in Italy and the Frankish overlord across the Alps, there was,
nevertheless, in Rome a considerable degree of autonomy. Charles had
no thought of exercising the rights of a sovereign on the basis of
the title of Patrician, which he had inherited from his father, and
on which he had acted when it came to a question of putting an end
finally to Lombard autonomy. But it was only at such crises that the
need of intervention was felt, and, as we have seen in the case of Pope
Stephen, it was the policy of the Holy See to make use of the Frankish
King when questions involving the dignity of the Pope could be settled
in no other way. This policy was maintained by Stephen’s successors,
but it was not easy to induce Charles to undertake to handle thorny
problems which involved the position of the Pope in his own city.
There was no Frankish occupation of Rome, foreshadowing the condition
of affairs there when another Emperor of the Franks protected the
Pope from being overthrown by his unwilling subjects through the use
of French bayonets. Rome, like other Italian cities, was often in a
state of turbulence owing to factional divisions among its citizens.
There was already a beginning of that rivalry among Roman families to
secure the Papal throne to one of its members that so often brought
degradation to the Papacy during the course of the Middle Ages.
Upon the death of Pope Hadrian in 795, after a long pontificate of
twenty-three years, Leo III became his successor, but it seems that
the succession was not altogether satisfactory to the kinsmen of the
dead Pope, for they soon proceeded to extreme measures against his
successor, seizing his person and trying to blind him. Leo, completely
terrorized, seems to have lacked supporters in Rome to defend him, and
he sought refuge with the great King at his camp near Paderborn, in
Saxony, which was being used as a center for the operations against the
recalcitrant Saxon tribes. The matter in dispute between the Pope and
his enemies at home turned out to be a complicated one. Charles, in
his capacity as Patrician, listened to the charges and countercharges
brought by one side against the other. It was evident that justice
could not be done at such long range, and, therefore, the King, after
sending Leo home under the protection of Frankish ambassadors, moved
slowly down into Italy in the year 800.
Charles showed no haste to take up the obligation of settling the
differences between the Pope and his discontented subjects. An
expedition into Italy was always costly and troublesome. The situation,
too, on the Eastern frontier needed his attention, because of the
death of Count Gerold and of Erich of Friuli, on whom he depended for
warding off the attacks of the Avars and the Slavs. There were matters
also in the Western part of his dominions which required his personal
supervision. His lieutenants had just won victories over the Bretons
and in the Spanish peninsula. New schemes of expansion had to be
worked out, and provision made for protecting the sea coast. Besides,
he was interested in securing for Eastern Christians dwelling in the
dominions of the Saracens, advantages which they were unable to attain
through the intervention of the rulers at Constantinople. A way had
been opened by the arrival at his court of a monk from Jerusalem, with
presents from the Patriarch and relics from the Holy Places. There are
hints also of his receiving representatives from the Byzantine province
of Sicily, and of direct suggestions from influential quarters in the
East, where the rule of a woman, the Empress Irene, was resented, that
the great Frankish King should assume the imperial title. He turned
his steps towards Rome only when he had made himself familiar with the
special needs of the situation brought about by Leo’s policy. Many of
his intimate advisers, Alcuin, Engelbert, Am of Salzburg, and Paulinus
of Aquileia, had evidently discarded for some time all thought of the
possibility of the Frankish ruler assuming the honors and rights which
the imperial position, to the minds of that age, could alone bestow.
Now everything was changed; the Empire was the one political idea which
was common to the German and to the Italian, and it was kept alive by
the influence of churchmen, to whom the existence of the Empire was the
necessary complement to a Catholic Church. Charles was already acting
with a recognized power fully equivalent to that of an emperor. His
rule was not local like that of other barbarian kings; the title was
needed to complete the political evolution, just as really as it was
necessary for his father, Pippin, to give up the rôle of Mayor of the
Palace and become “de jure” King of the Franks. This point was made
perfectly clear when the general assembly of Charles’ dominions was
held at Mainz in August, 800, and the Italian expedition was announced.
