Early Lives of Charlemagne by Eginhard and the Monk of St Gall edited by Prof. A. J. Grant Einhard and Balbulus Notker 1519 downloads.pdf

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Title: Early Lives of Charlemagne by Eginhard and the Monk of St
Gall edited by Prof. A. J. Grant

Author: Einhard
Balbulus Notker

Translator: A. J. Grant

Release date: May 3, 2015 [eBook #48870]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48870

Credits: Produced by Andrew Dunning

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY LIVES
OF CHARLEMAGNE BY EGINHARD AND THE MONK OF ST GALL
EDITED BY PROF. A. J. GRANT ***

Transcriber’s Note

The notes, keyed to line numbers in the source edition, have been
converted to footnotes. Their position has been corrected as necessary.
Minor emendations have been made to punctuation and spelling.
Running heads and the publisher’s catalogue have been omitted.

THE KING’S CLASSICS

[pg!i]

[pg iii]
EARLY LIVES OF
CHARLEMAGNE

[pg vi]

Charlemagne

From a bronze statuette in the Musée
Carnavalet. Paris

[pg vii]
EARLY LIVES OF
CHARLEMAGNE BY
EGINHARD AND THE
MONK OF ST GALL
EDITED BY PROF.
A. J. GRANT

ALEXANDER MORING LIMITED THE
DE LA MORE PRESS 32 GEORGE
STREET HANOVER SQUARE
LONDON W 1905

[pg viii]

A lui finit la dissolution de l’ancien
monde, à lui commence l’édification
du monde moderne.
Lavallée

[pg ix]

INTRODUCTION

The two “Lives” contrasted.—This volume contains two lives of Charles
the Great, or Charlemagne (for both forms of the name will be used
indifferently in this introduction); both written within a century after his
death; both full of admiration for the hero of whom they treat; both written
by ecclesiastics; but resembling one another in hardly any other particular.
It is not merely the value which each in its different way possesses, but also
the great contrast between them, that makes it seem useful to present them
together in a single volume. Professor Bury remarked in his inaugural
lecture at Cambridge: “It would be a most fruitful investigation to trace
from the earliest ages the history of public opinion in regard to the meaning
of falsehood and the obligation of veracity”; and these two lives would
form an interesting text for the illustration of such a treatise. The restrained,
positive, well-arranged [pg x] narrative of Eginhard seems to belong to a
different age from the garrulous, credulous, and hopelessly jumbled story of
the Monk of Saint Gall. And yet the two narratives were divided from one
another by no long interval of time. It is impossible to fix with any certainty
the date of the composition of Eginhard’s life, but there are various
indications which make 820 a not impossible date. An incident mentioned
by the Monk of Saint Gall makes the task of dating his work within limits
an easier one. The work was suggested to him, he tells us, by Charles III.
when he stayed for three days at the Monastery of Saint Gall, and it is
possible to fix this event, with precision, to the year 883. We may think,

therefore, of the Monk’s narrative as being separated from that of Eginhard
by more than sixty years, and by about seventy from the death of its hero.
But in the ninth century the mist of legend and myth steamed up rapidly
from the grave of a well-known figure; there were few documents ready to
the hand of a monk writing in the cloister of Saint Gall to assist him in
writing an accurate narrative; there was no publicity of publication and no
critical public to detect the errors of his work; above all, there was not in his
own conscience the slightest possibility of reproach even if, with full
consciousness of what he [pg xi] was doing, he changed the facts of history
or interpolated the dreams of fancy, provided it were done in such a manner
as “to point a moral or adorn a tale.”
And so it is that, whereas through Eginhard’s narrative we look at the
life of the great Charles in a clear white light, through a medium which,
despite a few inaccuracies, distorts the facts of history wonderfully little,
when we take up the narrative of the Monk, on the other hand, we are at
once among the clouds of dreamland; and only occasionally does the
unsubstantial fabric fade, and allow us to get a glimpse of reality and actual
occurrence. But now each of these narratives demands a somewhat more
careful scrutiny.
Eginhard’s Life of Charlemagne is a document of the first
importance for the study of the epoch-making reign of his hero. Short as it
is, we have often to confess that in the chronicles of the same period by
other hands we can feel confidence only in such parts as are corroborated or
supported by Eginhard. Its chief fault is that it is all too short—a fault
which biographers rarely allow their readers to complain of. But when we
consider how admirably fitted Eginhard was for the task which he
undertook—by his close proximity to Charlemagne, [pg xii] by his intimate
acquaintance with him, by his literary studies and sober and well-balanced

mind; when we remember that he lived in a brief period of literary activity
between two long stretches of darkness—it is tantalising to find him
complaining of the multiplicity of books and restraining himself with a
quotation from Cicero from writing at greater length.
The Career of Eginhard.—A sketch of Eginhard’s career will show
how well qualified he was to deal with his subject. He was born about 770,
in the eastern half of the territories belonging to the great Charles, in a
village situate on the lower course of the river Main. His father Eginhard
and his mother Engilfrita were landowners of some importance, and
endowed by will the monastery of Fulda with lands and gold. It was to this
monastery that the young Eginhard was sent for education. The monastery
of Fulda was founded under the influence of Boniface, the great
Englishman, whose zeal had driven him from Crediton, in Devonshire, to
co-operate with the early Frankish kings in the conversion and conquest of
Germany. The monastic movement was strong and vigorous in the eighth
century, and nowhere more so than in the eastern half of the Frankish
dominions. Eginhard was trained under the Abbot Baugulfus, and showed
himself so apt and promising [pg xiii] a pupil that the Abbot recommended
him for a post at the Court of Charles (? 791).
The imperial crown was still nearly ten years distant, but Charles was
already the most glorious and powerful of European rulers. In spite of all
his constant fighting and travelling his extraordinary energy found place for
interest in calmer subjects, and he gathered round him in his Court at Aix
the best of what the age had to show in culture, knowledge, and eloquence.
In this circle the most striking figure was Alcuin of York; but Eginhard soon
made for himself a position of importance. Charles lived familiarly and
genially with the scholars and writers of his palace, calling them by pet
names and nicknames, and receiving the like in return. The King himself

was David; Alcuin, Flaccus; Eginhard is called Bezaleel, after the man of
whom we are told in Exodus, chapter xxxi., that he was “filled with the
spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all
manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in
silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, and in carving of timber.” As
the allusion implies, Eginhard was no mere book-learned scholar, but had
brought from his monastery school much technical and artistic knowledge.
He has been called an architect, and [pg xiv] many great buildings have
been ascribed to him, but with more than doubtful probability. The minor
arts were rather Eginhard’s forte, though it seems impossible to define
them. Contemporaries speak of his carefully-wrought works, of the many
tasks in which he was useful to Charles, but without exact specification. A
contemporary document speaks of him as supervising the palace works at
Aix; or rather, one Ansegisus is described as “the executant of the royal
works in the royal palace at Aix, under the direction of the Abbot Eginhard,
a man possessed of every kind of learning.”
He was of small stature, and this is often made good-humoured fun of
by his fellow-scholars. He is called the dwarf, the midget, the mannikin.
Theodulf describes him as running about with the activity of an ant, and his
body is spoken of as a small house with a great tenant. He married Imma, a
Frankish lady of good family. (It is merely a stupid legend that makes of her
a daughter of Charlemagne.) He lived with her happily, and was
inconsolable after her death. Before his wife’s death and without putting her
away from him, he had embraced the monastic life—a proceeding which in
no way scandalised the ideas of that century. He was the abbot of many
monasteries, which he held, in spite of the [pg xv] canonical prohibition, at
the same time. Saint Peter of Ghent and Saint Wandrille, near Rouen, are
those with which he is specially associated. He was on several occasions

employed by Charles on important embassies, but was for the most part
rather his secretary and confidant than his minister.
His great master died in 814, and Eginhard survived him for twenty-
nine years, having lived long enough to see the mighty fabric of Charles’s
empire show signs of the rapid ruin that was soon to overtake it. He
received from Lewis the Pious further ecclesiastical promotion, but still
lived at the Court until 830. After that year his devotion to the Church
mastered all other interests. He built a church at Mulinheim, and procured
for it with great pains the relics of Saint Peter and Saint Marcellinus from
Rome; and it was at Mulinheim, renamed [pg xvi] Seligenstadt (the city of
the saints), far from the intrigues of courts, that he passed most of the rest of
his life. His wife Imma (“once my faithful wife, and later my dear sister and
companion”) died in 836, and Eginhard’s deep sorrow at her loss finds
pathetic expression in letters still extant. The political confusion and the
utter failure of Charlemagne’s plans must have increased Eginhard’s
distaste for public affairs. He died at Seligenstadt (probably in 844). His
epitaph gave as his two titles to fame his services to Charlemagne and his
acquisition of the precious relics.
The Writings of Eginhard that have come down to us are—(1) the
Life of Charlemagne; (2) the Annals; (3) Letters; (4) the History of the
Translation of the Relics of Saint Peter and Saint Marcellinus; (5) a short
poem on the martyrdom of these two saints. These writings are all, with the
possible exception of the last mentioned, of high value and interest, but the
Life of Charlemagne is by far the most celebrated and important.
The Life of Charlemagne is the most striking result of the Classical
Renaissance so diligently fostered at the Court of Charlemagne by the
Emperor himself. Its form is directly copied from the Lives of the Cæsars
by Suetonius, and especially from the Life of Augustus in that series.

Phrases are constantly borrowed, and in some cases whole sentences. This
imitation of Suetonius has its good and its bad results. It necessarily
removed Eginhard’s work from the category of mediæval chronicles, with
their garrulity, their reckless inventions, their humour, their desire to please,
to amuse, and to glorify their hero, their order, or their monastery.
Eginhard’s Life is not without mistakes, some of which are pointed out [pg
xvii] in the notes; but it is an honest, direct record of facts, and for these
characteristics we are, doubtless, largely indebted to Suetonius’ influence.
On the other hand, it was the example of his classical model that induced
him to keep his work within such narrow limits. Compression was forced
upon the Roman historian by the scope of his work, which embraced the
lives of twelve emperors; and the life and reign of Augustus had already
been fully handled by other historians. But Eginhard knew so much, and so
little of equal value is written about his hero elsewhere, that his brevity is,
for once, a quality hardly pardonable. Along with Asser’s Alfred and
Boccaccio’s Dante it gives us an instance of a biographer who did not
sufficiently magnify his office and his subject.
No other account of the Life and Reign of Charlemagne can find a
place here. For some time English readers had reason to complain that there
was no good and popular book dealing with the great Charles, for Gibbon’s
chapter is admittedly not among the best parts of his history. But of late this
reproach has been taken away. The two concluding volumes of Dr
Hodgkin’s great work, entitled “Italy and her Invaders,” deal with Charles
and his relations with Italy (vols. vii. and viii. “The Frankish Invasions” [pg
xviii] and “The Frankish Empire”). Dr Hodgkin has also written a general
sketch of the whole of Charles’s career (“Charles the Great.” Foreign
Statesmen Series. Macmillan). More recently, Mr Carless Davis has written
a “Life of Charlemagne” for the Heroes of the Nations Series.

It is in works such as these (to mention no others) and not in Eginhard
that the real historical significance of Charlemagne’s life-work appears.
Eginhard stood too near to his hero, and had too little sense of historical
perspective to realise the abiding greatness of what Charles accomplished.
It is the lapse of 1100 years that has brought into increasing clearness the
importance of those years which lie like a great watershed between the
ancient and the mediæval world. Of him, as of most great rulers, it is true
that he “builded better than he knew.” His empire soon became a tradition,
his intellectual revival was eclipsed by a further plunge into the “Dark
Ages,” but all that he did was not swept away. With him ends the ruin of the
ancient world, and with him begins the building up of the mediæval and
modern world.
He did not find in Eginhard an entirely worthy biographer; but the
“mannikin’s” work has received unstinted praise since the time when it was
written. [pg xix] It was praised by a contemporary as recalling the elegance
of the classical authors; its popularity during the Middle Ages is attested to
by the existence of sixty manuscript copies; and a French editor has
declared that we have to go on to the thirteenth century, and to Joinville’s
Life of St Louis, before we find a rival in importance to Eginhard’s Life of
Charlemagne.
The Monk of Saint Gall, it seems, must remain anonymous, for the
attempt to identify him with Notker rests on no better foundation than the
fact, or supposition, that both stammered. And this seems to be supposition
rather than fact. We are, indeed, told on good authority that Notker
stammered; but the view that the Monk of Saint Gall suffered from the
same defect rests only on a sentence in Chapter XVII., where he contrasts
the swift, direct glance of others with his own slow and rambling narrative
—“Which I have been trying to unfold, though a stammerer, and toothless”

(“quæ ego balbus et edentalus explicare tentavi”). It seems impossible to
think that the words here must be taken in their literal sense. As the author
is writing, not speaking, any defect of voice or teeth would in no way
hinder his narrative: it is clear that the words are a piece of conventional
and metaphorical depreciation.
[pg xx] We know, then, nothing of the author beyond what he tells us
in his narrative; and he tells us little, except that he was a German, and a
monk in the Monastery of Saint Gall when Grimald and Hartmuth were
abbots; that he had never himself been in Western Frankland, but had seen
the Emperor Charles III. during his three days’ stay in the monastery, and at
his bidding had written an account of Charles the Great, and his deeds and
ways.
The monastery in which he wrote has a special interest for our islands;
for Saint Gall was an Irishman of noble family, and an inmate of a
monastery in County Down, which was at that time governed by Saint
Comgel. He was one of the twelve monks who in 585 followed Saint
Columban into Frankland. Switzerland was the great scene of his
evangelical labours. The Catholic Church celebrates his death on the 16th
October; and tells in the Lectiones of that day how he destroyed the idols of
the heathen; how he turned many to Christianity, and, even to the monastic
life; how he founded the Monastery of Saint Gall in his eighty-fifth year,
and died at the age of ninety-five, having previously been warned in a
dream of the death of his master, Saint Columban; and how at once miracles
declared that a saint had passed away. His monastery for a [pg xxi] century
followed the rule of Saint Columban, and then, in common with most
monastic institutions of Western Europe, adopted the rule of Saint Benedict.
It was in the famous abbey, that owed its foundation to this Irish
missionary, that this account of the deeds of Charlemagne—the Gesta

Karoli—was written. The author is at more pains than we should expect to
tell us from what sources he derived his information. The preface to the
work is lost; but at the end of the first book he repeats some of the
information that he had inserted in it. It was his intention, he informs us, to
follow three authorities, and three authorities only; but of these three he
seems to mention two only—Werinbert, a monk of Saint Gall, who died just
as he was completing the first part; and Adalbert, the father of Werinbert,
who followed Kerold, the brother of Queen Hildigard, in the wars that were
fought, under Charlemagne’s banner, against the Huns and the Saxons and
Slavs. It is an amusing picture that he gives us, at the end of the first book,
of Adalbert’s anxiety to tell him of Charles’s exploits and his own
unwillingness to hear. It is to be presumed that the stories were often
repeated, for not only facts but words seem to have remained in the mind of
the unwilling listener. The third authority does not seem to be [pg xxii]
mentioned, unless he means to imply that Kerold himself (who was killed in
an expedition against the Avars in 799) is one of his sources of information.
The whole of what the Monk of Saint Gall wrote is not left to us. The
preface, as we have seen, is missing, and also, perhaps, a third book; for in
the sixteenth chapter of the second book it seems that our author promises
us an account of the habits of Charles, his cotidiana conversatio, when the
story of his military exploits has been finished. But this may easily be a
misunderstanding of his meaning; or, rather, it may be giving too great a
precision to it. The good Monk is so little able to follow out any line of
thought, or to maintain any arrangement, that it may well be that the “daily
conversation” of Charles never received any separate treatment.
No attempt will be made here to estimate the historical value of the
narrative, though it would be a matter of curious speculation to consider
whether the critical historian can employ any method whereby a residuum

of objective fact can be separated from the mass of legend, saga, invention,
and reckless blundering of which the greater part of the book is made up.
But, apart from any value which it may possess as a historical document,
the Monk’s story [pg xxiii] is of great interest for the light which it throws
on the methods and outlook of a monk of the early Middle Ages. Charles
has been dead not much more than half-a-century; the author has talked
familiarly with those who knew him and fought under him; and yet the
Charlemagne legend has already begun. Charles is already, if not inspired,
at least supernaturally wise; if he does not work miracles, miracles are
wrought in his presence, and on his behalf; if he does not yet lead the
armies of Christendom to Jerusalem, he is already the specially recognised
protector of the Holy City. There are passages too, as, for instance, the
account of the visit of the envoys of the Greek Emperor, and Charles’s
“iron-march to Pavia,” where we seem to detect the existence of a popular
saga—a poem—underlying the prose narrative. With the help of M. Gaston
Paris’s “Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne,” we can trace the further
development of the legend. By the eleventh century Charles was already a
martyr for the faith, and the Crusaders believed themselves to be passing
along his route to Jerusalem. “Turpin’s” chronicle, in the eleventh century,
shows the vast extension of the legend, which now loses all but the vaguest
relation to the actual events of history and the real characteristics of
Charles. In the twelfth [pg xxiv] century (1165) Charles was solemnly
canonised; and thenceforward the story spread into all lands, and received
its last stroke in the time of the Renaissance, at the hands of Pulci, Boiardo,
and Ariosto. These poets chiefly concern themselves, however, with the
paladins of Charles; and the King himself forms the dimly-conceived
centre, round whom the whole story revolves, deciding disputes, besieging
the Turks in Paris, priest-like rather than royal in his main features, and by

Ariosto treated with some irony and banter. These mediæval legends of
Charlemagne may well be compared to those which deal with Virgil, whose
transformation into a magician is not less remarkable than Charles’s
development into a saint. If the Charlemagne legend ends with Ariosto,
Dante may be said to have given the last shape to the many transformations
of Virgil, when, more than two centuries before Ariosto’s “Orlando,” Virgil
acted as guide to Dante through the “lost folk” of the Inferno, and the
toilsome ascent of Purgatory, until he handed him over at last into the
keeping of Beatrice at the gate of the earthly Paradise.
Story and myth naturally attach themselves only to the greatest figures;
and the Monk of Saint Gall’s narrative becomes then, even by virtue of its
inventions and unrealities, a testimony to the effect [pg xxv] produced on
the mind of his century by the career of Charles.
Both the life of Eginhard and the Monk’s narrative have been
translated from Jaffe’s “Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum”; which, both in
its reading and arrangement, differs at times considerably from the text
given in Pertz’s “Monumenta Germaniæ Historica.”

[pg xxvii]

CONTENTS

[pg xxix]
INTRODUCTION . . . . . [pg ix]_
EGINHARD’S LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE . . . . . [pg xxxi]_

The Prologue of Walafrid . . . . . [pg 1]_
The Preface of Eginhard . . . . . [pg 4]_

EGINHARD’S BOOK BEGINS (Sec. 1–4) . . . . . [pg 8]_

Part I. (Sec. 5–17). His Exploits at Home and Abroad . . . . .
[pg 13]_
Part II. (Sec. 18–33). Private Life and Character . . . . . [pg
32]_

MONK OF ST GALL’S LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE . . . . . [pg 57]_

Book I. (Sec. 1–34). His Piety and Care of the Church . . . . .
[pg 59]_
Book II. (Sec. 1–20). Wars and Exploits . . . . . [pg 105]_

NOTES . . . . . [pg 161]_
INDEX . . . . . [pg 177]_

[pg xxxi]

THE LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE BY EGINHARD

[pg 1]

THE PROLOGUE OF WALAFRID1

The following account of that most glorious Emperor Charles was written,
as is well known, by Eginhard, who amongst all the palace officials of that
time had the highest praise not only for learning but also for his generally
high character; and, as he was himself present at nearly all the events that
he describes, his account has the further advantage of the strictest accuracy.
He was born in eastern Frankland, in the district that is called
Moingewi, and it was in the monastery of Fulda, in the school of Saint
Boniface the Martyr, that his boyhood received its first training. Thence he
was sent by Baugolf, the abbot of the monastery, to the palace of Charles,
rather on account of his remarkable talents and intelligence, which even
then gave bright promise of his wisdom that was to be so famous in later
days, than because of any advantage of birth. Now, Charles was beyond all
kings most eager in making search for wise men and in giving [pg 2] them
such entertainment that they might pursue philosophy in all comfort.
Whereby, with the help of God, he rendered his kingdom, which, when God
committed it to him, was dark and almost wholly blind (if I may use such
an expression), radiant with the blaze of fresh learning, hitherto unknown to
our barbarism. But now once more men’s interests are turning in an
opposite direction, and the light of wisdom is less loved, and in most men is
dying out.

And so this little man—for he was mean of stature—gained so much
glory at the Court of the wisdom-loving Charles by reason of his knowledge
and high character that among all the ministers of his royal Majesty there
was scarce anyone at that time with whom that most powerful and wise
King discussed his private affairs more willingly. And, indeed, he deserved
such favour, for not only in the time of Charles, but even more remarkably
in the reign of the Emperor Lewis,2 when the commonwealth of the Franks
was shaken with many and various troubles, and in some parts was falling
into ruin, he so wonderfully and providentially balanced his conduct, and,
with the protection of God, kept such a watch over himself, that his
reputation for cleverness, which many had envied and many had mocked at,
did not untimely [pg 3] desert him nor plunge him into irremediable
dangers.
This I have said that all men may read his words without doubting, and
may know that, while he has given great glory to his great leader, he has
also provided the curious reader with the most unsullied truth.
I, Strabo, have inserted the headings and the decorations3 as seemed
well to my own judgement that he who seeks for any point may the more
easily find what he desires.

Here ends the Prologue

[pg 4]

THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES
WRITTEN BY EGINHARD

Having made up my mind to write an account of the life and conversation,
and to a large extent of the actions of my lord and patron King Charles, of
great and deservedly glorious memory, I have compressed my task within
the narrowest possible limits. My aim has been on the one hand to insert
everything of which I have been able to find an account; and on the other to
avoid offending the fastidious by telling each new incident at wearisome
length. Above all, I have tried to avoid offending in this new book those
who look down upon even the monuments of antiquity written by learned
and eloquent men.
There are, I do not doubt, many men of learning and leisure who feel
that the life of the present day must not be utterly neglected, and that the
doings of [pg 5] our own time should not be devoted to silence and
forgetfulness as wholly unworthy of record; who, therefore, have such love
of fame that they would rather chronicle the great deeds of others in
writings, however poor, than, by abstaining from writing, allow their name
and reputation to perish from the memory of mankind.4 But, even so, I have
felt that I ought not to hold my hand from the composition of this book, for
I knew that no one could write of these events more truthfully than I could,
since I was myself an actor in them, and, being present, knew them from the
testimony of my own eyes; while I could not certainly know whether

anyone else would write them or no. I thought it better, therefore, to join
with others in committing this story to writing for the benefit of posterity
rather than to allow the shades of oblivion to blot out the life of this King,
the noblest and greatest of his age, and his famous deeds, which the men of
later times will scarcely be able to imitate.
Another reason, and not, I think, a foolish one, occurred to me, which
even by itself would have been strong enough to persuade me to write—the
care, I mean, that was taken with my upbringing, and the unbroken
friendship which I enjoyed with the King himself and his children from the
time when first I [pg 6] began to live at his Court. For in this way he has so
bound me to himself, and has made me his debtor both in life and death,
that I should most justly be considered and condemned as ungrateful if I
were to forget all the benefits that he conferred upon me and were to pass
over in silence the great and glorious deeds of a man who was so kind to
me; if I were to allow his life to remain as unchronicled and unpraised, as if
he had never lived, when that life deserves not merely the efforts of my
poor talents, which are insignificant, small and almost non-existent, but all
the eloquence of a Cicero.
So here you have a book containing the life of that great and glorious
man. There is nothing for you to wonder at or admire except his deeds;
unless, indeed, it be that I, a barbarian, and little versed in the Roman
tongue,5 have imagined that I could write Latin inoffensively and usefully,
and have become so swollen with impudence as to despise Cicero’s words
when, speaking about Latin writers in the first book of the Tusculans, he
says: “If a man commits his thoughts to paper when he can neither arrange
them well nor write them agreeably, nor furnish pleasure of any kind to the
reader, he is recklessly misusing both his leisure and his paper.” The great
orator’s opinion would, perhaps, have deterred [pg 7] me from writing if I

had not fortified myself with the reflection that I ought to risk the
condemnation of men, and bring my poor talents into peril by writing,
rather than spare my reputation and neglect this great man’s memory.

The Preface ends: the Book begins

[pg 8]

The race of the Merovings from which the Franks were accustomed to
choose their kings is reckoned as lasting to King Hilderich,6 who, by the
order of Stephen, the Roman Pontiff,7 was deposed, tonsured, and sent into
a monastery. But this race, though it may be regarded as finishing with him,
had long since lost all power, and no longer possessed anything of
importance except the empty royal title. For the wealth and power of the
kingdom was in the hands of the Præfects of the Court, who were called
Mayors of the Palace, and exercised entire sovereignty. The King, contented
with the mere royal title, with long hair and flowing beard, used to sit upon
the throne and act the part of a ruler, listening to ambassadors,
whencesoever they came, and giving them at their departure, as though of
his own power, answers which he had been instructed or commanded to
give. But this was the only function that he performed, for besides the
empty royal title and the [pg 9] precarious life income which the Præfect of
the Court allowed him at his pleasure he had nothing of his own except one
estate with a very small revenue, on which he had his house, and from
which he drew the few servants who performed such services as were
necessary and made him a show of deference. Wherever he had to go he
travelled in a waggon, drawn in rustic style by a pair of oxen, and driven by
a cowherd.8 In this fashion he used to go to the palace and to the general
meetings of the people, which were held yearly for the affairs of the
kingdom; in this fashion he returned home. But the Præfect of the Court
looked after the administration of the kingdom and all that had to be done
or arranged at home or abroad.

