The most illustrious monarch of the Middle Ages was doubtless
Charlemagne. Certainly he was the first great statesman, hero, and
organizer that looms up to view after the dissolution of the Roman
Empire. Therefore I present him as one with whom is associated an
epoch in civilization. To him we date the first memorable step
which Europe took out of the anarchies of the Merovingian age. His
dream was to revive the Empire that had fallen, he was the first to
labor, with giant strength, to restore what vice and violence had
destroyed. He did not succeed in realizing the great ends to which
he aspired, but his aspirations were lofty. It was not in the
power of any man to civilize semi-barbarians in a single reign; but
if he attempted impossibilities he did not live in vain, since he
bequeathed some permanent conquests and some great traditions. He
left a great legacy to civilization. His life has not dramatic
interest like that of Hildebrand, nor poetic interest like the
lives of the leaders of the Crusades; but it is very instructive.
He was the pride of his own generation, and the boast of succeeding
ages, "claimed," says Sismondi, "by the Church as a saint, by the
French as the greatest of their kings, by the Germans as their
countryman, and by the Italians as their emperor."
His remote ancestors, it is said, were ecclesiastical magnates.
His grandfather was Charles Martel, who gained such signal
victories over the Mohammedan Saracens; his father was Pepin, who
was a renowned conqueror, and who subdued the southern part of
France, or Gaul. He did not rise, like Clovis, from the condition
of a chieftain of a tribe of barbarians; nor, like the founder of
his family, from a mayor of the palace, or minister of the
Merovingian kings. His early life was spent amid the turmoils and
dangers of camps, and as a young man he was distinguished for
precocity of talent, manly beauty, and gigantic physical strength.
He was a type of chivalry, before chivalry arose. He was born to
greatness, and early succeeded to a great inheritance. At the age
of twenty-six, in the year 768, he became the monarch of the
greater part of modern France, and of those provinces which border
on the Rhine. By unwearied activities this inheritance, greater
than that of any of the Merovingian kings, was not only kept
together and preserved, but was increased by successive conquests,
until no so great an empire has ever been ruled by any one man in
Europe, since the fall of the Roman Empire, from his day to ours.
Yet greater than the conquests of Charlemagne was the greatness of
his character. He preserved simplicity and gentleness amid all the
distractions attending his government.
His reign affords a striking contrast to that of all his
predecessors of the Merovingian dynasty,--which reigned from the
immediate destruction of the Roman Empire. The Merovingian
princes, with the exception of Clovis and a few others, were mere
barbarians, although converted to a nominal Christianity. Some of
them were monsters, and others were idiots. Clotaire burned to
death his own son and wife and daughters. Fredegunde armed her
assassins with poisoned daggers. "Thirteen sovereigns reigned over
the Franks in one hundred and fourteen years, only two of whom
attained to man's estate, and not one to the full development of
intellectual powers. There was scarcely one who did not live in a
state of perpetual intoxication, or who did not rival Sardanapalus
in effeminacy, and Commodus in cruelty." As these sovereigns were
good churchmen, their iniquities were glossed over by Gregory of
Tours. In HIS annals they may pass for saints, but history
consigns them to an infamous immortality.
It is difficult to conceive a more dreary and dismal state of
society than existed in France, and in fact over all Europe, when
Charlemagne began to reign. The Roman Empire was in ruins, except
in the East, where the Greek emperors reigned at Constantinople.
The western provinces were ruled by independent barbaric kings.
There was no central authority, although there was an attempt of
the popes to revive it,--a spiritual rather than a temporal power;
a theocracy whose foundation was secured by Leo the Great when he
established the jus divinum principle,--that he was the successor
of Peter, to whom were given the keys of heaven and hell. If there
was an interesting feature in the times it was this spiritual
authority exercised by the bishops of Rome: the most useful and
beneficent considering the evils which prevailed,--the reign of
brute force. The barbaric chieftains yielded a partial homage to
this spiritual power, and it was some check on their rapacity of
violence. It is mournful to think that so little of the ancient
civilization remained in the eighth century. Its eclipse was
total. The shadows of a dark and long night of superstition and
ignorance spread over Europe. Law was silenced by the sword.
Justinian's glorious legacy was already forgotten. The old
mechanism which had kept society together in the fifth century was
worn out, broken, rejected. There was no literature, no
philosophy, no poetry, no history, and no art. Even the clergy had
become ignorant, superstitious, and idle. Forms had taken the
place of faith. No great theologians had arisen since Saint
Augustine. The piety of the age hid itself in monasteries; and
these monasteries were as funereal as society itself. Men
despaired of the world, and retreated from it to sing mournful
songs. The architecture of the age expressed the sentiments of the
age, and was heavy, gloomy, and monotonous. "The barbarians
ruthlessly marched over the ruins of cities and palaces, having no
regard for the treasures of the classic world, and unmoved by the
lessons of its past experience." Rome itself, repeatedly sacked,
was a heap of ruins. No reconstruction had taken place. Gardens
and villas were as desolate as the ruined palaces, which were the
abodes of owls and spiders. The immortal creations of the chisel
were used to prop up old crumbling walls. The costly monuments of
senatorial pride were broken to pieces in sport or in caprice, and
those structures which had excited the admiration of ages were
pulled down that their material might be used in erecting tasteless
edifices. Literature shared the general desolation. The valued
manuscripts of classical ages were mutilated, erased, or burned.
