Chapter VI: Book II: Concerning the Wars and Military Exploits of Charles (2)

17. When after the death of the ever-victorious Pippin the Lombards were again attacking Rome, the unconquered Charles, though he was fully occupied with business to the north of the Alps, marched swiftly into Italy. He received the Lombards into his service after they had been humbled in a war that was almost bloodless, or (one might say), after they had surrendered of their own free will; and to prevent them from ever again revolting from the Frankish kingdom or doing any injury to the territories of Saint Peter, he married the daughter of Desiderius, chief of the Lombards. But no long time afterwards, because she was an invalid and little likely to give issue to Charles, she was, by the counsel of the holiest of the clergy, put aside, even as though she were dead: whereupon her father in wrath bound his subjects to him by oath, and shutting himself up within the walls of Pavia, he prepared to give battle to the invincible Charles, who, when he had received certain news of the revolt, hurried to Italy with all speed.

Now it happened that some years before one of the first nobles, called Otker, had incurred the wrath of the most terrible emperor, and had fled for refuge to Desiderius. When the near approach of the dreaded Charles was known, these two went up into a very high tower, from which they could see anyone approaching at a very great distance. When therefore the baggage-waggons appeared, which moved more swiftly than those used by Darius or Julius, Desiderius said to Otker: "Is Charles in that vast army?" And Otker answered: "Not yet." Then when he saw the vast force of the nations gathered together from all parts of his empire, he said with confidence to Otker: "Surely Charles moves in pride among those forces." But Otker answered: "Not yet, not yet." Then Desiderius fell into great alarm and said, "What shall we do if a yet greater force comes with him?" And Otker said, "You will see what he is like when he comes. What will happen to us I cannot say." And, behold, while they were thus talking, there came in sight Charles's personal attendants, who never rested from their labours; and Desiderius saw them and cried in amazement, "There is Charles." And Otker answered: "Not yet, not yet." Then they saw the bishops and the abbots and the clerks of his chapel with their attendants. When he saw them he hated the light and longed for death, and sobbed and stammered, "Let us go down to hide ourselves in the earth from the face of an enemy so terrible." And Otker answered trembling, for once, in happier days, he had had thorough and constant knowledge of the policy and preparations of the unconquerable Charles: "When you see an iron harvest bristling in the fields; and the Po and the Ticino pouring against the walls of the city like the waves of the sea, gleaming black with glint of iron, then know that Charles is at hand." Hardly were these words finished when there came from the west a black cloud, which turned the bright day to horrid gloom. But as the emperor drew nearer the gleam of the arms turned the darkness into day, a day darker than any night to that beleaguered garrison. Then could be seen the iron Charles, helmeted with an iron helmet, his hands clad in iron gauntlets, his iron breast and broad shoulders protected with an iron breastplate: an iron spear was raised on high in his left hand; his right always rested on his unconquered iron falchion. The thighs, which with most men are uncovered that they may the more easily ride on horseback, were in his case clad with plates of iron: I need make no special mention of his greaves, for the greaves of all the army were of iron. His shield was all of iron: his charger was iron-coloured and iron-hearted. All who went before him, all who marched by his side, all who followed after him and the whole equipment of the army imitated him as closely as possible. The fields and open places were filled with iron; the rays of the sun were thrown back by the gleam of iron; a people harder than iron paid universal honour to the hardness of iron. The horror of the dungeon seemed less than the bright gleam of iron. "Oh the iron! Woe for the iron!" was the confused cry that rose from the citizens. The strong walls shook at the sight of the iron; the resolution of young and old fell before the iron. Now when the truthful Otker saw in one swift glance all this which I, with stammering tongue and the voice of a child, have been clumsily explaining with rambling words, he said to Desiderius: "There is the Charles that you so much desired to see": and when he had said this he fell to the ground half dead.

But as the inhabitants of the city, either through madness or because they entertained some hope of resistance, refused to let Charles enter on that day, the most inventive emperor said to his men: "Let us build to-day some memorial, so that we may not be charged with passing the day in idleness. Let us make haste to build for ourselves a little house of prayer, where we may give due attention to the service of God, if they do not soon throw open the city to us." No sooner had he said it than his men flew off in every direction, collected lime and stones, wood and paint, and brought them to the skilled workmen who always accompanied him. And between the fourth hour of the day and the twelfth they built, with the help of the young nobles and the soldiers, such a cathedral, so provided with walls and roofs, with fretted ceilings and frescoes, that none who saw it could believe that it had taken less than a year to build. But, how on the next day some of the citizens wanted to throw open the gate; and some wanted to fight against him, even without hope of victory, or rather to fortify themselves against him; and how easily he conquered, took and occupied the city, without the shedding of blood, and merely by the exercise of skill;--all this I must leave others to tell, who follow your highness not for love, but in the hope of gain.

Then the most religious Charles marched on and came to the city of Friuli, which the pedants call Forum Julii. Now it happened just at this time that the bishop of that city (or, to use a modern word, the patriarch) was drawing near to the end of his life. Charles made haste to visit him, in order that he might designate his successor by name. But the bishop, with remarkable piety, sighed from the bottom of his heart and said: "Sire, I have held this bishopric for a long time without any use or profit; and now I leave it to the judgment of God and your disposal. For I do not wish, at the point of death, to add anything to the mountain of sin that I have heaped together during my life, for which I shall have to make answer to the inevitable and incorruptible Judge." The most wise Charles was so pleased with these words, that he rightly thought him the equal in virtue of the ancient fathers.