2. When Hilderich was deposed Pippin, the father of King Charles,
was performing the duties of Mayor of the Palace as if by hereditary right.
For his father Charles,9 who put down the tyrants who were claiming
dominion for themselves through all Frankland, and so crushed the
Saracens, when they were attempting to conquer Gaul, in two great battles
(the one in Aquitania, near the city of Poitiers, the other near Narbonne, on
the river Birra), that he forced them to return into Spain—his father Charles
had nobly administered the same office, and had inherited it from [pg 10]
his father Pippin.10 For the people did not usually give this honour except to
such as were distinguished for the renown of their family and the extent of
their wealth.
This office, then, was handed down from his father and his grandfather
to Pippin, the father of King Charles, and to his brother Carloman. He
exercised it for some years conjointly with his brother Carloman on terms
of the greatest harmony, still in nominal subordination to the above-
mentioned King Hilderich. But then his brother Carloman, for some
unknown cause, but probably fired with love of the contemplative life,
abandoned the toilsome administration of a temporal kingdom and retired to
Rome in search of peace. There he changed his dress, and, becoming a
monk in the monastery upon Mount Soracte, built near the church of the
blessed Silvester, enjoyed for some years the quiet that he desired, with
many brethren, who joined themselves to him for the same purpose. But as
many of the nobles of Frankland came on pilgrimage to Rome to perform
their vows, and, unwilling to pass by one who had once been their lord,
interrupted the peace that he most desired by frequent visits, he was
compelled to change his abode. For, seeing that the number of his visitors
interfered with his purpose, he left Mount Soracte [pg 11] and retired to the
monastery of Saint Benedict, situated in the camp of Mount Cassino, in the

province of Samnium. There he occupied what remained to him of this
temporal life in religious exercises.
3. But Pippin, after he was made King instead of Mayor of the Palace
by the authority of the Roman Pontiff, exercised sole rule over the Franks
for fifteen years, or rather more.11 Then, after finishing the Aquitanian war,
which he had undertaken against Waifar, Duke of Aquitania, and had
carried on for nine consecutive years, he died at Paris of the dropsy, and left
behind him two sons, Charles and Carloman, to whom by divine will the
succession of the kingdom came. For the Franks called a solemn public
assembly, and elected both of them to be kings, on the understanding that
they should equally divide the whole kingdom, but that Charles should
receive for his special administration that part which his father Pippin had
held, while Carloman received the territories ruled by their uncle
Carloman.12 The conditions were accepted, and each received the share of
the kingdom that was allotted to him. Harmony was maintained between the
two brothers, though not without difficulty; for many partisans of Carloman
tried to break their alliance, and some even hoped to engage them in war.
But the course of events proved [pg 12] that the danger to Charles was
imaginary rather than real. For, upon the death of Carloman, his wife with
her sons and some of the leading nobles fled to Italy, and, for no obvious
reason, passed over her husband’s brother, and placed herself and her
children under the protection of Desiderius, King of the Lombards.
Carloman, after ruling the kingdom for two years conjointly with Charles,
died of disease, and Charles, upon the death of Carloman,13 was made sole
king with the consent of all the Franks.
4. It would be foolish of me to say anything about his birth and
infancy,14 or even about his boyhood, for I can find nothing about these
matters in writing, nor does anyone survive who claims to have personal

knowledge of them. I have decided, therefore, to pass on to describe and
illustrate his acts and his habits and the other divisions of his life without
lingering over the unknown. I shall describe first his exploits both at home
and abroad, then his habits and interests, and lastly the administration of the
kingdom and the end of his reign, omitting nothing that demands or
deserves to be recorded.

[pg 13]

PART I
HIS EXPLOITS AT HOME AND ABROAD

5. Of all the wars that he waged that in Aquitania, begun, but not finished,
by his father, was the first that he undertook, because it seemed easy of
accomplishment. His brother was still alive, and was called upon for
assistance, and, though he failed to provide the help that he promised,
Charles prosecuted the enterprise that he had undertaken with the utmost
energy, and would not desist or slacken in his task before, by perseverance
and continuous effort, he had completely reached the end after which he
strove. For he forced Hunold,15 who after the death of Waifar had attempted
to occupy Aquitania and renew the almost finished war, to abandon
Aquitania and retire into Gascony. Even there he did not allow him to
remain, but crossed the Garonne, and sent ambassadors to Lupus, Duke of
the Gascons, ordering him to surrender the fugitive, [pg 14] and threatening
him with war unless he did so at once. Lupus, more wisely, not only
surrendered Hunold but also submitted himself and the province over which
he presided to the power of Charles.
6. When the Aquitanian trouble was settled and the war finished, when,
too, his partner in the kingdom had withdrawn from the world’s affairs, he
undertook a war against the Lombards, being moved thereto by the
entreaties and the prayers of Hadrian, Bishop of the City of Rome. Now,
this war, too, had been undertaken by his father at the supplication of Pope

Stephen, under circumstances of great difficulty, inasmuch as certain of the
chiefs of the Franks, whose advice he was accustomed to ask, so strongly
resisted his wishes that they openly declared that they would leave their
King to return home. But now Charles undertook the war against King
Haistulf, and most swiftly brought it to an end. For, though his reasons for
undertaking the war were similar to, and, indeed, the same as those of his
father, he plainly fought it out with a very different energy, and brought it to
a different end. For Pippin, after a siege of a few days at Pavia, forced King
Haistulf to give hostages, and restore to the Romans the towns and
fortresses that he had taken from [pg 15] them, and to give a solemn
promise that he would not attempt to regain what he had surrendered. But
King Charles, when once he had begun the war, did not stop until he had
received the surrender of King Desiderius, whom he had worn down after a
long siege; until he had forced his son Adalgis, in whom the hopes of his
people seemed to be centred, to fly not only from his kingdom but from
Italy; until he had restored to the Romans all that had been taken from
them; until he had crushed Hruodgausus, Præfect of the Duchy of Friuli,
who was attempting a revolution; until, in fine, he had brought all Italy
under his rule, and placed his son Pippin as king over the conquered
country. I should describe here the difficulties of the passage of the Alps
and the vast toil with which the Franks found their way through the pathless
mountain ridges, the rocks that soared to heaven, and the sharply-pointed
cliffs, if it were not that my purpose in the present work is rather to describe
Charles’s manner of life than to chronicle the events of the wars that he
waged. The sum of this war was the conquest of Italy, the transportation and
perpetual exile of King Desiderius, the expulsion of his son Adalgis from
Italy, power taken from the kings of the [pg 16] Lombards and restored to
Hadrian, the Ruler of the Roman Church.

7. When this war was ended the Saxon war,16 which seemed dropped
for a time, was taken up again. Never was there a war more prolonged nor
more cruel than this, nor one that required greater efforts on the part of the
Frankish peoples. For the Saxons, like most of the races that inhabit
Germany, are by nature fierce, devoted to the worship of demons and
hostile to our religion, and they think it no dishonour to confound and
transgress the laws of God and man.17 There were reasons, too, which
might at any time cause a disturbance of the peace. For our boundaries and
theirs touch almost everywhere on the open plain, except where in a few
places large forests or ranges of mountains are interposed to separate the
territories of the two nations by a definite frontier; so that on both sides
murder, robbery, and arson were of constant occurrence. The Franks were
so irritated by these things that they thought it was time no longer to be
satisfied with retaliation but to declare open war against them.
So war was declared, and was fought for thirty years continuously with
the greatest fierceness on both sides, but with heavier loss to the Saxons
than [pg 17] the Franks. The end might have been reached sooner had it not
been for the perfidy of the Saxons. It is hard to say how often they admitted
themselves beaten and surrendered as suppliants to King Charles; how often
they promised to obey his orders, gave without delay the required hostages,
and received the ambassadors that were sent to them. Sometimes they were
so cowed and broken that they promised to abandon the worship of devils
and willingly to submit themselves to the Christian religion.18 But though
sometimes ready to bow to his commands they were always eager to break
their promise, so that it is impossible to say which course seemed to come
more natural to them, for from the beginning of the war there was scarcely a
year in which they did not both promise and fail to perform.

But the high courage of the King and the constancy of his mind, which
remained unshaken by prosperity and adversity, could not be conquered by
their changes nor forced by weariness to desist from his undertakings. He
never allowed those who offended in this way to go unpunished, but either
led an army himself, or sent one under the command of his counts, to
chastise their perfidy and inflict a suitable penalty. So that at last, when all
who had resisted had been defeated and brought under his [pg 18] power, he
took ten thousand of the inhabitants of both banks of the Elbe, with their
wives and children, and planted them in many groups in various parts of
Germany and Gaul. And at last the war, protracted through so many years,
was finished on conditions proposed by the King and accepted by them;
they were to abandon the worship of devils, to turn from their national
ceremonies, to receive the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion,
and then, joined to the Franks, to make one people with them.
8. In this war, despite its prolongation through so many years, he did
not himself meet the enemy in battle more than twice—once near the
mountain called Osning, in the district of Detmold, and again at the river
Hasa19—and both these battles were fought in one month, with an interval
of only a few days. In these two battles the enemy were so beaten and
cowed that they never again ventured to challenge the King nor to resist his
attack unless they were protected by some advantage of ground.
In this war many men of noble birth and high office fell on the side
both of the Franks and Saxons. But at last it came to an end in the thirty-
third year, though in the meanwhile so many and such serious wars broke
out against the Franks in all parts of the [pg 19] world, and were carried on
with such skill by the King, that an observer may reasonably doubt whether
his endurance of toil or his good fortune deserves the greater admiration.
For the war in Italy began two years before the Saxon war, and though it

was prosecuted without intermission no enterprise in any part of the world
was dropped, nor was there anywhere a truce in any struggle, however
difficult. For this King, the wisest and most high-minded of all who in that
age ruled over the nations of the world, never refused to undertake or
prosecute any enterprise because of the labour involved, nor withdrew from
it through fear of its danger. He understood the true character of each task
that he undertook or carried through, and thus was neither broken by
adversity nor misled by the false flatteries of good fortune.
9. Whilst the war with the Saxons was being prosecuted constantly and
almost continuously he placed garrisons at suitable places on the frontier,
and attacked Spain with the largest military expedition that he could collect.
He crossed the Pyrenees, received the surrender of all the towns and
fortresses that he attacked, and returned with his army safe and sound,
except for a reverse which he experienced through the treason of the
Gascons on his return [pg 20] through the passes of the Pyrenees. For while
his army was marching in a long line, suiting their formation to the
character of the ground and the defiles, the Gascons placed an ambuscade
on the top of the mountain—where the density and extent of the woods in
the neighbourhood rendered it highly suitable for such a purpose—and then
rushing down into the valley beneath threw into disorder the last part of the
baggage train and also the rearguard which acted as a protection to those in
advance. In the battle which followed the Gascons slew their opponents to
the last man. Then they seized upon the baggage, and under cover of the
night, which was already falling, they scattered with the utmost rapidity in
different directions. The Gascons were assisted in this feat by the lightness
of their armour and the character of the ground where the affair took place.
In this battle Eggihard, the surveyor of the royal table; Anselm, the Count of
the Palace; and Roland, Præfect of the Breton frontier, were killed along

with very many others.20 Nor could this assault be punished at once, for
when the deed had been done the enemy so completely disappeared that
they left behind them not so much as a rumour of their whereabouts.
10. He conquered the Bretons, too, who dwelt in [pg 21] the extreme
west of France by the shores of the ocean. They had been disobedient, and
he, therefore, sent against them an expedition, by which they were
compelled to give hostages and promise that they would henceforth obey
his orders.
Then later he himself entered Italy with an army, and, passing through
Rome, came to Capua, a city of Campania. There he pitched his camp, and
threatened the men of Beneventum21 with war unless they surrendered. But
Aragis, Duke of that people, prevented this war by sending his sons Rumold
and Grimold to meet the King with a large sum of money. He asked the
King to receive his children as hostages, and promised that he and his
people would obey all the commands of the King, except only that he
would not come himself into the King’s presence. Charles, considering
rather the advantage of the people than their Duke’s obstinacy, received the
hostages who were offered him, and as a great favour consented to forego a
personal interview. He kept the younger of the two children as a hostage
and sent back the elder one to his father. Then he sent ambassadors to
require and receive oaths of fidelity from the Beneventans and from Aragis,
and so came back to Rome. There he spent some days in the veneration of
the holy places, and then returned to Gaul.
[pg 22] 11. Then the Bavarian war broke out suddenly, and was swiftly
ended. It was caused by the pride and folly of Tassilo,22 Duke of Bavaria;
for upon the instigation of his wife, who thought that she might revenge
through her husband the banishment of her father Desiderius, King of the
Lombards, he made an alliance with the Huns, the eastern neighbours of the

Bavarians, and not only refused obedience to King Charles but even dared
to challenge him in war. The high courage of the King could not bear his
overweening insolence, and he forthwith called a general levy for an attack
on Bavaria, and came in person with a great army to the river Lech, which
separates Bavaria from Germany. He pitched his camp upon the banks of
the river, and determined to make trial of the mind of the Duke before he
entered the province. But Duke Tassilo saw no profit either for himself or
his people in stubbornness, and threw himself upon the King’s mercy. He
gave the hostages who were demanded, his own son Theodo among the
number, and further promised upon oath that no one should ever persuade
him again to fall away from his allegiance to the King. And thus a war
which seemed likely to grow into a very great one came to a most swift
ending. But Tassilo was subsequently summoned into the King’s presence,
and was not allowed to [pg 23] return, and the province that he ruled was
for the future committed to the administration not of dukes but of counts.23
12. When these troubles had been settled he waged war against the
Slavs, whom we are accustomed to call Wilzi, but who properly—that is, in
their own tongue—are called Welatabi. Here the Saxons fought along with
the other allied nations who followed the King’s standards, though their
loyalty was feigned and far from sincere. The cause of the war was that the
Wilzi24 were constantly invading and attacking the Abodriti, the former
allies of the Franks, and refused to obey the King’s commands to desist
from their attacks. There is a gulf25 stretching from the western sea towards
the East, of undiscovered length, but nowhere more than a hundred miles in
breadth, and often much narrower. Many nations occupy the shores of this
sea. The Danes and the Swedes, whom we call the Northmen, hold its
northern shore and all the islands in it. The Slavs and the Aisti and various
other nations inhabit the eastern shore, amongst whom the chief are these

Welatabi against whom then the King waged war. He so broke and subdued
them in a single campaign, conducted by himself, that they thought it no
longer wise to refuse to obey his commands.
[pg 24] 13. The greatest of all his wars, next to the Saxon war,
followed this one—that, namely, which he undertook against the Huns and
the Avars.26 He prosecuted this with more vigour than the rest and with a far
greater military preparation. However, he conducted in person only one
expedition into Pannonia, the province then occupied by the Avars; the
management of the rest he left to his son Pippin, and the governors of the
provinces, and in some cases to his counts and lieutenants. These carried on
the war with the greatest energy, and finished it after eight years of fighting.
How many battles were fought there and how much blood was shed is still
shown by the deserted and uninhabited condition of Pannonia, and the
district in which stood the palace of the Kagan27 is so desolate that there is
not so much as a trace of human habitation. All the nobles of the Huns were
killed in this war, all their glory passed away; their money and all the
treasures that they had collected for so long were carried away. Nor can the
memory of man recall any war waged against the Franks by which they
were so much enriched and their wealth so increased.28 Up to this time they
were regarded almost as a poor people, but now so much gold and silver
were found in the palace, such precious spoils were seized by them in [pg
25] their battles, that it might fairly be held that the Franks had righteously
taken from the Huns what they unrighteously had taken from other nations.
Only two of the nobles of the Franks were killed in this war. Eric, the Duke
of Friuli, was caught in an ambuscade laid by the townsmen of Tharsatica,29
a maritime town of Liburnia. And Gerold, the Governor of Bavaria, when
he was marshalling his army to fight with the Huns in Pannonia, was killed
by an unknown hand, along with two others, who accompanied him as he

rode along the line encouraging the soldiers by name. For the rest, the war
was almost bloodless so far as the Franks were concerned, and most
fortunate in its result although so difficult and protracted.
14. After this the Saxon war ended in a settlement as lasting as the
struggle had been protracted. The wars with Bohemia and Luneburg which
followed were soon over; both of them were swiftly settled under the
command of the younger Charles.
The last war of all that Charles undertook was against those
Northmen,30 who are called Danes, who first came as pirates, and then
ravaged the coasts of Gaul and Germany with a greater naval force. Their
King, Godofrid, was puffed up with the vain confidence that he would make
himself master of all [pg 26] Germany. He looked upon Frisia and Saxony
as his own provinces. He had already reduced his neighbours the Abodriti to
obedience, and had forced them to pay him tribute. Now he boasted that he
would soon come to Aix, the seat of the King’s Court, with a mighty force.
His boast, however idle, found some to believe it; it was thought that he
would certainly have made some such attempt if he had not been prevented
by a sudden death. For he was killed by one of his own followers, and so
ended both his life and the war that he had begun.
15. These, then, are the wars which this mighty King waged during the
course of forty-seven years—for his reign extended over that period—in
different parts of the world with the utmost skill and success. By these wars
he so nobly increased the kingdom of the Franks, which was great and
strong when he inherited it from his father Pippin, that the additions he
made almost doubled it.31 For before his time the power of the Frankish
kingdom extended only over that part of Gaul which is bounded by the
Rhine, the Loire, and the Balearic Sea;32 and that part of Germany which is
inhabited by the so-called eastern Franks, and which is bounded by Saxony,

the Danube, the Rhine, and the river Saal, which stream [pg 27] separates
the Thuringians and the Sorabs; and, further, over the Alamanni and the
Bavarians. But Charles, by the wars that have been mentioned, conquered
and made tributary the following countries:—First, Aquitania and Gascony,
and the whole Pyrenean range, and the country of Spain as far as the Ebro,
which, rising in Navarre and passing through the most fertile territory of
Spain, falls into the Balearic Sea, beneath the walls of the city of Tortosa;
next, all Italy from Augusta Prætoria as far as lower Calabria, where are the
frontiers of the Greeks and Beneventans, a thousand miles and more in
length; next, Saxony, which is a considerable portion of Germany, and is
reckoned to be twice as broad and about as long as that part of Germany
which is inhabited by the Franks; then both provinces of Pannonia and
Dacia, on one side of the river Danube, and Histria and Liburnia and
Dalmatia, with the exception of the maritime cities which he left to the
Emperor of Constantinople on account of their friendship and the treaty
made between them; lastly, all the barbarous and fierce nations lying
between the Rhine, the Vistula, the Ocean, and the Danube, who speak
much the same language, but in character and dress are very unlike. The
chief of these last are the Welatabi, the Sorabi, the Abodriti, and the
Bohemians; [pg 28] against these he waged war, but the others, and by far
the larger number, surrendered without a struggle.
16. The friendship, too, which he established with certain kings and
peoples increased the glory of his reign.
Aldefonsus, King of Gallæcia and Asturica, was joined in so close an
alliance with him that whenever he sent letters or ambassadors to Charles
he gave instructions that he should be called “the man” of the Frankish
King.33

Further, his rich gifts had so attached the kings of the Scots to his
favour that they always called him their lord and themselves his submissive
servants. Letters are still in existence sent by them to Charles in which
those feelings towards him are clearly shown.
With Aaron,34 the King of the Persians, who ruled over all the East,
with the exception of India, he entertained so harmonious a friendship that
the Persian King valued his favour before the friendship of all the kings and
princes in the world, and held that it alone deserved to be cultivated with
presents and titles. When, therefore, the ambassadors of Charles, whom he
had sent with offerings to the most holy sepulchre of our Lord and Saviour
and to the place of His resurrection, came to the Persian King and
proclaimed [pg 29] the kindly feelings of their master, he not only granted
them all they asked but also allowed that sacred place of our salvation to be
reckoned as part of the possessions of the Frankish King.35 He further sent
ambassadors of his own along with those of Charles upon the return
journey, and forwarded immense presents to Charles—robes and spices, and
the other rich products of the East—and a few years earlier he had sent him
at his request an elephant,36 which was then the only one he had.
The Emperors of Constantinople, Nicephorus, Michael, and Leo, too,
made overtures of friendship and alliance with him, and sent many
ambassadors. At first Charles was regarded with much suspicion by them,
because he had taken the imperial title, and thus seemed to aim at taking
from them their empire; but in the end a very definite treaty was made
between them, and every occasion of quarrel on either side thereby avoided.
For the Romans and the Greeks always suspected the Frankish power;
hence there is a well-known Greek proverb: “the Frank is a good friend but
a bad neighbour.”

17. Though he was so successful in widening the boundaries of his
kingdom and subduing the foreign nations he, nevertheless, put on foot
many works for the decoration and convenience of his kingdom, and [pg
30] carried some to completion. The great church dedicated to Mary, the
holy Mother of God, at Aix, and the bridge, five hundred feet in length,
over the great river Rhine near Mainz, may fairly be regarded as the chief of
his works. But the bridge was burnt down a year before his death, and
though he had determined to rebuild it of stone instead of wood it was not
restored, because his death so speedily followed. He began also to build
palaces of splendid workmanship—one not far from the city of Mainz, near
a town called Ingelheim; another at Nimeguen, on the river Waal, which
flows along the south of the Batavian island. And he gave special orders to
the bishops and priests who had charge of sacred buildings that any
throughout his realm which had fallen into ruin through age should be
restored, and he instructed his agents to see that his orders were carried out.
He built a fleet, too, for the war against the Northmen, constructing
ships for this purpose near those rivers which flow out of Gaul and
Germany into the northern ocean. And because the Northmen laid waste the
coasts of Gaul and Germany by their constant attacks he planted forts and
garrisons in all harbours and at the mouths of all navigable rivers, and
prevented in this way the passage of the enemy.37 [pg 31] He took the same
measures in the South, on the shore of Narbonne and Septimania, and also
along all the coasts of Italy as far as Rome, to hold in check the Moors, who
had lately begun to make piratical excursions. And by reason of these
precautions Italy suffered no serious harm from the Moors, nor Gaul and
Germany from the Northmen, in the days of Charles; except that
Centumcellæ, a city of Etruria, was betrayed into the hands of the Moors

and plundered, and in Frisia certain islands lying close to Germany were
ravaged by the Northmen.

[pg 32]

PART II
PRIVATE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CHARLEMAGNE

18. I have shown, then, how Charles protected and expanded his kingdom
and also what splendour he gave to it. I shall now go on to speak of his
mental endowments, of his steadiness of purpose under whatever
circumstances of prosperity or adversity, and of all that concerns his private
and domestic life.
As long as, after the death of his father, he shared the kingdom with his
brother he bore so patiently the quarrelling and restlessness of the latter as
never even to be provoked to wrath by him. Then, having married at his
mother’s bidding the daughter of Desiderius, King of the Lombards, he
divorced her, for some unknown reason,38 a year later. He took in marriage
Hildigard,39 of the Suabian race, a woman of the highest nobility, and by
her he had three sons—viz. Charles and Pippin and Ludovicus, and three
[pg 33] daughters—Hrotrud and Bertha and Gisla. He had also three other
daughters—Theoderada and Hiltrud and Hruodhaid. Two of these were the
children of his wife Fastrada,40 a woman of the eastern Franks or Germans;
the third was the daughter of a concubine, whose name has escaped my
memory. On the death of Fastrada he married Liutgard, of the Alemannic
race, by whom he had no children. After her death he had four concubines
—namely, Madelgarda, who bore him a daughter of the name of Ruothild;
Gersuinda, of Saxon origin, by whom he had a daughter of the name of

Adolthrud; Regina, who bore him Drogot and Hugo; and Adallinda, who
was the mother of Theoderic.
His mother Bertrada lived with him to old age in great honour. He
treated her with the utmost reverence, so that no quarrel of any kind ever
arose between them—except in the matter of the divorce of the daughter of
King Desiderius, whom he had married at her bidding. Bertrada died after
the death of Hildigard, having lived to see three grandsons and as many
granddaughters in her son’s house. Charles had his mother buried with great
honour in the same great church of St Denys in which his father lay.
He had only one sister, Gisla, who from childhood [pg 34] was
dedicated to the religious life. He treated her with the same affectionate
respect as his mother. She died a few years before Charles’s own death in
the monastery in which she had passed her life.
19. In educating his children he determined to train them, both sons
and daughters, in those liberal studies to which he himself paid great
attention. Further, he made his sons, as soon as their age permitted it, learn
to ride like true Franks, and practise the use of arms and hunting. He
ordered his daughters to learn wool work and devote attention to the spindle
and distaff, for the avoidance of idleness and lethargy, and to be trained to
the adoption of high principles.
He lost two sons and one daughter before his death—namely, Charles,
his eldest; Pippin, whom he made King of Italy; and Hruotrud, his eldest
daughter, who had been betrothed to Constantine, the Emperor of the
Greeks.41 Pippin left one son, Bernard, and five daughters—Adalheid,
Atula, Gundrada, Berthaid, and Theoderada. In his treatment of them
Charles gave the strongest proof of his family affection, for upon the death
of his son he appointed his grandson Bernard to succeed him, and had his
granddaughters brought up with his own daughters.

