The spontaneous action of the Pope created the office of Emperor,
and the coronation was looked upon as the decisive act.
and the coronation was looked upon as the decisive act.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
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. Not till 810 did he come
to a preliminary agreement with Greek agents, whereby he gave up
claim to Venice and the towns on the Dalmatian coast, which were even at
the beginning of the ninth century occasionally under Frankish rule,
and in return was recognised as Emperor by the Greeks. Michael, the
successor of Nicephorus, was ready to conclude the treaty, and in the
church of Aachen in 812 the Greek ambassadors solemnly saluted
Charles as Emperor (/SatrtXeu? ). But Leo V first drew up the Greek
document of the treaty and sent envoys with it to Aachen where after
Charles' death it was solemnly delivered to Louis. This was the
formal step in the creation of the Empire of the West.
The coronation of 800 gave neither a new basis for the monarchical
authority nor a new direction for the obligations of the State. In the
vear 802 an order was issued for a universal renewal of the oath of
allegiance, and the religious side of the obligation was emphasised more
than before. The theocratic element of the great monarchy was
brought to the front. Yet this was nothing new in principle. When
in 809 Charles ordered the retention of the Filioque in the Creed, in
opposition to the action of the Pope, and when the Frankish use as a
matter of fact supplanted the Roman, this influence of Charles upon
doctrine was not a mere consequence of the coronation. The office of
Emperor only became gradually a definite political power, summing up
as it were the separate powers of the Frankish ruler and also giving
a legal basis for the relation of this absolute authority to the Church of
the Pope. When on 6 Feb. 806, to avoid wars of succession, a division
of the Empire among the three sons of Charles was arranged in case of
his death, the document was sent to the Pope for his signature, and care
for the Roman Church was enjoined upon the sons, but nothing was
decided about the office of Emperor. A few years later it was looked
upon as an office which conferred actual authority and must be reserved
for the house of Charles. In September of the year 813 an Assembly
was held at Aachen and Charles with his nobles resolved to rai^a Louis,
his only surviving son, to the position of Emperor, while a grandson
Bernard, the son of his dead son Pepin, was to be appointed under-king
of Italy. In his robes as Emperor, Charles advanced to the altar, knelt
## p. 625 (#657) ############################################
814] Death of Charles 625
in prayer, addressed warning words to his son, caused him to promise
fulfilment of all commands, and finally bade Louis take a second
crown that was lying upon the altar and place it himself upon his head.
The reign of Charles as Emperor was a period of quiet improvement
of great acquisitions. The wars of the earlier period had come to an
end, and conquest was over. His magnificent efforts to raise the
conditions of social and religious life became apparent. The world
power was universally recognised. Far beyond the Christian peoples of
the West, Charles enjoyed unconditional respect. In East and West he
was looked upon as the head of the Christian Empire, to the Slavs he
was so absolutely the ruler that his name (as Krai) served as an expression
for royal authority, just as formerly in the West those of Caesar and
Augustus had been chosen to express supreme monarchical power.
On 28 Jan. 814, at 9 o'clock in the morning, Charles died, after an
illness of a few days1 duration at Aachen, where he had resided by
preference during the last years of his reign. He was buried the same
day in the Basilica there, and in the manner customary in the West,
lying in a closed coffin. Only a later fanciful writer was able to
distort this well-attested simple fact. Count Otto of Lomello, one
of those who accompanied Otto III on his remarkable visit to the
grave of Charles in the year 1000, related, according to the Chronicum
Novaliciense, that Charles was found sitting on a throne like a living
man, with his crown upon his head and his sceptre in his hands, the
nails of which had grown through the gloves. Otto III, according to
this account, had the robes set in order, the lost portion of the nose
replaced by gold and a tooth of the great Dead brought away. It
may well be supposed that the awful moment in which the fanciful
Otto wished to greet his mighty predecessor in person dazzled the
senses of the Count, whose imagination and perhaps the desire for
sensation have led astray much learned investigation and popular
ideas.
