Chapter IV: Charles Martel to Charlemagne (2)

Aistulf on his part was equally determined, and war became inevitable. He would make no promise concerning the conquered territory, but would grant a safe conduct to Stephen back to his own diocese. The lateness of the season allowed of no lengthened negotiations. Immediately after the receipt of Aistulf’s answer Pepin began his march towards Italy, accompanied by Stephen; and having sent forward a detachment to occupy the passes of the Alps, he followed it with the whole force of the empire. Passing through Lyons and Vienne, he made his way to Maurienne, with the intention of crossing the Alps by the valley of Susa, at the foot of Mont Cenis. This important pass, however, had been occupied by Aistulf, who had pitched his camp there and was prepared to dispute the passage. According to the chroniclers, he endeavoured to strengthen his position by the same warlike machines which he had “wickedly designed for the destruction of the Roman state and the apostolic chair.” The onward march of the Franks was effectually checked for the moment.

Pepin pitched his camp on the river Arc. In a short time, however, a few of his more adventurous soldiers made their way through the mountains into the valley of Susa, where Aistulf lay. Their inferior numbers emboldened the Lombards, who immediately attacked them. “The Franks,” says Fredegarius,[d] “seeing that their own strength and resources could not save them, invoked the aid of God and the holy apostle Peter; whereupon the engagement began, and both sides fought bravely. But when King Aistulf beheld the loss which his men were suffering, he betook himself to flight, after having lost nearly the whole of his army, with the dukes, counts, and chief men of the Lombards.” The main body of Pepin’s army then passed the Alps without resistance, and spread themselves over the plains of Italy as far as Pavia, in which the Lombard king had taken refuge.

The terrible ravages of the invaders, who plundered and burned all the towns and villages which lay along their route, and the imminent danger which threatened himself and his royal city subdued for the moment the stubborn spirit of Aistulf, and he earnestly besought the Frankish prelates and nobles to intercede for him with their “merciful” sovereign. He promised to restore Ravenna and all the other towns which he had taken “from the holy see,” to keep faithfully to his allegiance to Pepin, and never again to inflict any injury on the apostolic chair or the Roman state. The pope himself, who had no desire to see the Franks too powerful in Italy, earnestly begged his mighty protector “to shed no more Christian blood, but to put an end to the strife by peaceful means.” Pepin was by no means sorry to be spared the siege of Pavia, and having received forty hostages and caused Aistulf to ratify his promises by the most solemn oaths, he sent the pope with a splendid retinue to Rome, and led his army homewards laden with booty.

SECOND WAR WITH THE LOMBARDS

[Sidenote: [755-756 A.D.]]

But Aistulf was not the man to sit down quietly under a defeat, or to forego a long-cherished purpose. In the following year he renewed the attack upon the Roman territory with a fury heightened by the desire of vengeance. Rome itself was besieged, and the church of St. Peter on the Vatican sacrilegiously defiled. Pope Stephen II,[n] from whose life and letters we gain our knowledge of these circumstances, repeatedly wrote to Pepin and his sons for aid, in the most urgent and at times indignant terms. In one of his epistles, St. Peter himself is made to address them as “his adopted sons,” and to chide the delay and indecision of the king. After assuring them that not he (the apostle) only, but the “mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary,” and “thrones and dominions, and the whole army of heaven, and the martyrs and confessors of Christ, and all who are pleasing to God,” earnestly sought and conjured them to save the holy see, the apostle promises, in case of their compliance, that he will prepare for them “the highest and most glorious tabernacles” and bestow on them “the rewards of eternal recompense and the infinite joys of paradise.” “But if,” he adds, “which we do not expect, you should make any delay, know that, for your neglect of my exhortation, you are alienated from the kingdom of God and from eternal life.” When speaking in his own person Stephen says, “Know that the apostle Peter holds firmly in his hand the deed of gift which was granted by your hands.” Nor does he neglect to remind the Frankish princes of their obligation to the papacy and the return that they were expected to make. “Therefore,” he says, “has the Lord, at the intercession of the apostle Peter and by means of our lowliness, consecrated you as kings, that through you the holy church might be exalted and the prince of the apostles regain his lawful possessions.”

