He devoted himself to the Christian religion which had been instilled into him in his infancy with the greatest holiness and piety, and on this account he built the Basilica of Aachen, a work of great beauty, which he embellished with silver and gold and with candlesticks and lattices and doors of solid brass. When he could not get columns and marble for this structure anywhere else, he caused them to be brought from Rome and from Ravenna. As long as his health permitted he was an untiring worshipper in church at matins and even-song and also during the hours of the night and at the time of the sacrifice, and he made it his great care that all the services of the church should be conducted with the greatest cleanliness. Very often he would caution the sacristans not to allow anything improper or foul to be brought into or left in the building. He provided quantities of sacred vessels, gold and silver, and of priestly vestments so that while the mass was celebrated no one—not even the doorkeepers, who are the lowest order of ecclesiastics—was obliged to perform his duties in private dress. He industriously improved the order of reading and chanting. For he was a master in both, though he did not read in public, nor sing above a whisper.
In helping the poor, in free charity, which the Greeks call almsgiving, he was devout, making this his care not only in his own country and kingdom, but he would often send money across the seas into Syria and Egypt and Africa, to Jerusalem and Alexandria and Carthage, where he knew the Christians were living in poverty, and out of compassion for their penury. To this end he untiringly sought the friendship of transpontine kings that some solace and comfort might be forthcoming to the Christians under their sway. Above all other sacred and venerable places in Rome he loved the church of St. Peter the apostle, the treasury of which he enriched with an immense sum in gold, in silver, and in jewels. He sent many countless gifts to the pontiffs, and during his whole reign nothing lay so near his heart as that the city of Rome should assume its ancient prerogative through his zeal and patronage, and that the church of St. Peter should not only be in safe keeping and protection through him, but should also be embellished and enriched with his presents above all other churches. Valuing this ambition as he did within the forty-seven years of his reign, he found leisure but four times to visit Rome for the sake of fulfilling his vows and praying.
HIS IMPERIAL TITLE (800 A.D.)
[800-814 A.D.]
These were not the only reasons for his last visit to Rome, but the Romans had compelled Pope Leo to implore the trusty assistance of the king when that pontiff had been most seriously injured, for they had torn out his eyes and cut out his tongue. So the king came to Rome to reform the condition of the church which was sorely disturbed, and he stayed there the whole winter in this pursuit. During this time he received the name of emperor and of augustus, to which at first he was so averse that he vowed that he would not have entered the church on that day, although it was a festival day, had he been able to foresee the intention of the pope. Yet he bore the envy that the name raised with the Roman emperors, who were most indignant at his assumption of it, with great patience, and he subdued their sullen hostility by a graciousness of demeanour in which he was most certainly their master, sending them frequent embassies and calling them his brothers in his letters to them.
Having adopted the imperial title he turned to the numerous deficiencies in the laws of his people—for the Franks have two laws which differ considerably in very many places. He meditated how to fill up the omissions and reconcile what conflicted and to correct what was mischievous and erroneously stated; but of these projects none were fulfilled except that he increased the laws by a few chapters and these were fragmentary. But he caused the laws of all nations under his dominion which had not been reduced to writing to be definitely codified. So too he wrote out and committed to memory the rough songs of antiquity in which the exploits and wars of the ancient kings used to be sung. He also began a grammar of his native speech. He gave names to the months in the national tongue, for before this the Franks spoke of them partly by the Latin and partly by foreign names. Also he designated the twelve winds by proper appellations, whereas before this, words could not be found for more than about four. The month January he called Wintarmanoth; February, Hornung; March, Lentzinmanoth; April, Ostarmanoth; May, Winnemanoth; June, Brachmanoth; July, Hewimanoth; August, Aranmanoth; September, Witumanoth; October, Windumemanoth; November, Herbistmanoth; December, Heilagmanoth. And the winds he named thus: that called in Latin Subsolanus he called Ostroniwint; Eurus, Ostsunderen; Euroauster, Sundostren; Auster, Sundren; Austroafricus, Sundwestren; Africus, Westsundren; Zephyrus, Westren; Chorus, Westnordren; Circius, Nordwestren; Septenrio, Nordren; Aquilo, Nordostren; Vulturnus, Ostnorden.
HIS DEATH (814 A.D.)
[814 A.D.]
Towards the close of his life when he was weighed down with illness and old age he called to him his son Louis, the king of Aquitaine and last surviving son of Hildegard, solemnly assembled the Frankish nobility from all over the kingdom, and with the unanimous consent appointed Louis his partner in the whole kingdom and heir of the imperial title. Then he placed the royal crown on his head and decreed that he should be saluted as emperor and augustus. All those who were present hailed his doing this with much acclamation, for it seemed as if the king were divinely inspired for the welfare of his kingdom. For did he not by this act enlarge his own majesty and strike no small terror into the nations abroad? He discharged his son to Aquitaine and then, old as he was, set out for the chase as was his wont in the neighbourhood of the palace at Aachen. He spent what remained of the autumn in this pursuit, and then returned to Aachen early in November.
During the winter in the month of January he was seized with fever and took to his bed. He at once prescribed for himself, as he always did when he was attacked by fever, an abstinence from food, thinking that by a privation of this kind the disease might be banished or in any case reduced, but the pain increased until his side was inflamed (the Greeks call it “pleurisy”). Yet he continued to starve himself, keeping himself alive by an occasional draught until the seventh day after he had taken to his bed. He then received the holy communion and died on the 28th of January at nine o’clock, in the seventy-second year of his age and in the forty-seventh year of his reign (814).