In the course of a reign of forty-five years, Charlemagne extended the limits of his empire beyond the Danube; subdued Dacia, Dalmatia, and Istria, conquered and subjected all the barbarous tribes to the banks of the Vistula, and successfully encountered the arms of the Saracens, the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Saxons. His war with the Saxons was of more than thirty years duration, and their final conquest was not achieved without an inhuman waste of blood, through what has been considered a mistaken zeal for the propagation of Christianity, by measures which that religion can not be said to sanction or approve. All these wars were very nearly finished in the year 800. Charlemagne then found himself master of France, of Germany, of three-quarters of Italy, and a part of Spain. He had increased by more than a third the extent of territory which his father had left him. These vast possessions were no longer a kingdom, but an empire. He thought he had done enough to be authorized to seat himself on the throne of the West; and, as his father had required at the hands of the Pope his regal crown, so it was from the Pope that he demanded his imperial diadem. He was, therefore, with great ceremony, created Emperor of the West in St. Peter’s, at Rome, by Pope Leo III., on Christmas day 800. It was a great event, for that imperial title which had remained buried under the ruins wrought by the barbarians, was drawn thence by the Roman pontiff, and shown to scattered nations and enemies as a rallying sign.
The crown which he received was destined to be for one thousand and six years the symbol of German unity, whilst the assembled people shouted, “Long life and victory to Carolus Augustus, the great and peace-bringing Roman Emperor, whom God hath crowned!” Thus, 324 years after the imperial dignity had disappeared, it was renewed by Charles. In this coronation act Pope Leo III. had fulfilled a function like St. Remy did in consecrating Clovis. His successors constituted it a privilege, and the pontiffs considered themselves the dispensers of crowns. During the whole of the middle ages the imperial consecration could only be given at Rome, and from the hands of the Holy Father. More than one war arose out of this prerogative.[F]
THE CHARACTER AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF CHARLEMAGNE—HIS PLACE IN HISTORY.
Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, is the name which history has agreed to give to the founder of the German empire—incorporating the epithet with the name itself. We have recited in outline the facts of his wonderful career, as they are recorded in the meagre records of contemporary historians, and must rely upon the same authentic testimony in attempting to estimate his mind, character, and work. But the Charles of history is one; the Charles of heroic legend and popular fame is another. The former is a powerful conqueror and politic statesman, whom some eminent writers regard as the greatest of all monarchs; the latter is a Christian saint, superhuman in strength, beauty, and wisdom, incapable of defeat in war, of error in judgment, or of infirmity or corruption in his own will. Thus the song of Roland says: “His eyes shone like the morning star; his glance was dazzling as the noonday sun. Terrible to his foes, kind to the poor, victorious in war, merciful to offenders, devoted to God, he was an upright judge, who knew all the laws, and taught them to his people as he learned them from the angels. In short, he bore the sword as God’s own servant.” As Theodoric had been the center of the ancient popular minstrelsy, so Charles the Great became the central figure in that more cultivated heroic poetry, chiefly the work of the clergy, in which were celebrated the deeds of the twelve paladins, with Roland and the fight of Roncesvalles:
“When Charlemain with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabia.”
When we consider the profound impression made on the popular mind by this person, as represented in legend and song, we are almost ready to inquire whether its influence upon later German history was not greater than that of his authentic achievements. But it is true that the entire German race owes to him its first political organization. It was the purpose of his life, which never wavered, to unite all the German tribes under the control of one imperial government and of one Christian Church. In the greater part of this work he succeeded, and thus left the stamp of his mind upon the following centuries, through all the Middle Ages. The national consciousness of the collective German tribes dates from his reign, and it is at the beginning of the ninth century that “the Germans” are first spoken of in contrast with the Roman peoples of the empire, although the national name did not come into general use until four generations later, in the reign of Otto the Great. When Charles mounted the throne, he was twenty-four years of age, in the strength and prime of his youth. His person was huge and strong, combining the presence and muscular power of the heroes of song; so that he found it sport to fight with the gigantic wild bulls in the forest of Ardennes. His passion for labor, war, and danger was that of the adventurous warriors of the great migration. In the momentous affairs of state, he exhibited the want of feeling and the unscrupulousness which have been common to nearly all great warriors; but in daily intercourse with those around him, he had the mildness, cheerfulness, and freshness of spirit which add so much grace to true greatness. These characteristics were those of his people; but that which specially distinguished him was the far-seeing mind, which had caught from ancient Rome the conception of a universal state, and was wise enough, without slavish copying, to adapt this conception to the peculiar requirements of the widely different race he ruled. This lofty intellect appears the more wonderful, that no one can tell how he obtained his mental growth, or who were his instructors; he seems to shine out of the darkness of his age like a sun.