In Ravenna a stay of eight days was made by the invading army, and a
detachment was sent off to pacify the Lombard Duchy of Benevento. Not
far from Rome the King was greeted by the Pope, who then returned to
Rome to prepare for the official reception of the ruler, which took
place, on November 24th, with the customary ceremonies appropriate
to the patrician rank of the visitor. Eight days afterwards, Charles
having previously visited the Basilica of St. Peter’s, explained
publicly and officially the purpose of his coming to the city, viz.:
to investigate the charges against the Pope.
This was an informal and personal process, for, according to the
ecclesiastical canons, no one could officially judge a cause in
which the Pope was concerned. But Charles’ conception of his duties
as Patrician meant no mere perfunctory examination. For three weeks
there was a public hearing, like an extra-judicial examination before
a referee, of the rumors and charges against Leo’s conduct, a chance
being given to each side to ventilate its grievances. It is significant
that the Frankish King was won over to the view of his leading
ecclesiastics, including Alcuin, that the charges against Leo were
without foundation, and were only the product of personal enmity.
The difficulty was to give the decision such a form that, by avoiding a
judicial character, it would not infringe upon the Papal prerogative,
according to which the Bishop of Rome was not responsible to any
earthly tribunal. The bishops themselves explicitly adopted this
position by refusing to pass sentence on the head of the Church. After
this principle had been accepted, the Pope could declare himself
free from guilt. In so doing he was following a precedent set by
his predecessors in like circumstances, Marcellinus, Symmachus, and
Pelagius I.
So he proceeded on December 23d to exculpate himself by formally
declaring his innocence before a great assembly of secular and
ecclesiastical dignitaries, expressly mentioning that the proceeding
was voluntary and not required by the canons of the Church. In this way
the immediate cause of the expedition of the Franks was disposed of,
but Charles remained in Rome in order to provide for things needful in
the administration of his Italian dominions.
On Christmas Day a multitude had gathered together to celebrate the
festival. As the King rose from prayer at the Confession of St. Peter
the Pope placed the imperial diadem upon his head. The congregation,
acting under one inspiration, joined spontaneously in the acclamation,
used in former days in Rome, and still customary at the time at
Constantinople,--“Life and Victory to Charles the Pius Augustus,
crowned by God, the great and peace-bringing Emperor.”
Three times the formula was repeated. After this proclamation the Pope
reverenced the new Emperor, genuflecting, as was the Roman custom, and
probably this act of homage was repeated by all who were present. On
the same day the Emperor’s son, Karl, was anointed King by the Pope,
just as his brothers, Pippin and Louis, had been elevated to the royal
dignity twenty years before. A few days later the Emperor, sitting as
supreme judge, condemned to death the Pope’s accusers, sentences which,
at Leo’s request, were mitigated to deportation.
The biographer of Charles represents the ceremony of the coronation
as a surprise, prepared by the Pope without consulting Charles, and
so done not only without his will, but contrary to his desire. The
Emperor, indeed, is reported to have said that, if he had known of the
Pope’s intention, he would not have visited the Basilica. These words
may be interpreted as an expression of the usual formula of humility,
frequent in ecclesiastical elections on the part of the successful
candidate, or else they may mean that the Emperor objected to the way
in which the dignity was bestowed. It will be noted that the act of
placing the crown on his head preceded the acclamation of the people’s
choice. The details of the ceremonial were copied from the one used at
Constantinople, where it had long been the custom for the Emperor to be
crowned by the Patriarch. But, according to the political theory of the
time, the imperial dignity was not conferred by the receiving of the
diadem, but by the election of the Roman people and army, and by the
formal act of homage done at the time. The Pope, by his presence, added
more solemnity to the occasion, but his intervention added nothing in
the way of legal validity to it.
Charles’ own point of view is shown plainly enough in the fact that
in 813 he proclaimed his son Louis Emperor and crowned him with his
own hands. As he acted here without requesting the coöperation of the
Pope, a purely lay method of conferring the imperial dignity may have
appealed better to his convictions than that followed in his own case.
