Further, the whole of North
and Central Italy and the greater part of South Italy belonged to him.
and Central Italy and the greater part of South Italy belonged to him.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
Our information is drawn entirely from Frankish sources.
What
is reported in the official Annals is not conclusive without confirmation.
From them we leam that Tassilo afterwards confessed that he had
incited the Avars to make war against the Franks, that he had attempted
the lives of the king's vassals in Bavaria, that he had recommended his
own people to make secret reservations in taking the oath of allegiance
to the king, and had even said that he would rather lose ten sons if he
had them than hold to the treaties, that he would rather die than live
under them.
The decision came at the Meeting of the Empire which was held at
Ingelheim in the summer of 788. Tassilo, who had been invited like
other nobles of the Empire, had appeared. He seems to have had
no suspicion of what threatened him, and this unsuspecting appearance
certainly does not look like guilt. He was immediately arrested, while
royal messengers departed for Bavaria to seize the wife, the children, the
treasures, and the household of the duke. Then Bavarians appeared as
accusers and proved Tassilo's disloyalty. But the charges could not have
been very serious, for they had to go back to the Herisliz of 763—an
incident which must have been regarded as long previously pardoned by
the royal declarations of grace in 781 and 787. The meeting, however,
so it is reported, unanimously pronounced sentence of death on Tassilo,
and only the intervention of Charles procured a mitigation of the
sentence. Tassilo was shorn and sent into a monastery as a monk,
he and his two sons. His wife also was compelled to take the veil, and
they were all immured in different cloisters. But the ceremony of de-
position was not yet completed. Six years later, at the Synod of Frank-
fort of 794, the deposed duke was made to appear, to acknowledge his
guilt publicly in the assembly, and to renounce all rights for himself and
his successors, in order to obtain the king's pardon and to be received
back into his favour and protection. Of this event a report was made
in three copies, one for the Palace, one for Tassilo, and one for the
Court Chapel.
When we consider all the steps of Tassilo's fall, we easily recognise
that he was sacrificed to the policy of the great king of the Franks.
They were not acts of justice, they were acts of violence, which were
only in appearance connected with any definite process of law.
## p. 608 (#640) ############################################
608 Bavaria. The Avars [763-794
Suspicious is the use made of the Herisliz of 763, which legally must
have long been regarded as done with, and even more so is the
solemn renunciation before the Synod of 794. Any breach of faith by
Tassilo after his homage at the Lech cannot have been very serious.
But even if in his treatment of Tassilo Charles appears to us less as
a just judge than as a strong statesman—the part which the last inde-
pendent duke of Bavaria played in this drama remains pitiful. His
deceit and bad faith are only known to us from the official history, but
his weakness and political incapacity are shewn bv the facts themselves.
He did not understand the tasks of his age. During his long rule
he favoured and enriched the churches like any Christian prince. But while
he furthered the monasteries, he shewed but little understanding for the
episcopal organisation with which lay the future. It was precisely this
circumstance that immediately sent the leaders of the Church, the
Bavarian bishops, over to the enemy when conflict broke out with the
powerful Frank. Brave to fight for his hereditary rights and for the poli-
tical independence of his race, he did not dare, or rather he was unable,
to take a comprehensive view of the political situation, and he went
unsuspectingly to Ingelheim to be taken prisoner, to be condemned to
death, commuted for the life of a monk. Perhaps the result answered
to the man's personal wishes, for his hopes and fears were set upon the
other world.
Properly speaking, the wide district of Bavaria was not won for the
empire of the Franks till 788. After the subjection of the Saxons it
was the second great conquest of German territory—a conquest without
bloodshed or struggle. This was a fact of immense international impor-
tance. It decided that the Bavarian race should share the destinies of
the West-German peoples, just as the wars with the Saxons decided those
of the North-eastern West-Germans.
The borders of the Frankish kingdom extended over the middle
Danube district as far as the Enns, and at the same time over a district
of the Slavs already conquered by Tassilo, over Carantania (Carinthia).
Before long they were extended still further. For the subjection of the
Bavarian kingdom was naturally followed by the struggle against the
Avars and the Slavs, the Eastern neighbours of the Bavarians.
The Avars, confused by the Franks with the Huns, to whom they
were related as belonging to the Ural-altaic family, had for some
centuries come in contact with the Byzantines and Franks. About the
end of the sixth century, as we have seen1, they held a great dominion:
but by the end of the eighth century the period of their greatest power
was past. They had never risen above the level of barbarian nomads,
and the Slavs of the south-east had long thrown off their yoke, and
even their own sense of unity was gone. It was remarkable how this
uncivilised people sought to make use of the civilised labour of other
1 Chaps, ix, xiv.
## p. 609 (#641) ############################################
788-8ii] The Avars 609
peoples. Agriculture, like all other productive labour, was unknown to
them. In the plain between the Danube and the Theiss were situated
the "Rings"—the strong circular walls round extensive dwelling-places.
According to the assertion of a Frankish warrior—quoted by the Monk
of St Gall—the Rings extended as far "as from Zurich to Constance"
(therefore about 60 kilometres or nearly 38 miles) and embraced several
districts. In these Rings, of which, according to the Monk of St Gall,
there were nine, the Avars had heaped their plunder of two centuries.
In 788 the Avars had advanced westward in two divisions, but had
been completely defeated near the Danube and in Friuli. In 791
Charles had taken the offensive, not only to acquire rich treasures or
to punish the invaders of 788, but to obtain a natural closed frontier
towards the East. The Franks advanced as far as the Raab without
making a permanent conquest. Their important task in Saxony for a
long time hindered new and decisive action. Political alliances began
to be formed among those who were at that time threatened by the
Frankish sword. The Saracens, the Saxons, and the Avars knew of
each other, and Charles' enemies in the north and south counted
especially on a successful advance of the Avars. But the Avars lacked
endurance. In the year 795 the Margrave Erich of Friuli, supported
by the Slav prince Woinimir, advanced over the Danube and took the
principal Ring. Large treasures of gold made their way to the Franks,
and even if the opinion is scarcely tenable that great changes in prices
in the Frankish Empire were the result, still his success was great. In
the following year Charles1 son Pepin completed the work of conquest.
He destroyed the Ring, subdued the Avars, and opened large districts
to the preaching of Christianity. In later years small risings had still
to be put down, and Frankish blood still flowed in battle against the
barbarians. In 811 a Frankish army was sent against Pannonia. But
these were only echoes of the past. The Avars themselves are men-
tioned for the last time in 822. Even in the last years of the eighth
century Christianity and colonisation had been introduced among them.
The Christian mission was entrusted to the Dioceses of Aquileia,
Salzburg, and Passau. The settlement of the middle Danube district
began under Charles, that extension of the Germans, i. e. of the
Bavarian, later also of the Frankish race, which finally embraced the
present German Austria and the western districts of Hungary. Under
Charles the Danube district about as far as the Leitha and the district
of the upper Drave and the Save—the latter as Carantania—were
reckoned politically as part of the Empire. The more eastern district,
Pannonia, only belonged loosely to the Carlovingian Empire, and in
consequence of the long wars it was greatly depopulated.
With Charles ambition and religion worked together. Successes
in arms were for him at the same time successes for Christianity.
C. MED. B. VOL. II. CH. XIX. 39
## p. 610 (#642) ############################################
610 The Saxon Wars [631-775
The ecclesiastical motive was specially strong in the Saxon wars.
And the Saxons resisted ecclesiastical subjection as much as political.
They struggled with their utmost strength against the Franks for
their political freedom and for the imaginary blessings of their national
religion.
The Franks had fought against the Saxons even in the sixth century.
Chlotar I is said to have laid upon them a tribute of 500 cows, from
which Dagobert freed them in 631. In the eighth century, profiting by
the weakness of the royal authority, they repeatedly ravaged Frankish
territory. The Mayors of the Palace, Charles Martel and his sons, were
the first to fight successfully against them. They brought the tribes
on the Frankish border into some kind of subjection, and under Pepin
the payment of the old annual tribute of 500 cows was regularly
demanded. But Christian teaching found no soil. The two Hewalds
had paid with their lives for their first attempt to convert their
kinsmen. The mission of Willehad was fruitless. The noble work of
Utrecht and its school of missions failed in the case of the Saxons.
At the beginning of the reign of Charles the Saxons were in the
same state as they are said to have been at the beginning of our
era—small independent political communities which only combined
temporarily in time of war. The three greater sub-tribes, the West-
phalians, the Engers, and the Eastphalians, were not regular political
units. The pure morals of the uncorrupted natural peoples still
prevailed, but also all the brutality and cruelty of barbarism. The
unconditional reverence for the gods and the blind obedience due to
supposed utterances of the Divine Will exercised a fatalistic and
fanatical influence.
Whether Charles had from the first intended the complete conquest
of the whole Saxon territory or whether he was led to it by the force
of circumstances, cannot be determined. It is certain that from 775 he
aimed at the unconditional surrender of the Saxons.
The first campaign was decided on at the Assembly of the Empire
at Worms in the summer of 772. In the territory of the Engers Charles,
advancing from the south, took the Eresburg, marched northwards,
destroyed the Irminsul, a tall column of wood erected on the Holy
Heath which was honoured as the symbolic bearer of the Universe
{universalis columna quasi sustinens omnia), and finally reached the
Weser, where the Engers professed their submission and gave hostages
as guarantees of peace. During Charles' absence in Italy in 774 the
Saxons made an incursion into Hesse and destroyed Fritzlar, but were
quickly driven back. Charles on his return planned radical measures.
According to the Annaks Einhardi, as they are called, he resolved to
fight and ravage the faithless Saxons till they accepted Christianity or
were utterly destroyed. The Frankish army in 775 marched from the
West through the Westphalian country, took the fortress of Sigiburg,
## p. 611 (#643) ############################################
775-782] Conquest of the Saxons 611
and advanced as far as Brunisberg on the Weser. The three Saxon
tribes seemed to be entirely conquered, and an unsuccessful rising in 776
only completed the work of conquest. The Eresburg and the Sigiburg
were made strong centres of the Frankish power. Carlsburg on the
Lippe was built, the people were compelled to accept Christianity and
their hostages were trained for Christian propaganda.
From that time Saxony was looked upon as part of the Frankish
kingdom, and Charles no longer treated the people as enemies but as rebels.
