote his whole energies to

the healing of religious schism. Conciliation proving impossible, he led

the army which received the submission of the Lutheran states, and then

captured the elector of Saxony at Muhlberg, after which the other

leader, Philip of Hesse, capitulated. The Armed Diet of 1548 was the

high-water mark of Charles's power. Here, in defiance of the pope, he

published the Interim which was meant to reconcile the Lutherans with

the church, and the so-called Reform which was to amend its abuses.

During the next four years, owing to ill-health and loss of insight, his

power was ebbing. In 1552 he was flying over the Brenner from Maurice of

Saxony, a princeling whose fortunes he had made. Once again the old

complications had arisen. His old enemy's son, Henry II., had attacked

him indirectly in Piedmont and Parma, and then directly in Germany in

alliance with Maurice. Once more the Turk was moving in the Danube and

in the western Mediterranean. The humiliation of his flight gave Charles

new spirit, and he once more led an army through Germany against the

French, only to be checked by the duke of Guise's defence of Metz.

Henceforth the waves of his fortune plashed to and fro until his

abdication without much ostensible loss or gain.

Charles had abundance of good sense, but little creative genius, and he

was by nature conservative. Consequently he never sought to impose any

new or common principles of administration on his several states. He

took them as he found them, and at most, as in the Netherlands, improved

upon what he found. So also in dealing with rival powers his policy may

be called opportunist. He was indeed accused by his enemies of emulating

Charlemagne, of aiming at universal empire. Historians have frequently

repeated this charge. Charles himself in later life laughingly denied

the imputation, and facts are in favour of his denial. When Francis I.

was in his power he made no attempt to dismember France, in spite of his

pledges to his allies Henry VIII. and the duke of Bourbon. He did,

indeed, demand the duchy of Burgundy, because he believed this to have

been unrighteously stolen by Louis XI. from his grandmother when a

helpless girl. The claim was not pressed, and at the height of his

fortunes in 1548 he advised his son never to surrender it, but also

never to make it a cause of war. When Clement VII. was his prisoner, he

was vehemently urged to overthrow the temporal power, to restore

imperial dominion in Italy, at least to make the papacy harmless for the

future. In reply he restored his enemy to the whole of his dominions,

even reimposing him by force on the Florentine republic. To the end of

his life his conscience was sensitive as to Ferdinand's expulsion of the

house of Albret from Spanish Navarre, though this was essential to the

safety of Spain. Though always at war he was essentially a lover of

peace, and all his wars were virtually defensive. "Not greedy of

territory," wrote Marcantonio Contarini in 1536, "but most greedy of

peace and quiet." For peace he made sacrifices which angered his

hot-headed brother Ferdinand. He would not aid in expelling the sultan's

puppet Zapolya from Ferdinand's kingdom of Hungary, and he suffered the

restoration of the ruffianly duke of Wurttemberg, to the grave prejudice

of German Catholicism. In spite of his protests, Henry VIII. with

impunity ill-treated his aunt Catherine, and the feeble government of

Edward VI. bullied his cousin Mary, who had been his fiancee. No serious

efforts were made to restore his brother-in-law, Christian II., to the

throne of Denmark, and he advised his son Philip to make friends with

the usurper. After the defeat of the Lutheran powers in 1547 he did not

gain a palm's breadth of territory for himself. He resisted Ferdinand's

claim for Wurttemberg, which the duke had deserved to forfeit; he

disliked his acceptance of the voluntary surrender of the city of

Constance; he would not have it said that he had gone to war for the

benefit of the house of Habsburg.

On the other hand, Charles V.'s policy was not merely negative. He

enlarged upon the old Habsburg practice of marriage as a means of

alliance of influence. Previously to his election as emperor, his sister

Isabella was married to Christian II. of Denmark, and the marriages of

Mary and Ferdinand with the king of Hungary and his sister had been

arranged. Before he was twenty Charles himself had been engaged some ten

times with a view to political combinations. Naturally, therefore, he

regarded his near relations as diplomatic assets. The federative system

was equally familiar; Germany, the Netherlands, and even Spain, were in

a measure federations. Combining these two principles, he would within

his more immediate spheres of influence strengthen existing federations

by intermarriage, while he hoped that the same means would convert the

jarring powers of Europe into a happy family. He made it a condition of

the treaty of Madrid (1526) that Francis I. should marry his sister

Eleanor, Manuel of Portugal's widow, in the hope, not that she would be

an ally or a spy within the enemy's camp, but an instrument of peace.