After Charles, of all the energetic Franks the most energetic, had stayed in that country for a short time, while he was appointing a worthy successor to the deceased bishop, one festal day after the celebration of mass he said to his retinue: "We must not let leisure lead us into slothful habits: let us go hunting and kill something; and let us all go in the very clothes that we are wearing at this moment." Now the day was cold and rainy and Charles was wearing a sheepskin, not much more costly than the cloak which Saint Martin wore when with bare arms he offered to God a sacrifice that received divine approval. But the others--for it was a holiday and they had just come from Pavia, whither the Venetians had carried all the wealth of the east from their territories beyond the sea--the others, I say, strutted in robes made of pheasant-skins and silk; or of the necks, backs and tails of peacocks in their first plumage. Some were decorated with purple and lemon-coloured ribbons; some were wrapped round with blankets and some in ermine robes. They scoured the thickets; they were torn by branches of trees, thorns, and briars; they were drenched with rain; they were defiled with the blood of wild beasts and the filth of the skins; and in this plight they returned home. Then the most crafty Charles said: "No one of us must take off his dress of skins before he goes to bed; they will dry better upon our bodies." Then everyone, more anxious about his body than his dress, made search for fire and tried to warm himself. Then they returned and remained in attendance upon Charles far into the night before they were dismissed to their apartments. Then when they began to draw off their dresses of skins and their slender belts, the creased and shrunken garments could be heard even from a distance cracking like sticks broken when they are dry: and the courtiers sighed and groaned and lamented that they had lost so much money on a single day. They had received however a command from the emperor to appear before him next day in the same skin-garments. When they came it was no longer the splendid show of yesterday; for they looked dirty and squalid in their discoloured and rent clothes. Then Charles, full of guile, said to his chamberlain: "Give my sheepskin a rub and bring it to me." It came quite white and perfectly sound and Charles took it and showed it to all those who were there and spoke as follows:--"Most foolish of mortal men! which of these dresses is the most valuable and the most useful, this one of mine which was bought for a piece of silver, or those of yours which you bought for pounds, nay for many talents?" Their eyes sank to the ground for they could not bear his most terrible censure.

Your most religious father imitated this example of the Great Charles all through his life, for he never allowed anyone, who seemed to him worthy of his notice or his teaching, to wear anything when on campaign against the enemy except the military accoutrements, and garments of wool and linen. If any of his servants, ignorant of this rule, happened to meet him with silk or silver or gold upon his person, he would receive a reprimand of the following kind and would depart a better and a wiser man. "Here's a blaze of gold and silver and scarlet! Why, you wretched fellow, can't you be satisfied with perishing yourself in battle if Fate so decides? Must you also give your wealth into the hands of the enemy; which might have gone to ransom your soul, but now will decorate the temples of the heathen?"

But now, though you know it better than I do, I will tell again how, from early youth up to his seventieth year, the unconquered Lewis delighted in iron; and what an exhibition of his fondness for iron he made in the presence of the legates of the Northmen!

18. When the kings of the Northmen sent gold and silver as witness of their loyalty and their swords as a mark of their perpetual subjection and surrender, the king gave orders that the precious metals should be thrown upon the floor, and should be looked upon by all with contempt, and be trampled upon by all as though they were dirt. But, as he sat upon his lofty throne, he ordered the swords to be brought to him that he might make trial of them. Then the ambassadors, anxious to avoid the possibility of any suspicion of an evil design, took the swords by the very point (as servants hand knives to their masters) and thus gave them to the emperor at their own risk. He took one by the hilt and tried to bend the tip of the blade right back to the base; but the blade snapped between his hands which were stronger than the iron itself. Then one of the envoys drew his own sword from its sheath and offered it, like a servant, to the emperor's service, saying: "I think you will find this sword as flexible and as strong as your all-conquering right hand could desire." Then the emperor (a true emperor he! As the Prophet Isaiah says in his prophecy, "Consider the rock whence ye were hewn": for he out of all the vast population of Germany, by the singular favour of God, rose to the level of the strength and courage of an earlier generation)--the emperor, I say, bent it like a vine-twig from the extreme point back to the hilt, and then let it gradually straighten itself again. Then the envoys gazed upon one another and said in amazement: "Would that our kings held gold and silver so cheap and iron so precious."

19. As I have mentioned the Northmen I will show by an incident drawn from the reign of your grandfather in what slight estimation they hold faith and baptism. Just as after the death of the warrior King David, the neighbouring peoples, whom his strong hand had subdued, for a long time paid their tribute to his peaceful son Solomon: even so the terrible race of the Northmen still loyally paid to Lewis the tribute which through terror they had paid to his father, the most august Emperor Charles. Once the most religious Emperor Lewis took pity on their envoys, and asked them if they would be willing to receive the Christian religion; and, when they answered that always and everywhere and in everything they were ready to obey him, he ordered them to be baptised in the name of Him, of whom the most learned Augustine says: "If there were no Trinity, the Truth would never have said: 'Go and teach all peoples, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.'" The nobles of the palace adopted them almost as children, and each received from the emperor's chamber a white robe and from their sponsors a full Frankish attire, of costly robes and arms and other decorations.

This was often done and from year to year they came in increasing numbers, not for the sake of Christ but for earthly advantage. They made haste to come, not as envoys any longer but as loyal vassals, on Easter Eve to put themselves at the disposal of the emperor; and it happened that on a certain occasion they came to the number of fifty. The emperor asked them whether they wished to be baptised, and when they had confessed he bade them forthwith be sprinkled with holy water. As linen garments were not ready in sufficient numbers he ordered shirts to be cut up and sewn together into the fashion of wraps. One of these was forthwith clapped upon the shoulders of one of the elder men; and when he had looked all over it for a minute, he conceived fierce anger in his mind, and said to the emperor: "I have gone through this washing business here twenty times already, and I have been dressed in excellent clothes of perfect whiteness; but a sack like this is more fit for clodhoppers than for soldiers. If I were not afraid of my nakedness, for you have taken away my own clothes and have given me no new ones, I would soon leave your wrap and your Christ as well."

