CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS KINGDOM

Charles, the prince who when a boy of twelve had been sent to receive the Pope, became king at the death of Pepin, and a real king he was. He accomplished so much in his reign that he is known in history as “Charles the Great,” or “Charlemagne.” There was no hint of the Do-Nothings about this ruler. He was one of the most energetic men who ever lived; and if ever a king needed energy, he did.

Of course, like all other rulers of the time, he had to do a great deal of fighting. During thirty of the forty-six years of his reign he was continually sending expeditions against the Saxons, who lived at the north, just across the Rhine. Both Franks and Saxons were of the Teutonic race, but each despised the other. “You Franks have given up the free life of the forest and have built yourselves cities,” said the Saxons scornfully; “you have taken one Christ for your God, and have given up Thor who wields the thunderbolts.” And the Franks retorted, “You Saxons are only savages and heathen.” “Cæsar with all the power of Rome could not conquer us,” declared the Saxons proudly, “and in the depths of our wilderness there stands a pillar in memory of the day when the legions of the Roman Varus were cut down like grass.”

Such were the people whom Charlemagne meant to overcome, for, large as his kingdom was, he aimed at making it still larger. He fought his way into the forest until he came to the place that every Saxon held sacred, for here stood the column in honor of the Roman defeat. There was also a fortress. Charlemagne took the fortress and broke up the column, and also the altar on which the Saxons used to sacrifice human beings to the god Thor. He even cut down the sacred oak trees that grew around the altar; and now at last the Saxons owned defeat and agreed to pay him tribute.

Charlemagne was, according to the ideas of his day, an earnest missionary. Wherever he went, he built not only strong castles, but also churches, and he sent preachers as well as soldiers. In spite of their promises, the Saxons promptly killed the preachers and burned the churches. Then followed the stern vengeance of the Frankish king. He came down upon the Saxons, took thousands of them prisoners, and put them to death. He carried away thousands of others and scattered them over his kingdom. At last the Saxons had to yield, and their chief agreed to enter a convent. Then Charlemagne began his missionary work in earnest. “Will you be baptized or put to death?” he would ask. It is no wonder that the numbers of his converts increased rapidly. At length it occurred to him that he might accomplish still more by bribery. “Whoever comes of his own will to baptism shall receive a fine white tunic,” he declared; and now they came--not once, but many times!

Aquitania revolted, but Charlemagne subdued the revolt, and at the same time skillfully overcame the strongest objections of the Aquitanians to his rule, for he gave them his baby son for a king. The little sovereign was carried part way in a cradle; but his escort thought that he ought to enter his kingdom in a more dignified fashion, so they dressed him in a little suit of armor and gave him a tiny sword. Then they put him on a horse and carefully held him there, and he entered in all the glory of a warrior bold.

Five years before the Aquitanian war came to an end, the Pope again appealed for help against the troublesome Lombards. Charlemagne crossed the Alps, and now the Lombard king was put into a monastery, and his son fled to Constantinople. Charlemagne had hardly reached home before the Pope sent a second appeal: The Lombards were revolting, would he come again? He came, he subdued them, and he made a second young prince, a boy of four years, King of Italy.

The next appeal to Charlemagne came from the Mohammedans, or Moors, in northern Spain. “We can no longer submit to the Caliph of Cordova,” they declared. “If you will come and help us against him, we will become your faithful subjects.” Of course Charlemagne could not say no to such a tempting invitation, and he marched with an army straight across the Pyrenees and into Spain. He took a few cities, and then he marched home again, just why is not known. The rear guard and the baggage were in charge of Roland, nephew of the king and “Lord of the Breton March,” that is, governor of the borderland of Francia, next to Brittany. In going through the narrow pass of Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees, he was set upon by the enemy and not a man survived. Because of this expedition, Charlemagne claimed that portion of Spain lying south of the Pyrenees as a part of his kingdom, but he never ceased to mourn for his valiant nephew and follower.

Charlemagne’s vast kingdom was made up of many different peoples, and each had its own kind of government. Some had written laws, some had only customs that had been handed down, and some had hardly anything that could be called government. It was not an easy thing to bring under the same laws all these peoples with their different ways of living and thinking, but this was what Charlemagne aimed at doing. Twice every year he called together the chief men of the kingdom. The more important of these two meetings was held in May, and was called the “Field of May.”

In good weather the people who came to the Field of May assembled out of doors. There must have been great crowds, and the king moved about among his subjects with a friendly word for each. Leading men from the different parts of the country were asked to inform him of the condition of the people near their homes, whether they were contented or restless, whether there was any disorder, and if so, what its cause might be. Those who were to consider any new laws that he might propose withdrew by themselves to discuss matters. If they wished to ask any questions, they sent a messenger to the king; or, if they preferred, he would come to them and talk things over in most familiar fashion. When these men had come to an agreement, they reported it to the king, and he made the final decision.

To make sure that these laws were carried out, Charlemagne gave each district into the charge of some officer, or “count”; and to find out whether these officers did their duty, he sent out superior officers, whom people called the “Emperor’s Eyes.” They traveled from one district to another, looking everywhere to ascertain not only whether the laws were obeyed, but whether the people were treated fairly. If any count was unjust, they quietly settled themselves in his house to keep watch of him. He had to pay for their support, and in order to get rid of them, he usually reformed very promptly.