He bore the deaths of his two sons and of his [pg 35] daughters with
less patience than might have been expected from his usual stoutness of
heart, for his domestic affection, a quality for which he was as remarkable
as for courage, forced him to shed tears. Moreover, when the death of
Hadrian, the Roman Pontiff, whom he reckoned as the chief of his friends,
was announced to him, he wept for him as though he had lost a brother or a
very dear son. For he showed a very fine disposition in his friendships: he
embraced them readily and maintained them faithfully, and he treated with
the utmost respect all whom he had admitted into the circle of his friends.
He had such care of the upbringing of his sons and daughters that he
never dined without them when he was at home, and never travelled
without them. His sons rode along with him, and his daughters followed in
the rear. Some of his guards, chosen for this very purpose, watched the end
of the line of march where his daughters travelled. They were very
beautiful, and much beloved by their father, and, therefore, it is strange that
he would give them in marriage to no one, either among his own people or
of a foreign state. But up to his death he kept them all at home, saying that
he could not forego their society. And hence the good fortune that followed
him in all other respects was here broken by the [pg 36] touch of scandal
and failure.42 He shut his eyes, however, to everything, and acted as though
no suspicion of anything amiss had reached him, or as if the rumour of it
had been discredited.
20. He had by a concubine a son called Pippin—whom I purposely did
not mention along with the others—handsome, indeed, but deformed. When
Charles, after the beginning of the war against the Huns, was wintering in
Bavaria, this Pippin pretended illness, and formed a conspiracy against his
father with some of the leaders of the Franks, who had seduced him by a
vain promise of the kingdom.43 When the design had been detected and the

conspirators punished Pippin was tonsured and sent to the monastery of
Prumia, there to practise the religious life, to which in the end he was of his
own will inclined.
Another dangerous conspiracy had been formed against him in
Germany at an earlier date. The plotters were some of them blinded and
some of them maimed, and all subsequently transported into exile. Not
more than three lost their lives, and these resisted capture with drawn
swords, and in defending themselves killed some of their opponents. Hence,
as they could not be restrained in any other way, they were cut down.
The cruelty of Queen Fastrada is believed to be [pg 37] the cause and
origin of these conspiracies. Both were caused by the belief that, upon the
persuasion of his cruel wife, he had swerved widely from his natural
kindness and customary leniency. Otherwise his whole life long he so won
the love and favour of all men both at home and abroad that never was the
slightest charge of unjust severity brought against him by anyone.
21. He had a great love for foreigners, and took such pains to entertain
them that their numbers were justly reckoned to be a burden not only to the
palace but to the kingdom at large. But, with his usual loftiness of spirit, he
took little note of such charges, for he found in the reputation of generosity
and in the good fame that followed such actions a compensation even for
grave inconveniences.
22. His body was large and strong; his stature tall but not ungainly, for
the measure of his height was seven times the length of his own feet. The
top of his head was round; his eyes were very large and piercing. His nose
was rather larger than is usual; he had beautiful white hair; and his
expression was brisk and cheerful; so that, whether sitting or standing, his
appearance was dignified and impressive. Although his neck was rather
thick and short and he was somewhat corpulent this was not noticed owing

[pg 38] to the good proportions of the rest of his body. His step was firm
and the whole carriage of his body manly; his voice was clear, but hardly so
strong as you would have expected. He had good health, but for four years
before his death was frequently attacked by fevers, and at last was lame of
one foot. Even then he followed his own opinion rather than the advice of
his doctors, whom he almost hated, because they advised him to give up the
roast meat to which he was accustomed, and eat boiled instead. He
constantly took exercise both by riding and hunting. This was a national
habit; for there is hardly any race on the earth that can be placed on equality
with the Franks in this respect. He took delight in the vapour of naturally
hot waters, and constantly practised swimming, in which he was so
proficient that no one could be fairly regarded as his superior. Partly for this
reason he built his palace at Aix, and lived there continuously during the
last years of his life up to the time of his death. He used to invite not only
his sons to the bath but also his nobles and friends, and at times even a great
number of his followers and bodyguards.
23. He wore the national—that is to say, the Frankish dress. His shirts
and drawers were of linen, then came a tunic with a silken fringe, and hose.
His legs were cross-gartered and his feet enclosed in shoes. [pg 39] In
winter-time he defended his shoulders and chest with a jerkin made of the
skins of otters and ermine. He was clad in a blue cloak, and always wore a
sword, with the hilt and belt of either gold or silver. Occasionally, too, he
used a jewelled sword, but this was only on the great festivals or when he
received ambassadors from foreign nations. He disliked foreign garments,
however beautiful, and would never consent to wear them, except once at
Rome on the request of Pope Hadrian, and once again upon the entreaty of
his successor, Pope Leo, when he wore a long tunic and cloak, and put on
shoes made after the Roman fashion. On festal days he walked in

procession in a garment of gold cloth, with jewelled boots and a golden
girdle to his cloak, and distinguished further by a diadem of gold and
precious stones. But on other days his dress differed little from that of the
common people.
24. He was temperate in eating and drinking, but especially so in
drinking; for he had a fierce hatred of drunkenness in any man, and
especially in himself or in his friends. He could not abstain so easily from
food, and used often to complain that fasting was injurious to his health. He
rarely gave large banquets, and only on the high festivals, but then he
invited a large number of guests. His daily meal was served in four courses
only, exclusive of the roast, [pg 40] which the hunters used to bring in on
spits, and which he ate with more pleasure than any other food. During the
meal there was either singing or a reader for him to listen to. Histories and
the great deeds of men of old were read to him. He took delight also in the
books of Saint Augustine, and especially in those which are entitled the City
of God. He was so temperate in the use of wine and drink of any kind that
he rarely drank oftener than thrice during dinner.
In summer, after his midday meal, he took some fruit and a single
draught, and then, taking off his clothes and boots, just as he was
accustomed to do at night, he would rest for two or three hours. At night he
slept so lightly that he would wake, and even rise, four or five times during
the night.
When he was putting on his boots and clothes he not only admitted his
friends, but if the Count of the Palace told him there was any dispute which
could not be settled without his decision he would have the litigants at once
brought in, and hear the case, and pronounce on it just as if he were sitting
on the tribunal. He would, moreover, at the same time transact any business
that had to be done that day or give any orders to his servants.44

25. In speech he was fluent and ready, and could [pg 41] express with
the greatest clearness whatever he wished. He was not merely content with
his native tongue but took the trouble to learn foreign languages. He learnt
Latin so well that he could speak it as well as his native tongue; but he
could understand Greek better than he could speak it.45 His fluency of
speech was so great that he even seemed sometimes a little garrulous.
He paid the greatest attention to the liberal arts, and showed the
greatest respect and bestowed high honours upon those who taught them.
For his lessons in grammar he listened to the instruction of Deacon Peter of
Pisa, an old man; but for all other subjects Albinus, called Alcuin,46 also a
deacon, was his teacher—a man from Britain, of the Saxon race, and the
most learned man of his time. Charles spent much time and labour in
learning rhetoric and dialectic, and especially astronomy, from Alcuin. He
learnt, too, the art of reckoning, and with close application scrutinised most
carefully the course of the stars. He tried also to learn to write, and for this
purpose used to carry with him and keep under the pillow of his couch
tablets and writing-sheets that he might in his spare moments accustom
himself to the formation of letters. But he made little advance in this strange
task, which was begun too late in life.47
[pg 42] 26. He paid the most devout and pious regard to the Christian
religion, in which he had been brought up from infancy. And, therefore, he
built the great and most beautiful church at Aix, and decorated it with gold
and silver and candelabras and with wicket-gates and doors of solid brass.
And, since he could not procure marble columns elsewhere for the building
of it, he had them brought from Rome and Ravenna. As long as his health
permitted it he used diligently to attend the church both in the morning and
evening, and during the night, and at the time of the Sacrifice. He took the
greatest care to have all the services of the church performed with the

utmost dignity, and constantly warned the keepers of the building not to
allow anything improper or dirty either to be brought into or to remain in
the building. He provided so great a quantity of gold and silver vessels, and
so large a supply of priestly vestments, that at the religious services not
even the doorkeepers, who form the lowest ecclesiastical order, had to
officiate in their ordinary dress. He carefully reformed the manner of
reading and singing; for he was thoroughly instructed in both, though he
never read publicly himself, nor sang except in a low voice, and with the
rest of the congregation.
27. He was most devout in relieving the poor and [pg 43] in those free
gifts which the Greeks call alms. For he gave it his attention not only in his
own country and in his own kingdom, but he also used to send money
across the sea to Syria, to Egypt, to Africa—to Jerusalem, Alexandria, and
Carthage—in compassion for the poverty of any Christians whose
miserable condition in those countries came to his ears. It was for this
reason chiefly that he cultivated the friendship of kings beyond the sea,
hoping thereby to win for the Christians living beneath their sway some
succour and relief.
Beyond all other sacred and venerable places he loved the church of
the holy Apostle Peter at Rome, and he poured into its treasury great wealth
in silver and gold and precious stones. He sent innumerable gifts to the
Pope; and during the whole course of his reign he strove with all his might
(and, indeed, no object was nearer to his heart than this) to restore to the
city of Rome her ancient authority, and not merely to defend the church of
Saint Peter but to decorate and enrich it out of his resources above all other
churches. But although he valued Rome so much, still, during all the forty-
seven years that he reigned, he only went there four times to pay his vows
and offer up his prayers.

28. But such were not the only objects of his last [pg 44] visit; for the
Romans had grievously outraged Pope Leo, had torn out his eyes and cut
off his tongue, and thus forced him to throw himself upon the protection of
the King. He therefore came to Rome to restore the condition of the church,
which was terribly disturbed, and spent the whole of the winter there. It was
then that he received the title of Emperor and Augustus,48 which he so
disliked at first that he affirmed that he would not have entered the church
on that day—though it was the chief festival of the church—if he could
have foreseen the design of the Pope. But when he had taken the title he
bore very quietly the hostility that it caused and the indignation of the
Roman emperors.49 He conquered their ill-feeling by his magnanimity, in
which, doubtless, he far excelled them, and sent frequent embassies to
them, and called them his brothers.
29. When he had taken the imperial title he noticed many defects in the
legal systems of his people; for the Franks have two legal systems,50
differing in many points very widely from one another, and he, therefore,
determined to add what was lacking, to reconcile the differences, and to
amend anything that was wrong or wrongly expressed. He completed
nothing of all his designs beyond adding a few capitularies, and those
unfinished. But he gave orders [pg 45] that the laws and rules of all nations
comprised within his dominions which were not already written out should
be collected and committed to writing.
He also wrote out the barbarous and ancient songs, in which the acts of
the kings and their wars were sung, and committed them to memory. He
also began a grammar of his native language.51
He gave the months names in his own tongue, for before his time they
were called by the Franks partly by Latin and partly by barbarous names.
He also gave names to the twelve winds, whereas before not more than four,

and perhaps not so many, had names of their own. Of the months, he called
January Winter-month, February Mud-month, March Spring-month, April
Easter-month, May Joy-month, June Plough-month, July Hay-month,
August Harvest-month, September Wind-month, October Vintage-month,
November Autumn-month, December Holy-month.52 The following are the
names which he gave to the winds:—The Subsolanus (east) he called East
Wind; the Eurus (east by south) East-South Wind; the Euroauster (south by
east) South-East Wind; the Auster (south) South Wind; the Austro-Afric
(south by west) South-West Wind; the Afric (west by south) West-South
Wind; the Zephyr (west) West Wind; the Corus (west by north) West-North
[pg 46] Wind; the Circius (north by west) North-West Wind; the Septentrion
(north) North Wind; the Aquilon (north by east) North-East Wind; the
Vulturnus (east by north) East-North Wind.
30. At the very end of his life, when already he was feeling the
pressure of old age and sickness, he summoned his own son Lewis, King of
Aquitania, the only surviving son of Hildigard, and then solemnly called
together the Frankish nobles of his whole kingdom; and then, with the
consent of all, made Lewis partner in the whole kingdom and heir to the
imperial title. After that, putting the diadem on his head, he ordered them to
salute him “Imperator” and Augustus. This decision of his was received by
all present with the greatest favour, for it seemed to them a divine
inspiration for the welfare of the realm. It added to his dignity at home and
increased the terror of his name abroad.
He then sent his son back to Aquitania, and himself, though broken
with old age, proceeded to hunt, as his custom was, not far from the palace
of Aix, and after spending the rest of the autumn in this pursuit he came
back to Aix about the beginning of November. Whilst he was spending the
winter there he was attacked by a sharp fever, and took to his bed. Then,

following his usual habit, he [pg 47] determined to abstain from food,
thinking that by such self-discipline he would be able either to cure or
alleviate the disease. But the fever was complicated by a pain in the side
which the Greeks call pleurisy; and, as Charles still persisted in fasting, and
only very rarely drank something to sustain his strength, seven days after he
had taken to his bed he received holy communion, and died, in the seventy-
second year of his life and in the forty-seventh year of his reign, on the fifth
day before the Kalends of February, at the third hour of the day.
31. His body was washed and treated with the usual ceremonies, and
then, amidst the greatest grief of the whole people, taken to the church and
buried. At first there was some doubt as to where he should rest, since he
had given no instructions during his lifetime. But at length all were agreed
that he could be buried nowhere more honourably than in the great church
which he had built at his own expense in the same town, for the love of our
Lord God Jesus Christ and the honour of His holy and ever-virgin Mother.
There he was buried on the same day on which he died.53 A gilded arch was
raised above the tomb, with his statue, and an inscription. The inscription
ran as follows:—

[pg 48] “Beneath this tomb lies the body of Charles, the
great and orthodox Emperor, who nobly expanded the
kingdom of the Franks and reigned prosperously for forty-
seven years. He departed this life, more than seventy years
of age, in the eight hundred and fourteenth year of our Lord,
in the seventh indiction, on the fifth day before the Kalends
of February.”

32. There were many prodigies to show that his end drew near, and he as
well as others understood the meaning of their warnings. During all the
three last years of his life there were constant eclipses of sun and moon, and
a black-coloured spot appeared in the sun for the space of seven days. The
gallery which he had built, of great size and strength, between the palace
and the church, suddenly, on Ascension Day, fell in ruins down even to the
foundations. Also, the wooden bridge over the Rhine near Mainz, which he
had built with wonderful skill, and the labour of ten years, so that it seemed
as though it would last for ever, was accidentally set on fire, and in three
hours burnt so far that not a plank remained except those that were covered
by the water. Further, when he was making his last expedition in Saxony
against Godofrid, King of the Danes, as he was moving [pg 49] out of camp
and beginning his march before sunrise, he suddenly saw a meteor rush
across the heavens with a great blaze and pass from right to left through the
clear sky. Whilst all were wondering what this sign meant, suddenly the
horse that he was riding fell head foremost, and threw him so violently to
the ground that the girdle of his cloak was broken, and his sword belt
slipped from it. When his attendants ran up to help him they found him
disarmed and disrobed. His javelin, too, which he was holding in his hand
at the time of his fall, fell twenty paces and more away from him.
Moreover, the palace at Aix was frequently shaken, and in houses where he
lived there was a constant creaking in the fretted ceilings. The church in
which he was afterwards buried was struck by lightning, and the golden
apple that adorned the summit of the roof was thrown down by a thunder-
stroke, and fell upon the Bishop’s house, which adjoined the church. In the
same church an inscription was written on the edge of the circular space
which ran round the inside of the church between the upper and lower
arches, saying by whom the sacred edifice had been built. And in the last

line occurred the words: “Carolus Princeps.” Some noticed that in the very
year in [pg 50] which Charles died, and a few months before his death, the
letters of the word “princeps” were so destroyed as to be quite invisible. But
he either refused to notice or despised all these omens as though they had
no connection at all with anything that concerned him.
33. He had determined to draw out wills in order to make his daughters
and the sons whom his concubines had borne to him heirs to some part of
his property; but he took up this design too late, and could not carry it out.
But some three years before he died he divided his treasures, his money and
his robes, and all his other moveable property, in presence of his friends and
ministers, and appealed to them to ratify and maintain by their support this
division after his death. He also stated in a document how he wished to
have the property which he had divided disposed of. The text and purport of
the document ran as follows:—

In the name of the Lord God Almighty, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost. This is the description and division which was
made by the most glorious and pious lord Charles, the
august Emperor, in the eight hundred and eleventh year from
the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; in the forty-third
year of his [pg 51] reign in Frankland; in the thirty-sixth
year of his reign in Italy; in the eleventh year of his Empire
and in the fourth indiction: which division he made for wise
and religious reasons of his treasures and of the money
which on that day was found in the treasury. Wherein his
great aim was: in the first place to ensure that the
distribution of alms, which Christians religiously make from
their possessions, should be duly and properly made on his

account from his wealth; and also that his heirs may clearly
know without any possibility of doubt what ought to belong
to them, and may therefore (without contest or dissension)
divide his goods among themselves in their proper
proportion. Therefore with this intention and object he first
divided into three parts all his property and moveable goods;
which, whether consisting of gold, silver, jewels, or royal
apparel, could be found on the afore-mentioned day in his
treasury. Then, by a further distribution, he divided two of
those three parts into twenty-one parts, and kept the third
part undivided.
The distribution of the two parts into twenty-one is to
be carried out in the following way. As there are known to
be twenty-one metropolitan cities in his realm, one of those
twenty-one parts is to be handed over to each metropolitan
city by his heirs and [pg 52] friends for the purpose of
almsgiving. The Archbishop who at the time of his death is
ruling the metropolitan sees shall receive that part for his
church and divide it among his suffragans; one-third going
to his own church and two-thirds being divided among his
suffragans.
Each of these divisions—which, as already mentioned,
are made out of the first two-thirds, and are twenty-one in
number, according to the number of the metropolitan sees—
is separated from the rest and put away by itself in a
repository of its own with the title of the city attached to
which it is to be given. The names of the metropolitan sees,
to which this alms or largess is to be given, are Rome,

Ravenna, Milan, Fréjus, Grado, Cologne, Mainz, Juvavum
which is also called Salsburg, Trèves, Sens, Besançon,
Lyons, Rouen, Rheims, Arles, Vienne, Darantasia, Embrun,
Bordeaux, Tours, Bourges.
The following disposition shall be made of the one part
hitherto left undivided. When the first two parts have been
distributed into the before-mentioned divisions, and have
been put away under seal, this third part shall be employed
for daily uses, as not being alienated by any bond or promise
of the owner; and it shall be so used as long as he himself
remains in the flesh or judges its employment to [pg 53] be
necessary to him. But after his death or his voluntary
retirement from the affairs of the world that part shall be
divided into four subdivisions. Of these subdivisions one
shall be added to the before-mentioned twenty-one parts; the
second shall be taken by his sons and daughters, and by the
sons and daughters of his sons, and shall be divided among
them in just and reasonable proportion; the third shall be
devoted to the use of the poor in the manner usual among
Christians; the fourth part shall similarly be divided for alms
and go to the support of the servants, both men and women,
who attend to the needs of the palaces.
He desired further that there should be added to this
third part of the total sum, which like the other parts consists
of gold and silver, all vessels and utensils of brass, iron or
other metals, with arms, clothes and all other moveable
articles, whether of value or not, which are employed for
various purposes; as for instance curtains, coverlets,

tapestries, woollen-cloths, dressed-skins, harnesses, and
whatever else is found at that date in his store chamber or
wardrobe: so that in this way the subdivisions of that part
may be larger, and the distribution of alms find its way to a
larger number.
He desired that the chapel—that is, the materials [pg
54] for the service of the church, both those which he
himself gave and collected and those which came to him by
inheritance from his father—should remain entire and suffer
no division of any kind. But if any vessel or books or other
ornaments are found, which have certainly not been given
by him to the aforementioned chapel, these may be bought
and possessed by anyone who wants them, at a price fixed
by a reasonable valuation. He similarly determined that the
books, of which he had collected a great quantity in his
library, should be sold at a reasonable price to anyone who
wanted them and the money handed over to the poor.
Amongst his treasures there are three tables of silver and one
of gold of remarkable size and weight. Concerning these he
determined and decided as follows. One of them, square in
shape, containing a map of the city of Constantinople, shall
be sent to Rome for the cathedral of the holy Apostle Peter,
along with the other gifts which are set aside for that
purpose. The second, round in shape, inscribed with a
picture of the city of Rome, shall be given to the Bishopric
of the Church of Ravenna. The third, which is far superior to
the others both in beauty of workmanship and in weight,
which is made of three circles, and contains a map of the

whole world, skilfully and minutely drawn, shall go to [pg
55] increase that third part which is to be divided among his
heirs and given in alms.
This disposition and arrangement he made and drew up
in presence of the bishops, abbots and counts, who could
then be present and whose names are here written out.

Bishops

Hildibald John
Richolf Theodolf
Arno Jesse
Wolphar Heito

Bernoin Waltgaud
Laidrad

Abbots

Fridugisius Engilbert
Adalung Irmin

Counts

Walatho Rihwin
Meginher Edo
Otolf Ercangar
Stephen Gerold

Unruoc Bero
Barchard Hildigern
Meginhard Roccolf
Hatto

[pg 56] His son Lewis, who by the designs of Providence succeeded him,
inspected the aforesaid document, and carried out these arrangements with
the greatest devotion immediately after his death.

[pg 57]

THE LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE BY THE MONK
OF ST GALL

[pg 59]

BOOK I
CONCERNING THE PIETY OF CHARLES AND HIS CARE OF
THE CHURCH

After the omnipotent ruler of the world, who orders alike the fate of
kingdoms and the course of time, had broken the feet of iron and clay in
one noble statue,54 to wit the Romans, he raised by the hands of the
illustrious Charles the golden head of another, not less admirable, among
the Franks. Now it happened, when he had begun to reign alone in the
western parts of the world, and the pursuit of learning had been almost
forgotten throughout all his realm, and the worship of the true Godhead was
faint and weak, that two Scots came from Ireland to the coast of Gaul along
with certain traders of Britain. These Scotchmen were unrivalled for their
skill in sacred and secular learning: and day by day, when the crowd
gathered round them for traffic, they exhibited no wares for sale, but cried
out and said, [pg 60] “Ho, everyone that desires wisdom, let him draw near
and take it at our hands; for it is wisdom that we have for sale.”
Now they declared that they had wisdom for sale because they said
that the people cared not for what was given freely but only for what was
sold, hoping that thus they might be incited to purchase wisdom along with
other wares; and also perhaps hoping that by this announcement they
themselves might become a wonder and a marvel to men: which indeed
turned out to be the case. For so long did they make their proclamation that

in the end those who wondered at these men, or perhaps thought them
insane, brought the matter to the ears of King Charles, who always loved
and sought after wisdom. Wherefore he ordered them to come with all
speed into his presence and asked them whether it were true, as fame
reported of them, that they had brought wisdom with them. They answered,
“We both possess it and are ready to give it, in the name of God, to those
who seek it worthily.” Again he asked them what price they asked for it;
and they answered, “We ask no price, O king; but we ask only for a fit place
for teaching and quick minds to teach; and besides food to eat and raiment
to put on, for without these we cannot accomplish our pilgrimage.”55
[pg 61] This answer filled the king with a great joy, and first he kept
both of them with him for a short time. But soon, when he must needs go to
war, he made one of them named Clement reside in Gaul, and to him he
sent many boys both of noble, middle and humble birth, and he ordered as
much food to be given them as they required, and he set aside for them
buildings suitable for study. But he sent the second scholar into Italy and
gave him the monastery of Saint Augustine near Pavia, that all who wished
might gather there to learn from him.
2. But when Albinus (Alcuin), an Englishman, heard that that most
religious Emperor Charles gladly entertained wise men, he entered into a
ship and came to him.56 Now Albinus was skilled in all learning beyond all
others of our times, for he was the disciple of that most learned priest Bede,
who next to Saint Gregory was the most skilful interpreter of the scriptures.
And Charles received Albinus kindly and kept him at his side to the end of
his life, except when he marched with his armies to his vast wars: nay,
Charles would even call himself Albinus’s disciple; and Albinus he would
call his master. He appointed him to rule over the abbey of Saint Martin,
near to the city of Tours: so that, when he himself was absent, Albinus

might rest there and [pg 62] teach those who had recourse to him. And his
teaching bore such fruit among his pupils that the modern Gauls or Franks
came to equal the ancient Romans or Athenians.
3. Then when Charles came back, after a long absence, crowned with
victory, into Gaul, he ordered the boys whom he had entrusted to Clement
to come before him and present to him letters and verses of their own
composition. Now the boys of middle or low birth presented him with
writings garnished with the sweet savours of wisdom beyond all that he
could have hoped, while those of the children of noble parents were silly
and tasteless. Then the most wise Charles, imitating the judgment of the
eternal Judge, gathered together those who had done well upon his right
hand and addressed them in these words: “My children, you have found
much favour with me because you have tried with all your strength to carry
out my orders and win advantage for yourselves. Wherefore now study to
attain to perfection; and I will give you bishoprics and splendid
monasteries, and you shall be always honourable in my eyes.” Then he
turned severely to those who were gathered on his left, and, smiting their
consciences with the fire of his eyes, he flung at them in scorn these terrible
words, which seemed thunder rather [pg 63] than human speech: “You
nobles, you sons of my chiefs, you superfine dandies, you have trusted to
your birth and your possessions and have set at naught my orders to your
own advancement: you have neglected the pursuit of learning and you have
given yourselves over to luxury and sport, to idleness and profitless
pastimes.” Then solemnly he raised his august head and his unconquered
right hand to the heavens and thus thundered against them, “By the King of
Heaven, I take no account of your noble birth and your fine looks, though
others may admire you for them. Know this for certain, that unless you