His son's marriage with Mary Tudor would not only salve the rubs with

England, but give such absolute security to the Netherlands that France

would shrink from war. The personal union of all the Iberian kingdoms

under a single ruler had long been an aim of Spanish statecraft. So

Charles had married his sister Eleanor, much against her will, to the

old king Manuel, and then his sister Catherine to his successor. The

empress was a Portuguese infanta, and Philip's first wife was another.

It is thus small wonder that, within a quarter of a century of Charles's

death, Philip became king of Portugal.

In the wars with Francis I. Italy was the stake. In spite of his success

Charles for long made no direct conquests. He would convert the

peninsula into a federation mainly matrimonial. Savoy, the important

buffer state, was detached from France by the marriage of the somewhat

feeble duke to Charles's capable and devoted sister-in-law, Beatrice of

Portugal. Milan, conquered from France, was granted to Francesco Sforza,

heir of the old dynasty, and even after his treason was restored to him.

In the vain hope of offspring Charles sacrificed his niece, Christina of

Denmark, to the valetudinarian duke. In the long negotiations for a

Habsburg-Valois dynasty which followed Francesco's death, Charles was

probably sincere. He insisted that his daughter or niece should marry

the third rather than the second son of Francis I., in order, apart from

other reasons, to run less risk of the duchy falling under French

dominion. The final investiture of Philip was forced upon him, and does

not represent his saner policy. The Medici of Florence, the Gonzaga of

Mantua, the papal house of Farnese, were all attached by Habsburg

marriages. The republics of Genoa and Siena were drawn into the circle

through the agency of their chief noble families, the Doria and

Piccolomini; while Charles behaved with scrupulous moderation towards

Venice in spite of her active hostility before and after the League of

Cognac. Occasional acts of violence there were, such as the

participation in the murder of Pierluigi Farnese, and the measures which

provoked the rebellion of Siena. These were due to the difficulty of

controlling the imperial agents from a distance, and in part to the

faults of the victim prince and republic. On the whole, the loose

federation of viceroyalties and principalities harmonized with Italian

interests and traditions. The alternative was not Italian independence,

but French domination. At any rate, Charles's structure was so durable

that the French met with no real success in Italy until the 18th

century.