The boundless promises and awful denunciations of the pope might have been alike unavailing, had not other and stronger motives inclined the king to make a second expedition into Italy. The interests of his dynasty were so closely connected with those of the Roman church, that he could not desert the pope in this imminent peril without weakening the foundations of his throne; and his honour as a warrior and a king seemed to require that the Lombards should be punished for their breach of faith. The influence of Boniface, too (who was still alive, though he died before the end of the campaign), was no doubt exerted in behalf of the papacy which he had done so much to raise. Pepin determined to save the pope, but he did so at the imminent risk of causing a revolt among his own vassals, who openly and loudly expressed their disapproval of the war. “This war” (against the Lombards), says Einhard,[m] “was undertaken with the greatest difficulty, for some of the chief men of the Franks with whom he (Pepin) was accustomed to take counsel were so strongly opposed to his wishes that they openly declared that they would desert the king and return home.”

Pepin found means to pacify or overawe these turbulent dissentients, and persisted in his determination again to save the head of the church from his enemies.

In this second Italian expedition Pepin was accompanied by his nephew Tassilo, who, in obedience to the war-ban of his liege lord, joined him with the Bavarian troops. The Frankish army marched through Châlons and Geneva to the same valley of Maurienne and to the passes of Mont Cenis, which, as in the former year, were occupied by the troops of Aistulf. The Franks, however, in spite of all resistance, made their way into Italy, and took a fearful vengeance for the broken treaty, destroying and burning everything within their reach, and giving no quarter to their perfidious enemies. They then closely invested Pavia; and Aistulf, convinced of his utter inability to cope with Pepin, again employed the willing services of the Frankish seigneurs to negotiate a peace. Pepin on his side accepted the overtures made to him with singular facility, but obliged Aistulf to give fresh hostages, to renew his oaths, and, what was more to the purpose, to deliver up a third of the royal treasure in the city of Pavia.[131] Aistulf also agreed to renew an annual tribute, which is said to have been paid for a long time previously to the Frankish monarchs.

And thus a second time was the papacy delivered from a danger which went nigh to nip its budding greatness, and reduce it to the rank of a Lombard bishopric.

Aistulf died while hunting in a forest (probably in December, 756) before he had had time to forget the rough lessons he had received and to recover from his losses in blood and treasure.

A danger from another quarter, which threatened the development of the papal power, was also warded off by the power and steadfastness of Pepin. When the exarchate of Ravenna was overrun by the Lombards, it was taken, not from the pope, but from the Greek emperor; and even the towns and territories which were virtually under the sway of the papal chair, were, nominally at least, portions of the Eastern Roman Empire. As Stephen had never formally renounced his allegiance to the emperor, he could receive even the Roman duchy only as a representative of his sovereign, and to the other remains of the Roman Empire in Italy he had no claim whatever. The Lombards had dispossessed the Greeks, and the Franks had expelled the Lombards. It was therefore open to the conqueror to bestow his new acquisition where he pleased; but, at all events, the claim of the Greek emperor was stronger than that of his vassal the bishop of Rome. We cannot wonder, then, when we read that ambassadors from Constantinople came to meet Pepin in the neighbourhood of Pavia, and begged him to restore Ravenna and the other towns of the exarchate to the Roman emperor. “But they did not succeed,” says the chronicler,[j] “in moving the steadfast heart of the king; on the contrary, he declared that he would by no means allow these towns to be alienated from the rule of the Roman chair, and that nothing should turn him from his resolution.” Accordingly, he despatched the abbot Fulrad, with the plenipotentiary of King Aistulf, to receive possession of the towns and strong places which the Lombard had agreed to resign. The abbot was further instructed to take with him a deputation of the most respectable inhabitants from these towns, and in their company to carry the keys of their gates to Rome, and lay them in St. Peter’s grave, together with a regular deed of gift to the pope and his successors.

