Produced by Andrew Dunning.
Created from scans by Robarts Library, University of Toronto, available
through the Internet Archive.
Transcriber's Note
The notes, keyed to line numbers in the source edition, have been
converted to footnotes. Their position has been corrected as necessary.
Minor emendations have been made to punctuation and spelling. Running
heads and the publisher's catalogue have been omitted.
THE KING'S CLASSICS
EARLY LIVES OF
CHARLEMAGNE
[Illustration: Charlemagne]
From a bronze statuette in the Musee Carnavalet. Paris
EARLY LIVES OF
CHARLEMAGNE BY
EGINHARD AND THE
MONK OF ST GALL
EDITED BY PROF.
A. J. GRANT
ALEXANDER MORING LIMITED THE
DE LA MORE PRESS 32 GEORGE
STREET HANOVER SQUARE
LONDON W 1905
_A lui finit la dissolution de l'ancien
monde, a lui commence l'edification
du monde moderne._
_Lavallee_
INTRODUCTION
*The two "Lives" contrasted.*--This volume contains two lives of Charles
the Great, or Charlemagne (for both forms of the name will be used
indifferently in this introduction); both written within a century after
his death; both full of admiration for the hero of whom they treat; both
written by ecclesiastics; but resembling one another in hardly any other
particular. It is not merely the value which each in its different way
possesses, but also the great contrast between them, that makes it seem
useful to present them together in a single volume. Professor Bury
remarked in his inaugural lecture at Cambridge: "It would be a most
fruitful investigation to trace from the earliest ages the history of
public opinion in regard to the meaning of falsehood and the obligation
of veracity"; and these two lives would form an interesting text for the
illustration of such a treatise. The restrained, positive, well-arranged
narrative of Eginhard seems to belong to a different age from the
garrulous, credulous, and hopelessly jumbled story of the Monk of Saint
Gall. And yet the two narratives were divided from one another by no
long interval of time. It is impossible to fix with any certainty the
date of the composition of Eginhard's life, but there are various
indications which make 820 a not impossible date. An incident mentioned
by the Monk of Saint Gall makes the task of dating his work within
limits an easier one. The work was suggested to him, he tells us, by
Charles III. when he stayed for three days at the Monastery of Saint
Gall, and it is possible to fix this event, with precision, to the year
883. We may think, therefore, of the Monk's narrative as being separated
from that of Eginhard by more than sixty years, and by about seventy
from the death of its hero. But in the ninth century the mist of legend
and myth steamed up rapidly from the grave of a well-known figure; there
were few documents ready to the hand of a monk writing in the cloister
of Saint Gall to assist him in writing an accurate narrative; there was
no publicity of publication and no critical public to detect the errors
of his work; above all, there was not in his own conscience the
slightest possibility of reproach even if, with full consciousness of
what he was doing, he changed the facts of history or interpolated the
dreams of fancy, provided it were done in such a manner as "to point a
moral or adorn a tale."
And so it is that, whereas through Eginhard's narrative we look at the
life of the great Charles in a clear white light, through a medium
which, despite a few inaccuracies, distorts the facts of history
wonderfully little, when we take up the narrative of the Monk, on the
other hand, we are at once among the clouds of dreamland; and only
occasionally does the unsubstantial fabric fade, and allow us to get a
glimpse of reality and actual occurrence. But now each of these
narratives demands a somewhat more careful scrutiny.
*Eginhard's Life of Charlemagne* is a document of the first importance
for the study of the epoch-making reign of his hero. Short as it is, we
have often to confess that in the chronicles of the same period by other
hands we can feel confidence only in such parts as are corroborated or
supported by Eginhard. Its chief fault is that it is all too short--a
fault which biographers rarely allow their readers to complain of. But
when we consider how admirably fitted Eginhard was for the task which he
undertook--by his close proximity to Charlemagne, by his intimate
acquaintance with him, by his literary studies and sober and
well-balanced mind; when we remember that he lived in a brief period of
literary activity between two long stretches of darkness--it is
tantalising to find him complaining of the multiplicity of books and
restraining himself with a quotation from Cicero from writing at greater
length.
*The Career of Eginhard.*--A sketch of Eginhard's career will show how
well qualified he was to deal with his subject. He was born about 770,
in the eastern half of the territories belonging to the great Charles,
in a village situate on the lower course of the river Main. His father
Eginhard and his mother Engilfrita were landowners of some importance,
and endowed by will the monastery of Fulda with lands and gold. It was
to this monastery that the young Eginhard was sent for education. The
monastery of Fulda was founded under the influence of Boniface, the
great Englishman, whose zeal had driven him from Crediton, in
Devonshire, to co-operate with the early Frankish kings in the
conversion and conquest of Germany. The monastic movement was strong and
vigorous in the eighth century, and nowhere more so than in the eastern
half of the Frankish dominions. Eginhard was trained under the Abbot
Baugulfus, and showed himself so apt and promising a pupil that the
Abbot recommended him for a post at the Court of Charles (? 791).
The imperial crown was still nearly ten years distant, but Charles was
already the most glorious and powerful of European rulers. In spite of
all his constant fighting and travelling his extraordinary energy found
place for interest in calmer subjects, and he gathered round him in his
Court at Aix the best of what the age had to show in culture, knowledge,
and eloquence. In this circle the most striking figure was Alcuin of
York; but Eginhard soon made for himself a position of importance.
Charles lived familiarly and genially with the scholars and writers of
his palace, calling them by pet names and nicknames, and receiving the
like in return. The King himself was David; Alcuin, Flaccus; Eginhard is
called Bezaleel, after the man of whom we are told in Exodus, chapter
xxxi., that he was "filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in
understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to
devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and
in cutting of stones, and in carving of timber." As the allusion
implies, Eginhard was no mere book-learned scholar, but had brought from
his monastery school much technical and artistic knowledge. He has been
called an architect, and many great buildings have been ascribed to him,
but with more than doubtful probability. The minor arts were rather
Eginhard's forte, though it seems impossible to define them.
