No More Learning

But it is not likelv that the contents of the document
are always correctly quoted by the biographer of Hadrian, or that Charles
bestowed such extensive territories. We hear indeed that the Curia was
afterwards not quite satisfied with the performance of the promise of
774, but we never find the Pope asking for so much territory, though we
see his utmost hopes quite clearly in the extant Papal correspondence.
The Popes had no reason modestly to lay aside demands which in point
of law would have had such an excellent foundation as that indicated in
the Vita Hadriani. Again, the later forged donations by the Prankish
rulers in favour of the Curia know absolutely nothing of the immense
extent of the promise of the Vita Hadriani, nor is there ground for
assuming that Charles made a new treaty with the Pope somewhere
about 781 and altered the promise of the document of 774 because it
was too burdensome. The conclusion therefore seems inevitable that
Charles the Great never issued a document of such contents as the Papal
book asserts. We must suppose there has been distortion or falsification.
Whether the author made these erroneous statements consciously or only
through misunderstanding or whether the document was interpolated at
the time, is quite unknown. But it seems certain that the donation
made in the document which Charles deposited in 774 was not so com-
prehensive as we read in the Life of Pope Hadrian.
The political conditions of Italy were not finally settled by the con-
quest of Lombardy. Many difficulties had to be overcome. As early as the
end of 775, the Lombard duke Hrodgaud of Friuli rose. A conspiracy
of wide ramifications, involving Hildebrand of Spoleto, Arichis of
Benevento, and Reginbald of Chiusi, seems to have been threatening.
A Greek army under the leadership of Adalgis, the son of Desiderius,
was, as some hoped and others feared, to master Borne and restore the
ancient Lombard kingdom. But Hrodgaud remained isolated. A quick
campaign of Charles in the winter months of 775-6 crushed the rising,
and Hrodgaud fell in battle.
Charles' sojourn in the winter of 780-1 simplified the situation in
Italy. Charles' second son Pepin was anointed as King of Italy by
the Pope, and at the same time Ludwig (Lewis), his four-year-old
third son, as King of Aquitania. This step by no means indicates
that Charles renounced his own share in the rule of Italy. On the
contrary, it was merely a formal concession to the special political needs
'of Italy, with a view to a stricter control and a closer approximation of
the Italian to the Frankish government. The separate kingdom of Italy
was not limited to the former Lombard kingdom, for districts were added
to it. Such were Istria, which had been conquered by the Franks before
790, and Venetia and Dalmatia, which surrendered towards the end of
805 and belonged to the Empire of Charles the Great till 810, and also
Corsica, which was repeatedly defended by the Frankish power against
the Saracens in the first twenty years of the ninth century. Outside the


## p. 601 (#633) ############################################

758-787] The Duchy of Benevento 601
Italian kingdom lay the possessions of the Roman Church, Romania as
they were officially called.
Much remained unsettled—the position of the powerful Duchy
of Benevento, and above all the relations with the Greeks, who, pushed
aside by the events of 774, still plotted against the States of the
Church and against the kingdom of the Franks. Sicily, where a Greek
Patricius was in residence, and South Italy, where their possessions
were gradually melting away, gave them a base of operations. Threat-
ened hostilities might still be avoided. The Emperor Leo IV had died
suddenly in 780, leaving the Empire to his son Constantine VI, Porphy-
rogenitus, who was a minor, and for whom the widowed Empress Irene
undertook the regency. Irene wished to restore image-worship, and thus
come nearer to the Roman Church and to western politics generally. By
her command an embassy appeared before Charles to seek the hand of
the king's daughter Rotrud for the young Emperor of the East. The
betrothal does not seem to have led to any distinct settlement in Italy:
on the contrary, the existing conditions were tacitly recognised.
But the continued uncertainty, especially as concerning Benevento, at
last made necessary a definite adjustment. Since 758 Arichis, the son-in-
law of the dethroned Desiderius, had ruled here, and continued to do so in
complete independence after the fall of the Lombard kingdom. With
his highly cultured and ambitious consort he desired to make Benevento
the centre of an advanced civilisation. He called himself Prince of
Benevento, and had himself anointed by the Bishops and set a crown
upon his own head, thus seeking to emphasise his sovereign position.
The Pope was naturally opposed to this proceeding, for the prosperity
and independence of Benevento were a continual danger to him.
Charles also, the heir of the Lombard kingdom, could not suffer the rise
of a great power in South Italy. The so-called Annates Einhardi credibly
reports that Charles on his journey to Italy, 786-7, contemplated from
the first an attack on Benevento, because he wished to gain the remainder
of the Lombard kingdom.
At the beginning of 787, while Charles was waiting in Rome,
Romuald the eldest son of Arichis appeared with presents and assurances
of peace, hoping to hinder the advance of the Franks towards the
South. But the Pope and the Frankish nobles who were present pre-
vailed upon Charles to advance as far as Capua. Arichis, who had shut
himself up in the fortress of Salerno, sent a further embassy to make
new proposals—that Arichis might be excused from appearing before
Charles in person, but that he should give hostages, among them his
second son Grimoald, send rich presents and profess his subjection.
These proposals were accepted, and Arichis as well as his eldest son
Romuald, who had been set at liberty, and the Beneventines took their
oath of allegiance before the plenipotentiaries.
This was doubtless a great success, not lessened by the rupture with


