A Source Book of Mediaeval History Part 12

[115] The date is almost certainly wrong. Pepin was first acknowledged king by the Frankish n.o.bles a.s.sembled at Soissons in November, 751. It was probably in 751 (possibly 752) that Pope Zacharias was consulted.

In 754 Pepin was crowned king by Pope Stephen III., successor of Zacharias, who journeyed to France especially for the purpose.

[116] Zacharias was pope from 741 to 752.

[117] Einhard, the secretary of Charlemagne [see p. 108], in writing a biography of his master, described the condition of Merovingian kingship as follows: "All the resources and power of the kingdom had pa.s.sed into the control of the prefects of the palace, who were called the 'mayors of the palace,' and who exercised the supreme authority.

Nothing was left to the king. He had to content himself with his royal t.i.tle, his flowing locks, and long beard. Seated in a chair of state, he was wont to display an appearance of power by receiving foreign amba.s.sadors on their arrival, and, on their departure, giving them, as if on his own authority, those answers which he had been taught or commanded to give. Thus, except for his empty t.i.tle, and an uncertain allowance for his sustenance, which the prefect of the palace used to furnish at his pleasure, there was nothing that the king could call his own, unless it were the income from a single farm, and that a very small one, where he made his home, and where such servants as were needful to wait on him const.i.tuted his scanty household. When he went anywhere he traveled in a wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen, with a rustic oxherd for charioteer. In this manner he proceeded to the palace, and to the public a.s.semblies of the people held every year for the dispatch of the business of the kingdom, and he returned home again in the same sort of state. The administration of the kingdom, and every matter which had to be undertaken and carried through, both at home and abroad, was managed by the mayor of the palace."--Einhard, _Vita Caroli Magni_, Chap. 1.

[118] See p. 52, note 1.

CHAPTER IX.

THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE

15. Charlemagne the Man

Biographical writings make up a not inconsiderable part of mediaeval literature, but unfortunately the greater portion of them are to be trusted in only a limited degree by the student of history. Many biographies, especially the lives of the saints and other noted Christian leaders, were prepared expressly for the purpose of giving the world concrete examples of how men ought to live. Their authors, therefore, were apt to relate only the good deeds of the persons about whom they wrote, and these were often much exaggerated for the sake of effect. The people of the time generally were superst.i.tious and easily appealed to by strange stories and the recital of marvelous events.

They were not critical, and even such of them as were able to read at all could be made to believe almost anything that the writers of books cared to say. And since these writers themselves shared in the superst.i.tion and credulousness of the age, naturally such biographies as were written abounded in tales which anybody to-day would know at a glance could not be true. To all this Einhard's _Life of Charles the Great_ stands as a notable exception. It has its inaccuracies, but it still deserves to be ranked almost in a cla.s.s of its own as a trustworthy biographical contribution to our knowledge of the earlier Middle Ages.

Einhard (or Eginhard) was a Frank, born about 770 near the Odenwald in Franconia. After being educated at the monastery of Fulda he was presented at the Frankish court, some time between 791 and 796, where he remained twenty years as secretary and companion of the king, and later emperor, Charlemagne. He was made what practically corresponds to a modern minister of public works and in that capacity is thought to have supervised the building of the palace and basilica of the temple at Aachen, the palace of Ingelheim, the bridge over the Rhine at Mainz, and many other notable constructions of the king, though regarding the precise work of this sort which he did there is a general lack of definite proof. Despite the fact that he was a layman, he was given charge of a number of abbeys. His last years were spent at the Benedictine monastery of Seligenstadt, where he died about 840.

There is a legend that Einhard's wife, Emma, was a daughter of Charlemagne, but this is to be regarded as merely a twelfth-century invention.

