RESULTS.
No ruler for many centuries so powerfully impressed the imagination
of western Europe as the first Frankish Emperor of Rome. The vast
cycle of romantic epic poetry which gathered round the name of
Charlemagne, the stories of his wars with the Infidels, his expeditions
to Constantinople and Jerusalem, his Twelve Peers of France, the
friendship of Roland and Oliver and the treachery of Ganelon--all this
is of matchless interest in the history of the development of mediæval
literature, but of course adds nothing to our knowledge of the real
Charles of history, since these romances were confessedly the work of
wandering minstrels and took no definite shape till at least three
centuries after the death of Charlemagne.
In this concluding chapter I propose very briefly to enumerate some of
the chief traces of the great emperor’s forming hand on the western
church, on Literature, on Laws, and on the State-system of Europe.
I. Theologically, Charles’s chief performances were the condemnation
of the Adoptianist heresy[72] of Felix of Urgel by the Council of
Frankfurt (794): the condemnation of the adoration of images by the
same Council; and the addition to the Nicene Creed of the celebrated
words “Filioque,” which asserted that the Holy Spirit “proceedeth from
the Father _and the Son_.” In these two last performances Charles acted
more or less in opposition to the advice and judgment of the pope, and
the addition to the Creed was one of the causes which led to the schism
between the eastern and western churches, and which have hitherto
frustrated all schemes for their reunion.
In the government of the church Charles all through his reign took
the keenest interest, and a large--as most modern readers would
think a disproportionate--part of his Capitularies is dedicated to
this subject. Speaking generally, it may be said that he strove,
as his father before him had striven, to subdue the anarchy that
had disgraced the churches of Gaul under the Merovingian kings. He
insisted on the monks and the canonical priests living according to
the rules which they professed: he discouraged the manufacture of new
saints, the erection of new oratories, the worship of new archangels
other than the well-known three, Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael. He
earnestly exhorted the bishops to work in harmony with the counts for
the maintenance of the public peace. While not slow to condemn the
faults of the episcopacy he supported their authority against mutinous
priests: and pre-eminently by the example which he set to Gaul in the
powerful and well-compacted hierarchy which he established in Germany
he strengthened the aristocratic constitution of the church under
the rule of its bishops. At the same time there can be no doubt that
by his close relations with the Roman Pontiff and by the temporal
sovereignty which he bestowed upon him, he contributed, consciously or
unconsciously, to the ultimate transformation of the western church
into an absolute monarchy under the headship of the pope. That Charles,
with all his zeal for the welfare of the church, was not blind to the
faults of the churchmen of his day is shown by the remarkable series of
questions--possibly drawn up from his dictation by Einhard--which are
contained in a Capitulary of 811 written three years before his death:
“We wish to ask the ecclesiastics themselves, and those who have not
only to learn but to teach out of the Holy Scriptures, who are they to
whom the Apostle says, ‘Be ye imitators of me’; or who is that about
whom the same Apostle says, ‘No man that warreth entangleth himself
with the business of this world’: in other words, how the Apostle is to
be imitated, or how he (the ecclesiastic) wars for God?”
“Further, we must beg of them that they will truly show us what is this
‘renouncing of the world’, which is spoken of by them: or how we can
distinguish those who renounce the world from those who still follow
it, whether it consists in anything more than this, that they do not
bear arms and are not publicly married?”
“We must also inquire if that man has relinquished the world who is
daily laboring to increase his possessions in every manner and by every
artifice, by sweet persuasions about the blessedness of heaven and by
terrible threats about the punishments of hell; who uses the name of
God or of some saint to despoil simpler and less learned folk, whether
rich or poor, of their property, to deprive the lawful heirs of their
inheritance, and thus to drive many through sheer destitution to a life
of robbery and crime which they would otherwise never have embraced?”
Several more questions of an equally searching character are contained
in this remarkable Capitulary.
II. If doubts may arise in some minds how far Charles’s ecclesiastical
policy was of permanent benefit to the human race, no such doubts can
be felt as to his patronage of literature and science. Herein he takes
a foremost place among the benefactors of humanity, as a man who,
himself imperfectly educated, knew how to value education in others;
as one who, amid the manifold harassing cares of government and of
war, could find leisure for that friendly intercourse with learned men
which far more than his generous material gifts cheered them on in
their arduous and difficult work; and as the ruler to whom more perhaps
than to any other single individual we owe the fact that the precious
literary inheritance of Greece and Rome has not been altogether lost
to the human race. Every student of the history of the texts of the
classical authors knows how many of our best MSS. date from the ninth
century, the result unquestionably of the impulse given by Charles
and his learned courtiers to classical studies. It is noticeable also
that this reign constitutes an important era in Paleography, the clear
and beautiful “minuscule”[73] of the Irish scribes being generally
substituted for the sprawling and uncouth characters which had gone
by the name of Langobardic. In one of his Capitularies Charles calls
the attention of his clergy to the necessity for careful editing of
the Prayer-books; otherwise those who desire to pray rightly will pray
amiss. He enjoins them not to suffer boys to corrupt the sacred text
either in writing or reading. If they require a new gospel, missal, or
psalter, let it be copied with the utmost care by men of full age. In
another Capitulary, he expresses his displeasure that some priests,
who were poor when they were ordained, have grown rich out of the
church’s treasures, acquiring for themselves lands and slaves, but not
purchasing books or sacred vessels for the church’s use.
Something has already been said as to the Academy in Charles’s palace,
which was apparently founded on the basis of a court-school established
in his father’s lifetime but became a much more important institution
in his own. Probably it was then transformed from a school for
children into an Academy for learned men, in the sense in which the
word has been used at Athens, Florence, and Paris. Alcuin, after his
departure from court, founded a school at Tours, which acquired great
fame; and we hear of schools also at Utrecht, Fulda, Würzburg, and
elsewhere. Doubtless, most of these schools were primarily theological
seminaries, but as we have seen in the case of Alcuin, a good deal
of classical literature and mathematical science was, at any rate in
some schools, taught alongside of the correct rendering of the church
service.
The Monk of St. Gall (who wrote, as we have seen, two generations after
Charlemagne, and whose stories we therefore accept with some reserve)
gives us an interesting and amusing picture of one of the schools
under Charles’s patronage. After giving a legendary and inaccurate
account of the arrival of two Irish scholars in Gaul, named Alcuin and
Clement, he goes on to say that Charles persuaded Clement to settle in
Gaul, and sent him a number of boys, sons of nobles, of middle-class
men and of peasants, to be taught by him, while they were lodged
and boarded at the king’s charges. After a long time he returned to
Gaul, and ordered these lads to be brought into his presence, and to
bring before him letters and poems of their own composition. The boys
sprung from the middle and lower classes offered compositions which
were “beyond all expectation sweetened with the seasoning of wisdom,”
but the productions of the young nobility were “tepid, and absolutely
idiotic.” Hereupon the king, as it were, anticipating the Last
Judgment, set the industrious lads on his right hand and the idlers
on his left. He addressed the former with words of encouragement, “I
thank you, my sons, for the zeal with which you have attended to my
commands. Only go on as you have begun, and I will give you splendid
bishoprics and abbacies, and you shall be ever honorable in my eyes.”
