his turn entered the _Ring_, took the wealth which Eric's raiders had
left, demolished the palace of the Chagan, and completely destroyed the
central stronghold of the Avars. They were not, however, fully subdued.
Risings afterwards took place, invading armies were destroyed, and not
until 803 was a permanent conquest made. The Avars in the end accepted
baptism and held themselves as vassals or subjects of the great Frankish
monarch, who permitted them to retain some of their old laws and
governmental forms. At a subsequent date they were nearly exterminated
by the Moravians, and after the year 827 this once powerful people
disappear from history. Part of their realm was incorporated with
Moravia, and remained so until the incursion of the Magyars in 884.
As regards the location of the _Ring_, or central stronghold of the
Avars, it is believed to have been in the wide plain between the Danube
and the Theiss, the probable site being the Pusste-Sarto-Sar, on the
right of the Tatar. Traces of the wonderful circular wall, or of the
palisaded and earth-filled fortifications of the Avars, are said still
to exist in this locality. They are known as Avarian Rings, and in a
measure sustain the old stories told of them, though hardly that of the
legend-loving Monk of St. Gall and his romancing informant.
_THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE._
Charlemagne, the great king, had built himself an empire only surpassed
by that of ancient Rome. All France was his; all Italy was his; all
Saxony and Hungary were his; all western Europe indeed, from the borders
of Slavonia to the Atlantic, with the exception of Spain, was his. He
was the bulwark of civilization against the barbarism of the north and
east, the right hand of the church in its conflict with paganism, the
greatest and noblest warrior the world had seen since the days of the
great Cæsar, and it seemed fitting that he should be given the honor
which was his due, and that in him and his kingdom the great empire of
Rome should be restored.
Augustulus, the last emperor of the west, had ceased to reign in 476.
The Eastern Empire was still alive, or rather half-alive, for it was a
life without spirit or energy. The empire of the west had vanished under
the flood of barbarism, and for more than three centuries there had been
no claimant of the imperial crown. But here was a strong man, a noble
man, the lord and master of a mighty realm which included the old
imperial city; it seemed fitting that he should take the title of
emperor and rule over the western world as the successor of the famous
line of the Cæsars.
So thought the pope, Leo III., and so thought his cardinals. He had
already sent to Charlemagne the keys of the prison of St. Peter and the
banner of the city of Rome. In 799 he had a private interview with the
king, whose purpose no one knew. In August of the year 800, having
settled the affairs of his wide-spread kingdom, Charlemagne suddenly
announced in the general assembly of the Franks that he was about to
make a journey to Rome. Why he went he did not say. The secret was not
yet ready to be revealed.
On the 23d of November the king of the Franks arrived at the gates of
Rome, a city which he was to leave with the time-honored title of
Emperor of the West. "The pope received him as he was dismounting; then,
on the next day, standing on the steps of the basilica of St. Peter and
amidst general hallelujahs, he introduced the king into the sanctuary of
the blessed apostle, glorifying and thanking the Lord for this happy
event."
In the days that followed, Charlemagne examined the grievances of the
Church and took measures to protect the pope against his enemies. And
while he was there two monks came from Jerusalem, bearing with them the
keys of the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary, and the sacred standard of the
holy city, which the patriarch had intrusted to their care to present to
the great king of the Franks. Charlemagne was thus virtually
commissioned as the defender of the Church of Christ and the true
successor of the Christian emperors of Rome.
Meanwhile, Leo had called a synod of the Church to consider whether the
title of emperor should not be conferred on Charles the Great. At
present, he said, the Roman world had no sovereign. The throne of
Constantinople was occupied by a woman, the Empress Irene, who had
usurped the title and made it her own by murder. It was intolerable that
Charles should be looked on as a mere patrician, an implied subordinate
to this unworthy sovereign of the Eastern Empire. He was the master of
Italy, Gaul, and Germany, said Leo. Who was there besides him to act as
Defender of the Faith? On whom besides could the Church rest, in its
great conflict with paganism and unbelief?