## p. 602 (#634) ############################################

602 Settlement of Italian affairs [774-788
the Greeks that followed and the breaking off of the betrothal of 781.
But difficulties arose when Arichis died (26 Aug. 787) after the death
of his eldest son and heir. Then the Beneventines asked for Grimoald
the second son-of Arichis, whom Charles held as a hostage. But the king
hesitated to comply with their wish. Pope Hadrian especially had a
share in this decision, for he had informed Charles of the plans of the
Greeks to conquer Italy and appoint the duke of Benevento as the
Greek Patricius, accusing Arichis of treachery and hinting at continued
conspiracies of the Beneventines. As a matter of fact there was a Greek
embassy at Benevento at the end of 787, trying to effect a great
alliance. At different ends of the Empire the forces of opposition were
thus arising against Charles at that time. But they did not take con-
certed action. For there is no evidence that the Beneventines entered
into alliance with Tassilo of Bavaria or even with the Avars and Saxons,
and indeed it is quite improbable, for otherwise Charles could not so
easily have overcome his difficulties.
In the spring of 788, in spite of Papal opposition, Charles at last
complied with the wish of the Beneventines and appointed Grimoald
duke, first requiring of him a solemn oath to recognise the Frankish
supremacy, to place Charles'1 name in decrees and on coins, and to forbid
the Lombards to wear beards. When a Greek army landed in Lower
Italy under the Sicilian Patricius, perhaps bringing with him Adalgis,
son of Desiderius, who had been chosen as a Byzantine vassal prince,
the Lombard dukes of Benevento and Spoleto remained faithful to the
Frankish cause, joining a small Frankish army and inflicting on the
Greeks a decisive defeat in Calabria. The Greek danger was finally
removed. No further restoration of Greek rule in Italy was attempted,
and from that time Adalgis lived peaceably in Constantinople as a
Greek Patricius. But the supremacy over Benevento could not be fully
maintained. Grimoald soon made himself independent, and later attacks
by the Franks had no lasting success.
Through the fall of the Lombard kingdom and the subjugation of Italy
by the Franks, the relations of Charles with the Pope necessarily under-
went an essential change. On his Easter visit, 774, Charles had given
the Pope the solemn assurance that he had not come with his army to Italy
to win treasures and make conquests, but to help St Peter to his rights, to
i exalt the Church of God and to make sure the position of the Pope.
But the result of the journey to Rome was that Charles himself laid
claim to the rule of the Lombard kingdom. VvTien, after~the fall of
Pavia, he assumed the title of king uf the Lombards and added it to
that of king of the Franks, he assumed also the obligations which
belonged to his new office. His policy in Italy was the same as that of
the Lombard kings before him and of all great rulers of Italy after him
—the vigorous ruler ol^ a_^art-strMng-fer-the^possession of the whole.
It was on account of this that the Lombards fell into opposition to the


## p. 603 (#635) ############################################

774-787] Charles' relations with the Pope 603
Pope. Though Charles and the Pope avoided serious conflicts and
always worked harmoniously in their endeavour to reduce the Lombard
Duchies and to drive the Greek power out of Italy, this was due to the
peculiar position of the Frankish king. Charles was not only king of
the Lombards but, as Patricius, was protector of the Church and her
possessions.
Hadrian often reminded Charles of his promise of 774 and demanded
its full performance. The Papal claims were only partially satisfied.
Thus in 781 Charles promised to see to the restoration of the Patrimonies
in the Sabina, but the Pope afterwards demanded in vain the evacuation
of the whole territory. So again in 787 a donation of Beneventine towns
was promised, also of several Tuscan towns, especially Populonia and
Rosellae, but the fulfilment did not perfectly correspond with the Pope's
wishes. For when the royal plenipotentiaries handed over to him the
episcopal buildings, the monasteries and fiscal estates, and also the keys
of the towns, but not sovereign power over the inhabitants, Hadrian
complained bitterly. Of what use to him, he asked, was the possession
of the town unless he had power over the inhabitants ? " He must rule
them by royal dispensation, and he was willing to leave them their
freedom. "
Without doubt all these acquisitions meant for the Roman Curia
more than the mere gain of profitable rights. Political rule would
secure constitutional privileges. What clearly appears as the leading
thought in the forged Donation of Constantine was aimed at by the
Popes of the eighth century on a more limited scale—an ecclesiastical
State freed from all secular interference. Hadrian and his successors
never forgot the thought that no earthly power might govern where the
spiritual Head of Christendom had received his seat from the Heavenly
Ruler.
Charles was not only king of the Franks and Lombards but he was
at the same time, as Patricius, protector of the Respublica Romana.
As successor of the Lombard kings he had to accept somewhat narrower
limits, and above all to set absolutely free the districts belonging to
the Pope. But as Patricius he was entitled to exercise a suzerainty
over those territories too. This meant for the Pope and his deputies
the enjoyment of profitable rights and immediate authority over the
subjects, but for himself the supreme political control.
This was not a process of right but of might. The relations changed
gradually. On his first visit in 774, the king asked permission to visit
the city of Rome. Later on, such a request was needless. In matters
of state, Charles felt himself supreme lord of the Pope and of all Papal
possessions. If he asked the Pope to remove abuses which came to light
in the Papal territories, or if he laid upon him a command to expel from
the Exarchate and Pentapolis the Venetians who carried on trade in men,
it was only an application of generally recognised principles. Protection


