report to him or enlighten him touching the part of the kingdom each had
come from. Not only was this permitted to all, but they were strictly
enjoined to make inquiries during the interval between the assemblies,
about what happened within or without the kingdom; and they were bound
to seek knowledge from foreigners as well as natives, enemies as well as
friends, sometimes by employing emissaries, and without troubling
themselves much about the manner in which they acquired their
information. The King wished to know whether in any part, in any corner,
of the kingdom, the people were restless, and what was the cause of
their restlessness; or whether there had happened any disturbance to
which it was necessary to draw the attention of the council-general, and
other similar matters. He sought also to know whether any of the
subjugated nations were inclined to revolt; whether any of those who had
revolted seemed disposed toward submission; and whether those that were
still independent were threatening the kingdom with any attack. On all
these subjects, whenever there was any manifestation of disorder or
danger, he demanded chiefly what were the motives or occasion of them."
There is need of no great reflection to recognize the true character of
these assemblies: it is clearly imprinted upon the sketch drawn by
Hincmar. The figure of Charlemagne alone fills the picture: he is the
centre-piece of it and the soul of everything. 'Tis he who wills that
the national assemblies should meet and deliberate; 'tis he who inquires
into the state of the country; 'tis he who proposes and approves of, or
rejects the laws; with him rest will and motive, initiative and
decision. He has a mind sufficiently judicious, unshackled, and elevated
to understand that the nation ought not to be left in darkness about its
affairs and that he himself has need of communicating with it, of
gathering information from it, and of learning its opinions. But we have
here no exhibition of great political liberties, no people discussing
its interests and its business, interfering effectually in the adoption
of resolutions, and, in fact, taking in its government so active and
decisive a part as to have a right to say that it is self-governing, or,
in other words, a free people. It is Charlemagne and he alone who
governs; it is absolute government marked by prudence, ability, and
grandeur.
When the mind dwells upon the state of Gallo-Frankish society in the
eighth century, there is nothing astonishing in such a fact. Whether it
be civilized or barbarian, that which every society needs, that which it
seeks or demands first of all in its government, is a certain degree of
good sense and strong will, of intelligence and innate influence, so far
as the public interests are concerned; qualities, in fact, which
suffice to keep social order maintained or make it realized, and to
promote respect for individual rights and the progress of the general
well-being. This is the essential aim of every community of men; and the
institutions and guarantees of free government are the means of
attaining it. It is clear that, in the eighth century, on the ruins of
the Roman and beneath the blows of the barbaric world, the
Gallo-Frankish nation, vast and without cohesion, brutish and ignorant,
was incapable of bringing forth, so to speak, from its own womb, with
the aid of its own wisdom and virtue, a government of the kind. A host
of different forces, without enlightenment and without restraint, were
everywhere and incessantly struggling for dominion, or, in other words,
were ever troubling and endangering the social condition. Let there but
arise, in the midst of this chaos of unruly forces and selfish passions,
a great man, one of those elevated minds and strong characters that can
understand the essential aim of society, and then urge it forward, and
at the same time keep it well in hand on the roads that lead thereto,
and such a man will soon seize and exercise the personal power almost of
a despot, and people will not only make him welcome, but even celebrate
his praises, for they do not quit the substance for the shadow, or
sacrifice the end to the means. Such was the empire of Charlemagne.
Among annalists and historians, some, treating him as a mere conqueror
and despot, have ignored his merits and his glory; others, that they
might admire him without scruple, have made of him a founder of free
institutions, a constitutional monarch. Both are equally mistaken:
Charlemagne was, indeed, a conqueror and a despot; but by his conquests
and his personal power he, so long as he was by, that is, for
six-and-forty years, saved Gallo-Frankish society from barbaric invasion
without and anarchy within. That is the characteristic of his government
and his title to glory.
What he was in his wars and his general relations with his nation has
just been seen; he shall now be exhibited in all his administrative
activity and his intellectual life, as a legislator and as a friend to
the human mind. The same man will be recognized in every case; he will
grow in greatness, without changing, as he appears under his various
aspects.
