With England the emperor had already entered into relations, and at one time a marriage was proposed between his son Charles and a daughter of Offa, king of the Mercians. English exiles were welcomed at his court; he was mainly instrumental in restoring Eardwulf to the throne of Northumbria in 809; and Einhard includes the Scots within the sphere of his influence. In eastern Europe the Avars had owned themselves completely under his power in 805; campaigns against the Czechs in 805 and 806 had met with some success, and about the same time the land of the Sorbs was ravaged; while at the western extremity of the continent the Breton nobles had done homage to Charles at Tours in 800. Thus the emperor’s dominions now stretched from the Eider to the Ebro, and from the Atlantic to the Elbe, the Saale and the Raab, and they also included the greater part of Italy; while even beyond these bounds he exercised an acknowledged but shadowy authority. In 806 Charles arranged a division of his territories among his three legitimate sons, but this arrangement came to nothing owing to the death of Pippin in 810, and of the younger Charles in the following year. Charles then named his remaining son Louis as his successor; and at his father’s command Louis took the crown from the altar and placed it upon his own head. This ceremony took place at Aix on the 11th of September 813. In 808 the Frankish authority over the Obotrites was interfered with by Gudrod (Godfrey), king of the Danes, who ravaged the Frisian coasts and spoke boastfully of leading his troops to Aix. To ward off these attacks Charles took a warm interest in the building of a fleet, which he reviewed in 811; but by this time Gudrod had been killed, and his successor Hemming made peace with the emperor.

In 811 Charles made his will, which shows that he contemplated the possibility of abdication. The bulk of his possessions were left to the twenty-one metropolitan churches of his dominions, and the remainder to his children, his servants and the poor. In his last years he passed most of his days at Aix, though he had sufficient energy to take the field for a short time during the Danish War. Early in 814 he was attacked by a fever which he sought to subdue by fasting; but pleurisy supervened, and after partaking of the communion, he died on the 28th of January 814, and on the same day his body was buried in the church of St Mary at Aix. In the year 1000 his tomb was opened by the emperor Otto III., but the account that Otto found the body upright upon a throne with a golden crown on the head and holding a golden sceptre in the hands, is generally regarded as legendary. The tomb was again opened by the emperor Frederick I. in 1165, when the remains were removed from a marble sarcophagus and placed in a wooden coffin. Fifty years later they were transferred by order of the emperor Frederick II. to a splendid shrine, in which the relics are still exhibited once in every six years. The sarcophagus in which the body originally lay may still be seen at Aix, and other relics of the great emperor are in the imperial treasury at Vienna. In 1165 Charles was canonized by the antipope Paschal III. at the instance of the emperor Frederick I., and Louis XI. of France gave strict orders that the feast of the saint should be observed.

The personal appearance of Charles is thus described by Einhard:—“Big and robust in frame, he was tall, but not excessively so, measuring about seven of his own feet in height. His eyes were large and lustrous, his nose rather long and his countenance bright and cheerful.” He had a commanding presence, a clear but somewhat feeble voice, and in later life became rather corpulent. His health was uniformly good, owing perhaps to his moderation in eating and drinking, and to his love for hunting and swimming. He was an affectionate father, and loved to pass his time in the company of his children, to whose education he paid the closest attention. His sons were trained for war and the chase, and his daughters instructed in the spinning of wool and other feminine arts. His ideas of sexual morality were primitive. Many concubines are spoken of, he had several illegitimate children, and the morals of his daughters were very loose. He was a regular observer of religious rites, took great pains to secure decorum in the services of the church, and was generous in almsgiving both within his empire and without. He reformed the Frankish liturgy, and brought singers from Rome to improve the services of the church. He had considerable knowledge of theology, took a prominent part in the theological controversies of the time, and was responsible for the addition of the clause filioque to the Nicene Creed. The most attractive feature of his character, however, was his love of learning. In addition to his native tongue he could read Latin and understood Greek, but he was unable to write, and Einhard gives an account of his futile efforts to learn this art in later life. He loved the reading of histories and astronomy, and by questioning travellers gained some knowledge of distant parts of the earth. He attended lectures on grammar, and his favourite work was St Augustine’s De civitate Dei. He caused Frankish sagas to be collected, began a grammar of his native tongue, and spent some of his last hours in correcting a text of the Vulgate. He delighted in the society of scholars—Alcuin, Angilbert, Paul the Lombard, Peter of Pisa and others, and in this company the trappings of rank were laid aside and the emperor was known simply as David. Under his patronage Alcuin organized the school of the palace, where the royal children were taught in the company of others, and founded a school at Tours which became the model for many other establishments. Charles was unwearying in his efforts to improve the education of clergy and laity, and in 789 ordered that schools should be established in every diocese. The atmosphere of these schools was strictly ecclesiastical and the questions discussed by the scholars were often puerile, but the greatness of the educational work of Charles will not be doubted when one considers the rude condition of Frankish society half a century before. The main work of the Carolingian renaissance was to restore Latin to its position as a literary language, and to reintroduce a correct system of spelling and an improved handwriting. The manuscripts of the time are accurate and artistic, copies of valuable books were made and by careful collation the texts were purified.

