LEARNING AND CULTURE.—One of the chief distinctions of Charlemagne is the encouragement which he gave to learning. In his own palace at Aachen (Aix), he collected scholars from different quarters. Of these the most eminent is Alcuin, from the school of York in England. He was familiar with many of the Latin writers, and while at the head of the school in the palace, and later, when abbot of St. Martin in Tours, exerted a strong influence in promoting study. Charlemagne himself spoke Latin with facility, but not until late in life did he try to learn to write. It was his custom to be read to while he sat at meals. Augustine's City of God was one of the books of which he was fond. In the great sees and monasteries, schools were founded, the benefits of which were very soon felt.
CHARLES'S PERSONAL TRAITS.—Charlemagne was seven feet in height, and of noble presence. His eyes were large and animated, and his voice clear, but not so strong as his frame would have led one to expect. His bearing was manly and dignified. He was exceedingly fond of riding, hunting, and of swimming. Eginhard, his friend and biographer, says of him, "In all his undertakings and enterprises, there was nothing he shrank from because of the toil, and nothing that he feared because of the danger." He died, at the age of seventy, on Jan. 28, 814. He had built at Aix la Chapelle a stately church, the columns and marbles of which were brought from Ravenna and Rome. Beneath its floor, under the dome, was his tomb. There he was placed in a sitting posture, in his royal robes, with the crown on his head, and his horn, sword, and book of the Gospels on his knee. In this posture his majestic figure was found when his tomb was opened by Otto III., near the end of the tenth century. The marble chair in which the dead monarch sat is still in the cathedral at Aix: the other relics are at Vienna. The splendor of Charlemagne's reign made it a favorite theme of romance among the poets of Italy: a mass of poetic legends gathered about it.
EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.—Charlemagne's empire comprised all Gaul, and Spain to the Ebro, all that was then Germany, and the greater part of Italy. Slavonic nations along the Elbe were his allies. Pannonia, Dacia, Istria, Liburnia, Dalmatia,—except the sea-coast towns, which were held by the Greeks,—were subject to him. He had numerous other allies and friends. Even Harunal-Rashid, the famous Caliph of Bagdad, held him in high honor. Among the most valued presents which were said to have come from the Caliph were an elephant, and a curious water-clock, which was so made, that, at the end of the hours, twelve horsemen came out of twelve windows, and closed up twelve other windows. This gift filled the inmates of the palace at Aix with wonder.
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.—The number of free Franks diminished under Charlemagne. They were thinned out in the wars, or sunk into vassalage. The warnings and rebukes in the Capitularies, or body of laws, show that the upper clergy were often sensual and greedy of gain. The bishops would often lead in person their contingent of troops, until they were forbidden to do so by law. Nine-tenths of the population of Gaul were slaves. Charlemagne made Alcuin the present of an estate on which there were twenty thousand slaves. Especially in times of scarcity, as in 805 and 806, their lot was a miserable one. At such times, they fled in crowds to the monasteries. The social state was that of feudalism "in all but the development of that independence in the greater lords, which was delayed by the strength of Karl, but fostered, at the same time, by his wars and his policy towards the higher clergy."
CONVERSION OF GERMANY: BONIFACE.—The most active missionaries in the seventh and eighth centuries were, from the British islands. At first they were from Ireland and Scotland. Columban, who died in 615, and his pupil Gallus, labored, not without success, among the Alemanni. Gallus established himself as a hermit near Lake Constance. He founded the Abbey of St. Gall. The Saxon missionaries from England were still more effective. The most eminent of these was Winfrid, who received from Rome the name of Bonifacius (680-755). He converted the Hessians, and founded monasteries, among them the great monastery of Fulda. There his disciple, Sturm, "through a long series of years, directed the energies of four thousand monks, by whose unsparing labors the wilderness was gradually reclaimed, and brought into a state of cultivation." Boniface had proved the impotence of the heathen gods by felling with the axe an aged oak at Geismar, which was held sacred by their worshipers. Among the Thuringians, Bavarians, and other tribes, he extirpated paganism by peaceful means. He organized the German Church under the guidance of the popes, and, in 743, was made archbishop of Meniz, and primate. But his Christian ardor moved him to carry the gospel in person to the savage Frisians, by whom he was slain. He thus crowned his long career with martyrdom.
