CHARLEMAGNE
28. Charlemagne is the first historical personage among the German
peoples of whom we have any satisfactory knowledge.[39] Compared with
him, Theodoric, Charles Martel, Pippin, and the rest are but shadowy
figures. The chronicles tell us something of their deeds, but we can
make only the vaguest inferences in regard to their character and
temperament.
[Sidenote: Charlemagne's personal appearance.]
The appearance of Charlemagne, as described by his secretary, so exactly
corresponds with the character of the king as exhibited in his great
reign, that it is worthy of attention. He was tall and stoutly built;
his face was round, his eyes were large and keen, his nose somewhat
above the common size, his expression bright and cheerful. Whether he
stood or sat, his form was full of dignity; for the good proportion and
grace of his body prevented the observer from noticing that his neck was
rather short and his person somewhat too stout. His step was firm and
his aspect manly; his voice was clear, but rather weak for so large a
body. He was active in all bodily exercises, delighted in riding and
hunting, and was an expert swimmer. His excellent health and his
physical alertness and endurance can alone explain the astonishing
swiftness with which he moved about his vast realm and conducted
innumerable campaigns in widely distant regions in startlingly rapid
succession.
[Sidenote: His education, his attitude toward learning, and his public
spirit.]
Charles was an educated man and one who knew how to appreciate and
encourage scholarship. When at dinner he had some one read to him; he
delighted especially in history and in St. Augustine's _City of God_. He
could speak Latin well and understood Greek readily. He tried to learn
to write, but began too late in life and got no farther than signing his
name. He called scholarly men to his court, took advantage of their
learning, and did much toward reëstablishing a regular system of public
instruction. He was also constantly occupied with buildings and other
public works calculated to adorn and benefit his kingdom. He himself
planned the remarkable cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle and showed the
greatest interest in its furnishings. He commenced two palaces of
beautiful workmanship, one near Mayence and the other at Nimwegen, in
Holland, and had a long bridge constructed across the Rhine at Mayence.
[Sidenote: The Charlemagne of romance.]
The impression which his reign made upon men's minds grew even after his
death. He became the hero of a whole cycle of romantic but wholly
unhistoric adventures and achievements which were as devoutly believed
for centuries as his most authentic deeds. In the fancy of an old monk
in the monastery of St. Gall,[40] writing of Charlemagne not long after
his death, the king of the Franks swept over Europe surrounded by
countless legions of soldiers who formed a very sea of bristling steel.
Knights of superhuman valor formed his court and became the models for
the chivalrous spirit of the following centuries. Distorted but
imposing, the Charlemagne of poetry meets us all through the Middle
Ages.
A study of Charlemagne's reign will substantiate our first impression
that he was a truly remarkable person, one of the greatest figures in
the world's records and deservedly the hero of the Middle Ages. To few
men has it been given to influence so profoundly the course of European
progress. We shall consider him first as a conqueror, then as an
organizer and creator of governmental institutions, and lastly as a
promoter of culture and enlightenment.
[Sidenote: Charlemagne's idea of a great Christian empire.]
29. It was Charlemagne's ideal to bring all the German peoples together
into one great Christian empire, and he was wonderfully successful in
attaining his end. Only a small portion of what is now called Germany
was included in the kingdom ruled over by Pippin. Frisia and Bavaria had
been Christianized, and their native rulers had been induced by the
efforts of Charlemagne's predecessors and of the missionaries,
especially Boniface, to recognize formally the overlordship of the
Franks. Between these two half-independent countries lay the unconquered
Saxons. They were as yet pagans and appear to have still clung to much
the same institutions as those under which they lived when the Roman
historian Tacitus described them seven centuries earlier.
[Sidenote: The conquest of the Saxons.]
The Saxons occupied the region beginning somewhat east of Cologne and
extending to the Elbe, and north to where the great cities of Bremen and
Hamburg are now situated. The present kingdom of Saxony would hardly
have come within their boundaries. The Saxons had no towns or roads and
were consequently very difficult to conquer, as they could retreat, with
their few possessions, into the forests or swamps as soon as they found
themselves unable to meet an invader in the open field. Yet so long as
they remained unconquered they constantly threatened the Frankish
kingdom, and the incorporation of their country was essential to the
rounding out of its boundaries. Charlemagne never undertook, during his
long military career, any other task half so serious as the subjugation
of the Saxons, and it occupied his attention for many years. Nine
successive rebellions had to be put down, and it was finally owing
rather to the Church than to Charlemagne's military prowess that the
great task was brought to a successful issue.