Popular legends soon busied themselves with the person of the
Emperor to whom following generations very soon gave the title of the
Great. Even in the ninth century all kinds of fables were told about
him and the hero became exalted into the superhuman. In the amusing
little book of Notker the Stammerer, the Monk of St Gall, anecdotes
and popular tales play a part. By that time, two generations after the
death of the great king, these tales must have grown very much. In
Northern France the legends were specially busy, and the stories of
Charles and his Paladins were gathered together in poetic form in the
Chansons de Geste and later in the Chanson de Roland, to travel from
France to Germany and to live on in the Rolandslied, in the Willehalm,
and in the Chronicle of the German Emperors of the twelfth century.
Legends had long been developed on the ecclesiastical side. The
Poeta Saxo, as early as the end of the ninth century, had praised the
C MED. H. VOL. II. OH. XIX. 40
## p. 626 (#658) ############################################
626 Cliarles in Legend
Emperor as the Apostle of the land of the Saxons, and the struggle with
the Saracens also was praised from this point of view. It is true that
Charles could not be regarded as a saint so long as his manner of life
was remembered. This caused great trouble to the strict moralist.
The monk Wetti for instance represented Charles as suffering terrible
punishments in the other world on that account, and Walafridus Strabo,
who in the time of Louis turned the Visio Wettini into verse, relates
that a nun had beheld the tortures of Charles in the fires of Purgatory.
But these memories faded, and later it was only the soldier of God, the
champion of the faith, the builder of numerous churches, who was
remembered. As early as the second half of the tenth century stories
were told of a journey of Charles to Jerusalem. In the eleventh
century this was generally believed and Charles was extolled as a martyr
on account of his many adventures. The picture of the monarch was
transformed and his character became that of a Christian ecclesiastic,
even that of a monk. The purely ecclesiastical legends about Charles
originated in the twelfth century. His life was thought of, not as
ascetic, but as holy, and the solemn canonisation in 1165 was the final
step in the process.
No authentic portrait of Charles has come down to us, for the
equestrian statuette from the Treasury of the Cathedral of Metz, which
is now in the Carnevalet Museum at Paris, cannot be proved to
be a contemporary representation. The long moustache of the
otherwise beardless rider seems rather to belong to Charles the Bald.
The first Western Emperor was large in body. The examination of
the skeleton in the year 1861 shewed a length of nearly 6 ft. 4 in.
But we cannot form a clearer idea of his external appearance, in
spite of the excellent description which we owe to Einhard. This
faithful counsellor and friend wrote his Life soon after the death of the
great Emperor. His picture maintains its great value even though it
can be proved to borrow its general, and even its particular, features
from the biographies of Suetonius. Einhard made independent observa-
tions and drew the portrait of Charles with love and intelligence.
We see the old Emperor before us with his majestic form, his round
head resting upon a neck somewhat too short and thick, and covered
with beautiful white hair, and with his kindly face from which looked
the large quick eyes. We learn that much that was not beautiful, such
as his too great corpulence, was forgotten on account of the symmetry of
his limbs and his harmonious proportions. We learn that in the two
last years of his life, when his body had become somewhat weakened
through attacks of fever, his old vigorous gait had become a little feeble,
owing to the halting of one leg. We hear the Emperor speaking in a
curiously high voice, which was in marked contrast with the powerful
form of the speaker. We have exact information even about the habits
of his daily life, we see how Charles rises in the morning and receives his
## p. 627 (#659) ############################################
Character of Charles 627
friends even while dressing, how he discharges the business of government,
hears the reports of the Palsgraves, and decides difficult points of law.
We learn how he was dressed, how he took hot baths, how fond he was
of hunting and how he practised swimming, if possible in company with
many others, how he ate much and drank very moderately, how he liked
to hear music or to have some book read aloud during his chief meal.
