Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

Sometimes the Missi themselves were not a success, but would take bribes from the rich landowners on their tour of inspection, and this would mean more government machinery and fresh laws to bring them under the royal control in their turn. If it was difficult to make wise laws, it was even harder in that rough age to carry them out; for the nobles found it to their interest to defy or at least hinder an authority that struck at their power; while the mass of the people were too ignorant to bear responsibility, and few save those educated in the palace schools could become trustworthy ‘counts’ or royal agents.

Dimly, however, the nation understood that the Emperor held some high ideal of government planned for their prosperity, ‘No one cried out to him’, says the chronicle, ‘but straightway he should have good justice’: and in every church throughout France those who had not been called to follow him to battle prayed for his safety and that God would subdue the barbarians before his triumphant arms.

To Charlemagne there was a higher vision than that of mere victory in battle, a vision born of his favourite book, the Civitas Dei, wherein St. Augustine had described the perfect Emperor, holding his sceptre as a gift God had given and might take away, and conquering his enemies that he might lead them to a greater knowledge and prosperity.

Charlemagne and the Church

Charlemagne believed that to him had been entrusted the guardianship of the Catholic Church, not only from the heathen without its pale, but from false doctrine and evil living within. To the Pope, as Christ’s vice-regent, he bore himself humbly, as on the day when he had climbed St. Peter’s steps on his knees, but to the Pope as a man dealing with other men he spoke as a lord to his vassal, tendering his views and expecting compliance, in return for which he guaranteed the support of his sword.

‘May the ruler of the Church be rightly ruled by thee, O King, and may’st thou be ruled by the right hand of the Almighty!’ In this prayer Alcuin probably expressed the Emperor’s opinion of his own position. Leo III, on the other hand, preferred to talk of his champion as a faithful son of the mother Church of Rome; thereby implying that the Emperor should pay a son’s duty of obedience: but he himself was never in a strong enough position to enforce this point of view, and the clash of Empire and Papacy was left for a later age.

Within his own dominions Charlemagne, like the Frankish kings before him, reigned supreme over the Church, appointing whom he would as bishops, and using them often as Missi to assist him in his government. Yet the Church remained an ‘estate’ apart from the rest of the nation, supported by the revenues of the large sees belonging to the different bishoprics and by the tithe, or tenth part of a layman’s income. When churchmen attended the annual assembly they were allowed to deliberate apart from the nobles and freemen: when a bishop excommunicated some heretic or sinner, the Emperor’s court was bound to enforce the sentence. Thus the privileges and rights were many; but Charlemagne determined that the men who enjoyed them must also fulfil the obligations that they carried with them.

In earlier years Charles Martel and St. Boniface had struggled hard to raise the character of the Frankish Church, and Charlemagne continued their task with his usual energy, insisting on frequent inspections of the monasteries and convents and on the maintenance of a stricter rule of life within their walls.

The ordinary parish clergy were also brought under more vigilant supervision. In accordance with the laws of the Roman Church they were not allowed to marry, nor might they take part in any worldly business, enter a tavern, carry arms, or go hunting or hawking. Above all they were encouraged to educate themselves that they might be able to teach their parishioners and set a good example.

‘Good works are better than knowledge’, wrote Charlemagne to his bishops and abbots in a letter of advice, ‘but without knowledge good works are impossible.’ In accordance with this view he commanded that a school should be established in every diocese, in order that the boys of the neighbourhood might receive a grounding in the ordinary education of their day. His own court became a centre of learning; for he himself was keenly interested in all branches of knowledge, from a close study of the Scriptures to mathematics or tales of distant lands. Histories he liked to have read out to him at meals. Eginhard, his biographer, tells us that he never learned to write, but that he was proficient in Latin and could understand Greek.