make up for your former sloth by vigorous study, you will never get any
favour from Charles.”
4. Charles used to pick out all the best writers and readers from among
the poor boys that I have spoken of and transferred them to his chapel; for
that was the name that the kings of the Franks gave to their private oratory,
taking the word from the cope of St Martin, which they always took with
them in war for a defence against their enemies. Now one day it was
announced to this most wary King Charles that a certain bishop was dead;
and, when the king asked whether the dead bishop had made any bequests
for the good of his soul, the messenger replied, “Sire, he has bequeathed no
more than two pounds of silver.” [pg 64] Thereupon one of his chaplains,
sighing, and no longer able to keep the thoughts of his mind within his
breast, spake in the hearing of the king these words: “That is a small
provision for a long, a never-ending journey.”
Then Charles, the mildest of men, deliberated a space, and said to the
young man, “Do you think then, if you were to get the bishopric, you would
care to make more provision for that same long journey?” These cautious
words fell upon the chaplain as ripe grapes into the mouth of one who
stands agape for them, and he threw himself at the feet of Charles and said,
“Sire, the matter rests upon the will of God and your own power.” Said the
king, “Stand behind the curtain, that hangs behind me, and mark what kind
of help you would receive if you were raised to that honour.”
Now, when the officers of the palace, who were always on the watch
for deaths or accidents, heard that the bishop was dead, one and all of them,
impatient of delay and jealous of each other, began to make suit for the
bishopric through the friends of the emperor. But Charles still persisted
unmoved in his design; he refused everyone, and said that he would not
disappoint his young friend. At last Queen Hildigard sent some of the

nobles of the realm, and [pg 65] at last came in person, to beg the bishopric
for a certain clerk of her own. The emperor received her petition very
graciously and said that he would not and could not deny her anything; but
that he thought it shame to deceive his little chaplain. But still the queen,
woman-like, thought that a woman’s opinion and wish ought to outweigh
the decrees of men; and so she concealed the passion that was rising in her
heart; she sank her strong voice almost to a whisper; and with caressing
gestures tried to soften the emperor’s unspoken mind. “My sire and king,”
she said, “what does it matter if that boy does lose the bishopric? Nay, I
beseech you, sweet sire, my glory and my refuge, give it to your faithful
servant, my clerk.” Then that young man, who had heard the petitions from
behind the curtain close to the king’s chair where he had been placed,
embraced the king through the curtain and cried, “Sir king, stand fast and
do not let anyone take from you the power that has been given you by
God.”
Then that strict lover of truth bade him come out, and said, “I intend
you to have the bishopric; but you must be very careful to spend more and
make fuller provision for that same long and unreturning journey both for
yourself and for me.”
5. Now there was at the king’s court a certain [pg 66] mean and
humble clerk, very deficient also in a knowledge of letters. The most pious
Charles pitied his poverty, and, though everyone hated him and tried to
drive him from the court, he could never be persuaded to turn him away or
dismiss him therefrom. Now it happened that, on the eve of Saint Martin,
the death of a certain bishop was announced to the emperor. He summoned
one of his clerks, a man of high birth and great learning, and gave him the
bishopric. The new bishop, thereupon, bursting with joy, invited to his
house many of the palace attendants, and also received with great pomp

many who came from the diocese to greet him: and to all he gave a superb
banquet.
It happened then that, loaded with food, drenched with liquor and
buried in wine, he failed to go to the evening service on that most solemn
eve. Now it was the custom for the chief of the choir to assign the day
before to everyone the responsory or responsories which they were to chant
at night. The response: Lord, if still I am useful to Thy people,57 had fallen
to the lot of this man, who had the bishopric, as it were, in his grasp. Well,
he was absent; and after the lesson a long pause followed, and each man
urged his neighbour to take up the responsory, and each man answered that
he was bound to chant only what had [pg 67] been assigned to him. At last
the emperor said: “Come, one of you must chant it.” Then this mean clerk,
strengthened by some divine inspiration, and encouraged by the command,
took upon himself the responsory. The kindly king thinking that he would
not be able to chant the whole of it ordered the others to help him and all
began at once to chant. But from none of them could the poor creature learn
the words, and, when the response was finished, he began to chant the
Lord’s Prayer with the proper intonation. Then everyone wished to stop
him; but the most wise Charles wanted to see where he would get to, and
forbade anyone to interfere with him. He finished with Thy Kingdom come
and the rest, willy-nilly, had to take it up and say Thy will be done.
When the early lauds were finished, the king went back to his palace,
or rather to his bedroom, to warm himself and dress for the coming festal
ceremony. He ordered that miserable servant and unpractised chanter to
come into his presence. “Who told you to chant that responsory?” he asked.
“Sire, you ordered someone to sing,” said the other. “Well,” said the king
(the emperor was called king at first), “who told you to begin in that
particular responsory?” Then the poor creature, inspired as it is thought by

[pg 68] God, spoke as follows, in the fashion which inferiors then used to
superiors, whether for honour, appeal, or flattery:—“Blessed lord, and
blessing-bestowing king, as I could not find out the right verse from
anyone, I said to myself that I should incur the anger of your majesty if I
introduced anything strange. So I determined to intone something the latter
part of which usually came at the end of the responsories.”
The kindly emperor smiled gently upon him and thus spoke before all
his nobles. “That proud man, who neither feared nor honoured God or his
king who had befriended him, enough to refrain one night from dissipation
and be in his place to chant the response which I am told fell to his share, is
by God’s decree and mine deprived of his bishopric. You shall take it, for
God gives it you, and I allow it; and be sure to administer it according to
canonical and apostolic rules.”
6. When another prince of the Church died, the emperor appointed a
young man in his place. When the bishop designate came out of the palace
to take his departure, his servants, with all the decorum that was due to a
bishop, brought forward a horse and steps to mount it: but he took it amiss
that they should treat him as though he were decrepit; and leaped from the
ground on to the horse’s back with such violence that [pg 69] he nearly fell
off on the other side. The king looked on from the steps of the palace and
had him summoned and thus addressed him: “My good sir, you are nimble
and quick, agile and headstrong. You know yourself that the calm of our
empire is disturbed on all sides by the tempests of many wars. Wherefore I
want a priest like you at my court. Remain therefore as an associate in my
labours as long as you can mount your horse with such agility.”
7. While I was speaking about the arrangement of the responses I
forgot to speak about the rules for reading and I must devote a few words to
that subject here. In the palace of the most learned Charles there was no one

to apportion to each reader the passages that were to be read; no one put a
seal at the end of the passage or made ever such a little mark with his
finger-nail. But all had to make themselves so well acquainted with the
passage, which was set down for reading, that if they were suddenly called
on to read they could perform their duty without incurring his censure. He
indicated whom he wished to read by pointing his finger or his staff, or by
sending some one of those who were sitting close by him to those at a
distance. He marked the end of the reading by a guttural sound. And all
watched so intently for this mark that whether it came at the end of a
sentence [pg 70] or in the middle of a clause or a sub-clause, none dared go
on for an instant, however strange the beginning or the end might seem.
And thus it came to pass that all in the palace were excellent readers, even
if they did not understand what they read. No foreigner and no celebrity
dared enter his choir unless he could read and chant.
8. When Charles one day came in his journeyings to a certain palace, a
certain clerk from among the wandering monks entered the choir and being
completely ignorant of these rules was soon forced to remain stupid and
silent among the singers. Thereupon the choirmaster raised his wand and
threatened to strike him unless he went on singing. Then the poor clerk, not
knowing what to do or where to turn, and not daring to go out, twisted his
neck into the shape of a bow and with open mouth and distended cheeks did
his utmost to imitate the appearance of a singer. All the rest could not
restrain their laughter, but the most valiant emperor, whose mind was never
shaken from its firm base even by great events, seemed not to notice his
mockery of singing and waited in due order until the end of the mass. But
then he called the poor wretch before him and pitying his struggles and his
anxiety soothed his fears with these words:—“Many thanks, good clerk, for

your singing and your [pg 71] efforts.” Then he ordered a pound of silver to
be given him to relieve his poverty.
9. But I must not seem to forget or to neglect Alcuin; and will therefore
make this true statement about his energy and his deserts: all his pupils
without exception distinguished themselves by becoming either holy abbots
or bishops. My master Grimald58 studied the literal arts under him, first in
Gaul and then in Italy. But those who are learned in these matters may
charge me with falsehood for saying “all his pupils without exception”;
when the fact is that there were in his schools two young men, sons of a
miller in the service of the monastery of Saint Columban, who did not seem
fit and proper persons for promotion to the command of bishoprics or
monasteries; but even these men were, by the influence probably of their
teacher, advanced one after the other to the office of minister in the
monastery of Bobbio, in which they displayed the greatest energy.
So the most glorious Charles saw the study of letters flourishing
throughout his whole realm, but still he was grieved to find that it did not
reach the ripeness of the earlier fathers; and so, after superhuman labours,
he broke out one day with this expression of his sorrow: “Would that I had
twelve clerks so learned in all wisdom and so perfectly trained [pg 72] as
were Jerome and Augustine.” Then the learned Alcuin, feeling himself
ignorant indeed in comparison with these great names, rose to a height of
daring, that no man else attained to in the presence of the terrible Charles,
and said, with deep indignation in his mind but none in his countenance,
“The Maker of heaven and earth has not many like to those men and do you
expect to have twelve?”
10. Here I must report something which the men of our time will find
it difficult to believe; for I myself who write it could hardly believe it, so
great is the difference between our method of chanting and the Roman,

were it not that we must trust rather the accuracy of our fathers than the
false suggestions of modern sloth. Well then, Charles, that never-wearied
lover of the service of God, when he could congratulate himself that all
possible progress had been made in the knowledge of letters, was grieved to
observe how widely the different provinces—nay, not the provinces only
but districts and cities—differed in the praise of God, that is to say in their
method of chanting. He therefore asked of Pope Stephen59 of blessed
memory—the same who, after Hilderich King of the Franks had been
deposed and tonsured, had anointed Charles to be ruler of the kingdom after
the ancestral custom of the people—he asked [pg 73] of Pope Stephen, I
say, that he should provide him with twelve clerks deeply learned in divine
song. The Pope yielded assent to his virtuous wish and his divinely inspired
design and sent to him in Frankland from the apostolic see clerks skilled in
divine song, and twelve in number, according to the number of the twelve
apostles.
Now, when I said Frankland just above, I meant all the provinces north
of the Alps; for as it is written: “In those days ten men shall take hold out of
all the languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that
is a Jew,” so at that time, by reason of the glory of Charles, Gauls,
Aquitanians, Æduans, Spaniards, Germans, and Bavarians thought that no
small honour was paid to them, if they were thought worthy to be called the
servants of the Franks.
Now when the aforementioned clerks were departing from Rome,
being, like all Greeks and Romans, torn with envy of the glory of the
Franks, they took counsel among themselves, and determined so to vary
their method of singing that his kingdom and dominion should never have
cause to rejoice in unity and agreement. So when they came to Charles they
were received most honourably and despatched to the chief places. And

thereupon each in his [pg 74] allotted place began to chant as differently as
possible, and to teach others to sing in like fashion, and in as false a manner
as they could invent. But as the most cunning Charles celebrated one year
the feast of the Birth and Coming of Christ at Trèves or Metz, and most
carefully and cleverly grasped and understood the style of the singing; and
then the next year passed the same solemn season at Paris or Tours, but
found that the singing was wholly different from what he had heard in the
preceding year; as moreover he found that those whom he had sent into
different places were also at variance with one another; he reported the
whole matter to Pope Leo, of holy memory, who had succeeded Stephen.60
The Pope summoned the clerks back to Rome and condemned them to exile
or perpetual imprisonment, and then said to Charles: “If I send you others
they will be blinded with the same malice as their predecessors and will not
fail to cheat you. But I think I can satisfy your wishes in this way. Send me
two of the cleverest clerks that you have by you, in such a way that those
who are with me may not know that they belong to you, and, with God’s
help, they shall attain to as perfect a knowledge of those things as you
desire.” So said, so done. Soon the Pope sent them back excellently trained
to Charles. [pg 75] One of them he kept at his own court: the other upon the
petition of his son Drogo, Bishop of Metz,61 he sent to that cathedral. And
not only did his energy show itself powerful in that city, but it soon spread
so widely throughout all Frankland, that now all in these regions who use
the Latin tongue call the ecclesiastical chant Metensian; or, if they use the
Teutonic or Teuthiscan tongue, they call it Mette; or if the Greek form is
used it is called Mettisc.62 The most pious emperor also ordered Peter, the
singer who had come to reside with him, to reside for a while in the
monastery of St Gall. There too Charles established the chanting as it is to-
day, with an authentic song-book, and gave most careful instructions, being

always a warm champion of Saint Gall, that the Roman method of singing
should be both taught and learnt. He gave to the monastery also much
money and many lands: he gave too relics, contained in a reliquary made of
solid gold and gems, which is called the Shrine of Charles.
11. It was the habit of the most religious and temperate Charles to take
food during Lent63 at the seventh hour of the day after having been present
at the celebration of mass and evening lauds: and in so doing he was not
violating the fast for he was following the Lord’s command in taking food
at an [pg 76] earlier hour than usual. Now a certain bishop, who offended
against the precept of Solomon in being just but foolish, took him unwisely
to task for this. Whereupon the most wise Charles concealed his wrath, and
received the bishop’s admonition in all humility, saying, “Good sir bishop,
your admonition is good; and now my advice to you is that you should take
no food until the very humblest of my servants, who stand in my court,
have been fed.” Now while Charles was eating he was waited upon by
dukes and rulers and kings of various peoples; and when his banquet was
ended then those who served him fed and they were served by counts and
præfects and nobles of different ranks. And when these last had made an
end of eating then came the military officers and the scholars of the palace:
then the chiefs of the various departments of the palace; then their
subordinates, then the servants of those servants. So that the last comers did
not get a mouthful of food before the middle of the night. When therefore
Lent was nearly ended, and the bishop in question had endured this
punishment all the time, the most merciful Charles said to him: “Now, sir
bishop, I think you have found out that it is not lack of self-restraint but
care for others which makes me dine in Lent before the hour of evening.”
[pg 77] 12. Once he asked a bishop for his blessing and he thereupon,
after blessing the bread, partook of it first himself and then wanted to give it

to the most honourable Charles: who, however, said to him: “You may keep
all the bread for yourself”; and much to the bishop’s confusion he refused to
receive his blessing.
13. The most careful Charles would never give more than one county
to any of his counts unless they happened to live on the borders or marches
of the barbarians; nor would he ever give a bishop any abbacy or church
that was in the royal gift unless there were very special reasons for doing it.
When his councillors or friends asked him the reason for this he would
answer: “With that revenue or that estate, with that little abbey or that
church I can secure the fidelity of some vassal, as good a man as any bishop
or count, and perhaps better.” But when there were special reasons he
would give several benefices to one man; as he did for instance to Udalric,
brother of the great Hildigard, the mother of kings and emperors. Now
Udalric, after Hildigard’s death, was deprived of his honours for a certain
offence; and a buffoon thereupon said in the hearing of the most merciful
Charles: “Now has Udalric, by the death of his sister, lost all his honours
both [pg 78] in east and west.” Charles was touched by these words and
restored to him at once all his former honours. He opened his hands, most
widely and liberally, when justice bade him, to certain holy places, as will
appear in the sequel.
14. There was a certain bishopric which lay full in Charles’s path when
he journeyed, and which indeed he could hardly avoid: and the bishop of
this place, always anxious to give satisfaction, put everything that he had at
Charles’s disposal. But once the emperor came quite unexpectedly and the
bishop in great anxiety had to fly hither and thither like a swallow, and had
not only the palaces and houses but also the courts and squares swept and
cleaned: and then, tired and irritated, came to meet him. The most pious
Charles noticed this, and after examining all the various details, he said to

the bishop: “My kind host, you always have everything splendidly cleaned
for my arrival.” Then the Bishop, as if divinely inspired, bowed his head
and grasped the king’s never-conquered right hand, and hiding his irritation,
kissed it and said: “It is but right, my lord, that, wherever you come, all
things should be thoroughly cleansed.” Then Charles, of all kings the
wisest, understanding the state of affairs said to him: “If I empty I can also
fill.” And [pg 79] he added: “You may have that estate which lies close to
your bishopric, and all your successors may have it until the end of time.”
15. In the same journey too he came to a bishop who lived in a place
through which he must needs pass. Now on that day, being the sixth day of
the week, he was not willing to eat the flesh of beast or bird; and the bishop,
being by reason of the nature of the place unable to procure fish upon the
sudden, ordered some excellent cheese, rich and creamy, to be placed before
him. And the most self-restrained Charles, with the readiness which he
showed everywhere and on all occasions, spared the blushes of the bishop
and required no better fare: but taking up his knife cut off the skin, which he
thought unsavoury, and fell to on the white of the cheese. Thereupon the
bishop, who was standing near like a servant, drew closer and said, “Why
do you do that, lord emperor? You are throwing away the very best part.”
Then Charles, who deceived no one, and did not believe that anyone would
deceive him, on the persuasion of the bishop put a piece of the skin in his
mouth, and slowly ate it and swallowed it like butter. Then approving of the
advice of the bishop, he said: “Very true, my good host,” and he added: “Be
sure to send me [pg 80] every year to Aix two cart-loads of just such
cheeses.” The bishop was alarmed at the impossibility of the task and,
fearful of losing both his rank and his office, he rejoined:—“My lord, I can
procure the cheeses, but I cannot tell which are of this quality and which of
another. Much I fear lest I fall under your censure.” Then Charles from

whose penetration and skill nothing could escape, however new or strange
it might be, spoke thus to the bishop, who from childhood had known such
cheeses and yet could not test them. “Cut them in two,” he said, “then
fasten together with a skewer those that you find to be of the right quality
and keep them in your cellar for a time and then send them to me. The rest
you may keep for yourself and your clergy and your family.” This was done
for two years and the king ordered the present of cheeses to be taken in
without remark: then in the third year the bishop brought in person his
laboriously collected cheeses. But the most just Charles pitied his labour
and anxiety and added to the bishopric an excellent estate whence he and
his successors might provide themselves with corn and wine.
16. As we have shown how the most wise Charles exalted the humble,
let us now show how he brought low the proud. There was a bishop who
sought [pg 81] above measure vanities and the fame of men. The most
cunning Charles heard of this and told a certain Jewish merchant, whose
custom it was to go to the land of promise and bring from thence rare and
wonderful things to the countries beyond the sea, to deceive or cheat this
bishop in whatever way he could. So the Jew caught an ordinary household
mouse and stuffed it with various spices, and then offered it for sale to the
bishop, saying that he had brought this most precious never-before-seen
animal from Judea. The bishop was delighted with what he thought a stroke
of luck, and offered the Jew three pounds of silver for the precious ware.
Then said the Jew, “A fine price indeed for so precious an article! I had
rather throw it into the sea than let any man have it at so cheap and
shameful a price.” So the bishop, who had much wealth and never gave
anything to the poor, offered him ten pounds of silver for the incomparable
treasure. But the cunning rascal, with pretended indignation, replied: “The
God of Abraham forbid that I should thus lose the fruit of my labour and

journeyings.” Then our avaricious bishop, all eager for the prize, offered
twenty pounds. But the Jew in high dudgeon wrapped up the mouse in the
most costly silk and made as if he would depart. Then the bishop, as
thoroughly taken in as he deserved [pg 82] to be, offered a full measure of
silver for the priceless object. And so at last our trader yielded to his
entreaties with much show of reluctance: and, taking the money, went to the
emperor and told him everything. A few days later the king called together
all the bishops and chief men of the province to hold discourse with him;
and, after many other matters had been considered, he ordered all that
measure of silver to be brought and placed in the middle of the palace. Then
thus he spoke and said:—“Fathers and guardians, bishops of our Church,
you ought to minister to the poor, or rather to Christ in them, and not to
seek after vanities. But now you act quite contrary to this; and are
vainglorious and avaricious beyond all other men.” Then he added: “One of
you has given a Jew all this silver for a painted mouse.” Then the bishop,
who had been so wickedly deceived, threw himself at Charles’s feet and
begged pardon for his sin. Charles upbraided him in suitable words and then
allowed him to depart in confusion.
17. This same bishop was left to take care of Hildigard,64 when the
most warlike Charles was engaged in campaigns against the Huns. He was
so puffed up by his intimacy with her that he had the audacity to ask her to
allow him to use the golden sceptre of the incomparable Charles on festal
days instead of his [pg 83] episcopal staff. She deceived him cleverly, and
said that she dare not give it to anyone, but that she would carry his request
faithfully to the king. So, when Charles came back, she jestingly told him of
the mad request of the bishop. He kindly promised to do what she wished
and even more. So, when all Europe, so to speak, had come together to
greet Charles after his victory over so mighty a people, he pronounced these

words in the hearing of small and great: “Bishops should despise this world
and inspire others by their example to seek after heavenly things. But now
they are misled by ambition beyond all the rest of mankind; and one of
them not content with holding the first episcopal see in Germany has dared
without my approval to claim my golden sceptre, which I carry to signify
my royal will, in order that he might use it as his pastoral staff.” The guilty
man acknowledged his sin, received pardon and retired.
18. Now, my Lord Emperor Charles, I much fear that through my
desire to obey your orders I may incur the enmity of all who have taken
vows and especially of the highest clergy of all. But for all this I do not
greatly care, if only I be not deprived of your protection.
Once that most religious Emperor Charles gave orders that all bishops
throughout his wide domains [pg 84] should preach in the nave of their
cathedral before a certain day, which he appointed, under penalty of being
deprived of the episcopal dignity, if they failed to comply with the order.—
But why do I say “dignity” when the apostle protests: “He that desires a
bishopric desires a good work”? But in truth, most serene of kings, I must
confess to you that there is great “dignity” in the office, but not the slightest
“good work” is required. Well, the aforementioned bishop was at first
alarmed at this command, because gluttony and pride were all his learning,
and he feared that if he lost his bishopric he would lose at the same time his
soft living. So he invited two of the chiefs of the palace on the festal day,
and after the reading of the lesson mounted the pulpit as though he were
going to address the people. All the people ran together in wonder at so
unexpected an occurrence, except one poor red-headed fellow, who had his
head covered with clouts, because he had no hat, and was foolishly
ashamed of his red hair. Then the bishop—bishop in name but not in deed—
called to his doorkeeper or rather his scario (whose dignity and duties went

by the name of the ædileship among the ancient Romans) and said: “Bring
me that man in the hat who is standing there near the door of the church.”
The doorkeeper made haste to obey, [pg 85] seized the poor man and began
to drag him towards the bishop. But he feared some heavy penalty for
daring to stand in the house of God with covered head, and struggled with
all his might to avoid being brought before the tribunal of the terrible judge.
But the bishop, looking from his perch, now addressing his vassals and now
chiding the poor knave, bawled out and preached as follows:—“Here with
him! don’t let him slip! Willy-nilly you’ve got to come.” When at last force
or fear brought him near, the bishop cried: “Come forward; nay, you must
come quite close.” Then he snatched the head-covering from his captive and
cried to the people:—“Lo and behold all ye people; the boor is red-headed.”
Then he returned to the altar and performed the ceremony, or pretended to
perform it.
When the mass was thus scrambled through his guests passed into his
hall, which was decorated with many-coloured carpets, and cloths of all
kinds; and there a magnificent banquet, served in gold and silver and
jewelled cups, was provided, calculated to tickle the appetite of the
fastidious or the well-fed. The bishop himself sat on the softest of cushions,
clad in precious silks and wearing the imperial purple, so that he seemed a
king except for the sceptre and the title. He was surrounded by troops of
rich knights, in comparison [pg 86] with whom the officers of the palace
(nobles though they were) of the unconquered Charles seemed to
themselves most mean. When they asked leave to depart after this
wonderful and more than royal banquet he, desiring to show still more
plainly his magnificence and his glory, ordered skilled musicians to come
forward, the sound of whose voices could soften the hardest hearts or turn
to ice the swiftly flowing waters of the Rhine. And at the same time every

kind of choice drink, subtly and variously compounded, was offered them
in bowls of gold and gems, whose sheen was mixed with that of the flowers
and leaves with which they were crowned: but their stomachs could contain
no more so that the glasses lay idle in their hands. Meanwhile pastry cooks
and sausage makers, servers and dressers offered preparations of exquisite
art to stimulate their appetite, though their stomachs could contain no more:
it was a banquet such as was never offered even to the great Charles
himself.
When morning came and the bishop returned some way towards
soberness, he thought with fear of the luxury that he had paraded before the
servants of the emperor. So he called them into his presence, loaded them
with presents worthy of a king, and implored them to speak to the terrible
Charles of the goodness [pg 87] and simplicity of his life; and above all to
tell him how he had preached publicly before them in his cathedral.
Upon their return Charles asked them why the bishop had invited
them. Thereupon they fell at his feet and said: “Master, it was that he might
honour us as your representatives, far beyond our humble deserts.” “He is,”
they went on, “in every way the best and the most faithful of bishops and
most worthy of the highest rank in the Church. For, if you will trust our
poor judgment, we profess to your sublime majesty that we heard him
preach in his church in the most stirring fashion.” Then the emperor who
knew the bishop’s lack of skill pressed them further as to the manner of his
preaching; and they, perforce, revealed all. Then the emperor saw that he
had made an effort to say something rather than disobey the imperial order;
and he allowed him, in spite of his unworthiness, to retain the bishopric.
19. Shortly after a young man, a relation of the emperor’s, sang, on the
occasion of some festival, the Alleluia admirably: and the Emperor turned
to this same bishop and said: “My clerk is singing very well.” But the stupid

man, thought that he was jesting and did not know that the clerk was the [pg
88] emperor’s relation; and so he answered: “Any clown in our countryside
drones as well as that to his oxen at their ploughing.” At this vulgar answer
the emperor turned on him the lightning of his flashing eyes and dashed him
terror-stricken to the very ground.65

――――

26. But though the rest of mankind may be deceived by the wiles of
the devil and his angels, it is pleasant to consider the word of our Lord, who
in recognition of the bold confession of Saint Peter said:—“Thou art Peter,
and upon this rock will I build my church; and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it.” Wherefore even in these times of great peril and
wickedness he has allowed the Church to remain unshaken and unmoved.
Now since envy always rages among the envious so it is customary
and regular with the Romans to oppose or rather to fight against all strong
Popes, who are from time to time raised to the apostolic see. Whence it
came to pass that certain of the Romans, themselves blinded with envy,
charged the above-mentioned Pope Leo66 of holy memory with a deadly
crime and tried to blind him. But they were frightened and held back by
some divine impulse, and after trying in vain to gouge out his eyes, they
slashed them across [pg 89] the middle with knives. The Pope had news of
this carried secretly by his servants to Michael, Emperor of Constantinople;
but he refused all assistance saying: “The Pope has an independent kingdom
and one higher than mine; so he must act his own revenge upon his
enemies.” Thereupon the holy Leo invited the unconquered Charles to come
to Rome; following in this the ordinance of God, that, as Charles was
already in very deed ruler and emperor over many nations, so also by the

authority of the apostolic see he might have now the name of Emperor,
Cæsar and Augustus. Now Charles, being always ready to march and in
warlike array, though he knew nothing at all of the cause of the summons,
came at once with his attendants and his vassals; himself the head of the
world he came to the city that had once been the head of the world. And
when the abandoned people heard of his sudden coming, at once, as
sparrows hide themselves when they hear the voice of their master, so they
fled and hid in various hiding-places, cellars, and dens. Nowhere however
under heaven could they escape from his energy and penetration; and soon
they were captured and brought in chains to the Cathedral of St Peter. Then
the undaunted Father Leo took the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and held
it over his [pg 90] head, and then in the presence of Charles and his knights,
in presence also of his persecutors, he swore in the following words:—“So
on the day of the great judgment may I partake in the promises, as I am
innocent of the charge that is falsely laid against me.” Then many of the
prisoners asked to be allowed to swear upon the tomb of St Peter that they
also were innocent of the charge laid against them. But the Pope knew their
falseness and said to Charles: “Do not, I pray you, unconquered servant of
God, give assent to their cunning; for well they know that Saint Peter is
always ready to forgive. But seek among the tombs of the martyrs the stone
upon which is written the name of St Pancras,67 that boy of thirteen years;
and if they will swear to you in his name you may know that you have them
fast.” It was done as the Pope ordered. And when many people drew near to
take the oath upon this tomb, straightway some fell back dead and some
were seized by the devil and went mad. Then the terrible Charles said to his
servants: “Take care that none of them escapes.” Then he condemned all
who had been taken prisoner either to some kind of death or to perpetual
imprisonment.