There are often joined together, under the title of _Capitularies_
(_capitula_--small chapters, articles) a mass of acts, very different in
point of dates and objects, which are attributed indiscriminately to
Charlemagne. This is a mistake. The Capitularies are the laws or
legislative measures of the Frankish kings, Merovingian as well as
Carlovingian. Those of the Merovingians are few in number, and of slight
importance, and among those of the Carlovingians, which amount to 152,
65 only are due to Charlemagne. When an attempt is made to classify
these last according to their object, it is impossible not to be struck
with their incoherent variety; and several of them are such as we should
nowadays be surprised to meet with in a code or in a special law. Among
Charlemagne's 65 Capitularies, which contain I,151 articles, may be
counted 87 of moral, 293 of political, 130 of penal, no of civil, 85 of
religious, 305 of canonical, 73 of domestic, and 12 of incidental
legislation. And it must not be supposed that all these articles are
really acts of legislation, laws properly so called; we find among them
the texts of ancient national laws revised and promulgated afresh;
extracts from and additions to these same ancient laws, Salic, Lombard,
and Bavarian; extracts from acts of councils; instructions given by
Charlemagne to his envoys in the provinces; questions that he proposed
to put to the bishops or counts when they came to the national assembly;
answers given by Charlemagne to questions addressed to him by the
bishops, counts, or commissioners (missi dominici); judgments, decrees,
royal pardons, and simple notes that Charlemagne seems to have had
written down for himself alone, to remind him of what he proposed to do;
in a word, nearly all the various acts which could possibly have to be
framed by an earnest, far-sighted, and active government. Often, indeed,
these Capitularies have no imperative or prohibitive character; they are
simple counsels, purely moral precepts. We read therein, for example:
"Covetousness doth consist in desiring that which others possess, and in
giving away naught of that which oneself possesseth; according to the
apostle, it is the root of all evil."
And,
"Hospitality must be practised."
The Capitularies which have been classed under the heads of _political,
penal_, and _canonical legislation_ are the most numerous, and are those
which bear most decidedly an imperative of prohibitive stamp; among them
a prominent place is held by measures of political economy,
administration, and police; you will find therein an attempt to put a
fixed price on provisions, a real trial of a _maximum_ for cereals, and
a prohibition of mendicity, with the following clause:
"If such mendicants be met with, and they labor not with their hands,
let none take thought about giving unto them."
The interior police of the palace was regulated thereby, as well as that
of the empire:
"We do will and decree that none of those who serve in our palace shall
take leave to receive therein any man who seeketh refuge there and
cometh to hide there, by reason of theft, homicide, adultery, or any
other crime. That if any free man do break through our interdicts and
hide such malefactor in our palace, he shall be bound to carry him on
his shoulders to the public quarter, and be there tied to the same stake
as the malefactor."
Certain Capitularies have been termed _religious legislation,_ in
contradistinction to canonical legislation, because they are really
admonitions, religious exhortations, addressed not to ecclesiastics
alone, but to the faithful, the Christian people in general, and notably
characterized by good sense and, one might almost say, freedom of
thought.
For example:
"Beware of venerating the names of martyrs falsely so called, and the
memory of dubious saints."
"Let none suppose that prayer cannot be made to God save in three
tongues [probably Latin, Greek, and Germanic, or perhaps the vulgar
tongue; for the last was really beginning to take form], for God is
adored in all tongues, and man is heard if he do but ask for the things
that be right."
These details are put forward that a proper idea may be obtained of
Charlemagne as a legislator, and of what are called his laws. We have
here, it will be seen, no ordinary legislator and no ordinary laws: we
see the work, with infinite variations and in disconnected form, of a
prodigiously energetic and watchful master, who had to think and provide
for everything, who had to be everywhere the moving and the regulating
spirit. This universal and untiring energy is the grand characteristic
of Charlemagne's government, and was, perhaps, what made his superiority
most incontestable and his power most efficient.
