814. The reign of Charles the Great," or Charlemagne, from the A.D. 768- time of his father's death, extended to nearly half a century. His fame rests not only on his achievements as a warrior and as a conqueror, but on his legislation and administration both in civil and in ecclesiastical affairs; on his care for the advancement of learning, of commerce, of agriculture, of architecture, and the other arts of peace; on the versatility and capacity of a mind which embraced the smallest as well as the greatest details in the vast and various system of which he was the head. His wars, aggressive in their form, were essentially defensive; his purpose was, to consolidate the populations which had settled in the territories of the Western empire, and to secure them against the assaults of newer migrations. Carrying his arms against those from whom he had reason to apprehend an attack, he extended his dominions to the Eider and to the Ebro, over Brittany and Aquitaine, far towards the south of Italy, and eastward to the Theiss and the Save. The impression which he produced on the Greeks is shown by their proverb, "Have the Frank for thy friend, but not for thy neighbour." His influence and authority reached from Scotland to Persia; the great caliph Haroun al Raschid exchanged presents with him, and complimented him by sending him the keys of the holy sepulchre ; and, although the empire of Charlemagne was broken up after his death, the effect of its union remained in the connexion of western Christendom by one common bond. On looking for the emperor's defects, we must notice as an injustice altogether without excuse the seizure of his brother's dominions, to the exclusion of his nephews; we see that his policy was sometimes stern, even to cruelty; and in his personal conduct we cannot overlook an excessive dissoluteness, which continued even to his latest years, and of which the punishment was believed to have been revealed by visions after his death." But with this exception, his private character appears such as to increase our u 265, seqq. "I padri Bollandisti, ed 137 admiration for the great sovereign. He was in general mild, open, and generous; his family affections were warm, and his friendships were sincere and steady." с The wars of Charlemagne against the barbarians were not religious in their origin; but religion soon became involved in them. His conquests carried the Gospel in their train, and, mistaken as were some of the means at first employed for its propagation, the result was eventually good. Of his fifty-three campaigns, eighteen were against the Saxons of Germany. Between this people and the Franks wars had been waged from time to time for two hundred years. Sometimes the Franks penetrated to the Weser, and imposed a tribute which was irregularly paid; sometimes the Saxons pushed their incursions as far as the Rhine; and on the borders of the territories the more uncivilised of each nation carried on a constant system of pillage and petty annoyance against their neighbours. The Saxon tribes were divided into three great associations-the Westphalians, the Angarians, and the Ostphalians; they had no king, and were accustomed to choose a leader only in the case of a national war. Their valour is admitted even by the Frankish writers; the perfidy which is described as characteristic of them may, in some degree, be explained and palliated by the fact that they were without any central government which could make engagements binding on the whole nation.f The war with the Saxons lasted thirty-three years—from 772 to 805. In the first campaign, Charlemagne destroyed the great national idol called the Irminsul, which stood in a mountainous and woody district near Eresburg (now Stadtberg). The Saxons a Einhard, 19. b Rettb. ii. 374, 394. g of its origin. But it would seem rather that irmin is an adjective, meaning See a list of his expeditions in strong, powerful (Rettb. ii. 385), Guizot, ii. 186. d Einhard, 7; Rettb. ii 382. e Poëta Saxo, ap. Pertz, i. 228. Luden, iv. 277. See Martin, ii. 258; Milman, ii. 220. 8 Einhard, A.D. 772. What the Irminsul was, is matter of conjecture. The last syllable, which answers to the modern German Säule, may, like that word, denote either a pillar or a statue. By some writers it is supposed that Irmin means the German hero Herman or Arminius, and that the sul was a figure of him. (See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 327.) This is the opinion of Luden (iv. 282-4, 520), although he thinks that the Saxons, while they retained the name, had lost the memory or universal (Grimm, 104); and thus the retaliated in the following year by attacking the monasteries and churches planted on their frontiers, killing or driving out the monks and clergy, and laying the country waste as far as the Rhine. Sturmi, the successor of Boniface, was obliged to fly from Fulda, carrying with him the relics of his master. The Saxons associated their old idolatry with their nationality, and the Gospel with the interest of the Franks. A passage in the life of St. Lebuin has been connected with the origin of the Saxon war, but ought probably to be referred to a somewhat later date." Lebuin, an Englishman, had preached with much success and had built several churches among the Frisians about the Yssel, when an incursion of the neighbouring heathens disturbed him in his labours. On this he determined boldly to confront the enemies of the Gospel in all their force, and, undeterred by the warnings of his friends, he appeared in his pontifical robes in the national assembly of the Saxons, which was held at Marklo, on the Weser. He spoke to them of the true God, he denounced their idolatry, and told them that, unless they would receive the Gospel and be baptised, God had decreed their ruin by means of a powerful king, not from afar, but from their own neighbourhood, who would sweep them away like a torrent. The effect of such an address was violently to exasperate the Saxons; and it was with difficulty that some members of the assembly saved the zealous missionary from the