## p. 604 (#636) ############################################

604 Invasion of Spain [777-778
implies sovereignty, and the Protector of the Church became sovereign of
the protected territory.
Thus did Charles found a lordship over Italy. The different legal
titles which had created it fell more and more into the background, and
even the political prerogatives of the Pope became more like the secular
authority of other great Churches in Gaul and Italy, which received con-
firmations of privileges from the State. The Roman Church appears
endowed with rich possessions, with great revenues, with important state
prerogatives. But over them stood Charles as supreme lord, as the sole
true sovereign.
Charles' power meanwhile stretched further beyond Francia and Italy
and became more absolute. The patriciate raised the protector of the
Church to the position of lord of Christendom and absolute master of
the West. That is of course the patriciate not as the Pope bestowed
it, but as Charles made it. Later on we shall see how the Frankish
monarchy assumed universal and theocratic elements. The Christian
theocratic ideas were to justify as it were the violent conquests of Charles.
The important point was the acquirement of real power. The great
conquests were necessary, if the theocratic Frankish monarchy was to
become the Empire of the West.
It was not the relief of the oppressed Christian Spain or the support
of political allies but the spread of his power which guided Charles in
his wars against the Arabs. At the Diet at Paderborn in 777, Ibn
al Arabi, apparently governor of Barcelona and Gerona, asked help from
Charles against the Umayyad Caliph of Cordova. The Arabian governor
of Barcelona had already in 759 offered to Pepin to recognise Frankish
supremacy, and Pepin had formed alliances with the Abbasids the
enemies of the Umayyads, and in 765 he had sent ambassadors to Bagdad.
The subjugation of Aquitania and Vasconia in the last years of Pepin's
reign afforded the basis for further extension of Frankish dominion
towards the South.
In the spring of 778 an army summoned from all parts of the
Empire marched in two divisions across the Eastern and Western
Pyrenees into Spain. It is significant that Charles' first achievement
was the siege and capture of Pampeluna, which was inhabited by
Christians and belonged to the Christian kingdom of Asturias. No great
military successes were gained. Many fortified places recognised Charles'
supremacy, but the expected great movement against the Umayyad
'Abd-ar-Rahman did not take place. Among the Arab opponents of
the Caliph of Cordova there was no unanimity. Charles saw that
he had been deceived. He advanced as far as Saragossa on the Ebro,
and perhaps took temporary possession of the town. Then he turned
northwards, and Ibn al Arabi, who bore the blame of the failure of the
expedition, was taken back with the army as prisoner. The Christian


## p. 605 (#637) ############################################

778-793] Roncevalles 605
Basques of Spain were treated as enemies, and the fortifications of
Pampeluna were razed. And as the great army passed through the
defiles of the Pyrenees in long columns, unable to open out for any
military manoeuvres, the rearguard was attacked by the hosts of the
Basques and destroyed. In later legends the place is called Roncevalles.
Even if the reverse was not in itself important, it was regarded as serious
that the attack could not be avenged. And certain heroes among Charles'
friends had fallen, the Palgrave Anselm, the Seneschal Eggihard, and
above all, Hruodland the Praefect of the Britannic March. Legend
however seized upon this event of 15 August 778, and wove around the
whole Spanish expedition of Charles, but especially this surprise of
Roncevalles, the halo of Christian glory. It exalted the defeat into a
catastrophe and made the death of Hruodland the martyrdom of the
heroic soldier of God. In the eleventh century these legends took their
poetic form in the Chanson de Roland, their final form in the pseudo-
Turpin, and in the Rolandslied of the Pfaffe Conrad of the twelfth
century, the most popular form in which they spread over Germany.
The expedition of 778 had completely failed, but the project of a
conquest in the South was by no means given up. In the first place, it was
necessary to settle the position of Aquitania, which though it was finally
conquered, yet had not become Frank. In 781 Charles raised- this land
with Septimania to a kingdom, and had his son Louis (Ludwig), who was
born during the expedition of 778, anointed king of it by the Pope. On
the border the boy was invested with arms and placed upon a horse, to
hold his solemn entry into his kingdom. Charles wished his son to be
brought up as an Aquitanian. He rejoiced later on when the seven-year-
old boy appeared at the Diet of Paderborn in the dress of Aquitania
with his little mantle and padded hose. But it was not intended that
the grave Frankish character should be obliterated or the Frankish
dominion over Aquitania in any way shaken. The regents whom Charles
appointed in 781, and later Louis himself, only had influence so far as
Charles liked. He remained the supreme head, and gave orders in all
important matters and even in unimportant matters. It was a political
system that answered perfectly. The people of Aquitania, proud of
their kingdom, willingly complied with the arrangements of the Empire,
and ever proved themselves the readiest to fight the Arabs. In 785
Gerona placed itself voluntarily under Frankish rule. The coast district
was won in addition. In 793 there was another advance on the part of
the Arabs. It was at that time that the distant enemies of the Franks
combined, and political intrigue stretched from Spain to the land of
the Saxons and to the Avars. Hisham I, Emir of Cordova, the son of
'Abd-ar-Rahman, arranged an invasion. Gerona was taken, the Pyrenees
were crossed and the Arabian army advanced as far as Narbonne and
Carcassonne. A bloody battle was fought against the Margrave William
on the river Orbieu, and the Arabs marched back laden with booty.