Ah! how little do the enemies of Christ value the words of the Apostle of Christ where he says:--"All ye that are baptised in Christ, put on Christ"; and again: "Ye that are baptised in Christ are baptised in His death"; or that passage which is aimed especially at those who despise the faith and violate the sacraments: "Crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame!" Oh! would that this were the case only with the heathen; and not also among those who are called by the name of Christ!

20. Now I must tell a story about the goodness of the first Lewis, and then I shall come back to Charles. That most peaceable emperor Lewis, being free from the incursions of the enemy, gave all his care to works of religion, as, for instance, to prayer, to works of charity, to the hearing and just determinations of trials at law. His talents and his experience had made him very skilful in this latter business; and when one day there came to him one, who was considered a very Achitophel by all, and tried to deceive him he gave him this answer following, with courteous mien and kindly voice, though with some little agitation of mind. "Most wise Anselm," he said, "if I may be allowed to say so, I would venture to observe that you are deviating from the path of rectitude." From that day the reputation of that legal luminary sank to nothing in the eyes of all the world.

21. Moreover the most merciful Lewis was so intent on works of charity that he liked not merely to have them done in his sight, but even to do them with his own hand. Even when he was away he made special arrangements for the trial of cases in which the poor were concerned. He chose one of their own number, a man of small bodily strength, but apparently more courageous than the rest, and gave orders that he should decide offences committed by them; and should see to the restoration of stolen property, the requital of injuries and wounds, and in cases of greater crimes to the infliction of mutilation, decapitation, and the exposure of the bodies on the gallows. This man established dukes, tribunes, centurions and their representatives, and performed his task with energy.

Moreover the most merciful emperor, worshipping Christ in the persons of all the poor, was never weary of giving them food and clothing: and he did so especially on the day when Christ, having put off His mortal body, was preparing to take to Himself an incorruptible one. On that day it was his practice to make presents to each and every one of those who served in the palace or did duty in the royal court. He would order belts, leg coverings and precious garments brought from all parts of his vast empire to be given to some of his nobles; the lower orders would get Frisian cloaks of various colours; his grooms, cooks and kitchen-attendants got clothes of linen and wool and knives according to their needs. Then, when according to the Acts of the Apostles there was no one that was in need of anything, there was a universal feeling of gratitude. The ragged poor, now decently clad, raised their voices to heaven with the cry of "'Kyrie Eleison' to the blessed Lewis" through all the wide courts and the smaller openings of Aix (which the Latins usually call porches); and all the knights who could embraced the feet of the emperor; and those who could not get to him worshipped him afar off as he made his way to church. On one of these occasions one of the fools said in jest: "O happy Lewis, who on one day hast been able to clothe so many people. By Christ, I think that no one in Europe has clothed more than you this day except Atto."[93] When the emperor asked him how it was possible that Atto should have clothed more, the jester, pleased to have secured the attention of the emperor, said with a grin: "He has distributed to-day a vast number of new clothes." The emperor, with the sweetest possible expression on his face, took this for the silly joke it was, and entered the church in humble devotion, and there behaved himself so reverently that he seemed to have our Lord Jesus Christ Himself before his bodily eyes.

It was his habit to go to the baths every Saturday, not for any need there was of it, but because it gave him an opportunity of making presents; for he used to give everything that he took off, except his sword and belt, to his attendants. His liberality reached even to the lowest grades: insomuch that he once ordered all his attire to be given to one Stracholf, a glazier, and a servant of Saint Gall. When the servants of the barons heard of this, they laid an ambuscade for him on the road and tried to rob him. Then he cried out: "What are you doing? You are using violence to the glazier of the emperor!" They answered: "You can keep your office but ..."

[_Here the MS. ends, and the further adventures of Stracholf are left to conjecture._]

NOTES

[1] Walafridus Strabo was abbot of a Frankish monastery from 842 to
849.

[2] The Emperor Lewis I. (Lewis the Pious, 814-840) was the son and
successor of Charles the Great. His weakness and pietism did much
to wreck the imperial structure of Charles.

[3] Neither the headings nor the decorations (incisiones) are given in
the present translation. The decorations necessarily disappear,
and the various headings to the paragraphs, not being the work of
Eginhard, are not usually printed with the text. But Walafridus
Strabo was personally known to Eginhard, and his Preface seems,
therefore, to deserve reproduction.

[4] That is, though there are many who would be ready to write
Charles's life, Eginhard thinks that he has peculiar
qualifications for the task which make it obligatory on him to do
so.

[5] The Latin of Eginhard's Life is much superior to the general
monkish Latin of his period. _See_ Introduction.

[6] This is King Childeric III., who was deposed in 751 by a National
Council, with the approval of the Pope. Pippin the Short was then
elected king, and crowned by Boniface. With Childeric the
Merovingian dynasty ends, and gives place to the curiously-named
Carolingian, of which Charlemagne was the greatest representative.

[7] Eginhard here makes a mistake. The Pope was not Stephen, who held
the Papal See from 752 to 757, but Zacharias, who was Pope from
741 to 752. Eginhard's mistake is, perhaps, due to the fact that
the decision of Zacharias was confirmed by his successor.