The independence of the holy see, as far as regarded the Greek Empire, was thus secured, and a solid foundation laid for the temporal power of the popes, who may now be said to have taken their place for the first time among the sovereigns of Europe. [The growth of this power will be more fully treated in volume under the Papacy.]

DESIDERIUS MADE LOMBARD KING

[Sidenote: [756-760 A.D.]]

The rising fortunes of the Roman pontiffs were still further favoured by a disputed succession to the Lombard throne. On the death of Aistulf, his brother Ratchis, who had formerly changed a crown for a cowl, was desirous of returning to his previous dignity, and appears to have been the popular candidate. Desiderius, duke of Tuscia (Tuscany), constable of Aistulf, obtained the support of the pope. In order to secure this valuable alliance, he had promised “to comply with all the holy father’s wishes,” to deliver up other towns in Italy besides those mentioned in Pepin’s deed of gift, and to make him many other rich presents. “Upon this,” says the chronicler,[j] “the arch-shepherd took counsel with the venerable abbot Fulrad, and sent his brothers, Diaconus Paulus and Primicerius Christopher, in company with Abbot Fulrad, to Desiderius, in Tuscia (Tuscany), who immediately confirmed his former promises with a deed and a most fearful oath.”

After this prudent precaution, it was agreed at Rome that the cause of Desiderius should be supported, even by force of arms if necessary, against Ratchis. “But Almighty God ordered matters in such a manner that Desiderius, with the aid of the pope, ascended the throne without any further contest.” The promised towns, Faventia (Faenza), with the fortresses Tiberiacum, Cavellum, and the whole duchy of Ferrara, were claimed, and, according to some accounts, received, by the papal envoys; though the next pope complains that Desiderius had not kept his promises. Stephen II ended his eventful life on the 24th of April, 757 A.D.

PEPIN AND THE AQUITANIANS

With the exception of an unimportant expedition against the Saxons, in which Pepin gained a victory on the river Lippe, and again at Sithieu, near Dülmen on the Stever (in Westphalia), nothing of importance, in a military point of view, appears to have been undertaken before 760; when, according to some authors, Narbonne was taken from the Saracens, who were now driven from all their possessions on the Gallic side of the Pyrenees.

[Sidenote: [760-766 A.D.]]

In 760, began a long series of annual expeditions against Aquitaine, a country which had asserted a degree of independence highly offensive to the Franks. The Aquitanian princes, too, are supposed to have been peculiarly odious to Pepin, as offshoots from the Merovingian stock. Waifar, the reigning duke, the son of that Hunold who had retired from the world in disgust after his defeat by the Franks, inherited the restless and haughty spirit of his father, and was ready to renew the contest which Hunold had abandoned in despair. The ambitious desires of Pepin, quickened by a personal dislike of Waifar, were seconded by a strong mutual antipathy existing between his own subjects and the Aquitanians. German blood did not enter largely into the composition of the population of Aquitaine, and that small portion which did flow in their veins was supplied by the Ostrogoths, a German tribe, indeed, but one which differed very widely from their Frankish kinsmen. The Aquitanians appear at this time to have possessed a degree of civilisation unknown to the Franks, whom they regarded as semi-barbarians; while the Franks, in turn, despised the delicacy and refinement of their weaker neighbours. Their mutual dislikes and jealousies were kept alive by a perpetual border warfare, which was carried on (as formerly between England and her neighbours on the north and west) by powerful individuals in either country, without regard to the relations existing between their respective rulers. It was from these causes that Pepin came to look upon the Aquitanians and their duke in the same light as the Welsh were regarded by Edward I. The affected independence of Waifar, and the continual inroads made by the Aquitanians into his dominions, exasperated his feelings in the highest degree; and he evidently sought the quarrel which occupied him for the remainder of his life.