Contemporaries speak of his carefully-wrought works, of the many tasks
in which he was useful to Charles, but without exact specification. A
contemporary document speaks of him as supervising the palace works at
Aix; or rather, one Ansegisus is described as "the executant of the
royal works in the royal palace at Aix, under the direction of the Abbot
Eginhard, a man possessed of every kind of learning."
He was of small stature, and this is often made good-humoured fun of by
his fellow-scholars. He is called the dwarf, the midget, the mannikin.
Theodulf describes him as running about with the activity of an ant, and
his body is spoken of as a small house with a great tenant. He married
Imma, a Frankish lady of good family. (It is merely a stupid legend that
makes of her a daughter of Charlemagne.) He lived with her happily, and
was inconsolable after her death. Before his wife's death and without
putting her away from him, he had embraced the monastic life--a
proceeding which in no way scandalised the ideas of that century. He was
the abbot of many monasteries, which he held, in spite of the canonical
prohibition, at the same time. Saint Peter of Ghent and Saint Wandrille,
near Rouen, are those with which he is specially associated. He was on
several occasions employed by Charles on important embassies, but was
for the most part rather his secretary and confidant than his minister.
His great master died in 814, and Eginhard survived him for twenty-nine
years, having lived long enough to see the mighty fabric of Charles's
empire show signs of the rapid ruin that was soon to overtake it. He
received from Lewis the Pious further ecclesiastical promotion, but
still lived at the Court until 830. After that year his devotion to the
Church mastered all other interests. He built a church at Mulinheim, and
procured for it with great pains the relics of Saint Peter and Saint
Marcellinus from Rome; and it was at Mulinheim, renamed Seligenstadt
(the city of the saints), far from the intrigues of courts, that he
passed most of the rest of his life. His wife Imma ("once my faithful
wife, and later my dear sister and companion") died in 836, and
Eginhard's deep sorrow at her loss finds pathetic expression in letters
still extant. The political confusion and the utter failure of
Charlemagne's plans must have increased Eginhard's distaste for public
affairs. He died at Seligenstadt (probably in 844). His epitaph gave as
his two titles to fame his services to Charlemagne and his acquisition
of the precious relics.
*The Writings of Eginhard* that have come down to us are--(1) the Life
of Charlemagne; (2) the Annals; (3) Letters; (4) the History of the
Translation of the Relics of Saint Peter and Saint Marcellinus; (5) a
short poem on the martyrdom of these two saints. These writings are all,
with the possible exception of the last mentioned, of high value and
interest, but the Life of Charlemagne is by far the most celebrated and
important.
*The Life of Charlemagne* is the most striking result of the Classical
Renaissance so diligently fostered at the Court of Charlemagne by the
Emperor himself. Its form is directly copied from the Lives of the
Caesars by Suetonius, and especially from the Life of Augustus in that
series. Phrases are constantly borrowed, and in some cases whole
sentences. This imitation of Suetonius has its good and its bad results.
It necessarily removed Eginhard's work from the category of mediaeval
chronicles, with their garrulity, their reckless inventions, their
humour, their desire to please, to amuse, and to glorify their hero,
their order, or their monastery. Eginhard's Life is not without
mistakes, some of which are pointed out in the notes; but it is an
honest, direct record of facts, and for these characteristics we are,
doubtless, largely indebted to Suetonius' influence. On the other hand,
it was the example of his classical model that induced him to keep his
work within such narrow limits. Compression was forced upon the Roman
historian by the scope of his work, which embraced the lives of twelve
emperors; and the life and reign of Augustus had already been fully
handled by other historians. But Eginhard knew so much, and so little of
equal value is written about his hero elsewhere, that his brevity is,
for once, a quality hardly pardonable. Along with Asser's Alfred and
Boccaccio's Dante it gives us an instance of a biographer who did not
sufficiently magnify his office and his subject.
No other account of the Life and Reign of Charlemagne can find a place
here. For some time English readers had reason to complain that there
was no good and popular book dealing with the great Charles, for
Gibbon's chapter is admittedly not among the best parts of his history.
But of late this reproach has been taken away. The two concluding
volumes of Dr Hodgkin's great work, entitled "Italy and her Invaders,"
deal with Charles and his relations with Italy (vols. vii. and viii.
"The Frankish Invasions" and "The Frankish Empire"). Dr Hodgkin has also
written a general sketch of the whole of Charles's career ("Charles the
Great." Foreign Statesmen Series. Macmillan). More recently, Mr Carless
Davis has written a "Life of Charlemagne" for the Heroes of the Nations
Series.
It is in works such as these (to mention no others) and not in Eginhard
that the real historical significance of Charlemagne's life-work
appears. Eginhard stood too near to his hero, and had too little sense
of historical perspective to realise the abiding greatness of what
Charles accomplished. It is the lapse of 1100 years that has brought
into increasing clearness the importance of those years which lie like a
great watershed between the ancient and the mediaeval world. Of him, as
of most great rulers, it is true that he "builded better than he knew."
His empire soon became a tradition, his intellectual revival was
eclipsed by a further plunge into the "Dark Ages," but all that he did
was not swept away. With him ends the ruin of the ancient world, and
with him begins the building up of the mediaeval and modern world.
He did not find in Eginhard an entirely worthy biographer; but the
"mannikin's" work has received unstinted praise since the time when it
was written. It was praised by a contemporary as recalling the elegance
of the classical authors; its popularity during the Middle Ages is
attested to by the existence of sixty manuscript copies; and a French
editor has declared that we have to go on to the thirteenth century, and
to Joinville's Life of St Louis, before we find a rival in importance to
Eginhard's Life of Charlemagne.