[8] Mr Carless Davis remarks on this passage: "Eginhard errs in
representing this as an indignity. Religious usage demanded that
the king of the race should make his progresses in this primitive
vehicle. The Merovingians were a national priesthood. Here also we
have the explanation of their flowing locks and beard. The touch
of steel--a metal unknown to the Frankish nation in its
infancy--would have profaned their persons. Similarly the
priesthood of ancient Rome were forbidden to remove the hair from
their faces except with bronze tweezers." ("Life of Charlemagne,"
p. 28.)

[9] This is Charles Martel--Charles the Hammer--who "reigned" as Mayor
of the Palace from 715 to 741. His great victory (variously known
as the Battle of Poitiers, or the Battle of Tours, though the
former is the more accurate title) was fought in 732, and is
regarded as the "Salamis of Western Europe." It was the first
serious blow that the Mohammedan advance had received, and its
effects were decisive. The second battle, fought near Narbonne,
completed the work of the first.

[10] Pippin, father of Charles Martel, and grandfather of Pippin the
Short, was Mayor of the Palace from 687 to 714.

[11] Pippin's reign really lasted for rather more than sixteen
years--from 751 to 768.

[12] This statement, as is clear from other sources, does not
correspond with the facts. Charles took Austrasia, and the greater
part of Neustria, with the lands lying between the Loire and the
Garonne. Burgundy, Provence, Alsace, Alemannia, and the
south-eastern part of Aquitaine fell to Carloman.

[13] Carloman died in December 771. His death removed from the path of
Charles one of the most serious obstacles. The custom of the
Frankish monarchy was equal inheritance of all the sons. It was
this which contributed so much to the disruption of the Frankish
power on the death of Charles; but for the death of Carloman the
"Empire" would never have been founded, or founded only after
bitter civil war. Eginhard again makes a mistake in dates. The two
brothers had administered the realm in common for more than three
years.

[14] This reticence of Eginhard's about his hero's early life, about
which it would have been quite easy to procure information, has
seemed to many to lend colour to a report that Charles was born
before the Church had sanctioned the marriage of his parents.

[15] Hunold was the father of Waifar, and had for twenty years lived as
a monk in the Island of Rhe, but upon the death of his son he left
his monastic retreat in the hope of re-establishing the fortunes
of his family in Aquitaine.

[16] The Saxon war--the greatest task of Charles's whole reign--lasted
with some intermissions for more than thirty years (from 772 to
804). By his conquest and conversion of the fierce and heathen
Saxons--who occupied the lands in the valleys of the Ems and the
Weser and reached as far as the Elbe--he laid the foundations of
mediaeval and modern Germany.

[17] For an account of the religious beliefs and practices of the
Saxons, _see_ Davis's "Charlemagne," p. 95.

[18] The "conversion" of Saxony by Charles was of the most forcible
kind. No Mohammedan ever offered the choice between the Koran and
the edge of the sword more clearly than Charles put death or
baptism before the Saxons. The "Saxon Poet," who in the next
century wrote in honour of the King who had destroyed the
independence of his land, tells how Charles used the whole force
of his army to drag the Saxons from the devil's power; and
remarks, as a matter of course, that persuasion and argument are
not sufficient to turn the heathen from their faith.

[19] The river Hasa is near Osnabrueck.

[20] This is the famous defeat of Roncesvalles, where later legends
affirmed that "Charlemagne with all his peerage fell at
Fontarabia," and where Roland wound his horn, whose sound is still
heard in the verse of Milton. By a strange chance this incident
becomes one of the most famous in the cycle of mediaeval
Charlemagne legends; and Roland, evermore transfigured from the
historical warden of the Breton march, becomes, after long
wanderings, the Orlando of the "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto. But
the historical Roland seems mentioned here, and here only.

[21] The Duchy of Beneventum embraced a large part of the Italian
peninsula south of Rome. It had been for a long time connected, in
loose feudal dependence, with the Lombard monarchy of North Italy,
and, since that had been overwhelmed and annexed by Charles, was
now regarded as a dependency of the Carolingian monarchy.

[22] Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, had offended Charles by claiming
independent sovereignty and refusing to recognise Charles in any
way as his overlord. From the beginning of Charles's reign there
had been friction between them, but for some time a hollow truce
had existed. War came in 787, in spite of the efforts of the
Papacy at mediation, and ended swiftly, as described in the text,
owing to the overwhelming strength of the armies brought against
Tassilo by Charles. But the past of Bavaria was too great to allow
its Duke to accept the position of inferiority, and in the next
year Tassilo was deposed, tonsured, and imprisoned in a monastery.

[23] It was part of Charles's general policy to displace the dukes of
his realm, with their undefined and dangerous powers, and to
administer his dominions by a large number of counts, who were to
begin with quite dependent officials executing the orders of the
King over a limited area. "Count" was not yet the great title of
nobility which it became later.

[24] The Wiltzes lived on the shores of the Baltic between the Elbe and
the Oder.

[25] This "gulf" of Eginhard's presents geographical difficulties. The
direction indicated and the approximate measurements suggested
make it impossible to apply his words to the whole of the Baltic
Gulf. The south-eastern part of the Baltic will correspond fairly
well to the description.

[26] The war against the Avars was due to the alliance which had
existed between them and Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria. The Avars,
though allied in race to the ancient Huns and the modern Magyars,
were, nevertheless, a distinct people. Charles's war entirely
broke their power, and removed a great danger from western Europe.

[27] "The Monk of St Gall" (II. i.) gives an interesting description of
the vast concentric earthworks by which the power of the Kagan was
defended, and his account rests on better authority than much of
his strange chronicle. _See_ also Dr Hodgkin's "Life of Charles
the Great," p. 155.