In 760, Pepin sent an embassy to Waifar, with demands which betrayed his hostile intentions against that unfortunate prince. On this occasion, too, the Frankish monarch came forward as a protector of the church. He demanded of Waifar that he should give up all the ecclesiastical property in his dominions which had been in any way alienated from the church; restore the immunities which the lands of the clergy had formerly enjoyed; and cease for the future from sending into them his officers and tax-gatherers. Furthermore, he demanded that Waifar should pay a wergild “for all the Goths whom he had lately put to death contrary to law;” and, lastly, that he should deliver up all fugitives from the dominions of Pepin who had sought refuge in Aquitaine.

Waifar had thus the option given him of submitting to become a mere lieutenant of Pepin, or of having the whole force of the Frankish Empire employed for his destruction. He chose the latter alternative, as every high-spirited prince must have done under the circumstances; and the war began at once. “All this,” says Einhard,[h] “Waifar refused to do; and therefore Pepin collected an army from all quarters, although unwillingly, and, as it were, under compulsion.” The Frankish army marched through Troyes and Auxerre, and, crossing the Loire at the village of Masua, and passing through Berri and Auvergne, devastated the greater part of Aquitaine with fire and sword.

In the following year Waifar, who had formed an alliance with Hunibert, count of Bourges, and Blandin, count of Auvergne, considered himself strong enough to venture upon an inroad into the Frankish territory; and, in company with these allies, he led his army, plundering and burning, as far as Châlons on the Saône. Pepin’s rage at hearing that the Aquitanians had dared to take the initiative, and had ravaged a large portion of Neustria, and even burned his own palace at Melciacum, was further increased by the knowledge that some of his own counts were aiding the invaders. Hastily collecting his troops, he took a terrible revenge, and showed the unusual exasperation of his feelings by putting his prisoners to death, and allowing a great number of men, women, and children to perish in the flames of the conquered towns.

The campaign of 763 is remarkable for the sudden defection of Tassilo, duke of Bavaria and nephew of Pepin, who, during the march towards Aquitaine, suddenly withdrew with his troops under pretence of illness, with the firm resolve “never to see his uncle’s face again.” When about twenty-one years of age, Tassilo had been compelled to swear fealty to Pepin at the Campus Maius held at Compiègne in 757. Since that period he had been kept continually near his uncle’s person, as if the latter was not satisfied with the sincerity of his subservience. The defection of Tassilo, at a time when the Frankish power was engaged in this desperate and bitter contest with the Aquitanians, caused great anxiety to Pepin.

Waifar and his people were by 766 utterly exhausted by their exertions and calamities, and, being without the means of continuing the war, lay at the mercy of the conquerors. That unhappy prince himself, deserted by the great mass of the Gascons, and hunted from hiding-place to hiding-place like a wild beast, met with the common fate of unfortunate monarchs; he was betrayed and murdered by his own followers in the forest of Edobold in Périgord. The independence of Aquitaine fell with him, and the country was subsequently governed by Frankish counts like the rest of Pepin’s empire.

[Sidenote: [766-768 A.D.]]

The victor returned in triumph to his queen Bertrada (who was awaiting him at Saintes), rejoicing, doubtless, in having at last attained the object of so many toilsome years. His implacable and hated foe was no more; the stiff-necked Aquitanians were at his feet; his southern border was secure; and the whole empire was in an unwonted state of peace. He had every reason to look forward with confidence to an interval at least of quiet, which he might spend in domestic pleasures and in the regulation of the internal affairs of the vast empire over which he ruled.