Germany offered a fine field for a creative intellect, since the evils

of her disintegration stood confessed. On the other hand, princes and

towns were so jealous of an increase of central authority that Charles,

at least until his victory over the League of Schmalkalden, had little

effective power. Owing to his wars with French and Turks he was rarely

in Germany, and his visits were very short. His problem was infinitely

complicated by the union of Lutheranism and princely independence. He

fell back on the old policy of Maximilian, and strove to create a party

by personal alliances and intermarriage. In this he met with some

success. The friendship of the electors of Brandenburg, whether Catholic

or Protestant, was unbroken. In the war of Schmalkalden half the

Protestant princes were on Charles's side or friendly neutrals. At the

critical moment which preceded this, the lately rebellious duke of

Cleves and the heir of Bavaria were secured through the agency of two of

Ferdinand's invaluable daughters. The relations, indeed, between the two

old enemies, Austria and Bavaria, were permanently improved. The elector

palatine, whose love affairs with his sister Eleanor Charles as a boy

had roughly broken, received in compensation a Danish niece. Her sister,

widow of Francesco Sforza, was utilized to gain a hold upon the French

dynasty which ruled Lorraine. More than once there were proposals for

winning the hostile house of Saxony by matrimonial means. After his

victory over the League of Schmalkalden, Charles perhaps had really a

chance of making the imperial power a reality. But he lacked either

courage or imagination, contenting himself with proposals for voluntary

association on the lines of the defunct Swabian League, and dropping

even these when public opinion was against them. Now, too, he made his

great mistake in attempting to foist Philip upon the Empire as

Ferdinand's successor. Gossip reported that Ferdinand himself was to be

set aside, and careless historians have given currency to this. Such an

idea was impossible. Charles wished Philip to succeed Ferdinand, while

he ultimately conceded that Ferdinand's son Maximilian should follow

Philip, and even in his lifetime exercise the practical power in

Germany. This scheme irritated Ferdinand and his popular and ambitious

son at the critical moment when it was essential that the Habsburgs

should hold together against princely malcontents. Philip was

imprudently introduced to Germany, which had also just received a

foretaste of the unpleasant characteristics of Spanish troops. Yet the

person rather than the policy was, perhaps, at fault. It was natural

that the quasi-hereditary succession should revert to the elder line.

France proved her recuperative power by the occupation of Savoy and of

Metz, Toul and Verdun, the military keys of Lorraine. The separation of

the Empire and Spain left two weakened powers not always at accord, and

neither of them permanently able to cope on equal terms with France.

Nevertheless, this scheme did contribute in no small measure to the

failure of Charles in Germany. The main cause was, of course, the

religious schism, but his treatment of this requires separate

consideration.

The characteristics of Charles's government, its mingled conservatism

and adaptability, are best seen in Spain and the Netherlands, with which

he was in closer personal contact than with Italy and Germany. In Spain,

when once he knew the country, he never repeated the mistakes which on

his first visit caused the rising of the communes. The cortes of Castile

were regularly summoned, and though he would allow no encroachment on

the crown's prerogatives, he was equally scrupulous in respecting their

constitutional rights. They became, perhaps, during the reign slightly

more dependent on the crown. This has been ascribed to the system of

gratuities which in later reigns became a scandal, but was not

introduced by Charles, and as yet amounted to little more than the

payment of members' expenses. Indirectly, crown influence increased

owing to the greater control which had gradually been exercised over the

composition of the municipal councils, which often returned the deputies

for the cortes. Charles was throughout nervous as to the power and

wealth of the greater nobles. They rather than the crown had conquered

the communes, and in the past they rather than the towns had been the

enemies of monarchy. He earnestly warned his son against giving them

administrative power, especially the duke of Alva, who in spite of his

sanctimonious and humble bearing cherished the highest ambitions: in

foreign affairs and war he might be freely used, for he was Spain's best

soldier. In the cortes of 1538 Charles came into collision with the

nobles as a class. They usually attended only on ceremonial occasions,

since they were exempted from direct taxation, which was the main

function of the cortes. Now, however, they were summoned, because

Charles was bent upon a scheme of indirect taxation which would have

affected all classes. They offered an uncompromising opposition, and

Charles somewhat angrily dismissed them, nor did he ever summon them

again. The peculiar Spanish system of departmental councils was further

developed, so that it may be said that the bureaucratic element was

slightly increasing just as the parliamentary element was on the wane.

The evils of this tendency were as yet scarcely apparent owing to

Charles's personal intervention in all departments. The councils

presented their reports through the minister chiefly concerned; Charles

heard their advice, and formed his own conclusions. He impressed upon

Philip that he should never become the servant of his ministers: let him

hear them all but decide himself. Naturally enough, he was well served

by his ministers, whom he very rarely changed. After the death of the

Piedmontese Gattinara he relied mainly on Nicolas Perrenot de Granvella

for Netherland and German affairs, and on Francisco de los Cobos for

Spanish, while the younger Granvella was being trained. From 1520 to

1555 these were the only ministers of high importance. Above all,

Charles never had a court favourite, and the only women who exercised

any influence were his natural advisers, his wife, his aunt Margaret and

his sister Mary. In all these ladies he was peculiarly fortunate.