*The Monk of Saint Gall*, it seems, must remain anonymous, for the
attempt to identify him with Notker rests on no better foundation than
the fact, or supposition, that both stammered. And this seems to be
supposition rather than fact. We are, indeed, told on good authority
that Notker stammered; but the view that the Monk of Saint Gall suffered
from the same defect rests only on a sentence in Chapter XVII., where he
contrasts the swift, direct glance of others with his own slow and
rambling narrative--"Which I have been trying to unfold, though a
stammerer, and toothless" ("quae ego _balbus et edentalus_ explicare
tentavi"). It seems impossible to think that the words here must be
taken in their literal sense. As the author is writing, not speaking,
any defect of voice or teeth would in no way hinder his narrative: it is
clear that the words are a piece of conventional and metaphorical
depreciation.
We know, then, nothing of the author beyond what he tells us in his
narrative; and he tells us little, except that he was a German, and a
monk in the Monastery of Saint Gall when Grimald and Hartmuth were
abbots; that he had never himself been in Western Frankland, but had
seen the Emperor Charles III. during his three days' stay in the
monastery, and at his bidding had written an account of Charles the
Great, and his deeds and ways.
The monastery in which he wrote has a special interest for our islands;
for Saint Gall was an Irishman of noble family, and an inmate of a
monastery in County Down, which was at that time governed by Saint
Comgel. He was one of the twelve monks who in 585 followed Saint
Columban into Frankland. Switzerland was the great scene of his
evangelical labours. The Catholic Church celebrates his death on the
16th October; and tells in the _Lectiones_ of that day how he destroyed
the idols of the heathen; how he turned many to Christianity, and, even
to the monastic life; how he founded the Monastery of Saint Gall in his
eighty-fifth year, and died at the age of ninety-five, having previously
been warned in a dream of the death of his master, Saint Columban; and
how at once miracles declared that a saint had passed away. His
monastery for a century followed the rule of Saint Columban, and then,
in common with most monastic institutions of Western Europe, adopted the
rule of Saint Benedict.
It was in the famous abbey, that owed its foundation to this Irish
missionary, that this account of the deeds of Charlemagne--the Gesta
Karoli--was written. The author is at more pains than we should expect
to tell us from what sources he derived his information. The preface to
the work is lost; but at the end of the first book he repeats some of
the information that he had inserted in it. It was his intention, he
informs us, to follow three authorities, and three authorities only; but
of these three he seems to mention two only--Werinbert, a monk of Saint
Gall, who died just as he was completing the first part; and Adalbert,
the father of Werinbert, who followed Kerold, the brother of Queen
Hildigard, in the wars that were fought, under Charlemagne's banner,
against the Huns and the Saxons and Slavs. It is an amusing picture that
he gives us, at the end of the first book, of Adalbert's anxiety to tell
him of Charles's exploits and his own unwillingness to hear. It is to be
presumed that the stories were often repeated, for not only facts but
words seem to have remained in the mind of the unwilling listener. The
third authority does not seem to be mentioned, unless he means to imply
that Kerold himself (who was killed in an expedition against the Avars
in 799) is one of his sources of information.
The whole of what the Monk of Saint Gall wrote is not left to us. The
preface, as we have seen, is missing, and also, perhaps, a third book;
for in the sixteenth chapter of the second book it seems that our author
promises us an account of the habits of Charles, his _cotidiana
conversatio,_ when the story of his military exploits has been finished.
But this may easily be a misunderstanding of his meaning; or, rather, it
may be giving too great a precision to it. The good Monk is so little
able to follow out any line of thought, or to maintain any arrangement,
that it may well be that the "daily conversation" of Charles never
received any separate treatment.
No attempt will be made here to estimate the historical value of the
narrative, though it would be a matter of curious speculation to
consider whether the critical historian can employ any method whereby a
residuum of objective fact can be separated from the mass of legend,
saga, invention, and reckless blundering of which the greater part of
the book is made up. But, apart from any value which it may possess as a
historical document, the Monk's story is of great interest for the light
which it throws on the methods and outlook of a monk of the early Middle
Ages. Charles has been dead not much more than half-a-century; the
author has talked familiarly with those who knew him and fought under
him; and yet the Charlemagne legend has already begun. Charles is
already, if not inspired, at least supernaturally wise; if he does not
work miracles, miracles are wrought in his presence, and on his behalf;
if he does not yet lead the armies of Christendom to Jerusalem, he is
already the specially recognised protector of the Holy City. There are
passages too, as, for instance, the account of the visit of the envoys
of the Greek Emperor, and Charles's "iron-march to Pavia," where we seem
to detect the existence of a popular saga--a poem--underlying the prose
narrative. With the help of M. Gaston Paris's "_Histoire Poetique de
Charlemagne,_" we can trace the further development of the legend. By
the eleventh century Charles was already a martyr for the faith, and the
Crusaders believed themselves to be passing along his route to
Jerusalem. "Turpin's" chronicle, in the eleventh century, shows the vast
extension of the legend, which now loses all but the vaguest relation to
the actual events of history and the real characteristics of Charles. In
the twelfth century (1165) Charles was solemnly canonised; and
thenceforward the story spread into all lands, and received its last
stroke in the time of the Renaissance, at the hands of Pulci, Boiardo,
and Ariosto. These poets chiefly concern themselves, however, with the
paladins of Charles; and the King himself forms the dimly-conceived
centre, round whom the whole story revolves, deciding disputes,
besieging the Turks in Paris, priest-like rather than royal in his main
features, and by Ariosto treated with some irony and banter. These
mediaeval legends of Charlemagne may well be compared to those which
deal with Virgil, whose transformation into a magician is not less
remarkable than Charles's development into a saint. If the Charlemagne
legend ends with Ariosto, Dante may be said to have given the last shape
to the many transformations of Virgil, when, more than two centuries
before Ariosto's "Orlando," Virgil acted as guide to Dante through the
"lost folk" of the Inferno, and the toilsome ascent of Purgatory, until
he handed him over at last into the keeping of Beatrice at the gate of
the earthly Paradise.
Story and myth naturally attach themselves only to the greatest figures;
and the Monk of Saint Gall's narrative becomes then, even by virtue of
its inventions and unrealities, a testimony to the effect produced on
the mind of his century by the career of Charles.
Both the life of Eginhard and the Monk's narrative have been translated
from Jaffe's "Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum"; which, both in its
reading and arrangement, differs at times considerably from the text
given in Pertz's "Monumenta Germaniae Historica."