The Westphalian Widukind, the head of the national resistance, had
fled to Denmark. In the summer of 777 the annual Assembly was held
at Paderborn in the land of the Engers, and the first foundation was
laid for the lasting nurture and maintenance of the Christian life, the
land being divided into missionary districts and entrusted to the neigh-
bouring bishoprics and great monasteries. Though in the time of the
great Spanish campaign in 778, the Saxons made another plundering
expedition to the Rhine and as far as Ehrenbreitstein, a detachment of
the army that had returned from Spain quickly drove back the rebels,
and in the summer campaign of 779 Charles reached the Weser and
subdued the three tribes. In the summer of 780 an Assembly was held
at Lippspringe at the source of the Lippe, an advance was made to the
Elbe and again a new important permanent ecclesiastical arrangement
was made. Two years later the Frankish Assembly was again held at
Lippspringe. All the Saxons appeared, say the Frankish Annals, only
the chief rebel, Widukind, remained away. Charles now went a step
further—Saxon nobles were made Frankish counts and the land joined
politically to his empire. And at that time apparently those regula-
tions were made which were intended to prevent any rising and to
ensure the full acceptance of Christianity under threat of the severest
punishment—the Capitulatio de partibus Saoconiae.
Any who broke into, robbed or set fire to a church was to be
punished with death. Any who from contempt of Christianity ate meat
in Lent, any who killed a bishop, priest, or deacon, any who according
to heathen custom burnt men as wizards or ate men, any who after
heathen rites burned the dead, any who offered human sacrifices, or even
any who omitted to be baptised and remained heathen, were to be put
to death. Many other ordinances for the maintenance of Christianity
and the political authority of the Frankish power were made, and also
for the material foundation of Christian churches (surrender of the
ownership of land and tithes). Even if there was a mitigation of this
unusually severe legislation in the ordinance that the death penalty was
to be remitted for those who had fled to a priest and after confession
were ready to do penance, yet the law must have been found harsh,
and the final Frankish ordinances of the year 782 must have incited
to the utmost resistance those who looked on the conquest as only
temporary.
ch. xix. 39—2
## p. 612 (#644) ############################################
612 Continued Saxon Wars [782-787
When Charles had left the Saxons and had sent a Frankish army to
the east in order that with a Saxon levy it might fight against the
Sorbs, a general rising broke out under the leadership of Widukind, and
when the Frankish army marched against the rebels, it was defeated on
the Siintel Hill on the right bank of the Weser. Thereupon Charles
himself immediately hastened to Saxony. His appearance gave the
upper hand to the party among the Saxons friendly to the Franks and
to the Christians. Widukind fled, and the chiefs obeyed the order to
deliver up those who had taken part in the rising. Charles however
held a strict inquiry, and had 4500 Saxons beheaded on one day at
Verden on the Aller—a cruel deed for which we have sufficient historical
attestation, though it has been wrongly disputed by some modern
authorities.
But Charles had deceived himself as to the effect of these punishments.
A general rising of the Saxon people was the result. The campaign of
783, which procured Charles the two victories at Detmold and on the
Hase and brought him to the Elbe, was only a passing success. The
Frisians also rose. The year 784 was taken up with the warlike
undertakings of Charles and his son of the same name. The king
remained with his army in Saxony through the winter also in order to
undertake raids from the Eresburg, the head-quarters of himself and of
his family, and to quell every attempt at a new rising. In the early
summer of 785 he marched northwards to Paderborn, held the Frankish
Assembly there, and then pressed on into the Bardengau on the left
bank of the lower Elbe. All resistance was broken. Friendly overtures
were made to Widukind and the other Saxon nobles who had hitherto
fought stubbornly against the Franks. At Christmas 785 Widukind
with his men appeared at Attigny, was baptised, and allowed to depart
as a loyal subject, loaded with rich presents.
The event was looked upon as an important success. A special
embassy announced to the Pope the victory of the Christian cause, and bv
Papal ordinance thanksgivings were offered all over Christendom to
celebrate the fortunate ending of the thirteen years' war. But Widukind,
the great hero, the most mighty personality in the older Saxon history,
lived on in the memory of his people and became the subject of
numerous legends. History tells us nothing of his later life, but legend
has much to say. The most powerful Saxon families sought to honour
him as their ancestor, and the Church and ecclesiastic literature made
use of him. His bones worked miracles, his day was celebrated in later
centuries, and he was even honoured as a saint.
The year 785 was an epoch in the history of the Saxon wars. Years
of peaceful Christianisation followed. And a beginning was made with
the episcopal organisation that was still wanting. The Northumbrian
Willehad, who had been long working successfully among the Frisians
and Saxons as a missionary, was consecrated Bishop of Worms (17 July
## p. 613 (#645) ############################################
787-804] Final Conquest of the Saxons 613
787), and the northern districts between the Elbe, the Weser, and Ems
were given to him as his diocese. In Bremen he built St Peter's church,
which was consecrated (1 Nov. 789) as the see of the . first Saxon bishopric.
The bishoprics of Verden and Minden must likewise have been founded
then or soon afterwards.
The terrible Saxon wars of the first period of Charles'' reign had their
sequence. In the summer of 792 the Saxon people rose once more
against God, the king, and the Christians. This was a national heathen
reaction. Perhaps the heavy taxation of which the Church was the
cause aroused the wrath of the lower elements of the population. If
the easy yoke and the light burden of Christ had been preached to the
obstinate Saxons with the same persistence as tithes and hard penances
for light sins were exacted, they would not perhaps have shunned
baptism—so wrote Alcuin at the time, not without irony. The Saxons
sought to enter into alliance with the surrounding heathen, and they
turned to the distant Avars. A new period of the struggle began, and
at the same time a period of further violent measures to master this
obstinate people. In the year 795 Charles for the first time had crowds
of hostages sent to Francia. The third part of the population was
forcibly deported, reports one group of sources, and the number of exiles
is given as 7070. In the years 797, 798, 799 similar measures were
taken and at the same time Franks were settled on Saxon soil. In 804
in particular, whole districts of Northern Saxony and Nordalbingia
were robbed of their population, i. e. the Saxons were dragged away
with wives and children. It is certain that no small portion of the
Saxon race was at that time removed from its native soil—traces of
them are still to be found in later centuries in Frankish and Alemannic
regions.
At last the war, which with interruptions had lasted thirty-two years,
could be regarded as ended, and the wide German territory as far as the
Elbe and further was incorporated permanently into the Frankish Empire.
Charles carried out his purpose of either subduing or destroying the
Saxons, with wonderful persistence, but at the same time with brutal
severity. The Saxons are certainly not to be regarded as stubborn
heathens who resisted the blessings of Christian civilisation, but are to
be admired as a people of strong purpose defending their national
characteristics. But the unavoidable demands of the world's progress
could not be resisted. The future belonged, not to the small German
states which remained politically isolated: the Saxons had to fall a
sacrifice to the great central development which was at that time the
ruling factor in the political shaping of the West.
The extension of Frankish rule over Saxony was followed by con-
nexions with the Danes and the Northern Slavs. The court of the
Danish king Sigfried was for a long time the centre of Saxon resistance
to Charles' Christian propaganda, and it was there that Widukind had
## p. 614 (#646) ############################################
614 The Danes [782-812
always taken refuge. But in 782 the heathen king had sent a friendly
embassy to the Franks, though without any wish to make concessions to
Christianity. Later also friendly relations are mentioned. In 807 a
Danish chieftain submitted. But in 808 King Gottrik marched against
the Obodrites who were in alliance with Charles, and when the younger
Charles tried to interfere to punish and to help, though he was only able
to lay waste districts on the right bank of the Elbe, King Gottrik had a
strong wall of defence built, it is supposed from the Treene to the Schlei.
In the following year, however, after the failure of attempts at a treaty,
Charles caused the fortress of Itzehoe to be built.
In 810 the Danish power seemed to be making a dangerous effort.
A Danish fleet of two hundred ships ravaged the Frisian coasts and
islands, tribute was laid upon the subjects of the Empire, and King
Gottrik, who had remained at home, boasted that he would defeat
Charles in open battle and make his entry into Aachen. Charles
hastened eastwards with a strong force and took up his head-quarters
at Verden, but he had no need to interfere, for Gottrik was assassinated
by a follower, and his nephew and successor Hemming quickly made
peace. In 811 twelve deputies from the Danes and as many from the
Franks met on the Eider, and solemnly swore to keep the agreements
that had been made.
Of the Slavs of the north-east, the Obodrites on the lower Elbe,
who were nearest to the Franks, always stood on good terms with
Charles, while the Wiltzi on the Baltic always remained hostile, and
the Sorbs between the Elbe and the Saale were variable. There is
evidence of friendly relations with the Obodrites after 780. They
probably by that time recognised Charles1 suzerainty, but were disin-
clined to Christianity. They repeatedly took part in the Frankish
campaigns, and in 810 Charles appointed their chieftain. In 782 the
Sorbs made an unimportant attack on Thuringian territory, in 806 they
were defeated by the younger Charles and compelled to submit. But
the subsequent building of two fortresses on the right bank of the Elbe,
at Magdeburg and at Halle on the Saale, shews that there was no
incorporation of the territory of the Sorbs into the Empire. Still less
is that the case with the Wiltzi. In 789 Charles undertook a great
campaign of conquest. He crossed the Elbe and advanced ravaging as
far as the Peene, and the chief Dragowit and the other leaders of the
people even took an oath of fidelity, but we can find no trace of per-
manent subjection or toll, such as Einhard records.
Again there were struggles afterwards. In 806 fortresses were
erected against them, and even the submission of 812 was only nominal
and transitory. The proper boundary of the Empire on the east, apart
from the district of the Nordalbingians, was the Elbe, more to the south
the Saale, then the Bohmerwald. For even the land of the Chekhs may
not be reckoned as part of the Empire. The passage of Frankish armies
## p. 615 (#647) ############################################
Survey of the Empire 615
did not trouble the Chekhs who were only loosely organised, and the
campaigns of the younger Charles in the years 805 and 806 certainly
laid the land waste, but there was no lasting submission.
It was a proud Empire, that of the great Charles. From the
Pyrenees and the north-eastern part of Spain it stretched to the Eider
and the Schlei on the north, from the Atlantic Ocean and the North
Sea on the west to the Elbe, the Bohmerwald to the Leitha, the upper
Save, and the Adriatic Sea on the east.
Further, the whole of North
and Central Italy and the greater part of South Italy belonged to him.
But his influence extended beyond this. The Slavs and the Avars who
dwelt on the east were even reckoned as his and certainly belonged to
the sphere of his interests. It is true that the Christian states in Spain
and in the British Isles were independent, but even they recognised his
friendly superiority. With the Abbasids in Bagdad Charles united
against the Umayyads of Spain and against Byzantium. The Caliph is
even said to have agreed that the place of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem should be under Charles' authority. Even in the East
Charles began to be regarded as the representative of Christian
power.
Thus the Frankish king had raised himself above the narrow limits
of his nation. His authority had taken a theocratic and universal
element. While in the age of Pepin the ecclesiastical idea with its
tendencies to universal authority had strengthened the Papacy, and had
sought to give the Pope the position of the Roman Emperor in the
West, under the reign of Charles all the elements of authority connected
with the Church had been serviceable to the Frankish king. The
patricius, the protector of the Papal possessions, became the protector
and patron of the Church generally, and moreover the representative and
leader of the spread of Christianity.