CONVERSION OF THE SCANDINAVIANS.—The apostle of the Scandinavians was Ansgar (801-865). The archbishopric of Hamburg was founded for him by Louis the Pious, with the papal consent; but, as Hamburg was soon plundered by pirates, he became bishop of Bremen (849). In that region he preached with success. Two visits he made to Sweden, the first with little permanent result; but, at the second visit (855), the new faith was tolerated, and took root. The triumph of the religion of the cross, which Ansgar had planted in Denmark, was secured there when Canute became king of England. The first Christian king in Sweden was Olaf Schooskonig (1008). In Norway, Christianity was much resisted; but when Olaf the Thick, who was a devoted adherent of the Christian faith, had perished in battle (1033), his people, who held him in honor, fell in with the church arrangements which he had ordained; and he became St. Olaf, the patron saint of Norway.
THE BENEDICTINES.—Benedict, born at Nursia, in Umbria, in 480, the founder of the monastery of Monte Cassino, north-west of Naples, was the most influential agent in organizing monasticism in Western Europe. He was too wise to adopt the extreme asceticism that had often prevailed in the East, and his judicious regulations combined manual labor with study and devotion. They not only came to be the law for the multitude of monasteries of his own order, but also served as the general pattern, on the basis of which numerous other orders in later times were constituted. His societies of monks were at first made up of laics, but afterwards of priests. The three vows of the monk were chastity, including abstinence from marriage; poverty, or the renunciation of personal possessions; and obedience to superiors. The Benedictine cloisters long continued to be asylums for the distressed, schools of education for the clergy, and teachers of agriculture and the useful arts to the people in the regions where they were planted. Their abbots rose to great dignity and influence, and stood on a level with the highest ecclesiastics.
CHAPTER II. DISSOLUTION OP CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE: RISE OF THE KINGDOMS OF FRANCE, GERMANY, AND ITALY.
DIVISIONS IN THE EMPIRE.—The influence of Charlemagne was permanent; not so his empire. It had one religion and one government, but it was discordant in language and in laws. The Gallo-Romans and the Italians spoke the Romance language, with variations of dialect. The Germans used the Teutonic tongue. Charlemagne left to the Lombards, to the Saxons, and to other peoples, their own special laws. The great bond of unity had been the force of his own character and the vigor of his administration. His death was, therefore, the signal for confusion and division. The tendency to dismemberment was aided by the ambition of the princes of the imperial family. The Austrasian Franks, to whom Charlemagne belonged, craved unity. The Gallo-Romans in the West, the Teutons in the East, aspired after independence.
Louis the Pious (814-840), Charlemagne's youngest son,—who, in consequence of the death of his elder brothers, was the sole successor of his father,—lacked the energy requisite for so difficult a place. He was better adapted to a cloister than to a throne. He had been crowned at Aix before his father's death; but he consented to be crowned anew by Pope Stephen IV. at Rheims, in 816. His troubles began with a premature division of his states between his sons, Lothar, Pipin, and Louis. His nephew, Bernhard, who was to reign in Italy in subordination to his uncle, rebelled, but was captured and killed (818). In order to provide for his son Charles the Bald, whose mother Judith he had married for his second wife, he made a new division in 829. The elder sons at once revolted against their father, and Judith and her son were shut up in a cloister (830). Louis the son repented, the Saxons and East Franks supported the emperor, and he was restored. In 833 he took away Aquitaine from Pipin, and gave it to Charles. The rebellious sons again rose up against him. In company with Pope Gregory IV., who joined them, they took their father prisoner on the plains of Alsace, his troops having deserted him. The place was long known as the "Field of Lies." He was compelled by the bishops to confess his sins in the cathedral at Soissons, reading the list aloud. Once more Louis was released, and forgave his sons; but partition after partition of territory, with continued discord, followed until his death. The quarrels of his surviving sons, Lothar, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald, brought on, in 841, the great battle of Fontenailles. The contest was occasioned by the ambition of Lothar, the eldest, who claimed for himself the whole imperial inheritance. There was great carnage, and Lothar was defeated. The bishops present saw in the result a verdict of God in favor of his two adversaries. The result was the Treaty of Verdun for the division of the empire.