Charles was never quite popular in Spain, but the empress whom he

married at his people's request was much beloved. Complaints were made

of his absenteeism, but until 1543 he spent the greater portion of his

reign in Spain, or on expeditions such as those against Tunis and

Algiers which were distinctively in Spanish interests. Spaniards

disliked his Netherland and German connexions, but without the vigorous

blows which these enabled him to strike at France, it is improbable that

Spain could have retained her hold on Italy, or her monopoly of commerce

with the Indies. The wars with Francis I. were, in spite of the rival

candidature for the Empire, Spanish wars entailed by Ferdinand's

retention of Roussillon, his annexation of Navarre, his summary eviction

of the French from Naples. The Netherlands had become convinced on

commercial grounds of the wisdom of peace with France, and the German

interest in Milan was not sufficiently active to be a standing cause of

war. Charles and Francis had inherited the hostility of Ferdinand and

Louis XII.

The reign of Charles was in America the age of conquest and

organization. Upon his accession the settlements upon the mainland were

insignificant; by 1556 conquest was practically complete, and civil and

ecclesiastical government firmly established. Actual expansion was the

work of great adventurers starting on their own impulse from the older

colonies. To Charles fell the task of encouraging such ventures, of

controlling the conquerors, of settling the relations between colonists

and natives, which involved those between the colonists and the

missionary colonial church. He must arrest depopulation, provide for the

labour market, regulate oceanic trade, and check military preponderance

by civil and ecclesiastical organization. In America Charles took an

unceasing interest; he had a boundless belief in its possibilities, and

a determination to safeguard the interests of the crown. Cortes,

Alvarado and the brothers Pizarro were brought into close personal

communication with the emperor. If he bestowed on Cortes the confidence

which the loyal conqueror deserved, he showed the sternest determination

in crushing the rebellious and autonomous instincts of Almagro and the

Pizarros. But for this, Peru and Chile must have become independent

almost as soon as they were conquered. Throughout he strove to protect

the natives, to prevent actual slavery, and the consequent raids upon

the natives. Legislation was not, indeed, always consistent, because the

claims of the colonists could not always be resisted, but on the whole

he gave earnest support to the missionaries, who upheld the cause of the

natives against the military, and sometimes the civil and ecclesiastical

elements. His humane care for his native subjects may well be studied in

the instructions sent to Philip from Germany in 1548, when Charles was

at the summit of his power. If Charles had had his will, he would have

opened the colonial trade to the whole of his wide possessions. The

Castilians, however, jealously confined it to the city of Seville,

artificially fostering the indolence of the colonists to maintain the

agricultural and manufacturing monopoly of Castile, and by extreme

protective measures forcing them to live on smuggled goods from other

countries. Charles did actually attempt to cure the exclusive interest

of the colonists in mineral wealth by the establishment of peasant and

artisan colonies. If in many respects he failed, yet the organization of

Spanish America and the survival of the native races were perhaps the

most permanent results of his reign. It is a proof of the complexity of

his interests that the march of the Turk upon Vienna and of the French

on Naples delayed until the following reign the foundation of Spain's

eastern empire. Charles carefully organized the expedition of Magellan,

which sailed for the Moluccas and discovered the Philippines.

Unfortunately, his straits for money in 1529 compelled him to mortgage

to Portugal his disputed claim to the Moluccas, and the Philippines

consequently dropped out of sight.

If in the administration of Spain Charles did little more than mark

time, in the Netherlands advance was rapid. Of the seven northern

provinces he added five, containing more than half the area of the later

United Provinces. In the south he freed Flanders and Artois from French

suzerainty, annexed Tournai and Cambrai, and closed the natural line of

French advance through the great bishopric of Liege by a line of

fortresses across its western frontier. Much was done to convert the

aggregate of jarring provinces into a harmonious unity by means of

common principles of law and finance, and by the creation of a national

army. While every province had its own assembly, there were at Charles's

accession only the rudiments of estates general for the Netherlands at

large. At the close of the reign the common parliamentary system was in

full swing, and was fast converting the loosely knit provinces into a

state. By these means the ruler had wished to facilitate the process of

supply, but supply soon entailed redress, and the provinces could

recognize their common interests and grievances. Under Philip II. all

patriotic spirits passionately turned to this creation of his father as

the palladium of Netherland liberty. This process of consolidation was

infinitely difficult, and conflicts between local and central

authorities were frequent. That they were safely tided over was due to

Charles's moderation and his legal mind, which prompted him to draw back

when his case was bad. The harshest act of his life was the punishment

of the rebellion of Ghent. Yet the city met with little or no sympathy

in other quarters, because she had refused to act in concert with the

other members of Flanders and the other provinces. It was no mere local

quarrel, but a breach of the growing national unity.

