| [64] | Here is another notorious error. Hildigard died in 783. Fastrada was queen when, in 791, Charles advanced to the war against the Avars. |
| [65] | The next six chapters are omitted, because in them the Monk of St Gall is led away, by his desire to tell a good and edifying story, into matter that has no connection of any kind with Charlemagne, and is sometimes offensive to modern taste. The stories are for the most part to the discredit of the Episcopal order. A single phrase in Chapter xxv. may be noted, as indicating the theocratic view of Charles which the writer takes throughout: “the most religious Charles” is called episcopus episcoporum, “the bishop of bishops.” |
| [66] | Our author here again handles events of the most general notoriety in a spirit completely independent of historical accuracy. Leo III. was, it is true, the Pope to whose assistance Charlemagne came; but no Michael was ruling at that time in Constantinople. Michael II. reigned from 820–829, and Michael III. from 842–867. Thus the name was associated, in the mind of the Monk of St Gall, with the imperial throne of the east—and that was more than enough. The sentiment attributed to the Emperor is as impossible as his name is inaccurate. |
| [67] | St Pancras is one of the saints given by the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian to the calendar of the Church. He is said to have been executed in his fourteenth year in the year 295. The following extract from the Golden Legend will explain the reference in the text:—“Of him said Gregory of Tours, Doctor: That if there be a man that will make a false oath in the place of his sepulchre, tofore or he came to the chancel of the quire he shall be travailed with an evil spirit and out of mind, or he shall fall on the pavement all dead. It happed on a time that there was a great altercation between two men, and the judge wist not who had wrong. And, for the jealousy of justice that he had, he brought them both unto the altar of Saint Peter for to swear, praying the apostle that he would declare who had right. And when he that had wrong had [pg 172] sworn and had none harm the judge who knew the malice of him said all on high: This old Peter here is either over-merciful, or he is propitious to this young man, but let us go to Pancrace and demand we of him the truth; and when they came to the sepulchre, he that was culpable swore and stretched forth his hand, but he might not withdraw his hand again to him, and anon after he died there, and therefore unto this day, of much people it is used that for great and notable causes men make their oaths upon the relics of S. Pancrace.” |
| [68] | This celebrated coronation took place on Christmas Day of the year 800, and marks the foundation of the Mediæval Empire. Charles is known to have expressed regret either at the fact or the manner of the presentation of the imperial crown; and the Monk of St Gall is not so wide of the point as usual in the account he gives of the causes of his hesitation. |
| [69] | Giants figure largely in the stories which are told of St Antony’s temptation. The Golden Legend says: “S. Anthony recordeth of himself that he had seen a man so great and so high that he vaunted himself to be the virtue and the providence of God and said to me: ‘Demand of me what thou wilt, and I shall give it to thee.’ And I spit in the midst of his visage, and anon I armed me with the sign of the cross, and ran upon him, and anon he vanished away. And after this the devil appeared to him in so great stature that he touched the heaven, etc.” Gigantic appearances figure, too, elsewhere in the story of St Antony’s trials. |
| [70] | Two motives are to be detected in most of these stories beyond the general purpose of moral and religious edification. There is the jealousy of the bishops, so usually felt by the monks, and there is the scorn felt by the northern peoples for the refinements of the Italian population. |
| [71] | I have inserted the passage in brackets, which seems necessary to give meaning to the following instances. |
| [72] | This King of the Franks is, of course, not Charlemagne, but Charles the Third, called the Fat, who in 883 spent three days in the Monastery of St Gall. |
[pg 173]