Ignorance finished the destruction which the barbarians began.
Ignorance as well as anarchy veiled Europe in darkness. The rust
of barbarism became harder and thicker. The last hope of man had
fled, and glory was succeeded by shame. Even slavery, the curse of
the Roman Empire, was continued by the barbarians; only, brute
force was not made subservient to intellect, but intellect to brute
force. The descendants of ancient patrician families were in
bondage to barbarians. The age was the jubilee of monsters.
Assassination was common, and was unavenged by law. Every man was
his own avenger of crime, and his bloody weapons were his only law.
Nor were there seen among the barbaric chieftains the virtues of
ancient Pagan Rome and Greece, for Christianity was nominal. War
was universal; for the barbarians, having no longer the Romans to
fight, fought among themselves. There were incessant irruptions of
different tribes passing from one country to another, in search of
plunder and pillage. There was no security of life or property,
and therefore no ambition for acquisition. Men hid themselves in
morasses, in forests, on the tops of inaccessible hills, and amid
the recesses of valleys, for violence was the rule and not the
exception. Even feudalism was not then born, and still less
chivalry. We find no elevated sentiments. The only refuge for the
miserable was in the Church, and it was governed by men who shrank
from the world. A cry of despair went up to heaven among the
descendants of the old population. There was no commerce, no
travel, no industries, no money, no peace. The chastisement of
Almighty Power seems to have been sent on the old races and the new
alike. It was a desolation greater than that predicted by Jeremy
the prophet. The very end of the world seemed to be at hand.
Never in the old seats of civilization was there such a
disintegration; never such a combination of evils and miseries.
And there appeared to be no remedy: nothing but a long night of
horrors and sufferings could be predicted. Gaul, or France, was
the scene of turbulence, invasions, and anarchies; of murders, of
conflagrations, and of pillage by rival chieftains, who sought to
divide its territories among themselves. The people were utterly
trodden down. England was the battlefield of Danes, Saxons, and
Celts, invaded perpetually, and split up into petty Saxon kingdoms.
The roads were infested with robbers, and agriculture was rude.
The people lived in cabins, dressed themselves in skins, and fed on
the coarsest food. Spain was invaded by Saracens, and the Gothic
kingdoms succumbed to these fierce invaders. Italy was portioned
out among different tribes, Gothic and Slavonic. But the
prevailing races in Europe were Germanic (who had conquered both
the Celts and the Romans), the Goths in Spain, the Franks and
Burgundians in France, the Lombards in Italy, the Saxons in
England.
What a commentary on the imperial government of the Caesars!--that
government which, with all its mechanisms and traditions, lasted
scarcely four hundred years. Was there ever, in the whole history
of the world, so sudden and mournful a change from civilization to
barbarism,--and this in spite of art, science, law, and
Christianity itself? Were there no conservative forces in that
imposing Empire? Why did society constantly decline for four
hundred years, with that civilization which was its boast and hope?
Oh, ye optimists, who talk so glibly about the natural and
necessary progress of humanity, why was the Roman Empire swept
away, with all its material glories, to give place to such a state
of society as I have just briefly described?
And yet men should arise in due time, after the punishment of five
centuries of crime and violence, wretchedness and despair, to
reconstruct, not from the old Pagan materials of Greece and Rome,
but with the fresh energies of new races, aided and inspired by the
truths of the everlasting gospel. The infancy of the new races,
sprung however from the same old Aryan stock, passed into vigorous
youth when Charlemagne appeared. From him we date the first
decided impulse given to the Gothic civilization. He was the
morning star of European hopes and aspirations.
Let us now turn to his glorious deeds. What were the services he
rendered to Europe and Christian civilization?
It was necessary that a truly great man should arise in the eighth
century, if the new forces of civilization were to be organized.
To show what he did for the new races, and how he did it, is the
historian's duty and task in describing the reign of Charlemagne,--
sent, I think, as Moses was, for a providential mission, in the
fulness of time, after the slaveries of three hundred years, which
prepared the people for labor and industry. Better was it that
they should till the lands of allodial proprietors in misery and
sorrow, attacked and pillaged, than to wander like savages in
forests and morasses in quest of a precarious support, or in great
predatory hands, as they did in the fourth and fifth centuries,
when they ravaged the provinces of the falling Empire. Nothing was
wanted but their consolidation under central rule in order to repel
aggressors. And that is what Charlemagne attempted to do.