CONTENTS
_INTRODUCTION_ . . . . . ix
_EGINHARD'S LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE_ . . . . . xxxi
_The Prologue of Walafrid_ . . . . . 1
_The Preface of Eginhard_ . . . . . 4
_EGINHARD'S BOOK BEGINS_ (Sec. 1-4) . . . . . 8
_Part I._ (Sec. 5-17). His Exploits at Home and Abroad . . . . .
13
_Part II._ (Sec. 18-33). Private Life and Character . . . . . 32
_MONK OF ST GALL'S LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE_ . . . . . 57
_Book I._ (Sec. 1-34). His Piety and Care of the Church . . . .
. 59
_Book II._ (Sec. 1-20). Wars and Exploits . . . . . 105
_NOTES_ . . . . . 161
_INDEX_ . . . . . 177
THE LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE BY EGINHARD
THE PROLOGUE OF WALAFRID[1]
The following account of that most glorious Emperor Charles was written,
as is well known, by Eginhard, who amongst all the palace officials of
that time had the highest praise not only for learning but also for his
generally high character; and, as he was himself present at nearly all
the events that he describes, his account has the further advantage of
the strictest accuracy.
He was born in eastern Frankland, in the district that is called
Moingewi, and it was in the monastery of Fulda, in the school of Saint
Boniface the Martyr, that his boyhood received its first training.
Thence he was sent by Baugolf, the abbot of the monastery, to the palace
of Charles, rather on account of his remarkable talents and
intelligence, which even then gave bright promise of his wisdom that was
to be so famous in later days, than because of any advantage of birth.
Now, Charles was beyond all kings most eager in making search for wise
men and in giving them such entertainment that they might pursue
philosophy in all comfort. Whereby, with the help of God, he rendered
his kingdom, which, when God committed it to him, was dark and almost
wholly blind (if I may use such an expression), radiant with the blaze
of fresh learning, hitherto unknown to our barbarism. But now once more
men's interests are turning in an opposite direction, and the light of
wisdom is less loved, and in most men is dying out.
And so this little man--for he was mean of stature--gained so much glory
at the Court of the wisdom-loving Charles by reason of his knowledge and
high character that among all the ministers of his royal Majesty there
was scarce anyone at that time with whom that most powerful and wise
King discussed his private affairs more willingly. And, indeed, he
deserved such favour, for not only in the time of Charles, but even more
remarkably in the reign of the Emperor Lewis,[2] when the commonwealth
of the Franks was shaken with many and various troubles, and in some
parts was falling into ruin, he so wonderfully and providentially
balanced his conduct, and, with the protection of God, kept such a watch
over himself, that his reputation for cleverness, which many had envied
and many had mocked at, did not untimely desert him nor plunge him into
irremediable dangers.
This I have said that all men may read his words without doubting, and
may know that, while he has given great glory to his great leader, he
has also provided the curious reader with the most unsullied truth.
I, Strabo, have inserted the headings and the decorations[3] as seemed
well to my own judgement that he who seeks for any point may the more
easily find what he desires.
_Here ends the Prologue_
THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES
WRITTEN BY EGINHARD
Having made up my mind to write an account of the life and conversation,
and to a large extent of the actions of my lord and patron King Charles,
of great and deservedly glorious memory, I have compressed my task
within the narrowest possible limits. My aim has been on the one hand to
insert everything of which I have been able to find an account; and on
the other to avoid offending the fastidious by telling each new incident
at wearisome length. Above all, I have tried to avoid offending in this
new book those who look down upon even the monuments of antiquity
written by learned and eloquent men.
There are, I do not doubt, many men of learning and leisure who feel
that the life of the present day must not be utterly neglected, and that
the doings of our own time should not be devoted to silence and
forgetfulness as wholly unworthy of record; who, therefore, have such
love of fame that they would rather chronicle the great deeds of others
in writings, however poor, than, by abstaining from writing, allow their
name and reputation to perish from the memory of mankind.[4] But, even
so, I have felt that I ought not to hold my hand from the composition of
this book, for I knew that no one could write of these events more
truthfully than I could, since I was myself an actor in them, and, being
present, knew them from the testimony of my own eyes; while I could not
certainly know whether anyone else would write them or no. I thought it
better, therefore, to join with others in committing this story to
writing for the benefit of posterity rather than to allow the shades of
oblivion to blot out the life of this King, the noblest and greatest of
his age, and his famous deeds, which the men of later times will
scarcely be able to imitate.
Another reason, and not, I think, a foolish one, occurred to me, which
even by itself would have been strong enough to persuade me to
write--the care, I mean, that was taken with my upbringing, and the
unbroken friendship which I enjoyed with the King himself and his
children from the time when first I began to live at his Court. For in
this way he has so bound me to himself, and has made me his debtor both
in life and death, that I should most justly be considered and condemned
as ungrateful if I were to forget all the benefits that he conferred
upon me and were to pass over in silence the great and glorious deeds of
a man who was so kind to me; if I were to allow his life to remain as
unchronicled and unpraised, as if he had never lived, when that life
deserves not merely the efforts of my poor talents, which are
insignificant, small and almost non-existent, but all the eloquence of a
Cicero.
So here you have a book containing the life of that great and glorious
man. There is nothing for you to wonder at or admire except his deeds;
unless, indeed, it be that I, a barbarian, and little versed in the
Roman tongue,[5] have imagined that I could write Latin inoffensively
and usefully, and have become so swollen with impudence as to despise
Cicero's words when, speaking about Latin writers in the first book of
the Tusculans, he says: "If a man commits his thoughts to paper when he
can neither arrange them well nor write them agreeably, nor furnish
pleasure of any kind to the reader, he is recklessly misusing both his
leisure and his paper." The great orator's opinion would, perhaps, have
deterred me from writing if I had not fortified myself with the
reflection that I ought to risk the condemnation of men, and bring my
poor talents into peril by writing, rather than spare my reputation and
neglect this great man's memory.
