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 anything more sincere than
religious bigotry. And when 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 laid the corner-stone of the Papacy by
instituting 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.