This was the necessary result of the forces developed by the needs of
the Church itself. If the Christian teaching was to conquer the world,
political power must be aimed at along with the spread of the faith. It
was precisely in those times of active Christian propaganda that the need
of political power was especially felt. The realisation of the theocratic
ideal required a dualism: ecclesiastics for the spread of the holy doctrine,
laymen to fight for the Faith—at the head of the former, the Pope
according to the hierarchical view that had prevailed for centuries, and
at the head of the others, the king of the Franks. But the privileges of
the actual political power answered the needs of the theocratic idea of
that age.
Towards the end of the eighth century a mosaic was placed in the
refectory of the Lateran. In it we see St Peter sitting on the throne with
the keys in his bosom; on the right and left kneel Pope Leo and King
Charles, to the one Peter hands the pallium, to the other the banner of
## p. 616 (#648) ############################################
616 Ecclesiastical Affairs [787-794
the city of Rome, and the legend runs: "Holy Peter, thou bestowest
life on Pope Leo, and victory on King Charles. 11 So was the relation
understood in Rome at that time. Two central forces prevailed in
Christendom, a spiritual and a secular, the one by spiritual means, the
other by might. But how far did the power extend that Peter bestowed
with the banner, and how far the power conferred with the pallium?
As a matter of fact, the relation of spiritual and secular powers turned
out very much to the disadvantage of the former.
The government of Charles did not limit itself to secular matters.
Just as the Frankish kings had long been rulers of their Church and as
the work of Boniface had done little to alter this, so it was under
Charles. The position of governor of the Frankish Church Charles
extended over the Church of the West generally. Charles felt himself
called to care not only for the external maintenance of Church
order, but also for the purity of the faith. Numberless are his
measures for the supervision of Church life and the ecclesiastical
ordinances. But he also took an active part in the settlement of
purely dogmatic questions. As the holy Josiah (so it runs in one
capitular) endeavoured to bring back to the service of God the kingdom
bestowed upon him by God, so Charles would follow his example. But
it is not the Pope who decides what is right and Christian, and then
informs Charles. The Pope was not allowed the leading part even in
matters of doctrine. On the contrary, Charles took the initiative
repeatedly, consulted with his bishops and demanded from the Pope
acceptance and execution. His treatment of two questions is specially
characteristic.
To deal with Adoptianism, which originated in Spain and greatly
stirred the Western Church, Charles caused Synods to be held and to
decide under his own presidency. At the Assembly of Frankfort in 794,
Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgel were condemned. Charles took
a personal interest also in the matter of image-worship. When a council
of Nicaea in 787, by the influence of the Empress Irene, re-introduced
the worship of images and condemned those who taught otherwise—
threatening ecclesiastics with deposition and laymen with outlawry,
Charles offered strong opposition to the heretical teaching of Greeks, as
he considered it, and caused a learned and comprehensive work, the
"Caroline Books" (Libri Carolini) to be prepared, perhaps by Alcuin.
It is of no further present interest to us that to a great extent the
matter dealt with misunderstandings caused by unfortunate renderings
of decisions of 787, composed in the Greek language. It is enough
that the doctrine of the Greeks was rejected in the sharpest manner
and the Pope was required, though he was entirely on the side of
the Greeks, to take the side of the Franks and to excommunicate the
Greek Emperor as a heretic. Hadrian did not dare directly to repudiate
the king's interference in the settlement of questions 6f doctrine, although
## p. 617 (#649) ############################################
800] Idea of the Empire 617
he prudently appealed to his primacy, opposed the royal opinion point
by point, and defended the Greek view as the orthodox one. Finally,
however, he declared himself ready to fulfil the king's wish and to
excommunicate the Greek Emperor. He would demand of Constantine
the restitution of the Patrimony of Peter, and if the Emperor refused,
he would exclude him as an obstinate heretic from Church fellowship.
Charles seems to have left this very remarkable proposal unanswered.
He simply caused the pseudo-council of Nicaea to be repudiated—and
the Pope said nothing.
"This do we praise as a wonderful and special Divine gift," writes
Alcuin to Charles, "that thou dost endeavour to keep the Church of
Christ inwardly pure and to protect it with as great devotion from the
doctrine of the faithless as to defend it outwardly against the plundering
of the heathen and to extend it. With these two swords has God's power
armed thy right hand and thy left. " In the Caroline Books it is declared
that by the gift of God he had taken the helm of the Church throughout
his dominions, and that the Church had been entrusted to him to steer
through the stormy waves of this world. The first letter of Charles to
Leo III contains a formal programme of the relation of Pope and king:
It is the king's business to defend the Holy Church of God outwardly
with arms and inwardly to maintain the Catholic Faith, and it is the
business of the Holy Father to support the royal work by his prayers.
The "Representative of God who has to protect and govern all the
members of God"—so is Charles called—" Lord and Father, King and
Priest, the Leader and Guide of all Christians. "
These are courtly expressions, but they agree perfectly with the
facts. The Frankish kingdom had become a world-empire, the Christian
Empire of the West. And yet the old fundamental political ideas were
still in force—the supreme lord of this power still called himself "King
of the Franks and Lombards and patricius of the Romans" (Carolus
gratia Dei rex Francorum et Langobardorum ac patricius Romanorum).
Must there not be a change in this respect, must not the increased
power find expression in a new title?
It does not appear that Charles definitely sought this, nor does it
appear that tendencies of this kind prevailed about Charles. Even in
the year 800 Alcuin explained that three powers were the highest in the
world—the Papacy in Rome, the Empire in the Second Rome, and the
royal dignity of Charles. And the last precedes the others. Charles
surpasses all men in power, in wisdom, in dignity, he is appointed by
Jesus Christ as Leader of the Christian people. If Alcuin does not
wish thereby to set the title of King above that of Emperor, but only
to estimate the royal dignity of Charles as higher than that of the
Emperor of East Rome, yet so much is clear, that in the eyes of Charles'
contemporaries claims to the highest earthly power were compatible
with the title of king, and that the monarch in Byzantium, in spite of
## p. 618 (#650) ############################################
618 Idea of the Empire [soo
his title of Emperor, was to be regarded as of less importance than the
King Charles. With proud self-consciousness the Franks set themselves
on occasion in opposition to the Roman idea of the State. Thus the
Prologue to the Lex Salica, composed in the eighth century, spoke of
the glorious Frankish race that after a victorious struggle had thrown
off the hard yoke of the Romans, and after their acceptance of Chris-
tianity had enshrined in buildings decked with gold the bodies of the
martyrs, burnt and mutilated by the Romans. And in the last decade
of the eighth century expressions directly hostile to the Roman Empire
were uttered by the confidential friends of Charles. In the Caroline
Books the Imperium Romanum is characterised as heathen and idolatrous.
Here speaks hatred for the East Roman Empire of Constantine and of
Irene; but in it there is also seen Augustine's conception of the Roman
world-empire as one of the great civitates terrenae, and further the idea
which the Christian writers had spread, using the interpretation of the
dream of Nebuchadnezzar by the Prophet Daniel, the idea that four
empires follow one another and that the Roman Empire is the fourth,
upon which follows the setting up of the Heavenly Empire, i. e. the end
of the world. Four civitates terrenae and the last of them the Roman
Imperium stand in characteristic contrast to the Civitas Dei—truly a
conception which could hardly lead to the assumption of the Roman
Imperial dignity by the Franks.
But on the other hand the Roman Imperial dignity still lived as a
universal power in the historical life even of the West. And Byzantium
was still looked upon as the head of one Roman Empire. It is true
that the development of civilisation had brought about a separation of
the Christian East and Christian West, complete political separation,
and made desirable the limitation of the universal Roman Empire to
the West. These were social exigencies which help us to understand
the efforts of the Italian Exarchs of the great Emperors for emanci-
pation, including that of the eunuch Eleutherius who in the year 619
marched to Rome to set the West Roman Empire up again and wished
to be crowned by the Pope. And then the Pope himself had taken up
the idea of Roman Universalism and regarded himself as the sovereign
representative of the Respublica Romana between Byzantium and the
Lombards. Finally the supreme power of Charles had arisen and he
had united in himself the power of the kings of the Franks, of the
Lombard kings, and of the lord of the Respublica Romana and the
universalist tendencies which were peculiar to Rome and the Christian
Church of the West.
There was great need in the eighth century for a political union of
the Christian West. In the Empire of Charles these tendencies were
eventually satisfied. But the way to the re-erection of the Western
Empire of the Romans was not yet clear, for it contradicted the still
recognised position of the Byzantine Emperor as the supreme head of
## p. 619 (#651) ############################################
795-799] Pope Leo III 619
the Imperium Romanum. Also in contradiction to it was a deep-seated
opposition of the friends of Charles to the Roman imperial idea itself,
against the Imperium Romanum, the fourth and last of the great world-
empires that were founded on the power of the Evil One, and stood in
opposition to the Kingdom of God on earth.
There is no doubt that at the end of the eighth century the develop-
ment of affairs in the West pressed for a certain formal recognition of
the universal power of the Frankish king which had prevailed, but the
friends of the great monarch did not seek the settlement and could not
seek it in the assumption of the Imperial dignity by Charles. The
position was still obscure, when the solution came through a spontaneous
act of the Pope.
Pope Hadrian I died on Christmas Day 795. The Roman Leo III
was elected on the following day, and consecrated on the day after.
He did homage to Charles as his overlord. He sent to him the decree
of the election with the assurance of fidelity, the keys of the grave of
St Peter and the banner of the City of Rome, and he asked for envoys
before whom the Romans could take the oath of allegiance. Formerly
the Popes had given in their documents the years of the reigns of the
Eastern Emperors. Since 772 Hadrian had omitted this, and Leo III
reckoned the years of "the Lord Charles, the illustrious King of the
Franks and of the Lombards and Patricius of the Romans since he has
conquered Italy. '" Charles answered the Papal message in a manner
which expressed the exalted position of the king. Through Angilbert
he gave the new spiritual ruler a strict warning to lead an honourable
life and to observe the decrees of the Church.
Leo III was hard and cruel, and soon forfeited the sympathies of the
Romans. On 25 Apr. 799, when he was taking part in an ordinary
procession, a conspiracy broke out. Leo was attacked, torn from his
horse, severely treated and sent to the monastery of St Erasmus. During
the night he escaped with the help of his chamberlain, being let down
the wall by a rope, and hurried to St Peter's, where the two Frankish
envoys, the Abbot of Stablo and the Duke of Spoleto, were staying.