[28] The vast treasure of the Avars had an important influence on the
course of Charles's career. This great influx of the precious
metals into Germany depreciated the value of the coinage and
raised the price of commodities.

[29] This is Tersatz, a town of Istria.

[30] These Northmen (or Danes, as they are usually called when they
appear in English history) proved themselves the most terrible
enemies of civilisation during the next century. "The Monk of St
Gall" makes Charles prophesy the ruin that would come eventually
on his Empire from these northern sea-rovers. The attacks of the
Northmen were among the most direct causes of the subsequent
disruption of the Empire of Charles.

[31] This is an exaggeration of Eginhard's. Charles did, indeed,
greatly extend the Frankish dominions; but he strengthened them
still more decisively by the improvements which he introduced into
the internal order and administration.

[32] The Balearic Sea is the western Mediterranean.

[33] "Non aliter quam proprium suum." Feudalism in any strict sense of
the word was not yet established; but Alfonso was, in effect,
"commending" himself to a feudal superior.

[34] The spelling of the original is retained; but the "Aaron" of
Eginhard is the great Caliph Harun-al-Raschid, the Abassid Caliph
of Bagdad, whose actions play so large a part in fiction as well
as in history.

[35] It is strange, in view of the friendly relations of Charles with
the Mohammedan ruler of the East, that later legend so
persistently represented Charles as a Crusader, driving the Paynim
from the Holy City. The height of unreality is reached when, as in
Ariosto, we find Charlemagne relieving the city of Paris, which is
being besieged by the Mohammedans.

[36] This elephant caused a great sensation in Europe. His arrival,
life, and death are carefully noted by the chroniclers.

[37] The exact meaning of the original is far from clear (ne qua hostis
exire potuisset). The ingress rather than the egress is what
Charles must have wished to prevent, but there seems no doubt
about the reading.

[38] "The Monk of St Gall" says that the cause of this repudiation was
the constant illness of his wife, and her incapacity to bear him
children.

[39] This Hildigard was only thirteen years of age at the time of her
marriage with Charles. Besides the children mentioned by Eginhard
she bore to Charles three others--Lothaire, Adelais, and
Hildigard.

[40] Fastrada is regarded by Eginhard elsewhere as the evil influence
on Charles's life, urging him against the natural bent of his
character to acts of cruelty and violence. Dr Hodgkin, however,
points out that the most cruel act of his reign--the massacre of
4500 Saxons--took place before his marriage with Fastrada.

[41] The betrothal of Hruotrud to the Eastern Emperor, and the rupture
of the marriage contract, is a somewhat obscure thread in the
diplomacy of the reign of Charles. Note that the betrothal took
place in 781, during the residence of Charles at Rome, but
nineteen years before he had assumed the imperial title. Religious
difference and political jealousies probably both played their
part in the rupture. Both Frankish and Greek chroniclers are
anxious to maintain that the repudiation came from their side.

[42] If scandal is to be believed, the Court of Charles, in spite of
his devotion to the Church and his anxiety to maintain a high
standard of morals, was the scene of much licence and disorder.

[43] This conspiracy of Pippin took place in the years 785 and 786.

[44] We have here the natural and simple beginnings of the ceremony
that afterwards reached such great proportions in the _lever_ and
_coucher_ of the French kings.

[45] This reference to Greek at the Court of Charlemagne is interesting
in view of the exaggerated views sometimes held on the
disappearance of Greek in the Middle Ages.

[46] This is Alcuin of York, one of the greatest of Englishmen;
undoubtedly, as Eginhard says, the most learned man of his time.
His letters form a valuable source of information for the inner
life of Charlemagne and his Court.

[47] This passage has been closely scrutinised and commented on. Do
Eginhard's words imply that Charlemagne could not write at all?
This seems a very improbable interpretation of them. _Parum
successit_ would rather mean that "he made but little headway." It
may well be that the King was able to write roughly and in an
ordinary way but failed to acquire the elegant and delicate
calligraphy that was aimed at by the scribes of the time.

[48] Eginhard passes very lightly over these epoch-making events of
Christmas Day in the year 800, when the imperial title was again
assumed by a ruler of the West, and the Mediaeval Empire was
launched with all its vast consequences, both for the theory and
practice of the Middle Ages.

Charlemagne's expressed regret for what occurred (of which we hear
from other sources) has been variously interpreted. It can hardly
refer to the imperial title altogether; for this certainly was not
unexpected, nor was it due merely to the decision of the Pope.
Charles had himself decided to adopt it: it was the coping-stone
to all his policy and his whole career, for in power Charles was
Emperor before the consecration of that famous Christmas Day. The
regret expressed by Charles more probably refers to the method in
which the title was bestowed: it came to him too much as a grant
from the Papacy, too little as the result of his own power and
will. His heart may well have foreboded something of the long
struggle between Empire and Papacy, which agitated the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, which caused so much bloodshed
on both sides of the Alps, and which in the end ruined the power
of both Emperor and Pope: for this struggle had its roots in the
indefinite basis of the imperial title. The regrets of Charlemagne
are probably in close relation to the wars of Henry IV., of
Frederick Barbarossa, and of Frederick II. Had the Papacy the
right to give or to withhold the imperial title? That was the
great underlying problem of the imperial position.

[49] The Roman Emperors are the Emperors at Constantinople.

[50] That is to say, the legal systems of the Salian and Ripuarian
Franks.

