Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, is the name which history has
agreed to give to the founder of the German empire—incorporating the
epithet with the name itself. We have recited in outline the facts of
his wonderful career, as they are recorded in the meagre records of
contemporary historians, and must rely upon the same authentic testimony
in attempting to estimate his mind, character, and work. But the Charles
of history is one; the Charles of heroic legend and popular fame is
another. The former is a powerful conqueror and politic statesman,
whom some eminent writers regard as the greatest of all monarchs; the
latter is a Christian saint, superhuman in strength, beauty, and wisdom,
incapable of defeat in war, of error in judgment, or of infirmity or
corruption in his own will. Thus the song of Roland says: “His eyes
shone like the morning star; his glance was dazzling as the noonday sun.
Terrible to his foes, kind to the poor, victorious in war, merciful to
offenders, devoted to God, he was an upright judge, who knew all the
laws, and taught them to his people as he learned them from the angels.
In short, he bore the sword as God’s own servant.” As Theodoric had been
the center of the ancient popular minstrelsy, so Charles the Great became
the central figure in that more cultivated heroic poetry, chiefly the
work of the clergy, in which were celebrated the deeds of the twelve
paladins, with Roland and the fight of Roncesvalles:
“When Charlemain with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabia.”
When we consider the profound impression made on the popular mind by
this person, as represented in legend and song, we are almost ready to
inquire whether its influence upon later German history was not greater
than that of his authentic achievements. But it is true that the entire
German race owes to him its first political organization. It was the
purpose of his life, which never wavered, to unite all the German tribes
under the control of one imperial government and of one Christian Church.
In the greater part of this work he succeeded, and thus left the stamp
of his mind upon the following centuries, through all the Middle Ages.
The national consciousness of the collective German tribes dates from his
reign, and it is at the beginning of the ninth century that “the Germans”
are first spoken of in contrast with the Roman peoples of the empire,
although the national name did not come into general use until four
generations later, in the reign of Otto the Great. When Charles mounted
the throne, he was twenty-four years of age, in the strength and prime
of his youth. His person was huge and strong, combining the presence and
muscular power of the heroes of song; so that he found it sport to fight
with the gigantic wild bulls in the forest of Ardennes. His passion for
labor, war, and danger was that of the adventurous warriors of the great
migration. In the momentous affairs of state, he exhibited the want of
feeling and the unscrupulousness which have been common to nearly all
great warriors; but in daily intercourse with those around him, he had
the mildness, cheerfulness, and freshness of spirit which add so much
grace to true greatness. These characteristics were those of his people;
but that which specially distinguished him was the far-seeing mind,
which had caught from ancient Rome the conception of a universal state,
and was wise enough, without slavish copying, to adapt this conception
to the peculiar requirements of the widely different race he ruled. This
lofty intellect appears the more wonderful, that no one can tell how he
obtained his mental growth, or who were his instructors; he seems to
shine out of the darkness of his age like a sun.
Charlemagne’s active mind gave attention to all matters, great and small.
His untiring diligence, and his surprising swiftness in apprehension and
decision, enabled him to dispatch an amount of business perhaps never
undertaken by another monarch, unless by Frederick II., of Prussia, or
by Napoleon Bonaparte. He was simple in his own attire, usually wearing
a linen coat, woven at home by the women of his own family, and over
it the large, warm Frisian mantle; and he demanded simplicity in his
followers, and scoffed at his courtiers when their gorgeous silks and
tinsel, brought from the East, were torn to rags in the rough work of
the chase. Hunting in his favorite forest of Ardennes was the chief
delight and recreation of his court. Next to this, he enjoyed swimming
in the warm baths at Aix, which became his favorite residence. At his
meals he listened to reading; and even condescended to join the monks,
detailed for the purpose, in reading exercises. He founded schools in
all the convents, and visited them in person, encouraging the diligent
pupils, and reproving the negligent. He also introduced Roman teachers
of music, to improve the church-singing of the Franks; while he required
that sermons should be preached in the language of the people. Thus he
diligently promoted popular education, while he strove to make up by
study what he had lost by the neglect of his own culture in youth. He
gathered men of learning—poets, historians, and copyists—around him, the
most prominent of them being Anglo-Saxons, of whom the wise and pious
Alcuin was chief. Even when an old man, he found time, though often only
at night, to practice in writing his hand so accustomed to the sword;
and having long been familiar with the Latin language, which he tried to
diffuse among the people, undertook to learn the Greek also. He highly
esteemed his native language, too. He gave German names to the months
and the winds; caused a German grammar to be compiled; and took pains to
collect the ancient heroic songs of the German minstrels, though his son,
in his monkish zeal, destroyed them. He reverenced the clergy highly:
granted them tithes throughout the empire, and everywhere watched over
the increasing endowments and estates of the Church, in whose possessions
at that time both agriculture and morality were better cared for than
elsewhere. Most of the bishops and abbots were selected by the king
himself.
Charlemagne’s personal character must not be judged by the standards of
a time so remote from him as ours. He has been called dissolute; and it
is true that he utterly disregarded the marriage tie, when it would limit
either his pleasures or his ambition. He married five wives, only to
dishonor them. He even encouraged, as it seems, his own daughters to live
loose lives at home; refusing to give them in marriage to princes, lest
their husbands might become competitors for a share of the kingdom. But
he was never controlled by his favorite women, nor did he neglect state
business for indulgence. Charlemagne has been censured as cruel; and,
indeed, there are few acts recorded in history of more wanton cruelty
than his slaughter in cold blood of thousands of Saxons at Verden. Yet
this was not done in the exercise of passion or hatred, but as a measure
of policy, a means deliberately devised to secure a definite end, in
which it was successful. Charlemagne was never cruel upon impulse;
but his inclinations were to gentleness and kindness. The key to his
character is his unbounded ambition. In the pursuit of power he knew no
scruple; the most direct and efficient means were always the right means
to him. There is no doubt of his earnest attachment to the Christian
Church and to the orthodox doctrines, as he understood them. But this
was not associated with an appreciation of Christian morality, or a
sense of human brotherhood. His passion for conquest was in large part
a fanatical zeal for the propagation of a religion which he regarded as
inseparable from his empire.
Charlemagne was held in high honor by foreign nations. The Caliph of
Bagdad, Haroun-al-Raschid, wielded in the East a power comparable with
his own. To Charlemagne he sent a friendly embassy, with precious gifts,
and it was reciprocated in the same spirit. The kings of the Normans
expressed their respect for him in a similar way. But his own taste
esteemed the ring of a good sword more than gold. His person and his
private life have been vividly depicted to us by Einhard (Eginhard), a
youth educated at his court, to whom, according to legend, the emperor
gave one of his daughters for a wife. Charlemagne was tall and strongly
formed, measuring from crown to sole seven times the length of his own
foot. He had an open brow, very large, quick eyes, an abundance of fine
hair, which was white in his last years, and a cheerful countenance.[G]