[Sidenote: Conversion of the Saxons.]
Nowhere do we find a more striking example of the influence of the
Church than in the reliance that Charlemagne placed upon it in his
dealings with the Saxons. He deemed it quite as essential that after a
rebellion they should promise to honor the Church and be baptized as
that they should pledge themselves to remain true and faithful vassals
of the king. He was in quite as much haste to found bishoprics and
abbeys as to build fortresses. The law for the newly conquered Saxon
lands, issued sometime between 775 and 790, provides the same death
penalty for him who "shall have shown himself unfaithful to the lord
king," and him who "shall have wished to hide himself unbaptized and
shall have scorned to come to baptism and shall have wished to remain a
pagan." Charlemagne believed the Christianizing of the Saxons so
important a part of his duty that he decreed that all should suffer
death who entered a church by violence and carried off anything by
force, or even failed to abstain from meat during Lent.[41] No one,
under penalty of heavy fines, was to make vows, in the pagan fashion, at
trees or springs, or partake of any heathen feasts in honor of the
demons (as the Christians termed the heathen deities), or fail to
present infants for baptism before they were a year old.
For the support of the local churches, those who lived in the parish
were to give toward three hundred acres of land and a house for the
priest. "Likewise, in accordance with the mandate of God, we command
that all shall give a tithe of their property and labor to the churches
and the priests; let the nobles as well as the freemen, likewise the
serfs, according to that which God shall have given to each Christian,
return a part to God."
[Sidenote: Coöperation of the civil government and the Church.]
These provisions are characteristic of the theory of the Middle Ages
according to which the civil government and the Church went hand in hand
in ordering and governing the life of the people. Defection from the
Church was regarded by the state as quite as serious a crime as treason
against itself. While the claims of the two institutions sometimes
conflicted, there was no question in the minds either of the king's
officials or of the clergy that both the civil and ecclesiastical
government were absolutely necessary; neither class ever dreamed that
they could get along without the other.
[Sidenote: Foundation of towns in northern Germany.]
Before the Frankish conquest the Saxons had no towns. Now, around the
seat of the bishop, or about a monastery, men began to collect and towns
and cities to grow up. Of these the chief was Bremen, which is still one
of the most important ports of Germany.
[Sidenote: Charlemagne becomes king of the Lombards.]
30. Pippin, it will be remembered, had covenanted with the papacy to
protect it from its adversaries. The king of the Lombards had taken
advantage of Charlemagne's seeming preoccupation with his German affairs
to attack the city of Rome again. The pope immediately demanded the aid
of Charlemagne, who prepared to carry out his father's pledges. He
ordered the Lombard ruler to return the cities that he had taken from
the pope. Upon his refusal to do this, Charlemagne invaded Lombardy in
773 with a great army and took Pavia, the capital, after a long siege.
The Lombard king was forced to become a monk, and his treasure was
divided among the Frankish soldiers. Charlemagne then took the extremely
important step, in 774, of having himself recognized by all the Lombard
dukes and counts as king of the Lombards.
[Illustration: THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE]
[Sidenote: Aquitaine and Bavaria incorporated in Charlemagne's empire.]
The considerable provinces of Aquitaine and Bavaria had never formed an
integral part of the Frankish realms, but had remained semi-independent
under their native dukes up to the time of Charlemagne. Aquitaine, whose
dukes had given Pippin much trouble, was incorporated into the Frankish
state in 769. As for the Bavarians, Charlemagne felt that so long as
they remained under their duke he could not rely upon them to defend the
Frankish empire against the Slavs, who were constantly threatening the
frontiers. So he compelled the duke of Bavaria to surrender his
possessions, shut him up in a monastery, and proceeded to portion out
the duchy among his counts. He thus added to his realms the district
that lay between his new Saxon conquest and the Lombard kingdom.
[Sidenote: Foreign policy of Charlemagne.]
31. So far we have spoken only of the relations of Charlemagne with the
Germans, for even the Lombard kingdom was established by the Germans. He
had, however, other peoples to deal with, especially the Slavs on the
east (who were one day to build up the kingdoms of Poland, Bohemia, and
the vast Russian empire) and, on the opposite boundary of his dominion,
the Arabs in Spain. Against these it was necessary to protect his
realms, and the second part of Charlemagne's reign was devoted to what
may be called his foreign policy. A single campaign in 789 seems to have
sufficed to subdue the Slavs, who lay to the north and east of the
Saxons, and to force the Bohemians to acknowledge the supremacy of the
Frankish king and pay tribute to him.