We even learn how he took a long rest in the middle of the day
in summer, and how the activity of his mind disturbed his rest at
night.
Einhard was depicting the monarch in his later years. But the
picture does not shew the features of an old man. The vigour of the
great king remained unbroken. The whole personality of Charles is
made unusually human and brought very near to us by Einhard and by
the popular stories of the Monk of St Gall. It is a personality of magic
power from which no one can escape, of noble amiability, with a sense of
humour, and naturally kind. Tender chords also echoed in this great
soul, a deep love for his children, especially for his daughters, and he
felt the need of close confidence on the part of his family. But there
is not the pure honour of the simple father. His passion is always
breaking out, a strong desire, to which the moral ideas of the age could
set no limits, an unusually strong inclination for the other sex. And
this strong nature, so accustomed to command and to expect obedience,
could set no limits to his own desires. There was a remarkable
licentiousness in the private life of the Emperor and his court, a want of
discipline, immorality even in the eyes of a coarse age, an inclination for
freedom and at the same time for what is great. Only he who was
himself above rules and ordinances, demands unconditional submission
to his will. For the simplicity of his character, his affability and
popularity never did harm to his majesty or made him too free. From
this great nature there issued a strength which mastered everything. It
was a nature full of passion and yet of calm circumspection. Charles
never formed important resolutions in his angry moments. He went
his way without consideration for the rights or wishes of others, or for
individuals of the different peoples, but did so only when he served the
purpose of his high mission. This gave his actions invincible strength.
The wideness of his interests and his real understanding for the needs
of the people is unique even amongst the greatest in history. His care
was given to great things and small, even to the smallest matters—alike
to the political, the social, the literary, and to the artistic life of the
peoples. Everywhere he made ordinances, everywhere he gave encourage-
ment, everywhere he took a personal part. Everywhere of course as the
head of the community, everywhere as a man of action, as an intelligent
leader of his people. He was no theorist, no dreamer, not a man of
books. Quite pathetic is his endeavour to make himself acquainted with
the elements of the culture of the time. In addition to German, he was
ch. xix. 40—2
## p. 628 (#660) ############################################
628 The Empire and the Civitas Dei
master of Latin and understood Greek. But his attempts to acquire
the art of writing had as little success as his endeavour to produce new
ideas in the sphere of Grammar or Chronology. He was no great scholar,
no abstract thinker. And so he shewed himself in his relation to the
Church and to theocratic ideas. In spite of all his interest in questions
of doctrine he had no deep or independent grasp of religious problems.
The teaching of the Church was for him an unassailable truth. From
this he derived his high sense of mission. He placed himself at the
service of theocratic ideas in order to combine them with his quest for
power. This gave his policy an unexpected moral strength. A sense
of the grace of God dominated his work from the very beginning. That
does not mean that he acted as a simple Christian man who is anxious
about the salvation of his soul, but as the Plenipotentiary of God who
has to maintain earthly order in the Christian sense. Necessarily con-
nected with the Christian theocratic idea is all that would strengthen
authority in this world: on this then he seized, and this by virtue of his
naturally strong character he brought to accomplishment.
Charles looked upon his Empire as a Divine State. He felt that he
had been appointed by God as the earthly head of Christians. He read and
loved Augustine's book de Civitate Dei. He believed that he had set up
the Civitas Dei, in the second empirical sense, which Augustine placed
beside the Civitas Dei as the spiritual union of all saints under the
grace of God, as a great earthly organisation for the care of common
earthly needs in a manner pleasing to God, and for the worthy prepara-
tion for the better life in the world to come. Augustine, it is true, had
seen the empirical manifestation of the Civitas Dei in the universal
Catholic Church. Charles saw no contradiction. For him the ecclesi-
astical body and the secular were one. He was the head. And while
Augustine placed the Roman Empire as fourth in the order of world-
empires and as a Civitas Terrena in opposition to the Kingdom of God,
for Charles this dualism was no more—his Imperium Romanum is no
Civitas Terrena, it is identical with the earthly portion of the Church
founded by Christ. The words of Alcuin are significant: Charles rules
the kingdom of eternal peace founded by the Blood of Christ.