The synod agreed with him. It was fitting that the great king should be
crowned emperor, and restore in his person the ancient glory of the
realm. A petition was sent to Charles. He answered that, however
unworthy the honor, he could not resist the desire of that august body.
And thus was formally completed what probably had been the secret
understanding of the pope and the king months before. Charles, king of
the Franks, was to be given the title and dignity of Charles, Emperor of
the West.
The season of the Feast of the Nativity, Christmas-day of the year 800,
duly came. It was destined to be a great day in the annals of the Roman
city. The chimes of bells which announced the dawning of that holy day
fell on the ears of great multitudes assembled in the streets of Rome,
all full of the grand event that day to be consummated, and rumors of
which had spread far and wide. The great basilica of St. Peter was to be
the scene of the imposing ceremony, and at the hour fixed its aisles
were crowded with the greatest and the most devoted and enthusiastic
assemblage it had ever held, all eager to behold and to lend their
support to the glorious act of coronation, as they deemed it, fixed for
that day, an act which, as they hoped, would restore Rome to the
imperial position which that great city had so many centuries held.
It was a noble pile, that great cathedral of the early church. It had
been recently enriched by costly gifts set aside by Charles from the
spoils of the Avars, and converted into the most beautiful of ornaments
consecrated to the worship of Christ. Before the altar stood the golden
censers, containing seventeen pounds weight of solid gold. Above gleamed
three grand coronas of solid silver, of three hundred and seven pounds
in weight, ablaze with a glory of wax-lights, whose beams softly
illuminated the whole great edifice. The shrine of St. Peter dazzled the
eyes by its glittering "rufas," made of forty-nine pounds of the purest
gold, and enriched by brilliant jewels till they sparkled like single
great gems. There also hung superb curtains of white silk, embroidered
with roses, and with rich and intricate borders, while in the centre was
a splendid cross worked in gold and purple. Suspended from the keystone
of the dome hung the most attractive of the many fine pictures which
adorned the church, a peerless painting of the Saviour, whose beauty
drew all eyes and aroused in all souls fervent aspirations of devoted
faith. Never had Christian church presented a grander spectacle; never
had one held so immense and enthusiastic an audience; for one of the
greatest ceremonies the Christian world had known was that day to be
performed.
Through the wide doors of the great church filed a procession of bronzed
veterans of the Frankish army; the nobility and the leading people of
Rome; the nobles, generals, and courtiers who had followed Charlemagne
thither; warriors from all parts of the empire, with their corslets and
winged helmets of steel and their uniforms of divers colors; civic
functionaries in their gorgeous robes of office; dignitaries of the
church in their rich vestments; a long array of priests in their white
dalmatics, until all Christendom seemed present in its noblest and most
showy representatives. Heathendom may have been represented also, for it
may be that messengers from the great caliph of Bagdad, the renowned
Haroun al Raschid, the hero of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments,"
were present in the church. Many members of the royal family of
Charlemagne were present to lend dignity to the scene, and towering
above them all was the great Charles himself, probably clad in Roman
costume, his garb as a patrician of the imperial city, which dignity had
been conferred upon him. Loud plaudits welcomed him as he rose into
view. There were many present who had seen him at the head of his army,
driving before him hosts of flying Saracens, Saxons, Lombards, and
Avars, and to them he was the embodiment of earthly power, the mighty
patron of the church, and the scourge of pagans and infidels; and as
they gazed on his noble form and dignified face it seemed to some of
them as if they looked with human eyes on the face and form of a
representative of the Deity.
A solemn mass was sung, with all the impressive ceremony suitable to the
occasion. As the king rose to his feet, or while he still kneeled before
the altar and the "confession,"--the tomb of St. Peter,--the pope, as if
moved by a sudden impulse, took up a splendid crown which lay upon the
altar, and placed it on his brow, saying, in a loud voice,--
"Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by
God the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans!"