[Sidenote: The marches and margraves.]
The necessity of insuring the Frankish realms against any new uprising
of these non-German nations led to the establishment, on the confines of
the kingdom, of _marches_, i.e., districts under the military control of
counts of the march, or _margraves_.[42] Their business was to prevent
any hostile incursions into the interior of the kingdom. Much depended
upon the efficiency of these men; in many cases they founded powerful
families and later helped to disintegrate the Empire by establishing
themselves as practically independent rulers.
[Sidenote: Charlemagne in Spain.]
At an assembly that Charlemagne held in 777, ambassadors appeared before
him from certain disaffected Mohammedans. They had fallen out with the
emir of Cordova[43] and now offered to become the faithful subjects of
Charlemagne if he would come to their aid. In consequence, he undertook
his first expedition to Spain in the following year. The district north
of the Ebro was conquered by the Franks after some years of war, and
Charlemagne established the Spanish March.[44] In this way he began that
gradual expulsion of the Mohammedans from the peninsula which was to be
carried on by slowly extending conquests until 1492, when Granada, the
last Mohammedan stronghold, fell.[45]
[Sidenote: Charlemagne crowned emperor by the pope.]
32. But the most famous of all the achievements of Charlemagne was his
reëstablishment of the Western Empire in the year 800. It came about in
this wise. Charlemagne went to Rome in that year to settle a controversy
between Pope Leo III and his enemies. To celebrate the satisfactory
adjustment of the dispute, the pope held a solemn service on Christmas
day in St. Peter's. As Charlemagne was kneeling before the altar during
this service, the pope approached him and set a crown upon his head,
saluting him, amid the acclamation of those present, as "Emperor of the
Romans."
[Sidenote: Charlemagne merited the title of emperor.]
The reasons for this extraordinary act, which Charlemagne afterward
persistently asserted took him completely by surprise, are given in one
of the Frankish histories, the _Chronicles of Lorsch_, as follows: "The
name of Emperor had ceased among the Greeks, for they were enduring the
reign of a woman [Irene], wherefore it seemed good both to Leo, the
apostolic pope, and to the holy fathers [the bishops] who were in
council with him, and to all Christian men, that they should name
Charles, king of the Franks, as Emperor. For he held Rome itself, where
the ancient Cæsars had always dwelt, in addition to all his other
possessions in Italy, Gaul and Germany. Wherefore, as God had granted
him all these dominions, it seemed just to all that he should take the
title of Emperor, too, when it was offered to him at the wish of all
Christendom."
Charlemagne appears to have accepted gracefully the honor thus thrust
upon him. Even if he had no right to the imperial title, there was an
obvious propriety and expediency in granting it to him under the
circumstances. Before his coronation by the pope he was only king of the
Franks and the Lombards; but his conquests seemed to entitle him to a
more comprehensive designation which should include his outlying
dependencies. Then the imperial power at Constantinople had been in the
hands of heretics, from the standpoint of the Western Church, ever since
Emperor Leo issued his edict against the veneration of images. What was
still worse, the throne had been usurped, shortly before the coronation
of Charlemagne, by the wicked Irene, who had deposed and blinded her
son, Constantine VI. The coronation of Charlemagne was, therefore, only
a recognition of the real political conditions in the West.[46]
[Sidenote: Continuity of the Roman Empire.]
The empire now reëstablished in the West was considered to be a
continuation of the Roman Empire founded by Augustus. Charlemagne was
reckoned the immediate successor of Constantine VI, whom Irene had
deposed. Yet, in spite of this fancied continuity, it is hardly
necessary to say that the position of the new emperor had little in
common with that of Marcus Aurelius or Constantine. In the first place,
the eastern emperors continued to reign in Constantinople for centuries,
quite regardless of Charlemagne and his successors. In the second place,
the German kings who wore the imperial crown after Charlemagne were
generally too weak really to rule over Germany and northern Italy, to
say nothing of the rest of western Europe. Nevertheless, the Western
Empire, which in the twelfth century came to be called the Holy Roman
Empire, endured for over a thousand years. It came to an end only in
1806, when the last of the emperors, wearied of his empty if venerable
title, laid down the crown.
[Sidenote: The title of emperor a source of trouble to the German
rulers.]