The _Vita Caroli Magni_ was written as an expression of the author's grat.i.tude to his royal friend and patron, though it did not appear until shortly after the latter's death in 814. "It contains the history of a very great and distinguished man," says Einhard in his preface, "but there is nothing in it to wonder at, besides his deeds, except the fact that I, who am a barbarian, and very little versed in the Roman language, seem to suppose myself capable of writing gracefully and respectably in Latin." It is considered ordinarily that Einhard endeavored to imitate the style of the Roman Suetonius, the biographer of the first twelve Caesars, though in reality his writing is perhaps superior to that of Suetonius and there are scholars who hold that if he really followed a cla.s.sical model at all that model was Julius Caesar. Aside from the matter of literary style, there can be no reasonable doubt that the idea of writing a biography of his master was suggested to Einhard by the biographies of Suetonius, particularly that of the Emperor Augustus. Despite his limitations, says Mr. Hodgkin, the fact remains that "almost all our real, vivifying knowledge of Charles the Great is derived from Einhard, and that the _Vita Caroli_ is one of the most precious literary bequests of the early Middle Ages."[119] Certainly few mediaeval writers had so good an opportunity as did Einhard to know the truth about the persons and events they undertook to describe.

Source--Einhard, _Vita Caroli Magni_ ["Life of Charles the Great"], Chaps. 22-27. Text in _Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores_ (Pertz ed.), Vol. II., pp. 455-457. Adapted from translation by Samuel Epes Turner in "Harper's School Cla.s.sics" (New York, 1880), pp. 56-65.

[Sidenote: Personal appearance]

=22.= Charles was large and strong, and of lofty stature, though not excessively tall. The upper part of his head was round, his eyes very large and animated, nose a little long, hair auburn, and face laughing and merry. His appearance was always stately and dignified, whether he was standing or sitting, although his neck was thick and somewhat short and his abdomen rather prominent. The symmetry of the rest of his body concealed these defects. His gait was firm, his whole carriage manly, and his voice clear, but not so strong as his size led one to expect. His health was excellent, except during the four years preceding his death, when he was subject to frequent fevers; toward the end of his life he limped a little with one foot. Even in his later years he lived rather according to his own inclinations than the advice of physicians; the latter indeed he very much disliked, because they wanted him to give up roasts, to which he was accustomed, and to eat boiled meat instead. In accordance with the national custom, he took frequent exercise on horseback and in the chase, in which sports scarcely any people in the world can equal the Franks. He enjoyed the vapors from natural warm springs, and often indulged in swimming, in which he was so skilful that none could surpa.s.s him; and hence it was that he built his palace at Aix-la-Chapelle, and lived there constantly during his later years....[120]

[Sidenote: Manner of dress]

=23.= His custom was to wear the national, that is to say, the Frankish, dress--next his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet. In winter he protected his shoulders and chest by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins. Over all he flung a blue cloak, and he always had a sword girt about him, usually one with a gold or silver hilt and belt. He sometimes carried a jeweled sword, but only on great feast-days or at the reception of amba.s.sadors from foreign nations.

He despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed himself to be robed in them, except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys,[121] and shoes; the first time at the request of Pope Hadrian,[122] the second to gratify Leo, Hadrian's successor.[123] On great feast-days he made use of embroidered clothes, and shoes adorned with precious stones; his cloak was fastened with a golden buckle, and he appeared crowned with a diadem of gold and gems; but on other days his dress differed little from that of ordinary people.

[Sidenote: Every-day life]

=24.= Charles was temperate in eating, and especially so in drinking, for he abhorred drunkenness in anybody, much more in himself and those of his household; but he could not easily abstain from food, and often complained that fasts injured his health. He gave entertainments but rarely, only on great feast-days, and then to large numbers of people. His meals consisted ordinarily of four courses, not counting the roast, which his huntsmen were accustomed to bring in on the spit; he was more fond of this than of any other dish. While at table, he listened to reading or music. The subjects of the readings were the stories and deeds of olden time. He was fond, too, of St. Augustine's books, and especially of the one ent.i.tled _The City of G.o.d_.[124] He was so moderate in the use of wine and all sorts of drink that he rarely allowed himself more than three cups in the course of a meal. In summer, after the midday meal, he would eat some fruit, drain a single cup, put off his clothes and shoes, just as he did for the night, and rest for two or three hours. While he was dressing and putting on his shoes, he not only gave audience to his friends, but if the Count of the Palace[125] told him of any suit in which his judgment was necessary, he had the parties brought before him forthwith, heard the case, and gave his decision, just as if he were sitting in the judgment-seat. This was not the only business that he transacted at this time, but he performed any duty of the day whatever, whether he had to attend to the matter himself, or to give commands concerning it to his officers.