These on news of the movement in Rome had hastened there with
an army. Leo was brought to Spoleto. Soon he was extolled as a
martyr on whom the grace of God had wrought miracles. His enemies
were said to have destroyed his eyes and torn out his tongue when they
attacked him, but during his imprisonment his sight and speech were
restored by miracle. And when the two envoys brought him to the
land of the Franks to seek help, his triumph was worthy of one on
whom the grace of God had so wonderfully lighted, and the people
hastened to kiss the feet of the Holy Father. In Paderborn Charles
prepared a brilliant reception for the Pope, and Leo was received by the
king with kind embraces. But when his Roman opponents, "accursed
sons of the devil," also sent messengers to Charles and raised the gravest
## p. 620 (#652) ############################################
620 The Imperial Coronation [799-800
charges against the Holy Father, accusing him of adultery and perjury,
there were not wanting voices round Charles, that Leo should either
clear himself by an oath or renounce the Papal dignity. Others, among
them especially Abbot Alcuin of Tours, saw in such demands a serious
blow to the Papal office itself. This opinion Charles shared. He sent
Leo to Rome accompanied by royal envoys, and on 29 Nov. 799 there
was a brilliant entry into the City. Then Charles' envoys brought the
conspirators to trial. As the serious accusations against Leo could not
be proved, the opponents of the Pope were sent as prisoners to Francia;
but the investigation caused the Pope many anxious moments, as may
be seen from the letters of Angilbert. Rome was not yet pacified, and
Charles himself wished to set things in order permanently. In the
autumn of 800 he went to Italy, and (24 Nov. ) held his solemn entry
into Rome. Seven days later the great assembly of Franks and Romans
was held in St Peter's to consider the charges brought against the Pope.
They agreed to leave it to the Pope to clear himself by an oath volun-
tarily and without compulsion. It was in that manner they found a
way out of the difficulty. No trial of the Pope was to be held, for this
must inflict the gravest injury on the Papal office, but yet the suspicions
which remained were to be removed. Leo agreed to the proposal,
and (23 Dec. ) holding the Book of the Gospels, he solemnly declared
in the Assembly, that the most gracious and exalted King Charles had
come to Rome with his priests and nobles to investigate the charges,
and that he himself of his own free will, condemned and compelled by
none, at length cleared himself before God of every suspicion.
Never had Charles appeared so manifestly the Lord of Christendom.
And just at that time came the legates of the Patriarch of Jerusalem,
bringing the keys of the Holy Sepulchre, of the Hill of Calvary and of
the City, as well as a banner to testify to the suzerainty of the mighty
Charles. Was the ruler of orthodox Christendom to hold for the future
only the title of king?
On Christmas Day, as the king rose from prayer before the Con-
fession of St Peter, Pope Leo set a crown upon his head and the whole
Roman people there assembled joined in the cry "Hail to Charles the
Augustus, crowned of God, the great and peace-bringing Emperor of
the Romans. " After this cry of homage, the Pope offered him the
adoration due to the Byzantine Emperors, and laying aside the title of
patridus, he was called Emperor and Augustus.
Such is the brief report of the official Frankish Annals. With it
agree the statements of the Papal Book, only that there is no mention
of the adoration, and a thrice-repeated cry of homage is spoken of.
Another account (Annates Laureshamenses) tells of deliberations of the
Pope, of the assembled Clergy, and of the other Christian people, of
deliberations that the Empire was then in the possession of a woman
(Irene) at Constantinople, that Charles ought to be called Emperor
## p. 621 (#653) ############################################
800-813] The Imperial Coronation 621
because he held Rome, the seat of the Emperors, and that Charles had
yielded to the request of the priests and the whole Christian people and
had accepted the title of Emperor with the coronation by Pope Leo.
Many modern historians have thought that this account makes it
necessary to suppose a previous election by the Roman people. But
the story is worthy of little credit. It abounds in words but is poor
in facts and cannot be set against the harmonious and clear accounts of
the Imperial Annals and of the Papal Book.
The whole proceeding of the Pope, which took Charles entirely by
surprise, is so surely attested that all doubts must be silenced. Even
the question how the people without premeditation could have broken
out into the cries of homage, finds its answer in the fact that the same
Laudes were offered to the patricvus and hence the cry, only slightly
changed, could very well have been raised on Christmas Day 800,
without previous practice. Einhard however relates in his Life of
Charles, that the new title was at first very unwelcome to the monarch,
and that Charles even said that on this day, although it was a high
Festival, he would not have entered the Church if he had known the
Pope's intention.
Thus we have on the whole a trustworthy account of the proceedings
on Christmas Day 800. From the assured facts we must proceed
to the meaning of the coronation as a matter of law and of general
history.
The spontaneous action of the Pope created the office of Emperor,
and the coronation was looked upon as the decisive act. There was no
election by the people: even the joyous cry offered to the newly crowned
Emperor is not to be regarded as an act of election. The Laudes were
only joyful assent to the act which was of itself legally valid. But the
Pope acted as a suddenly inspired organ of God. God Himself crowned
Charles as Emperor through the Pope. This view comes out clearly in
the Laudes offered to Charles and it expresses the meaning of the title of
Emperor. The theocratic origin of the office is certain. And this
theocratic element remained. On this basis Charles took his ground
when he himself provided for the succession in 813 and commanded his
son Louis to take the Imperial crown that was resting on the altar
and to put it upon his head—God spoke not through the Pope but
through the Emperor.
It is certain that on the occasion of the coronation of 800 Byzan-
tine precedents played a leading part. The coronation, hitherto
unknown in the West, was due to the fact that since the middle of the
fifth century the Patriarch of Constantinople had been wont to deck the
new Emperor with the crown. The cry of homage goes back to an
older Litany for the patricvus in connexion with the Byzantine usage,
and in the same way the title of Emperor finds a Byzantine precedent.
But the proceeding of 800 was not an act in accordance with the
CH. XIX.
## p. 622 (#654) ############################################
622 Meanings of the Coronation [soo—si3
Byzantine constitution. In spite of its resemblances to Greek usages, it
was essentially something new. Historical forces, due to developments
in the West and even contrary to Eastern ideas, led to the Western
Empire. The foundation of the Empire in the year 800 sprang not
from the soil of the Byzantine constitution, but from disregard of it,
and meant a complete break with it.
We must suppose that the thought of the coronation was due to Leo
himself or to some one closely connected with him. At all events this
act was, in a certain sense, in sharpest contrast with the Papal ideas of the
Donation of Constantine. For in the latter the most important feature
was an Italy independent of the Emperor, but in 800 the Pope himself
set the Emperor as the highest secular Lord over his Rome. He must
have been conscious of this difference himself. But the Pope may have
considered that as patricius Charles was already supreme, and that his
absolute position was already established. And since the generally
prevailing ideas pointed clearly towards the Empire, it might have been
regarded as an advantage for the Roman Curia if this last development
was due to itself.
No doubt the coronation was intended to express the strongest
feeling of gratitude to the powerful King. But in this Leo deceived
himself. According to accounts which are trustworthy, Charles was
displeased at the unexpected event. It is not easy to understand the
reason of his displeasure. Did he not wish for the crown because he
felt himself a German ruler and put the German idea of the State in
conscious opposition to Roman absolutism? Or was it that he did not
desire it just at that time because he feared a collision with the Eastern
Empire? Or did he not wish for the crown from the hand of
the Pope because he foresaw the latter might build on it a right to
crown, and so deduce claims to supremacy? The later policy of Charles
gives many hints for the answer to these questions. We know that
Charles for a long time combined no actual political authority with his
position as Emperor, and that he ignored the office in his first division
of the Empire in 806. We also know that he laid the greatest weight
on an alliance with Byzantium, and finally that in 813 when he had to
arrange for the succession, he allowed no repetition of the precedent of
800, but rejected all co-operation of the Pope. We must therefore
conclude that Charles did not indeed wish to set up the idea of a
Germanic priestly kingship against that of the Roman Empire, but
that he held fast in 800 to that conception of a Frankish power which
had raised him so high. He was not moved by fear of complications
with the East, but he saw that they would arise through this step of the
Pope's. He did not dream of the far-reaching Papal pretensions of a
later age, but he did not wish that so important an event as that of 800
should rest on foreign interference. At the end of the eighth century he
had not himself weighed the significance of the change, he had not thought
## p. 623 (#655) ############################################
800] The Coronation. Byzantium 623
things were ripe for it, he saw in it something inexplicable, something
indefinite, which was ground enough for uneasiness and hesitation.
Charles certainly did not despise gifts which came to him from heaven,
but he wished to ask for them himself, not to receive them unexpectedly
through outside intervention.
The coronation came in 800 as a surprise but not as a chance. It
sprang entirely from the initiative of the Pope, but it was not a chance
idea of Leo's which might as well not have occurred to him. It was
rather the outcome of a long chain of events, the result of ordinary
historical factors. It had to come, but that it came actually on that
Christmas Day and in the manner in which it did, depended on mere
chance, purely individual circumstances. Hence the Western Empire
did not suddenly bring new elements into the political life of the West.
When a modern constitutional historian sees in it a radical constitutional
upheaval, when he finds the kingdoms of Charles combined into the
united empire and taking their historical form, and yet considers all this to
be without constitutional importance, it seems to accord little with the
actual circumstances, and even to contradict the clearest assertions of
our authorities. We see quite plainly that the new title of Emperor at
once took the place of the title of patricius which disappeared, while
the old title of king on the contrary remained. We must therefore
conclude that those offices which before the coronation were connected
with the Patriciate are to be looked upon as imperial offices. Even as
Charles as patricius had been protector of the Respublica Romano
and supreme in Christendom so was he as Emperor, only that now
the monarchical elements were of more significance. As he had been
king of the Franks and of the Lombards before 800, so he remained
after 800. It is true that the relations of the imperial and the
kingly authority were not clearly defined. There was no need, from
this point of view, to distinguish the offices which were united in the
person of the great monarch. It would not have been possible to draw
a sharp line of distinction. Even the duties and rights which originally
had certainly belonged to the Patriciate and therefore now belonged to
the ruler as Emperor and not as king, were soon combined with the
Frankish monarchy.
As "Emperor of the Romans" Charles was crowned, and as master
of the Imperium Romanum he regarded himself from that time. But
was not the seat of the Empire Byzantium? Could two Emperors act
side by side? Men asked themselves these questions at the time and the
Annals of Lorsch sought to answer them by explaining that the Greeks
had no Emperor but only an Empress over them and that therefore the
Imperia»"rank belonged to Charles, the ruler of Rome, the old seat of
the Caesars. Charles had taken the office of Roman Emperor in its
unlimited universal extent, but he was from the first inclined to allow
a limitation. He negotiated with Byzantium and earnestly sought a
## p. 624 (#656) ############################################
624 Relations with the East [802-813
good understanding. According to the account of a Greek historian,
Charles planned a betrothal with the Empress Irene, but the plan
fell through owing to the opposition of the powerful patricius
Aetius, and during the negotiations the Empress Irene was overthrown
in 802.
Charles eagerly sought recognition of his Imperial rank from Irene's
successors—from Nicephorus, then from Michael (after 811) and from
Leo V (after 813). He went upon the assumption of a division of the
Imperium, of a peaceful and independent coexistence of the Imperium
Orientate and of the Imperium Occidentale.
is reported in the official Annals is not conclusive without confirmation.