He soon perceived the greatness of the struggle to which he was
destined, and he did not flinch from the contest which has given
him immortality. He comprehended the difficulties which surrounded
him and the dangers which menaced him.
The great perils which threatened Europe were from unsubdued
barbarians, who sought to replunge it into the miseries which the
great irruptions had inflicted three hundred years before. He
therefore bent all the energies of his mind and all the resources
of his kingdom to arrest these fresh waves of inundation. And so
long was his contest with Saxons, Avares, Lombards, and other
tribes and races that he is chiefly to be contemplated as a man who
struggled against barbarism. And he fought them, not for
excitement, not for the love of fighting, not for useless
conquests, not for military fame, not for aggrandizement, but
because a stern necessity was laid upon him to protect his own
territories and the institutions he wished to conserve.
Of these barbarians there was one nation peculiarly warlike and
ferocious, and which cherished an inextinguishable hatred not
merely of the Franks, but of civilization itself. They were
obstinately attached to their old superstitions, and had a great
repugnance to Christianity. They were barbarians, like the old
North American Indians, because they determined to be so; because
they loved their forests and the chase, indulged in amusements
which were uncertain and dangerous, and sought for nothing beyond
their immediate inclinations. They had no territorial divisions,
and abhorred cities as prisons of despotism. But, like all the
Germanic barbarians, they had interesting traits. They respected
women; they were brave and daring; they had a dogged perseverance,
and a noble passion for personal independence. But they were
nevertheless the enemies of civilization, of a regular and
industrious life, and sought plunder and revenge. The Franks and
Goths were once like them, before the time of Clovis; but they had
made settlements, they tilled the land, and built villages and
cities: they were partially civilized, and were converted to
Christianity. But these new barbarians could not be won by arts or
the ministers of religion. These people were the Saxons, and
inhabited those parts of Germany which were bounded by the Rhine,
the Oder, the North Sea, and the Thuringian forests. They were
fond of the sea, and of daring expeditions for plunder. They were
a kindred race to those Saxons who had conquered England, and had
the same elements of character. They were poor, and sought to live
by piracy and robbery. They were very dangerous enemies, but if
brought under subjection to law, and converted to Christianity,
might be turned into useful allies, for they had the materials of a
noble race.
With such a people on his borders, and every day becoming more
formidable, what was Charlemagne's policy? What was he to do? The
only thing to the eye of that enlightened statesman was to conquer
them, if possible, and add their territories to the Frankish
Empire. If left to themselves, they might have conquered the
Franks. It was either anvil or hammer. There could be no lasting
peace in Europe while these barbarians were left to pursue their
depredations. A vigorous warfare was imperative, for, unless
subdued, a disadvantageous war would be carried on near the
frontiers, until some warrior would arise among them, unite the
various chieftains, and lead his followers to successful invasion.
Charlemagne knew that the difficult and unpleasant work of
subjugation must be done by somebody, and he was unwilling to leave
the work to enervated successors. The work was not child's play.
It took him the best part of his life to accomplish it, and amid
great discouragements. Of his fifty-three expeditions, eighteen
were against the Saxons. As soon as he had cut off one head of the
monster, another head appeared. How allegorical of human labor is
that old fable of the Hydra! Where do man's labors cease?
Charlemagne fought not only amid great difficulties, but perpetual
irritations. The Saxons cheated him; they broke their promises and
their oaths. When beaten, they sued for peace; but the moment his
back was turned, they broke out in new insurrections. The fame of
Caesar chiefly rests on his eight campaigns in Gaul. But Caesar
had the disciplined Legions of Rome to fight with. Charlemagne had
no such disciplined troops. Yet he had as many difficulties to
surmount as Caesar,--rugged forests to penetrate, rapid rivers to
cross, morasses to avoid, and mountains to climb. It is a very
difficult thing to subdue even savages who are desperate,
determined, and united.
Charlemagne fought the Saxons for thirty-three years. Though he
never lost a battle, they still held out. At first he was generous
and forgiving, for he was more magnanimous than Caesar; but they
could not be won by kindness. He was obliged to change his course,
and at last was as summary as Oliver Cromwell in Ireland. He is
even accused of cruelties. But war in the hands of masters has no
quarter to give, and no tears to shed. It was necessary to conquer
the Saxons, and Charlemagne used the requisite means. Sometimes
the harshest measures will most speedily effect the end. Did our
fathers ever dream of compromise with treacherous and hostile
Indians? War has a horrid maxim,--that "nothing is so successful
as success." Charlemagne, at last, was successful. The Saxons
were so completely subdued at the end of thirty-three years, that
they never molested civilized Europe again. They became civilized,
like the once invading Celts and Goths; and they even embraced the
religion of the conquerors. They became ultimately the best people
in Europe,--earnest, honest, and brave. They formed great kingdoms
and states, and became new barriers against fresh inundations from
the North and East. The Saxons formed the nucleus of the great
German Empire (or were incorporated with it) which arose in the
Middle Ages, and which to-day is the most powerful in Europe, and
the least corrupted by the vices of a luxurious life. The
descendants of those Saxons are among the most industrious and
useful settlers in the New World.