In the Netherlands Charles showed none of the jealousy with which he

regarded the Spanish nobles. He encouraged the growth of large estates

through primogeniture; he gave the nobles the provincial governorships,

the great court offices, the command of the professional cavalry. In the

Order of the Golden Fleece and the long established presence of the

court at Brussels, he possessed advantages which he lacked in Spain. The

nobility were utilized as a link between the court and the provinces.

Very different was it with the church. By far the greater part of the

Netherlands fell under foreign sees, which were peculiarly liable to

papal exactions and to the intrigues of rival powers. Thus the usual

conflict between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction was peculiarly

acute. To remedy this dualism of authority and the consequent moral and

religious abuses, Charles early designed the creation of a national

diocesan system, and this was a darling project throughout his life. He

was doing what every German territorial prince, Catholic or Lutheran,

attempted, making bishoprics and abbeys dependent on the crown, with

nomination and institution in his hands, and with reasonable control

over taxation and jurisdiction. The papacy unfortunately thwarted him,

and the scheme, which under Charles would have been carried with

national assent, and created a national church, took the appearance

under Philip of alien domination.

If in Germany Charles was emperor, he was in the Netherlands territorial

prince, and thus his interests might easily be at disaccord with those

of the Empire. Consequently, just as he had shaken off French suzerainty

from Flanders and Artois, so he loosened the tie of the other provinces

to Germany. In 1548 they were declared free and sovereign principalities

not subject to imperial laws, and all the territories were incorporated

in the Burgundian circle. It was, indeed, agreed that they should

contribute to imperial taxation, and in return receive imperial

protection. But this soon became a dead letter, and the Netherlands were

really severed from the Empire, save for the nominal feudal tie in the

case of some provinces. Thus some writers have dated their independence

from Charles's convention of 1548 rather than from the peace of

Westphalia, a century later. Having converted his heterogeneous

territories into a self-sufficient state, Charles often contemplated the

formation of a middle kingdom between France and Germany. At the last

moment he spoiled his own work by granting the Netherlands to Philip. It

was indeed hard to set aside the order of inheritance, and the

commercial interests of the provinces were closely bound with Spain, and

with England, whose queen Philip had married. Under any other ruler than

Philip the breach might not have come so early. Yet it must be regretted

that Charles had not the courage of his convictions, and that he lost

the opportunity of completing the new nation which he had faithfully

laboured to create.

Charles V. is in the eyes of many the very picture of a Catholic zealot.

Popular opinion is probably mainly based upon the letters written from

Yuste in 1558, when two hot-beds of heresy had been discovered in Spain

herself, and on the contemporary codicil to his will. These were,

perhaps, really in part responsible for the later persecution. Yet the

circumstances were far from being typical of the emperor's career. Death

was very near him; devotional exercises were his main occupation. The

letters, moreover, were cries of warning, and not edicts. Charles was

not then the responsible authority. There is a long step between a

violent letter and a violent act. Few men would care to have their lives

judged by letters written in the last extremities of gout. Less

pardonable was the earlier persecution of the Valencian Moriscoes in

1525-1526. They had fought for their landlords in the cause of order,

had been forcibly converted by the revolutionaries, and on the

suppression of revolution had naturally relapsed. But for this momentary

conversion the Inquisition would have had no hold upon them. The edict

of persecution was cruel and unnecessary, and all expert opinion in

Valencia was against it. It was not, however, actually enforced until

after the victory of Pavia. It seems likely that Charles in a fit of

religious exaltation regarded the persecution as a sacrificial

thank-offering for his miraculous preservation. It is characteristic

that, when in the following year he was brought into personal contact

with the Moors of Granada, he allowed them to buy themselves off from

the more obnoxious measures of the Inquisition. Henceforth the reign was

marked by extreme leniency. Spain enjoyed a long lull in the activity of

her Inquisition. At Naples in 1547 a rumour that the Spanish Inquisition

was to be introduced to check the growth of heresy in influential

quarters produced a dangerous revolt. The briefs were, however, issued

by Paul III., no friend of Charles, and when a Neapolitan deputation

visited the emperor he disclaimed any intention of making innovations.