From them we leam that Tassilo afterwards confessed that he had
incited the Avars to make war against the Franks, that he had attempted
the lives of the king's vassals in Bavaria, that he had recommended his
own people to make secret reservations in taking the oath of allegiance
to the king, and had even said that he would rather lose ten sons if he
had them than hold to the treaties, that he would rather die than live
under them.
The decision came at the Meeting of the Empire which was held at
Ingelheim in the summer of 788. Tassilo, who had been invited like
other nobles of the Empire, had appeared. He seems to have had
no suspicion of what threatened him, and this unsuspecting appearance
certainly does not look like guilt. He was immediately arrested, while
royal messengers departed for Bavaria to seize the wife, the children, the
treasures, and the household of the duke. Then Bavarians appeared as
accusers and proved Tassilo's disloyalty. But the charges could not have
been very serious, for they had to go back to the Herisliz of 763—an
incident which must have been regarded as long previously pardoned by
the royal declarations of grace in 781 and 787. The meeting, however,
so it is reported, unanimously pronounced sentence of death on Tassilo,
and only the intervention of Charles procured a mitigation of the
sentence. Tassilo was shorn and sent into a monastery as a monk,
he and his two sons. His wife also was compelled to take the veil, and
they were all immured in different cloisters. But the ceremony of de-
position was not yet completed. Six years later, at the Synod of Frank-
fort of 794, the deposed duke was made to appear, to acknowledge his
guilt publicly in the assembly, and to renounce all rights for himself and
his successors, in order to obtain the king's pardon and to be received
back into his favour and protection. Of this event a report was made
in three copies, one for the Palace, one for Tassilo, and one for the
Court Chapel.
When we consider all the steps of Tassilo's fall, we easily recognise
that he was sacrificed to the policy of the great king of the Franks.
They were not acts of justice, they were acts of violence, which were
only in appearance connected with any definite process of law.
## p. 608 (#640) ############################################
608 Bavaria. The Avars [763-794
Suspicious is the use made of the Herisliz of 763, which legally must
have long been regarded as done with, and even more so is the
solemn renunciation before the Synod of 794. Any breach of faith by
Tassilo after his homage at the Lech cannot have been very serious.
But even if in his treatment of Tassilo Charles appears to us less as
a just judge than as a strong statesman—the part which the last inde-
pendent duke of Bavaria played in this drama remains pitiful. His
deceit and bad faith are only known to us from the official history, but
his weakness and political incapacity are shewn bv the facts themselves.
He did not understand the tasks of his age. During his long rule
he favoured and enriched the churches like any Christian prince. But while
he furthered the monasteries, he shewed but little understanding for the
episcopal organisation with which lay the future. It was precisely this
circumstance that immediately sent the leaders of the Church, the
Bavarian bishops, over to the enemy when conflict broke out with the
powerful Frank. Brave to fight for his hereditary rights and for the poli-
tical independence of his race, he did not dare, or rather he was unable,
to take a comprehensive view of the political situation, and he went
unsuspectingly to Ingelheim to be taken prisoner, to be condemned to
death, commuted for the life of a monk. Perhaps the result answered
to the man's personal wishes, for his hopes and fears were set upon the
other world.
Properly speaking, the wide district of Bavaria was not won for the
empire of the Franks till 788. After the subjection of the Saxons it
was the second great conquest of German territory—a conquest without
bloodshed or struggle. This was a fact of immense international impor-
tance. It decided that the Bavarian race should share the destinies of
the West-German peoples, just as the wars with the Saxons decided those
of the North-eastern West-Germans.
The borders of the Frankish kingdom extended over the middle
Danube district as far as the Enns, and at the same time over a district
of the Slavs already conquered by Tassilo, over Carantania (Carinthia).
Before long they were extended still further. For the subjection of the
Bavarian kingdom was naturally followed by the struggle against the
Avars and the Slavs, the Eastern neighbours of the Bavarians.
The Avars, confused by the Franks with the Huns, to whom they
were related as belonging to the Ural-altaic family, had for some
centuries come in contact with the Byzantines and Franks. About the
end of the sixth century, as we have seen1, they held a great dominion:
but by the end of the eighth century the period of their greatest power
was past. They had never risen above the level of barbarian nomads,
and the Slavs of the south-east had long thrown off their yoke, and
even their own sense of unity was gone. It was remarkable how this
uncivilised people sought to make use of the civilised labour of other
1 Chaps, ix, xiv.
## p. 609 (#641) ############################################
788-8ii] The Avars 609
peoples. Agriculture, like all other productive labour, was unknown to
them. In the plain between the Danube and the Theiss were situated
the "Rings"—the strong circular walls round extensive dwelling-places.
According to the assertion of a Frankish warrior—quoted by the Monk
of St Gall—the Rings extended as far "as from Zurich to Constance"
(therefore about 60 kilometres or nearly 38 miles) and embraced several
districts. In these Rings, of which, according to the Monk of St Gall,
there were nine, the Avars had heaped their plunder of two centuries.
In 788 the Avars had advanced westward in two divisions, but had
been completely defeated near the Danube and in Friuli. In 791
Charles had taken the offensive, not only to acquire rich treasures or
to punish the invaders of 788, but to obtain a natural closed frontier
towards the East. The Franks advanced as far as the Raab without
making a permanent conquest. Their important task in Saxony for a
long time hindered new and decisive action. Political alliances began
to be formed among those who were at that time threatened by the
Frankish sword. The Saracens, the Saxons, and the Avars knew of
each other, and Charles' enemies in the north and south counted
especially on a successful advance of the Avars. But the Avars lacked
endurance. In the year 795 the Margrave Erich of Friuli, supported
by the Slav prince Woinimir, advanced over the Danube and took the
principal Ring. Large treasures of gold made their way to the Franks,
and even if the opinion is scarcely tenable that great changes in prices
in the Frankish Empire were the result, still his success was great. In
the following year Charles1 son Pepin completed the work of conquest.
He destroyed the Ring, subdued the Avars, and opened large districts
to the preaching of Christianity. In later years small risings had still
to be put down, and Frankish blood still flowed in battle against the
barbarians. In 811 a Frankish army was sent against Pannonia. But
these were only echoes of the past. The Avars themselves are men-
tioned for the last time in 822. Even in the last years of the eighth
century Christianity and colonisation had been introduced among them.
The Christian mission was entrusted to the Dioceses of Aquileia,
Salzburg, and Passau. The settlement of the middle Danube district
began under Charles, that extension of the Germans, i. e. of the
Bavarian, later also of the Frankish race, which finally embraced the
present German Austria and the western districts of Hungary. Under
Charles the Danube district about as far as the Leitha and the district
of the upper Drave and the Save—the latter as Carantania—were
reckoned politically as part of the Empire. The more eastern district,
Pannonia, only belonged loosely to the Carlovingian Empire, and in
consequence of the long wars it was greatly depopulated.
With Charles ambition and religion worked together. Successes
in arms were for him at the same time successes for Christianity.
C. MED. B. VOL. II. CH. XIX. 39
## p. 610 (#642) ############################################
610 The Saxon Wars [631-775
The ecclesiastical motive was specially strong in the Saxon wars.
And the Saxons resisted ecclesiastical subjection as much as political.
They struggled with their utmost strength against the Franks for
their political freedom and for the imaginary blessings of their national
religion.
The Franks had fought against the Saxons even in the sixth century.
Chlotar I is said to have laid upon them a tribute of 500 cows, from
which Dagobert freed them in 631. In the eighth century, profiting by
the weakness of the royal authority, they repeatedly ravaged Frankish
territory. The Mayors of the Palace, Charles Martel and his sons, were
the first to fight successfully against them. They brought the tribes
on the Frankish border into some kind of subjection, and under Pepin
the payment of the old annual tribute of 500 cows was regularly
demanded. But Christian teaching found no soil. The two Hewalds
had paid with their lives for their first attempt to convert their
kinsmen. The mission of Willehad was fruitless. The noble work of
Utrecht and its school of missions failed in the case of the Saxons.
At the beginning of the reign of Charles the Saxons were in the
same state as they are said to have been at the beginning of our
era—small independent political communities which only combined
temporarily in time of war. The three greater sub-tribes, the West-
phalians, the Engers, and the Eastphalians, were not regular political
units. The pure morals of the uncorrupted natural peoples still
prevailed, but also all the brutality and cruelty of barbarism. The
unconditional reverence for the gods and the blind obedience due to
supposed utterances of the Divine Will exercised a fatalistic and
fanatical influence.
Whether Charles had from the first intended the complete conquest
of the whole Saxon territory or whether he was led to it by the force
of circumstances, cannot be determined. It is certain that from 775 he
aimed at the unconditional surrender of the Saxons.
The first campaign was decided on at the Assembly of the Empire
at Worms in the summer of 772. In the territory of the Engers Charles,
advancing from the south, took the Eresburg, marched northwards,
destroyed the Irminsul, a tall column of wood erected on the Holy
Heath which was honoured as the symbolic bearer of the Universe
{universalis columna quasi sustinens omnia), and finally reached the
Weser, where the Engers professed their submission and gave hostages
as guarantees of peace. During Charles' absence in Italy in 774 the
Saxons made an incursion into Hesse and destroyed Fritzlar, but were
quickly driven back. Charles on his return planned radical measures.
According to the Annaks Einhardi, as they are called, he resolved to
fight and ravage the faithless Saxons till they accepted Christianity or
were utterly destroyed. The Frankish army in 775 marched from the
West through the Westphalian country, took the fortress of Sigiburg,
## p. 611 (#643) ############################################
775-782] Conquest of the Saxons 611
and advanced as far as Brunisberg on the Weser. The three Saxon
tribes seemed to be entirely conquered, and an unsuccessful rising in 776
only completed the work of conquest. The Eresburg and the Sigiburg
were made strong centres of the Frankish power. Carlsburg on the
Lippe was built, the people were compelled to accept Christianity and
their hostages were trained for Christian propaganda.
From that time Saxony was looked upon as part of the Frankish
kingdom, and Charles no longer treated the people as enemies but as rebels.
The Westphalian Widukind, the head of the national resistance, had
fled to Denmark. In the summer of 777 the annual Assembly was held
at Paderborn in the land of the Engers, and the first foundation was
laid for the lasting nurture and maintenance of the Christian life, the
land being divided into missionary districts and entrusted to the neigh-
bouring bishoprics and great monasteries. Though in the time of the
great Spanish campaign in 778, the Saxons made another plundering
expedition to the Rhine and as far as Ehrenbreitstein, a detachment of
the army that had returned from Spain quickly drove back the rebels,
and in the summer campaign of 779 Charles reached the Weser and
subdued the three tribes. In the summer of 780 an Assembly was held
at Lippspringe at the source of the Lippe, an advance was made to the
Elbe and again a new important permanent ecclesiastical arrangement
was made. Two years later the Frankish Assembly was again held at
Lippspringe. All the Saxons appeared, say the Frankish Annals, only
the chief rebel, Widukind, remained away. Charles now went a step
further—Saxon nobles were made Frankish counts and the land joined
politically to his empire. And at that time apparently those regula-
tions were made which were intended to prevent any rising and to
ensure the full acceptance of Christianity under threat of the severest
punishment—the Capitulatio de partibus Saoconiae.