The assumption of the title of emperor was destined to make the German
rulers a great deal of trouble. It constantly led them into futile
efforts to maintain a supremacy over Italy, which lay without their
natural boundaries. Then the circumstances under which Charlemagne was
crowned made it possible for the popes to claim, later, that it was they
who had transferred the imperial power from the old eastern line of
emperors to the Carolingian house, and that this was a proof of their
right to dispose of the crown as they pleased. The difficulties which
arose necessitated many a weary journey to Rome for the emperors, and
many unworthy conflicts between the temporal and spiritual heads of
Christendom.
[Sidenote: Charlemagne's system of government.]
33. The task of governing his vast and heterogeneous dominions taxed
even the highly gifted and untiring Charlemagne; it quite exceeded the
capacity of his successors. The same difficulties continued to exist
that had confronted Charles Martel and Pippin,--above all a scanty royal
revenue and over-powerful officials who were prone to neglect the
interests and commands of their sovereign. Charlemagne's distinguished
statesmanship is nowhere so clearly seen as in his measures for
extending his control to the very confines of his realms.
[Sidenote: Charlemagne's farms.]
His income, like that of all mediæval rulers, came chiefly from his
royal estates, as there was no system of general taxation such as had
existed under the Roman Empire. He consequently took the greatest care
that his numerous plantations should be well cultivated and that not
even a turnip or an egg which was due him should be withheld. An
elaborate set of regulations for his farms is preserved, which sheds
much light upon the times.[47]
[Sidenote: Origin of titles of nobility.]
The officials upon whom the Frankish kings were forced to rely chiefly
were the counts, the "hand and voice of the king" wherever he could not
be in person. They were to maintain order, see that justice was done in
their district, and raise troops when the king needed them. On the
frontier were the counts of the march, or margraves (marquises), already
mentioned. These titles, together with that of duke, still exist as
titles of nobility in Europe, although they are no longer associated
with governmental duties except where their holders have the right to
sit in the upper house of parliament.
[Sidenote: The _missi dominici_.]
To keep the counts in order, Charlemagne appointed royal commissioners
(the _missi dominici_), whom he dispatched to all parts of his realm to
investigate and report to him how things were going in the districts
assigned to them. They were sent in pairs, a bishop and a layman, so
that they might act as a check on one another. Their circuits were
changed each year so that they should have no chance to enter into
conspiracy with the counts whom it was their special business to
watch.[48]
The revival of the Roman Empire in the West made no difference in
Charlemagne's system of government, except that he required all his
subjects above twelve years of age to take a new oath of fidelity to him
as emperor. He held important assemblies of the nobles and prelates
each spring or summer, where the interests of the Empire were
considered. With the sanction of his advisers, he issued an
extraordinary series of laws, called _capitularies_, a number of which
have been preserved. With the bishops and abbots he discussed the needs
of the Church, and above all the necessity of better schools for both
the clergy and laity. The reforms which he sought to introduce give us
an opportunity of learning the condition in which Europe found itself
after four hundred years of disorder.
[Sidenote: The dark century before Charlemagne.]
34. Charlemagne was the first important king since Theodoric to pay any
attention to book learning, which had fared badly enough since the death
of Boethius, three centuries before. About 650 the supply of papyrus had
been cut off, owing to the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, and as paper
had not yet been invented there was only the very expensive parchment to
write upon. While this had the advantage of being more durable than
papyrus, its cost discouraged the multiplication of copies of books. The
eighth century, that immediately preceding Charlemagne's coronation, is
declared by the learned Benedictine monks, in their great history of
French literature, to have been the most ignorant, the darkest, and the
most barbarous period ever seen, at least in France. The documents of
the Merovingian period often indicate great ignorance and carelessness
on the part of those who wrote them out.
[Sidenote: The elements of learning preserved by the Church.]
Yet, in spite of this dark picture, there was promise for the future. It
was evident, even before Charlemagne's time, that the world was not to
continue indefinitely in the path of ignorance. Latin could not be
forgotten, for that was the language of the Church and all its official
communications were in that tongue. The teachings of the Christian
religion had to be gathered from the Bible and other books, and the
church services formed a small literature by themselves. Consequently it
was absolutely necessary that the Church should maintain some sort of
education in order to perform its complicated services and conduct the
extensive duties which devolved upon it. All the really efficient church
officers, whatever their nationality, must have been able to read the
Latin classics, if they were so inclined. Then there were the
compilations of ancient knowledge already mentioned,[49] which,
incredibly crude and scanty as they were, kept up the memory of the
past. They at least perpetuated the names of the various branches of
knowledge and contained, for example, enough about arithmetic and
astronomy to help the isolated churchman to calculate each year the date
of Easter.
