[785-796 A.D.]
For several years the stillness of death reigned in the land of the Saxons, and Charles could begin to think of directing his arms against the Wends beyond the Elbe. In the year 789 he crossed the river easily and conquered all the country as far as the Peene, thus establishing the Frankish rule in the rear of the Saxons. Now and then, indeed, scattered revolts still broke out among the latter people, but they were at once put down with an iron hand and never again became dangerous to Frankish supremacy. The continuance of Christianity was already assured and the country was divided up into bishoprics.
While Charles was extending the boundaries of his kingdom into Wendish territory on the northeast, great conquests had been made in the southeast as well. A series of campaigns against the Avars in the years 790 to 796 finally resulted in their complete subjugation, the extension of the Frankish authority far down the valley of the Danube, and the restoration of Christianity to lands where it had long since died out.
By the might of his arms Charles had doubled the extent of his inherited kingdom, by his indomitable energy he had crushed all opposition within it and given its political and ecclesiastical institutions such a unity as the West had not known since the time of the Romans. From the Pyrenees and the Frisian coast to the eastern plains in the valleys of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Oder, from the Eider to the highest peaks of the Apennines stretched the rule of the Franks, grasped in the hands of a single man to whom not only all temporal authorities in this wide realm were subject, but whom the entire clergy must also unequivocally acknowledge as their head. To all previous centuries it had seemed impossible to bring all the tribes of the interior of Germany under one rule, to bend the stubborn love of liberty of all Germans to the authority of a king. Charles had succeeded, and he had at the same time reunited under his sceptre the most important lands of the Western Roman Empire which had been separated since the latter’s fall. The first cities of the ancient empire were in his possession, Rome itself recognised his authority. The struggle, the opposition between Roman and German had, for centuries, been a source of disturbance to the West; this struggle seemed ended, this opposition amicably settled, since German and Roman were now embraced in one empire, received in one church.
The Imperial Coronation 800 A.D.
Thus the Frankish kingdom had been raised by Charles to a position of world power of universal importance. Moreover this truly imperial power had arisen in the West at a time when the Eastern Empire had fallen into the greatest discredit. For it was just at this time that the ambitious Irene, who had conducted the government for some time as regent for her son and had then been deposed, had again usurped power in the most infamous manner.
By revolt against her own child, whom she caused to be blinded, this woman, in opposition to all the traditions of antiquity, gained the imperial title, which she covered with unspeakable shame. Who could blame the papacy if with a single blow it now severed forever the weak bond that still seemed to fetter it to Constantinople? To tell the truth, the bishop of Rome hardly had any choice left him; he was forced to turn his back upon Constantinople and recognise the Frankish king as his emperor and lord.
[795-800 A.D.]
The last years of Pope Adrian passed in peace, but his successor began amid storms. When Adrian died at the close of 795 he was succeeded by Leo III, who immediately sent Charles the keys of the sepulchre of St. Peter with the banner of Rome and requested him to send legates to Rome to receive the homage of the inhabitants of the city. The new pope made submission to the Frank for himself and Rome from the beginning. He conceived the rights of the patriciate as having the same extent as though Charles were already emperor; he sought a protector and only too soon needed the help of one. In the spring of 799 fierce party struggles broke out among the Roman nobility; the pope, attacked and maltreated by his enemies, fled from the city and hurried with an appeal for help to Paderborn before the throne of King Charles. Frankish nobles conducted him back to Rome in the autumn and procured him temporary security from his opponents; but without Charles he was even yet in danger. And already the king himself was hastening to Rome; the establishment of the Western Empire was decided.
When Charles, at the Christmas celebration of the year 800, entered the church of St. Peter in the robe of the Roman patricius, the pope placed a golden crown upon his head. The church resounded with the shout of the crowd, “God bless and save Carolus Augustus, crowned of God, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!” The pope fell at the feet of the Germanic warrior and paid homage to him in the same manner as the bishops of Rome had formerly paid homage to the Roman emperor at Constantinople.