Any who broke into, robbed or set fire to a church was to be
punished with death. Any who from contempt of Christianity ate meat
in Lent, any who killed a bishop, priest, or deacon, any who according
to heathen custom burnt men as wizards or ate men, any who after
heathen rites burned the dead, any who offered human sacrifices, or even
any who omitted to be baptised and remained heathen, were to be put
to death. Many other ordinances for the maintenance of Christianity
and the political authority of the Frankish power were made, and also
for the material foundation of Christian churches (surrender of the
ownership of land and tithes). Even if there was a mitigation of this
unusually severe legislation in the ordinance that the death penalty was
to be remitted for those who had fled to a priest and after confession
were ready to do penance, yet the law must have been found harsh,
and the final Frankish ordinances of the year 782 must have incited
to the utmost resistance those who looked on the conquest as only
temporary.
ch. xix. 39—2
## p. 612 (#644) ############################################
612 Continued Saxon Wars [782-787
When Charles had left the Saxons and had sent a Frankish army to
the east in order that with a Saxon levy it might fight against the
Sorbs, a general rising broke out under the leadership of Widukind, and
when the Frankish army marched against the rebels, it was defeated on
the Siintel Hill on the right bank of the Weser. Thereupon Charles
himself immediately hastened to Saxony. His appearance gave the
upper hand to the party among the Saxons friendly to the Franks and
to the Christians. Widukind fled, and the chiefs obeyed the order to
deliver up those who had taken part in the rising. Charles however
held a strict inquiry, and had 4500 Saxons beheaded on one day at
Verden on the Aller—a cruel deed for which we have sufficient historical
attestation, though it has been wrongly disputed by some modern
authorities.
But Charles had deceived himself as to the effect of these punishments.
A general rising of the Saxon people was the result. The campaign of
783, which procured Charles the two victories at Detmold and on the
Hase and brought him to the Elbe, was only a passing success. The
Frisians also rose. The year 784 was taken up with the warlike
undertakings of Charles and his son of the same name. The king
remained with his army in Saxony through the winter also in order to
undertake raids from the Eresburg, the head-quarters of himself and of
his family, and to quell every attempt at a new rising. In the early
summer of 785 he marched northwards to Paderborn, held the Frankish
Assembly there, and then pressed on into the Bardengau on the left
bank of the lower Elbe. All resistance was broken. Friendly overtures
were made to Widukind and the other Saxon nobles who had hitherto
fought stubbornly against the Franks. At Christmas 785 Widukind
with his men appeared at Attigny, was baptised, and allowed to depart
as a loyal subject, loaded with rich presents.
The event was looked upon as an important success. A special
embassy announced to the Pope the victory of the Christian cause, and bv
Papal ordinance thanksgivings were offered all over Christendom to
celebrate the fortunate ending of the thirteen years' war. But Widukind,
the great hero, the most mighty personality in the older Saxon history,
lived on in the memory of his people and became the subject of
numerous legends. History tells us nothing of his later life, but legend
has much to say. The most powerful Saxon families sought to honour
him as their ancestor, and the Church and ecclesiastic literature made
use of him. His bones worked miracles, his day was celebrated in later
centuries, and he was even honoured as a saint.
The year 785 was an epoch in the history of the Saxon wars. Years
of peaceful Christianisation followed. And a beginning was made with
the episcopal organisation that was still wanting. The Northumbrian
Willehad, who had been long working successfully among the Frisians
and Saxons as a missionary, was consecrated Bishop of Worms (17 July
## p. 613 (#645) ############################################
787-804] Final Conquest of the Saxons 613
787), and the northern districts between the Elbe, the Weser, and Ems
were given to him as his diocese. In Bremen he built St Peter's church,
which was consecrated (1 Nov. 789) as the see of the . first Saxon bishopric.
The bishoprics of Verden and Minden must likewise have been founded
then or soon afterwards.
The terrible Saxon wars of the first period of Charles'' reign had their
sequence. In the summer of 792 the Saxon people rose once more
against God, the king, and the Christians. This was a national heathen
reaction. Perhaps the heavy taxation of which the Church was the
cause aroused the wrath of the lower elements of the population. If
the easy yoke and the light burden of Christ had been preached to the
obstinate Saxons with the same persistence as tithes and hard penances
for light sins were exacted, they would not perhaps have shunned
baptism—so wrote Alcuin at the time, not without irony. The Saxons
sought to enter into alliance with the surrounding heathen, and they
turned to the distant Avars. A new period of the struggle began, and
at the same time a period of further violent measures to master this
obstinate people. In the year 795 Charles for the first time had crowds
of hostages sent to Francia. The third part of the population was
forcibly deported, reports one group of sources, and the number of exiles
is given as 7070. In the years 797, 798, 799 similar measures were
taken and at the same time Franks were settled on Saxon soil. In 804
in particular, whole districts of Northern Saxony and Nordalbingia
were robbed of their population, i. e. the Saxons were dragged away
with wives and children. It is certain that no small portion of the
Saxon race was at that time removed from its native soil—traces of
them are still to be found in later centuries in Frankish and Alemannic
regions.
At last the war, which with interruptions had lasted thirty-two years,
could be regarded as ended, and the wide German territory as far as the
Elbe and further was incorporated permanently into the Frankish Empire.
Charles carried out his purpose of either subduing or destroying the
Saxons, with wonderful persistence, but at the same time with brutal
severity. The Saxons are certainly not to be regarded as stubborn
heathens who resisted the blessings of Christian civilisation, but are to
be admired as a people of strong purpose defending their national
characteristics. But the unavoidable demands of the world's progress
could not be resisted. The future belonged, not to the small German
states which remained politically isolated: the Saxons had to fall a
sacrifice to the great central development which was at that time the
ruling factor in the political shaping of the West.
The extension of Frankish rule over Saxony was followed by con-
nexions with the Danes and the Northern Slavs. The court of the
Danish king Sigfried was for a long time the centre of Saxon resistance
to Charles' Christian propaganda, and it was there that Widukind had
## p. 614 (#646) ############################################
614 The Danes [782-812
always taken refuge. But in 782 the heathen king had sent a friendly
embassy to the Franks, though without any wish to make concessions to
Christianity. Later also friendly relations are mentioned. In 807 a
Danish chieftain submitted. But in 808 King Gottrik marched against
the Obodrites who were in alliance with Charles, and when the younger
Charles tried to interfere to punish and to help, though he was only able
to lay waste districts on the right bank of the Elbe, King Gottrik had a
strong wall of defence built, it is supposed from the Treene to the Schlei.
In the following year, however, after the failure of attempts at a treaty,
Charles caused the fortress of Itzehoe to be built.
In 810 the Danish power seemed to be making a dangerous effort.
A Danish fleet of two hundred ships ravaged the Frisian coasts and
islands, tribute was laid upon the subjects of the Empire, and King
Gottrik, who had remained at home, boasted that he would defeat
Charles in open battle and make his entry into Aachen. Charles
hastened eastwards with a strong force and took up his head-quarters
at Verden, but he had no need to interfere, for Gottrik was assassinated
by a follower, and his nephew and successor Hemming quickly made
peace. In 811 twelve deputies from the Danes and as many from the
Franks met on the Eider, and solemnly swore to keep the agreements
that had been made.
Of the Slavs of the north-east, the Obodrites on the lower Elbe,
who were nearest to the Franks, always stood on good terms with
Charles, while the Wiltzi on the Baltic always remained hostile, and
the Sorbs between the Elbe and the Saale were variable. There is
evidence of friendly relations with the Obodrites after 780. They
probably by that time recognised Charles1 suzerainty, but were disin-
clined to Christianity. They repeatedly took part in the Frankish
campaigns, and in 810 Charles appointed their chieftain. In 782 the
Sorbs made an unimportant attack on Thuringian territory, in 806 they
were defeated by the younger Charles and compelled to submit. But
the subsequent building of two fortresses on the right bank of the Elbe,
at Magdeburg and at Halle on the Saale, shews that there was no
incorporation of the territory of the Sorbs into the Empire. Still less
is that the case with the Wiltzi. In 789 Charles undertook a great
campaign of conquest. He crossed the Elbe and advanced ravaging as
far as the Peene, and the chief Dragowit and the other leaders of the
people even took an oath of fidelity, but we can find no trace of per-
manent subjection or toll, such as Einhard records.
Again there were struggles afterwards. In 806 fortresses were
erected against them, and even the submission of 812 was only nominal
and transitory. The proper boundary of the Empire on the east, apart
from the district of the Nordalbingians, was the Elbe, more to the south
the Saale, then the Bohmerwald. For even the land of the Chekhs may
not be reckoned as part of the Empire. The passage of Frankish armies
## p. 615 (#647) ############################################
Survey of the Empire 615
did not trouble the Chekhs who were only loosely organised, and the
campaigns of the younger Charles in the years 805 and 806 certainly
laid the land waste, but there was no lasting submission.
It was a proud Empire, that of the great Charles. From the
Pyrenees and the north-eastern part of Spain it stretched to the Eider
and the Schlei on the north, from the Atlantic Ocean and the North
Sea on the west to the Elbe, the Bohmerwald to the Leitha, the upper
Save, and the Adriatic Sea on the east.
Further, the whole of North
and Central Italy and the greater part of South Italy belonged to him.
But his influence extended beyond this. The Slavs and the Avars who
dwelt on the east were even reckoned as his and certainly belonged to
the sphere of his interests. It is true that the Christian states in Spain
and in the British Isles were independent, but even they recognised his
friendly superiority. With the Abbasids in Bagdad Charles united
against the Umayyads of Spain and against Byzantium. The Caliph is
even said to have agreed that the place of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem should be under Charles' authority. Even in the East
Charles began to be regarded as the representative of Christian
power.
Thus the Frankish king had raised himself above the narrow limits
of his nation. His authority had taken a theocratic and universal
element. While in the age of Pepin the ecclesiastical idea with its
tendencies to universal authority had strengthened the Papacy, and had
sought to give the Pope the position of the Roman Emperor in the
West, under the reign of Charles all the elements of authority connected
with the Church had been serviceable to the Frankish king. The
patricius, the protector of the Papal possessions, became the protector
and patron of the Church generally, and moreover the representative and
leader of the spread of Christianity.