[Sidenote: Two letters of Charlemagne's respecting the neglect of
education among the clergy.]
Charlemagne was the first temporal ruler to realize the serious neglect
of education, even among the clergy, and we have two interesting letters
from him, written before he was made emperor, relating to this subject.
In one to an important bishop, he says: "Letters have been written to us
frequently in recent years from various monasteries, stating that the
brethren who dwelt therein were offering up holy and pious supplications
in our behalf. We observed that the sentiments in these letters were
exemplary but that the form of expression was uncouth, because what true
devotion faithfully dictated to the mind, the tongue, untrained by
reason of neglect of study, was not able to express in a letter without
mistakes. So it came about that we began to fear lest, perchance, as the
skill in writing was less than it should be, the wisdom necessary to the
understanding of the Holy Scriptures was also much less than was
needful. We all know well that, although errors of speech are dangerous,
errors of understanding are far more dangerous. Therefore, we exhort you
not merely not to _neglect_ the study of letters, but with a most humble
mind, pleasing to God, earnestly to devote yourself to study, in order
that you may be able the more easily and correctly to penetrate the
mysteries of the Holy Scriptures."
In the other letter he says: "We have striven with watchful zeal to
advance the cause of learning which has been almost forgotten through
the negligence of our ancestors; and by our own example, we invite all
those who can, to master the studies of the liberal arts. In this
spirit, God aiding us, we have already carefully corrected all the books
of the Old and New Testaments, corrupted by the ignorance of the
copyists."
[Illustration: An Example of the Style of Writing used in the Books of
Charlemagne's Time[50]]
It seemed to Charlemagne that it was the duty of the Church not only to
look after the education of its own officers but to provide the
opportunity of at least an elementary education for the people at large.
In accordance with this conviction, he issued (789) an admonition to the
clergy to gather together the children both of freemen and serfs in
their neighborhood and establish schools "in which the boys may learn to
read."[51]
[Sidenote: Establishment of monastery schools and the 'school of the
palace.']
It would be impossible to say how many of the innumerable abbots and
bishops established schools in accordance with Charlemagne's
recommendations. It is certain that famous centers of learning existed
at Tours, Fulda, Corbie, Orleans, and other places during his reign.
Charlemagne further promoted the cause of education by the establishment
of the famous "school of the palace" for the instruction of the sons of
his nobles and of his own children. He placed the Englishman, Alcuin, at
the head of the school, and called distinguished men from Italy and
elsewhere as teachers. The best known of these was the historian, Paulus
Diaconus, who wrote a history of the Lombards, to which we owe most of
what we know about them.
Charlemagne appears to have been particularly impressed with the
constant danger of mistakes in copying books, a task frequently turned
over to ignorant and careless persons. After recommending the founding
of schools, he continues: "Correct carefully the Psalms, the signs used
in music, the [Latin] grammar, and the religious books used in every
monastery or bishopric; since those who desire to pray to God properly
often pray badly because of the incorrect books. And do not let your
boys misread or miswrite them. If there is any need to copy the Gospel,
Psalter or Missal, let men of maturity do the writing with great
diligence." These precautions were amply justified, for a careful
transmission of the literature of the past was as important as the
attention to education. It will be noted that Charlemagne made no
attempt to revive the learning of Greece and Rome. He deemed it quite
sufficient if the churchmen would learn their Latin well enough to read
the missal and the Bible intelligently.
The hopeful beginning that was made under Charlemagne in the revival of
education and intellectual interest was destined to prove disappointing
in its immediate results. It is true that the ninth century produced a
few noteworthy men who have left works which indicate acuteness and
mental training. But the break-up of Charlemagne's empire, the struggles
between his descendants, the coming of new barbarians, and the disorder
caused by the unruly feudal lords, who were not inclined to recognize
any master, all conspired to keep the world back for at least two
centuries more. Indeed, the tenth and the first half of the eleventh
centuries seem, at first sight, little better than the seventh and
eighth. Yet ignorance and disorder never were quite so prevalent after,
as they were before, Charlemagne.
General Reading.--The best life of Charlemagne in English is
MOMBERT, _A History of Charles the Great_ (D.C. Appleton & Co.,
$5.00). See also HODGKIN, _Charles the Great_ (The Macmillan
Company, 75 cents), and WEST, _Alcuin_ (Charles Scribner's Sons,
$1.00).