Of a different type to all the above was the persecution in the

Netherlands. Here it was deliberate, chronic, and on an ascending scale.

It is not a sufficient explanation that heresy also was persistent,

ubiquitous and increasing, for this was also the case in Germany where

Charles's methods were neither uniform nor drastic. But in the

Netherlands the heretics were his immediate subjects, and as in every

other state, Catholic or Lutheran, they must conform to their prince's

religion. But there was more than this. After the suppression of the

German peasant revolt in 1525 many of the refugees found shelter in the

teeming Netherland cities, and heresy took the form, not of Lutheranism,

but of Anabaptism, which was believed to be perilous to society and the

state. The government put down Anabaptism, as a modern government might

stamp out Anarchism. The edicts were, indeed, directed against heresy in

general, and were as harsh as they could be--at least on paper. Yet when

Charles was assured that they were embarrassing foreign trade he let it

be understood that they should not affect the foreign mercantile

communities. Prudential considerations proved frequently a drag upon

religious zeal.

The relations of Charles to heresy must be judged in the main by his

treatment of German Lutheranism. Here he had to deal, not with

drawing-room imprudences nor hole-and-corner conventicles, not with

oriental survivals nor millenary aspirations, but with organized

churches protected by their princes, supported by revenues filched from

his own church and stiffened by formulae as rigid as those of

Catholicism. The length and stubbornness of the conflict will serve to

show that Charles's religious conservatism had a measure of elasticity,

that he was not a bigot and nothing more. It should be remembered that

all his principal ministers were inclined to be Erasmian or indifferent,

that one of his favourite confessors, Loaysa, advised compromise, and

that several intimate members of his court and chapel were, after his

death, victims of the Inquisition. The two more obvious courses towards

the restoration of Catholic unity were force and reconciliation, in

other words, a religious war or a general council. Neither of these was

a simple remedy. The latter was impossible without papal concurrence,

inoperative without the assistance of the European powers, and merely

irritant without the adhesion of the Lutherans. It was most improbable

that the papacy, the powers and the Lutherans would combine in a

measure so palpably advantageous to the emperor. Force was hopeless save

in the absence of war with France and the Turk, and of papal hostility

in Italian territorial politics. Charles must obtain subsidies from

ecclesiastical sources, and the support of all German Catholics,

especially of the traditional rival, Bavaria. Even so the Protestants

would probably be the stronger, and therefore they must be divided by

utilizing any religious split, any class distinction, any personal or

traditional dislikes, or else by bribery. Force and reconciliation

seeming equally difficult, could an alternative be found in toleration?

The experiment might take the form either of individual toleration, or

of toleration for the Lutheran states. The former would be equally

objectionable to Lutheran and Catholic princes as loosening their grip

upon their subjects. Territorial toleration might seem equally obnoxious

to the emperor, for its recognition would strengthen the anti-imperial

particularism so closely associated with Lutheranism. If Charles could

find no permanent specific, he must apply a provisional palliative. It

was absolutely necessary to patch, if not to cure, because Germany must

be pulled together to resist French and Turks. Such palliatives were

two--suspension and comprehension. Suspension deferred the execution of

penalties incurred by heresy, either for a term of years, or until a

council should decide. Thus it recognized the divorce of the two

religions, but limited it by time. Comprehension instead of recognizing

the divorce would strive to conceal the breach. It was a domestic

remedy, German and national, not European and papal. To become permanent

it must receive the sanction of pope and council, for the Roman emperor

could not set up a church of Germany. Yet the formula adopted might

conceivably be found to fall within the four corners of the faith, and

so obviate the necessity alike of force or council. Such were the

conditions of the emperor's task, and such the methods which he actually

pursued. He would advance now on one line, now on another, now on two or

three concurrently, but he never definitely abandoned any. This fusion

of obstinacy and versatility was a marked feature of his character.