_The Preface ends: the Book begins_
The race of the Merovings from which the Franks were accustomed to
choose their kings is reckoned as lasting to King Hilderich,[6] who, by
the order of Stephen, the Roman Pontiff,[7] was deposed, tonsured, and
sent into a monastery. But this race, though it may be regarded as
finishing with him, had long since lost all power, and no longer
possessed anything of importance except the empty royal title. For the
wealth and power of the kingdom was in the hands of the Praefects of the
Court, who were called Mayors of the Palace, and exercised entire
sovereignty. The King, contented with the mere royal title, with long
hair and flowing beard, used to sit upon the throne and act the part of
a ruler, listening to ambassadors, whencesoever they came, and giving
them at their departure, as though of his own power, answers which he
had been instructed or commanded to give. But this was the only function
that he performed, for besides the empty royal title and the precarious
life income which the Praefect of the Court allowed him at his pleasure
he had nothing of his own except one estate with a very small revenue,
on which he had his house, and from which he drew the few servants who
performed such services as were necessary and made him a show of
deference. Wherever he had to go he travelled in a waggon, drawn in
rustic style by a pair of oxen, and driven by a cowherd.[8] In this
fashion he used to go to the palace and to the general meetings of the
people, which were held yearly for the affairs of the kingdom; in this
fashion he returned home. But the Praefect of the Court looked after the
administration of the kingdom and all that had to be done or arranged at
home or abroad.
2. When Hilderich was deposed Pippin, the father of King Charles, was
performing the duties of Mayor of the Palace as if by hereditary right.
For his father Charles,[9] who put down the tyrants who were claiming
dominion for themselves through all Frankland, and so crushed the
Saracens, when they were attempting to conquer Gaul, in two great
battles (the one in Aquitania, near the city of Poitiers, the other near
Narbonne, on the river Birra), that he forced them to return into
Spain--his father Charles had nobly administered the same office, and
had inherited it from his father Pippin.[10] For the people did not
usually give this honour except to such as were distinguished for the
renown of their family and the extent of their wealth.
This office, then, was handed down from his father and his grandfather
to Pippin, the father of King Charles, and to his brother Carloman. He
exercised it for some years conjointly with his brother Carloman on
terms of the greatest harmony, still in nominal subordination to the
above-mentioned King Hilderich. But then his brother Carloman, for some
unknown cause, but probably fired with love of the contemplative life,
abandoned the toilsome administration of a temporal kingdom and retired
to Rome in search of peace. There he changed his dress, and, becoming a
monk in the monastery upon Mount Soracte, built near the church of the
blessed Silvester, enjoyed for some years the quiet that he desired,
with many brethren, who joined themselves to him for the same purpose.
But as many of the nobles of Frankland came on pilgrimage to Rome to
perform their vows, and, unwilling to pass by one who had once been
their lord, interrupted the peace that he most desired by frequent
visits, he was compelled to change his abode. For, seeing that the
number of his visitors interfered with his purpose, he left Mount
Soracte and retired to the monastery of Saint Benedict, situated in the
camp of Mount Cassino, in the province of Samnium. There he occupied
what remained to him of this temporal life in religious exercises.
3. But Pippin, after he was made King instead of Mayor of the Palace by
the authority of the Roman Pontiff, exercised sole rule over the Franks
for fifteen years, or rather more.[11] Then, after finishing the
Aquitanian war, which he had undertaken against Waifar, Duke of
Aquitania, and had carried on for nine consecutive years, he died at
Paris of the dropsy, and left behind him two sons, Charles and Carloman,
to whom by divine will the succession of the kingdom came. For the
Franks called a solemn public assembly, and elected both of them to be
kings, on the understanding that they should equally divide the whole
kingdom, but that Charles should receive for his special administration
that part which his father Pippin had held, while Carloman received the
territories ruled by their uncle Carloman.[12] The conditions were
accepted, and each received the share of the kingdom that was allotted
to him. Harmony was maintained between the two brothers, though not
without difficulty; for many partisans of Carloman tried to break their
alliance, and some even hoped to engage them in war. But the course of
events proved that the danger to Charles was imaginary rather than real.
For, upon the death of Carloman, his wife with her sons and some of the
leading nobles fled to Italy, and, for no obvious reason, passed over
her husband's brother, and placed herself and her children under the
protection of Desiderius, King of the Lombards. Carloman, after ruling
the kingdom for two years conjointly with Charles, died of disease, and
Charles, upon the death of Carloman,[13] was made sole king with the
consent of all the Franks.
4. It would be foolish of me to say anything about his birth and
infancy,[14] or even about his boyhood, for I can find nothing about
these matters in writing, nor does anyone survive who claims to have
personal knowledge of them. I have decided, therefore, to pass on to
describe and illustrate his acts and his habits and the other divisions
of his life without lingering over the unknown. I shall describe first
his exploits both at home and abroad, then his habits and interests, and
lastly the administration of the kingdom and the end of his reign,
omitting nothing that demands or deserves to be recorded.
PART I
HIS EXPLOITS AT HOME AND ABROAD
5. Of all the wars that he waged that in Aquitania, begun, but not
finished, by his father, was the first that he undertook, because it
seemed easy of accomplishment. His brother was still alive, and was
called upon for assistance, and, though he failed to provide the help
that he promised, Charles prosecuted the enterprise that he had
undertaken with the utmost energy, and would not desist or slacken in
his task before, by perseverance and continuous effort, he had
completely reached the end after which he strove. For he forced
Hunold,[15] who after the death of Waifar had attempted to occupy
Aquitania and renew the almost finished war, to abandon Aquitania and
retire into Gascony. Even there he did not allow him to remain, but
crossed the Garonne, and sent ambassadors to Lupus, Duke of the Gascons,
ordering him to surrender the fugitive, and threatening him with war
unless he did so at once. Lupus, more wisely, not only surrendered
Hunold but also submitted himself and the province over which he
presided to the power of Charles.