Charlemagne’s active mind gave attention to all matters, great and small. His untiring diligence, and his surprising swiftness in apprehension and decision, enabled him to dispatch an amount of business perhaps never undertaken by another monarch, unless by Frederick II., of Prussia, or by Napoleon Bonaparte. He was simple in his own attire, usually wearing a linen coat, woven at home by the women of his own family, and over it the large, warm Frisian mantle; and he demanded simplicity in his followers, and scoffed at his courtiers when their gorgeous silks and tinsel, brought from the East, were torn to rags in the rough work of the chase. Hunting in his favorite forest of Ardennes was the chief delight and recreation of his court. Next to this, he enjoyed swimming in the warm baths at Aix, which became his favorite residence. At his meals he listened to reading; and even condescended to join the monks, detailed for the purpose, in reading exercises. He founded schools in all the convents, and visited them in person, encouraging the diligent pupils, and reproving the negligent. He also introduced Roman teachers of music, to improve the church-singing of the Franks; while he required that sermons should be preached in the language of the people. Thus he diligently promoted popular education, while he strove to make up by study what he had lost by the neglect of his own culture in youth. He gathered men of learning—poets, historians, and copyists—around him, the most prominent of them being Anglo-Saxons, of whom the wise and pious Alcuin was chief. Even when an old man, he found time, though often only at night, to practice in writing his hand so accustomed to the sword; and having long been familiar with the Latin language, which he tried to diffuse among the people, undertook to learn the Greek also. He highly esteemed his native language, too. He gave German names to the months and the winds; caused a German grammar to be compiled; and took pains to collect the ancient heroic songs of the German minstrels, though his son, in his monkish zeal, destroyed them. He reverenced the clergy highly: granted them tithes throughout the empire, and everywhere watched over the increasing endowments and estates of the Church, in whose possessions at that time both agriculture and morality were better cared for than elsewhere. Most of the bishops and abbots were selected by the king himself.
Charlemagne’s personal character must not be judged by the standards of a time so remote from him as ours. He has been called dissolute; and it is true that he utterly disregarded the marriage tie, when it would limit either his pleasures or his ambition. He married five wives, only to dishonor them. He even encouraged, as it seems, his own daughters to live loose lives at home; refusing to give them in marriage to princes, lest their husbands might become competitors for a share of the kingdom. But he was never controlled by his favorite women, nor did he neglect state business for indulgence. Charlemagne has been censured as cruel; and, indeed, there are few acts recorded in history of more wanton cruelty than his slaughter in cold blood of thousands of Saxons at Verden. Yet this was not done in the exercise of passion or hatred, but as a measure of policy, a means deliberately devised to secure a definite end, in which it was successful. Charlemagne was never cruel upon impulse; but his inclinations were to gentleness and kindness. The key to his character is his unbounded ambition. In the pursuit of power he knew no scruple; the most direct and efficient means were always the right means to him. There is no doubt of his earnest attachment to the Christian Church and to the orthodox doctrines, as he understood them. But this was not associated with an appreciation of Christian morality, or a sense of human brotherhood. His passion for conquest was in large part a fanatical zeal for the propagation of a religion which he regarded as inseparable from his empire.
Charlemagne was held in high honor by foreign nations. The Caliph of Bagdad, Haroun-al-Raschid, wielded in the East a power comparable with his own. To Charlemagne he sent a friendly embassy, with precious gifts, and it was reciprocated in the same spirit. The kings of the Normans expressed their respect for him in a similar way. But his own taste esteemed the ring of a good sword more than gold. His person and his private life have been vividly depicted to us by Einhard (Eginhard), a youth educated at his court, to whom, according to legend, the emperor gave one of his daughters for a wife. Charlemagne was tall and strongly formed, measuring from crown to sole seven times the length of his own foot. He had an open brow, very large, quick eyes, an abundance of fine hair, which was white in his last years, and a cheerful countenance.[G]