The Empire of Charles was intended to realise the Divine Kingdom
upon earth. On the one hand this answered to the great tendencies
which governed the life of the Christian peoples of the West, but on the
other it contradicted them. Government of the world by the laws of
Christ, uniformity of Christian organisation, universalism—these ideals
the new Imperium Romanum of Charles seemed to serve. But in the
Christian society there had long prevailed the idea of a Priesthood set
over the laity, the idea of the hierarchical order and of the Papal
Primacy—and these ideas demanded unity and universalism in the sense
that the supreme head of the Society could not be a secular monarch
but only the Bishop of Rome. Hence an imperial universalism could
## p. 629 (#661) ############################################
800] Charles in History 629
not finally overcome that of the Curia. Two different currents were
perceptible in the Christian-theocratic tendencies towards unity after
the year 800, often working together, often against each other. And
here it must be observed that the tendencies tewacdajriestly universal
rule are as little to be regarded as specially Roman, as the tendencies
towards the Theocratic-christian imperial power as specially German.
Rather both were the outcome of a general Western development, and
both have as their representatives both the Romance and the Germanic
peoples. On the one hand the universal ecclesiastical views necessarily
led again and again to a Priestly universal rule, and on the other hand
the increasing political needs of the rising Romance and German nations
necessarily caused a desire for the independence of the State.
The significance of Charles for the history of the world lies in this,
that he transferred the theocratic idea of absolute sovereignty, which
had begun to work as a great historical factor in Western history, from
the sphere of the Roman Curia to the Prankish-State. He prepared the
way for the social institutions peculiar to the Middle Ages and at the
same time opened the source of unavoidable wars. Of course there were
general antecedents for this in the political life of the Franks and of the
other Western peoples. But yet it was here that this mighty personality
was an independent force.
CB. XIX.
## p.
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. Not till 810 did he come
to a preliminary agreement with Greek agents, whereby he gave up
claim to Venice and the towns on the Dalmatian coast, which were even at
the beginning of the ninth century occasionally under Frankish rule,
and in return was recognised as Emperor by the Greeks. Michael, the
successor of Nicephorus, was ready to conclude the treaty, and in the
church of Aachen in 812 the Greek ambassadors solemnly saluted
Charles as Emperor (/SatrtXeu? ). But Leo V first drew up the Greek
document of the treaty and sent envoys with it to Aachen where after
Charles' death it was solemnly delivered to Louis. This was the
formal step in the creation of the Empire of the West.
The coronation of 800 gave neither a new basis for the monarchical
authority nor a new direction for the obligations of the State. In the
vear 802 an order was issued for a universal renewal of the oath of
allegiance, and the religious side of the obligation was emphasised more
than before. The theocratic element of the great monarchy was
brought to the front. Yet this was nothing new in principle. When
in 809 Charles ordered the retention of the Filioque in the Creed, in
opposition to the action of the Pope, and when the Frankish use as a
matter of fact supplanted the Roman, this influence of Charles upon
doctrine was not a mere consequence of the coronation. The office of
Emperor only became gradually a definite political power, summing up
as it were the separate powers of the Frankish ruler and also giving
a legal basis for the relation of this absolute authority to the Church of
the Pope. When on 6 Feb. 806, to avoid wars of succession, a division
of the Empire among the three sons of Charles was arranged in case of
his death, the document was sent to the Pope for his signature, and care
for the Roman Church was enjoined upon the sons, but nothing was
decided about the office of Emperor. A few years later it was looked
upon as an office which conferred actual authority and must be reserved
for the house of Charles. In September of the year 813 an Assembly
was held at Aachen and Charles with his nobles resolved to rai^a Louis,
his only surviving son, to the position of Emperor, while a grandson
Bernard, the son of his dead son Pepin, was to be appointed under-king
of Italy. In his robes as Emperor, Charles advanced to the altar, knelt
## p. 625 (#657) ############################################
814] Death of Charles 625
in prayer, addressed warning words to his son, caused him to promise
fulfilment of all commands, and finally bade Louis take a second
crown that was lying upon the altar and place it himself upon his head.
