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advised Charlemagne to name Pipin's son Bernard as heir of the empire, in preference to Louis.P Adelhard and the youngest brother were banished; Count Wala was compelled to become a monk in the abbey from which Adelhard was removed; and thus was laid the foundation of a lasting enmity between the men of the old and those of the new reign."

A.D. 815.

Leo III., dissatisfied (as it would seem) at the manner in which Louis had received the crown, omitted to congratulate him on his accession, and did not exact from the Romans the usual oath of fidelity to the emperor. The feuds which had once before endangered this pope's life broke out afresh shortly after the death of his protector. There were serious disorders and much bloodshed at Rome; and Leo took it on himself to punish some of his enemies with death-an act which Louis regarded as an invasion of his own sovereignty. He therefore sent his nephew Bernard, king of Italy, to inquire into the matter on the spot; but the pope disarmed his indignation by submitting to give an explanation of his conduct. Leo died in 816. The wealth which he had at his disposal appears to have been enormous, and the papal librarian Anastasius fills many pages with an enumeration of the splendid gifts which it enabled him to bestow on his church.

8

June, 816.

The Romans hastily chose as his successor Stephen IV., who was consecrated without any application for the emperor's consent." Stephen felt the necessity of apologising for this irregularity, which he ascribed to the emergency of the time, when popular tumults were to be apprehended. He published a decree by which it was enacted that the consecration of future popes should be performed in the presence of imperial commissioners; and, after having made the citizens of Rome swear allegiance to Louis, he himself went into France for the purpose of explanation and excuse,—perhaps, also, to secure himself from the violence of the Roman factions. But the devout emperor did not wait for his submission. He met him at the distance of a

mile from Rheims; each dismounted from his horse, Oct. 816. and Louis thrice prostrated himself at the pope's feet

before venturing to embrace him."

P Vita Adelh. c. 16; Vita Walæ, ed. Mabill., pp. 453, seqq.; Funck, 42. 4 Vita Adelh. 32-5; Vita Wala, i. 2, 11; Funck, 48. Funck, 55. Astron. 25;

Einhard, A.D. 815; Baron. 815, 1; Funck, 55. Pagi, xiii. 568.

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On the following Sunday, the

Einhard, A.D. 816.

Gratian. Decr. Pars I. d. lxiii. 28. (See notes in Patrol. cxix. 795; clxxxvii. 337; Jaffé, 221.)

Thegan, 16; Milman, ii. 248.

Thegan, 16; Astron. 26; Flodoard, ii. 19 (Patrol. cxxix.).

pontiff placed on the head of Louis a splendid crown which he had brought with him, and anointed both him and his empress Ermengarde." Anastasius tells us that the honour paid to the pope almost exceeded the power of language to describe; that he obtained from the emperor whatever he desired; that, after our Lord's example of forgiveness, he pardoned all who in the time of Leo had been obliged to seek a refuge in France on account of offences against the church, and that they accompanied him on his return to Rome. On the death of Stephen, in the beginning (817), Paschal was immediately chosen and consecrated as his successor. The new pope sent a legation to assure the emperor that he "had been forced rather than had leapt into" his see, and his apology was accepted.

of the following year

Louis was bent on effecting a reformation both in the church and in the state. By means of his missi he redressed many grievances which had grown up under his father's government; and in councils held at Aix in 816 and 817, he passed a great number of regulations for the reform of the clergy, and of the religious societies." The secular business in which bishops had been much employed by Charlemagne had not been without an effect on their character and on that of the inferior clergy, so that the condition of the church towards the end of the late reign had retrograded. The canons now passed testify to the existence of many abuses. Their general tone is strict; they aim at securing influence and respect for the clergy by cutting off their worldly pomp, and enforcing attention to their spiritual duties. The canonical life is regulated by a code enlarged from that of Chrodegang. The acquisition of wealth by improper means is checked by an order that no bequest shall be accepted by churches or monasteries to the disinheriting of the testator's kindred, and that no one shall be tonsured either as a monk or as a clergyman for the sake of obtaining his property. We find, however, complaints of the evils against which this canon was directed as well after its enactment as before. Another important canon ordered that every parish priest should have a mansus, or glebe; that

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a Thegan, 17. Luden observes that the biographer does not, until after this coronation, give Louis the title of emperor. v. 579.

b Anastas. 213; Astron. 26. c Astron. 27.

Thegan, 13; Sismondi, ii. 432. The scheme of administration by missi had been very imperfectly carried out under

Charlemagne. Stephen, i. 112.

e See Pertz, Leges, i, 201, seqq.
Ellendorf, ii. 51-2.
See p. 213.

h Capit. A.D. 817, c. 7.

Ellendorf, ii. 58-62, gives quotations from Paschasius, Wettin, &c. The evil had been noted by the council of Châlons in 813, c. 6-7.

both the glebe and his other property should be discharged from all but ecclesiastical service; and that, when this provision should have been fulfilled, every parish, where there was a sufficient maintenance, should have a priest of its own.m Benedict of Aniane was president of the assembly which was charged with the monastic reform. He recovered to their proper use many monasteries which had been alienated either to laymen or to secular clergy; and he obtained relief for many from the burdens of gifts to the crown and of military service,-burdens which had pressed so heavily on some of them that the remaining income had been insufficient even for food and clothing." The rule of St. Benedict was taken as the basis of the new reforms; but the canons are marked by a punctilious minuteness very unlike its original spirit.