As Charles stayed in Rome for a few days, the bishop of the apostolic
see called together all who [pg 91] would come from the neighbouring
districts and then, in their presence and in the presence of all the knights of
the unconquered Charles, he declared him to be Emperor and Defender of
the Roman Church.68 Now Charles had no guess of what was coming; and,
though he could not refuse what seemed to have been divinely preordained
for him, nevertheless he received his new title with no show of
thankfulness. For first he thought that the Greeks would be fired by greater
envy than ever and would plan some harm against the kingdom of the
Franks; or at least would take greater precautions against a possible sudden
attack of Charles to subdue their kingdom, and add it to his own empire.
And further the magnanimous Charles recalled how ambassadors from the
King of Constantinople had come to him and had told him that their master
wished to be his loyal friend; and that, if they became nearer neighbours, he
had determined to treat him as his son and relieve the poverty of Charles
from his resources: and how, upon hearing this, Charles was unable to
contain any longer the fiery ardour of his heart and had exclaimed: “Oh,
would that pool were not between us; for then we would either divide
between us the wealth of the east, or we would hold it in common.”
[pg 92] But the Lord, who is both the giver and the restorer of health,
so showed his favour to the innocency of the blessed Leo that he restored
his eyes to be brighter than they were before that wicked and cruel cutting;
except only that, in token of his virtue, a bright scar (like a very fine thread)
marked his eyelids.
27. The foolish may accuse me of folly because just now I made
Charles say that the sea, which that mighty emperor called playfully a little
pool, lay between us and the Greeks; but I must tell my critics that at that
date the Bulgarians and the Huns and many other powerful races barred the

way to Greece with forces yet unattacked and unbroken. Soon afterwards, it
is true, the most warlike Charles either hurled them to the ground, as he did
the Slavs and the Bulgars; or else utterly destroyed them, as was the case
with the Huns, that race of iron and adamant. And I will go on to speak of
these exploits as soon as I have given a very slight account of the wonderful
buildings which Charles (Emperor, Augustus and Cæsar), following the
example of the all-wise Solomon, built at Aix, either for God, or for
himself, or for the bishops, abbots, counts and all guests that came to him
from all quarters of the world.
[pg 93] 28. When the most energetic Emperor Charles could rest
awhile he sought not sluggish ease, but laboured in the service of God. He
desired therefore to build upon his native soil a cathedral finer even than the
works of the Romans, and soon his purpose was realised. For the building
thereof he summoned architects and skilled workmen from all lands beyond
the seas; and above all he placed a certain knavish abbot whose competence
for the execution of such tasks he knew, though he knew not his character.
When the august emperor had gone on a certain journey, this abbot allowed
anyone to depart home who would pay sufficient money: and those who
could not purchase their discharge, or were not allowed to return by their
masters, he burdened with unending labours, as the Egyptians once afflicted
the people of God. By such knavish tricks he gathered together a great mass
of gold and silver and silken robes; and, exhibiting in his chamber only the
least precious articles, he concealed in boxes and chests all the richest
treasures. Well, one day there was brought to him on a sudden the news that
his house was on fire. He ran, in great excitement, and pushed his way
through the bursting flames into the strong room where his boxes, stuffed
with gold, were kept: he was not satisfied to take [pg 94] one away, but
would only leave after he had loaded his servants with a box apiece. And as

he was going out a huge beam, dislodged by the fire, fell on the top of him;
and then his body was burnt by temporal and his soul by eternal flames.
Thus did the judgment of God keep watch for the most religious Emperor
Charles, when his attention was withdrawn by the business of his kingdom.
29. There was another workman, the most skilled of all in the working
of brass and glass. Now this man (his name was Tancho and he was at one
time a monk of St Gall) made a fine bell and the emperor was delighted
with its tone. Then said that most distinguished, but most unfortunate
worker in brass: “Lord emperor, give orders that a great weight of copper be
brought to me that I may refine it; and instead of tin give me as much silver
as I shall need—a hundred pounds at least; and I will cast such a bell for
you that this will seem dumb in comparison to it.” Then Charles, the most
liberal of monarchs, who “if riches abounded set not his heart upon them”
readily gave the necessary orders, to the great delight of the knavish monk.
He smelted and refined the brass; but he used, not silver, but the purest sort
of tin, and soon he made a bell, much better than the one that the emperor
had formerly admired, [pg 95] and, when he had tested it, he took it to the
emperor, who admired its exquisite shape and ordered the clapper to be
inserted and the bell to be hung in the bell-tower. That was soon done; and
then the warden of the church, the attendants and even the boys of the place
tried, one after the other, to make the bell sound. But all was in vain; and so
at last the knavish maker of the bell came up, seized the rope, and pulled at
the bell. When, lo and behold! down from on high came the brazen mass;
fell on the very head of the cheating brass-founder; killed him on the spot;
and passed straight through his carcass and crashed to the ground carrying
his bowels with it. When the aforementioned weight of silver was found,
the most righteous Charles ordered it to be distributed among the poorest
servants of the palace.

30. Now it was a rule at that time that if the imperial mandate had gone
out that any task was to be accomplished, whether it was the making of
bridges, or ships or causeways, or the cleansing or paving or filling up of
muddy roads, the counts might execute the less important work by the
agency of their deputies or servants; but for the greater enterprises, and
especially such as were of an original kind, no duke or count, no bishop or
abbot could possibly [pg 96] get himself excused. The arches of the great
bridge at Mainz bear witness to this; for all Europe, so to speak, laboured at
this work in orderly co-operation, and then the knavery of a few rascals,
who wanted to steal merchandise from the ships that passed underneath,
destroyed it.
If any churches, within the royal domain, wanted decorating with
carved ceilings or wall paintings, the neighbouring bishops and abbots had
to take charge of the task; but if new churches had to be built then all
bishops, dukes and counts, all abbots and heads of royal churches and all
who were in occupation of any public office had to work at it with never-
ceasing labour from its foundations to its roof. You may see the proof of the
emperor’s skill in the cathedral at Aix, which seems a work half human and
half divine; you may see it in the mansions of the various dignitaries which,
by Charles’s device, were built round his own palace in such a way that
from the windows of his chamber he could see all who went out or came in,
and what they were doing, while they believed themselves free from
observation; you may see it in all the houses of his nobles, which were
lifted on high from the ground in such a fashion that beneath them the
retainers of his nobles and the servants of those retainers and every class of
man [pg 97] could be protected from rain or snow, from cold or heat, while
at the same time they were not concealed from the eyes of the most vigilant
Charles. But I am a prisoner within my monastery walls and your ministers

are free; and I will therefore leave to them the task of describing the
cathedral, while I return to speak of how the judgment of God was made
manifest in the building of it.
31. The most careful Charles ordered certain nobles of the
neighbourhood to support with all their power the workmen whom he had
set to their task, and to supply everything that they required for it. Those
workmen who came from a distance he gave in charge to a certain Liutfrid,
the steward of his palace, telling him to feed and clothe them and also most
carefully to provide anything that was wanting for the building. The steward
obeyed these commands for the short time that Charles remained in that
place; but after his departure neglected them altogether, and by cruel
tortures collected such a mass of money from the poor workmen that Dis
and Pluto would require a camel to carry his ill-gotten gains to hell. Now
this was found out in the following way.
The most glorious Charles used to go to lauds at night in a long and
flowing cloak, which is now neither used nor known: then when the
morning [pg 98] chant was over he would go back to his chamber and dress
himself in his imperial robes. All the clerks used to come ready dressed to
the nightly office, and then they would wait for the emperor’s arrival, and
for the celebration of mass either in the church or in the porch which then
was called the outer court. Sometimes they would remain awake, or if
anyone had need of sleep he would lean his head on his companion’s breast.
Now one poor clerk, who used often to go to Liutfrid’s house to get his
clothes (rags I ought to call them) washed and mended, was sleeping with
his head on a friend’s knees, when he saw in a vision a giant, taller than the
adversary of Saint Anthony,69 come from the king’s court and hurry over
the bridge, that spanned a little stream, to the house of the steward; and he
led with him an enormous camel, burdened with baggage of inestimable

value. He was, in his dream, struck with amazement and he asked the giant
who he was and whither he wished to go. And the giant made answer: “I
come from the house of the king and I go to the house of Liutfrid; and I
shall place Liutfrid on these packages and I shall take him and them down
with me to hell.”
Thereupon the clerk woke up, in a fright lest Charles should find him
sleeping. He lifted up [pg 99] his head and urged the others to wakefulness
and cried: “Hear, I pray you, my dream. I seemed to see another
Polyphemus, who walked on the earth and yet touched the stars, and passed
through the Ionian Sea without wetting his sides. I saw him hasten from the
royal court to the house of Liutfrid with a laden camel. And when I asked
the cause of his journey, he said: ‘I am going to put Liutfrid on the top of
the load, and then take him to hell.’”
The story was hardly finished when there came from that house, which
they all knew so well, a girl who fell at their feet and asked them to
remember her friend Liutfrid in their prayers. And, when they asked the
reason for her words, she said: “My lord, he went out but now in good
health, and, as he stayed a long time, we went in search of him, and found
him dead.”
When the emperor heard of his sudden death, and was informed by the
workmen and his servants of his grasping avarice, he ordered his treasures
to be examined. They were found to be of priceless worth, and when the
emperor, after God the greatest of judges, found by what wickedness they
had been collected he gave this public judgment: “Nothing of that which
was gained by fraud must go to the liberation of his soul from purgatory.
Let his [pg 100] wealth be divided among the workmen of this our building,
and the poorer servants of our palace.

32. Now I must speak of two things which happened in that same
place.70 There was a deacon who followed the Italian custom and resisted
the course of nature. For he went to the baths and had himself closely
shaved, polished his skin, cleaned his nails, and had his hair cut as short as
if it had been done by a lathe. Then he put on linen and a white robe, and
then, because he must not miss his turn, or rather desiring to make a fine
show, he proceeded to read the gospel before God and His holy angels, and
in the presence of the most watchful king; his heart in the meantime being
unclean, as events were to show. For while he was reading, a spider came
down from the ceiling by a thread, hooked itself on to the deacon’s head,
and then ran up again. The most observant Charles saw this happen a
second and a third time, but pretended not to notice it, and the clerk,
because of the emperor’s presence, dare not keep off the spider with his
hand, and moreover did not know that it was a spider attacking him, but
thought that it was merely the tickling of a fly. So he finished the reading of
the gospel, and also went through the rest of the office. But when he left the
cathedral he soon began to swell up, and [pg 101] died within an hour. But
the most scrupulous Charles, inasmuch as he had seen his danger and had
not prevented it, thought himself guilty of manslaughter and did public
penance.
33. Now the most glorious Charles had in his suite a certain clerk who
was unsurpassed in every respect. And of him that was said which was
never said of any other mortal man: for it was said that he excelled all
mankind in knowledge of both sacred and profane literature; in song
whether ecclesiastical or festive; in the composition and rendering of poems
and in the sweet fulness of his voice and in the incredible pleasure which he
gave. [Other men have had drawbacks to compensate for their
excellences]:71 for Moses, the lawgiver filled with wisdom by the teaching

of God, complains nevertheless that “he is not eloquent” but slow of
speech, and “of a slow tongue,” and sent therefore Joshua to take counsel
with Eleasar, the high priest, who by the authority of the God, who dwelt
within him, commanded even the heavenly bodies: and our Master Christ
did not allow John the Baptist to work any miracle while in the body,
though he bare witness that “among them that are born of women there hath
not arisen a greater” than he: and He bade Peter revere the wisdom of Paul,
though Peter [pg 102] by the revelation of the Father recognised Him and
received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and He allowed
John His best-loved disciple to fall into so great a terror that he did not dare
to come to the place of His sepulchre, though weak women paid many visits
to it.
But as the scriptures say: “To him that hath shall be given”; and those,
who know from whom they have the little which they possess, succeed;
while he who knows not the giver of his possessions, or, if he knows it,
gives not due thanks to the Giver, loses all. For, while this wonderful clerk
was standing in friendly fashion near the most glorious emperor, suddenly
he disappeared. The unconquered Emperor Charles was dumfoundered at so
unheard of and incredible an occurrence: but, after he had made the sign of
the cross, he found in the place where the clerk had stood something that
seemed to be a foul-smelling coal, which had just ceased to burn.
34. The mention of the trailing garment that the emperor wore at night
has diverted us from his military array. Now the dress and equipment of the
old Franks was as follows:—Their boots were gilt on the outside and
decorated with laces three cubits long. The thongs round the legs were red,
and under them they wore upon their legs and thighs [pg 103] linen of the
same colour, artistically embroidered. The laces stretched above these linen
garments and above the crossed thongs, sometimes under them and

sometimes over them, now in front of the leg and now behind. Then came a
rich linen shirt and then a buckled sword-belt. The great sword was
surrounded first with a sheath, then with a covering of leather, and lastly
with a linen wrap hardened with shining wax.
The last part of their dress was a white or blue cloak in the shape of a
double square; so that when it was placed upon the shoulders it touched the
feet in front and behind, but at the side hardly came down to the knees. In
the right hand was carried a stick of apple-wood, with regular knots, strong
and terrible; a handle of gold or silver decorated with figures was fastened
to it. I myself am lazy and slower than a tortoise, and so never got into
Frankland; but I saw the King of the Franks72 in the monastery of Saint
Gall, glittering in the dress that I have described.
But the habits of man change; and when the Franks, in their wars with
the Gauls, saw the latter proudly wearing little striped cloaks, they dropped
their national customs and began to imitate the Gauls. At first the strictest of
emperors did not forbid the new habit, because it seemed more suitable for
war: but, when he found that the Frisians were abusing [pg 104] his
permission, and were selling these little cloaks at the same price as the old
large ones, he gave orders that no one should buy from them, at the usual
price, anything but the old cloaks, broad, wide and long: and he added:
“What is the good of those little napkins? I cannot cover myself with them
in bed and when I am on horseback I cannot shield myself with them
against wind and rain.”
In the preface to this little work I said I would follow three authorities
only. But as the chief of these, Werinbert, died seven days ago and to-day
(the thirteenth of May) we, his bereaved sons and disciples, are going to pay
solemn honour to his memory, here I will bring this book to an end,

concerning the piety of Lord Charles and his care of the Church, which has
been taken from the lips of this same clerk, Werinbert.
The next book which deals with the wars of the most fierce Charles is
founded on the narrative of Werinbert’s father, Adalbert. He followed his
master Kerold in the Hunnish, Saxon and Slavic wars, and when I was quite
a child, and he a very old man, I lived in his house and he used often to tell
me the story of these events. I was most unwilling to listen and would often
run away; but in the end by sheer force he made me hear.

[pg 105]

BOOK II
CONCERNING THE WARS AND MILITARY EXPLOITS OF
CHARLES

As I am going to found this narrative on the story told by a man of the
world, who had little skill in letters, I think it will be well that I should first
recount something of earlier history on the credit of written books. When
Julian,73 whom God hated, was slain in the Persian war by a blow from
heaven, not only did the transmarine provinces fall away from the Roman
Empire, but also the neighbouring provinces of Pannonia, Noricum, Rhætia,
or in other words the Germans and the Franks or Gauls. Then too the kings
of the Franks (or Gauls) began to decay in power because they had slain
Saint Didier, Bishop of Vienna, and had expelled those most holy visitors,
Columban and Gall. Whereupon the race of the Huns,74 who had already
often ravaged Francia [pg 106] and Aquitania (that is to say the Gauls and
the Spains), now poured out with all their forces, devastated the whole land
like a wide-sweeping conflagration, and then carried off all their spoils to a
very safe hiding-place. Now Adalbert, whom I have already mentioned,
used to explain the nature of this hiding-place as follows:—“The land of the
Huns,” he would say, “was surrounded by nine rings.”75 I could not think of
any rings except our ordinary wicker rings for sheepfolds; and so I asked:
“What, in the name of wonder, do you mean, sire?” “Well,” he said, “it was
fortified by nine hedges.” I could not think of any hedges except those that

protect our cornfields, so again I asked and he answered: “One ring was as
wide, that is, it contained as much within it, as all the country between
Tours and Constance. It was fashioned with logs of oak and ash and yew
and was twenty feet wide and the same in height. All the space within was
filled with hard stones and binding clay; and the surface of these great
ramparts was covered with sods and grass. Within the limits of the ring
shrubs were planted of such a kind that, when lopped and bent down, they
still threw out twigs and leaves. Then between these ramparts hamlets and
houses were so arranged that a man’s [pg 107] voice could be made to reach
from one to the other. And opposite to the houses, at intervals in those
unconquerable walls, were constructed doors of no great size; and through
these doors the inhabitants from far and near would pour out on marauding
expeditions. The second ring was like the first and was distant twenty
Teutonic miles (or forty Italian) from the third ring: and so on to the ninth:
though of course the successive rings were each much narrower than the
preceding one. But in all the circles the estates and houses were everywhere
so arranged that the peal of the trumpet would carry the news of any event
from one to the other.”
For two hundred years and more the Huns had swept the wealth of the
western states within these fortifications, and as the Goths and Vandals were
disturbing the repose of the world at the same time the western world was
almost turned into a desert. But the most unconquerable Charles so subdued
them in eight years that he allowed scarcely any traces of them to remain.
He withdrew his hand from the Bulgarians, because after the destruction of
the Huns they did not seem likely to do any harm to the kingdom of the
Franks. All the booty of the Huns, which he found in Pannonia, [pg 108] he
divided most liberally among the bishoprics and the monasteries.

2. In the Saxon war in which he was engaged in person for some
considerable time, two private men (whose names I know, but modesty
forbids me to give them) organised a storming party, and destroyed with
great courage the walls of a very strong city and fortification. When the
most just Charles saw this he made one of them, with the consent of his
master Kerold, commander of the country between the Rhine and the Italian
Alps and the other he enriched with gifts of land.
3. At the same time there were the sons of two nobles whose duty it
was to watch at the door of the king’s tent. But one night they lay as dead,
soaked in liquor; while Charles, wakeful as usual, went the round of the
camp, and came back to his tent without anyone having noticed him. When
morning came he called to him the chiefs of his kingdom, and asked them
what punishment seemed due to those who betrayed the King of the Franks
into the hands of the enemy. Then these nobles, quite ignorant of what had
occurred, declared that such a man was worthy of death. But Charles
merely upbraided them bitterly and let them go unharmed.
4. There were also with him two bastards, the [pg 109] children of a
concubine. As they had fought in battle most bravely, the emperor asked
them whose children they were, and where they were born. When he was
informed of the facts, he called them to his tent at midday and said: “My
good fellows, I want you to serve me, and me only.” They exclaimed that
they were there for no other purpose than to take even the lowest place in
his service. “Well then,” said Charles, “you must serve in my chamber.”
They concealed their indignation and said they would be glad to do so; but
soon they seized the moment when the emperor had begun to sleep soundly,
and then rushed out to the camp of the enemy and, in the fray that followed,
wiped out the taint of servitude in their own blood and that of the enemy.

5. But occupations such as these did not prevent the high-souled
emperor from sending frequent messengers, carrying letters and presents, to
the kings of the most distant regions; and they sent him in turn whatever
honours their lands could bestow. From the theatre of the Saxon war he sent
messengers to the King of Constantinople; who asked them whether the
kingdom of “his son Charles” was at peace or was being invaded by the
neighbouring peoples. Then the leader of the embassy made answer that [pg
110] peace reigned everywhere, except only that a certain race called the
Saxons were disturbing the territories of the Franks by frequent raids.
Whereupon the sluggish and unwarlike Greek king answered: “Pooh! why
should my son take so much trouble about a petty enemy that possesses
neither fame nor valour? I will give you the Saxon race and all that belong
to it.” When the envoy on his return gave this message to the most warlike
Charles, he smiled and said: “The king would have shown greater kindness
to you if he had given you a leg-wrap for your long journey.”
6. I must not conceal the wise answer which the same envoy gave
during his embassy to Greece. He came with his companions to one of the
royal towns in the autumn; the party was divided for entertainment, and the
envoy of whom I speak was quartered on a certain bishop. This bishop was
given up to fasting and prayer, and left the envoy to perish of almost
continuous hunger: but, with the first smile of spring, he presented the
envoy to the king. The king asked him his opinion of the bishop. Then the
envoy sighed from the very bottom of his heart and said: “That bishop of
yours reaches the highest point of holiness that can be attained to without
God.” The king was amazed, [pg 111] and said: “What! can a man be holy
without God?” Then said the envoy: “It is written, ‘God is love,’ and in that
grace he is entirely lacking.”

Thereupon the King of Constantinople invited him to his banquet and
placed him among his nobles. Now these had a law that no guest at the
king’s table, whether a native or a foreigner, should turn over any animal or
part of an animal: he must eat only the upper part of whatever was placed
before him. Now, a river fish, covered with spice, was brought and placed
on the dish before him. He knew nothing of the custom and turned the fish
over whereupon all the nobles rose up and cried: “Master, you are
dishonoured, as no king ever was before you.” Then the king groaned and
said to our envoy: “I cannot resist them: you must be put to death at once:
but ask me any other favour you like and I will grant it.” He thought awhile
and then in the hearing of all pronounced these words: “I pray you, lord
emperor, that in accordance with your promise you will grant me one small
petition.” And the king said: “Ask what you will, and you shall have it:
except only that I may not give you your life, for that is against the law of
the Greeks.” Then said the envoy: “With my dying breath I ask one favour;
let everyone who saw me turn that fish over [pg 112] be deprived of his
eyes.” The king was amazed at the stipulation, and swore, by Christ, that he
had seen nothing, but had only trusted the word of others. Then the queen
began to excuse herself: “By the beneficent Mother of God, the Holy Mary,
I noticed nothing.” Then the other nobles, in their desire to escape from the
danger, swore, one by the keeper of the keys of heaven, and another by the
apostle of the Gentiles, and all the rest by the virtue of the angels and the
companies of the saints, that they were beyond the reach of the stipulation.
And so the clever Frank beat the empty-headed Greeks in their own land
and came home safe and sound.
A few years later the unwearied Charles sent to Greece a certain
bishop remarkable both for his physical and mental gifts, and with him the
most noble Duke Hugo. After a long delay they were at last brought into the

presence of the king and then sent about to all manner of places. But at last
they got their dismissal and returned, after paying heavily for their journey
by sea and land.
Soon afterwards the Greek king sent his envoy to the most glorious
Charles. It so happened that the bishop and the duke whom I have
mentioned were just then with the emperor. When it was announced that the
envoys were coming they advised the most [pg 113] wise Charles to have
them led round through mountains and deserts, so that they should only
come into the emperor’s presence when their clothes had been worn and
wasted, and their money was entirely spent.
This was done; and, when at last they arrived, the bishop and his
comrade bade the count of the stables take his seat on a high throne in the
midst of his underlings, so that it was impossible to believe him anyone
lower than the emperor. When the envoys saw him they fell upon the
ground and wanted to worship him. But they were prevented by the
ministers and forced to go farther. Then they saw the count of the palace
presiding over a gathering of the nobles and again they thought it was the
emperor and flung themselves to earth. But those who were present drove
them forward with blows and said: “That is not the emperor.” Next they
saw the master of the royal table surrounded by his noble band of servants;
and again they fell to the ground thinking that it was the emperor. Driven
thence they found the chamberlains of the emperor and their chief in
council together; and then they did not doubt but that they were in the
presence of the first of living men. But this man too denied that he was
what they took him for; and yet he promised [pg 114] that he would use his
influence with the nobles of the palace, so that if possible the envoys might
come into the presence of the most august emperor. Then there came
servants from the imperial presence to introduce them with full honours.