The reign of Charles as Emperor was a period of quiet improvement
of great acquisitions. The wars of the earlier period had come to an
end, and conquest was over. His magnificent efforts to raise the
conditions of social and religious life became apparent. The world
power was universally recognised. Far beyond the Christian peoples of
the West, Charles enjoyed unconditional respect. In East and West he
was looked upon as the head of the Christian Empire, to the Slavs he
was so absolutely the ruler that his name (as Krai) served as an expression
for royal authority, just as formerly in the West those of Caesar and
Augustus had been chosen to express supreme monarchical power.
On 28 Jan. 814, at 9 o'clock in the morning, Charles died, after an
illness of a few days1 duration at Aachen, where he had resided by
preference during the last years of his reign. He was buried the same
day in the Basilica there, and in the manner customary in the West,
lying in a closed coffin. Only a later fanciful writer was able to
distort this well-attested simple fact. Count Otto of Lomello, one
of those who accompanied Otto III on his remarkable visit to the
grave of Charles in the year 1000, related, according to the Chronicum
Novaliciense, that Charles was found sitting on a throne like a living
man, with his crown upon his head and his sceptre in his hands, the
nails of which had grown through the gloves. Otto III, according to
this account, had the robes set in order, the lost portion of the nose
replaced by gold and a tooth of the great Dead brought away. It
may well be supposed that the awful moment in which the fanciful
Otto wished to greet his mighty predecessor in person dazzled the
senses of the Count, whose imagination and perhaps the desire for
sensation have led astray much learned investigation and popular
ideas.
Popular legends soon busied themselves with the person of the
Emperor to whom following generations very soon gave the title of the
Great. Even in the ninth century all kinds of fables were told about
him and the hero became exalted into the superhuman. In the amusing
little book of Notker the Stammerer, the Monk of St Gall, anecdotes
and popular tales play a part. By that time, two generations after the
death of the great king, these tales must have grown very much. In
Northern France the legends were specially busy, and the stories of
Charles and his Paladins were gathered together in poetic form in the
Chansons de Geste and later in the Chanson de Roland, to travel from
France to Germany and to live on in the Rolandslied, in the Willehalm,
and in the Chronicle of the German Emperors of the twelfth century.
Legends had long been developed on the ecclesiastical side. The
Poeta Saxo, as early as the end of the ninth century, had praised the
C MED. H. VOL. II. OH. XIX. 40
## p. 626 (#658) ############################################
626 Cliarles in Legend
Emperor as the Apostle of the land of the Saxons, and the struggle with
the Saracens also was praised from this point of view. It is true that
Charles could not be regarded as a saint so long as his manner of life
was remembered. This caused great trouble to the strict moralist.
The monk Wetti for instance represented Charles as suffering terrible
punishments in the other world on that account, and Walafridus Strabo,
who in the time of Louis turned the Visio Wettini into verse, relates
that a nun had beheld the tortures of Charles in the fires of Purgatory.
But these memories faded, and later it was only the soldier of God, the
champion of the faith, the builder of numerous churches, who was
remembered. As early as the second half of the tenth century stories
were told of a journey of Charles to Jerusalem. In the eleventh
century this was generally believed and Charles was extolled as a martyr
on account of his many adventures. The picture of the monarch was
transformed and his character became that of a Christian ecclesiastic,
even that of a monk. The purely ecclesiastical legends about Charles
originated in the twelfth century. His life was thought of, not as
ascetic, but as holy, and the solemn canonisation in 1165 was the final
step in the process.