But to those on his left hand he turned with angry eyes and frowning
brow, and addressed them in a voice of thunder, “You young nobles, you
dainty and beautiful youths, who have presumed upon your birth and
your possessions to despise mine orders, and have taken no care for
my renown; you have neglected the study of literature, while you have
given yourselves over to luxury and idleness, or to games and foolish
athletics.” Then, raising his august head and unconquered right hand
towards heaven, he swore a solemn oath, “By the King of Heaven, I care
nothing for your noble birth and your handsome faces, let others prize
them as they may. Know this for certain, that unless ye give earnest
heed to your studies, and recover the ground lost by your negligence,
ye shall never receive any favor at the hand of King Charles.”
There was one branch of learning in which Charles was evidently not
enough helped by his friends of the classical revival, and in which
one cannot help wishing that his judgment had prevailed over theirs.
Einhard tells us that he reduced to writing and committed to memory
“those most ancient songs of the barbarians in which the actions of the
kings of old and their wars were chanted.” Would that these precious
relics of the dim Teutonic fore-world had been thought worthy of
preservation by Alcuin and his disciples!
He also began to compose a grammar of his native speech; he gave names
to the winds blowing from twelve different quarters, whereas previously
men had named but four; and he gave Teutonic instead of Latin names to
the twelve months of the year. They were--for January, _Wintarmanoth_;
February, _Hornung_; March, _Lentzinmanoth_; April, _Ostarmanoth_;
May, _Winnemanoth_; June, _Brachmanoth_; July, _Hewimanoth_; August,
_Aranmanoth_; September, _Witumanoth_; October, _Windumemanoth_;
November, _Herbistmanoth_; December, _Heilagmanoth_.
III. It is of course impossible to deal with more than one or two of
the most important products of Charles’s legislative and administrative
activity.
1. In the first place, we have to remark that Charles was not in
any sense like Justinian or Napoleon, a codifier of laws. On the
contrary, the title chosen by him after his capture of Pavia, “Rex
Langobardorum,” indicates the general character of his policy, which
was to leave the Lombards under Lombard law, the Romans under Roman
law; even the Saxons, if they would only accept Christianity, to some
extent under Saxon institutions. To turn all the various nationalities
over which he ruled into Ripuarian Franks was by no means the object
of the conqueror; on the contrary, so long as they loyally obeyed the
great central government they might keep their own laws, customs, and
language unaltered. As this principle applied not only to tribes and
races of men, but also to individuals, we find ourselves in presence
of that most peculiar phenomenon of the early Middle Ages which is
known as the system of “personal law.” In our modern society, if the
citizen of one country goes to reside in the territory of another
civilized and well-ordered country, he is bound to conform to the laws
of that country. Where this rule does not prevail (as in the case of
the rights secured by the “capitulations” to Europeans dwelling in
Turkey or Morocco) it is a distinct sign that we are in the presence of
a barbarous law to which the more civilized nations will not submit.
But quite different from this was the conception of law in the ninth
century under Charles the Great and his successors. Then, every man,
according to his nationality, or even his profession,--according as he
was Frank or Lombard, Alaman or Bavarian, Goth or Roman, layman or
ecclesiastic,--carried, so to speak, his own legal atmosphere about
with him, and might always claim to be judged _secundum legem patriæ
suæ_.[74] Thus, according to an often-quoted passage, “so great was
the diversity of laws that you would often meet with it, not only in
countries or cities, but even in single houses. For it would often
happen that five men would be sitting or walking together, not one of
whom would have the same law with any other.”
But though Charles made no attempt, and apparently had no desire, to
reduce all the laws of his subjects to one common denominator, he had
schemes for improving, and even to some extent harmonizing, the several
national codes which he found in existence. But these schemes were only
imperfectly realized. As Einhard says, “After his assumption of the
imperial title, as he perceived that many things were lacking in the
laws of his people (for the Franks have two systems of law, in many
places very diverse from one another), he thought to add those things
which were wanting, to reconcile discrepancies, and to correct what
was bad and ill expressed. But of all this naught was accomplished
by him, save that he added a few chapters, and those imperfect ones,
to the laws [of the Salians, Ripuarians, and Bavarians]. All the
legal customs, however, that were not already written, of the various
nations under his dominion, he caused to be taken down and committed to
writing.”
While Charles’s new legislation was in general of an enlightened
and civilized character, a modern reader is surprised and pained by
the prominence which he gives, or allows, to those barbarous and
superstitious modes of determining doubtful causes--wager of battle,
ordeal by the cross, and ordeal by the hot ploughshares. As to the
first of these especially, the language of the Capitularies seems
to show a retrogression from the wise distrust of that manner of
arriving at truth expressed half a century earlier by the Lombard king,
Liutprand.
2. A question which we cannot help asking, though it hardly admits of
an answer, is “What was Charles’s relation to that feudal system which,
so soon after his death, prevailed throughout his empire, and which so
quickly destroyed its unity?” The growth of that system was so gradual,
and it was due to such various causes, that no one man can be regarded
as its author, hardly even to any great extent as its modifier. It
was not known to early Merovingian times; its origin appears to be
nearly contemporaneous with that of the power of the Arnulfing mayors
of the palace; it must certainly have been spreading more widely and
striking deeper roots all through the reign of Charlemagne, and yet we
can hardly attribute either to him or to his ancestors any distinct
share in its establishment. It was, so to speak, “in the air,” even
as democracy, trades’ unions, socialism, and similar ideas are in the
air of the nineteenth century. Feudalism apparently had to be, and it
“sprang and grew up, one knoweth not how.”
One of the clearest allusions to the growing feudalism of society is
contained in a Capitulary of Charles issued the year before his death,
in which it is ordained that no man shall be allowed to renounce his
dependence on a feudal superior after he has received any benefit from
him, except in one of four cases--if the lord have sought to slay
his vassal, or have struck him with a stick, or have endeavored to
dishonor his wife or daughter, or to take away his inheritance. In an
expanded version of the same decree a fifth cause of renunciation is
admitted--if the lord have failed to give to the vassal that protection
which he promised when the vassal put his hands in the lord’s, and
“commended” himself to his guardianship. Other allusions to the same
system are to be found in the numerous Capitularies in which Charles
urges the repeated complaint that the vassals of the Crown are either
endeavoring to turn their _beneficia_ into _allodia_ or, if possessing
property of both kinds,--a _beneficium_ under the Crown and an
_allodium_ by purchase or inheritance from their fathers,--are starving
and despoiling the royal _beneficium_ for the benefit of their own
_allodium_.