## p. 606 (#638) ############################################

606 The Spanish March. Bavaria [763-811
Soon however the Franks were in a position to make a victorious
advance. From Gerona westwards the territory south of the Pyrenees
was gradually won and a series of places fortified. In 795 the Spanish
March was established. Dissensions among the Muslims and private
undertakings of daring adventurers prepared the way for further conquests.
In 801 Barcelona was compelled to surrender, and Louis, the king of
Aquitania, was hurriedly summoned at the decisive moment, that he
might have the credit of taking the proud city. In 806 Pampeluna and
Novara acknowledged the Frankish dominion. Tortosa also, after a long
siege, surrendered its keys to Louis in 811, although neither here nor
at Saragossa or Huesca was Frankish dominion regularly established.
The Spanish March did not reach so far as the Ebro, but only to a line
drawn n. n. w. from Barcelona and parallel to the Pyrenees. In 799 the
Balearic Islands which in the spring had been ravaged by the Moors, put
themselves under Frankish rule, and from that time enjoyed at any
rate occasional protection by the Franks.
Bavaria was almost an independent State at the beginning of Charles1
reign. After Duke Tassilo had faithlessly deserted the Frankish army
in 763, in the middle of the war against Aquitania, the connexion of
Bavaria with the Frankish power became looser. It was not that Frank-
ish supremacy was completely renounced. Charles even appears to have
exercised influence in the appointment to Bavarian bishoprics. But
Tassilo nevertheless acted quite independently, and it is certain that
Bavaria did not regularly take part in Charles' warlike undertakings,
even if we assume the co-operation of the Bavarian army in the Pyrenean
campaign of 778, which is doubtful. When the king and the Pope in
781 demanded that the duke should return to his former allegiance and
Tassilo found himself compelled to comply with the demand, his inde-
pendence was assured, and it was not till his personal safety had been
guaranteed by hostages that he appeared at the Mayfield of Worms
in 781, to renew the oaths and promises he had formerly made to Pepin,
giving twelve nobles as hostages.
This did not bring about good relations. There was soon friction.
After 784 there were manifest differences concerning rights in the Etsch
districts, but most serious were the different conceptions of the conditions
of dependency. Charles deduced from the oath of fidelity an obligation
of obedience and services such as the provincial officials of his kingdom
were accustomed to render. Tassilo on the other hand understood the
subordination as more indefinite, and thought he was not bound to
surrender his independence. In 787 the Bavarian duke sought the
intervention of the Pope with a view to the restoration of peace with
King Charles. Negotiations were opened but came to nothing, because
views differed as to the degree of obligations involved in the oaths
of fidelity. The Pope, who was entirely the tool of the powerful king,


## p. 607 (#639) ############################################

787-794] Deposition of Tassilo 607
threatened anathemas in case Tassilo did not fulfil Charles' demands.
As these were not satisfied, the Franks invaded Bavaria from three sides
with an overwhelming force. Tassilo dared not venture a battle. He
met the king (3 Oct. ) on the plain of the Lech, acknowledged himself
vassal and placed the duchy in the hand of the king to receive it back
from Charles as a Frankish fief. The Bavarian people were obliged to
take an oath of allegiance, and Tassilo had to give as hostages twelve
nobles and his own son.
Why the end came nevertheless the next year is not rightly under-
stood. Our information is drawn entirely from Frankish sources. What
is reported in the official Annals is not conclusive without confirmation.
From them we leam that Tassilo afterwards confessed that he had
incited the Avars to make war against the Franks, that he had attempted
the lives of the king's vassals in Bavaria, that he had recommended his
own people to make secret reservations in taking the oath of allegiance
to the king, and had even said that he would rather lose ten sons if he
had them than hold to the treaties, that he would rather die than live
under them.
The decision came at the Meeting of the Empire which was held at
Ingelheim in the summer of 788. Tassilo, who had been invited like
other nobles of the Empire, had appeared. He seems to have had
no suspicion of what threatened him, and this unsuspecting appearance
certainly does not look like guilt. He was immediately arrested, while
royal messengers departed for Bavaria to seize the wife, the children, the
treasures, and the household of the duke. Then Bavarians appeared as
accusers and proved Tassilo's disloyalty. But the charges could not have
been very serious, for they had to go back to the Herisliz of 763—an
incident which must have been regarded as long previously pardoned by
the royal declarations of grace in 781 and 787. The meeting, however,
so it is reported, unanimously pronounced sentence of death on Tassilo,
and only the intervention of Charles procured a mitigation of the
sentence. Tassilo was shorn and sent into a monastery as a monk,
he and his two sons. His wife also was compelled to take the veil, and
they were all immured in different cloisters. But the ceremony of de-
position was not yet completed. Six years later, at the Synod of Frank-
fort of 794, the deposed duke was made to appear, to acknowledge his
guilt publicly in the assembly, and to renounce all rights for himself and
his successors, in order to obtain the king's pardon and to be received
back into his favour and protection. Of this event a report was made
in three copies, one for the Palace, one for Tassilo, and one for the
Court Chapel.
When we consider all the steps of Tassilo's fall, we easily recognise
that he was sacrificed to the policy of the great king of the Franks.
They were not acts of justice, they were acts of violence, which were
only in appearance connected with any definite process of law.