No authentic portrait of Charles has come down to us, for the
equestrian statuette from the Treasury of the Cathedral of Metz, which
is now in the Carnevalet Museum at Paris, cannot be proved to
be a contemporary representation. The long moustache of the
otherwise beardless rider seems rather to belong to Charles the Bald.
The first Western Emperor was large in body. The examination of
the skeleton in the year 1861 shewed a length of nearly 6 ft. 4 in.
But we cannot form a clearer idea of his external appearance, in
spite of the excellent description which we owe to Einhard. This
faithful counsellor and friend wrote his Life soon after the death of the
great Emperor. His picture maintains its great value even though it
can be proved to borrow its general, and even its particular, features
from the biographies of Suetonius. Einhard made independent observa-
tions and drew the portrait of Charles with love and intelligence.
We see the old Emperor before us with his majestic form, his round
head resting upon a neck somewhat too short and thick, and covered
with beautiful white hair, and with his kindly face from which looked
the large quick eyes. We learn that much that was not beautiful, such
as his too great corpulence, was forgotten on account of the symmetry of
his limbs and his harmonious proportions. We learn that in the two
last years of his life, when his body had become somewhat weakened
through attacks of fever, his old vigorous gait had become a little feeble,
owing to the halting of one leg. We hear the Emperor speaking in a
curiously high voice, which was in marked contrast with the powerful
form of the speaker. We have exact information even about the habits
of his daily life, we see how Charles rises in the morning and receives his
## p. 627 (#659) ############################################
Character of Charles 627
friends even while dressing, how he discharges the business of government,
hears the reports of the Palsgraves, and decides difficult points of law.
We learn how he was dressed, how he took hot baths, how fond he was
of hunting and how he practised swimming, if possible in company with
many others, how he ate much and drank very moderately, how he liked
to hear music or to have some book read aloud during his chief meal.
We even learn how he took a long rest in the middle of the day
in summer, and how the activity of his mind disturbed his rest at
night.
Einhard was depicting the monarch in his later years. But the
picture does not shew the features of an old man. The vigour of the
great king remained unbroken. The whole personality of Charles is
made unusually human and brought very near to us by Einhard and by
the popular stories of the Monk of St Gall. It is a personality of magic
power from which no one can escape, of noble amiability, with a sense of
humour, and naturally kind. Tender chords also echoed in this great
soul, a deep love for his children, especially for his daughters, and he
felt the need of close confidence on the part of his family. But there
is not the pure honour of the simple father. His passion is always
breaking out, a strong desire, to which the moral ideas of the age could
set no limits, an unusually strong inclination for the other sex. And
this strong nature, so accustomed to command and to expect obedience,
could set no limits to his own desires. There was a remarkable
licentiousness in the private life of the Emperor and his court, a want of
discipline, immorality even in the eyes of a coarse age, an inclination for
freedom and at the same time for what is great. Only he who was
himself above rules and ordinances, demands unconditional submission
to his will. For the simplicity of his character, his affability and
popularity never did harm to his majesty or made him too free. From
this great nature there issued a strength which mastered everything. It
was a nature full of passion and yet of calm circumspection. Charles
never formed important resolutions in his angry moments. He went
his way without consideration for the rights or wishes of others, or for
individuals of the different peoples, but did so only when he served the
purpose of his high mission. This gave his actions invincible strength.
The wideness of his interests and his real understanding for the needs
of the people is unique even amongst the greatest in history. His care
was given to great things and small, even to the smallest matters—alike
to the political, the social, the literary, and to the artistic life of the
peoples. Everywhere he made ordinances, everywhere he gave encourage-
ment, everywhere he took a personal part. Everywhere of course as the
head of the community, everywhere as a man of action, as an intelligent
leader of his people. He was no theorist, no dreamer, not a man of
books. Quite pathetic is his endeavour to make himself acquainted with
the elements of the culture of the time. In addition to German, he was
ch. xix. 40—2
## p. 628 (#660) ############################################
628 The Empire and the Civitas Dei
master of Latin and understood Greek. But his attempts to acquire
the art of writing had as little success as his endeavour to produce new
ideas in the sphere of Grammar or Chronology. He was no great scholar,
no abstract thinker. And so he shewed himself in his relation to the
Church and to theocratic ideas. In spite of all his interest in questions
of doctrine he had no deep or independent grasp of religious problems.