3. An institution which was intended to check these and similar
irregularities, and generally to uphold the imperial authority
and the rights of the humbler classes against the encroachments
of the territorial aristocracy, was the peculiarly Carolingian
institution of _missi dominici_, or (as we may translate the words)
“imperial commissioners.” These men may be likened to the emperor’s
staff-officers, bearing his orders to distant regions, and everywhere,
as his representatives, carrying on his ceaseless campaign against
oppression and anarchy. The pivot of provincial government was still,
as it had been in Merovingian times, the Frankish _comes_ or count,
who had his headquarters generally in one of the old Roman cities,
and governed from thence a district which was of varying extent, but
which may be fairly taken as equivalent to an English county. Under
him were the _centenarii_, who, originally rulers of that little tract
of country known as the Hundred, now had a somewhat wider scope,
and acted probably as _vicarii_ or representatives of the count
throughout the district subject to his jurisdiction. These governors,
especially the count, were doubtless generally men of wealth and great
local influence. They had not yet succeeded in making their offices
hereditary and transmitting the countship, as a title of nobility is
now transmitted, from father to son. The strong hand of the central
government prevented this change from taking place in Charles’s day,
but it, too, like so much else that had a feudal tendency, was “in
the air”; and it may have been partly in order to guard against this
tendency and to keep his counts merely life-governors that Charles
devised his institution of _missi_.
But a nobler and more beneficial object aimed at was to ensure that
justice should be “truly and indifferently administered” to both rich
and poor, to the strong and to the defenceless. It is interesting in
this connection to observe what was the so-called “eight-fold ban”
proclaimed by the Frankish legislator. Any one who (1) dishonored Holy
Church; (2) or acted unjustly against widows; (3) or against orphans;
(4) or against poor men who were unable to defend themselves; (5) or
carried off a free-born woman against the will of her parents; (6)
or set on fire another man’s house or stable; (7) or who committed
_harizhut_--that is to say, who broke open by violence another man’s
house, door, or enclosure; (8) or who when summoned did not go forth
against the enemy, came under the king’s _ban_, and was liable to pay
for each offence sixty solidi (£36).[75] Here we see that three of the
specified offences were precisely those which a powerful local count or
_centenarius_ would be tempted to commit against the humbler suitors in
his court, and which it would be the business of a _missus dominicus_
to discover and report to his lord.
The _missi_ had, however, a wide range of duties beyond the mere
control and correction of unjust judges. It was theirs to enforce the
rights of the royal treasury, to administer the oath of allegiance to
the inhabitants of a district, to inquire into any cases of wrongful
appropriation of church property, to hunt down robbers, to report upon
the morals of bishops, to see that monks lived according to the rule of
their order. Sometimes they had to command armies (the brave Gerold of
Bavaria was such a _missus_) and to hold _placita_ in the name of the
king. Of course the choice of a person to act as _missus_ would largely
depend on the nature of the duties that he had to perform: a soldier
for the command of armies or an ecclesiastic for the inspection of
monasteries. As Charles, in his embassies to foreign courts, was fond
of combining the two vocations, and sending a stout layman and a subtle
ecclesiastic together to represent him at Cordova or Constantinople,
so he may often have duplicated these internal embassies, these roving
commissions, to inquire into the abuses of authority in his own domains.
We have, in one of Charles’s later Capitularies, an admirable
exhortation which, though put forth in the name of the _missi_, surely
came from the emperor’s own robust intellect:--“Take care,” the _missi_
say to the count whose district they are about to visit, “that neither
you nor any of your officers are so evil disposed as to say ‘Hush!
hush! say nothing about that matter till those _missi_ have passed by,
and afterwards we will settle it quietly among ourselves.’ Do not so
deny or even postpone the administration of justice; but rather give
diligence that justice may be done in the case before we arrive.”
The institution of _missi dominici_ served its purpose for a time,
but proved to be only a temporary expedient. There was an increasing
difficulty in finding suitable men for this delicate charge, which
required in those who had to execute it both strength and sympathy,
an independent position, and willingness to listen to the cry of the
humble. Even already in the lifetime of Charles there was a visible
danger that the _missus_ might become another oppressor as burdensome
to the common people as any of the counts whom he was appointed to
superintend. And after all, the _missus_ could only transmit to the
distant regions of the empire as much power as he received from its
centre. Under the feeble Louis the Pious, his wrangling sons and
his inept grandsons, the institution grew ever weaker and weaker.
Admirable instructions for the guidance of the _missi_ were drawn up at
headquarters, but there was no power to enforce them. With the collapse
of the Carolingian dynasty towards the close of the ninth century the
_missi dominici_ disappear from view.
4. Another institution was perhaps due to Charles’s own personal
initiative; at any rate it was introduced at the outset of his reign,
and soon spread widely through his dominions. It was that of the
_scabini_, whose functions recall to us sometimes those of our justices
of the peace, sometimes those of our grand-jurors, and sometimes those
of our ordinary jurors. Chosen for life, out of the free, but not
probably out of the powerful classes, men of respectable character and
unstained by crime, they had, besides other functions, pre-eminently
that of acting as assessors to the _comes_ or to the _centenarius_ in
his court of justice. Seven was the regular number that should be
present at a trial, though sometimes fewer were allowed to decide.
As in all the earlier stages of the development of the jury system,
they were at least as much witnesses as judges--their own knowledge
or common report forming the chief ground of their decision. It is
not clear whether their verdict was necessarily unanimous, but it
seems certain that the decision was considered to be theirs, and not
that of the presiding functionary, whether _comes_, _vicarius_, or
_centenarius_. It was, moreover, final; for, as one of the Capitularies
distinctly says, “After the _scabini_ have condemned a man as a robber,
it is not lawful for either the _comes_ or the _vicarius_ to grant him
life.”
The _scabini_ were expected to be present at the meetings of the
county--probably also, to some extent, at those of the nation, and they
joined in the assent which was there given to any new Capitularies that
were promulgated by the emperor. It is easy to see how, both in their
judicial and in their legislative capacity, the _scabini_ may have
acted as a useful check on the lawless encroachments of the counts.
There was probably in this institution a germ which, had the emperors
remained mighty, would have limited the power of the aristocracy, and
have formed in time a democratic basis upon which a strong and stable
monarchy might have been erected.
IV. Lastly, a few words must be said as to the permanent results of
Charles’s life and work on the state-system of Europe. In endeavoring
to appraise them let us keep our minds open to the consideration not
only of that which actually was, but also of that which might have
been, had the descendants of Charles been as able men as himself and
his progenitors.
The three great political events of Charles’s reign were his conquest
of Italy, his consolidation of the Frankish kingdom, and his assumption
of the imperial title.
1. His conduct towards the vanquished Lombards was, on the whole,
generous and statesmanlike. By assuming the title of King of the
Lombards he showed that it was not his object to destroy the
nationality of the countrymen of Alboin, nor to fuse them into one
people with the Franks. Had his son Pippin lived and transmitted his
sceptre to his descendants, there might possibly have been founded a
kingdom of Italy, strong, patriotic, and enduring. In that event some
of the glorious fruits of art and literature which were ripened in the
independent Italian republics of the Middle Ages might never have been
brought forth, but the Italians, though a less artistic people, would
have been spared much bloodshed and many despairs.