There was one mistake which Charlemagne made in reference to them.
He forced their conversion to a nominal Christianity. He immersed
them in the rivers of Saxony, whether they would or no. He would
make them Christians in his way. But then, who does not seek to
make converts in his way, whether enlightened or not? When have
the principles of religious toleration been understood? Did the
Puritans understand them, with all their professions? Do we
tolerate, in our hearts, those who differ from us? Do not men look
daggers, though they dare not use them? If we had the power, would
we not seek to produce conformity with our notions, like Queen
Elizabeth, or Oliver Cromwell, or Archbishop Laud? There is not
perhaps a village in America where a true catholicism reigns.
There is not a spot upon the globe where there is not some form of
religious persecution. Nor is there any thing more sincere than
religious bigotry. And where people have not fundamental
principles to fight about, they will fight about technicalities and
matters of no account, and all the more bitterly sometimes when the
objects of contention are not worth fighting about at all,--as in
forms of worship, or baptism. Such is the weakness of human
nature. Charlemagne was no exception to the race. But if he
wished to make Christians in his way, he was, on the whole,
enlightened. He caused the young Saxons, whom he baptized and
marked with the sign of the Cross, to be educated. He built
monasteries and churches in the conquered territories. He
recognized this,--that Christianity, whatever it be, is the
mightiest power of the world; and he bore his testimony in behalf
of the intellectual dignity of the clergy in comparison with other
classes. He encouraged missions as well as schools.
There was another Germanic tribe at that time which he held in
great alarm, but which he did not attack, since they were not
immediately dangerous. This tribe or race was the Norman, just
then beginning their ravages,--pirates in open boats. They had
dared to enter a port in Narbonensis Gaul for purposes of plunder.
Some took them for Africans, and others for British merchants.
Nay, said Charlemagne, they are not merchants, but cruel enemies;
and he covered his face with his iron hands and wept like a child.
He did not fear these barbarians, but he wept when he foresaw the
evil they would do when he was dead. "I weep," said he, "that they
should dare almost to land on my shores, in my lifetime." These
Normans escaped him. They conquered and they founded kingdoms.
But they did not replunge Europe in darkness. A barrier had been
made against their inundation. The Saxon conquest was that
barrier. Moreover, the Normans were the noblest race of barbarians
which then roamed through the forests of Germany, or skirted the
shores of Scandinavia. They had grand natural traits of character.
They were poetic, brave, and adventurous. They were superior to
the Saxons and the Franks. When converted, they were the great
allies of the Pope, and early became civilized. To them we trace
the noblest development of Gothic architecture. They became great
scholars and statesmen. They were more refined by nature than the
Saxons, and avoided their gluttonous habits. In after times they
composed the flower of European chivalry. It was providential that
they were not subdued,--that they became the leading race in
Northern Europe. To them we trace the mercantile greatness of
England, for they were born sailors. They never lost their natural
heroism, or love of power.
The next important conquest of Charlemagne was that of the Avares,--
a tribe of the Huns, of Slavonic origin. They are represented as
very hideous barbarians, and only thought of plunder. They never
sought to reconstruct. There seemed to be no end of their
invasions from the time of Attila. They were more formidable for
their numbers and destructive ravages than for their military
skill. There was a time, however, when they threatened the
combined forces of Germany and Rome; but Europe was delivered by
the battle of Poictiers,--the bloodiest battle on record,--when
they seemed to be annihilated. But they sprang up again, in new
invasions, in the ninth century. Had they conquered, civilization
would have been crushed out. But Charlemagne was successful
against them, and from that time to this they were shut out from
western Europe. They would be formidable now, for the Russians are
the descendants of these people, were it not for the barrier raised
against them by the Germans. The necessities of Europe still
require the vast military strength and organization of Germany, not
to fight France, but to awe Russia. Napoleon predicted that Europe
would become either French or Cossack; but there is little
probability of Russian aggressions in Europe, so long as Russia is
held in check by Germany.
Charlemagne had now delivered France and Germany from external
enemies. He then turned his arms against the Saracens of Spain.
This was the great mistake of his life. Yet every one makes
mistakes, however great his genius. Alexander made the mistake of
pushing his arms into India; and Napoleon made a great blunder in
invading Russia. Even Caesar died at the right time for his
military fame, for he was on the point of attempting the conquest
of Parthia, where, like Crassus, he would probably have perished,
or have lost his army. Needless conquests seem to be impossible in
the moral government of God, who rules the fate of war. Conquests
are only possible when civilization seems to require them. 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. Prodigies of valor were wrought by him and his gallant
Paladins. The early heroic poetry of the Middle Ages has
commemorated his exploits, as well as those of his nephew Roland,
to whom some writers have ascribed the origin of Chivalry. But 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.