rage of their brethren. The pagans burnt his church at Deventer, and in consequence of this outrage Charlemagne with the Franks, who were informed of it when met in council at Worms, resolved on an expedition against them." The absence of Charlemagne on expeditions in other quarters, as in Italy or in Spain, was always the signal for a rising of the Saxons. After a time, as we are told by an annalist of his reign, he was provoked by their repeated treacheries to resolve on the conversion or the extermination of the whole race. In his attempts at conversion, however, he met with difficulties which it would seem that he had not expected. Whenever the Saxons were defeated, multitudes of them submitted to baptism without any knowledge or belief of Christian doctrine; but on the first opportunity they revolted, and again professed the religion of their fathers. The h Poëta Saxo, ap. Pertz, i. 230; Rettb. See Luden, iv. 281. ii. 375, 404. Eigil, Vita Sturm. 24 (Patrol. cv.). * Rettb. ii. 383. m Ib. 406. n Vit. S. Lebuini, ap. Pertz, ii. 362-3. O Einhard, A.D. 775. "Solitâ simulatione," says the annalist. Einh. A.D. 780; comp. Vit. Car. 7. A.D. 782. long war was carried on with much loss on both sides; on one occasion Charlemagne beheaded 4500 prisoners, who had been given up to him as having shared in the last insurrection,a and this frightful bloodshed, instead of striking the expected terror into the barbarians, excited them to an unusually wide-spread and formidable rising in the following year. A chief named Widikind had thus far been the soul of the Saxon movements. After every reverse, he contrived to escape to Denmark, where he found a refuge with the king, who was his brother-inlaw; and when his countrymen were ripe for a renewal of their attempts, he reappeared to act as their leader. But in 785, having secured a promise of impunity, he surrendered himself, together with his brother Abbo, and was baptised at Attigny, where Charlemagne officiated as his sponsor; and-whether an intelligent conviction contributed to his change of religious profession, whether it arose solely from despair of the Saxon cause, or whether his conversion was merely to a belief in that God whose worshippers had been proved the stronger party-his engagements to the king were faithfully kept. The Saxons were now subdued as far as the Elbe, and many of the fiercer idolaters among them sought an asylum in Scandinavia, where they joined the piratical bands which had already begun their plundering expeditions, and which were soon to become the terror of the more civilised nations of Europe.t Charlemagne proceeded to enact a law of extreme severity." It denounces the penalty of death against the refusal of baptism; against burning the bodies of the dead, after the manner of the pagans; against eating flesh in Lent, if this be done in contempt of Christianity; against setting fire to churches or violently entering them and robbing them; against the murder of bishops, priests, or deacons; against the offering of human sacrifices, and against some barbaric superstitions. All persons were to pay a tenth hoc ipsam incenderit, vel carnem ejus ad -comedendum dederit, vel ipsam comederit, capitis sententia punietur." (c. 6.) On the words in italics, which are clearly directed against superstition, Ozanam absurdly founds a charge of cannibalism against the Germans (227; comp. Rettb. ii. 390). Grimm contrasts this law with the superstition which has prevailed in some places even to our own times"It is not witchcraft, but the killing of supposed witches, that the enlightened law denounces as diabolical and heathen." Deutsche Mythol. 1021. part of their "substance and labour" to the church. All children were to be baptised within a year from their birth, and parents who should neglect to comply with the law in this respect were to be fined in proportion to their quality. Fines were also enacted against those who should sacrifice in groves or do any other act of pagan worship. In the case of those offences which were punishable with death, the law did not admit the pecuniary commutations which were a feature of all the Germanic codes; but instead of them there was the remarkable provision, that, if any person guilty of such offences would of his own accord confess them to a priest, and express a desire to do penance, his life should be spared on the testimony of the priest. The rigour of this capitulary was unlike the general character of Charlemagne's legislation and was meant to be only temporary. It was modified by an enactment twelve years later, which again allowed the principle of composition for capital offences." The conversion of the Saxons was urged on by a variety of measures. Gifts and threats were employed to gain them.b Charlemagne offered them union with the Franks on equal terms, freedom from tribute, and exemption from all other imposts except tithes. Bishopricks were gradually established among them, monasteries were founded in thinly inhabited districts, towns grew up around these new foundations, and each became a centre for diffusing the knowledge of religion and of civilisation. The Saxon youths who were received as hostages were committed to bishops and abbots for instruction; and, by a strong measure of policy, ten thousand Saxons were in 804 removed from their own country into the older Frankish territory, where they became incorporated with the conqueror's original subjects. e A like system of extending the profession of the Gospel with his conquests was pursued by Charlemagne in other quarters-as among the Frisians, the Wiltzes, (a Slavonic people north of the Elbe,) the Bavarians, the Avars in Pannonia, and the Bohemians. Among the missionaries who were most distinguished in the work Leges, i. 75); comp. Rettb. ii. 591. e Einh. Vita Car. 7; Rettb. ii. 409410. d Mabill. III. xxxiii.; Ozanam, 260. For the dates of the Saxon bishopricks, see Schröckh, xix. 270; Rettb. ii. 417; Giesel. II. i. 143. e See a list in Pertz, Leges, I. 89 (A.D. 802). This was repeatedly done. Rettb. ii. 392. Einhard, 7; Rettb. ii. 392. |