At once, as if this were a signal for the breaking of the constrained
silence, a mighty shout rose from the whole vast assembly. Again and
again it was repeated, and then broke out the solemn chant of the
litany, sung by hundreds of voices, while Charlemagne stood in dignified
and patient silence. Whether or not this act of the pope was a surprise
to him we have no assurance. Eginhard tells us that he declared that he
would not have entered the church that day if he had foreseen the pope's
intentions; yet it is not easy to believe that he was ignorant of or
non-consenting to the coming event. At the close of the chant Leo
prostrated himself at the feet of Charlemagne, and paid him adoration,
as had been the custom in the days of the old emperors. He then anointed
him with holy oil. And from that day forward Charles, "giving up the
title of patrician, bore that of emperor and Augustus."
The ceremonies ended in the presentation from the emperor to the church
of a great silver table, and, in conjunction with his son Charles and
his daughters, of golden vessels belonging to the table of five hundred
pounds' weight. This great gift was followed, on the Feast of the
Circumcision, with a superb golden corona to be suspended over the
altar. It was ornamented with gems, and contained fifty pounds of gold.
On the Feast of the Epiphany he added three golden chalices, weighing
forty-two pounds, and a golden paten of twenty-two pounds' weight. To
the other churches also, and to the pope, he made magnificent gifts, and
added three thousand pounds of silver to be distributed among the poor.
Thus, after more than three centuries, the title of Augustus was
restored to the western world. It was destined to be held many centuries
thereafter by the descendants of Charlemagne. After the division of his
empire into France and Germany, the imperial title was preserved in the
latter realm, the fiction--for it was little more--that an emperor of
the west existed being maintained down to the present century.
As to the influence exerted by the power and dominion of Charlemagne on
the minds of his contemporaries and successors, many interesting stories
might be told. Fable surrounded him, legend attached to his deeds, and
at a later date he shared the honor given to the legendary King Arthur
of England, of being made a hero of romance, a leading character in many
of those interminable romances of chivalry which formed the favorite
reading of the mediæval age.
But we need not go beyond his own century to find him a hero of romance.
The monk of the abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland, whose story of the
defences of the land of the Avars we have already quoted, has left us a
chronicle full of surprising tales of the life and doings of Charles the
Great. One of these may be of interest, as an example of the kind of
history with which our ancestors of a thousand years ago were satisfied.
Charlemagne was approaching with his army Pavia, the capital of the
Lombards. Didier, the king, was greatly disquieted at his approach. With
him was Ogier the Dane (Ogger the monk calls him), one of the most
famous captains of Charlemagne, and a prominent hero of romance. He had
quarrelled with the king and had taken refuge with the king of the
Lombards. Thus goes on the chronicler of St. Gall:
"When Didier and Ogger heard that the dread monarch was coming, they
ascended a tower of vast height, where they could watch his arrival from
afar off and from every quarter. They saw, first of all, engines of war
such as must have been necessary for the armies of Darius or Julius
Cæsar.
"'Is not Charles,' asked Didier of Ogger, 'with this great army?'
"But the other answered, 'No.' The Lombard, seeing afterwards an immense
body of soldiery gathered from all quarters of the vast empire, said to
Ogger, 'Certainly, Charles advances in triumph in the midst of this
throng.'
"'No, not yet; he will not appear so soon,' was the answer.
"'What should we do, then,' rejoined Didier, who began to be perturbed,
'should he come accompanied by a larger band of warriors?'
"'You will see what he is when he comes,' replied Ogger; 'but as to what
will become of us I know nothing.'
"As they were thus parleying, appeared the body of guards that knew no
repose; and at this sight the Lombard, overcome with dread, cried, 'This
time it is surely Charles.'
"'No," answered Ogger, 'not yet.'
"In their wake came the bishops, the abbots, the ordinaries of the
chapels royal, and the counts; and then Didier, no longer able to bear
the light of day or to face death, cried out with groans, 'Let us
descend and hide ourselves in the bowels of the earth, far from the face
and the fury of so terrible a foe.'
"Trembling the while, Ogger, who knew by experience what were the power
and might of Charles, and who had learned the lesson by long consuetude
in better days, then said, 'When you shall behold the crops shaking for
fear in the fields, and the gloomy Po and the Ticino overflowing the
walls of the city with their waves blackened with steel, then may you
think that Charles is coming.'