## p. 608 (#640) ############################################

608 Bavaria. The Avars [763-794
Suspicious is the use made of the Herisliz of 763, which legally must
have long been regarded as done with, and even more so is the
solemn renunciation before the Synod of 794. Any breach of faith by
Tassilo after his homage at the Lech cannot have been very serious.
But even if in his treatment of Tassilo Charles appears to us less as
a just judge than as a strong statesman—the part which the last inde-
pendent duke of Bavaria played in this drama remains pitiful. His
deceit and bad faith are only known to us from the official history, but
his weakness and political incapacity are shewn bv the facts themselves.
He did not understand the tasks of his age. During his long rule
he favoured and enriched the churches like any Christian prince.
But while
he furthered the monasteries, he shewed but little understanding for the
episcopal organisation with which lay the future. It was precisely this
circumstance that immediately sent the leaders of the Church, the
Bavarian bishops, over to the enemy when conflict broke out with the
powerful Frank. Brave to fight for his hereditary rights and for the poli-
tical independence of his race, he did not dare, or rather he was unable,
to take a comprehensive view of the political situation, and he went
unsuspectingly to Ingelheim to be taken prisoner, to be condemned to
death, commuted for the life of a monk. Perhaps the result answered
to the man's personal wishes, for his hopes and fears were set upon the
other world.
Properly speaking, the wide district of Bavaria was not won for the
empire of the Franks till 788. After the subjection of the Saxons it
was the second great conquest of German territory—a conquest without
bloodshed or struggle. This was a fact of immense international impor-
tance. It decided that the Bavarian race should share the destinies of
the West-German peoples, just as the wars with the Saxons decided those
of the North-eastern West-Germans.
The borders of the Frankish kingdom extended over the middle
Danube district as far as the Enns, and at the same time over a district
of the Slavs already conquered by Tassilo, over Carantania (Carinthia).
Before long they were extended still further. For the subjection of the
Bavarian kingdom was naturally followed by the struggle against the
Avars and the Slavs, the Eastern neighbours of the Bavarians.
The Avars, confused by the Franks with the Huns, to whom they
were related as belonging to the Ural-altaic family, had for some
centuries come in contact with the Byzantines and Franks. About the
end of the sixth century, as we have seen1, they held a great dominion:
but by the end of the eighth century the period of their greatest power
was past. They had never risen above the level of barbarian nomads,
and the Slavs of the south-east had long thrown off their yoke, and
even their own sense of unity was gone. It was remarkable how this
uncivilised people sought to make use of the civilised labour of other
1 Chaps, ix, xiv.


## p. 609 (#641) ############################################

788-8ii] The Avars 609
peoples. Agriculture, like all other productive labour, was unknown to
them. In the plain between the Danube and the Theiss were situated
the "Rings"—the strong circular walls round extensive dwelling-places.
According to the assertion of a Frankish warrior—quoted by the Monk
of St Gall—the Rings extended as far "as from Zurich to Constance"
(therefore about 60 kilometres or nearly 38 miles) and embraced several
districts. In these Rings, of which, according to the Monk of St Gall,
there were nine, the Avars had heaped their plunder of two centuries.
In 788 the Avars had advanced westward in two divisions, but had
been completely defeated near the Danube and in Friuli. In 791
Charles had taken the offensive, not only to acquire rich treasures or
to punish the invaders of 788, but to obtain a natural closed frontier
towards the East. The Franks advanced as far as the Raab without
making a permanent conquest. Their important task in Saxony for a
long time hindered new and decisive action. Political alliances began
to be formed among those who were at that time threatened by the
Frankish sword. The Saracens, the Saxons, and the Avars knew of
each other, and Charles' enemies in the north and south counted
especially on a successful advance of the Avars. But the Avars lacked
endurance. In the year 795 the Margrave Erich of Friuli, supported
by the Slav prince Woinimir, advanced over the Danube and took the
principal Ring. Large treasures of gold made their way to the Franks,
and even if the opinion is scarcely tenable that great changes in prices
in the Frankish Empire were the result, still his success was great. In
the following year Charles1 son Pepin completed the work of conquest.
He destroyed the Ring, subdued the Avars, and opened large districts
to the preaching of Christianity. In later years small risings had still
to be put down, and Frankish blood still flowed in battle against the
barbarians. In 811 a Frankish army was sent against Pannonia. But
these were only echoes of the past. The Avars themselves are men-
tioned for the last time in 822. Even in the last years of the eighth
century Christianity and colonisation had been introduced among them.
The Christian mission was entrusted to the Dioceses of Aquileia,
Salzburg, and Passau. The settlement of the middle Danube district
began under Charles, that extension of the Germans, i. e. of the
Bavarian, later also of the Frankish race, which finally embraced the
present German Austria and the western districts of Hungary. Under
Charles the Danube district about as far as the Leitha and the district
of the upper Drave and the Save—the latter as Carantania—were
reckoned politically as part of the Empire. The more eastern district,
Pannonia, only belonged loosely to the Carlovingian Empire, and in
consequence of the long wars it was greatly depopulated.
With Charles ambition and religion worked together. Successes
in arms were for him at the same time successes for Christianity.
C. MED. B. VOL. II. CH. XIX. 39