[Sidenote: Education and accomplishments]

=25.= Charles had the gift of ready and fluent speech, and could express whatever he had to say with the utmost clearness. He was not satisfied with ability to use his native language merely, but gave attention to the study of foreign ones, and in particular was such a master of Latin that he could speak it as well as his native tongue; but he could understand Greek better than he could speak it. He was so eloquent, indeed, that he might have been taken for a teacher of oratory. He most zealously cherished the liberal arts, held those who taught them in great esteem, and conferred great honors upon them. He took lessons in grammar of the deacon Peter of Pisa, at that time an aged man.[126] Another deacon, Albin of Britain, surnamed Alcuin, a man of Saxon birth, who was the greatest scholar of the day, was his teacher in other branches of learning.[127] The king spent much time and labor with him studying rhetoric, dialectic, and especially astronomy. He learned to make calculations, and used to investigate with much curiosity and intelligence the motions of the heavenly bodies. He also tried to write, and used to keep tablets and blanks in bed under his pillow, that at leisure hours he might accustom his hand to form the letters; however, as he began his efforts late in life, and not at the proper time, they met with little success.

[Sidenote: Interest in religion and the Church]

=26.= He cherished with the greatest fervor and devotion the principles of the Christian religion, which had been instilled into him from infancy. Hence it was that he built the beautiful basilica at Aix-la-Chapelle, which he adorned with gold and silver and lamps, and with rails and doors of solid bra.s.s. He had the columns and marbles for this structure brought from Rome and Ravenna, for he could not find such as were suitable elsewhere.[128] He was a constant worshipper at this church as long as his health permitted, going morning and evening, even after nightfall, besides attending ma.s.s. He took care that all the services there conducted should be held in the best possible manner, very often warning the s.e.xtons not to let any improper or unclean thing be brought into the building, or remain in it. He provided it with a number of sacred vessels of gold and silver, and with such a quant.i.ty of clerical robes that not even the door-keepers, who filled the humblest office in the church, were obliged to wear their everyday clothes when in the performance of their duties. He took great pains to improve the church reading and singing, for he was well skilled in both, although he neither read in public nor sang, except in a low tone and with others.

[Sidenote: Generosity and charities]

=27.= He was very active in aiding the poor, and in that open generosity which the Greeks call alms; so much so, indeed, that he not only made a point of giving in his own country and his own kingdom, but when he discovered that there were Christians living in poverty in Syria, Egypt, and Africa, at Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Carthage, he had compa.s.sion on their wants, and used to send money over the seas to them. The reason that he earnestly strove to make friends with the kings beyond seas was that he might get help and relief to the Christians living under their rule. He cared for the Church Of St. Peter the Apostle at Rome above all other holy and sacred places, and heaped high its treasury with a vast wealth of gold, silver, and precious stones. He sent great and countless gifts to the popes;[129] and throughout his whole reign the wish that he had nearest his heart was to re-establish the ancient authority of the city of Rome under his care and by his influence, and to defend and protect the Church of St. Peter, and to beautify and enrich it out of his own store above all other churches.

Nevertheless, although he held it in such veneration, only four times[130] did he repair to Rome to pay his vows and make his supplications during the whole forty-seven years that he reigned.[131]

16. The War with the Saxons (772-803)

When Charlemagne became sole ruler of the Franks, in 771, he found his kingdom pretty well hemmed in by a belt of kindred, though more or less hostile, Germanic peoples. The most important of these were the Visigoths in northern Spain, the Lombards in the Po Valley, the Bavarians in the region of the upper Danube, and the Saxons between the Rhine and the Elbe. The policy of the new king, perhaps only dimly outlined at the beginning of the reign but growing ever more definite as time went on, was to bring all of these neighboring peoples under the Frankish dominion, and so to build up a great state which should include the whole Germanic race of western and northern continental Europe. Most of the king's time during the first thirty years, or two-thirds, of the reign was devoted to this stupendous task. The first great step was taken in the conquest of the Lombards in 774, after which Charlemagne a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of King of the Lombards. In 787 Bavaria was annexed to the Frankish kingdom, the settlement in this case being in the nature of a complete absorption rather than a mere personal union such as followed the Lombard conquest. The next year an expedition across the Pyrenees resulted in the annexation of the Spanish March--a region in which the Visigoths had managed to maintain some degree of independence against the Saracens. In all these directions little fighting was necessary and for one reason or another the sovereignty of the Frankish king was recognized without much delay or resistance.