This was the necessary result of the forces developed by the needs of
the Church itself. If the Christian teaching was to conquer the world,
political power must be aimed at along with the spread of the faith. It
was precisely in those times of active Christian propaganda that the need
of political power was especially felt. The realisation of the theocratic
ideal required a dualism: ecclesiastics for the spread of the holy doctrine,
laymen to fight for the Faith—at the head of the former, the Pope
according to the hierarchical view that had prevailed for centuries, and
at the head of the others, the king of the Franks. But the privileges of
the actual political power answered the needs of the theocratic idea of
that age.
Towards the end of the eighth century a mosaic was placed in the
refectory of the Lateran. In it we see St Peter sitting on the throne with
the keys in his bosom; on the right and left kneel Pope Leo and King
Charles, to the one Peter hands the pallium, to the other the banner of
## p. 616 (#648) ############################################
616 Ecclesiastical Affairs [787-794
the city of Rome, and the legend runs: "Holy Peter, thou bestowest
life on Pope Leo, and victory on King Charles. 11 So was the relation
understood in Rome at that time. Two central forces prevailed in
Christendom, a spiritual and a secular, the one by spiritual means, the
other by might. But how far did the power extend that Peter bestowed
with the banner, and how far the power conferred with the pallium?
As a matter of fact, the relation of spiritual and secular powers turned
out very much to the disadvantage of the former.
The government of Charles did not limit itself to secular matters.
Just as the Frankish kings had long been rulers of their Church and as
the work of Boniface had done little to alter this, so it was under
Charles. The position of governor of the Frankish Church Charles
extended over the Church of the West generally. Charles felt himself
called to care not only for the external maintenance of Church
order, but also for the purity of the faith. Numberless are his
measures for the supervision of Church life and the ecclesiastical
ordinances. But he also took an active part in the settlement of
purely dogmatic questions. As the holy Josiah (so it runs in one
capitular) endeavoured to bring back to the service of God the kingdom
bestowed upon him by God, so Charles would follow his example. But
it is not the Pope who decides what is right and Christian, and then
informs Charles. The Pope was not allowed the leading part even in
matters of doctrine. On the contrary, Charles took the initiative
repeatedly, consulted with his bishops and demanded from the Pope
acceptance and execution. His treatment of two questions is specially
characteristic.
To deal with Adoptianism, which originated in Spain and greatly
stirred the Western Church, Charles caused Synods to be held and to
decide under his own presidency. At the Assembly of Frankfort in 794,
Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgel were condemned. Charles took
a personal interest also in the matter of image-worship. When a council
of Nicaea in 787, by the influence of the Empress Irene, re-introduced
the worship of images and condemned those who taught otherwise—
threatening ecclesiastics with deposition and laymen with outlawry,
Charles offered strong opposition to the heretical teaching of Greeks, as
he considered it, and caused a learned and comprehensive work, the
"Caroline Books" (Libri Carolini) to be prepared, perhaps by Alcuin.
It is of no further present interest to us that to a great extent the
matter dealt with misunderstandings caused by unfortunate renderings
of decisions of 787, composed in the Greek language. It is enough
that the doctrine of the Greeks was rejected in the sharpest manner
and the Pope was required, though he was entirely on the side of
the Greeks, to take the side of the Franks and to excommunicate the
Greek Emperor as a heretic. Hadrian did not dare directly to repudiate
the king's interference in the settlement of questions 6f doctrine, although
## p. 617 (#649) ############################################
800] Idea of the Empire 617
he prudently appealed to his primacy, opposed the royal opinion point
by point, and defended the Greek view as the orthodox one. Finally,
however, he declared himself ready to fulfil the king's wish and to
excommunicate the Greek Emperor. He would demand of Constantine
the restitution of the Patrimony of Peter, and if the Emperor refused,
he would exclude him as an obstinate heretic from Church fellowship.
Charles seems to have left this very remarkable proposal unanswered.
He simply caused the pseudo-council of Nicaea to be repudiated—and
the Pope said nothing.
"This do we praise as a wonderful and special Divine gift," writes
Alcuin to Charles, "that thou dost endeavour to keep the Church of
Christ inwardly pure and to protect it with as great devotion from the
doctrine of the faithless as to defend it outwardly against the plundering
of the heathen and to extend it. With these two swords has God's power
armed thy right hand and thy left. " In the Caroline Books it is declared
that by the gift of God he had taken the helm of the Church throughout
his dominions, and that the Church had been entrusted to him to steer
through the stormy waves of this world. The first letter of Charles to
Leo III contains a formal programme of the relation of Pope and king:
It is the king's business to defend the Holy Church of God outwardly
with arms and inwardly to maintain the Catholic Faith, and it is the
business of the Holy Father to support the royal work by his prayers.
The "Representative of God who has to protect and govern all the
members of God"—so is Charles called—" Lord and Father, King and
Priest, the Leader and Guide of all Christians. "
These are courtly expressions, but they agree perfectly with the
facts. The Frankish kingdom had become a world-empire, the Christian
Empire of the West. And yet the old fundamental political ideas were
still in force—the supreme lord of this power still called himself "King
of the Franks and Lombards and patricius of the Romans" (Carolus
gratia Dei rex Francorum et Langobardorum ac patricius Romanorum).
Must there not be a change in this respect, must not the increased
power find expression in a new title?
It does not appear that Charles definitely sought this, nor does it
appear that tendencies of this kind prevailed about Charles. Even in
the year 800 Alcuin explained that three powers were the highest in the
world—the Papacy in Rome, the Empire in the Second Rome, and the
royal dignity of Charles. And the last precedes the others. Charles
surpasses all men in power, in wisdom, in dignity, he is appointed by
Jesus Christ as Leader of the Christian people. If Alcuin does not
wish thereby to set the title of King above that of Emperor, but only
to estimate the royal dignity of Charles as higher than that of the
Emperor of East Rome, yet so much is clear, that in the eyes of Charles'
contemporaries claims to the highest earthly power were compatible
with the title of king, and that the monarch in Byzantium, in spite of
## p. 618 (#650) ############################################
618 Idea of the Empire [soo
his title of Emperor, was to be regarded as of less importance than the
King Charles. With proud self-consciousness the Franks set themselves
on occasion in opposition to the Roman idea of the State. Thus the
Prologue to the Lex Salica, composed in the eighth century, spoke of
the glorious Frankish race that after a victorious struggle had thrown
off the hard yoke of the Romans, and after their acceptance of Chris-
tianity had enshrined in buildings decked with gold the bodies of the
martyrs, burnt and mutilated by the Romans. And in the last decade
of the eighth century expressions directly hostile to the Roman Empire
were uttered by the confidential friends of Charles. In the Caroline
Books the Imperium Romanum is characterised as heathen and idolatrous.
Here speaks hatred for the East Roman Empire of Constantine and of
Irene; but in it there is also seen Augustine's conception of the Roman
world-empire as one of the great civitates terrenae, and further the idea
which the Christian writers had spread, using the interpretation of the
dream of Nebuchadnezzar by the Prophet Daniel, the idea that four
empires follow one another and that the Roman Empire is the fourth,
upon which follows the setting up of the Heavenly Empire, i. e. the end
of the world. Four civitates terrenae and the last of them the Roman
Imperium stand in characteristic contrast to the Civitas Dei—truly a
conception which could hardly lead to the assumption of the Roman
Imperial dignity by the Franks.
But on the other hand the Roman Imperial dignity still lived as a
universal power in the historical life even of the West. And Byzantium
was still looked upon as the head of one Roman Empire. It is true
that the development of civilisation had brought about a separation of
the Christian East and Christian West, complete political separation,
and made desirable the limitation of the universal Roman Empire to
the West. These were social exigencies which help us to understand
the efforts of the Italian Exarchs of the great Emperors for emanci-
pation, including that of the eunuch Eleutherius who in the year 619
marched to Rome to set the West Roman Empire up again and wished
to be crowned by the Pope. And then the Pope himself had taken up
the idea of Roman Universalism and regarded himself as the sovereign
representative of the Respublica Romana between Byzantium and the
Lombards. Finally the supreme power of Charles had arisen and he
had united in himself the power of the kings of the Franks, of the
Lombard kings, and of the lord of the Respublica Romana and the
universalist tendencies which were peculiar to Rome and the Christian
Church of the West.
There was great need in the eighth century for a political union of
the Christian West. In the Empire of Charles these tendencies were
eventually satisfied. But the way to the re-erection of the Western
Empire of the Romans was not yet clear, for it contradicted the still
recognised position of the Byzantine Emperor as the supreme head of
## p. 619 (#651) ############################################
795-799] Pope Leo III 619
the Imperium Romanum. Also in contradiction to it was a deep-seated
opposition of the friends of Charles to the Roman imperial idea itself,
against the Imperium Romanum, the fourth and last of the great world-
empires that were founded on the power of the Evil One, and stood in
opposition to the Kingdom of God on earth.
There is no doubt that at the end of the eighth century the develop-
ment of affairs in the West pressed for a certain formal recognition of
the universal power of the Frankish king which had prevailed, but the
friends of the great monarch did not seek the settlement and could not
seek it in the assumption of the Imperial dignity by Charles. The
position was still obscure, when the solution came through a spontaneous
act of the Pope.
Pope Hadrian I died on Christmas Day 795. The Roman Leo III
was elected on the following day, and consecrated on the day after.
He did homage to Charles as his overlord. He sent to him the decree
of the election with the assurance of fidelity, the keys of the grave of
St Peter and the banner of the City of Rome, and he asked for envoys
before whom the Romans could take the oath of allegiance. Formerly
the Popes had given in their documents the years of the reigns of the
Eastern Emperors. Since 772 Hadrian had omitted this, and Leo III
reckoned the years of "the Lord Charles, the illustrious King of the
Franks and of the Lombards and Patricius of the Romans since he has
conquered Italy. '" Charles answered the Papal message in a manner
which expressed the exalted position of the king. Through Angilbert
he gave the new spiritual ruler a strict warning to lead an honourable
life and to observe the decrees of the Church.
Leo III was hard and cruel, and soon forfeited the sympathies of the
Romans. On 25 Apr. 799, when he was taking part in an ordinary
procession, a conspiracy broke out. Leo was attacked, torn from his
horse, severely treated and sent to the monastery of St Erasmus. During
the night he escaped with the help of his chamberlain, being let down
the wall by a rope, and hurried to St Peter's, where the two Frankish
envoys, the Abbot of Stablo and the Duke of Spoleto, were staying.