## p. 610 (#642) ############################################

610 The Saxon Wars [631-775
The ecclesiastical motive was specially strong in the Saxon wars.
And the Saxons resisted ecclesiastical subjection as much as political.
They struggled with their utmost strength against the Franks for
their political freedom and for the imaginary blessings of their national
religion.
The Franks had fought against the Saxons even in the sixth century.
Chlotar I is said to have laid upon them a tribute of 500 cows, from
which Dagobert freed them in 631. In the eighth century, profiting by
the weakness of the royal authority, they repeatedly ravaged Frankish
territory. The Mayors of the Palace, Charles Martel and his sons, were
the first to fight successfully against them. They brought the tribes
on the Frankish border into some kind of subjection, and under Pepin
the payment of the old annual tribute of 500 cows was regularly
demanded. But Christian teaching found no soil. The two Hewalds
had paid with their lives for their first attempt to convert their
kinsmen. The mission of Willehad was fruitless. The noble work of
Utrecht and its school of missions failed in the case of the Saxons.
At the beginning of the reign of Charles the Saxons were in the
same state as they are said to have been at the beginning of our
era—small independent political communities which only combined
temporarily in time of war. The three greater sub-tribes, the West-
phalians, the Engers, and the Eastphalians, were not regular political
units. The pure morals of the uncorrupted natural peoples still
prevailed, but also all the brutality and cruelty of barbarism. The
unconditional reverence for the gods and the blind obedience due to
supposed utterances of the Divine Will exercised a fatalistic and
fanatical influence.
Whether Charles had from the first intended the complete conquest
of the whole Saxon territory or whether he was led to it by the force
of circumstances, cannot be determined. It is certain that from 775 he
aimed at the unconditional surrender of the Saxons.
The first campaign was decided on at the Assembly of the Empire
at Worms in the summer of 772. In the territory of the Engers Charles,
advancing from the south, took the Eresburg, marched northwards,
destroyed the Irminsul, a tall column of wood erected on the Holy
Heath which was honoured as the symbolic bearer of the Universe
{universalis columna quasi sustinens omnia), and finally reached the
Weser, where the Engers professed their submission and gave hostages
as guarantees of peace. During Charles' absence in Italy in 774 the
Saxons made an incursion into Hesse and destroyed Fritzlar, but were
quickly driven back. Charles on his return planned radical measures.
According to the Annaks Einhardi, as they are called, he resolved to
fight and ravage the faithless Saxons till they accepted Christianity or
were utterly destroyed. The Frankish army in 775 marched from the
West through the Westphalian country, took the fortress of Sigiburg,


## p. 611 (#643) ############################################

775-782] Conquest of the Saxons 611
and advanced as far as Brunisberg on the Weser. The three Saxon
tribes seemed to be entirely conquered, and an unsuccessful rising in 776
only completed the work of conquest. The Eresburg and the Sigiburg
were made strong centres of the Frankish power. Carlsburg on the
Lippe was built, the people were compelled to accept Christianity and
their hostages were trained for Christian propaganda.
From that time Saxony was looked upon as part of the Frankish
kingdom, and Charles no longer treated the people as enemies but as rebels.
The Westphalian Widukind, the head of the national resistance, had
fled to Denmark. In the summer of 777 the annual Assembly was held
at Paderborn in the land of the Engers, and the first foundation was
laid for the lasting nurture and maintenance of the Christian life, the
land being divided into missionary districts and entrusted to the neigh-
bouring bishoprics and great monasteries. Though in the time of the
great Spanish campaign in 778, the Saxons made another plundering
expedition to the Rhine and as far as Ehrenbreitstein, a detachment of
the army that had returned from Spain quickly drove back the rebels,
and in the summer campaign of 779 Charles reached the Weser and
subdued the three tribes. In the summer of 780 an Assembly was held
at Lippspringe at the source of the Lippe, an advance was made to the
Elbe and again a new important permanent ecclesiastical arrangement
was made. Two years later the Frankish Assembly was again held at
Lippspringe. All the Saxons appeared, say the Frankish Annals, only
the chief rebel, Widukind, remained away. Charles now went a step
further—Saxon nobles were made Frankish counts and the land joined
politically to his empire. And at that time apparently those regula-
tions were made which were intended to prevent any rising and to
ensure the full acceptance of Christianity under threat of the severest
punishment—the Capitulatio de partibus Saoconiae.
Any who broke into, robbed or set fire to a church was to be
punished with death. Any who from contempt of Christianity ate meat
in Lent, any who killed a bishop, priest, or deacon, any who according
to heathen custom burnt men as wizards or ate men, any who after
heathen rites burned the dead, any who offered human sacrifices, or even
any who omitted to be baptised and remained heathen, were to be put
to death. Many other ordinances for the maintenance of Christianity
and the political authority of the Frankish power were made, and also
for the material foundation of Christian churches (surrender of the
ownership of land and tithes). Even if there was a mitigation of this
unusually severe legislation in the ordinance that the death penalty was
to be remitted for those who had fled to a priest and after confession
were ready to do penance, yet the law must have been found harsh,
and the final Frankish ordinances of the year 782 must have incited
to the utmost resistance those who looked on the conquest as only
temporary.
ch. xix. 39—2