It is noticeable that the majority of Charlemagne's Capitularies belong
to that epoch of his reign when he was Emperor of the West, when he was
invested with all the splendor of sovereign power. Of the 65
Capitularies classed under different heads, 13 only are previous to the
25th of December, 800, the date of his coronation as Emperor at Rome; 52
are comprised between the years 801 and 804.
The energy of Charlemagne as a warrior and a politician having thus been
exhibited, it remains to say a few words about his intellectual energy.
For that is by no means the least original or least grand feature of his
character and his influence.
Modern times and civilized society have more than once seen despotic
sovereigns filled with distrust toward scholars of exalted intellect,
especially such as cultivated the moral and political sciences, and
little inclined to admit them to their favor or to public office. There
is no knowing whether, in our days, with our freedom of thought and of
the press, Charlemagne would have been a stranger to this feeling of
antipathy; but what is certain is that in his day, in the midst of a
barbaric society, there was no inducement to it, and that, by nature, he
was not disposed to it. His power was not in any respect questioned;
distinguished intellects were very rare; Charlemagne had too much need
of their services to fear their criticisms, and they, on their part,
were more anxious to second his efforts than to show, toward him,
anything like exaction or independence. He gave rein, therefore, without
any embarrassment or misgiving, to his spontaneous inclination toward
them, their studies, their labors, and their influence. He drew them
into the management of affairs. In Guizot's _History of Civilization in
France_ there is a list of the names and works of twenty-three men of
the eighth and ninth centuries who have escaped oblivion, and they are
all found grouped about Charlemagne as his own habitual advisers, or
assigned by him as advisers to his sons Pépin and Louis in Italy and
Aquitaine, or sent by him to all points of his empire as his
commissioners, or charged in his name with important negotiations. And
those whom he did not employ at a distance formed, in his immediate
neighborhood, a learned and industrious society, a _school of the
palace,_ according to some modern commentators, but an _academy_ and not
a _school_, according to others, devoted rather to conversation than to
teaching.
It probably fulfilled both missions; it attended Charlemagne at his
various residences, at one time working for him at questions he invited
them to deal with, at another giving to the regular components of his
court, to his children, and to himself lessons in the different sciences
called liberal: grammar, rhetoric, logic, astronomy, geometry, and even
theology, and the great religious problems it was beginning to discuss.
Two men, Alcuin and Eginhard, have remained justly celebrated in the
literary history of the age. Alcuin was the principal director of the
school of the palace, and the favorite, the confidant, the learned
adviser of Charlemagne. "If your zeal were imitated," said he one day to
the Emperor, "perchance one might see arise in France a new Athens, far
more glorious than the ancient--the Athens of Christ."
Eginhard, who was younger, received his scientific education in the
school of the palace, and was head of the public works to Charlemagne,
before becoming his biographer, and, at a later period, the intimate
adviser of his son Louis the Debonair. Other scholars of the school of
the palace, Angilbert, Leidrade, Adalhard, Agobard, Theodulph, were
abbots of St. Riquier or Corbie, archbishops of Lyons, and bishops of
Orleans. They had all assumed, in the school itself, names illustrious
in pagan antiquity: Alcuin called himself _Flaccus_; Angilbert, _Homer_;
Theodulph, _Pindar_. Charlemagne himself had been pleased to take, in
their society, a great name of old, but he had borrowed from the history
of the Hebrews--he called himself _David_; and Eginhard, animated, no
doubt, by the same sentiments, was _Bezaleel_, that nephew of Moses to
whom God had granted the gift of knowing how to work skilfully in wood
and all the materials which served for the construction of the ark and
the tabernacle. Either in the lifetime of their royal patron or after
his death all these scholars became great dignitaries of the Church, or
ended their lives in monasteries of note; but, so long as they lived,
they served Charlemagne or his sons not only with the devotion of
faithful advisers, but also as followers proud of the master who had
known how to do them honor by making use of them.
It was without effort and by natural sympathy that Charlemagne had
inspired them with such sentiments; for he, too, really loved sciences,
literature, and such studies as were then possible, and he cultivated
them on his own account and for his own pleasure, as a sort of conquest.