[51] Nothing in all the policy of Charles gives such an impression of
enlightenment as the actions alluded to here. A collection of
German sagas, and a grammar of the German language as it was in
the year 800--what would not posterity give for these? The
disappearance of the former is due to the policy of his son and
successor Lewis the Pious, whose piety had little in common with
the robust and broad views of his father. The biographer of Lewis
tells us that Lewis "rejected the national poems, which he had
learnt in his youth, and would not have them read or recited or
taught."

[52] Their names (in the original) are as follows:--Wintarmanoth,
Hornung, Lentzinmanoth, Ostarmanoth, Winnemanoth, Brachmanoth,
Hewimanoth, Aranmanoth, Witumanoth, Windumemanoth, Herbistmanoth,
Heiligmanoth.

[53] This curt and definite statement of Eginhard disposes at once of
the well-known story of Otto III.'s visit to Charlemagne's grave
in the year 1000, and his remarkable discovery there. But the
story is so famous that it may be given in the words of the
chronicler of Novalese, who is our chief authority for it.

"After the passage of many years the Emperor Otto III. came into
the district where the body of Charles was lying duly buried. He
descended into the place of burial with two bishops and Otto,
Count of Lomello; the Emperor himself completed the party of four.
Now, the Count gave his version of what happened much as
follows:--'We came then to Charles. He was not lying down, as is
usual with the bodies of the dead, but sat on a sort of seat, as
though he were alive. He was crowned with a golden crown; he held
his sceptre in his hands, and his hands were covered with gloves,
through which his nails had forced a passage. Round him there was
a sort of vault built, strongly made of mortar and marble. When we
came to the grave we broke a hole into it and entered, and
entering, were aware of a very strong odour. At once we fell upon
our knees and worshipped him, and the Emperor Otto clothed him
with white garments, cut his nails, and restored whatever was
lacking in him. But corruption had not yet taken anything away
from his limbs; only a little was lacking to the very tip of his
nose. Otto had this restored in gold; he then took a single tooth
from his mouth, and so built up the vault, and departed.'"

----

[54] The reference is to the Book of Daniel ii. 33.

[55] The pilgrimage is, of course, life.

[56] The visit of Albinus (or Alcuin) of York to the court of King
Charles is alluded to in Eginhard's Life of Charles, Ch. xxv. His
arrival in Frankland occurred in 781, and was of the utmost
importance in stimulating and guiding the intellectual renascence
of Charles's reign.

[57] "Lord, if I am still useful to thy people I will willingly take on
myself this labour on their behalf. Thy will be done" is the full
versicle, which comes on the 11th November (St Martin's Day). The
story in the text is made intelligible when we find that more than
one of the responses that follow end with the words "Thy will be
done." The poor clerk knew that, and started off, therefore, on
the Lord's Prayer, which he knew would bring him to the right
ending.

[58] Grimald was Abbot of St Gall from 841 to 872. It will be noticed
all through the piece that the narrative becomes more full and
definite, though not necessarily more truthful, when it touches on
the writer's own monastery.

[59] The whole of this statement is a tissue of absurdities, which are,
however, worth a moment's attention, as giving some indication of
the value that is to be attached to the Monk of St Gall's
testimony. The Pope Stephen here alluded to must be Stephen II.,
who occupied the Papal throne from 752 to 757. He it was who
crowned Pippin King of the Franks in 754. He can have had nothing
to do with Charlemagne, who did not reign until 768; but the words
of the text (_se ad gubernacula regni perunxit_) can only refer to
Charles. It must have been Pope Stephen III. (768-772) to whom
Charlemagne appealed if there is any truth in the story at all;
and Pope Stephen III. can, of course, have had nothing to do with
Hilderich.

[60] Pope Leo III. did not succeed Pope Stephen until after an interval
of twenty-three years. Pope Leo III.'s date is 795-816.

[61] For Drogo _see_ Eginhard's Life, Ch. xv. But again the
unhistorical character of the narrative is shown by the fact that
Drogo was made Bishop of Metz, _after the death of Charles,_ and
against his own will.

[62] A curious display of trivial learning! But it is interesting to
note the mention of Greek as of a language not wholly unknown to a
monk of the ninth century.

[63] _See_ Eginhard's Life, Ch. xxiv., for the difficulties found by
Charles in observing the fasts of Lent.

[64] Here is another notorious error. Hildigard died in 783. Fastrada
was queen when, in 791, Charles advanced to the war against the
Avars.

[65] The next six chapters are omitted, because in them the Monk of St
Gall is led away, by his desire to tell a good and edifying story,
into matter that has no connection of any kind with Charlemagne,
and is sometimes offensive to modern taste. The stories are for
the most part to the discredit of the Episcopal order. A single
phrase in Chapter xxv. may be noted, as indicating the theocratic
view of Charles which the writer takes throughout: "the most
religious Charles" is called _episcopus episcoporum,_ "the bishop
of bishops."

[66] Our author here again handles events of the most general notoriety
in a spirit completely independent of historical accuracy. Leo
III. was, it is true, the Pope to whose assistance Charlemagne
came; but no Michael was ruling at that time in Constantinople.
Michael II. reigned from 820-829, and Michael III. from 842-867.
Thus the name was associated, in the mind of the Monk of St Gall,
with the imperial throne of the east--and that was more than
enough. The sentiment attributed to the Emperor is as impossible
as his name is inaccurate.