## p. 612 (#644) ############################################

612 Continued Saxon Wars [782-787
When Charles had left the Saxons and had sent a Frankish army to
the east in order that with a Saxon levy it might fight against the
Sorbs, a general rising broke out under the leadership of Widukind, and
when the Frankish army marched against the rebels, it was defeated on
the Siintel Hill on the right bank of the Weser. Thereupon Charles
himself immediately hastened to Saxony. His appearance gave the
upper hand to the party among the Saxons friendly to the Franks and
to the Christians. Widukind fled, and the chiefs obeyed the order to
deliver up those who had taken part in the rising. Charles however
held a strict inquiry, and had 4500 Saxons beheaded on one day at
Verden on the Aller—a cruel deed for which we have sufficient historical
attestation, though it has been wrongly disputed by some modern
authorities.
But Charles had deceived himself as to the effect of these punishments.
A general rising of the Saxon people was the result. The campaign of
783, which procured Charles the two victories at Detmold and on the
Hase and brought him to the Elbe, was only a passing success. The
Frisians also rose. The year 784 was taken up with the warlike
undertakings of Charles and his son of the same name. The king
remained with his army in Saxony through the winter also in order to
undertake raids from the Eresburg, the head-quarters of himself and of
his family, and to quell every attempt at a new rising. In the early
summer of 785 he marched northwards to Paderborn, held the Frankish
Assembly there, and then pressed on into the Bardengau on the left
bank of the lower Elbe. All resistance was broken. Friendly overtures
were made to Widukind and the other Saxon nobles who had hitherto
fought stubbornly against the Franks. At Christmas 785 Widukind
with his men appeared at Attigny, was baptised, and allowed to depart
as a loyal subject, loaded with rich presents.
The event was looked upon as an important success. A special
embassy announced to the Pope the victory of the Christian cause, and bv
Papal ordinance thanksgivings were offered all over Christendom to
celebrate the fortunate ending of the thirteen years' war. But Widukind,
the great hero, the most mighty personality in the older Saxon history,
lived on in the memory of his people and became the subject of
numerous legends. History tells us nothing of his later life, but legend
has much to say. The most powerful Saxon families sought to honour
him as their ancestor, and the Church and ecclesiastic literature made
use of him. His bones worked miracles, his day was celebrated in later
centuries, and he was even honoured as a saint.
The year 785 was an epoch in the history of the Saxon wars. Years
of peaceful Christianisation followed. And a beginning was made with
the episcopal organisation that was still wanting. The Northumbrian
Willehad, who had been long working successfully among the Frisians
and Saxons as a missionary, was consecrated Bishop of Worms (17 July


## p. 613 (#645) ############################################

787-804] Final Conquest of the Saxons 613
787), and the northern districts between the Elbe, the Weser, and Ems
were given to him as his diocese. In Bremen he built St Peter's church,
which was consecrated (1 Nov. 789) as the see of the . first Saxon bishopric.
The bishoprics of Verden and Minden must likewise have been founded
then or soon afterwards.
The terrible Saxon wars of the first period of Charles'' reign had their
sequence. In the summer of 792 the Saxon people rose once more
against God, the king, and the Christians. This was a national heathen
reaction. Perhaps the heavy taxation of which the Church was the
cause aroused the wrath of the lower elements of the population. If
the easy yoke and the light burden of Christ had been preached to the
obstinate Saxons with the same persistence as tithes and hard penances
for light sins were exacted, they would not perhaps have shunned
baptism—so wrote Alcuin at the time, not without irony. The Saxons
sought to enter into alliance with the surrounding heathen, and they
turned to the distant Avars. A new period of the struggle began, and
at the same time a period of further violent measures to master this
obstinate people. In the year 795 Charles for the first time had crowds
of hostages sent to Francia. The third part of the population was
forcibly deported, reports one group of sources, and the number of exiles
is given as 7070. In the years 797, 798, 799 similar measures were
taken and at the same time Franks were settled on Saxon soil. In 804
in particular, whole districts of Northern Saxony and Nordalbingia
were robbed of their population, i. e. the Saxons were dragged away
with wives and children. It is certain that no small portion of the
Saxon race was at that time removed from its native soil—traces of
them are still to be found in later centuries in Frankish and Alemannic
regions.
At last the war, which with interruptions had lasted thirty-two years,
could be regarded as ended, and the wide German territory as far as the
Elbe and further was incorporated permanently into the Frankish Empire.
Charles carried out his purpose of either subduing or destroying the
Saxons, with wonderful persistence, but at the same time with brutal
severity. The Saxons are certainly not to be regarded as stubborn
heathens who resisted the blessings of Christian civilisation, but are to
be admired as a people of strong purpose defending their national
characteristics. But the unavoidable demands of the world's progress
could not be resisted. The future belonged, not to the small German
states which remained politically isolated: the Saxons had to fall a
sacrifice to the great central development which was at that time the
ruling factor in the political shaping of the West.
The extension of Frankish rule over Saxony was followed by con-
nexions with the Danes and the Northern Slavs. The court of the
Danish king Sigfried was for a long time the centre of Saxon resistance
to Charles' Christian propaganda, and it was there that Widukind had