6. When the Aquitanian trouble was settled and the war finished, when,
too, his partner in the kingdom had withdrawn from the world's affairs,
he undertook a war against the Lombards, being moved thereto by the
entreaties and the prayers of Hadrian, Bishop of the City of Rome. Now,
this war, too, had been undertaken by his father at the supplication of
Pope Stephen, under circumstances of great difficulty, inasmuch as
certain of the chiefs of the Franks, whose advice he was accustomed to
ask, so strongly resisted his wishes that they openly declared that they
would leave their King to return home. But now Charles undertook the war
against King Haistulf, and most swiftly brought it to an end. For,
though his reasons for undertaking the war were similar to, and, indeed,
the same as those of his father, he plainly fought it out with a very
different energy, and brought it to a different end. For Pippin, after a
siege of a few days at Pavia, forced King Haistulf to give hostages, and
restore to the Romans the towns and fortresses that he had taken from
them, and to give a solemn promise that he would not attempt to regain
what he had surrendered. But King Charles, when once he had begun the
war, did not stop until he had received the surrender of King
Desiderius, whom he had worn down after a long siege; until he had
forced his son Adalgis, in whom the hopes of his people seemed to be
centred, to fly not only from his kingdom but from Italy; until he had
restored to the Romans all that had been taken from them; until he had
crushed Hruodgausus, Praefect of the Duchy of Friuli, who was attempting
a revolution; until, in fine, he had brought all Italy under his rule,
and placed his son Pippin as king over the conquered country. I should
describe here the difficulties of the passage of the Alps and the vast
toil with which the Franks found their way through the pathless mountain
ridges, the rocks that soared to heaven, and the sharply-pointed cliffs,
if it were not that my purpose in the present work is rather to describe
Charles's manner of life than to chronicle the events of the wars that
he waged. The sum of this war was the conquest of Italy, the
transportation and perpetual exile of King Desiderius, the expulsion of
his son Adalgis from Italy, power taken from the kings of the Lombards
and restored to Hadrian, the Ruler of the Roman Church.
7. When this war was ended the Saxon war,[16] which seemed dropped for a
time, was taken up again. Never was there a war more prolonged nor more
cruel than this, nor one that required greater efforts on the part of
the Frankish peoples. For the Saxons, like most of the races that
inhabit Germany, are by nature fierce, devoted to the worship of demons
and hostile to our religion, and they think it no dishonour to confound
and transgress the laws of God and man.[17] There were reasons, too,
which might at any time cause a disturbance of the peace. For our
boundaries and theirs touch almost everywhere on the open plain, except
where in a few places large forests or ranges of mountains are
interposed to separate the territories of the two nations by a definite
frontier; so that on both sides murder, robbery, and arson were of
constant occurrence. The Franks were so irritated by these things that
they thought it was time no longer to be satisfied with retaliation but
to declare open war against them.
So war was declared, and was fought for thirty years continuously with
the greatest fierceness on both sides, but with heavier loss to the
Saxons than the Franks. The end might have been reached sooner had it
not been for the perfidy of the Saxons. It is hard to say how often they
admitted themselves beaten and surrendered as suppliants to King
Charles; how often they promised to obey his orders, gave without delay
the required hostages, and received the ambassadors that were sent to
them. Sometimes they were so cowed and broken that they promised to
abandon the worship of devils and willingly to submit themselves to the
Christian religion.[18] But though sometimes ready to bow to his
commands they were always eager to break their promise, so that it is
impossible to say which course seemed to come more natural to them, for
from the beginning of the war there was scarcely a year in which they
did not both promise and fail to perform.
But the high courage of the King and the constancy of his mind, which
remained unshaken by prosperity and adversity, could not be conquered by
their changes nor forced by weariness to desist from his undertakings.
He never allowed those who offended in this way to go unpunished, but
either led an army himself, or sent one under the command of his counts,
to chastise their perfidy and inflict a suitable penalty. So that at
last, when all who had resisted had been defeated and brought under his
power, he took ten thousand of the inhabitants of both banks of the
Elbe, with their wives and children, and planted them in many groups in
various parts of Germany and Gaul. And at last the war, protracted
through so many years, was finished on conditions proposed by the King
and accepted by them; they were to abandon the worship of devils, to
turn from their national ceremonies, to receive the sacraments of the
Christian faith and religion, and then, joined to the Franks, to make
one people with them.
8. In this war, despite its prolongation through so many years, he did
not himself meet the enemy in battle more than twice--once near the
mountain called Osning, in the district of Detmold, and again at the
river Hasa[19]--and both these battles were fought in one month, with an
interval of only a few days. In these two battles the enemy were so
beaten and cowed that they never again ventured to challenge the King
nor to resist his attack unless they were protected by some advantage of
ground.
In this war many men of noble birth and high office fell on the side
both of the Franks and Saxons. But at last it came to an end in the
thirty-third year, though in the meanwhile so many and such serious wars
broke out against the Franks in all parts of the world, and were carried
on with such skill by the King, that an observer may reasonably doubt
whether his endurance of toil or his good fortune deserves the greater
admiration. For the war in Italy began two years before the Saxon war,
and though it was prosecuted without intermission no enterprise in any
part of the world was dropped, nor was there anywhere a truce in any
struggle, however difficult. For this King, the wisest and most
high-minded of all who in that age ruled over the nations of the world,
never refused to undertake or prosecute any enterprise because of the
labour involved, nor withdrew from it through fear of its danger. He
understood the true character of each task that he undertook or carried
through, and thus was neither broken by adversity nor misled by the
false flatteries of good fortune.
9. Whilst the war with the Saxons was being prosecuted constantly and
almost continuously he placed garrisons at suitable places on the
frontier, and attacked Spain with the largest military expedition that
he could collect. He crossed the Pyrenees, received the surrender of all
the towns and fortresses that he attacked, and returned with his army
safe and sound, except for a reverse which he experienced through the
treason of the Gascons on his return through the passes of the Pyrenees.
