CHARLEMAGNE, or Charles the Great, son of king Pepin, was born in 742,
and crowned king of France in 768; but his youngest brother Carloman
reigned in Austrasia till his death, in 771. Charlemagne vanquished
Hunauld, duke of Aquitaine, and conquered the French Gothia or
Languedoc; subdued Lombardy; conferred on pope Adrian the exarchate of
Ravenna, the duchy of Spoletto, and many other dominions; took Pavia,
(which had been honored with the residence of twenty kings,) and was
crowned king of Lombardy in 774. The emir Abderamene in Spain, having
shaken off the yoke of the caliph of the Saracens, in 736, and
established his kingdom at Cordova, and other emirs in Spain setting up
independency, Charlemagne, in 778, marched as far as the Ebro and
Saragossa, conquered Barcelona, Gironne, and many other places, and
returned triumphant. His cousin Roland, who followed him with the rear
of his army, in his return was set upon in the Pyrenean mountains by a
troop of Gascon robbers, and slain; and is the famous hero of numberless
old French romances and songs. The Saxons having in the king's absence
plundered his dominions upon the Rhine, he flew to the Weser, and
compelled them to make satisfaction. Thence he went to Rome, and had his
infant sons crowned kings, Pepin of Lombardy, and Lewis of Aquitaine.
The great revolt of the Saxons, in 782, called him again on that side.
When they were vanquished, and sued for pardon, he declared he would no
more take their oaths which they had so often broken, unless they became
Christians. Witikind embraced the condition, was baptized with his chief
followers in 785, and being created duke of part of Saxony, remained
ever after faithful in his religion and allegiance. From him are
descended, either directly or by intermarriages, many dukes of Bavaria,
and the, present houses of Saxony, Brandenburg, &c., as may be seen in
the German genealogists. Some other Saxons afterwards revolted, and were
vanquished and punished in 794, 798, &c., so that, through their
repeated treachery and rebellions, this Saxon war continued at intervals
for the space of thirty-three years. Thassillon, duke of Bavaria, for
treasonable practices, was attacked by Charlemagne in 788, vanquished,
and obliged to put on a monk's cowl to save his life: from which time
Bavaria was annexed to Charlemagne's dominions. To punish the Abares for
their inroads, he crossed the Inns into their territories, sacked
Vienna, and marched to the mouth of the Raab, upon the Danube. In 794,
he assisted at the great council of Frankfort, held in his royal palace
there. He restored Leo III. at Rome, quelled the seditions there, and
was crowned by him on Christmas-day, in 800, emperor of Rome and of the
West: in which quality he was afterwards solemnly acknowledged by
Nicephorus, emperor of Constantinople. Thus was the western empire
restored, which had been extinct in Momylus Agustulus in the fifth
century. In 805, Charlemagne quelled and conquered the Sclavonians. The
Danube, {288} the Teisse, and the Oder on the East, and the Ebro and the
ocean on the West, were the boundaries of his vast dominions. France,
Germany, Dacia, Dalmatia, Istria, Italy, and part of Pannonia and Spain,
obeyed his laws. It was then customary for kings not to reside in great
cities, but to pass the summer often in progresses or campaigns, and the
winter at some country palace. King Pepin resided at Herstal, now Jopin,
in the territory of Liege, and sometimes at Quiercy on the Oise:
Charlemagne often at Frankfort or Aix-la-Chapelle, which were country
seats; for those towns were then inconsiderable places: though the
latter had been founded by Serenas Granus in 124, under Adrian. It owes
its greatness to the church built there by Charlemagne.
This prince was not less worthy of our admiration in the quality of a
legislator than in that of a conqueror; and in the midst of his marches
and victories, he gave the utmost attention to the wise government of
his dominions, and to every thing that could promote the happiness of
his people, the exaltation of the church, and the advancement of piety
and every branch of sacred and useful learning.[1] What pains he took
for the reformation of monasteries, and for the sake of uniformity
introducing in them the rule of St. Bennet, appears from his
transactions, and several ecclesiastical assemblies in 789. His zeal for
the devout observance of the rites of the church is expressed in his
book to Alcuin on that subject, and in his encyclical epistle on the
rites of baptism,[2] and in various works which he commissioned Alcuin
and others to compile. For the reformation of manners, especially of the
clergy, he procured many synods to be held, in which decrees were
framed, which are called his Capitula.[3] His Capitulars, divided into
many chapters, are of the same nature. The best edition of these
Capitulars is given by Baluzius, with dissertations, in 1677, two vols.
folio. The Carolin Books are a theological work, (adopted by this
prince, who speaks in the first person,) compiled in four books, against
a falsified copy of the second council of Nice, sent by certain
Iconoclasts from Constantinople, on which see F. Daniel[4] and
Ceillier.[5]
There never was a truly great man, who was not a lover and encourager of
learning, as of the highest improvement of the human mind. Charlemagne,
by most munificent largesses, invited learned men over from foreign
parts, as Alcuin, Peter of Pisa, Paul the deacon, &c., found no greater
pleasure than in conversing with them, instituted an academy in his own
palace, and great schools at Paris, Tours, &c., assisted at literary
disputations, was an excellent historian, and had St. Austin's book, On
the City of God, laid every night under his pillow to read if he awaked.
Yet Eginhard assures us that whatever pains he took, he could never
learn to write, because he was old when he first applied himself to it.
He was skilled in astronomy, arithmetic, music, and every branch of the
mathematics; understood the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, also the
Sclavonian, and several other living languages, so as never to want an
interpreter to converse with ambassadors of neighboring nations. He
meditated assiduously on the scriptures, assisted at the divine office,
even that of midnight, if possible; had good books read to him at table,
and took but one meal a day, which he was obliged to anticipate before
the hour of evening on fasting days, that all his officers and servants
might dine before midnight. He was very abstemious, had a paternal care
of the poor in all his dominions, and honored good men, especially among
the clergy. Charlemagne died January the 28th, in 814, seventy-two years
old, and was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle. The incontinence into {289}
which he fell in his youth, he expiated by sincere repentance, so that
several churches in Germany and France honor him among the saints. In
the university of Paris, the most constant nation of the Germans, (which
was originally called the English nation, in 1250, when the distinction
of nations n the faculty of arts was there established,) take
Charlemagne for their patron, but only keep his festival since the year
1480, which is now common to the other three nations of French, Picards,
and Normans, since 1661.[6]
Footnotes:
1. See Hardion, Hist. Universelle, t. 10.
2. Apud Mabill. Analect. t. 1, p. 21.
3. Conc. t. 6 & 7, ed. Labbe.
4. Hist. de France in Charlem. French edit. in fol.
5. Ceillier, pp. 376 & 400.
6. Pagi (in Breviario Rom. Pontif. t. 3, in Alex. III. p. 82) proves
that suffrages for the soul of Charlemagne were continued at
Aix-la-Chapelle, till the antipope Pascal, at the desire of Frederic
Barbarossa, enshrined his remains in that city, and published a
decree for his canonization. From the time of this enshrining of his
remains, he is honored among the saints in many churches in Germany
and the Low Countries, as Goujet (De Festis propriis Sanctor. l. 1,
c. 5, quaest. 9) and Bollandus (ad 28 Jan. and t. 2, Febr. Schemate
19) show. The tacit approbation of the popes is to be looked upon as
equivalent to a beatification, as Benedict XIV. proves (De Canoniz.
l. 1, c. 9, n. 5, p. 72.) Molanus, (in Natal. SS. Belg.,) Natalis
Alexander. (Hist. Saec. 9 and 10., cap. 7, a. 1,) and many others,
have made the same observation.