Now Charles, the most gracious of kings, was standing by an open window
leaning upon Bishop Heitto, for that was the name of the bishop who had
been sent to Constantinople. The emperor was clad in gems and gold and
glittered like the sun at its rising: and round about him stood, as it were the
chivalry of heaven, three young men, his sons,76 who have since been made
partners in the kingdom; his daughters and their mother decorated with
wisdom and beauty as well as with pearls; leaders of the Church,
unsurpassed in dignity and virtue; abbots distinguished for their high birth
and their sanctity; nobles, like Joshua when he appeared in the camp of
Gilgal; and an army like that which drove back the Syrians and Assyrians
out of Samaria. So that if David had been there he might well have sung:
“Kings of the earth and all people; princes and all judges of the earth; both
young men and maidens; old men and children let them praise the name of
the Lord.” Then the envoys of the Greeks were astonished; their spirit left
them and their courage failed; [pg 115] speechless and lifeless they fell
upon the ground. But the most kindly emperor raised them, and tried to
cheer them with encouraging words. At last life returned to them; but when
they saw Heitto, whom they had once despised and rejected, now in so great
honour, again they grovelled on the ground in terror; until the king swore to
them by the King of Heaven that he would do them no harm. They took
heart at this promise and began to act with a little more confidence; and so
home they went and never came back again.
7. And here I must repeat that the most illustrious Charles had men of
the greatest cleverness in all offices. When the morning lauds had been
celebrated before the emperor on the octave of the Epiphany, the Greeks
proceeded privately to sing to God in their own language psalms with the
same melody and the same subject matter as “Veterem hominem” and the
following words in our missal. Thereupon the emperor ordered one of his

chaplains, who understood the Greek tongue, to adopt that psalm in Latin to
the same melody, and to take special care that a separate syllable
corresponded to every separate note, so that the Latin and Greek should
resemble one another as far as the nature of the two languages allowed. So
it came to pass [pg 116] that all of them have been written in the same
rhythm, and in one of them conteruit has been substituted for “contrivit.”
These same Greek envoys brought with them every kind of organ, as
well as other instruments of various kinds. All of these were covertly
inspected by the workmen of the most wise Charles, and then exactly
reproduced. The chief of these was that musicians’ organ, wherein the great
chests were made of brass: and bellows of ox-hide blew through pipes of
brass, and the bass was like the roaring of the thunder, and in sweetness it
equalled the tinkling of lyre or cymbal. But I must not, here and now, speak
of where it was set up, and how long it lasted, and how it perished at the
same time as other losses fell upon the state.
8. About the same time also envoys of the Persians were sent to him.
They knew not where Frankland lay; but because of the fame of Rome, over
which they knew that Charles had rule, they thought it a great thing when
they were able to reach the coast of Italy. They explained the reason of their
journey to the Bishops of Campania and Tuscany, of Emilia and Liguria, of
Burgundy and Gaul and to the abbots and counts of those regions; but by all
they were either deceitfully handled or else [pg 117] actually driven off; so
that a whole year had gone round before, weary and footsore with their long
journey, they reached Aix at last and saw Charles, the most renowned of
kings by reason of his virtues. They arrived in the last week of Lent, and, on
their arrival being made known to the emperor, he postponed their
presentation until Easter Eve. Then when that incomparable monarch was
dressed with incomparable magnificence for the chief of festivals, he

ordered the introduction of the envoys of that race that had once held the
whole world in awe.77 But they were so terrified at the sight of the most
magnificent Charles that one might think they had never seen king or
emperor before. He received them however most kindly, and granted them
this privilege—that they might go wherever they had a mind to, even as one
of his own children, and examine everything and ask what questions and
make what inquiries they chose. They jumped with joy at this favour, and
valued the privilege of clinging close to Charles, of gazing upon him, of
admiring him, more than all the wealth of the east.
They went up into the ambulatory that runs round the nave of the
cathedral and looked down upon the clergy and the nobles; then they
returned [pg 118] to the emperor, and, by reason of the greatness of their
joy, they could not refrain from laughing aloud; and they clapped their
hands and said:—“We have seen only men of clay before: here are men of
gold.” Then they went to the nobles, one by one, and gazed with wonder
upon arms and clothes that were strange to them; and then came back to the
emperor, whom they regarded with wonder still greater. They passed that
night and the next Sunday continuously in church; and, upon the most holy
day itself, they were invited by the most munificent Charles to a splendid
banquet, along with the nobles of Frankland and Europe. There they were
so struck with amazement at the strangeness of everything that they had
hardly eaten anything at the end of the banquet.

“But when the Morn, leaving Tithonus’ bed,
Illumined all the land with Phœbus’ torch”

then Charles, who would never endure idleness and sloth, went out to the
woods to hunt the bison and the urochs; and made preparations to take the

Persian envoys with him. But when they saw the immense animals they
were stricken with a mighty fear and turned and fled. But the undaunted
hero [pg 119] Charles, riding on a high-mettled charger, drew near to one of
these animals and drawing his sword tried to cut through its neck. But he
missed his aim, and the monstrous beast ripped the boot and leg-thongs of
the emperor; and, slightly wounding his calf with the tip of its horn, made
him limp slightly: after that, furious at the failure of its stroke, it fled to the
shelter of a valley, which was thickly covered with stones and trees. Nearly
all his servants wanted to take off their own hose to give to Charles, but he
forbade it saying: “I mean to go in this fashion to Hildigard.” Then
Isambard, the son of Warin (the same Warin that persecuted your patron
Saint Othmar),78 ran after the beast and not daring to approach him more
closely, threw his lance and pierced him to the heart between the shoulder
and the wind-pipe, and brought the beast yet warm to the emperor. He
seemed to pay no attention to the incident; but gave the carcass to his
companions and went home. But then he called the queen and showed her
how his leg-coverings were torn, and said: “What does the man deserve
who freed me from the enemy that did this to me?” She made answer: “He
deserves the highest boon.” Then the emperor told the whole story and
produced the enormous [pg 120] horns of the beast in witness of his truth:
so that the empress sighed and wept and beat her breast. But when she
heard that it was Isambard, who had saved him from this terrible enemy,
Isambard, who was in ill favour with the emperor and who had been
deprived of all his offices—she threw herself at his feet and induced him to
restore all that had been taken from him; and a largess was given to him
besides.
These same Persian envoys brought the emperor an elephant,
monkeys, balsam, nard, unguents of various kinds, spices, scents and many

kinds of drugs: in such profusion that it seemed as if the east had been left
bare that the west might be filled. They came by-and-by to stand on very
familiar terms with the emperor; and one day, when they were in a specially
merry mood and a little heated with strong beer, they spoke in jest as
follows:—“Sir emperor, your power is indeed great; but much less than the
report of it which is spread through all the kingdoms of the east.” When he
heard this he concealed his deep displeasure and asked jestingly of them:
“Why do you say that, my children? How did that idea get into your
heads?” Then they went back to the beginning and told him everything that
had happened to them in the lands beyond [pg 121] the sea; and they said:
—“We Persians and the Medes, Armenians, Indians, Parthians, Elamites,
and all the inhabitants of the east fear you much more than our own ruler
Haroun.79 And the Macedonians and all the Greeks (how shall we express
it?) they are beginning to fear your overwhelming greatness more than the
waves of the Ionian Sea. And the inhabitants of all the islands through
which we passed were as ready to obey you, and as much devoted to your
service, as if they had been reared in your palace and loaded with your
favours. But the nobles of your own kingdom, it seems to us, care very little
about you except in your presence: for when we came as strangers to them,
and begged them to show us some kindness for the love of you, to whom
we desired to make our way, they gave no heed to us and sent us away
empty-handed.” Then the emperor deposed all counts and abbots, through
whose territories those envoys had come, from all the offices that they held;
and fined the bishops in a huge sum of money. Then he ordered the envoys
to be taken back to their own country with all care and honour.
9. There came to him also envoys from the King of the Africans,
bringing a Marmorian lion and a Numidian bear, with Spanish iron and
Tyrian [pg 122] purple, and other noteworthy products of those regions. The

most munificent Charles knew that the king and all the inhabitants of Africa
were oppressed by constant poverty; and so, not only on this occasion but
all through his life, he made them presents of the wealth of Europe, corn
and wine and oil, and gave them liberal support; and thus he kept them
constantly loyal and obedient to himself, and received from them a
considerable tribute.
Soon after the unwearied emperor sent to the emperor of the Persians
horses and mules from Spain; Frisian robes, white, grey, red and blue;
which in Persia, he was told, were rarely seen and highly prized. Dogs too
he sent him of remarkable swiftness and fierceness, such as the King of
Persia had desired, for the hunting and catching of lions and tigers. The
King of Persia cast a careless eye over the other presents, but asked the
envoys what wild beasts or animals these dogs were accustomed to fight
with. He was told that they would pull down quickly anything they were set
on to. “Well,” he said, “experience will test that.” Next day the shepherds
were heard crying loudly as they fled from a lion. When the noise came to
the palace of the king, he said to the envoys: “Now, [pg 123] my friends of
Frankland, mount your horses and follow me.” Then they eagerly followed
after the king as though they had never known toil or weariness. When they
came in sight of the lion, though he was yet at a distance, the satrap of the
satraps said to them: “Now set your dogs on to the lion.” They obeyed and
eagerly galloped forward; the German dogs caught the Persian lion, and the
envoys slew him with swords of northern metal, which had already been
tempered in the blood of the Saxons.
At this sight Haroun, the bravest inheritor of that name, understood the
superior might of Charles from very small indications, and thus broke out in
his praise:—“Now I know that what I heard of my brother Charles is true:
how that by the frequent practice of hunting, and by the unwearied training

of his body and mind, he has acquired the habit of subduing all that is
beneath the heavens. How can I make worthy recompense for the honours
which he has bestowed upon me? If I give him the land which was
promised to Abraham and shown to Joshua, it is so far away that he could
not defend it from the barbarians: or if, like the high-souled king that he is,
he tried to defend it I fear that the provinces which lie upon the frontiers of
the Frankish [pg 124] kingdom would revolt from his empire. But in this
way I will try to show my gratitude for his generosity. I will give that land
into his power; and I will rule over it as his representative. Whenever he
likes or whenever there is a good opportunity he shall send me envoys; and
he will find me a faithful manager of the revenue of that province.”
Thus was brought to pass what the poet spoke of as an impossibility:—

“The Parthian’s eyes the Arar’s stream shall greet
And Tigris’ waves shall lave the German’s feet”:

for through the energy of the most vigorous Charles it was found not merely
possible but quite easy for his envoys to go and return; and the messengers
of Haroun, whether young or old, passed easily from Parthia into Germany
and returned from Germany to Parthia. (And the poet’s words are true,
whatever interpretation the grammarians put on “the river Arar,”80 whether
they think it an affluent of the Rhone or the Rhine; for they have fallen into
confusion on this point through their ignorance of the locality). I could call
on Germany to bear witness to my words; for in the time of your glorious
father Lewis the land was compelled to pay a penny for every acre of land
held under the [pg 125] law towards the redemption of Christian captives in
the Holy Land; and they made their wretched appeal in the name of the

dominion anciently held over that land by your great-grandfather Charles
and your grandfather Lewis.
10. Now as the occasion has arisen to make honourable mention of
your never-sufficiently-praised father,81 I should like to recall some
prophetic words which the most wise Charles is known to have uttered
about him. When he was six years old and had been most carefully reared in
the house of his father, he was thought (and justly) to be wiser than men
sixty years of age. His father then, hardly thinking it possible that he could
bring him to see his grandfather, nevertheless took him from his mother,
who had reared him with the most tender care, and began to instruct him
how to conduct himself with propriety and modesty in the presence of the
emperor; and how if he were asked a question he was to make answer and
show in all things deference to his father. Thereafter he took him to the
palace; and, on the first or second day, the emperor noted him with interest
standing among the rest of the courtiers. “Who is that little fellow?” he said
to his son; and he had for answer: “He is mine, sire; and yours if you deign
to have him.” So he said: “Give him to [pg 126] me”; and, when that was
done, he took the little fellow and kissed him and sent him back to the place
where he had formerly stood. But now he knew his own rank; and thought it
shame to stand lower than any one who was lower in rank than the emperor;
so with perfect composure of mind and body he took his place on terms of
equality with his father. The most prophetic Charles noticed this; and,
calling his son Lewis, told him to find out the name of the boy; and why he
acted in this way; and what it was that made him bold enough to claim
equality with his father. The answer that Lewis got was founded on good
reason: “When I was your vassal,” he said, “I stood behind you and among
soldiers of my own rank, as I was bound to do: but now I am your ally and
comrade in arms, and so I rightly claim equality with you.” When Lewis

reported this to the emperor, the latter gave utterance to words something
like these:—“If that little fellow lives he will be something great.” (I have
borrowed these words from the Life of Saint Ambrose,82 because the actual
words that Charles used cannot be translated directly into Latin. And it
seems fair to apply the prophecy which was made of Saint Ambrose to
Lewis; for Lewis closely resembled the saint, except in such points as are
necessary to an earthly [pg 127] commonwealth, as for instance marriage
and the use of arms; and in the power of his kingdom and his zeal for
religion, Lewis was, if I may say so, superior to Saint Ambrose. He was a
Catholic in faith, devoted to the worship of God, and the unwearied ally,
protector, and defender of the servants of Christ.
Here is an instance of this. When our faithful Abbot Hartmuth—who is
now your hermit—reported to him that the little endowment of Saint Gall,
which was due not to royal munificence but to the petty offerings of private
people, was not defended by any special charter such as other monasteries
have, nor even by the laws that are common to all people, and so was
unable to procure any defender or advocate, King Lewis himself resisted all
our opponents, and was not ashamed to proclaim himself the champion of
our weakness in the presence of all his nobles. At the same time too he
wrote a letter to your genius directing that we should have licence to make
petition, after taking a special vote, for whatever we would through your
authority. But alas, what a stupid creature I am! I have been probably drawn
aside by my personal gratitude for the special kindness he showed us, away
from his general and indescribable goodness and greatness and nobleness.)
[pg 128] 11. Now Lewis, King and Emperor of all Germany, of the
provinces of Rhætia and of ancient Francia, of Saxony too and of Thuringia,
of the provinces of Pannonia and of all northern nations, was of large build
and handsome; his eyes sparkled like the stars, his voice was clear and

manly. His wisdom was quite out of the common, and he added to it by
constantly applying his singularly acute intellect to the study of the
scriptures. He showed wonderful quickness too in anticipating or
overcoming the plots of his enemies, in bringing to an end the quarrels of
his subjects, and in procuring every kind of advantage for those who were
loyal to him. More even than his ancestors he came to be a terror to all the
heathen that stood round about his kingdom. And he deserved his good
fortune; for he never defiled his tongue by condemning, nor his hands by
shedding Christian blood: except once only, and then upon the most
absolute necessity. But I dare not tell that story until I see a little Lewis or a
Charles standing by your side.83 After that one slaughter, nothing could
induce him to condemn anyone to death. But the measure of compulsion
which he used against those who were accused of disloyalty or plots was
merely this: he deprived them of office, and no new circumstance [pg 129]
and no length of time could then soften his heart so as to restore them to the
former rank. He surpassed all men in his zealous devotion to prayer,
religious fasting and the care of the service of God; and like Saint Martin,
whatever he was doing, he prayed to God as though he were face to face
with Him. On certain days he abstained from flesh and all pleasant food. At
the time of litanies he used to follow the cross with unshod feet from his
palace as far as the cathedral; or if he were at Regensburg as far as the
church of Saint Hemmeramm.84 In other places he followed the customs of
those whom he was with. He built new oratories of wonderful workmanship
at Frankfurt and Regensburg. In the latter place, as stones were wanting to
complete the immense fabric, he ordered the walls of the city to be pulled
down; and in certain holes in the wall they found bones of men long dead,
wrapped in so much gold, that not only did it serve to decorate the
cathedral, but also he was able to furnish certain books that were written on

the subject with cases of the same material nearly a finger thick. No clerk
could stay with him, or even come into his presence, unless he were able to
read and chant. He despised monks who broke their vows, and loved those
who kept them. He was so full of sweet-tempered [pg 130] mirth, that, if
anyone came to him in a morose mood, merely to see him and exchange a
few words with him sent the visitor away with raised spirits. If anything
evil or foolish was done in his presence, or if it happened that he were told
of it, then a single glance of his eyes was enough to check everything, so
that what is written of the eternal Judge who sees the hearts of men (viz. “A
King that sitteth on the throne of judgment, scattereth away all evil with His
eyes”) might be fairly said to have begun in him, beyond what is usually
granted to mortals.
All this I have written by way of digression, hoping that, if life lasts
and Heaven is propitious, I may in time to come write much more
concerning him.
12. But I must return to my subject. While Charles was detained for a
little at Aix by the arrival of many visitors and the hostility of the
unconquered Saxons and the robbery and piracy of the Northmen and
Moors, and while the war against the Huns was being conducted by his son
Pippin, the barbarous nations of the north attacked Noricum and eastern
Frankland and ravaged a great part of it. When he heard of this he
humiliated them in his own person; and he gave orders that all the boys and
children of the invaders should be “measured with the sword”; [pg 131] and
if anyone exceeded that measurement he should be shortened by a head.
This incident led to another much greater and more important. For,
when your imperial majesty’s most holy grandfather departed from life,
certain giants (like to those who, Scripture tells us, were begotten by the
sons of Seth from the daughters of Cain), blown up with the spirit of pride

and doubtless like to those who said, “What part have we in David and what
inheritance in the son of Esau?”—these mighty men, I say, despised the
most worthy children of Charles, and each tried to seize for himself the
command in the kingdom and themselves to wear the crown. Then some of
the middle class were moved by the inspiration of God to declare that, as
the renowned Emperor Charles had once measured the enemies of
Christianity with the sword, so, as long as any of his progeny could be
found of the length of a sword, he must rule over the Franks and over all
Germany too: thereupon that devilish group of conspirators was as it were
struck with a thunderbolt, and scattered in all directions.
But, after conquering the external foe, Charles was attacked at the
hands of his own people in a remarkable but unavailing plot.85 For on his
return from the Slavs into his own kingdom he was nearly captured [pg
132] and put to death by his son, whom a concubine had borne to him and
who had been called by his mother by the ill-omened name of the most
glorious Pippin. The plot was found out in the following manner. This son
of Charles had been plotting the death of the emperor with a gathering of
nobles, in the church of Saint Peter; and when their debate was over, fearful
of every shadow, he ordered search to be made, to see whether anyone was
hidden in the corners or under the altar. And behold they found, as they
feared, a clerk hidden under the altar. They seized him and made him swear
that he would not reveal their conspiracy. To save his life, he dared not
refuse to take the oath which they dictated: but, when they were gone, he
held his wicked oath of small account and at once hurried to the palace.
With the greatest difficulty he passed through the seven bolted gates, and
coming at length to the emperor’s chamber knocked upon the door. The
most vigilant Charles fell into a great astonishment, as to who it was that
dared to disturb him at that time of night. He however ordered the women

(who followed in his train to wait upon the queen and the princesses) to go
out and see who was at the door and what he wanted. When they went out
and found the wretched creature, they bolted the door in his face and then,
bursting [pg 133] with laughter and stuffing their dresses into their mouths,
they tried to hide themselves in the corners of the apartments. But that most
wise emperor, whose notice nothing under heaven could escape, asked
straitly of the women who it was and what he wanted. When he was told
that it was a smooth-faced, silly, half-mad knave, dressed only in shirt and
drawers, who demanded an audience without delay, Charles ordered him to
be admitted. Then he fell at the emperor’s feet and showed all that had
happened. So all the conspirators, entirely unsuspicious of danger, were
seized before the third hour of the day and most deservedly condemned to
exile or some other form of punishment. Pippin himself, a dwarf and a
hunchback, was cruelly scourged, tonsured, and sent for some time as a
punishment to the monastery of Saint Gall; the poorest, it was judged, and
the straitest in all the emperor’s broad dominions.
A short time afterwards some of the Frankish nobles sought to do
violence to their king. Charles was well aware of their intentions, and yet
did not wish to destroy them; because, if only they were loyal, they might
be a great protection to all Christian men. So he sent messengers to this
Pippin and asked him his advice in the matter.
They found him in the monastery garden, in the [pg 134] company of
the elder brothers, for the younger ones were detained by their work.86 He
was digging up nettles and other weeds with a hoe, that the useful herbs
might grow more vigorously. When they had explained to him the reason of
their coming he sighed deeply, from the very bottom of his heart, and said
in reply:—“If Charles thought my advice worth having he would not have
treated me so harshly. I give him no advice. Go, tell him what you found me

doing.” They were afraid to go back to the dreaded emperor without a
definite answer, and again and again asked him what message they should
convey to their lord. Then at last he said in anger:—“I will send him no
message except—what I am doing! I am digging up the useless growths in
order that the valuable herbs may be able to develop more freely.”
So they went away sorrowfully thinking that they were bringing back a
foolish answer. When the emperor asked them upon their arrival what
answer they were bringing, they answered sorrowfully that after all their
labour and long journeying they could get no definite information at all.
Then that most wise king asked them carefully where they had found
Pippin, what he was doing, and what answer he had given them; and they
said: “We found him sitting on a rustic seat turning over the [pg 135]
vegetable garden with a hoe. When we told him the cause of our journey we
could extract no other reply than this, even by the greatest entreaties: ‘I give
no message, except—what I am doing! I am digging up the useless growths
in order that the valuable herbs may be able to develop more freely.’” When
he heard this the emperor, not lacking in cunning and mighty in wisdom,
rubbed his ears and blew out his nostrils and said: “My good vassals, you
have brought back a very reasonable answer.” So while the messengers
were fearing that they might be in peril of their lives, Charles was able to
divine the real meaning of the words. He took all those plotters away from
the land of the living; and so gave to his loyal subjects room to grow and
spread, which had previously been occupied by those unprofitable servants.
One of his enemies, who had chosen as his part of the spoil of the empire
the highest hill in France and all that could be seen from it, was, by
Charles’s orders, hanged upon a high gallows on that very hill. But he bade
his bastard son Pippin choose the manner of life that most pleased him.
Upon this permission being given him, he chose a post in a monastery then

most noble but now destroyed.87 (Who is there that does not know the
manner of its destruction! But I will not tell the [pg 136] story of its fall
until I see your little Bernard with a sword girt upon his thigh.)
The magnanimous Charles was often angry because he was urged to
go out and fight against foreign nations, when one of his nobles might have
accomplished the task. I can prove this from the action of one of my own
neighbours. There was a man of Thurgau,88 of the name of Eishere, who as
his name implies was “a great part of a terrible army”89 and so tall that you
might have thought him sprung from the race of Anak, if they had not lived
so long ago and so far away. Whenever he came to the river Dura and found
it swollen and foaming with the torrents from the mountains, and could not
force his huge charger to enter the stream (though stream I must not call it,
but hardly melted ice), then he would seize the reins and force his horse to
swim through behind him, saying: “Nay, by Saint Gall, you must come,
whether you like it or not!”
Well, this man followed the emperor and mowed down the Bohemians
and Wiltzes and Avars as a man might mow down hay; and spitted them on
his spear like birds. When he came home the sluggards asked him how he
had got on in the country of the Winides; and he, contemptuous of some and
angry with others, replied: “Why should I have been [pg 137] bothered with
those tadpoles? I used sometimes to spit seven or eight or nine of them on
my spear and carry them about with me squealing in their gibberish. My
lord king and I ought never to have been asked to weary ourselves in
fighting against worms like those.”
13. Now about the same time that the emperor was putting the
finishing touch to the war with the Huns, and had received the surrender of
the races that I have just mentioned, the Northmen left their homes and
disquieted greatly the Gauls and the Franks. Then the unconquered Charles

returned and tried to attack them by land in their own homes, by a march
through difficult and unknown country. But, whether it was that the
providence of God prevented it in order that, as the Scripture says, He
might make trial of Israel, or whether it was that our sins stood in the way,
all his efforts came to nothing. One night, to the serious discomfort of the
whole army, it was calculated that fifty yoke of oxen belonging to one
abbey had died of a sudden disease. Afterwards when Charles was making a
prolonged journey through his vast empire, Gotefrid, king of the Northmen,
encouraged by his absence, invaded the territory of the Frankish kingdom
and chose the district of the Moselle for his home.90 But Gotefrid’s [pg 138]
own son (whose mother he had just put away and taken to himself a new
wife) caught him, while he was pulling off his hawk from a heron, and cut
him through the middle with his sword. Then, as happened of old when
Holofernes was slain, none of the Northmen dare trust any longer in his
courage or his arms; but all sought safety in flight. And thus the Franks
were freed without their own effort, that they might not after the fashion of
Israel boast themselves against God. Then Charles, the unconquered and the
invincible, glorified God for His judgment; but complained bitterly that any
of the Northmen had escaped because of his absence. “Ah, woe is me!” he
said, “that I was not thought worthy to see my Christian hands dabbling in
the blood of those dog-headed fiends.”
14. It happened too that on his wanderings Charles once came
unexpectedly to a certain maritime city of Narbonensian Gaul. When he
was dining quietly in the harbour of this town, it happened that some
Norman scouts made a piratical raid. When the ships came in sight some
thought them Jews, some African or British merchants, but the most wise
Charles, by the build of the ships and their speed, knew them to be not
merchants but enemies, and said to his companions: “These ships [pg 139]

are not filled with merchandise, but crowded with our fiercest enemies.”
When they heard this, in eager rivalry, they hurried in haste to the ships. But
all was in vain, for when the Northmen heard that Charles, the Hammer, as
they used to call him, was there, fearing lest their fleet should be beaten
back or even smashed in pieces, they withdrew themselves, by a
marvellously rapid flight, not only from the swords but even from the eyes
of those who followed them. The most religious, just and devout Charles
had risen from the table and was standing at an eastern window. For a long
time he poured down tears beyond price, and none dared speak a word to
him; but at last he explained his actions and his tears to his nobles in these
words:—“Do you know why I weep so bitterly, my true servants? I have no
fear of those worthless rascals doing any harm to me; but I am sad at heart
to think that even during my lifetime they have dared to touch this shore;
and I am torn by a great sorrow because I foresee what evil things they will
do to my descendants and their subjects.”
May the protection of our Master Christ prevent the accomplishment
of this prophecy; may your sword, tempered already in the blood of the
Nordostrani, resist it! The sword of your brother Carloman will help, which
now lies idle and rusted, not for [pg 140] want of spirit, but for want of
funds, and because of the narrowness of the lands of your most faithful
servant Arnulf.91 If your might wills it, if your might orders it, it will easily
be made bright and sharp again. These and the little shoot of Bernard form
the only branch that is left of the once prolific root of Lewis, to flourish
under the wonderful growth of your protection. Let me insert here therefore
in the history of your namesake Charles an incident in the life of your great-
great-grandfather Pippin: which perhaps some future little Charles or Lewis
may read and imitate.