But where he had looked for repose and safety an enemy awaited him more terrible than any whom he had encountered in the field. A short time after he arrived at Saintes, he was attacked by a disease which is variously described as fever and dropsy. Convinced that his case was beyond all human aid, he set out with his wife and children to Tours, and, entering the church of St. Martin, earnestly prayed for the intercession of that patron saint of the Frankish kings. From thence he proceeded to Paris, and passed some time in the monastery of St. Denis, invoking the aid of God through his chosen servants. But when he saw that it was the will of heaven that he should die, he provided for the future welfare of his subjects; summoning the dukes and counts, the bishops and clergy of his Frankish dominions, he divided the whole empire, with their concurrence, between his two sons, Charles and Carloman. He died a few days after the settlement of the discussion, on the 24th of September, 768, in the twenty-first year of his prosperous reign, and was buried by his sons, with great pomp, in the church of St. Denis, at Paris.

Pepin was described by Alcuin, in the following generation, as an “energetic and honourable” prince, “distinguished alike by his victories and his virtues”; and although such epithets were used, more especially in that age, without sufficient discrimination, there is every reason in the present case to adopt them in their full significance. In the field, indeed, he had fewer difficulties to deal with than his warlike father. In all his military undertakings the odds were greatly in his favour; and he had not the same opportunities as Charles Martel of showing what he could effect by the mere force of superior genius. Yet, whatever he was called upon to do, he did with energy and success. He quickly brought the revolted German nations, the Bavarians and Swabians, to the obedience to which the hammering of his predecessor had reduced them; and he drove back the restless Saxons to their wild retreats. Twice he led an army across the Alps against a brave and active enemy, and twice returned victorious, after saving the distant city of Rome from imminent destruction and securing the independence of the pope.

As a civil ruler he showed himself temperate and wise. Though greatly superior in every respect to his brother, he took no unfair advantage of him, but lived and acted with him in uninterrupted harmony. Though his ambition induced him to assume the name of king, he did so without haste or rashness, at a time and under circumstances in which the change of dynasty was likely to cause the least amount of ill-feeling or disturbance.

In his relations to the church he displayed both reverence and self-respect. From conviction as well as policy, he was a staunch supporter of Christianity and the Roman church: but he was no weak fanatic; he cherished and advanced the clergy, and availed himself of their superior learning in the conduct of his affairs; but he was by no means inclined to give way to immoderate pretensions on their part. He always remained their master, though a kind and considerate one; nor did he scruple to make use of their overflowing coffers for the general purposes of the state.

Of his private life we know scarcely anything at all; but we have no reason to suppose that it was inconsistent with that respect for religion, that love of order, justice, and moderation which he generally manifested in his public acts. In his last campaigns against Waifar and the Aquitanians alone does he seem to have been betrayed into a cruel and vindictive line of conduct; and from them, as we have seen, he received the greatest provocation.

With such high qualities, important transactions, and glorious deeds connected with his name, we might wonder that the fame of Pepin is not greater, did we not know the diminishing force of unfavourable contrast. Unfortunately, for his renown at least, he had a father and a son still greater than himself. Such a man would have risen like an alp from the level plain of ordinary kings: as it is, he forms but a link in a long chain of eminences, of which he is not the highest; and thus it has come to pass that the tomb of one who ruled a mighty empire for twenty-five years with invariable success, who founded a new dynasty of kings, and established the popes on their earthly throne, is inscribed with the name of his still more glorious successor; and all his high qualities and glorious deeds appear to be forgotten in the fact that he was “_Pater Caroli Magni!_”[b]

FOOTNOTES

[126] [Though Fredegarius[d] is silent on this point, Hodgkin[e] accepts it.]

[127] [Hodgkin[e] says in one place the 21st; in another the 22nd of October.]

[128] [The _Annales_ of Einhard[h] make this in the year 745, but Hodgkin[e] says it clearly belongs to 746.]

[129] [“A meeting full of interest,” as Hodgkin[e] notes, for the fourteen-year-old prince was the future Charlemagne.]

[130] [Oelsner[k] and others advocate 754 as the date of Pepin’s first Italian campaign, but Abel,[l] Perry,[b] and Hodgkin[e] agree upon 755.]

[131] [This statement in the _Annales Mettenses_[c] alone is somewhat doubtful.]