But we can only say that this was a possible contingency. By the policy
(inherited from his father) which he pursued towards the papal see,
Charles called into existence a power which would probably always
have been fatal to the unity and freedom of Italy. That wedge of
Church-Dominions thrust in between the north and south would always
tend to keep Lombardy and Tuscany apart from Spoleto and Benevento;
and the endless wrangle between Pope and King would perhaps have been
renewed even as in the days of the Lombards. The descendants of the
pacific and God-crowned king would then have become “unutterable”
and the “not-to-be-mentioned” Franks, and peace and unity would have
been as far from the fated land as they have been in very deed for a
thousand years.
2. Charles’s greatest work, as has been once or twice hinted in the
course of the preceding narrative, was his extension and consolidation
of the Frankish kingdom. One cannot see that he did much for what
we now call France, but his work east of the Rhine was splendidly
successful. Converting the Saxons,--a triumph of civilization, however
barbarous were the methods employed,--subduing the rebellious
Bavarians, keeping the Danes and the Sclavonic tribes on his eastern
border in check, and utterly crushing the Avars, he gave the Teutonic
race that position of supremacy in Central Europe which, whatever may
have been the ebb and flow of Teutonism in later centuries, it has
never been forced to surrender, and which, with all its faults, has
been a blessing to Europe.
3. As to the assumption of the imperial title, it is much more
difficult to speak with confidence. We have seen reason to think
that Charles himself was only half persuaded of its expediency. It
was a noble idea, this revival of the old world-wide empire and its
conversion into a _Civitas Dei_, the realized dream of St. Augustine.
But none knew better than the monarch himself how far his empire came
short of these grand prophetic visions; and profounder scholars than
Alcuin could have told him how little it had really in common with the
state which was ruled by Augustus or by Trajan. That empire had sprung
out of a democratic republic, and retained for centuries something of
that resistless energy which the consciousness of self-government gives
to a brave and patient people. Charles’s empire was cradled, not in
the city but in the forest; its essential principle was the loyalty
of henchmen to their chief; it was already permeated by the spirit of
feudalism, and between feudalism and any true reproduction of the
_Imperium Romanum_ there could be no abiding union.
I need not here allude to the divergence in language, customs and
modes of thought between the various nationalities which composed the
emperor’s dominions. The mutual antagonism of nations and languages was
not so strong in the Middle Ages as it has been in our own day, and
possibly a succession of able rulers might have kept the two peoples,
who in their utterly different languages swore in 842 the great oath of
Strasburg,[76] still one. But the spirit of feudalism was more fatal to
the unity of the empire than these differences of race and language.
The mediæval emperor was perpetually finding himself overtopped by one
or other of his nominal vassals, and history has few more pitiable
spectacles than some that were presented by the rulers of the Holy
Roman Empire--men bearing the great names of Cæsar and Augustus--tossed
helplessly to and fro on the waves of European politics, the
laughing-stock of their own barons and marquises, and often unable to
provide for the ordinary expenses of their households.
But all this belongs to the story of the Middle Ages, not to the
life of the founder of the empire. It would be absurd to say that
he could have foreseen all the weak points of the great, and on the
whole beneficent, institution which he bestowed on Western Europe. And
whatever estimate we may form of the good or the evil which resulted
from the great event of the eight hundredth Christmas day, none will
deny that the whole history of Europe for at least seven hundred years
was profoundly modified by the life and mighty deeds of Charles the
Great.
APPENDIX A
GENEALOGY OF THE ANCESTORS OF CHARLES THE GREAT
St. Arnulf, 582–640; Pippin “of Landin,” = Itta (?)
Bishop of Metz, 612–627 (?) 585–639. | 591–651.
| |
+----------+-----------+ +---------+----+-----+
| | | | |
Chlodulf, 599–696; Adelgisel or = Becga Grimwald Gertrude,
Bishop of Metz, 656–696. Ansegisel, | 615–694. †658. Abbess of
605–685 (?) | | Nivelles,
| | 625–659.
+---------+ |
| Childebert proclaimed king by
| his father, 657.
|
Plectrudis = Pippin “of Heristal,” = Alphaida
| 631–714. ·
+----------+----+ ·
| | ·
Drogo, Grimwald, Hrotrudis = Charles Martel, = Swanahild.
†708. †714. | 686–741. |
| | |
Theudwald. | Grifo, †753.
|
+---------------+----------+
| |
Carloman, PIPPIN I., = Bertrada, †783.
713–755; _b._ 714; |
abdicated 747. crowned |
752, †768. |
|
+--------------+----------------+
| |
CHARLES the Great, _b._ 742 (?), CARLOMAN, _b._ 751,
king 768, Emperor 800, †814. king 768, †771.
_Note._--Many of the above dates are conjectural.
APPENDIX B
FAMILY OF ST. CHARLES THE GREAT
(WIVES)
771 783 795
Himiltrud = Desiderata = Hildegard = CHARLES = Fastrada, †794. = Liutgard, †800.
| daughter of _b._ 759, | the Great, |
+------+ DESIDERIVS †783. | 742–814. |
| King of the | +-----------------+
| Lombards, | | |
Pippin the divorced 771. | Theoderada Hiltrud, Abbess
Hunchback. | Abbess of Argenteuil. of Farmoutier.
|
+---------+------------+-------------+--+---------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+
| | | | | | | | |
CHARLES, PIPPIN LOUIS Lothair, Hrotrud, Gisela, Adelheid, Bertha Hildegard,
772–811. or Carloman, the Pious, twin-brother 772–810. _b._ 781. died young. born and
777–810. or the of Louis, died 783.
Debonnair, born and
778–840. died 778.
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(CONCUBINES)
Mathalgard (?) = Gersvindis, = CHARLES = Regina = Adelinda
+-----+ a Saxon. | the Great | +----------------------------+
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Rothaid | | | | | | |
Two daughters Hugo, Abbot of Drogo, Archbishop Theodoric, _b._
and three sons. St. Quentin, and of Metz, 810. Made an
The youngest Chancellor of Archchaplain. ecclesiastic,
Theodoric, †807. Louis I. †844. †855. 818.
FOOTNOTES
[1] In the headings of this book, the form of the name _Charlemagne_ is
used throughout, in preference to the English form _Charles the Great_,
or _Charles I._ (which suggests Charles Stuart), or the Latin form
_Carolus Magnus_, or the grotesque combination of the Teutonic _Karl_
with the Latin _Magnus_. The editor does not overlook the difficulties
of the case. The word _Charlemagne_ is conceded to be misleading
because of its French form. It is natural to infer that the man so
named was peculiarly connected with the French people or race. The
fact is otherwise; for the illustrious leader of the Franks was much
nearer akin to the Germanic and Teutonic peoples, than to the Gallic or
French. The reader should therefore keep it in mind that Charlemagne
was not a Frenchman, nor did he belong to the predecessors of the
French, despite the form of his name. He was not king of the French,
but “king of the _Franks_” as the author says above. And “with all his
wide, far-reaching schemes, he remained, it would seem, at heart a ...