"He had not ended these words when there began to be seen in the west,
as it were a black cloud raised by the north-west wind or by Boreas,
which turned the brightest day into awful shadows. But as the emperor
drew nearer and nearer, the gleam of arms caused to shine on the people
shut up within the city a day more gloomy than any kind of night. And
then appeared Charles himself, that man of steel, with his head encased
in a helmet of steel, his hands garnished with gauntlets of steel, his
heart of steel and his shoulders of marble protected by a cuirass of
steel, and his left hand armed with a lance of steel which he held aloft
in the air, for as to his right hand, he kept that continually on the
hilt of his invincible sword. The outside of his thighs, which the rest,
for their greater ease in mounting on horseback, were wont to leave
unshackled even by straps, he wore encircled by plates of steel. What
shall I say concerning his boots? All the army were wont to have them
invariably of steel; on his buckler there was naught to be seen but
steel; his horse was of the color and the strength of steel.
"All those who went before the monarch, all those who marched by his
side, all those who followed after, even the whole mass of the army,
had armor of the like sort, so far as the means of each permitted. The
fields and the highways were covered with steel; the points of steel
reflected the rays of the sun; and this steel, so hard, was borne by
people with hearts still harder. The flash of steel spread terror
throughout the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!'
Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The firmness of
manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the steel
paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor tale-teller,
mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long description,
Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, 'Here is what
you so anxiously sought,' and whilst uttering these words he fell down
almost lifeless."
If our sober chronicler of the ninth century could thus let his
imagination wander in speaking of the great king, what wonder that the
romancers of a later age took Charlemagne and his Paladins as fruitful
subjects for their wildly fanciful themes!
_PETER THE HERMIT._
In the last decade of the eleventh century there might have been seen,
wandering through every part of France and Germany, a man of singular
appearance. Small of stature, almost dwarfish in size, emaciated by
rigid austerities, angular and ungainly in form, clad in a woollen tunic
over which he wore a serge cloak that came down to his heels, his head
and feet bare, and mounted on an ass that seemed to have practised the
same austerities as its master, this singular person rode up and down
the land, rousing everywhere as he went the wildest enthusiasm.
Miserable as he seemed in body, he was a man of active and earnest mind,
of quick intellect, keen and penetrating eye, and an ease, fluency, and
force of speech that gave him the power to sway multitudes and stir up
the soul of Europe as no man before him had ever done.
This man was Peter the Hermit, the father of the Crusades. He had been a
soldier in his youth; afterwards a married man and father of a family;
later a monk and recluse; then a pilgrim to Jerusalem, now he was an
envoy from Simeon, patriarch of Jerusalem, to arouse the nations of
Europe with the story of the cruelties to which Christian pilgrims were
subjected by the barbarous Turks.
The pope, Urban II., had blessed his enterprise; and then, dressed and
mounted as described, and bearing in his arms a huge cross, the
inspired envoy rode throughout the Teutonic lands, everywhere recounting
with vehement speech and with the force of fiery indignation the
sufferings of the Christians and the barbarities of the Turks, and
calling on all pious souls to take arms in defence of the Holy Sepulchre
and for the emancipation of the Holy Land from infidel control.
"We saw him at that time," says Guibert de Nogent; his contemporary,
"scouring city and town, and preaching everywhere. The people crowded
around him, heaped presents upon him, and celebrated his sanctity by
such great praises that I remember not that like honor was ever rendered
to any other person. In all that he did or said he seemed to have in him
something divine, insomuch that people went so far as to pluck hairs
from his mule to keep as relics."
Never had mankind been more excited. All Europe was aroused, indignant,
fiery. The Holy Sepulchre must be rescued, Palestine must be in the
hands of the Christians, the infidel Turks must be driven from that
sacred soil and punished for the indignities they had heaped upon
pilgrims, Europe must march to Asia, and win salvation by driving the
unbelieving barbarian from the land sanctified by the feet of Christ.
Everywhere men rose, seized their arms and prepared for the march, of
whose length and dangers few of them dreamed. "The most distant islands
and savage countries," says William of Malmesbury, "were inspired by
this ardent passion. The Welshman left his hunting, the Scotchman his
fellowship with vermin, the Dane his drinking-party, the Norwegian his
raw fish." So far extended the story of the mission of Peter the Hermit;
while in France, Germany, and the other lands in which he made his
indignant and fiery appeals, the whole population seemed ready to rise
and march _en masse_ to the Holy Land.