For while his army was marching in a long line, suiting their formation
to the character of the ground and the defiles, the Gascons placed an
ambuscade on the top of the mountain--where the density and extent of
the woods in the neighbourhood rendered it highly suitable for such a
purpose--and then rushing down into the valley beneath threw into
disorder the last part of the baggage train and also the rearguard which
acted as a protection to those in advance. In the battle which followed
the Gascons slew their opponents to the last man. Then they seized upon
the baggage, and under cover of the night, which was already falling,
they scattered with the utmost rapidity in different directions. The
Gascons were assisted in this feat by the lightness of their armour and
the character of the ground where the affair took place. In this battle
Eggihard, the surveyor of the royal table; Anselm, the Count of the
Palace; and Roland, Praefect of the Breton frontier, were killed along
with very many others.[20] Nor could this assault be punished at once,
for when the deed had been done the enemy so completely disappeared that
they left behind them not so much as a rumour of their whereabouts.
10. He conquered the Bretons, too, who dwelt in the extreme west of
France by the shores of the ocean. They had been disobedient, and he,
therefore, sent against them an expedition, by which they were compelled
to give hostages and promise that they would henceforth obey his orders.
Then later he himself entered Italy with an army, and, passing through
Rome, came to Capua, a city of Campania. There he pitched his camp, and
threatened the men of Beneventum[21] with war unless they surrendered.
But Aragis, Duke of that people, prevented this war by sending his sons
Rumold and Grimold to meet the King with a large sum of money. He asked
the King to receive his children as hostages, and promised that he and
his people would obey all the commands of the King, except only that he
would not come himself into the King's presence. Charles, considering
rather the advantage of the people than their Duke's obstinacy, received
the hostages who were offered him, and as a great favour consented to
forego a personal interview. He kept the younger of the two children as
a hostage and sent back the elder one to his father. Then he sent
ambassadors to require and receive oaths of fidelity from the
Beneventans and from Aragis, and so came back to Rome. There he spent
some days in the veneration of the holy places, and then returned to
Gaul.
11. Then the Bavarian war broke out suddenly, and was swiftly ended. It
was caused by the pride and folly of Tassilo,[22] Duke of Bavaria; for
upon the instigation of his wife, who thought that she might revenge
through her husband the banishment of her father Desiderius, King of the
Lombards, he made an alliance with the Huns, the eastern neighbours of
the Bavarians, and not only refused obedience to King Charles but even
dared to challenge him in war. The high courage of the King could not
bear his overweening insolence, and he forthwith called a general levy
for an attack on Bavaria, and came in person with a great army to the
river Lech, which separates Bavaria from Germany. He pitched his camp
upon the banks of the river, and determined to make trial of the mind of
the Duke before he entered the province. But Duke Tassilo saw no profit
either for himself or his people in stubbornness, and threw himself upon
the King's mercy. He gave the hostages who were demanded, his own son
Theodo among the number, and further promised upon oath that no one
should ever persuade him again to fall away from his allegiance to the
King. And thus a war which seemed likely to grow into a very great one
came to a most swift ending. But Tassilo was subsequently summoned into
the King's presence, and was not allowed to return, and the province
that he ruled was for the future committed to the administration not of
dukes but of counts.[23]
12. When these troubles had been settled he waged war against the Slavs,
whom we are accustomed to call Wilzi, but who properly--that is, in
their own tongue--are called Welatabi. Here the Saxons fought along with
the other allied nations who followed the King's standards, though their
loyalty was feigned and far from sincere. The cause of the war was that
the Wilzi[24] were constantly invading and attacking the Abodriti, the
former allies of the Franks, and refused to obey the King's commands to
desist from their attacks. There is a gulf[25] stretching from the
western sea towards the East, of undiscovered length, but nowhere more
than a hundred miles in breadth, and often much narrower. Many nations
occupy the shores of this sea. The Danes and the Swedes, whom we call
the Northmen, hold its northern shore and all the islands in it. The
Slavs and the Aisti and various other nations inhabit the eastern shore,
amongst whom the chief are these Welatabi against whom then the King
waged war. He so broke and subdued them in a single campaign, conducted
by himself, that they thought it no longer wise to refuse to obey his
commands.
13. The greatest of all his wars, next to the Saxon war, followed this
one--that, namely, which he undertook against the Huns and the
Avars.[26] He prosecuted this with more vigour than the rest and with a
far greater military preparation. However, he conducted in person only
one expedition into Pannonia, the province then occupied by the Avars;
the management of the rest he left to his son Pippin, and the governors
of the provinces, and in some cases to his counts and lieutenants. These
carried on the war with the greatest energy, and finished it after eight
years of fighting. How many battles were fought there and how much blood
was shed is still shown by the deserted and uninhabited condition of
Pannonia, and the district in which stood the palace of the Kagan[27] is
so desolate that there is not so much as a trace of human habitation.
All the nobles of the Huns were killed in this war, all their glory
passed away; their money and all the treasures that they had collected
for so long were carried away. Nor can the memory of man recall any war
waged against the Franks by which they were so much enriched and their
wealth so increased.[28] Up to this time they were regarded almost as a
poor people, but now so much gold and silver were found in the palace,
such precious spoils were seized by them in their battles, that it might
fairly be held that the Franks had righteously taken from the Huns what
they unrighteously had taken from other nations. Only two of the nobles
of the Franks were killed in this war. Eric, the Duke of Friuli, was
caught in an ambuscade laid by the townsmen of Tharsatica,[29] a
maritime town of Liburnia. And Gerold, the Governor of Bavaria, when he
was marshalling his army to fight with the Huns in Pannonia, was killed
by an unknown hand, along with two others, who accompanied him as he
rode along the line encouraging the soldiers by name. For the rest, the
war was almost bloodless so far as the Franks were concerned, and most
fortunate in its result although so difficult and protracted.
14. After this the Saxon war ended in a settlement as lasting as the
struggle had been protracted. The wars with Bohemia and Luneburg which
followed were soon over; both of them were swiftly settled under the
command of the younger Charles.