Frank ... and we may conjecture that Neustria was to him as little of
a homeland as Aquitaine or even Italy.” (See below, p. 280.) For the
extent of his kingdom, which centred about the Rhine, not the Seine,
see below, pp. 11, 12.
On the other hand, it may be said in favor of the form _Charlemagne_
that it has not only obtained common usage, but it has the authority of
Milton, Scott, and other English writers, while in the United States
it is to-day the common, almost exclusive form. This seems to be
sufficient reason for its adoption.
[2] The dates of these landmarks are as follows:--
Constantinople was founded 330, A.D.;
Alaric captured Rome 410;
The Hegira, or Flight, of Mohammed occurred 622;
America was discovered 1492;
The Reformation began with Luther’s nailing his 95 theses to the
door of the church at Wittenberg in 1517;
And the great French Revolution occurred between 1789 and 1795,
the dreadful climax being in 1793.
[3] New Rome was Constantinople, the seat of the Eastern, or Byzantine
empire.
[4] Justinian, Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565, is chiefly known to
fame by his important work, the codification of the Roman laws. It was
his generals Belisareus and Narses who destroyed the Vandal kingdom in
Africa and the Ostragothic kingdom in Italy, restoring those countries
to the Byzantine sway. In 550 several Spanish cities both on the
Mediterranean and on the Atlantic, were ceded to Justinian, and they
did not shake off the yoke until 620: so that for 70 years Rome had the
empty honor of numbering Spain among her provinces.
[5] One of the fifteen decisive battles of the world was that fought in
the year 732, the battle-field being between the cities of Tours and
Poitiers, France. By English historians it is usually called the battle
of Tours, while the French call it Poitiers. It was here that Charles
Martel checked the tide of the Moorish invasion into Europe.
[6] The Avars were a Tartar tribe, one branch of which settled on the
Danube about the year 555. They served in Justinian’s army, helped the
Lombards to overturn the Gepidæ, conquered Pannonia, subdued Dalmatia,
and frequently devastated large tracts of Germany and Italy. They were
subdued by Charlemagne and were well nigh destroyed by the Moravians
and again by the Magyars. Early in the 9th century they disappeared
from history.
[7] Clovis, like other names of early date, may be variously spelled.
The common German form is Chlodwig, from whence comes the German name
Ludwig. Clovis is allied to the Latin Ludovicus, and from it are
derived the French Louis and the English Lewis.
[8] The Salian Franks took their name from the river Sala, now the
Yssel. These inhabited the districts of the lower Rhine, Meuse, and
Scheldt.
[9] Syagrius, king of the Burgundians and Franks, was the last Roman
governor of Gaul. He inherited the city and diocese of Soissons, while
“Rheims and Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would naturally submit to”
him. He was defeated by Clovis in 486.
[10] The origin of the word Neustria is uncertain. It was certainly an
antonym of Austrasia, which means the eastern kingdom. The opposite
of this would be Ouestrasia, or western kingdom; but owing to the
similarity of pronunciation the first syllable was changed to its later
form which may have been derived from _neuf_, or new.
[11] The _gau_ was a division of the old Germanic state. The word
is preserved in such terminations as that of Oberammergau, Glogau,
Bardengau, etc.
[12] The Merovingian kingdom took its name from the grandfather of
Clovis: Merwig, or Merowig: the Latin form being Merovœus, and the
French Mérovée.
[13] The Anglo-Saxon word _witan_ means wise man. The council called
the Witenagemot was the assembly of the king, nobles, and clergy, a
precursor of the parliament of later years, but with greater powers
than those ever exercised by parliament.
[14] Gregory was born in Auvergne, France, about 540, and became bishop
of Tours in 573. He wrote a work in ten books entitled “Historia
Francorum” which was a history of the Franks from the establishment of
Christianity down to about 591. This work is the principal history of
the Merovingian dynasty. Gregory was persecuted for exposing the crimes
of the Frankish sovereigns Chilperic and Fredegunde. He retired to Rome
where he died in 595.
[15] Fredegarius, called Scholasticus, was an obscure Burgundian monk
of the 8th century, of whom nothing further is known than that he
continued Gregory of Tours’ history of the Franks down to the year 641.
[16] It has been shown by Bonnell that neither Pippin of Landen nor
Pippin of Heristal was so called by contemporary writers. But for the
sake of distinction it seems better to retain these well-known surnames.
[17] It is not the saint, but the horse-race, that is often on the lips
of Englishmen. The St. Leger, established in 1776, is an annual race
for three-year-olds, run at Doncaster in September. It is second only
to the Derby in importance. The race was named in honor of Colonel
Anthony St. Leger.
[18] See p. 55 for description of the battle of Tours.
[19] Isidore was born about 560, became bishop of Seville in 600, and
died in 636. He was a voluminous writer and his works were highly
esteemed during the middle ages. His name is familiarly connected with
the Isidorian, or Spanish, Decretals, of which, however, he was not the
author.
[20] October 10th, 732.
[21] An Italian ecclesiastic who died at Monte Casino about the year
800. He is called the first important historian of the middle ages.
[22] “This pastoral letter, addressed to Lewis the Germanic, the
grandson of Charlemagne, and most probably composed by the pen of the
artful Hincmar, is dated in the year 858, and signed by the bishops of
the provinces of Rheims and Rouen.”--Gibbon, chap. lii. note 34.
[23] St. Augustine, the apostle to England, must not be confounded
with the great theologian of the same name who was bishop of Hippo, in
Africa.
[24] St. Boniface was born at Crediton. The date of his birth is not
known. He died in Friesland, June 5, 755, and was known as “the Apostle
of Germany.”
[25] Gregory I., surnamed the Great, was born about the year 540, and
reigned as pope from 590 to his death in 604. He was famous for his
zeal in enforcing ecclesiastical discipline and promoting missionary
activity, especially in sending Christian missionaries to England. He
is also noted for his arrangement of church music into what are still
known as “Gregorian modes” or chants. His claim to being the greatest
of the sixteen Gregories can be disputed by Gregory VII. (Hildebrand)
alone. But there is a serious stain on his memory in a letter written
to Phocas who had acquired the imperial throne at Constantinople by
usurpation and murder. “The joyful applause with which” this successor
of the apostles “salutes the fortunes of the assassin, has sullied,
with indelible disgrace, the character of the saint.” Apart from this
one fault, Gregory was meek, kind, sympathetic, and marvellously
efficient. It is the more remarkable that such a man could so fawn upon
even an emperor.