These on news of the movement in Rome had hastened there with
an army. Leo was brought to Spoleto. Soon he was extolled as a
martyr on whom the grace of God had wrought miracles. His enemies
were said to have destroyed his eyes and torn out his tongue when they
attacked him, but during his imprisonment his sight and speech were
restored by miracle. And when the two envoys brought him to the
land of the Franks to seek help, his triumph was worthy of one on
whom the grace of God had so wonderfully lighted, and the people
hastened to kiss the feet of the Holy Father. In Paderborn Charles
prepared a brilliant reception for the Pope, and Leo was received by the
king with kind embraces. But when his Roman opponents, "accursed
sons of the devil," also sent messengers to Charles and raised the gravest
## p. 620 (#652) ############################################
620 The Imperial Coronation [799-800
charges against the Holy Father, accusing him of adultery and perjury,
there were not wanting voices round Charles, that Leo should either
clear himself by an oath or renounce the Papal dignity. Others, among
them especially Abbot Alcuin of Tours, saw in such demands a serious
blow to the Papal office itself. This opinion Charles shared. He sent
Leo to Rome accompanied by royal envoys, and on 29 Nov. 799 there
was a brilliant entry into the City. Then Charles' envoys brought the
conspirators to trial. As the serious accusations against Leo could not
be proved, the opponents of the Pope were sent as prisoners to Francia;
but the investigation caused the Pope many anxious moments, as may
be seen from the letters of Angilbert. Rome was not yet pacified, and
Charles himself wished to set things in order permanently. In the
autumn of 800 he went to Italy, and (24 Nov. ) held his solemn entry
into Rome. Seven days later the great assembly of Franks and Romans
was held in St Peter's to consider the charges brought against the Pope.
They agreed to leave it to the Pope to clear himself by an oath volun-
tarily and without compulsion. It was in that manner they found a
way out of the difficulty. No trial of the Pope was to be held, for this
must inflict the gravest injury on the Papal office, but yet the suspicions
which remained were to be removed. Leo agreed to the proposal,
and (23 Dec. ) holding the Book of the Gospels, he solemnly declared
in the Assembly, that the most gracious and exalted King Charles had
come to Rome with his priests and nobles to investigate the charges,
and that he himself of his own free will, condemned and compelled by
none, at length cleared himself before God of every suspicion.
Never had Charles appeared so manifestly the Lord of Christendom.
And just at that time came the legates of the Patriarch of Jerusalem,
bringing the keys of the Holy Sepulchre, of the Hill of Calvary and of
the City, as well as a banner to testify to the suzerainty of the mighty
Charles. Was the ruler of orthodox Christendom to hold for the future
only the title of king?
On Christmas Day, as the king rose from prayer before the Con-
fession of St Peter, Pope Leo set a crown upon his head and the whole
Roman people there assembled joined in the cry "Hail to Charles the
Augustus, crowned of God, the great and peace-bringing Emperor of
the Romans. " After this cry of homage, the Pope offered him the
adoration due to the Byzantine Emperors, and laying aside the title of
patridus, he was called Emperor and Augustus.
Such is the brief report of the official Frankish Annals. With it
agree the statements of the Papal Book, only that there is no mention
of the adoration, and a thrice-repeated cry of homage is spoken of.
Another account (Annates Laureshamenses) tells of deliberations of the
Pope, of the assembled Clergy, and of the other Christian people, of
deliberations that the Empire was then in the possession of a woman
(Irene) at Constantinople, that Charles ought to be called Emperor
## p. 621 (#653) ############################################
800-813] The Imperial Coronation 621
because he held Rome, the seat of the Emperors, and that Charles had
yielded to the request of the priests and the whole Christian people and
had accepted the title of Emperor with the coronation by Pope Leo.
Many modern historians have thought that this account makes it
necessary to suppose a previous election by the Roman people. But
the story is worthy of little credit. It abounds in words but is poor
in facts and cannot be set against the harmonious and clear accounts of
the Imperial Annals and of the Papal Book.
The whole proceeding of the Pope, which took Charles entirely by
surprise, is so surely attested that all doubts must be silenced. Even
the question how the people without premeditation could have broken
out into the cries of homage, finds its answer in the fact that the same
Laudes were offered to the patricvus and hence the cry, only slightly
changed, could very well have been raised on Christmas Day 800,
without previous practice. Einhard however relates in his Life of
Charles, that the new title was at first very unwelcome to the monarch,
and that Charles even said that on this day, although it was a high
Festival, he would not have entered the Church if he had known the
Pope's intention.
Thus we have on the whole a trustworthy account of the proceedings
on Christmas Day 800. From the assured facts we must proceed
to the meaning of the coronation as a matter of law and of general
history.
The spontaneous action of the Pope created the office of Emperor,
and the coronation was looked upon as the decisive act. There was no
election by the people: even the joyous cry offered to the newly crowned
Emperor is not to be regarded as an act of election. The Laudes were
only joyful assent to the act which was of itself legally valid. But the
Pope acted as a suddenly inspired organ of God. God Himself crowned
Charles as Emperor through the Pope. This view comes out clearly in
the Laudes offered to Charles and it expresses the meaning of the title of
Emperor. The theocratic origin of the office is certain. And this
theocratic element remained. On this basis Charles took his ground
when he himself provided for the succession in 813 and commanded his
son Louis to take the Imperial crown that was resting on the altar
and to put it upon his head—God spoke not through the Pope but
through the Emperor.
It is certain that on the occasion of the coronation of 800 Byzan-
tine precedents played a leading part. The coronation, hitherto
unknown in the West, was due to the fact that since the middle of the
fifth century the Patriarch of Constantinople had been wont to deck the
new Emperor with the crown. The cry of homage goes back to an
older Litany for the patricvus in connexion with the Byzantine usage,
and in the same way the title of Emperor finds a Byzantine precedent.
But the proceeding of 800 was not an act in accordance with the
CH. XIX.
## p. 622 (#654) ############################################
622 Meanings of the Coronation [soo—si3
Byzantine constitution. In spite of its resemblances to Greek usages, it
was essentially something new. Historical forces, due to developments
in the West and even contrary to Eastern ideas, led to the Western
Empire. The foundation of the Empire in the year 800 sprang not
from the soil of the Byzantine constitution, but from disregard of it,
and meant a complete break with it.
We must suppose that the thought of the coronation was due to Leo
himself or to some one closely connected with him. At all events this
act was, in a certain sense, in sharpest contrast with the Papal ideas of the
Donation of Constantine. For in the latter the most important feature
was an Italy independent of the Emperor, but in 800 the Pope himself
set the Emperor as the highest secular Lord over his Rome. He must
have been conscious of this difference himself. But the Pope may have
considered that as patricius Charles was already supreme, and that his
absolute position was already established. And since the generally
prevailing ideas pointed clearly towards the Empire, it might have been
regarded as an advantage for the Roman Curia if this last development
was due to itself.
No doubt the coronation was intended to express the strongest
feeling of gratitude to the powerful King. But in this Leo deceived
himself. According to accounts which are trustworthy, Charles was
displeased at the unexpected event. It is not easy to understand the
reason of his displeasure. Did he not wish for the crown because he
felt himself a German ruler and put the German idea of the State in
conscious opposition to Roman absolutism? Or was it that he did not
desire it just at that time because he feared a collision with the Eastern
Empire? Or did he not wish for the crown from the hand of
the Pope because he foresaw the latter might build on it a right to
crown, and so deduce claims to supremacy? The later policy of Charles
gives many hints for the answer to these questions. We know that
Charles for a long time combined no actual political authority with his
position as Emperor, and that he ignored the office in his first division
of the Empire in 806. We also know that he laid the greatest weight
on an alliance with Byzantium, and finally that in 813 when he had to
arrange for the succession, he allowed no repetition of the precedent of
800, but rejected all co-operation of the Pope. We must therefore
conclude that Charles did not indeed wish to set up the idea of a
Germanic priestly kingship against that of the Roman Empire, but
that he held fast in 800 to that conception of a Frankish power which
had raised him so high. He was not moved by fear of complications
with the East, but he saw that they would arise through this step of the
Pope's. He did not dream of the far-reaching Papal pretensions of a
later age, but he did not wish that so important an event as that of 800
should rest on foreign interference. At the end of the eighth century he
had not himself weighed the significance of the change, he had not thought
## p. 623 (#655) ############################################
800] The Coronation. Byzantium 623
things were ripe for it, he saw in it something inexplicable, something
indefinite, which was ground enough for uneasiness and hesitation.
Charles certainly did not despise gifts which came to him from heaven,
but he wished to ask for them himself, not to receive them unexpectedly
through outside intervention.
The coronation came in 800 as a surprise but not as a chance. It
sprang entirely from the initiative of the Pope, but it was not a chance
idea of Leo's which might as well not have occurred to him. It was
rather the outcome of a long chain of events, the result of ordinary
historical factors. It had to come, but that it came actually on that
Christmas Day and in the manner in which it did, depended on mere
chance, purely individual circumstances. Hence the Western Empire
did not suddenly bring new elements into the political life of the West.
When a modern constitutional historian sees in it a radical constitutional
upheaval, when he finds the kingdoms of Charles combined into the
united empire and taking their historical form, and yet considers all this to
be without constitutional importance, it seems to accord little with the
actual circumstances, and even to contradict the clearest assertions of
our authorities. We see quite plainly that the new title of Emperor at
once took the place of the title of patricius which disappeared, while
the old title of king on the contrary remained. We must therefore
conclude that those offices which before the coronation were connected
with the Patriciate are to be looked upon as imperial offices. Even as
Charles as patricius had been protector of the Respublica Romano
and supreme in Christendom so was he as Emperor, only that now
the monarchical elements were of more significance. As he had been
king of the Franks and of the Lombards before 800, so he remained
after 800. It is true that the relations of the imperial and the
kingly authority were not clearly defined. There was no need, from
this point of view, to distinguish the offices which were united in the
person of the great monarch. It would not have been possible to draw
a sharp line of distinction. Even the duties and rights which originally
had certainly belonged to the Patriciate and therefore now belonged to
the ruler as Emperor and not as king, were soon combined with the
Frankish monarchy.
As "Emperor of the Romans" Charles was crowned, and as master
of the Imperium Romanum he regarded himself from that time. But
was not the seat of the Empire Byzantium? Could two Emperors act
side by side? Men asked themselves these questions at the time and the
Annals of Lorsch sought to answer them by explaining that the Greeks
had no Emperor but only an Empress over them and that therefore the
Imperia»"rank belonged to Charles, the ruler of Rome, the old seat of
the Caesars. Charles had taken the office of Roman Emperor in its
unlimited universal extent, but he was from the first inclined to allow
a limitation. He negotiated with Byzantium and earnestly sought a
## p. 624 (#656) ############################################
624 Relations with the East [802-813
good understanding. According to the account of a Greek historian,
Charles planned a betrothal with the Empress Irene, but the plan
fell through owing to the opposition of the powerful patricius
Aetius, and during the negotiations the Empress Irene was overthrown
in 802.
Charles eagerly sought recognition of his Imperial rank from Irene's
successors—from Nicephorus, then from Michael (after 811) and from
Leo V (after 813). He went upon the assumption of a division of the
Imperium, of a peaceful and independent coexistence of the Imperium
Orientate and of the Imperium Occidentale.