The Lombard wars of Charlemagne are the last to which I allude.
These were undertaken in defence of the Church, to rescue his ally
the Pope. The Lombards belonged to the great Germanic family, but
they were unfriendly to the Pope and to the Church. They stood out
against the Empire, which was then the chief hope of Europe and of
civilization. They would have reduced the Pope to insignificance
and seized his territories, without uniting Italy. So Charlemagne,
like his father Pepin, lent his powerful aid to the Roman bishop,
and the Lombards were easily subdued. This conquest, although the
easiest which he ever made, most flattered his pride. Lombardy was
not only joined to his Empire, but he received unparalleled honors
from the Pope, being crowned by him Emperor of the West.
It was a proud day when, in the ancient metropolis of the world,
and in the fulness of his fame, Pope Leo III. placed the crown of
Augustus upon Charlemagne's brow, and gave to him, amid the
festivities of Christmas, his apostolic benediction. His dominions
now extended from Catalonia to the Bohemian forests, embracing
Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and the Spanish main,--the
largest empire which any one man has possessed since the fall of
the Roman Empire. What more natural than for Charlemagne to feel
that he had restored the Western Empire? What more natural than
that he should have taken the title, still claimed by the Austrian
emperor, in one sense his legitimate successor,--Kaiser, or Caesar?
In the possession of such enormous power, he naturally dreamed of
establishing a new universal military monarchy like that of the
Romans,--as Charles V. dreamed, and Napoleon after him. But this
is a dream that Providence has rebuked among all successive
conquerors. There may have been need of the universal monarchy of
the Caesars, that Christianity might spread in peace, and be
protected by a reign of law and order. This at least is one of the
platitudes of historians. Froude himself harps on it in his life
of Caesar. Historians are fond of exalting the glories of
imperialism, and everybody is dazzled by the splendor and power of
ancient Roman emperors. They do not, I think, sufficiently
consider the blasting influence of imperialism on the life of
nations, how it dries up the sources of renovation, how it
necessarily withers literature and philosophy, how nothing can
thrive under it but pomp and material glories, how it paralyzes all
virtuous impulses, how it kills all enthusiasm, how it crushes out
all hope and lofty aspirations, how it makes slaves of its best
subjects, how it fills the earth with fear, how it drains national
resources to support standing armies, how it mocks all enterprises
which do not receive imperial approbation, how everything is
concentrated to reflect the glory of one man or family; how
impossible, under its withering shade, is manly independence, or
the free expression of opinions or healthy growth; how it buries
up, under its armies, discontents and aspirations alike, and
creates nothing but machinery which must ultimately wear out and
leave a world in ruins, with nothing stable to take its place. Law
and order are good things, the preservation of property is
desirable, the punishment of crime is necessary; but there are
other things which are valuable also. Nothing is so valuable as
the preservation of national life; nothing is so healthy as scope
for energies; nothing is so contemptible and degrading as universal
sycophancy to official rule. There are no tyrants more oppressive
than the tools of absolute power. See in what a state imperialism
left the Roman Empire when it fell. There were no rallying forces;
there was no resurrection of heroes. Vitality had fled. Where
would Turkey be to-day without the European powers, if the Sultan's
authority were to fall? It would be in the state of ancient
Babylon or Persia when those empires fell.
There is another side to imperialism besides dreaded anarchies.
Moreover, the whole progress of civilization has been counter to
it. The fiats of eternal justice have pronounced against it,
because it is antagonistic to the dignity of man and the triumphs
of reason. I would not fall in with the cant of the dignity of
man, because there is no dignity to man without aid from God
Almighty through His spirit and the message he has sent in
Christianity. But there is dignity in man with the aid of a
regenerating gospel. Some people talk of the triumphs of
Christianity under the Roman emperors; but see how rapidly it was
corrupted by them when they sought the aid of its institutions to
bolster up their power. The power of Christianity is in its
truths; in its religion, and not in its forms and institutions, in
its inventions to uphold the arms of despotism and the tools of
despotism. It is, and it was, and it will be through all the ages
the great power of the world, against which it is vain to rebel.
And that government is really the best which unfetters its
spiritual influence, and encourages it; and not that government
which seeks to perpetuate its corrupt and worldly institutions.
The Roman emperors made Christianity an institution, and obscured
its truths. And perhaps that is one reason why Providence
permitted their despotism to pass away,--preferring the rude
anarchy of the Germanic nations to the dead mechanism of a lifeless
Church and imperial rottenness. Imperialism must ever end in
rottenness. And that is one reason why the heart of Christendom--I
mean the people of Europe, in its enlightened and virtuous sections
has ever opposed imperialism. The progress has been slow, but
marked, towards representative governments,--not the reign of the
people directly, but of those whom they select to represent them.