[26] Diocletian became emperor of Rome in the year 284, and shortly
after associated Maximian with himself in the imperial government. In
the division of the empire, Diocletian received the eastern portion,
including Thrace, Egypt, Syria, and Asia--the territory of which
Constantinople was afterwards the capital, though he made his capital
in Nicomedia. This emperor is infamous from his severe persecution of
the Christians 303–305. In the latter year he abdicated, compelling
Maximian to do the same, and spent the remainder of his life in the
cultivation of his gardens in Dalmatia. To the successors of this man,
the popes as head of the Church that had suffered so signally by the
cruelty of the imperial persecution, did abject homage.
[27] Lancashire contains 1,887 square miles.
[28] Silentiary is defined one who is sworn not to divulge the secrets
of the state; hence, a privy councillor.
[29] The exarchate was the dominion of the vicegerent of the Byzantine
emperor in Italy. Justinian originally conferred the title of exarch
upon his commander-in-chief Narses, who reconquered Italy from the
Goths and established his seat of government at Ravenna. The extent of
the exarchate was gradually diminished by the varying fortunes of wars,
until it comprised only a small district about Ravenna.
[30] The word Pentapolis means “the five cities,” and in different
countries refers to various celebrated groups. In Italy the group
included Rimini, Ancona, Fano, Pesaro, and Sinigaglia, with part of the
exarchate of Ravenna.
[31] “One of the most interesting caves is that of Moustier
(Perigord).... It has yielded remains of hyena, cave-bear, and mammoth,
with flint implements.... From the caves of Perigord and some of
those in the Pyrenees have come the most numerous and best finished
examples of carved and engraved horns, and bones, and ivory.”--Geikie,
_Prehistoric Europe_, p. 111.
[32] See p. 104.
[33] The Monk of St. Gall (Monachus Sangallensis) is by some supposed
to be Notker, surnamed Balbulus (the Stammerer), who lived about
840–912. He was famous as a hymn writer and the inventor of that
peculiar kind of hymn called “sequence.” The book, whether its author
be Notker or a fellow monk, was written about the year 883, and is
valuable not only for its anecdotes--some of which are doubtless
legendary--but because it gives the popular opinion of Charlemagne that
prevailed at the time the book was written, three quarters of a century
after the king’s death.
[34] “Charlemagne swept down like a whirlwind from the Alps at the call
of Pope Hadrian, seized the King Desiderius in his capital, himself
assumed the Lombard crown, and made northern Italy thenceforward an
integral part of the Frankish empire. Proceeding to Rome at the head
of his victorious army, the first of a long line of Teutonic kings who
were to find her love more deadly than her hate, he was received by
Hadrian with distinguished honors, and welcomed by the people as their
leader and deliverer.”--Bryce, _The Holy Roman Empire_, chap. iv.
[35] According to ancient Greek mythology, Sisyphus was, for his great
wickedness, condemned in Hades to roll a great stone from the bottom to
the top of a hill; but before he reached the top, the stone broke away
and rolled down again, so that his task had to be begun anew, and thus
it resulted in endless and tantalizing monotony.
[36] Augustine--the theologian and bishop of Hippo--completed in
the year 426 his book _De Civitate Dei_ (The City of God), which is
regarded the greatest monument of his genius and learning. The chief
aim of this book is to vindicate the claims of the Christian Church
against those who asserted that such calamities as the capture of Rome
by Alaric resulted from the new religion. On the contrary Augustine
conceives of the Church as a “new order rising on the ruins of the
old Roman empire:” a claim that might easily be used to defend the
transference of despotic authority from the empire to the Church.
[37] The conflict with the Saxons at Eresburg was precipitated by the
ill-timed zeal of an Anglo-Saxon missionary named Lebuinus, who forced
his way into their sacred assembly. “Arrayed in gorgeous robes and
carrying a cross in his hand, the zealous missionary passed through the
throng to an open enclosure, peculiarly sacred to the worshippers. The
Saxons resented this intrusion as sacrilegious, but suppressed their
indignation and for awhile listened to him.” He delivered a fiery and
threatening address which so roused their wrath that they came near
killing him. More moderate councils prevailed and the missionary was
allowed to depart, but the church that Lebuinus had built for the
salvation of these heathen, but which they could not be persuaded
to use for Christian worship, was burned to the ground. This act of
sacrilege was readily used to work on the feelings of Charlemagne.
“Idolatry must perish” and Charlemagne was not reluctant to be the
instrument of its punishment. In any view of the subject, however, it
must be conceded that, human nature being what it is, the conflict
between the two peoples, the Christian Franks and the heathen Saxons,
was irrepressible, and one or the other was destined to prevail.--See
Mombert, _Charles the Great_, book ii., chap. iii.
[38] The words of Einhard, Charlemagne’s biographer, are, ... “_dum
aut victi christianæ religioni subicerentur, aut omnino tollerentur_,”
“until they were either subdued and converted to the Christian
religion, or annihilated.”
[39] The most ferocious and warlike of all the barbarians with whom
Charlemagne contended, not even excepting the Avars, were the Saxons.
These people seemed to have an inextinguishable hatred of Christianity
and of slavery. Almost their only redeeming trait was their respect for
womanhood. They roamed the forests, and to some extent sailed the seas;
they lived largely by hunting, but they preferred piracy and plunder.
They could not be won by kindness. Even their word of honor was not
binding upon them, for they continually violated the pledges of their
treaties. The only way to deal with them was thoroughly to conquer
them and to deal with them with a severity bordering on cruelty. This
Charlemagne did. It took eighteen expeditions--though he never lost a
battle with them--and thirty-three years to accomplish his purpose,
but he was successful at the last. This people became civilized,
christianized, and they developed into the best people of Europe,
becoming the nucleus of the great German empire, and an important
constituent of the English. Beyond almost all others, they have escaped
the corruptions and vices attendant upon a luxurious life, and they are
to-day among the leaders of industry and enterprise in both hemispheres.
[40] See chap. viii.
[41] Berserker was a hero of Norse legend who fought without coat of
mail and overcame all foes. His descendants, called Berserkers, went
into battle under the inspiration of a fury, or demoniacal possession,
in which condition gnawing the rim of their shields, howling like
wild beasts, and foaming at the mouth, they were supposed to be
invulnerable. This fury was the Berserk, or Berserker’s, rage.
[42] The Schleswig-Holstein question is proverbially complicated, being
made so by the relations of the two provinces to each other, by the
further relations of each separately and both combined to Denmark, and
by the relations of all three to Austria, Prussia, etc. There was an
almost ceaseless succession of wars over the question, or questions,
from 1848 to 1866, when Schleswig-Holstein became a province of
Prussia. For a full statement of the subject, see Bryce, _Holy Roman
Empire_, note B.
[43] See p. 58, note.
[44] The placitum of the middle ages was a sort of convention for the
consideration of public questions, over which the sovereign presided.
[45] See p. 160.
[46] “The details of the plot are said to have embraced the
assassination of the king and his three royal sons, and the subsequent
proclamation of Pippin as king. This was the bait which the
conspirators held out to him....