[67] St Pancras is one of the saints given by the persecution of the
Emperor Diocletian to the calendar of the Church. He is said to
have been executed in his fourteenth year in the year 295. The
following extract from the Golden Legend will explain the
reference in the text:--"Of him said Gregory of Tours, Doctor:
That if there be a man that will make a false oath in the place of
his sepulchre, tofore or he came to the chancel of the quire he
shall be travailed with an evil spirit and out of mind, or he
shall fall on the pavement all dead. It happed on a time that
there was a great altercation between two men, and the judge wist
not who had wrong. And, for the jealousy of justice that he had,
he brought them both unto the altar of Saint Peter for to swear,
praying the apostle that he would declare who had right. And when
he that had wrong had sworn and had none harm the judge who knew
the malice of him said all on high: This old Peter here is either
over-merciful, or he is propitious to this young man, but let us
go to Pancrace and demand we of him the truth; and when they came
to the sepulchre, he that was culpable swore and stretched forth
his hand, but he might not withdraw his hand again to him, and
anon after he died there, and therefore unto this day, of much
people it is used that for great and notable causes men make their
oaths upon the relics of S. Pancrace."

[68] This celebrated coronation took place on Christmas Day of the year
800, and marks the foundation of the Mediaeval Empire. Charles is
known to have expressed regret either at the fact or the manner of
the presentation of the imperial crown; and the Monk of St Gall is
not so wide of the point as usual in the account he gives of the
causes of his hesitation.

[69] Giants figure largely in the stories which are told of St Antony's
temptation. The Golden Legend says: "S. Anthony recordeth of
himself that he had seen a man so great and so high that he
vaunted himself to be the virtue and the providence of God and
said to me: 'Demand of me what thou wilt, and I shall give it to
thee.' And I spit in the midst of his visage, and anon I armed me
with the sign of the cross, and ran upon him, and anon he vanished
away. And after this the devil appeared to him in so great stature
that he touched the heaven, etc." Gigantic appearances figure,
too, elsewhere in the story of St Antony's trials.

[70] Two motives are to be detected in most of these stories beyond the
general purpose of moral and religious edification. There is the
jealousy of the bishops, so usually felt by the monks, and there
is the scorn felt by the northern peoples for the refinements of
the Italian population.

[71] I have inserted the passage in brackets, which seems necessary to
give meaning to the following instances.

[72] This King of the Franks is, of course, not Charlemagne, but
Charles the Third, called the Fat, who in 883 spent three days in
the Monastery of St Gall.

[73] Julian's death took place in 367. It need scarcely be pointed out
that the Monk's historical narrative is here of the very wildest
description.

[74] It is unnecessary to disentangle the Monk's strange perversion of
history; but it may be noted that he identifies the Avars, whom
Charlemagne subdued, with the Huns who followed Attila. But the
Huns and the Avars, though allied in race, were two quite distinct
nationalities.

[75] It would be an interesting inquiry whether archaeological or
historical research corroborates in any way this interesting
account which Adalbert gives of the Hunnish fortifications.

[76] These three sons are--Charles, who died in 811; Pippin, who died
in 810; and Lewis, who succeeded to the undivided dominions of
Charlemagne, and is usually known as Lewis the Pious.

[77] The Persians of the ninth century are by the Monk identified with
the Persians of the period of Marathon and Salamis.

[78] It must be remembered that the whole of the Monk's narrative is
nominally addressed to Charles the Fat, great-grandson of
Charlemagne.

[79] This is the famous Haroun al Raschid already mentioned in
Eginhard's Life of Charlemagne.

[80] There is really no doubt about the identification of the Arar. It
is the Saone, the most important of the tributaries of the Rhone.

[81] This is Lewis of Bavaria, who was King of Germany from 843-876,
the son of Lewis the Pious, and the father of Charles the Fat.

[82] The Monk's method here is not difficult to understand. The words
of St Ambrose and the parallel between the Saint and Charles are
clearly introduced to give evidence of the writer's wide learning.

[83] Charles the Fat had no children; but he had a brother, Carloman,
King of Bavaria, and another, Lewis, King of Saxony.

[84] St Hemmeramm (or Emmeran, as the name is now usually written) was
first a bishop in some Frankish see (possibly Poitiers) who about
649 went as a missionary to the idolaters of Bavaria. He was
assassinated in 652 near Munich, on his road to Rome. A church in
Regensburg is still called by his name.

[85] This conspiracy is given in Eginhard's Life, Chap, xx., but
without the Monk's picturesque details, and with the substitution
of Prumia (in the Moselle country) for the Monastery of St Gall.
Eginhard's authority must, of course, be preferred, and we have,
therefore, a striking instance of the monkish chronicler's desire
to turn everything to the honour of his own cloister.

[86] This story has a long history. It is first told of Thrasybulus,
tyrant of Miletus; it was then adapted by Livy (1-54) to Tarquin,
King of Rome, with slight alterations. The same story, which is
here told somewhat clumsily, and applied to Charlemagne, is given
by Ekkehard as belonging to the reign of Charles III.

[87] The reference is to the Monastery of Prumia, which was destroyed
by the Northmen in 882.

[88] Thurgau is in Switzerland.

[89] "Eis," meaning terrible; and "here" an army.

[90] No Northman made any permanent settlement on the Moselle either in
the reign of Charles or at any other time. At most this can refer
only to the boast, or design, of some such chief as Gotefrid.

[91] The allusion to the Nordostrani fixes this reference to the year
882, when the Northmen were a terrible and increasing danger to
all Frankland. The Arnulf here mentioned was the son of Charles
the Fat, and, later, Emperor.

[92] This story of King Pippin's visit to Rome is entirely legendary.
It is repeated by later chroniclers, but is certainly without
basis of any kind.

[93] I confess myself unable to make anything out of the jester's
references to Atto.

INDEX

Aaron, King of Persia, 28. _See_ also Haroun.

Abodriti, 23; reduced by Northmen, 26.

Adalbert, xxi.; 104, 106.

Adalgis, 15.