The victory has been nearly gained in England. In France the
progress has been uniform since the Revolution. Napoleon revived,
or sought to revive, the imperialism of Rome. He failed. There is
nothing which the French now so cordially detest, since their eyes
have been opened to the character and ends of that usurper, as his
imperialism. It cannot be revived any more easily than the oracles
of Dodona. Even in Germany there are dreadful discontents in view
of the imperialism which Bismarck, by the force of successful wars,
has seemingly revived. The awful standing armies are a menace to
all liberty and progress and national development. In Italy itself
there is the commencement of constitutional authority, although it
is united under a king. The great standing warfare of modern times
is constitutional authority against the absolute power of kings and
emperors. And the progress has been on the side of liberty
everywhere, with occasional drawbacks, such as when Louis Napoleon
revived the accursed despotism of his uncle, and by the same
means,--a standing army and promises of military glory.
Hence, in the order of Providence, the dream of Charlemagne as to
unbounded military aggrandizement could not be realized. He could
not revive the imperialism of Rome or Persia. No man will ever
arise in Europe who can re-establish it, except for a brief period.
It will be rebuked by the superintending Power, because it is fatal
to the highest development of nations, because all its glories are
delusory, because it sows the seeds of ruin. It produces that very
egotism, materialism, and sensuality, that inglorious rest and
pleasure, which, as everybody concedes, prepared the way for
violence.
And hence Charlemagne's empire went to pieces as soon as he was
dead. There was nothing permanent in his conquests, except those
made against barbarism. He was raised up to erect barriers against
fresh inroads of barbarians. His whole empire was finally split up
into petty sovereignties. In one sense he founded States, "since
he founded the States which sprang up from the dismemberment of his
empire. The kingdoms of Germany, Italy, France, Burgundy,
Lorraine, Navarre, all date to his memorable reign." But these
mediaeval kingdoms were feudal; the power of the kings was nominal.
Government passed from imperialism into the hands of nobles. The
government of Europe in the Middle Ages was a military aristocracy,
only powerful as the interests of the people were considered.
Kings and princes did not make much show, except in the trappings
of royalty,--in gorgeous dresses of purple and gold, to suit a
barbaric taste,--in the insignia of power without its reality. The
power was among the aristocracy, who, it must be confessed, ground
down the people by a hard feudal rule, but who did not grind the
souls out of them, like the imperialism of absolute monarchies,
with their standing armies. Under them the feudal nobles of Europe
at length recuperated. Virtues were born everywhere,--in England,
in France, in Germany, in Holland,--which were a savor of life unto
life: loyalty, self-respect, fidelity to covenants, chivalry,
sympathy with human misery, love of home, rural sports, a glorious
rural life, which gave stamina to character,--a material which
Christianity could work upon, and kindle the latent fires of
freedom, and the impulses of a generous enthusiasm. It was under
the fostering influences of small, independent chieftains that
manly strength and organized social institutions arose once more,--
the reserved power of unconquerable nations. Nobody hates
feudalism--in its corruptions, in its oppressions--more than I do.
But it was the transition stage from the anarchy which the collapse
of imperialism produced to the constitutional governments of our
times, if we could forget the absolute monarchies which flourished
on the breaking up of feudalism, when it became a tyranny and a
mockery, but which absolute monarchies flourished only one or two
hundred years,--a sort of necessity in the development of nations
to check the insolence and overgrown power of nobles, but after all
essentially different from the imperialism of Caesar or Napoleon,
since they relied on the support of nobles and municipalities more
than on a standing army; yea, on votes and grants from parliaments
to raise money to support the army,--certainly in England, as in
the time of Elizabeth. The Bourbons, indeed, reigned without
grants from the people or the nobility, and what was the logical
result?--a French Revolution! Would a French Revolution have been
possible under the Roman Caesars?
But I will not pursue this gradual development of constitutional
government from the anarchies which arose out of the fall of the
Roman Empire,--just the reverse of what happened in the history of
Rome; I say no more of the imperialism which Charlemagne sought to
restore, but was not permitted by Providence, and which, after all,
was the dream of his latter days, when, like Napoleon, he was
intoxicated by power and brilliant conquests; and I turn to
consider briefly his direct effects in civilization, which showed
his great and enlightened mind, and on which his fame in no small
degree rests.
Charlemagne was no insignificant legislator. His Capitularies may
not be equal to the laws of Justinian in natural justice, but were
adapted to his times and circumstances. He collected the scattered
codes, so far as laws were codified, of the various Germanic
nations, and modified them. He introduced a great Christian
element into his jurisprudence. He made use of the canons of the
Church. His code is more ecclesiastical than that of Theodosius
even, the last great Christian emperor. But in his day the clergy
wielded great power, and their ordinances and decisions were
directed to society as it was. The clergy were the great jurists
of their day. The spiritual courts decided matters of great
importance, and took cognizance of cases which were out of the
jurisdiction of temporal courts. Charlemagne recognized the value
of these spiritual courts, and aided them. He had no quarrels with
ecclesiastics, nor was he jealous of their power. He allied
himself with it. He was a friend of the clergy. One of the
peculiarities of all the Germanic laws, seen especially in those of
Ina and Alfred, was pecuniary compensation for crime: fifty
shillings, in England, would pay for the loss of a foot, and twenty
for a nose and four for a tooth; thus recognizing a principle seen
in our times in railroad accidents, though not recognized in our
civil laws in reference to crimes. This system of compensation
Charlemagne retained, which perhaps answered for his day.