These reforms were the work of the independent Frankish church, and were sanctioned by the supreme authority of the emperor, who exercised the same prerogative as his father in matters concerning religion.P

In the holy week of 817, as Louis and his household were passing along a gallery which led from the palace to the cathedral of Aix, the wooden pillars on which it rested gave way. The emperor suffered little hurt; but the accident suggested to his counsellors the possibility of his death, and the expediency of providing for that event. By their advice he proposed the subject to the national assembly, and obtained its consent to the association of his eldest son, Lothair, as his colleague in the empire; but this measure, which was intended for the preservation of peace, became the source of fatal divisions. The younger brothers, Pipin and Louis, who held respectively a delegated sovereignty over Aquitaine and Germany, were discontented at finding themselves placed in a new relation of inferiority towards their senior, to whom they were bound to pay "gifts," and without whose consent they were not at liberty to make war or peace, to receive ambas

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became emperor. Martin, ii. 373.
Pagi, xiii. 539.

This word, from meaning the eldest or head of a family, had come, as early as the time of Gregory of Tours, to bear the sense of lord or master, which its derivatives have in the Romance languages, and from the eighth century was used to denote a king or other superior in relation to his dependent homines (Perry, 400). Hincmar seems to object to this use of it as novel and improper, ii. 835.

sadors, or to marry." But the elevation of Lothair was still more offensive to Bernard, son of the emperor's elder brother Pipin by a concubine. Bernard had been appointed by Charlemagne to succeed his father in the kingdom of Italy. The defect of his birth was not regarded by the Franks as a bar to inheritance; as it had not prevented his receiving an inferior royalty, it did not disqualify him for succeeding his grandfather in the empire; and, as it was chiefly on the ground of maturer age that Louis, the younger son of Charlemagne, had been preferred to the representative of the elder son, Bernard might have now expected on the same ground to be preferred to the children of Louis. The king of Italy had hitherto endeavoured, by a ready submission and compliance with his uncle's wishes in all things, to disarm the jealousy which the empress Ermengarde continually strove to instil into her husband's mind. But he now yielded to the influence of the discontented party, of which Theodulf of Orleans, a Goth or Lombard by birth, and the bishops of Milan and Cremona, were the most active members, while Wala from his monastery zealously aided them by his counsels. The pope himself, Paschal, is said to have been implicated in their schemes. But the emperor and his partisans made demonstrations, which showed that any attempt to subvert the government would be hopeless. Bernard repaired to Châlons on the Saône-decoyed, according to some writers, by the empress, under a promise of forgiveness and safety. He confessed to his uncle his guilty designs, and, after a trial, was sentenced to death. The sentence was compassionately changed by Louis to the loss of eyesight; but, whether from the cruelty with which the operation was performed, or from grief and despair, the unhappy Bernard died within three days. Theodulf was deprived of his see, without any regard to his plea that, as having received the pall, he was subject to no jurisdiction except the pope's. Louis, now rendered suspicious of all his kindred, compelled three of his illegitimate

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brothers of whom Drogo was afterwards creditably known as bishop of Metz-to be tonsured.

The empress Ermengarde, whose zeal for the interest of her sons had been a principal cause of the late troubles, died shortly after. Louis in his sorrow was disposed to resign his crown and become a monk. But the ecclesiastics whom he consulted dissuaded him; the daughters of his nobles were assembled for his inspection, and he chose Judith, daughter of Welf, count of Bavaria, to be the partner of his throne. The new empress is described as not only beautiful, but possessed of learning and accomplishments unusual in the ladies of that age; and her power over her husband was absolute.

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A.D. 819.

In 821, on the marriage of Lothair, Theodulf, Wala, Adelhard, and the other accomplices of Bernard were forgiven an act of grace which has been traced to the removal of Benedict by death from the emperor's councils. But Louis was still disturbed by the remembrance of the severities which had been exercised in his name; the alarms of his conscience were increased by some reverses, by earthquakes, and other portents; and at the diet of

Attigny, in the following year, he appeared in the dress A.D. 822.

of a penitent. He lamented his own sins and the sins.

of his father. He expressed remorse for the death of Bernard -an act in which his only share had been that mitigation of the sentence which had been so unhappily frustrated in the execution. He entreated the forgiveness of Wala and Adelhard, who were present. He professed sorrow for his behaviour to Drogo and his brothers, and bestowed high ecclesiastical dignities on them by way of compensation. He gave large alms to monks, and entreated their prayers; and he issued a capitulary acknowledging his neglect of duty towards the church, and promising amendment of abuses.m Wala was sent into Italy, to act as

e

Thegan, 24; Sismondi, ii. 445-6. To this time belongs the pretended date of a document known from its first words by the name of Ego Ludovicus (Pertz, Leges, ii. Append. 6), in which the emperor is represented as giving up a large part of Italy to the pope, and as ordering that no Frank, Lombard, or other person shall interfere in the appointment of popes. Sir F. Palgrave seems to regard it as genuine. (Norm. and England, i. 262, 727.) But it is generally considered a clumsy forgery. (See Pagi, xiii. 591; Schröckh, xxii. 44; Planck, ii. 779; Pertz, p. 9; Patrol.

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