Africans, envoys to Charles, 121.

Aix, Charles's palace at, 38; cathedral at, 42; buildings of, 92.

Albinus. _See_ Alcuin.

Alcuin of York, xiii.; 41, 61; success of his pupils, 71, 72.

Aldefonsus of Gallaecia, 28.

Aquitania, war in, 13.

Aragis, Duke of Beneventum, 21.

Ariosto, xxiv.

Atto, 157.

Avars, war against, 24; seizure of their store, 25, 107; their rings, 106.

Baugulfus, Abbot, xii.

Bavarian war, 22.

Beneventum, 21.

Bertrada, mother of Charles, 33.

Bishops, how appointed by Charles, 64, 66; luxury of, 66; folly of, 76; arrogance of, 77; cleanliness rewarded, 78; the bishop's cheeses, 79; pride rebuked, 80; the adventure of the painted mouse, 82; vanity reprimanded, 83; preaching enjoined on, 84; luxury of, 86; churlishness in Greece, 110.

Bobbio, monastery of, 71.

Boniface, xii.

Bretons, conquest of, 20.

Carloman, brother of Pippin, 10; retires to Monte Cassino, 11.

Carloman, brother of Charles, 11; dies, 12.

Centumcellae, 31.

Chanting, Charles's care for, 72.

Charlemagne. _See_ Charles the Great; the legend of his life, xxiii.

Charles the Great, xvii.; sole king, 12; extent of his conquests, 26; buildings, 30; fleet, 30; private life of, 32, etc.; family of, 33; treatment of his daughters, 35; love of foreigners, 37; personal appearance, 37; dress, 38; knowledge of Latin and Greek, 41; fails to learn to write, 41; reforms reading and singing, 42; fondness for Rome, 43; becomes Emperor, 44, 91; reforms the legal system of the Franks, 44; changes the names of winds and months, 45; death, 47; burial, 47 (_see_ also 169); will, 50.

Charles, Martel, 9.

Cicero, 6.

Clement the Scot, 61, 62.

Constantinople, Emperors of, 29; embassy to, 109; strange banqueting laws, 111.

Dante, xxiv.

Deacon "who followed the Italian custom," strange death of, 100.

Desiderius, King of the Lombards, 12, 15, 22, 144; alarm at the iron host of Charles, 145.

Drogo, Bishop of Metz, 75.

Eginhard, xii.; career, xiii.; writings, xvi.; his life of Charlemagne, xvi.; birth and education, 1; motives for writing, 4.

Eishere of Thurgau, 136.

Eric, Duke of Friuli, 25.

Fasting, Charles's difficulty with, 39, 76.

Fastrada, wife of Charles, 33; cruelty of, 36.

Franks, national dress of, 38, 102.

Frisian garments, 103.

Friuli, the Bishop of, 148; hunting party at, 149.

Gascons defeat Charles, 19.

Gerold, Governor of Bavaria, 25.

Godofrid the Dane, 25; killed, 26, 48, 137.

Gotefrid. _See_ Godofrid.

Greek, knowledge of, 41, 75.

Greeks jealous of Charles, 91; outwitted by Franks, 111; envoys at Charles's court, 113; terror of, 115; music of, 115; envy of, 141.

Grimald, Abbot of St Gall, 71.

Hadrian, Pope, 14, 16; Charles's sorrow at death of, 35, 39.

Haistulf, King of Lombards, 14.

Haroun al Raschid, 28; cedes the holy places to Charles, 29, 121; Charles's presents to, 122; praises Charles, 123; gives the Holy Land to Charles, 124.

Hartmuth, Abbot of St Gall, 127.

Hasa, battle of, 18.

Heitto, Bishop, 114.

Hilderich the Merovingian, 8, 72.

Hildigard, 32, 64, 77, 82, 119.

Holy places, the, given to Charles, 29, 124.

Hugo, Duke, 112.

Hunold, 13.

Huns, war against, 24. _See_ Avars.

Imperial title assumed by Charles, 29, 44, 91.

Isambard, 119, 120.

Julian, 105.

Kerold, xxi.; 108.

Leo, Pope, 39; outrage upon, 44, 88, 74.

Lewis of Bavaria, 125, 126; reprimands luxury, 151.

Lewis the Pious, 2; declared Emperor by Charles, 46, 56, 126, 128; his conversion of the Northmen, 153, 155; his care for the poor, 156; his universal charity, 156.

Liutfrid, the knavish steward, 97. Liutgard, wife of Charles, 33. Lombards, war with, 14.

Lupus, Duke of the Gascons, 13.

Mainz, the great bridge of, 48, 96.

Mayors of the Palace, 8.

Merovingian kings, 8.

Michael, Emperor of Constantinople, 89.

Miracles, 98, 100, 102, 142.

Monks, ignorance of, 70.

Moors, precautions against, 31.

Mulinheim, xv.

Northmen, 23, 25; Charles's measures against, 30; rigorous punishment of, 131; Charles's prophesies concerning them, 139; they send envoys to Lewis of Bavaria, 152; accept conversion from Lewis the Pious, 153; their deceit, 154.

Organ, the Greek, 116.

Osning, battle of, 18.

Otker at Pavia, 144, 146.

Paris, Gaston, xxiii.

Pavia, siege of, 144, 147, 148.

Persians, envoys of, 116; hunting party provided for them, 118.

Peter of Pisa, 41.

Pippin the younger, 9; death, 11; war against Lombards, 14; legend of his march on Rome, 140; slays a bull and a lion, 141; his encounter with the devil, 142.

Pippin, son of Charles, 15; fights against Avars, 24, 32.