It has been doubted whether he could write, and an expression of
Eginhard's might authorize such a doubt; but, according to other
evidence, and even according to the passage in Eginhard, one is inclined
to believe merely that Charlemagne strove painfully, and without much
success, to write a good hand. He had learned Latin, and he understood
Greek. He caused to be commenced, and, perhaps, himself commenced the
drawing up of the first Germanic grammar. He ordered that the old
barbaric poems, in which the deeds and wars of the ancient kings were
celebrated, should be collected for posterity. He gave Germanic names to
the twelve months of the year. He distinguished the winds by twelve
special terms, whereas before his time they had but four designations.
He paid great attention to astronomy. Being troubled one day at no
longer seeing in the firmament one of the known planets, he wrote to
Alcuin: "What thinkest thou of this _Mars_, which, last year, being
concealed in the sign of Cancer, was intercepted from the sight of men
by the light of the sun? Is it the regular course of his revolution? Is
it the influence of the sun? Is it a miracle? Could he have been two
years about performing the course of a single one?"
In theological studies and discussions he exhibited a particular and
grave interest. "It is to him," say Ampere and Hauréau, "that we must
refer the honor of the decision taken in 794 by the council of Frankfort
in the great dispute about images; a temperate decision which is as far
removed from the infatuation of the image-worshippers as from the frenzy
of the image-breakers." And at the same time that he thus took part in
the great ecclesiastical questions, Charlemagne paid zealous attention
to the instruction of the clergy whose ignorance he deplored. "Ah," said
he one day, "if only I had about me a dozen clerics learned in all the
sciences, as Jerome and Augustin were!" With all his puissance it was
not in his power to make Jeromes and Augustins; but he laid the
foundation, in the cathedral churches and the great monasteries, of
episcopal and cloistral schools for the education of ecclesiastics, and,
carrying his solicitude still further, he recommended to the bishops and
abbots that, in those schools, "they should take care to make no
difference between the sons of serfs and of free men, so that they might
come and sit on the same benches to study grammar, music, and
arithmetic." Thus, in the eighth century, he foreshadowed the extension
which, in the nineteenth, was to be accorded to primary instruction, to
the advantage and honor not only of the clergy, but also of the whole
people.
After so much of war and toil at a distance, Charlemagne was now at
Aix-la-Chapelle, finding rest in this work of peaceful civilization. He
was embellishing the capital which he had founded, and which was called
the king's court. He had built there a grand basilica, magnificently
adorned. He was completing his own palace there. He fetched from Italy
clerics skilled in church music, a pious joyance to which he was much
devoted, and which he recommended to the bishops of his empire. In the
outskirts of Aix-la-Chapelle "he gave full scope," says Eginhard, "to
his delight in riding and hunting. Baths of naturally tepid water gave
him great pleasure. Being passionately fond of swimming, he became so
dexterous that none could be compared with him. He invited not only his
sons, but also his friends, the grandees of his court, and sometimes
even the soldiers of his guard, to bathe with him, insomuch that there
were often a hundred and more persons bathing at a time."
When age arrived, he made no alteration in his bodily habits; but, at
the same time, instead of putting away from him the thought of death, he
was much taken up with it, and prepared himself for it with stern
severity. He drew up, modified, and completed his will several times
over. Three years before his death he made out the distribution of his
treasures, his money, his wardrobe, and all his furniture, in the
presence of his friends and his officers, in order that their voice
might insure, after his death, the execution of this partition, and he
set down his intentions in this respect in a written summary, in which
he massed all his riches in three grand lots. The first two were divided
into twenty-one portions, which were to be distributed among the
twenty-one metropolitan churches of his empire. After having put these
first two lots under seal, he willed to preserve to himself his usual
enjoyment of the third so long as he lived. But after his death, or
voluntary renunciation of the things of this world, this same lot was to
be subdivided into four portions. His intention was that the first
should be added to the twenty-one portions which were to go to the
metropolitan churches; the second set aside for his sons and daughters,
and for the sons and daughters of his sons, and redivided among them in
a just and proportionate manner; the third dedicated, according to the
usage of Christians, to the necessities of the poor; and, lastly, the
fourth distributed in the same way, under the name of alms, among the
servants, of both sexes, of the palace for their lifetime. As for the
books which he had amassed, a large number in his library, he decided
that those who wished to have them might buy them at their proper value,
and that the money which they produced should be distributed among the
poor.