He was also a great administrator. Nothing escaped his vigilance.
I do not read that he made many roads, or effected important
internal improvements. The age was too barbarous for the
development of national industries,--one of the main things which
occupy modern statesmen and governments. But whatever he did was
wise and enlightened. He rewarded merit; he made an alliance with
learned men; he sought out the right men for important posts; he
made the learned Alcuin his teacher and counsellor; he established
libraries and schools; he built convents and monasteries; he gave
encouragement to men of great attainments; he loved to surround
himself with learned men; the scholars of all countries sought his
protection and patronage, and found him a friend. Alcuin became
one of the richest men in his dominions, and Englebert received one
of his daughters in marriage. Napoleon professed a great
admiration for Charlemagne, although Frederic II. was his model
sovereign. But how differently Napoleon acted in this respect!
Napoleon was jealous of literary genius. He hated literary men.
He rarely invited them to his table, and was constrained in their
presence. He drove them out of the kingdom even. He wanted
nothing but homage,--and literary genius has no sympathy with brute
force, or machinery, or military exploits. But Charlemagne, like
Peter the Great, delighted in the society of all who could teach
him anything. He was a tolerably learned man himself, considering
his life of activity. He spoke Latin as fluently as his native
German, and it is said that he understood Greek. He liked to visit
schools, and witness the performances of the boys; and, provided
they made proficiency in their studies, he cared little for their
noble birth. He was no respecter of persons. With wrath he
reproved the idle. He promised rewards to merit and industry.
The most marked feature of his reign, outside his wars, was his
sympathy with the clergy. Here, too, he differed from Napoleon and
Frederic II. Mr. Hallam considers his alliance with the Church the
great error of his reign; but I believe it built up his throne. In
his time the clergy were the most influential people of the Empire
and the most enlightened; but at that time the great contest of the
Middle Ages between spiritual and temporal authority had not begun.
Ambrose, indeed, had rebuked Theodosius, and set in defiance the
empress when she interfered with his spiritual functions; and Leo
had firmly established the Papacy by emphasizing a divine right to
his decrees. But a Hildebrand and a Becket had not arisen to usurp
the prerogatives of their monarchs. Least of all did popes then
dream of subjecting the temporal powers and raising the spiritual
over them, so as to lead to issues with kings. That was a later
development in the history of the papacy. The popes of the eighth
and ninth centuries sought to heal disorder, to punish turbulent
chieftains, to sustain law and order, to establish a tribunal of
justice to which the discontented might appeal. They sought to
conserve the peace of the world. They sought to rule the Church,
rather than the world. They aimed at a theocratic ministry,--to be
the ambassadors of God Almighty,--to allay strife and division.
The clergy were the friends of order and law, and they were the
natural guardians of learning. They were kindness itself to the
slaves,--for slavery still prevailed. That was an evil with which
the clergy did not grapple; they would ameliorate it, but did not
seek to remove it. Yet they shielded the unfortunate and the
persecuted and the poor; they gave the only consolation which an
iron age afforded. The Church was gloomy, ascetic, austere, like
the cathedrals of that time. Monks buried themselves in crypts;
they sang mournful songs; they saw nothing but poverty and misery,
and they came to the relief in a funereal way. But they were not
cold and hard and cruel, like baronial lords. Secular lords were
rapacious, and ground down the people, and mocked and trampled upon
them; but the clergy were hospitable, gentle, and affectionate.
They sympathized with the people, from whom they chiefly sprang.
They had their vices, but those vices were not half so revolting as
those of barons and knights. Intellectually, the clergy were at
all times the superiors of these secular lords. They loved the
peaceful virtues which were generated in the consecrated convent.
The passions of nobles urged them on to perpetual pillage,
injustice, and cruelty. The clergy quarrelled only among
themselves. They were human, and not wholly free from human
frailties; but they were not public robbers. They were the best
farmers of their times; they cultivated lands, and made them
attractive by fruits and flowers. They were generally industrious;
every convent was a beehive, in which various kinds of manufactures
were produced. The monks aspired even to be artists. They
illuminated manuscripts, as well as copied them; they made
tapestries and beautiful vestments. They were a peaceful and
useful set of men, at this period, outside their spiritual
functions; they built grand churches; they had fruitful gardens;
they were exceedingly hospitable. Every monastery was an inn, as
well as a beehive, to which all travellers resorted, and where no
pay was exacted. It was a retreat for the unfortunate, which no
one dared assail. And it was vocal with songs and anthems.