But there could have been no improvised procedure in the ceremony at
St. Peter’s. Charles could not have been made Emperor against his will,
nor is it possible to harmonize the details of the ceremony with such
an explanation. How could the coronation have been an impulsive act on
the Pope’s part, taken without the Emperor’s knowledge, when the diadem
was in readiness, and the great congregation were prepared to repeat
without confusion the words of acclamation? Such preparations must
have had the consent of the Frankish ruler, for it is most unlikely
that he should not have known of them. His own objections, therefore,
were probably due to certain features of the ceremony actually carried
out, those, namely, by which the Pope took the initiative. A stricter
following of ancient precedent, at a time when no ceremonial change
should have been introduced by which the legitimacy of the succession
could be questioned, would have approved itself to Charles. An emperor
had to be provided for the West, and scrupulosity in following
precedents was desirable, especially in view of the doubt as to whether
the Empress Irene could, as a woman, legally hold supreme power at
Constantinople.
It must be remembered that there had been several attempts made in
the seventh and eighth centuries to revive the connection between
Rome and the imperial dignity. But they had failed because there was
no considerable and acknowledged political force behind them. Now,
under the extensive rule of the Frankish King, the elements required
to give an actual validity to the imperial claim were present in an
overwhelming degree. Charles was in control of most of the territory
once belonging to the empire in Western Europe, and along the Eastern
and Southeastern frontiers he had succeeded in extending its limits--a
task unparalleled by the achievements in these same regions of the
greatest of the Roman Emperors. The Teutonic peoples, who centuries
before had made their first appearance as “fœderati,” in the service
of the Empire, were now component parts of it, and had definitely
entered the sphere of Roman civilization. What Athaulf had deemed to be
impossible, what neither Odoacer, Theodoric, nor the Lombard Kings had
tried or dared to do, Charles had done, now that, advancing from the
title of Patrician, which had been held often by the barbarian rulers,
he claimed for the Germans the full right to the imperial name.
In its ecclesiastical relations the revived Empire differed from the
old. The Pope had become a factor in the political evolution of the
West in a way unknown to the age of Athaulf, Theodoric, or Odoacer.
Gregory the Great had turned to the East as a subject of the Roman
Empire, to ask aid of his legitimate Emperor; the bishops of Rome,
in the eighth century, as equals, turned to the Franks, and of this
alliance the ceremony of Christmas Day, 800, was the logical sequence.
For the Germanic peoples the coronation of Charles did not mean
absorption into a unified system of absolutism, such as prevailed
in the East; but it did mean that the predominant factor in their
future was to be their relation in the logical sense to the Italian
peninsula, and it is just this relationship in its various phases which
was worked out in the Middle Ages, and so it may justly be called the
distinguishing mark of the medieval period.
Charles’ assumption of the imperial title did not imply that he ceased
to regard himself as the head of a Germanic people, nor was there
manifest on his part any intention to shift the existing Teutonic
basis of his rule towards a Latin center. For several months after the
coronation ceremony he remained in Italy, but the Alps were recrossed
in the summer of 801, and during the rest of his life he never again
set foot on Italian soil.
With the Eastern Empire, which might have been stirred to active
hostility by the introduction of a rival claimant to the imperial
throne, relations continued to be good. Embassies passed from one
court to another, and it is reported by a Greek chronicler that
Charles transmitted officially to the Empress Irene a proposal that
the two empires should be united by their marriage. In 803 the Empress
Irene died, after her deposition had been brought about by a palace
revolution by which Nicephorus, the Grand Treasurer, was placed on
the throne. In 806, for a short time, these peaceful relations were
broken by a contention over the possession of Venice, whose commercial
importance was beginning to be recognized. A Byzantine fleet appeared
off the lagunes, but was unable to prevent the coveted islands from
being taken by Pippin, Charles’ representative in Italy, who brought
the contest to a close in 810 by a combined attack on sea and land. In
812, as a compensation for acknowledging Charles as Roman Emperor, the
Adriatic territories, Venetia, Istria, Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were
restored to Byzantine rule.
VI CLOSING YEARS
The period of conquests and warlike expeditions was almost over.
