More stubborn and dangerous were the wars against the Arabs in the southwest of the empire. The earlier conquests of Charles had been lost again, and in 793 the Arabs had even crossed the Pyrenees and attacked the Frankish dominions. But in 797 a Frankish army, under the command of Louis, again succeeded in penetrating far into Spain, and four years later Barcelona fell. The foundation was laid for the Spanish mark and its extent was gradually increased by a series of successful campaigns. At the same time the small Christian states that had been formed in the northern mountains of the land arose to manful defence against the infidels. The kingdom of Asturia now for the first time gained an assurance of permanency under the brave king Alfonso II. Oviedo was built as a royal city and Compostela arose over the grave of the holy apostle James whose bones had just been miraculously discovered there. The veneration of St. Iago di Compostela and the courage of the chivalrous Alfonso then inflamed the Spanish Christians to further successful undertakings. The deeds of Charles gave the first inspiration for their victories, and Alfonso, who called himself a servant of the emperor, laid his choicest booty at Charles’ feet. At the same time the Basques, Pamplona, and all Navarre cut loose from the alliance with the Arabs by making temporary submission to the Franks; and along the Balearic Isles, and on the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia, Frankish fleets were already fighting Arab pirates with some degree of success.
Unquestionably the Frankish arms had proved themselves far superior to the once feared prowess of the Arabs. But the empire was now attacked by new enemies who stormed upon the northern marks with fearful might and wild violence, seeming to gain an access of renewed strength in the heat of battle. These enemies were the Danes. In earlier times they had appeared as friendly and closely related brothers of the German peoples; but Christianity and the compact union of the Frankish kingdom formed a strong dividing wall between the German and the Scandinavian peoples and turned the blood and racial friendship into the bitterest enmity. Unquenchable love of freedom, daring, and heroic courage, inexhaustible natural vigour, wild lust of booty—all that had once made the Germans so fatal to the Roman Empire was turned now with these sons of the northland against the Roman-German sovereignty of Charles and threatened it with all the greater danger since the Danes were skilled in naval as well as land warfare; while the Franks, who had for a long period fought only on land, must first learn to do battle on the unstable element of the waves. With the help of the seafaring Frisians Charles fitted out his first fleets, and as Frankish seamen were already fighting in the Mediterranean to protect the shores of Italy and Gaul from the Arabs, so too Frankish ships were soon seeking to defend the coasts of the North Sea from the attacks of the Norse enemies; but the Franks never became thoroughly familiar with naval warfare.
The wide empire was now protected against the neighbouring lands and peoples by a complete circle of strongly fortified and well defended marks, similar to dykes for the protection of a carefully tilled plain against the rush of wild floods. The Frankish vassals settled everywhere here for the defence of the boundaries formed a standing military force, always on guard against the near enemy and therefore also relieved from all service in other parts of the empire. These vassals, called Markmannen, were thus a sort of military colony on conquered ground, and were under their own counts who were clothed with extensive plenary powers and were chosen by the emperor from the bravest warriors among his nobles. These counts were called Markgrafen [hence our word marquis].
[814 A.D.]
When Charlemagne felt his end approaching he placed his youngest son Louis, his sole heir after the early death of Charles and Pepin, on the throne beside him and with his own hands set the imperial crown upon his head at Aachen [Aix-la-Chapelle]. Four months later the world mourned the death of the great emperor. On the 28th of January, 814, Charles died in his palace at Aachen, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-sixth of his reign.[c]
THE LEGENDARY CHARLEMAGNE
Scarcely had the great emperor passed away when the sober truth of his achievements took on the tones of the miraculous, and the historic Charles, too great to comprehend as he really was, became the centre for all that wealth of legend which grew into the epic poetry of France. In the year 883 a garrulous old monk in the monastery of St. Gaul on the upper Rhine recorded his version of the invasion of Lombardy, and through his words, which the theme renders eloquent, one can see for the first time the picture of the Charlemagne of the Middle Ages.[a]
The Monk of St. Gall’s Story
With Desiderius (in Pavia) was Otker, one of Karl’s great nobles, who had fled the wrath of the dread king some years before and had found refuge with Desiderius. Now on the approach of the terrible Karl, they climbed into a high tower from which they could see in all directions.