The problem of reducing the Saxons was, however, a very different one.

The Saxons of Charlemagne's day were a people of purest Germanic stock dwelling in the land along the Rhine, Ems, Weser, and Elbe, and inland as far as the low mountains of Hesse and Thuringia--the regions which now bear the names of Hanover, Brunswick, Oldenburg, and Westphalia.

The Saxons, influenced as yet scarcely at all by contact with the Romans, retained substantially the manner of life described seven centuries earlier by Tacitus in the _Germania_. They lived in small villages, had only the loosest sort of government, and clung tenaciously to the warlike mythology of their ancestors. Before Charlemagne's time they had engaged in frequent border wars with the Franks and had shown capacity for making very obstinate resistance.

And when Charlemagne himself undertook to subdue them he entered upon a task which kept him busy much of the time for over thirty years, that is, from 772 to 803. In all not fewer than eighteen distinct campaigns were made into the enemy's territory. The ordinary course of events was that Charlemagne would lead his army across the Rhine in the spring, the Saxons would make some little resistance and then disperse or withdraw toward the Baltic, and the Franks would leave a garrison and return home for the winter. As soon as the enemy's back was turned the Saxons would rally, expel or ma.s.sacre the garrison, and a.s.sert their complete independence of Frankish authority. The next year the whole thing would have to be done over again. There were not more than two great battles in the entire contest; the war consisted rather of a monotonous series of "military parades," apparent submissions, revolts, and re-submissions. As Professor Emerton puts it, "From the year 772 to 803, a period of over thirty years, this war was always on the programme of the Frankish policy, now resting for a few years, and now breaking out with increased fury, until finally the Saxon people, worn out with the long struggle against a superior foe, gave it up and became a part of the Frankish Empire."[132]

It is to be regretted that we have no Saxon account of the great contest except the well-meant, but very inadequate, history by Widukind, a monk of Corbie, written about the middle of the tenth century. However, the following pa.s.sage from Einhard, the secretary and biographer of Charlemagne, doubtless describes with fair accuracy the conditions and character of the struggle. A few of the writer's strongest statements regarding Saxon perfidy should be accepted only with some allowance for Frankish prejudice.

Source--Einhard, _Vita Caroli Magni_, Chap. 7. Text in _Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores_ (Pertz ed.), Vol.

II., pp. 446-447. Adapted from translation by Samuel Epes Turner in "Harper's School Cla.s.sics" (New York, 1880), pp.

26-28.

[Sidenote: Lack of a natural frontier]

No war ever undertaken by the Frankish nation was carried on with such persistence and bitterness, or cost so much labor, because the Saxons, like almost all the tribes of Germany, were a fierce people, given to the worship of devils and hostile to our religion, and did not consider it dishonorable to transgress and violate all law, human and divine. Then there were peculiar circ.u.mstances that tended to cause a breach of peace every day. Except in a few places, where large forests or mountain-ridges intervened and made the boundaries certain, the line between ourselves and the Saxons pa.s.sed almost in its whole extent through an open country, so that there was no end to the murders, thefts, and arsons on both sides.

In this way the Franks became so embittered that they at last resolved to make reprisals no longer, but to come to open war with the Saxons.