The teaching of the Church was for him an unassailable truth. From
this he derived his high sense of mission. He placed himself at the
service of theocratic ideas in order to combine them with his quest for
power. This gave his policy an unexpected moral strength. A sense
of the grace of God dominated his work from the very beginning. That
does not mean that he acted as a simple Christian man who is anxious
about the salvation of his soul, but as the Plenipotentiary of God who
has to maintain earthly order in the Christian sense. Necessarily con-
nected with the Christian theocratic idea is all that would strengthen
authority in this world: on this then he seized, and this by virtue of his
naturally strong character he brought to accomplishment.
Charles looked upon his Empire as a Divine State. He felt that he
had been appointed by God as the earthly head of Christians. He read and
loved Augustine's book de Civitate Dei. He believed that he had set up
the Civitas Dei, in the second empirical sense, which Augustine placed
beside the Civitas Dei as the spiritual union of all saints under the
grace of God, as a great earthly organisation for the care of common
earthly needs in a manner pleasing to God, and for the worthy prepara-
tion for the better life in the world to come. Augustine, it is true, had
seen the empirical manifestation of the Civitas Dei in the universal
Catholic Church. Charles saw no contradiction. For him the ecclesi-
astical body and the secular were one. He was the head. And while
Augustine placed the Roman Empire as fourth in the order of world-
empires and as a Civitas Terrena in opposition to the Kingdom of God,
for Charles this dualism was no more—his Imperium Romanum is no
Civitas Terrena, it is identical with the earthly portion of the Church
founded by Christ. The words of Alcuin are significant: Charles rules
the kingdom of eternal peace founded by the Blood of Christ.
The Empire of Charles was intended to realise the Divine Kingdom
upon earth. On the one hand this answered to the great tendencies
which governed the life of the Christian peoples of the West, but on the
other it contradicted them. Government of the world by the laws of
Christ, uniformity of Christian organisation, universalism—these ideals
the new Imperium Romanum of Charles seemed to serve. But in the
Christian society there had long prevailed the idea of a Priesthood set
over the laity, the idea of the hierarchical order and of the Papal
Primacy—and these ideas demanded unity and universalism in the sense
that the supreme head of the Society could not be a secular monarch
but only the Bishop of Rome. Hence an imperial universalism could
## p. 629 (#661) ############################################
800] Charles in History 629
not finally overcome that of the Curia. Two different currents were
perceptible in the Christian-theocratic tendencies towards unity after
the year 800, often working together, often against each other. And
here it must be observed that the tendencies tewacdajriestly universal
rule are as little to be regarded as specially Roman, as the tendencies
towards the Theocratic-christian imperial power as specially German.
Rather both were the outcome of a general Western development, and
both have as their representatives both the Romance and the Germanic
peoples. On the one hand the universal ecclesiastical views necessarily
led again and again to a Priestly universal rule, and on the other hand
the increasing political needs of the rising Romance and German nations
necessarily caused a desire for the independence of the State.
The significance of Charles for the history of the world lies in this,
that he transferred the theocratic idea of absolute sovereignty, which
had begun to work as a great historical factor in Western history, from
the sphere of the Roman Curia to the Prankish-State. He prepared the
way for the social institutions peculiar to the Middle Ages and at the
same time opened the source of unavoidable wars. Of course there were
general antecedents for this in the political life of the Franks and of the
other Western peoples. But yet it was here that this mighty personality
was an independent force.
CB. XIX.
## p.