Having thus carefully regulated his own private affairs and bounty, he,
two years later, in 813, took the measures necessary for the regulation,
after his death, of public affairs. He had lost, in 811, his oldest son,
Charles, who had been his constant companion in his wars, and, in 810,
his second son, Pépin, whom he had made King of Italy; and he summoned
to his side his third son, Louis, King of Aquitaine, who was destined to
succeed him. He ordered the convocation of five local councils which
were to assemble at Mayence, Rheims, Châlons, Tours, and Aries, for the
purpose of bringing about, subject to the King's ratification, the
reforms necessary in the Church. Passing from the affairs of the Church
to those of the State, he convoked at Aix-la-Chapelle a general assembly
of bishops, abbots, counts, laic grandees, and of the entire people,
and, holding council in his palace with the chief among them, "he
invited them to make his son Louis king-emperor; whereto all assented,
saying that it was very expedient, and pleasing, also, to the people. On
Sunday in the next month, August, 813, Charlemagne repaired, crown on
head, with his son Louis to the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, laid upon
the altar another crown, and, after praying, addressed to his son a
solemn exhortation respecting all his duties as king toward God and the
Church, toward his family and his people, asked him if he were fully
resolved to fulfil them, and, at the answer that he was, bade him take
the crown that lay upon the altar, and place it with his own hands upon
his head, which Louis did amid the acclamations of all present, who
cried, 'Long live the emperor Louis!' Charlemagne then declared his son
emperor jointly with him, and ended the solemnity with these words:
'Blessed be thou, O Lord God, who hast granted me grace to see with mine
own eyes my son seated on my throne!'" And Louis set out again
immediately for Aquitaine.
He was never to see his father again. Charlemagne, after his son's
departure, went out hunting, according to his custom, in the forest of
Ardenne, and continued during the whole autumn his usual mode of life.
"But in January, 814, he was taken ill," says Eginhard, "of a violent
fever, which kept him to his bed. Recurring forthwith to the remedy he
ordinarily employed against fever, he abstained from all nourishment,
persuaded that this diet would suffice to drive away or at the least
assuage the malady; but added to the fever came that pain in the side
which the Greeks call _pleurisy_; nevertheless the Emperor persisted in
his abstinence, supporting his body only by drinks taken at long
intervals; and on the seventh day after that he had taken to his bed,
having received the holy communion," he expired about 9 A.M., on
Saturday, the 28th of January, 814, in his seventy-first year.
"After performance of ablutions and funeral duties, the corpse was
carried away and buried, amid the profound mourning of all the people,
in the church he had himself had built; and above his tomb there was put
up a gilded arcade with his image and this superscription: 'In this tomb
reposeth the body of Charles, great and orthodox Emperor, who did
gloriously extend the kingdom of the Franks, and did govern it happily
for forty-seven years. He died at the age of seventy years, in the year
of the Lord 814, in the seventh year of the Indiction, on the 5th of the
Kalends of February.'"
If we sum up his designs and his achievements, we find an admirably
sound idea and a vain dream, a great success and a great failure.
Charlemagne took in hand the work of placing upon a solid foundation the
Frankish Christian dominion by stopping, in the North and South, the
flood of barbarians and Arabs, paganism and Islamism. In that he
succeeded; the inundations of Asiatic populations spent their force in
vain against the Gallic frontier. Western and Christian Europe was
placed, territorially, beyond reach of attacks from the foreigner and
infidel. No sovereign, no human being, perhaps, ever rendered greater
service to the civilization of the world.