[278] Claudius died about 830. His works are in tome 104 of Migne.
[279] Migne 104, col. 147-158.
[280] Compare Agobard’s Ep. ad Bartholomaeum (Migne 104, col. 179).
[281] Liber contra judicium Dei (Migne 104, col. 250-268). Here the powerful Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, is emphatically on the opposite side, and argues lengthily in support of the judicium aquae frigidae, in Epist. 26, Migne 126, col. 161. Hincmar (cir. 806-882) was a man of imposing eminence. He was a great ecclesiastical statesman. The compass and character of his writings is what might be expected from such an archiepiscopal man of affairs. They include edifying tracts for the use of the king, an authoritative Life of St Remi, and writings theological, political, and controversial. As the writer was not a profound thinker, his works have mainly that originality which was impressed upon them by the nature of whatever exigency called them forth. They are contained in Migne 125, 126.
[282] Liber de imaginibus sanctorum (Migne 104, col. 199-226).
[283] These writings are also in vol. 104 of Migne.
[284] See Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, i. 130-142 (5th ed.). Writings known as Annales drew their origin from the notes made by monks upon the margin of their calendars. These notes were put together the following year, and subsequently might be revised, perhaps by some person of larger view and literary skill. Thus the Annals found in the cloister of Lorsch are supposed to have been rewritten in part by Einhart.
[285] There were two great earlier examples of such histories: one was the Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours, the author of which was of distinguished Roman descent, born in 540 and dying in 594; the other was Bede’s Church History of the English People, which was completed shortly before its author’s death in 735. In individuality and picturesqueness of narrative, these two works surpass all the historical writings of the Carolingian time.
[286] In Mon. Germ. hist. scrip. ii.; also Migne, vol. 116, col. 45-76; trans, in German in Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit (Leipzig). See also Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, i., and Ebert, Ges. der Lit. ii. 370 sqq.
[287] In both these respects a contrary condition had made possible the endurance of the Roman Empire. Its territories in the main were civilized, and were traversed by the best of roads, while many of them lay about that ancient common highway of peoples, the Mediterranean. Then the whole Empire was leavened, and one part made capable of understanding another, by the Graeco-Roman culture.