15. When the Lombards and other enemies of the Romans were
attacking them, they sent ambassadors to this same Pippin, and asked him
for the love of Saint Peter to condescend to come with all speed to their
help. As soon as he had conquered his enemies he came victoriously to
Rome,92 and this was the song of praise with which the citizens received
him. “The fellow-citizens of the apostles and the servants of God have
come to-day bringing peace, and making their native land glorious, to give
peace to the heathen and to set free the people of the Lord.” (Many people,
ignorant of the meaning and origin of this song, have been accustomed to
sing it on the birthdays of the apostles.) Pippin feared [pg 141] the envy of
the people of Rome (or, more truly, of Constantinople) and soon returned to
Frankland.
When he found that the nobles of his army were accustomed in secret
to speak contemptuously of him, he ordered one day a huge and ferocious
bull to be brought out; and then a savage lion to be let loose upon him. The
lion rushed with tremendous fury on the bull, seized him by the neck and
cast him on the ground. Then the king said to those who stood round him:
“Now, drag off the lion from the bull, or kill the one on the top of the
other.” They looked on one another, with a chill at their hearts, and could
hardly utter these words amidst their sobs:—“Lord, what man is there under
heaven, who dare attempt it?” Then Pippin rose confidently from his throne,
drew his sword, and at one blow cut through the neck of the lion and
severed the head of the bull from his shoulders. Then he put back his sword
into its sheath and sat again upon his throne and said: “Well, do you think I
am fit to be your lord? Have you not heard what the little David did to the
giant Goliath, or what the child Alexander did to his nobles?” They fell to
the ground, as though a thunderbolt had struck them, and cried: “Who but a
madman would deny your right to rule over all mankind?”

[pg 142] Not only was his courage shown against beasts and men; but
he also fought an incredible contest against evil spirits. The hot baths at Aix
had not yet been built; but hot and healing waters bubbled from the ground.
He ordered his chamberlain to see that the water was clean and that no
unknown person was allowed to enter into them. This was done; and the
king took his sword and, dressed only in linen gown and slippers, hurried
off to the bath; when lo! the Old Enemy met him, and attacked him as
though he would slay him. But the king, strengthened with the sign of the
cross, made bare his sword; and, noticing a shape in human form, struck his
unconquerable sword through it into the ground so far, that he could only
drag it out again after a long struggle. But the shape was so far material that
it defiled all those waters with blood and gore and horrid slime. But even
this did not upset the unconquerable Pippin. He said to his chamberlain:
“Do not mind this little affair. Let the defiled water run for a while; and
then, when it flows clear again, I will take my bath without delay.”
16. I had intended, most noble emperor, to weave my little narrative
only round your great-grandfather Charles, all of whose deeds you know
[pg 143] well. But since the occasion arose which made it necessary to
mention your most glorious father Lewis, called the illustrious, and your
most religious grandfather Lewis, called the pious, and your most warlike
great-great-grandfather Pippin the younger, I thought it would be wrong to
pass over their deeds in silence, for the sloth of modern writers has left
them almost untold. There is no need to speak of the elder Pippin, for the
most learned Bede in his ecclesiastical history has devoted nearly a whole
volume to him. But now that I have recounted all these things by way of
digression I must swim swan-like back to your illustrious namesake
Charles. But, if I do not curtail somewhat his feats in war, I shall never

come to consider his daily habits of life. Now I will give with all possible
brevity the incidents that occur to me.
17. When after the death of the ever-victorious Pippin the Lombards
were again attacking Rome, the unconquered Charles, though he was fully
occupied with business to the north of the Alps, marched swiftly into Italy.
He received the Lombards into his service after they had been humbled in a
war that was almost bloodless, or (one might say), after they had
surrendered of their own free will; and to prevent them from ever again
revolting [pg 144] from the Frankish kingdom or doing any injury to the
territories of Saint Peter, he married the daughter of Desiderius, chief of the
Lombards. But no long time afterwards, because she was an invalid and
little likely to give issue to Charles, she was, by the counsel of the holiest of
the clergy, put aside, even as though she were dead: whereupon her father in
wrath bound his subjects to him by oath, and shutting himself up within the
walls of Pavia, he prepared to give battle to the invincible Charles, who,
when he had received certain news of the revolt, hurried to Italy with all
speed.
Now it happened that some years before one of the first nobles, called
Otker, had incurred the wrath of the most terrible emperor, and had fled for
refuge to Desiderius. When the near approach of the dreaded Charles was
known, these two went up into a very high tower, from which they could
see anyone approaching at a very great distance. When therefore the
baggage-waggons appeared, which moved more swiftly than those used by
Darius or Julius, Desiderius said to Otker: “Is Charles in that vast army?”
And Otker answered: “Not yet.” Then when he saw the vast force of the
nations gathered together from all parts of his empire, he said with
confidence to Otker: “Surely Charles moves in pride [pg 145] among those
forces.” But Otker answered: “Not yet, not yet.” Then Desiderius fell into

great alarm and said, “What shall we do if a yet greater force comes with
him?” And Otker said, “You will see what he is like when he comes. What
will happen to us I cannot say.” And, behold, while they were thus talking,
there came in sight Charles’s personal attendants, who never rested from
their labours; and Desiderius saw them and cried in amazement, “There is
Charles.” And Otker answered: “Not yet, not yet.” Then they saw the
bishops and the abbots and the clerks of his chapel with their attendants.
When he saw them he hated the light and longed for death, and sobbed and
stammered, “Let us go down to hide ourselves in the earth from the face of
an enemy so terrible.” And Otker answered trembling, for once, in happier
days, he had had thorough and constant knowledge of the policy and
preparations of the unconquerable Charles: “When you see an iron harvest
bristling in the fields; and the Po and the Ticino pouring against the walls of
the city like the waves of the sea, gleaming black with glint of iron, then
know that Charles is at hand.” Hardly were these words finished when there
came from the west a black cloud, which turned the bright day to horrid
gloom. But as the emperor drew nearer the gleam [pg 146] of the arms
turned the darkness into day, a day darker than any night to that beleaguered
garrison. Then could be seen the iron Charles, helmeted with an iron
helmet, his hands clad in iron gauntlets, his iron breast and broad shoulders
protected with an iron breastplate: an iron spear was raised on high in his
left hand; his right always rested on his unconquered iron falchion. The
thighs, which with most men are uncovered that they may the more easily
ride on horseback, were in his case clad with plates of iron: I need make no
special mention of his greaves, for the greaves of all the army were of iron.
His shield was all of iron: his charger was iron-coloured and iron-hearted.
All who went before him, all who marched by his side, all who followed
after him and the whole equipment of the army imitated him as closely as

possible. The fields and open places were filled with iron; the rays of the
sun were thrown back by the gleam of iron; a people harder than iron paid
universal honour to the hardness of iron. The horror of the dungeon seemed
less than the bright gleam of iron. “Oh the iron! Woe for the iron!” was the
confused cry that rose from the citizens. The strong walls shook at the sight
of the iron; the resolution of young and old fell before the iron. Now when
the truthful Otker saw in one swift glance all this which [pg 147] I, with
stammering tongue and the voice of a child, have been clumsily explaining
with rambling words, he said to Desiderius: “There is the Charles that you
so much desired to see”: and when he had said this he fell to the ground half
dead.
But as the inhabitants of the city, either through madness or because
they entertained some hope of resistance, refused to let Charles enter on that
day, the most inventive emperor said to his men: “Let us build to-day some
memorial, so that we may not be charged with passing the day in idleness.
Let us make haste to build for ourselves a little house of prayer, where we
may give due attention to the service of God, if they do not soon throw
open the city to us.” No sooner had he said it than his men flew off in every
direction, collected lime and stones, wood and paint, and brought them to
the skilled workmen who always accompanied him. And between the fourth
hour of the day and the twelfth they built, with the help of the young nobles
and the soldiers, such a cathedral, so provided with walls and roofs, with
fretted ceilings and frescoes, that none who saw it could believe that it had
taken less than a year to build. But, how on the next day some of the
citizens wanted to throw open the gate; and some wanted to fight against
him, even without hope of [pg 148] victory, or rather to fortify themselves
against him; and how easily he conquered, took and occupied the city,
without the shedding of blood, and merely by the exercise of skill;—all this

I must leave others to tell, who follow your highness not for love, but in the
hope of gain.
Then the most religious Charles marched on and came to the city of
Friuli, which the pedants call Forum Julii. Now it happened just at this time
that the bishop of that city (or, to use a modern word, the patriarch) was
drawing near to the end of his life. Charles made haste to visit him, in order
that he might designate his successor by name. But the bishop, with
remarkable piety, sighed from the bottom of his heart and said: “Sire, I have
held this bishopric for a long time without any use or profit; and now I
leave it to the judgment of God and your disposal. For I do not wish, at the
point of death, to add anything to the mountain of sin that I have heaped
together during my life, for which I shall have to make answer to the
inevitable and incorruptible Judge.” The most wise Charles was so pleased
with these words, that he rightly thought him the equal in virtue of the
ancient fathers.
After Charles, of all the energetic Franks the most energetic, had
stayed in that country for a short time, [pg 149] while he was appointing a
worthy successor to the deceased bishop, one festal day after the celebration
of mass he said to his retinue: “We must not let leisure lead us into slothful
habits: let us go hunting and kill something; and let us all go in the very
clothes that we are wearing at this moment.” Now the day was cold and
rainy and Charles was wearing a sheepskin, not much more costly than the
cloak which Saint Martin wore when with bare arms he offered to God a
sacrifice that received divine approval. But the others—for it was a holiday
and they had just come from Pavia, whither the Venetians had carried all the
wealth of the east from their territories beyond the sea—the others, I say,
strutted in robes made of pheasant-skins and silk; or of the necks, backs and
tails of peacocks in their first plumage. Some were decorated with purple

and lemon-coloured ribbons; some were wrapped round with blankets and
some in ermine robes. They scoured the thickets; they were torn by
branches of trees, thorns, and briars; they were drenched with rain; they
were defiled with the blood of wild beasts and the filth of the skins; and in
this plight they returned home. Then the most crafty Charles said: “No one
of us must take off his dress of skins before he goes to bed; they will dry
better upon our bodies.” Then everyone, more anxious [pg 150] about his
body than his dress, made search for fire and tried to warm himself. Then
they returned and remained in attendance upon Charles far into the night
before they were dismissed to their apartments. Then when they began to
draw off their dresses of skins and their slender belts, the creased and
shrunken garments could be heard even from a distance cracking like sticks
broken when they are dry: and the courtiers sighed and groaned and
lamented that they had lost so much money on a single day. They had
received however a command from the emperor to appear before him next
day in the same skin-garments. When they came it was no longer the
splendid show of yesterday; for they looked dirty and squalid in their
discoloured and rent clothes. Then Charles, full of guile, said to his
chamberlain: “Give my sheepskin a rub and bring it to me.” It came quite
white and perfectly sound and Charles took it and showed it to all those
who were there and spoke as follows:—“Most foolish of mortal men! which
of these dresses is the most valuable and the most useful, this one of mine
which was bought for a piece of silver, or those of yours which you bought
for pounds, nay for many talents?” Their eyes sank to the ground for they
could not bear his most terrible censure.
[pg 151] Your most religious father imitated this example of the Great
Charles all through his life, for he never allowed anyone, who seemed to
him worthy of his notice or his teaching, to wear anything when on

campaign against the enemy except the military accoutrements, and
garments of wool and linen. If any of his servants, ignorant of this rule,
happened to meet him with silk or silver or gold upon his person, he would
receive a reprimand of the following kind and would depart a better and a
wiser man. “Here’s a blaze of gold and silver and scarlet! Why, you
wretched fellow, can’t you be satisfied with perishing yourself in battle if
Fate so decides? Must you also give your wealth into the hands of the
enemy; which might have gone to ransom your soul, but now will decorate
the temples of the heathen?”
But now, though you know it better than I do, I will tell again how,
from early youth up to his seventieth year, the unconquered Lewis delighted
in iron; and what an exhibition of his fondness for iron he made in the
presence of the legates of the Northmen!
18. When the kings of the Northmen sent gold and silver as witness of
their loyalty and their swords as a mark of their perpetual subjection and
surrender, the king gave orders that the precious metals should be [pg 152]
thrown upon the floor, and should be looked upon by all with contempt, and
be trampled upon by all as though they were dirt. But, as he sat upon his
lofty throne, he ordered the swords to be brought to him that he might make
trial of them. Then the ambassadors, anxious to avoid the possibility of any
suspicion of an evil design, took the swords by the very point (as servants
hand knives to their masters) and thus gave them to the emperor at their
own risk. He took one by the hilt and tried to bend the tip of the blade right
back to the base; but the blade snapped between his hands which were
stronger than the iron itself. Then one of the envoys drew his own sword
from its sheath and offered it, like a servant, to the emperor’s service,
saying: “I think you will find this sword as flexible and as strong as your
all-conquering right hand could desire.” Then the emperor (a true emperor

he! As the Prophet Isaiah says in his prophecy, “Consider the rock whence
ye were hewn”: for he out of all the vast population of Germany, by the
singular favour of God, rose to the level of the strength and courage of an
earlier generation)—the emperor, I say, bent it like a vine-twig from the
extreme point back to the hilt, and then let it gradually straighten itself
again. Then the envoys gazed upon one another and said in amazement: [pg
153] “Would that our kings held gold and silver so cheap and iron so
precious.”
19. As I have mentioned the Northmen I will show by an incident
drawn from the reign of your grandfather in what slight estimation they
hold faith and baptism. Just as after the death of the warrior King David, the
neighbouring peoples, whom his strong hand had subdued, for a long time
paid their tribute to his peaceful son Solomon: even so the terrible race of
the Northmen still loyally paid to Lewis the tribute which through terror
they had paid to his father, the most august Emperor Charles. Once the most
religious Emperor Lewis took pity on their envoys, and asked them if they
would be willing to receive the Christian religion; and, when they answered
that always and everywhere and in everything they were ready to obey him,
he ordered them to be baptised in the name of Him, of whom the most
learned Augustine says: “If there were no Trinity, the Truth would never
have said: ‘Go and teach all peoples, baptising them in the name of the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’” The nobles of the palace adopted them
almost as children, and each received from the emperor’s chamber a white
robe and from their sponsors a full Frankish attire, of costly robes and arms
and other decorations.
[pg 154] This was often done and from year to year they came in
increasing numbers, not for the sake of Christ but for earthly advantage.
They made haste to come, not as envoys any longer but as loyal vassals, on

Easter Eve to put themselves at the disposal of the emperor; and it happened
that on a certain occasion they came to the number of fifty. The emperor
asked them whether they wished to be baptised, and when they had
confessed he bade them forthwith be sprinkled with holy water. As linen
garments were not ready in sufficient numbers he ordered shirts to be cut up
and sewn together into the fashion of wraps. One of these was forthwith
clapped upon the shoulders of one of the elder men; and when he had
looked all over it for a minute, he conceived fierce anger in his mind, and
said to the emperor: “I have gone through this washing business here
twenty times already, and I have been dressed in excellent clothes of perfect
whiteness; but a sack like this is more fit for clodhoppers than for soldiers.
If I were not afraid of my nakedness, for you have taken away my own
clothes and have given me no new ones, I would soon leave your wrap and
your Christ as well.”
Ah! how little do the enemies of Christ value the words of the Apostle
of Christ where he says:—“All ye that are baptised in Christ, put on
Christ”; and [pg 155] again: “Ye that are baptised in Christ are baptised in
His death”; or that passage which is aimed especially at those who despise
the faith and violate the sacraments: “Crucifying the Son of God afresh and
putting Him to an open shame!” Oh! would that this were the case only
with the heathen; and not also among those who are called by the name of
Christ!
20. Now I must tell a story about the goodness of the first Lewis, and
then I shall come back to Charles. That most peaceable emperor Lewis,
being free from the incursions of the enemy, gave all his care to works of
religion, as, for instance, to prayer, to works of charity, to the hearing and
just determinations of trials at law. His talents and his experience had made
him very skilful in this latter business; and when one day there came to him

one, who was considered a very Achitophel by all, and tried to deceive him
he gave him this answer following, with courteous mien and kindly voice,
though with some little agitation of mind. “Most wise Anselm,” he said, “if
I may be allowed to say so, I would venture to observe that you are
deviating from the path of rectitude.” From that day the reputation of that
legal luminary sank to nothing in the eyes of all the world.
[pg 156] 21. Moreover the most merciful Lewis was so intent on works
of charity that he liked not merely to have them done in his sight, but even
to do them with his own hand. Even when he was away he made special
arrangements for the trial of cases in which the poor were concerned. He
chose one of their own number, a man of small bodily strength, but
apparently more courageous than the rest, and gave orders that he should
decide offences committed by them; and should see to the restoration of
stolen property, the requital of injuries and wounds, and in cases of greater
crimes to the infliction of mutilation, decapitation, and the exposure of the
bodies on the gallows. This man established dukes, tribunes, centurions and
their representatives, and performed his task with energy.
Moreover the most merciful emperor, worshipping Christ in the
persons of all the poor, was never weary of giving them food and clothing:
and he did so especially on the day when Christ, having put off His mortal
body, was preparing to take to Himself an incorruptible one. On that day it
was his practice to make presents to each and every one of those who
served in the palace or did duty in the royal court. He would order belts, leg
coverings and precious garments brought from all parts of his vast empire
[pg 157] to be given to some of his nobles; the lower orders would get
Frisian cloaks of various colours; his grooms, cooks and kitchen-attendants
got clothes of linen and wool and knives according to their needs. Then,
when according to the Acts of the Apostles there was no one that was in

need of anything, there was a universal feeling of gratitude. The ragged
poor, now decently clad, raised their voices to heaven with the cry of
“‘Kyrie Eleison’ to the blessed Lewis” through all the wide courts and the
smaller openings of Aix (which the Latins usually call porches); and all the
knights who could embraced the feet of the emperor; and those who could
not get to him worshipped him afar off as he made his way to church. On
one of these occasions one of the fools said in jest: “O happy Lewis, who
on one day hast been able to clothe so many people. By Christ, I think that
no one in Europe has clothed more than you this day except Atto.”93 When
the emperor asked him how it was possible that Atto should have clothed
more, the jester, pleased to have secured the attention of the emperor, said
with a grin: “He has distributed to-day a vast number of new clothes.” The
emperor, with the sweetest possible expression on his face, took this for the
silly joke it was, and entered the church in humble devotion, and there
behaved [pg 158] himself so reverently that he seemed to have our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself before his bodily eyes.
It was his habit to go to the baths every Saturday, not for any need
there was of it, but because it gave him an opportunity of making presents;
for he used to give everything that he took off, except his sword and belt, to
his attendants. His liberality reached even to the lowest grades: insomuch
that he once ordered all his attire to be given to one Stracholf, a glazier, and
a servant of Saint Gall. When the servants of the barons heard of this, they
laid an ambuscade for him on the road and tried to rob him. Then he cried
out: “What are you doing? You are using violence to the glazier of the
emperor!” They answered: “You can keep your office but …”
[Here the MS. ends, and the further adventures of Stracholf are left to
conjecture.]

[pg 159]

NOTES

[pg 161]

[1] Walafridus Strabo was abbot of a Frankish monastery from 842 to
849.

[2] The Emperor Lewis I. (Lewis the Pious, 814–840) was the son and
successor of Charles the Great. His weakness and pietism did much
to wreck the imperial structure of Charles.

[3] Neither the headings nor the decorations (incisiones) are given in
the present translation. The decorations necessarily disappear, and
the various headings to the paragraphs, not being the work of
Eginhard, are not usually printed with the text. But Walafridus
Strabo was personally known to Eginhard, and his Preface seems,
therefore, to deserve reproduction.

[4] That is, though there are many who would be ready to write
Charles’s life, Eginhard thinks that he has peculiar qualifications
for the task which make it obligatory on him to do so.

[5] The Latin of Eginhard’s Life is much superior to the general
monkish Latin of his period. See Introduction.

[6] This is King Childeric III., who was deposed in 751 by a National
Council, with the approval of the Pope. Pippin the Short was then
elected king, and crowned by Boniface. With Childeric the

Merovingian dynasty ends, and gives place to the curiously-named
Carolingian, of which Charlemagne was the greatest
representative.

[7] Eginhard here makes a mistake. The Pope was not [pg 162]
Stephen, who held the Papal See from 752 to 757, but Zacharias,
who was Pope from 741 to 752. Eginhard’s mistake is, perhaps,
due to the fact that the decision of Zacharias was confirmed by his
successor.

[8] Mr Carless Davis remarks on this passage: “Eginhard errs in
representing this as an indignity. Religious usage demanded that
the king of the race should make his progresses in this primitive
vehicle. The Merovingians were a national priesthood. Here also
we have the explanation of their flowing locks and beard. The
touch of steel—a metal unknown to the Frankish nation in its
infancy—would have profaned their persons. Similarly the
priesthood of ancient Rome were forbidden to remove the hair
from their faces except with bronze tweezers.” (“Life of
Charlemagne,” p. 28.)

[9] This is Charles Martel—Charles the Hammer—who “reigned” as
Mayor of the Palace from 715 to 741. His great victory (variously
known as the Battle of Poitiers, or the Battle of Tours, though the
former is the more accurate title) was fought in 732, and is
regarded as the “Salamis of Western Europe.” It was the first
serious blow that the Mohammedan advance had received, and its

effects were decisive. The second battle, fought near Narbonne,
completed the work of the first.

[10] Pippin, father of Charles Martel, and grandfather of Pippin the
Short, was Mayor of the Palace from 687 to 714.

[11] Pippin’s reign really lasted for rather more than sixteen years—
from 751 to 768.

[12] This statement, as is clear from other sources, does not correspond
with the facts. Charles took Austrasia, and the greater part of
Neustria, with the lands lying between the Loire and the Garonne.
Burgundy, Provence, Alsace, Alemannia, and the south-eastern part
of Aquitaine fell to Carloman.

[13] Carloman died in December 771. His death removed from the path
of Charles one of the most serious obstacles. The custom of the
Frankish monarchy was equal inheritance of all the sons. It was
this which contributed so [pg 163] much to the disruption of the
Frankish power on the death of Charles; but for the death of
Carloman the “Empire” would never have been founded, or
founded only after bitter civil war. Eginhard again makes a mistake
in dates. The two brothers had administered the realm in common
for more than three years.

[14] This reticence of Eginhard’s about his hero’s early life, about
which it would have been quite easy to procure information, has

seemed to many to lend colour to a report that Charles was born
before the Church had sanctioned the marriage of his parents.

[15] Hunold was the father of Waifar, and had for twenty years lived as
a monk in the Island of Rhé, but upon the death of his son he left
his monastic retreat in the hope of re-establishing the fortunes of
his family in Aquitaine.

[16] The Saxon war—the greatest task of Charles’s whole reign—lasted
with some intermissions for more than thirty years (from 772 to
804). By his conquest and conversion of the fierce and heathen
Saxons—who occupied the lands in the valleys of the Ems and the
Weser and reached as far as the Elbe—he laid the foundations of
mediæval and modern Germany.

[17] For an account of the religious beliefs and practices of the Saxons,
see Davis’s “Charlemagne,” p. 95.

[18] The “conversion” of Saxony by Charles was of the most forcible
kind. No Mohammedan ever offered the choice between the Koran
and the edge of the sword more clearly than Charles put death or
baptism before the Saxons. The “Saxon Poet,” who in the next
century wrote in honour of the King who had destroyed the
independence of his land, tells how Charles used the whole force
of his army to drag the Saxons from the devil’s power; and
remarks, as a matter of course, that persuasion and argument are
not sufficient to turn the heathen from their faith.

[19] The river Hasa is near Osnabrück.