## p. 614 (#646) ############################################

614 The Danes [782-812
always taken refuge. But in 782 the heathen king had sent a friendly
embassy to the Franks, though without any wish to make concessions to
Christianity. Later also friendly relations are mentioned. In 807 a
Danish chieftain submitted. But in 808 King Gottrik marched against
the Obodrites who were in alliance with Charles, and when the younger
Charles tried to interfere to punish and to help, though he was only able
to lay waste districts on the right bank of the Elbe, King Gottrik had a
strong wall of defence built, it is supposed from the Treene to the Schlei.
In the following year, however, after the failure of attempts at a treaty,
Charles caused the fortress of Itzehoe to be built.
In 810 the Danish power seemed to be making a dangerous effort.
A Danish fleet of two hundred ships ravaged the Frisian coasts and
islands, tribute was laid upon the subjects of the Empire, and King
Gottrik, who had remained at home, boasted that he would defeat
Charles in open battle and make his entry into Aachen. Charles
hastened eastwards with a strong force and took up his head-quarters
at Verden, but he had no need to interfere, for Gottrik was assassinated
by a follower, and his nephew and successor Hemming quickly made
peace. In 811 twelve deputies from the Danes and as many from the
Franks met on the Eider, and solemnly swore to keep the agreements
that had been made.
Of the Slavs of the north-east, the Obodrites on the lower Elbe,
who were nearest to the Franks, always stood on good terms with
Charles, while the Wiltzi on the Baltic always remained hostile, and
the Sorbs between the Elbe and the Saale were variable. There is
evidence of friendly relations with the Obodrites after 780. They
probably by that time recognised Charles1 suzerainty, but were disin-
clined to Christianity. They repeatedly took part in the Frankish
campaigns, and in 810 Charles appointed their chieftain. In 782 the
Sorbs made an unimportant attack on Thuringian territory, in 806 they
were defeated by the younger Charles and compelled to submit. But
the subsequent building of two fortresses on the right bank of the Elbe,
at Magdeburg and at Halle on the Saale, shews that there was no
incorporation of the territory of the Sorbs into the Empire. Still less
is that the case with the Wiltzi. In 789 Charles undertook a great
campaign of conquest. He crossed the Elbe and advanced ravaging as
far as the Peene, and the chief Dragowit and the other leaders of the
people even took an oath of fidelity, but we can find no trace of per-
manent subjection or toll, such as Einhard records.
Again there were struggles afterwards. In 806 fortresses were
erected against them, and even the submission of 812 was only nominal
and transitory. The proper boundary of the Empire on the east, apart
from the district of the Nordalbingians, was the Elbe, more to the south
the Saale, then the Bohmerwald. For even the land of the Chekhs may
not be reckoned as part of the Empire. The passage of Frankish armies


## p. 615 (#647) ############################################

Survey of the Empire 615
did not trouble the Chekhs who were only loosely organised, and the
campaigns of the younger Charles in the years 805 and 806 certainly
laid the land waste, but there was no lasting submission.
It was a proud Empire, that of the great Charles. From the
Pyrenees and the north-eastern part of Spain it stretched to the Eider
and the Schlei on the north, from the Atlantic Ocean and the North
Sea on the west to the Elbe, the Bohmerwald to the Leitha, the upper
Save, and the Adriatic Sea on the east. Further, the whole of North
and Central Italy and the greater part of South Italy belonged to him.
But his influence extended beyond this. The Slavs and the Avars who
dwelt on the east were even reckoned as his and certainly belonged to
the sphere of his interests. It is true that the Christian states in Spain
and in the British Isles were independent, but even they recognised his
friendly superiority. With the Abbasids in Bagdad Charles united
against the Umayyads of Spain and against Byzantium. The Caliph is
even said to have agreed that the place of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem should be under Charles' authority. Even in the East
Charles began to be regarded as the representative of Christian
power.
Thus the Frankish king had raised himself above the narrow limits
of his nation. His authority had taken a theocratic and universal
element. While in the age of Pepin the ecclesiastical idea with its
tendencies to universal authority had strengthened the Papacy, and had
sought to give the Pope the position of the Roman Emperor in the
West, under the reign of Charles all the elements of authority connected
with the Church had been serviceable to the Frankish king. The
patricius, the protector of the Papal possessions, became the protector
and patron of the Church generally, and moreover the representative and
leader of the spread of Christianity.
This was the necessary result of the forces developed by the needs of
the Church itself. If the Christian teaching was to conquer the world,
political power must be aimed at along with the spread of the faith. It
was precisely in those times of active Christian propaganda that the need
of political power was especially felt. The realisation of the theocratic
ideal required a dualism: ecclesiastics for the spread of the holy doctrine,
laymen to fight for the Faith—at the head of the former, the Pope
according to the hierarchical view that had prevailed for centuries, and
at the head of the others, the king of the Franks. But the privileges of
the actual political power answered the needs of the theocratic idea of
that age.
Towards the end of the eighth century a mosaic was placed in the
refectory of the Lateran. In it we see St Peter sitting on the throne with
the keys in his bosom; on the right and left kneel Pope Leo and King
Charles, to the one Peter hands the pallium, to the other the banner of


## p. 616 (#648) ############################################

616 Ecclesiastical Affairs [787-794
the city of Rome, and the legend runs: "Holy Peter, thou bestowest
life on Pope Leo, and victory on King Charles. 11 So was the relation
understood in Rome at that time. Two central forces prevailed in
Christendom, a spiritual and a secular, the one by spiritual means, the
other by might. But how far did the power extend that Peter bestowed
with the banner, and how far the power conferred with the pallium?
As a matter of fact, the relation of spiritual and secular powers turned
out very much to the disadvantage of the former.
The government of Charles did not limit itself to secular matters.
Just as the Frankish kings had long been rulers of their Church and as
the work of Boniface had done little to alter this, so it was under
Charles. The position of governor of the Frankish Church Charles
extended over the Church of the West generally.