In 1095, taking advantage of this enthusiasm, Urban II., the pope,
called a council at Clermont, in Auvergne, where numbers of clergymen
and multitudes of people assembled. Here, after the council, the pope
mounted a platform which rose in the midst of a great open space, and
around which extended a vast throng of knights, nobles, and common
people. Peter the Hermit stood by the pope's side, and told the story of
the miseries and humiliations of the Christians in Jerusalem in that
fiery and fluent oratory which had stirred the soul of all Europe. Pope
Urban followed in an impassioned address, recounting the sufferings of
the Christian pilgrims, and calling upon the people of France to rise
for their deliverance.
"Men of France," he said, "men from beyond the mountains, nations chosen
and beloved of God, right valiant knights, recall the virtues of your
ancestors, the virtue and greatness of King Charlemagne and your other
kings; it is from you above all that Jerusalem awaits the help she
invokes, for to you, above all nations, God has vouchsafed signal glory
in arms. Christians, put an end to your own misdeeds and let concord
reign among you while in those distant lands. If necessary, your bodies
will redeem your souls.... These things I publish and command, and for
their execution I appoint the end of the coming spring."
His eloquent words roused the mass to madness. From the throng rose one
general cry, "God wills it! God wills it!" Again and again it was
repeated as if it would never end, while swords waving in the air,
banners floating on high, and every indication of applause and approval,
attested the excitement and enthusiasm of the crowd.
"If the Lord God were not in your soul, you would not all have uttered
the same words," cried the pope, when he could make himself heard. "In
the battle, then, be those your war-cry, those words that came from God.
In the army of our Lord let nought be heard but that one shout, 'God
wills it! God wills it!' Whosoever hath a wish to enter upon this
pilgrimage, let him wear upon his breast or his brow the cross of the
Lord, and let him who, in accomplishment of his desire, shall be willing
to march away, place the cross behind him, between his shoulders; for
thus he will fulfil the precept of the Lord, who said, 'He that doth not
take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me.'"
These words aroused a new enthusiasm. The desire to assume the cross
spread like a contagion through the crowd. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, was
the first to receive it from the pope's hands. This emblem was of red
cloth, sewed on the right shoulder of the coat, or fastened on the front
of the helmet. In haste the crowd sought materials to make it. The
passion for wearing the cross spread like wild fire through Europe.
Peter the Hermit, seconded by the pope, had given birth to the Crusades.
The first outburst of enthusiasm was, as always, the strongest. It has
been said that in the spring of 1096 six million souls took the road to
Palestine. This is, doubtless, a vast exaggeration, but great numbers
set out, and an immense multitude of ignorant and enthusiastic people
pushed tumultuously towards the Holy Land, in advance of the organized
armies of the First Crusade.
As early as the 8th of March, 1096, great mobs--they cannot fairly be
called armies--began their journey towards Palestine. They were not only
composed of armed men; women and children made up part of them; whole
families abandoned their villages; and without organization or
provisions, or a knowledge of what lay before them, the ignorant and
enthusiastic mass pushed onward with unquestioning faith.
The first body of these enthusiasts, led by a poor knight called Walter
the Penniless, was cut to pieces by the natives of Bulgaria, a few only
reaching Constantinople. A second multitude, forty thousand strong, was
headed by Peter the Hermit. It was similar in character to the
preceding. Whenever a town came in sight on their way, the children
eagerly asked if that were Jerusalem. The elders were little better
informed. Onward they went, through Hungary, through Bulgaria, through
the provinces of the Greek empire, everywhere committing excesses,
everywhere treated as enemies by the incensed people, until the line of
march was strewn with their dead bodies. Peter the Hermit sought to
check their excesses, but in vain; and when, at length, a miserable
remnant of them reached Constantinople, the Emperor Alexius hastened to
convey them across the Bosphorus, to save the suburbs of his city from
their ravages.