Charlemagne had a vast respect for learned men. It is said that two strangers once came to his court, saying that they had brought wisdom to sell. “What is your price?” asked the king. “Food and clothes, a room for a school, and pupils willing to learn,” they replied. Charlemagne was soon obliged to leave for war, but before he went he gave into the charge of the learned men some boys of poor parents and some who were sons of nobles. When he came home, he commanded the boys to show him what they had learned. The poor boys had done well, but the young noblemen had trusted that the wealth and rank of their fathers would give them success in life, and they had done very little. The king praised the poor boys. “Keep on as you have begun,” he said, “and you shall ever be honored in my eyes.” Then he turned upon the rich boys and thundered: “You have idled and gambled and trusted in your wealth, and you have disobeyed my orders. Understand that if you do not make up for this by hard work, you will never get anything from Charles.”

A really great man is always glad to gather great men around him, and this Charlemagne was always eager to do. Nearly all the famous scholars of the time were induced by him to come to his court. Some of them he sent to Italy and Aquitania to advise his sons in their government. Some he sent out as commissioners to other parts of his kingdom. Some he kept at his own palace. They taught his children, and they also held a school for the grown folk, a sort of conference where many subjects were discussed. It was much the fashion to choose for one’s self and use among one’s friends some name from history or literature, and in this palace school each one had a special name. The king called himself David; his sister Gisela became Lucia, his daughter Gisela was Delia. One of his courtiers took the name of Nathanael; another that of Homer. In science it was not the custom to study nature, but to accept any fancy that occurred to the teacher. When Alcuin taught arithmetic, for instance, he declared that the numbers 3 and 6 contained “the keys of nature”--whatever that may mean. When the planet Mars disappeared from the sky, Charlemagne asked Alcuin why this occurred; and Alcuin replied that the sun had delayed the planet. He asked why a comet had appeared, and was told that it was the soul of a man who had recently died. Alcuin often had rather a hard time, for Charlemagne was not only eager to learn, but he had an excellent memory; and when the teacher explained some marvel of nature by one fancy, and a little later by another fancy, the king was quite likely to ask how the two statements could both be true. Long after poor Alcuin had left court and retired to an abbey at Tours, he spoke of some of his mistakes and said that they ought to be overlooked. “The horse,” he said, “which has four legs often stumbles; how much more must man, who has but one tongue, often trip in speech.” Alcuin wrote Latin poetry, and the following is a translation of one of his poems:

“_Spring._ I am fain for the cuckoo’s coming, the bird that I love the best; And there’s not a roof where the cuckoo deigns to pause in his flight and rest, And pipe glad songs from his ruddy beak, but will call him a welcome guest.

“_Winter._ Delay me the coming of cuckoo! The father of toils is he; And battles he brings, and all men in the world, however weary they be, Must rouse them from rest at his trumpet to brave land-farings and perils at sea.

“_Spring._ The note of the cuckoo brings flowers and gladdens with honey the bee, Sends the landsman to build up his homestead, the ship to the unruffled sea, And the nestlings are hatched by his music, and the meadow glows green and the tree.”

Next to Alcuin, Charlemagne was the most learned man in the kingdom. He spoke Latin readily and understood Greek. He studied grammar and rhetoric; he was interested in art and music and especially in astronomy. Penmanship he found difficult, for his hand was more used to holding a sword than a stylus, the pointed instrument used in writing on waxen tablets. He kept such tablets and a stylus under his pillow so he could practice when wakeful; but he never learned to write a good hand.

When the year 800 had come, Charlemagne was at Rome hearing mass, which was celebrated by the Pope himself. Whether Charlemagne knew what was coming or not, no one can say, but suddenly the Pope turned to where the king knelt before the altar, placed a crown upon his head, and anointed him with the holy oil. The crowd, probably instructed beforehand, cried, in the ancient form of words used in accepting an emperor, “To Charles Augustus, crowned of God, great and peaceful Emperor of the Romans, life and victory!” The Roman Empire, once so powerful, had been divided long before this, and the western part had not had an emperor for more than three hundred years. In crowning Charlemagne, then, the Pope was reviving the old title, and declaring him to be “Emperor of the Romans,” and at the head of what came to be called the “Holy Roman Empire,” though, as has been often said, it was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”

Charlemagne died in 814. Several years before his death, he made his will with the utmost care, dividing his property among his children, the poor, his servants, and the Church. He called the chief men of the empire together and “invited” them to make his son Louis emperor. They agreed willingly. Immediately after this, father and son met them in the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. Charlemagne, in his kingly robes and with his crown on his head, first knelt in prayer, then, standing facing his son, he addressed him on the duties of a sovereign to the Church and the people. “Are you fully resolved to fulfill these duties?” he asked solemnly. “I am,” replied Louis. The king had laid a second crown up upon the altar, and he said, “Take the crown from the altar and place it upon your head.” Louis did this, and all the people shouted, “Long live the Emperor Louis!” Charlemagne then formally declared that his son would rule together with him, and with the prayer, “Blessed be Thou, O Lord God, who hast granted me grace to see with mine own eyes my son seated on my throne!” the ceremony came to an end.

Charlemagne gave strict commands about the manner of his burial. In obedience to these, his body was placed in a little stone chapel. He was seated in a chair or throne, a gold chain about his neck and a scepter in his right hand. A Bible lay open on his knees, and a sword hung at his side. In one of the laments on his death there was written, “Many are the afflictions that Frankland has known, but never knew she such a sorrow as when at Aachen she laid in the earth the august and eloquent Charles.”