Charlemagne.
The personality of Charlemagne, so naïvely portrayed by Einhard, his desire not only to conquer but to serve the higher ideal of establishing a Christian state, cannot fail to attract the student, especially if the teacher emphasizes the fact that he was the hero par excellence of the middle ages. Ample material for a study of his arrangements can be found in the source books, and his system can easily be compared with the organization of the older empire.
Although the people who were working out these new problems were largely of German blood, it must not be forgotten that Rome’s influence had not been for naught, but was still to be seen in the survival of the Latin language and literature and the material aspects of its civilization—its roads, bridges, aqueducts and walled towns,—and above all in this very tradition of universal dominion. This last idea had been inherited on the one hand by the pope at Rome and on the other by the king of the Germans.
There is no one book which emphasizes the treatment which has been suggested for this first period. The teacher can easily follow this line of development with any of the better text-books. Freeman, “Historical Geography of Europe,” has a good chapter on the geographical development (Chapter VI), also Emerton, “Mediæval Europe,” Chapter I; Seignobos, “History of Mediæval and Modern Civilization,” Chapter VI, will be found very helpful on feudalism; also Emerton, “Introduction to the Middle Ages,” Chapter XV, and Adams, “Civilization during the Middle Ages,” Chapter IX. A good life of Charlemagne in English is Hodgkin, “Charles the Great.” There is an abundance of source material. Special mention might be made of Thatcher and McNeal, Nos. 7-9, 16-19, 191-194, 209-217; Robinson, Chapter VII, on Charlemagne, Chapter VIII on the Disruption of Charlemagne’s Empire, and Chapter IX on Feudalism; Ogg, Chapter IX, on the “Age of Charlemagne,” Chapter X on the “Era of the Later Carolingians,” and Chapter XIII on the “Feudal System.” Good maps may be found in such atlases as Freeman, Putzger, and Dow, which should be in the hands of every live teacher.