Chapter I: Preface

In attempting to compress the history of the great Emperor Charles within the narrow limits of the present volume, I have undertaken a difficult task, and I trust that my fellow-historians will consider, not how much has been omitted, but how much, or rather how little, it was possible to insert.

It may be thought that I might have gained space by proceeding at once to the beginning of Charles’s own reign instead of devoting more than eighty pages to his predecessors, but this did not seem to me possible. The great Emperor was the last term of an ascending series--nobles, mayors of the palace, kings; and in order to understand the law of the series it is absolutely necessary to study some of its earlier members....

A few words as to our authorities. For the period before the accession of Pippin our chief authority is the chronicle which is known by the name of _Fredegarius_, very meagre, and written in barbarous Latin, but honest; then a still more miserable continuation of this work by an unknown scribe; and lastly, a much better performance, from a literary point of view, _The Lives of the Bishops of Metz_, by Paulus Diaconus.

For the reigns of Pippin and of Charles the Great we have fairly satisfactory materials in the shape of the Annals, which now began to be kept at various monasteries; chief among them the _Annales Laurissenses majores_, so-called from their connection, real or supposed, with the great monastery of Lorsch (in Hesse-Darmstadt, about ten miles east of Worms). So extensive, however, is the knowledge of State affairs possessed by this writer that it is the opinion of Professor Ranke, and of most modern inquirers, that he cannot have been a mere monk writing his chronicle in a convent, but that we have here in fact the chronicles of the Frankish kingdom. This view is to some extent confirmed by the fact that there is a fuller recension of them in a more literary form, which bears the name of _Annales Finhardi_, and thus professes to be the work of Charles’s friend and secretary. The precious _Vita Caroli_, from the pen of the same writer, is described in the following pages.

The writers who in modern times have treated of the life of Charles the Great number some hundreds, and I make no pretension to even a superficial acquaintance with the bibliography of so vast a subject, but I may mention that the books which I have found most helpful in the composition of the following pages are Waitz’s _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_, Guizot’s _Lectures on the History of Civilization_, Dahn’s _Urgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Völker_, and pre-eminently the series of _Jahrbücher der deutschen Geschichte_, in which Bonnell has treated of _The Beginnings of the Carolingian House_; Oelsner, of _The Life of Pippin, King of the Franks_; and Abel and Simson, of _The Life of Charles the Great_. To the last work (in two volumes) I have been under great and continual obligation.

THOS. HODGKIN.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

TO THE BIRTH OF CHARLEMAGNE.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER II.

EARLY MAYORS OF THE PALACE 15

CHAPTER III.

PIPPIN OF HERISTAL AND CHARLES MARTEL 45

CHAPTER IV.

PIPPIN, KING OF THE FRANKS 63

PART II.

FROM THE BIRTH OF CHARLEMAGNE.

CHAPTER V.

FALL OF THE LOMBARD MONARCHY 109

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS 137

CHAPTER VII.

REVOLTS AND CONSPIRACIES 166

CHAPTER VIII.

RONCESVALLES 188

CHAPTER IX.

WARS WITH AVARS AND SCLAVES 204

CHAPTER X.

RELATIONS WITH THE EAST 219

CHAPTER XI.

CAROLUS AUGUSTUS 240

CHAPTER XII.

OLD AGE 274

CHAPTER XIII.

RESULTS 308

APPENDICES--

A. Genealogy of the Ancestors of Charles the Great 332

B. Family of St. Charles the Great 333

CHARLEMAGNE.