The last war of all that Charles undertook was against those
Northmen,[30] who are called Danes, who first came as pirates, and then
ravaged the coasts of Gaul and Germany with a greater naval force. Their
King, Godofrid, was puffed up with the vain confidence that he would
make himself master of all Germany. He looked upon Frisia and Saxony as
his own provinces. He had already reduced his neighbours the Abodriti to
obedience, and had forced them to pay him tribute. Now he boasted that
he would soon come to Aix, the seat of the King's Court, with a mighty
force. His boast, however idle, found some to believe it; it was thought
that he would certainly have made some such attempt if he had not been
prevented by a sudden death. For he was killed by one of his own
followers, and so ended both his life and the war that he had begun.
15. These, then, are the wars which this mighty King waged during the
course of forty-seven years--for his reign extended over that period--in
different parts of the world with the utmost skill and success. By these
wars he so nobly increased the kingdom of the Franks, which was great
and strong when he inherited it from his father Pippin, that the
additions he made almost doubled it.[31] For before his time the power
of the Frankish kingdom extended only over that part of Gaul which is
bounded by the Rhine, the Loire, and the Balearic Sea;[32] and that part
of Germany which is inhabited by the so-called eastern Franks, and which
is bounded by Saxony, the Danube, the Rhine, and the river Saal, which
stream separates the Thuringians and the Sorabs; and, further, over the
Alamanni and the Bavarians. But Charles, by the wars that have been
mentioned, conquered and made tributary the following countries:--First,
Aquitania and Gascony, and the whole Pyrenean range, and the country of
Spain as far as the Ebro, which, rising in Navarre and passing through
the most fertile territory of Spain, falls into the Balearic Sea,
beneath the walls of the city of Tortosa; next, all Italy from Augusta
Praetoria as far as lower Calabria, where are the frontiers of the
Greeks and Beneventans, a thousand miles and more in length; next,
Saxony, which is a considerable portion of Germany, and is reckoned to
be twice as broad and about as long as that part of Germany which is
inhabited by the Franks; then both provinces of Pannonia and Dacia, on
one side of the river Danube, and Histria and Liburnia and Dalmatia,
with the exception of the maritime cities which he left to the Emperor
of Constantinople on account of their friendship and the treaty made
between them; lastly, all the barbarous and fierce nations lying between
the Rhine, the Vistula, the Ocean, and the Danube, who speak much the
same language, but in character and dress are very unlike. The chief of
these last are the Welatabi, the Sorabi, the Abodriti, and the
Bohemians; against these he waged war, but the others, and by far the
larger number, surrendered without a struggle.
16. The friendship, too, which he established with certain kings and
peoples increased the glory of his reign.
Aldefonsus, King of Gallaecia and Asturica, was joined in so close an
alliance with him that whenever he sent letters or ambassadors to
Charles he gave instructions that he should be called "the man" of the
Frankish King.[33]
Further, his rich gifts had so attached the kings of the Scots to his
favour that they always called him their lord and themselves his
submissive servants. Letters are still in existence sent by them to
Charles in which those feelings towards him are clearly shown.
With Aaron,[34] the King of the Persians, who ruled over all the East,
with the exception of India, he entertained so harmonious a friendship
that the Persian King valued his favour before the friendship of all the
kings and princes in the world, and held that it alone deserved to be
cultivated with presents and titles. When, therefore, the ambassadors of
Charles, whom he had sent with offerings to the most holy sepulchre of
our Lord and Saviour and to the place of His resurrection, came to the
Persian King and proclaimed the kindly feelings of their master, he not
only granted them all they asked but also allowed that sacred place of
our salvation to be reckoned as part of the possessions of the Frankish
King.[35] He further sent ambassadors of his own along with those of
Charles upon the return journey, and forwarded immense presents to
Charles--robes and spices, and the other rich products of the East--and
a few years earlier he had sent him at his request an elephant,[36]
which was then the only one he had.
The Emperors of Constantinople, Nicephorus, Michael, and Leo, too, made
overtures of friendship and alliance with him, and sent many
ambassadors. At first Charles was regarded with much suspicion by them,
because he had taken the imperial title, and thus seemed to aim at
taking from them their empire; but in the end a very definite treaty was
made between them, and every occasion of quarrel on either side thereby
avoided. For the Romans and the Greeks always suspected the Frankish
power; hence there is a well-known Greek proverb: "the Frank is a good
friend but a bad neighbour."
17. Though he was so successful in widening the boundaries of his
kingdom and subduing the foreign nations he, nevertheless, put on foot
many works for the decoration and convenience of his kingdom, and
carried some to completion. The great church dedicated to Mary, the holy
Mother of God, at Aix, and the bridge, five hundred feet in length, over
the great river Rhine near Mainz, may fairly be regarded as the chief of
his works. But the bridge was burnt down a year before his death, and
though he had determined to rebuild it of stone instead of wood it was
not restored, because his death so speedily followed. He began also to
build palaces of splendid workmanship--one not far from the city of
Mainz, near a town called Ingelheim; another at Nimeguen, on the river
Waal, which flows along the south of the Batavian island. And he gave
special orders to the bishops and priests who had charge of sacred
buildings that any throughout his realm which had fallen into ruin
through age should be restored, and he instructed his agents to see that
his orders were carried out.
He built a fleet, too, for the war against the Northmen, constructing
ships for this purpose near those rivers which flow out of Gaul and
Germany into the northern ocean. And because the Northmen laid waste the
coasts of Gaul and Germany by their constant attacks he planted forts
and garrisons in all harbours and at the mouths of all navigable rivers,
and prevented in this way the passage of the enemy.[37] He took the same
measures in the South, on the shore of Narbonne and Septimania, and also
along all the coasts of Italy as far as Rome, to hold in check the
Moors, who had lately begun to make piratical excursions. And by reason
of these precautions Italy suffered no serious harm from the Moors, nor
Gaul and Germany from the Northmen, in the days of Charles; except that
Centumcellae, a city of Etruria, was betrayed into the hands of the
Moors and plundered, and in Frisia certain islands lying close to
Germany were ravaged by the Northmen.