One hears of the ravages of Scandinavian pirates, and of marauding
incursions by Moorish corsairs along the extended coast line of the
Empire. They seem to have remained unpunished, for Charles gave little
attention to the development of a navy. In the years from 808 to 810
there were operations on a large scale against a threatened Danish
invasion of the Northeastern frontier of the Empire. Some actions of
an indecisive character were fought, and the preparation of a fleet
sufficient to meet the Danish flotilla of two hundred ships was taken
in hand. The prospect, however, of more serious complications was
dissolved by a domestic revolution in Denmark, and for the rest of the
Emperor’s life peace prevailed between himself and the Danes. As time
went on, the actual direction of military operations was left to the
Emperor’s two elder sons, Charles and Pippin, who seem, on the whole,
to have harmoniously worked together in carrying out their father’s
plans.
The enforced inactivity of the Emperor brought forward the need of
providing for the future administration of his domains. His eldest son,
another Pippin, of illegitimate birth, was not on the list of those
from whom the future rulers were to be selected. Years before, in 792,
he had been discovered in a plot to dethrone his father, and had been
sent to a monastery.
There were now but three heirs to the empire, Louis, in Aquitaine; a
younger Pippin, in Italy, and Charles, in Germany, all intrusted with
important charges by their father. In 806 a formal document was drawn
up regulating the succession. Charles received the countries from
whence the Franks had originated, Austrasia along with Neustria, and
the East Frankish provinces; the younger brothers were to exercise
independent power over the countries they already were administering.
Besides this, Pippin was to take Bavaria, and Louis the Provençal
districts and the largest parts of Burgundy. Charles directed that
his sons should help one another against their enemies, internal
and external; he also arranged the roads by which Italy should be
approached in case of need, and provisions were made at the same time
for securing independence in the fractions of the Empire. Among these
dispositions, perhaps the most significant were that no “beneficium,”
or assignment of lands, should be made in any of the two divisions,
save to individuals who were residents there, and that no man
expatriated for his crimes should be received by the ruler of another
territory. The inner unity of the three realms and their independence
from one another was the master idea of this whole testamentary
arrangement. These provisions were made by the Emperor after he had
advised with his nobles. They seem to have harmonized with his own
sense of justice, and, strangely enough, the ideals of family life
predominated in cases where, beyond all other considerations, political
acumen should have prevailed. The Emperor relied, so far as the unity
of the Empire was concerned, on the loyalty of his sons to his own
counsels and to one another.
The plan was soon frustrated by death, for within five years of the
date of his division, Pippin and Charles had both died. The Emperor
was old, and the question of succession was a more pressing one than
ever. It was being discussed with equal interest by friends and foes
alike. It must have been also a matter of the profoundest moment to the
creator of the Empire, to make such dispositions as would, at least
from his own point of view, secure its permanence.
At the end of the summer of 813, Charles, following the precedent
of his father and grandfather, drew about him the most important of
his officials, and prepared, with their approval, to provide finally
for the succession. The disposition was comparatively simple, as
only one of the three sons, Louis, who had enjoyed the privilege of
Papal recognition, was still alive. He had succeeded, besides, in
giving a practical demonstration of his capacity by his successful
administration of Aquitaine. Therefore, he seemed entitled to the
largest share of his father’s dominions, the only difficulty being to
determine the claims of Bernard, the legitimate heir of Pippin. It was,
therefore, settled that he should receive Italy, and he was forthwith
recognized as its King.
Only one question was now in doubt as to what extent the prerogatives
of the imperial dignity should be passed over to the principal heir.
This, as it was the creation of the Emperor, seemed to be under his
personal control, so he accordingly prepared to make Louis co-Emperor.
The determination of the Emperor to advance his son to the imperial
dignity, making him co-ruler with himself, appeared to have been
unanticipated by the assembly. They applauded the design and greeted
it as an illustration of divine direction. There was no longer any
doubt that the central power would continue to exist. Louis was crowned
with the diadem by the Emperor himself, and the act was dissociated
from the precedent which had been followed in Charles’ own case, so
eliminating all question of Papal consent. Rome was not consulted, and
Louis was allowed to return home to his own kingdom of Aquitaine. There
could no longer, however, be any question as to his ultimately becoming
the sole supreme ruler in his father’s stead.