“The secret was well kept. Pippin shammed sickness and for a while
stayed away from court; the plot was fairly under way and dangerously
near a successful termination, when by the inexplicable carelessness of
the conspirators the whole of their impious scheme became known.
“They met in the church of St. Peter at Ratisbon and discussed all the
details of the plot in the hearing of a cleric who from some cause
or other had found his way into the church. Perhaps he came to sleep
there; the conspirators found him hiding under the altar, and, strange
to tell, contented themselves with his solemn promise on oath that
he would not divulge the ominous secret. But the oath sat lightly on
his conscience, and the moment after the conspirators had left he ran
half-dressed at the dead of night to the royal palace and gave the
alarm.
“No one could stay his progress on his way to the royal bed-chamber;
he passed through seven doors and at last stood before it and so
frightened the ladies in attendance upon the queen that they shut it
in his face; they tried to stifle their laughter at his appearance
with their dresses [_sic_.] But the king had heard the noise and asked
what it meant. They said that a half-clad, scraped, silly, and raving
scamp demanded to see the king, and made an unmannerly noise. Charles
sent for him and made him tell all he knew. ‘Before the third hour of
the day,’ writes the Monk, ‘all the chief conspirators, not expecting
anything of the kind, were either on the way to exile or punishment.
The dwarfish, hunch-backed Pippin received a good beating, was shaved,
and sent _for a little while_ to the monastery of St. Gall to do
penance.’”--Mombert, p. 219.
[47] Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot (1753–1823) served as minister of
war for nearly three years during the French revolution. His success as
a strategist won for him the popular title of “organizer of victory.”
[48] The Koreish is the most influential tribe of the Arabs. Their
prominence is due to the fact that, early in the 5th century, they
obtained and became the masters and guardians of the Kaabeh, in Mecca,
which was a sacred shrine long before the days of Mohammed. Having once
obtained the temple keys, they have succeeded in holding them against
every effort to capture them. “Their possession of the temple-keys
not only gave the tribe of Koreysh a semi-religious pre-eminence over
all the other clans of Arabia, but also placed at their disposal the
treasures of gold, silver, jewels, and other offerings accumulated by
the pagan piety of ages in the temple of Mecca.”--_Encyc. Brit._
The Abbasides, who were descended from Mohammed’s uncle Abbas, became a
powerful tribe and were caliphs of Bagdad for five centuries, from 750
to 1258.
[49] “The Normans had crossed the English fosse, and were now at the
foot of the hill, with the palisades and the axes right before them.
The trumpet sounded, and a flight of arrows from the archers in all
the three divisions of William’s army was the prelude to the onslaught
of the heavy-armed foot. But before the two armies met hand to hand,
a juggler or minstrel, known as _Taillefer_, the Cleaver of Iron,
rode forth from the Norman ranks as if to defy the whole force of
England in his single person. He craved and obtained the duke’s leave
to strike the first blow; he rode forth, singing songs of Roland and
of Charlemagne--so soon had the name and exploits of the great German
become the spoil of the enemy. He threw his sword into the air and
caught it again; but he presently showed that he could use warlike
weapons for other purposes than for jugglers’ tricks of this kind; he
pierced one Englishman with his lance, he struck down another with
his sword, and then himself fell beneath the blows of their comrades.
A bravado of this kind might serve as an omen, it might stir up the
spirits of the men on either side; but it could in no other way affect
the fate of the battle.”--Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, iii. 319.
[50] After Charlemagne had delivered France and Germany from external
enemies, he turned his arms against the Saracens of Spain. “This
was the great mistake of his life.... In seeking to invade Spain,
Charlemagne warred against a race from whom Europe had nothing more
to fear. His grandfather, Charles Martel, had arrested the conquests
of the Saracens; and they were quiet in their settlements in Spain,
and had made considerable attainments in science and literature.
Their schools of medicine and their arts were in advance of the
rest of Europe. They were the translators of Aristotle, who reigned
in the rising universities during the middle ages. As this war was
unnecessary, Providence seemed to rebuke Charlemagne. His defeat at
Roncesvalles was one of the most memorable events in his military
history.... The Frankish forces were signally defeated amid the passes
of the Pyrenees; and it was not until after several centuries that
the Gothic princes of Spain shook off the yoke of their Saracenic
conquerors, and drove them from Europe.”--John Lord, _Beacon Lights of
History_.
[51] see p. 7, note.
[52] See p. 117, note.
[53] Rhine?
[54] The _solidus_ was a Byzantine coin worth about $5.12 of United
States money.
[55] See p. 125.
[56] See pp. 165, 166.
[57] The wrangling between James I. of England and Philip II. of Spain
over the terms of the marriage treaty between the Prince of Wales and
the Infanta, came near to involving the two countries in war.
[58] Adoptionism, the heresy that Jesus was the Son of God by adoption
only, caused much disturbance in the Spanish and Frankish Churches
in the latter part of the 8th century. It was promulgated chiefly by
Felix, bishop of Urgel, and by Elipandus, archbishop of Toledo; it was
resisted by Alcuin and by Charlemagne. It was condemned by the council
at Ratisbon in 792, at Frankfort in 794, and at Aix-la-Chapelle in 799,
and soon disappeared.
[59] The festival of the Robigalia was said to be instituted by Numa
for the purpose of worshipping Robigus, or Robigo,--for it is uncertain
whether the divinity was masculine or feminine,--in order to avert the
blight of too great heat from the springing grain. With the ancient
Romans the cereal festivals were held at the time of planting, and not,
like our thanksgiving, after the harvest.
[60] See p. 230, note.
[61] Melan-Chthon is merely the Greek translation of the German
Schwarz-Erd, or Black-Earth; and Œco-Lampadius is the Greek equivalent
of the German Hans-Schein which in turn was substituted for Hussgen or
Heussgen.
[62] The ambo was an elaborate pulpit or reading desk placed in the
choir of the church and having two ascents--one from the east and the
other from the west.
[63] In this case the purple cope, a vestment of the pope.
[64] The description of the coronation by Bryce is added for its
picturesqueness:--“On the spot where now the gigantic dome of Bramante
and Michael Angelo towers over the buildings of the modern city, the
spot which tradition had hallowed as that of the apostle’s martyrdom,
Constantine the Great had erected the oldest and stateliest temple of
Christian Rome. Nothing could be less like than was this basilica to
those northern cathedrals, shadowy, fantastic, irregular, crowded with
pillars, fringed all round by clustering shrines and chapels, which
are to most of us the mediæval types of architecture. In its plan and
decorations, in the spacious sunny hall, the roof plain as that of a
Greek temple, the long row of Corinthian columns, the vivid mosaics
on its walls, in its brightness, its sternness, its simplicity, it
had preserved every feature of Roman art, and had remained a perfect
expression of Roman character. Out of the transept, a flight of steps
led up to the high altar underneath and just beyond the great arch, the
arch of triumph, as it was called: behind in the semicircular apse sat
the clergy, rising tier above tier around its walls; in the midst, high
above the rest, and looking down past the altar and over the multitude,
was placed a bishop’s throne, itself the curule chair of some forgotten
magistrate. From that chair the Pope now rose, as the reading of
the gospel ended, advanced to where Charles--who had exchanged his
simple Frankish dress for the sandals and the chlamys of a Roman
patrician--knelt in prayer by the high altar, and as in the sight of
all he placed upon the brow of the barbarian chieftain the diadem of
the Cæsars, then bent in obeisance before him, the church rang to the
shout of the multitude, again free, again the lords and centre of the
world, “Karolo Augusto a Deo coronato magno et pacifico imperatori vita
et victoria” [Long life and victory to Charles the August, crowned by
God as the great and peaceful emperor]. In that shout, echoed by the
Franks without, was pronounced the union, so long in preparation, of
the Roman and the Teuton, of the memories and the civilization of the
South with the fresh energy of the North, and from that moment modern
history begins.”--_The Holy Roman Empire_ chap. vi.
