NOTES
[pg 161]
| [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 [pg 162] 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.) |