[Sidenote: Faithlessness of the Saxons]

[Sidenote: Charlemagne's settlement of Saxons in Gaul and Germany]

[Sidenote: The terms of peace]

Accordingly, war was begun against them, and was waged for thirty-three successive years[133] with great fury; more, however, to the disadvantage of the Saxons than of the Franks. It could doubtless have been brought to an end sooner, had it not been for the faithlessness of the Saxons. It is hard to say how often they were conquered, and, humbly submitting to the king, promised to do what was enjoined upon them, gave without hesitation the required hostages, and received the officers sent them from the king. They were sometimes so much weakened and reduced that they promised to renounce the worship of devils and to adopt Christianity; but they were no less ready to violate these terms than prompt to accept them, so that it is impossible to tell which came easier to them to do; scarcely a year pa.s.sed from the beginning of the war without such changes on their part. But the king did not suffer his high purpose and steadfastness--firm alike in good and evil fortune--to be wearied by any fickleness on their part, or to be turned from the task that he had undertaken; on the contrary, he never allowed their faithless behavior to go unpunished, but either took the field against them in person, or sent his counts with an army to wreak vengeance and exact righteous satisfaction.[134] At last, after conquering and subduing all who had offered resistance, he took ten thousand of those who lived on the banks of the Elbe, and settled them, with their wives and children, in many different bodies here and there in Gaul and Germany. The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the terms offered by the king; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian religion,[135] and union with the Franks to form one people.

17. The Capitulary Concerning the Saxon Territory (cir. 780)

Just as the Saxons were the most formidable of Charlemagne's foes to meet and defeat in open battle, so were they the most difficult to maintain in anything like orderly allegiance after they had been tentatively conquered. This was true in part because of their untamed, freedom-loving character, but also in no small measure because of the thoroughgoing revolution which the Frankish king sought to work in their conditions of life, and especially in their religion. Before the Saxon war was far advanced it had very clearly a.s.sumed the character of a crusade of the Christian Franks against the "pagans of the north." And when the Saxon had been brought to give sullen promise of submission, it was his dearest possession--his fierce, heroic mythology--that was first to be swept away. By the stern decree of the conqueror Woden and Thor and Freya must go. In their stead was to be set up the Christian religion with its churches, its priests, its fastings, its ceremonial observances. Death was to be the penalty for eating meat during Lent, if done "out of contempt for Christianity,"

and death also for "causing the body of a dead man to be burned in accordance with pagan rites." Even for merely scorning "to come to baptism," or "wishing to remain a pagan," a man was to forfeit his life. The selections which follow are taken from the capitulary _De Partibus Saxoniae_, which was issued by Charlemagne probably at the Frankish a.s.sembly held at Paderborn in 780. If this date is correct (and it cannot be far wrong) the regulations embodied in the capitulary were established for the Saxon territories when there perhaps seemed to be a good prospect of peace but when, as later events showed, there yet remained twenty-three years of war before the final subjugation. From the beginning of the struggle the Church had been busy setting up new centers of influence--some abbeys and especially the great bishoprics of Bremen, Minden, Paderborn, Verden, Osnabruck, and Halberstadt--among the Saxon pagans, and the primary object of Charlemagne in this capitulary was to give to these ecclesiastical foundations the task of civilizing the country and to protect them, together with his counts or governing agents, while they should be engaged in this work. The severity of the Saxon war was responsible for the unusually stringent character of this body of regulations. In 797, at a great a.s.sembly at Aix-la-Chapelle, another capitulary for the Saxons was issued, known as the _Capitulum Saxonic.u.m_, and in this the harsh features of the earlier capitulary were considerably relaxed. By 797 the resistance of the Saxons was pretty well broken, and it had become Charlemagne's policy to give his conquered subjects a government as nearly as possible like that the Franks themselves enjoyed. The chief importance of Charlemagne's conquests toward the east lies in the fact that by them broad stretches of German territory were brought for the first time within the pale of civilization.

These capitularies, like the hundreds of others that were issued by the various kings of the Franks, were edicts or decrees drawn up under the king's direction, discussed and adopted in the a.s.sembly of the people, and published in the local districts of the kingdom by the counts and bishops. They were of a less permanent and fixed character than the so-called "leges," or laws established by long usage and custom.

Source--Text in _Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Leges_ (Boretius ed.), Vol. I., No. 26, pp. 68-70. Translated by Dana C. Munro in _University of Pennsylvania Translations and Reprints_, Vol. VI., No. 5, pp. 2-5.

First, concerning the greater chapters it has been enacted:[136]

It is pleasing to all that the churches of Christ, which are now being built in Saxony and consecrated to G.o.d, should not have less, but greater and more ill.u.s.trious honor than the shrines of the idols have had.