[65] Theodosius the Great was born in Spain about 346 and died in 395.
Though he was under the influence of Ambrose, bishop of Milan; and
though the bishops humiliated him and once compelled him to do penance
for the period of eight months, his reign was one of great splendor,
and the last year of his life he was sole emperor.
[66] It was in the winter of 1804–5 that the fiasco of Boulogne
occurred.
[67] “The emperor celebrated the birth of our Lord at Aachen.”
[68] The city of Ravenna; which is situated between the Ronco and the
Lamone rivers.
[69] He absolutely refused to take medicines, and when ill his only
treatment was abstaining from food. See also p. 304:--“According to his
usual custom he thought to _subdue the fever by fasting_.”
[70] Louis deserved the surname “Pious” so far as his care for the
morals of his people was concerned. At the beginning of his reign he
earnestly attacked the abuses that prevailed. At court he suppressed
licentiousness and punished the nobility who had abused their
authority. He also tried to reform the clergy. Seeking to establish
the order of succession, he associated his oldest son, Lothair, with
himself in the government, and gave to his two younger sons, Pippin and
Louis, portions of the empire. His wife, however, died, and he marrying
again became the father of a fourth son. Upon this he revised his plans
of the partition of the empire. The three older sons rebelled, and
took their father prisoner in the year 833, but in the following year
he was reinstated by his son Louis. Again in 838 Louis was involved in
a dispute with his sons, but he died (840) while the question was in
process of arbitration. “He had capacities which might have made him a
great churchman, but as a secular ruler he lacked prudence and vigor,
and his management prepared the way for the destruction of the empire
established by his father.”
[71] A curious and somewhat difficult question arises as to the
disposal of the remains of the great emperor. This account rests
on the authority of Einhard, and is fully confirmed by Thegan the
biographer of Louis the Pious. But in the year 1000 the Emperor Otho
III. opened the tomb in the presence of two bishops, and a knight
named Otho of Lomello, and according to the statement of that knight
communicated to the author of the chronicle of Novalese, they found
the emperor sitting on a throne, with a golden crown on his head, and
holding a golden sceptre in his hands. The hands were covered with
gloves, through which the nails protruding had worked their way. A
little chapel (_tuguriolum_) of marble and lime was erected over him,
through the roof of which the excavators made their way. None of the
emperor’s limbs had rotted away, but a little piece had fallen from the
end of the nose, which Otho caused to be replaced in gold. The four
discoverers fell on their knees before the majestic figure. Then they
clothed him with white robes, cut the finger nails, took away one tooth
as a relic, closed the roof of the chapel and departed.
The account is a very circumstantial one, and is given by a
contemporary chronicler on the authority of one of the actors of the
scene who is a fairly well-known historical personage. Yet most modern
inquirers accept the conclusion advocated by Theodor Lindner (Die
Fabel von der Bestattung Karls des Grossen), that the story must be
rejected as untrue, in other words, that Otho of Lomello in relating
it was playing on the credulity of his hearers. The chief reasons for
this conclusion are, that the story is hopelessly at variance with
the statements of Einhard and Thegan. If the body was buried on the
very day of death, there would be no time for the elaborate process
of embalming which this story requires. The words of the epitaph
“humatum,” “sub hoc conditorio situm est,” would not be applicable to
such a mode of interment. Moreover, such a very unusual mode of dealing
with the great emperor’s body would surely have attracted some notice
from the ninth-century authors who in prose and verse celebrate the
deeds of Charles, not one of whom makes the slightest allusion to it.
Lastly, though an industrious search has been often made, no one has
ever been able to find a trace of the _tuguriolum_ (necessarily a room
of a certain size) in which the corpse was said to have been seated.
In 1165, at the time of the canonization of Charles, his body was
taken up by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, removed from the marble
sarcophagus, in which it had lain for nearly 352 years, and placed in a
wooden coffer in the middle of the church. For this wooden coffer was
substituted fifty years later, at the order of Frederick II., a costly
shrine, adorned with gold and jewels, in which at the present day,
every six years, the relics of “St. Charles the Great,” are exhibited
to the people. The head is separated from the body and enclosed in a
silver portrait-bust of fourteenth-century workmanship.
[72] See p. 230, note.
[73] The minuscule was a small letter that displaced the awkward
uncials used by the monastic scribes of the early centuries. It was the
basis of the small letters of the modern Greek and Roman alphabets.
[74] After the law of his own country.
[75] Sixty golden solidi = $307.20.
[76] Of “the famous oath of Strassburg,” by which a dispute between
Louis the German and his brother Charles the Bald was adjusted,
Professor Freeman says: “That precious document ... shows that in 841
the distinctions of race and language were beginning to make themselves
felt. The Austrasian soldiers of King Louis swear in the Old-German
tongue, of which the oath is an early monument;” while the Neustrian
soldiers of King Charles swear “in the _lingua Romana_ ... a tongue
essentially of Roman origin, and yet a tongue which has departed too
far from the Roman model to be any longer called Latin. It has ceased
to be Latin, but we cannot yet call it French, even Old French....
In the course of the next century it became nationalized as _lingua
Gallica_.” See _Historical Essays_, I., 184.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced; some are noted in further detail below.
The illustration on the title page is the publisher’s logo.
Page 71: “In the year 750 [it should be 751]” is in the original book;
it is not a note from the Transcribers of this eBook.
Page 93: Missing ending quotation mark for text beginning with “The
great distinction”. Transcriber added one after “sometimes assume.”
Page 115: “of so noble” was printed as “of so no noble”; changed here.
Page 202: “(791–842)” was printed as “(791–482)”; changed here.
Page 206: Unbalanced quotation mark in the paragraph beginning “He
says:”
Page 269: “pre-eminence over them” was printed as “pre-eminence ever
them”; changed here.
Page 329: “he gave the Teutonic race” was printed as “the gave te
Teutonic race”; corrected by Transcriber.
Page 332: “Pippin of Landin” was printed as “Pippin of Landiu”; changed
here, although modern conventional spelling is “Landen”.