Charles was not a great warrior. His victories were won rather by the power of organization, which he possessed in a marked degree, and he was eager to seize ideas and prompt in their execution. He erected a stone bridge with wooden piers across the Rhine at Mainz, and began a canal between the Altmühl and the Rednitz to connect the Rhine and the Danube, but this work was not finished. He built palaces at Aix (his favourite residence), Nijmwegen and Ingelheim, and erected the church of St Mary at Aix, modelled on that of St Vitalis at Ravenna and adorned with columns and mosaics brought from the same city. He loved the simple dress and manners of the Franks, and on two occasions only did he assume the more stately attire of a Roman noble. The administrative system of Charles in church and state was largely personal, and he brought to the work an untiring industry, and a marvellous grasp of detail. He admonished the pope, appointed the bishops, watched over the morals and work of the clergy, and took an active part in the deliberations of church synods; he founded bishoprics and monasteries, was lavish in his gifts to ecclesiastical foundations, and chose bishops and abbots for administrative work. As the real founder of the ecclesiastical state, he must be held mainly responsible for the evils which resulted from the policy of the church in exalting the ecclesiastical over the secular authority.

In secular affairs Charles abolished the office of duke, placed counts over districts smaller than the former duchies, and supervised their government by means of missi dominici, officials responsible to himself alone. Marches were formed on all the borders of the empire, and the exigencies of military service led to the growth of a system of land-tenure which contained the germ of feudalism. The assemblies of the people gradually changed their character under his rule. No longer did the nation come together to direct and govern, but the emperor summoned his people to assent to his acts. Taking a lively interest in commerce and agriculture, Charles issued various regulations for the organization of the one and the improvement of the other. He introduced a new system of weights and measures, which he ordered should be used throughout his kingdom, and took steps to reform the coinage. He was a voluminous lawgiver. Without abolishing the customary law of the German tribes, which is said to have been committed to writing by his orders, he added to it by means of capitularies, and thus introduced certain Christian principles and customs, and some degree of uniformity.

The extent and glamour of his empire exercised a potent spell on western Europe. The aim of the greatest of his successors was to restore it to its pristine position and influence, while many of the French rulers made its re-establishment the goal of their policy. Otto the Great to a considerable extent succeeded; Louis XIV. referred frequently to the empire of Charlemagne; and Napoleon regarded him as his prototype and predecessor. The empire of Charles, however, was not lasting. In spite of his own wonderful genius the seeds of weakness were sown in his lifetime. The church was too powerful, an incipient feudalism was present, and there was no real bond of union between the different races that acknowledged his authority. All the vigilance of the emperor could not restrain the dishonesty and the cupidity of his servants, and no sooner was the strong hand of their ruler removed than they began to acquire territorial power for themselves.

Authorities.—The chief authorities for the life and times of Charlemagne are Einhard’s Vita Karoli Magni, the Annales Laurissenses majores, the Annales Fuldenses, and other annals, which are published in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores, Band i. and ii., edited by G.H. Pertz (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892). For the capitularies see Capitularia regum Francorum, edited by A. Boretius in the Monumenta. Leges. Many of the songs of the period appear in the Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, edited by E. Dümmler (Berlin, 1881-1884). The Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum, tome iv., edited by Ph. Jaffé (Berlin, 1864-1873), contains some of the emperor’s correspondence, and Hincmar’s De ordine palatii, edited by M. Prou (Paris, 1884), is also valuable.

The best modern authorities are S. Abel and B. Simson, Jahrbücher des fränkischen Reiches unter Karl dem Grossen (Leipzig, 1883-1888); G. Richter and H. Kohl, Annalen des fränkischen Reichs im Zeitalter der Karolinger (Halle, 1885-1887); E. Mühlbacher, Deutsche Geschichte unter den Karolingern (Stuttgart, 1886); H. Brosien, Karl der Grosse (Leipzig and Prague, 1885); J.I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great (London, 1888); M. Lipp, Das fränkische Grenzsystem unter Karl dem Grossen (Breslau, 1892); J. von Döllinger, Das Kaiserthum Karls des Grossen und seiner Nachfolger (Munich, 1864); F. von Wyss, Karl der Grosse als Gesetzgeber (Zürich, 1869); Th. Sickel, Lehre von den Urkunden der ersten Karolinger (Vienna, 1867); E. Dümmler in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, Band xv.; Th. Lindner, Die Fabel von der Bestattung Karls des Grossen (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1893); J.A. Ketterer, Karl der Grosse und die Kirche (Munich and Leipzig, 1898); and J.B. Mullinger, The Schools of Charles the Great and the Restoration of Education in the 9th century (London, 1877).

The work of the monk of St Gall is found in the Monumenta, Band ii.; an edition of the Historia de vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi, edited by F. Castets, has been published (Paris, 1880), and an edition of the Kaiserchronik, edited by E. Schröder (Hanover, 1892). See also P. Clemen, Die Porträtdarstellung Karls des Grossen (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1896).

(A. W. H.*)