Charles may himself, as a political idealist, have believed that in
this transmission he was guaranteeing the permanence of the system
he had built up. But even apart from the unfortunate weakness and
incapacity of his successor, it is doubtful whether personal rule of
this type could have been perpetuated even in the Eastern Empire,
with its crystallized traditions, and where an imperial dynasty, with
recognized prerogatives and absolutism, endured from age to age. Even
in the East there were frequent breaks in the succession.
The long reign was clearly drawing to a close. The Emperor’s physical
powers began to fail, and the malady, which proved a fatal one,
appeared in alarming symptoms. The Emperor knew of his condition, and
had disciplined himself with the common forms of devotion for the
approach of death. After a hunting expedition in the autumn of 813 he
returned to Aix and soon after had an attack of fever. His ordinary
remedies, dieting and the mineral waters of the city, failed to bring
relief, and pleurisy set in. Charles died on the morning of the 28th
of January, 814, after having received the communion from the hands of
his arch-chaplain, Hildebold. His body, after embalmment, was enclosed
in an ancient Roman sarcophagus, still existing in Aix, with ornaments
in relief which depict the Rape of Proserpine. Above the entrance of
the vault containing it was placed this inscription: “Here rests the
body of Charles the Great, mighty and orthodox Emperor, who enlarged
nobly the realm of the Franks, and for forty-six years governed it with
success. He died a septuagenarian, in the year of Our Lord 814, in the
7th indiction on the fifth day before the Kalends of February.”
People told how marvels had foreshadowed the Emperor’s dissolution,
how for three days sun and moon were darkened, how the sky was filled
by bright, unnatural flashes of light, how the roof of the Basilica
at Aix was struck by a thunderbolt, and how the name of the Emperor,
“Karolus Princeps,” engraved on a golden crown, suspended in the nave
of the building, faded from sight.
Later on, it was reported that the body of Charles had not been placed
in a coffin, but that his tomb contained the body of the great ruler
sitting upright on his throne, appearing just as he did in life, vested
in the imperial robes, a diadem on his head, by his side a sword, his
scepter in his hand, reposing with the book of the Gospels on his
knees. Otto III was said to have entered the tomb and found the body
so placed; but this supposed verification of the legend rests on a
mistranslation of the text of an early chronicle.
Folklore soon amplified the career of the great ruler. In the medieval
“Gesta,” Charles appears as the brother of the Pope, the represser of
disloyal vassals, a crusader and pilgrim to the Holy Land, a warrior
of enormous stature, able with one stroke of his sword to cut in two
an armed knight on his charger. In other legends he is presented as a
famous wise man, the founder of the University of Paris.
The Emperor in person did not resemble the glorified image of him
handed down by legend. There was no beard extending to his waist, nor
did he wear the magnificent imperial vestments, heavy with precious
stones; nor are the other attributes of the imperial dignity seen
in his conventional portraits authentic, such, for example, as the
scepter, the globe surmounted by a cross, the baton terminating in a
knob of incised silver.
According to the most credible accounts, the Emperor was tall; as
Einhard puts it, “not more than seven times the length of his foot.”
His neck was short, and he was, to use the expressive but inelegant
epithet of our ancestors, “pot-bellied.” His head was round, with
large, active eyes, a lengthy nose, a large crop of hair, with a
mustache, but no beard. His voice, we are told, seemed rather weak
for such a large frame. Ordinarily, he was dressed after the Frankish
fashion, in a linen shirt and short tunic, to which in winter fur was
added; his legs were encased in leather bands; a blue cloak and a
sword of expensive workmanship completed his out-of-door wardrobe. On
ceremonial occasions he wore a diadem, adorned with precious stones,
and when he was in Rome he conformed to local custom by wearing the
chlamys, a long Roman tunic.