The clergy were not only thus general benefactors in an age of
turbulence and crime, in spite of all their narrowness and
spiritual pride and their natural ambition for power, but they lent
a helping hand to the peasantry. The Church was democratic, and
enabled the poor to rise according to their merits, while nobles
combined to crush them or keep them in an ignoble sphere. In the
Church, the son of a murdered peasant could rise according to his
deserts; but if he followed a warrior to the battle-field, no
virtues, no talents, no bravery could elevate him,--he was still a
peasant, a low-born menial. If he entered a monastery, he might
pass from office to office until as a mitred abbot he would become
the master of ten thousand acres, the counsellor of kings, the
equal of that proud baron in whose service his father spent his
abject life. The great Hildebrand was the son of a carpenter. The
Church ever recognized, what feudality did not,--the claims of man
as man; and enabled peasants' sons, if they had abilities and
virtues, to rise to proud positions,--to be the patrons of the
learned, the companions of princes, the ministers of kings.
And that is the reason why Charlemagne befriended the Church and
elevated it, because its influence was civilizing. He sought to
establish among the clergy a counterbalancing power to that of
nobles. Who can doubt that the influence of the Church was better
than that of nobles in the Middle Ages? If it ground down society
by a spiritual yoke, that yoke was necessary, for the rude Middle
Ages could be ruled only by fear. What fear more potent than the
destruction of the soul in a future life! It was by this weapon--
excommunication--that Europe was governed. We may abhor it, but it
was the great idea of Mediaeval Europe, which no one could resist,
and which kept society from dissolution. Charlemagne may have
erred in thus giving power and consideration to the clergy, in view
of the subsequent encroachments of the popes. But he never
anticipated the future quarrels between his successors and the
popes, for the popes were not then formidable as the antagonists of
kings. I believe his policy was the best for Europe, on the whole.
The infancy of the Gothic races was long, dark, dreary, and
unfortunate, but it prepared them for the civilization which they
scorned.
Such were the services which this great sovereign rendered to his
times and to Europe. He probably saved it from renewed barbarism.
He was the great legislator of the Middle Ages, and the greatest
friend--after Constantine and Theodosius--of which the Church can
boast. With him dawned the new civilization. He brought back
souvenirs of Rome and the Empire. Not for himself did he live, but
for the welfare of the nations he governed. It was his example
which Alfred sought to imitate. Though a warrior, he saw something
greater than the warrior's excellence. It is said he was eloquent,
like Julius Caesar. He loved music and all the arts. In his
palace at Aix-la-Chapelle were sung the songs of the earliest poets
of Germany. He took great pains to introduce the Gregorian chant.
He was simple in dress, and only on rare occasions did he indulge
in parade. He was temperate in eating and drinking, as all the
famous warriors have been. He absolutely abhorred drunkenness, the
great vice of the Northern nations. During meals he listened to
the lays of minstrels or the readings of his secretaries. He took
unwearied pains with the education of his daughters, and he was so
fond of them that they even accompanied him in his military
expeditions. He was not one of those men that Gibbon appreciated;
but his fame is steadily growing, after a lapse of a thousand
years. His whole appearance was manly, cheerful, and dignified.
His countenance reflected a child-like serenity. He was one of the
few men, like David, who was not spoiled by war and flatteries.
Though gentle, he was subject to fits of anger, like Theodosius;
but he did not affect anger, like Napoleon, for theatrical effect.
His greatness and his simplicity, his humanity and his religious
faith, are typical of the Germanic race. He died A. D. 814, after
a reign of half a century, lamented by his own subjects and to be
admired by succeeding generations. Hallam, though not eloquent
generally, has pronounced his most beautiful eulogy, "written in
the disgraces and miseries of succeeding times. He stands alone
like a rock in the ocean, like a beacon on a waste. His sceptre
was the bow of Ulysses, not to be bent by a weaker hand. In the
dark ages of European history, his reign affords a solitary
resting-place between two dark periods of turbulence and ignominy,
deriving the advantage of contrast both from that of the preceding
dynasty and of a posterity for whom he had founded an empire which
they were unworthy and unequal to maintain."
To such a tribute I can add nothing. His greatness consists in
this, that, born amidst barbarism, he was yet the friend of
civilization, and understood its elemental principles, and
struggled forty-seven years to establish them,--failing only
because his successors and subjects were not prepared for them, and
could not learn them until the severe experience of ten centuries,
amidst disasters and storms, should prove the value of the "old
basal walls and pillars" which remained unburied amid the despised
ruins of antiquity, and show that no structure could adequately
shelter the European nations which was not established by the
beautiful union of German vigor with Christian art,--by the
combined richness of native genius with those immortal treasures
which had escaped the wreck of the classic world.