[20] This is the famous defeat of Roncesvalles, where later legends
affirmed that “Charlemagne with all his peerage [pg 164] fell at
Fontarabia,” and where Roland wound his horn, whose sound is
still heard in the verse of Milton. By a strange chance this incident
becomes one of the most famous in the cycle of mediæval
Charlemagne legends; and Roland, evermore transfigured from the
historical warden of the Breton march, becomes, after long
wanderings, the Orlando of the “Orlando Furioso” of Ariosto. But
the historical Roland seems mentioned here, and here only.

[21] The Duchy of Beneventum embraced a large part of the Italian
peninsula south of Rome. It had been for a long time connected, in
loose feudal dependence, with the Lombard monarchy of North
Italy, and, since that had been overwhelmed and annexed by
Charles, was now regarded as a dependency of the Carolingian
monarchy.

[22] Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, had offended Charles by claiming
independent sovereignty and refusing to recognise Charles in any
way as his overlord. From the beginning of Charles’s reign there
had been friction between them, but for some time a hollow truce
had existed. War came in 787, in spite of the efforts of the Papacy
at mediation, and ended swiftly, as described in the text, owing to
the overwhelming strength of the armies brought against Tassilo by
Charles. But the past of Bavaria was too great to allow its Duke to

accept the position of inferiority, and in the next year Tassilo was
deposed, tonsured, and imprisoned in a monastery.

[23] It was part of Charles’s general policy to displace the dukes of his
realm, with their undefined and dangerous powers, and to
administer his dominions by a large number of counts, who were to
begin with quite dependent officials executing the orders of the
King over a limited area. “Count” was not yet the great title of
nobility which it became later.

[24] The Wiltzes lived on the shores of the Baltic between the Elbe and
the Oder.

[25] This “gulf” of Eginhard’s presents geographical difficulties. The
direction indicated and the approximate measurements suggested
make it impossible to apply his [pg 165] words to the whole of the
Baltic Gulf. The south-eastern part of the Baltic will correspond
fairly well to the description.

[26] The war against the Avars was due to the alliance which had
existed between them and Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria. The Avars,
though allied in race to the ancient Huns and the modern Magyars,
were, nevertheless, a distinct people. Charles’s war entirely broke
their power, and removed a great danger from western Europe.

[27] “The Monk of St Gall” (II. i.) gives an interesting description of
the vast concentric earthworks by which the power of the Kagan
was defended, and his account rests on better authority than much

of his strange chronicle. See also Dr Hodgkin’s “Life of Charles
the Great,” p. 155.

[28] The vast treasure of the Avars had an important influence on the
course of Charles’s career. This great influx of the precious metals
into Germany depreciated the value of the coinage and raised the
price of commodities.

[29] This is Tersatz, a town of Istria.

[30] These Northmen (or Danes, as they are usually called when they
appear in English history) proved themselves the most terrible
enemies of civilisation during the next century. “The Monk of St
Gall” makes Charles prophesy the ruin that would come eventually
on his Empire from these northern sea-rovers. The attacks of the
Northmen were among the most direct causes of the subsequent
disruption of the Empire of Charles.

[31] This is an exaggeration of Eginhard’s. Charles did, indeed, greatly
extend the Frankish dominions; but he strengthened them still more
decisively by the improvements which he introduced into the
internal order and administration.

[32] The Balearic Sea is the western Mediterranean.

[33] “Non aliter quam proprium suum.” Feudalism in any strict sense of
the word was not yet established; but Alfonso was, in effect,
“commending” himself to a feudal superior.

[pg 166]

[34] The spelling of the original is retained; but the “Aaron” of
Eginhard is the great Caliph Harun-al-Raschid, the Abassid Caliph
of Bagdad, whose actions play so large a part in fiction as well as
in history.

[35] It is strange, in view of the friendly relations of Charles with the
Mohammedan ruler of the East, that later legend so persistently
represented Charles as a Crusader, driving the Paynim from the
Holy City. The height of unreality is reached when, as in Ariosto,
we find Charlemagne relieving the city of Paris, which is being
besieged by the Mohammedans.

[36] This elephant caused a great sensation in Europe. His arrival, life,
and death are carefully noted by the chroniclers.

[37] The exact meaning of the original is far from clear (ne qua hostis
exire potuisset). The ingress rather than the egress is what Charles
must have wished to prevent, but there seems no doubt about the
reading.

[38] “The Monk of St Gall” says that the cause of this repudiation was
the constant illness of his wife, and her incapacity to bear him
children.

[39] This Hildigard was only thirteen years of age at the time of her
marriage with Charles. Besides the children mentioned by

Eginhard she bore to Charles three others—Lothaire, Adelais, and
Hildigard.

[40] Fastrada is regarded by Eginhard elsewhere as the evil influence on
Charles’s life, urging him against the natural bent of his character
to acts of cruelty and violence. Dr Hodgkin, however, points out
that the most cruel act of his reign—the massacre of 4500 Saxons
—took place before his marriage with Fastrada.

[41] The betrothal of Hruotrud to the Eastern Emperor, and the rupture
of the marriage contract, is a somewhat obscure thread in the
diplomacy of the reign of Charles. Note that the betrothal took
place in 781, during the residence of Charles at Rome, but nineteen
years before he had assumed the imperial title. Religious difference
and political jealousies probably both played their part in the
rupture. [pg 167] Both Frankish and Greek chroniclers are anxious
to maintain that the repudiation came from their side.

[42] If scandal is to be believed, the Court of Charles, in spite of his
devotion to the Church and his anxiety to maintain a high standard
of morals, was the scene of much licence and disorder.

[43] This conspiracy of Pippin took place in the years 785 and 786.

[44] We have here the natural and simple beginnings of the ceremony
that afterwards reached such great proportions in the lever and
coucher of the French kings.

[45] This reference to Greek at the Court of Charlemagne is interesting
in view of the exaggerated views sometimes held on the
disappearance of Greek in the Middle Ages.

[46] This is Alcuin of York, one of the greatest of Englishmen;
undoubtedly, as Eginhard says, the most learned man of his time.
His letters form a valuable source of information for the inner life
of Charlemagne and his Court.

[47] This passage has been closely scrutinised and commented on. Do
Eginhard’s words imply that Charlemagne could not write at all?
This seems a very improbable interpretation of them. Parum
successit would rather mean that “he made but little headway.” It
may well be that the King was able to write roughly and in an
ordinary way but failed to acquire the elegant and delicate
calligraphy that was aimed at by the scribes of the time.

[48] Eginhard passes very lightly over these epoch-making events of
Christmas Day in the year 800, when the imperial title was again
assumed by a ruler of the West, and the Mediæval Empire was
launched with all its vast consequences, both for the theory and
practice of the Middle Ages.
Charlemagne’s expressed regret for what occurred (of which
we hear from other sources) has been variously interpreted. It can
hardly refer to the imperial title altogether; for this certainly was
not unexpected, nor was it due merely to the decision of the Pope.
Charles had [pg 168] himself decided to adopt it: it was the coping-
stone to all his policy and his whole career, for in power Charles

was Emperor before the consecration of that famous Christmas
Day. The regret expressed by Charles more probably refers to the
method in which the title was bestowed: it came to him too much
as a grant from the Papacy, too little as the result of his own power
and will. His heart may well have foreboded something of the long
struggle between Empire and Papacy, which agitated the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, which caused so much bloodshed
on both sides of the Alps, and which in the end ruined the power of
both Emperor and Pope: for this struggle had its roots in the
indefinite basis of the imperial title. The regrets of Charlemagne
are probably in close relation to the wars of Henry IV., of Frederick
Barbarossa, and of Frederick II. Had the Papacy the right to give or
to withhold the imperial title? That was the great underlying
problem of the imperial position.

[49] The Roman Emperors are the Emperors at Constantinople.

[50] That is to say, the legal systems of the Salian and Ripuarian
Franks.

[51] Nothing in all the policy of Charles gives such an impression of
enlightenment as the actions alluded to here. A collection of
German sagas, and a grammar of the German language as it was in
the year 800—what would not posterity give for these? The
disappearance of the former is due to the policy of his son and
successor Lewis the Pious, whose piety had little in common with
the robust and broad views of his father. The biographer of Lewis
tells us that Lewis “rejected the national poems, which he had

learnt in his youth, and would not have them read or recited or
taught.”

[52] Their names (in the original) are as follows:—Wintarmanoth,
Hornung, Lentzinmanoth, Ostarmanoth, Winnemanoth,
Brachmanoth, Hewimanoth, Aranmanoth, Witumanoth,
Windumemanoth, Herbistmanoth, Heiligmanoth.

[pg 169]

[53] This curt and definite statement of Eginhard disposes at once of the
well-known story of Otto III.’s visit to Charlemagne’s grave in the
year 1000, and his remarkable discovery there. But the story is so
famous that it may be given in the words of the chronicler of
Novalese, who is our chief authority for it.
“After the passage of many years the Emperor Otto III. came
into the district where the body of Charles was lying duly buried.
He descended into the place of burial with two bishops and Otto,
Count of Lomello; the Emperor himself completed the party of
four. Now, the Count gave his version of what happened much as
follows:—‘We came then to Charles. He was not lying down, as is
usual with the bodies of the dead, but sat on a sort of seat, as
though he were alive. He was crowned with a golden crown; he
held his sceptre in his hands, and his hands were covered with
gloves, through which his nails had forced a passage. Round him
there was a sort of vault built, strongly made of mortar and marble.
When we came to the grave we broke a hole into it and entered,
and entering, were aware of a very strong odour. At once we fell

upon our knees and worshipped him, and the Emperor Otto clothed
him with white garments, cut his nails, and restored whatever was
lacking in him. But corruption had not yet taken anything away
from his limbs; only a little was lacking to the very tip of his nose.
Otto had this restored in gold; he then took a single tooth from his
mouth, and so built up the vault, and departed.’”

――――

[54] The reference is to the Book of Daniel ii. 33.

[55] The pilgrimage is, of course, life.

[56] The visit of Albinus (or Alcuin) of York to the court of King
Charles is alluded to in Eginhard’s Life of Charles, Ch. xxv. His
arrival in Frankland occurred in 781, and was of the utmost
importance in stimulating and guiding the intellectual renascence
of Charles’s reign.

[pg 170]

[57] “Lord, if I am still useful to thy people I will willingly take on
myself this labour on their behalf. Thy will be done” is the full
versicle, which comes on the 11th November (St Martin’s Day).
The story in the text is made intelligible when we find that more
than one of the responses that follow end with the words “Thy will
be done.” The poor clerk knew that, and started off, therefore, on

the Lord’s Prayer, which he knew would bring him to the right
ending.

[58] Grimald was Abbot of St Gall from 841 to 872. It will be noticed
all through the piece that the narrative becomes more full and
definite, though not necessarily more truthful, when it touches on
the writer’s own monastery.

[59] The whole of this statement is a tissue of absurdities, which are,
however, worth a moment’s attention, as giving some indication of
the value that is to be attached to the Monk of St Gall’s testimony.
The Pope Stephen here alluded to must be Stephen II., who
occupied the Papal throne from 752 to 757. He it was who crowned
Pippin King of the Franks in 754. He can have had nothing to do
with Charlemagne, who did not reign until 768; but the words of
the text (se ad gubernacula regni perunxit) can only refer to
Charles. It must have been Pope Stephen III. (768–772) to whom
Charlemagne appealed if there is any truth in the story at all; and
Pope Stephen III. can, of course, have had nothing to do with
Hilderich.

[60] Pope Leo III. did not succeed Pope Stephen until after an interval
of twenty-three years. Pope Leo III.’s date is 795–816.

[61] For Drogo see Eginhard’s Life, Ch. xv. But again the unhistorical
character of the narrative is shown by the fact that Drogo was
made Bishop of Metz, after the death of Charles, and against his
own will.

[62] A curious display of trivial learning! But it is interesting to note the
mention of Greek as of a language not wholly unknown to a monk
of the ninth century.

[63] See Eginhard’s Life, Ch. xxiv., for the difficulties found by Charles
in observing the fasts of Lent.

[pg 171]

[64] Here is another notorious error. Hildigard died in 783. Fastrada
was queen when, in 791, Charles advanced to the war against the
Avars.

[65] The next six chapters are omitted, because in them the Monk of St
Gall is led away, by his desire to tell a good and edifying story, into
matter that has no connection of any kind with Charlemagne, and
is sometimes offensive to modern taste. The stories are for the most
part to the discredit of the Episcopal order. A single phrase in
Chapter xxv. may be noted, as indicating the theocratic view of
Charles which the writer takes throughout: “the most religious
Charles” is called episcopus episcoporum, “the bishop of bishops.”

[66] Our author here again handles events of the most general notoriety
in a spirit completely independent of historical accuracy. Leo III.
was, it is true, the Pope to whose assistance Charlemagne came;
but no Michael was ruling at that time in Constantinople. Michael
II. reigned from 820–829, and Michael III. from 842–867. Thus the
name was associated, in the mind of the Monk of St Gall, with the

imperial throne of the east—and that was more than enough. The
sentiment attributed to the Emperor is as impossible as his name is
inaccurate.

[67] St Pancras is one of the saints given by the persecution of the
Emperor Diocletian to the calendar of the Church. He is said to
have been executed in his fourteenth year in the year 295. The
following extract from the Golden Legend will explain the
reference in the text:—“Of him said Gregory of Tours, Doctor:
That if there be a man that will make a false oath in the place of his
sepulchre, tofore or he came to the chancel of the quire he shall be
travailed with an evil spirit and out of mind, or he shall fall on the
pavement all dead. It happed on a time that there was a great
altercation between two men, and the judge wist not who had
wrong. And, for the jealousy of justice that he had, he brought
them both unto the altar of Saint Peter for to swear, praying the
apostle that he would declare who had right. And when he that had
wrong had [pg 172] sworn and had none harm the judge who knew
the malice of him said all on high: This old Peter here is either
over-merciful, or he is propitious to this young man, but let us go
to Pancrace and demand we of him the truth; and when they came
to the sepulchre, he that was culpable swore and stretched forth his
hand, but he might not withdraw his hand again to him, and anon
after he died there, and therefore unto this day, of much people it is
used that for great and notable causes men make their oaths upon
the relics of S. Pancrace.”

[68] This celebrated coronation took place on Christmas Day of the
year 800, and marks the foundation of the Mediæval Empire.
Charles is known to have expressed regret either at the fact or the
manner of the presentation of the imperial crown; and the Monk of
St Gall is not so wide of the point as usual in the account he gives
of the causes of his hesitation.

[69] Giants figure largely in the stories which are told of St Antony’s
temptation. The Golden Legend says: “S. Anthony recordeth of
himself that he had seen a man so great and so high that he vaunted
himself to be the virtue and the providence of God and said to me:
‘Demand of me what thou wilt, and I shall give it to thee.’ And I
spit in the midst of his visage, and anon I armed me with the sign
of the cross, and ran upon him, and anon he vanished away. And
after this the devil appeared to him in so great stature that he
touched the heaven, etc.” Gigantic appearances figure, too,
elsewhere in the story of St Antony’s trials.

[70] Two motives are to be detected in most of these stories beyond the
general purpose of moral and religious edification. There is the
jealousy of the bishops, so usually felt by the monks, and there is
the scorn felt by the northern peoples for the refinements of the
Italian population.

[71] I have inserted the passage in brackets, which seems necessary to
give meaning to the following instances.

[72] This King of the Franks is, of course, not Charlemagne, but
Charles the Third, called the Fat, who in 883 spent three days in
the Monastery of St Gall.

[pg 173]

[73] Julian’s death took place in 367. It need scarcely be pointed out
that the Monk’s historical narrative is here of the very wildest
description.

[74] It is unnecessary to disentangle the Monk’s strange perversion of
history; but it may be noted that he identifies the Avars, whom
Charlemagne subdued, with the Huns who followed Attila. But the
Huns and the Avars, though allied in race, were two quite distinct
nationalities.

[75] It would be an interesting inquiry whether archæological or
historical research corroborates in any way this interesting account
which Adalbert gives of the Hunnish fortifications.

[76] These three sons are—Charles, who died in 811; Pippin, who died
in 810; and Lewis, who succeeded to the undivided dominions of
Charlemagne, and is usually known as Lewis the Pious.

[77] The Persians of the ninth century are by the Monk identified with
the Persians of the period of Marathon and Salamis.

[78] It must be remembered that the whole of the Monk’s narrative is
nominally addressed to Charles the Fat, great-grandson of
Charlemagne.

[79] This is the famous Haroun al Raschid already mentioned in
Eginhard’s Life of Charlemagne.

[80] There is really no doubt about the identification of the Arar. It is
the Saône, the most important of the tributaries of the Rhone.

[81] This is Lewis of Bavaria, who was King of Germany from 843–
876, the son of Lewis the Pious, and the father of Charles the Fat.

[82] The Monk’s method here is not difficult to understand. The words
of St Ambrose and the parallel between the Saint and Charles are
clearly introduced to give evidence of the writer’s wide learning.

[83] Charles the Fat had no children; but he had a brother, Carloman,
King of Bavaria, and another, Lewis, King of Saxony.

[84] St Hemmeramm (or Emmeran, as the name is [pg 174] now
usually written) was first a bishop in some Frankish see (possibly
Poitiers) who about 649 went as a missionary to the idolaters of
Bavaria. He was assassinated in 652 near Munich, on his road to
Rome. A church in Regensburg is still called by his name.

[85] This conspiracy is given in Eginhard’s Life, Chap, xx., but without
the Monk’s picturesque details, and with the substitution of Prumia

(in the Moselle country) for the Monastery of St Gall. Eginhard’s
authority must, of course, be preferred, and we have, therefore, a
striking instance of the monkish chronicler’s desire to turn
everything to the honour of his own cloister.

[86] This story has a long history. It is first told of Thrasybulus, tyrant
of Miletus; it was then adapted by Livy (1–54) to Tarquin, King of
Rome, with slight alterations. The same story, which is here told
somewhat clumsily, and applied to Charlemagne, is given by
Ekkehard as belonging to the reign of Charles III.

[87] The reference is to the Monastery of Prumia, which was destroyed
by the Northmen in 882.

[88] Thurgau is in Switzerland.

[89] “Eis,” meaning terrible; and “here” an army.

[90] No Northman made any permanent settlement on the Moselle
either in the reign of Charles or at any other time. At most this can
refer only to the boast, or design, of some such chief as Gotefrid.

[91] The allusion to the Nordostrani fixes this reference to the year 882,
when the Northmen were a terrible and increasing danger to all
Frankland. The Arnulf here mentioned was the son of Charles the
Fat, and, later, Emperor.

[92] This story of King Pippin’s visit to Rome is entirely legendary. It is
repeated by later chroniclers, but is certainly without basis of any
kind.

[93] I confess myself unable to make anything out of the jester’s
references to Atto.

[pg 175]

INDEX

[pg 177]

Aaron, King of Persia, [pg 28]_. See also Haroun.
Abodriti, [pg 23]_; reduced by Northmen, [pg 26]_.
Adalbert, [pg xxi]_.; [pg 104]_, [pg 106]_.
Adalgis, [pg 15]_.
Africans, envoys to Charles, [pg 121]_.
Aix, Charles’s palace at, [pg 38]_; cathedral at, [pg 42]_; buildings of, [pg
92]_.
Albinus. See Alcuin.
Alcuin of York, [pg xiii]_.; [pg 41]_, [pg 61]_; success of his pupils, [pg
71]_, [pg 72]_.
Aldefonsus of Gallæcia, [pg 28]_.
Aquitania, war in, [pg 13]_.
Aragis, Duke of Beneventum, [pg 21]_.
Ariosto, [pg xxiv]_.
Atto, [pg 157]_.
Avars, war against, [pg 24]_; seizure of their store, [pg 25]_, [pg 107]_;
their rings, [pg 106]_.

Baugulfus, Abbot, [pg xii]_.
Bavarian war, [pg 22]_.
Beneventum, [pg 21]_.
Bertrada, mother of Charles, [pg 33]_.
Bishops, how appointed by Charles, [pg 64]_, [pg 66]_; luxury of, [pg 66]_;
folly of, [pg 76]_; arrogance of, [pg 77]_; cleanliness rewarded, [pg 78]_;
the bishop’s cheeses, [pg 79]_; pride rebuked, [pg 80]_; the adventure of the
painted mouse, [pg 82]_; vanity reprimanded, [pg 83]_; preaching enjoined
on, [pg 84]_; luxury of, [pg 86]_; churlishness in Greece, [pg 110]_.
Bobbio, monastery of, [pg 71]_.
Boniface, [pg xii]_.

Bretons, conquest of, [pg 20]_.

Carloman, brother of Pippin, [pg 10]_; retires to Monte Cassino, [pg 11]_.
Carloman, brother of Charles, [pg 11]_; dies, [pg 12]_.
Centumcellæ, [pg 31]_.
Chanting, Charles’s care for, [pg 72]_.
Charlemagne. See Charles the Great; the legend of his life, [pg xxiii]_.
Charles the Great, [pg xvii]_.; sole king, [pg 12]_; extent of his conquests,
[pg 26]_; buildings, [pg 30]_; fleet, [pg 30]_; private life of, [pg 32]_, etc.;
family of, [pg 33]_; treatment of his daughters, [pg 35]_; love of foreigners,
[pg 37]_; personal appearance, [pg 37]_; dress, [pg 38]_; knowledge of
Latin and Greek, [pg 41]_; fails to learn to write, [pg 41]_; reforms reading
and singing, [pg 42]_; fondness for Rome, [pg 43]_; becomes Emperor, [pg
44]_, [pg 91]_; reforms the legal system of the Franks, [pg 44]_; changes
the names of winds and months, [pg 45]_; death, [pg 47]_; burial, [pg 47]_
(see also [pg 169]_); will, [pg 50]_.
Charles, Martel, [pg 9]_.
Cicero, [pg 6]_.
[pg 178]
Clement the Scot, [pg 61]_, [pg 62]_.
Constantinople, Emperors of, [pg 29]_; embassy to, [pg 109]_; strange
banqueting laws, [pg 111]_.

Dante, [pg xxiv]_.
Deacon “who followed the Italian custom,” strange death of, [pg 100]_.
Desiderius, King of the Lombards, [pg 12]_, [pg 15]_, [pg 22]_, [pg 144]_;
alarm at the iron host of Charles, [pg 145]_.
Drogo, Bishop of Metz, [pg 75]_.

Eginhard, [pg xii]_.; career, [pg xiii]_.; writings, [pg xvi]_.; his life of
Charlemagne, [pg xvi]_.; birth and education, [pg 1]_; motives for writing,
[pg 4]_.
Eishere of Thurgau, [pg 136]_.
Eric, Duke of Friuli, [pg 25]_.

Fasting, Charles’s difficulty with, [pg 39]_, [pg 76]_.
Fastrada, wife of Charles, [pg 33]_; cruelty of, [pg 36]_.
Franks, national dress of, [pg 38]_, [pg 102]_.
Frisian garments, [pg 103]_.
Friuli, the Bishop of, [pg 148]_; hunting party at, [pg 149]_.

Gascons defeat Charles, [pg 19]_.
Gerold, Governor of Bavaria, [pg 25]_.
Godofrid the Dane, [pg 25]_; killed, [pg 26]_, [pg 48]_, [pg 137]_.
Gotefrid. See Godofrid.
Greek, knowledge of, [pg 41]_, [pg 75]_.
Greeks jealous of Charles, [pg 91]_; outwitted by Franks, [pg 111]_; envoys
at Charles’s court, [pg 113]_; terror of, [pg 115]_; music of, [pg 115]_; envy
of, [pg 141]_.
Grimald, Abbot of St Gall, [pg 71]_.

Hadrian, Pope, [pg 14]_, [pg 16]_; Charles’s sorrow at death of, [pg 35]_,
[pg 39]_.
Haistulf, King of Lombards, [pg 14]_.
Haroun al Raschid, [pg 28]_; cedes the holy places to Charles, [pg 29]_, [pg
121]_; Charles’s presents to, [pg 122]_; praises Charles, [pg 123]_; gives
the Holy Land to Charles, [pg 124]_.
Hartmuth, Abbot of St Gall, [pg 127]_.

Hasa, battle of, [pg 18]_.
Heitto, Bishop, [pg 114]_.
Hilderich the Merovingian, [pg 8]_, [pg 72]_.
Hildigard, [pg 32]_, [pg 64]_, [pg 77]_, [pg 82]_, [pg 119]_.
Holy places, the, given to Charles, [pg 29]_, [pg 124]_.
Hugo, Duke, [pg 112]_.
Hunold, [pg 13]_.
Huns, war against, [pg 24]_. See Avars.

Imperial title assumed by Charles, [pg 29]_, [pg 44]_, [pg 91]_.
Isambard, [pg 119]_, [pg 120]_.

Julian, [pg 105]_.

Kerold, [pg xxi]_.; [pg 108]_.

Leo, Pope, [pg 39]_; outrage upon, [pg 44]_, [pg 88]_, [pg 74]_.
Lewis of Bavaria, [pg 125]_, [pg 126]_; reprimands luxury, [pg 151]_.
Lewis the Pious, [pg 2]_; declared Emperor by Charles, [pg 46]_, [pg 56]_,
[pg 126]_, [pg 128]_; his conversion of the Northmen, [pg 153]_, [pg
155]_; his care for the poor, [pg 156]_; his universal charity, [pg 156]_.
Liutfrid, the knavish steward, [pg 97]_. Liutgard, wife of Charles, [pg 33]_.
Lombards, war with, [pg 14]_.
Lupus, Duke of the Gascons, [pg 13]_.

Mainz, the great bridge of, [pg 48]_, [pg 96]_.
Mayors of the Palace, [pg 8]_.
Merovingian kings, [pg 8]_.
Michael, Emperor of Constantinople, [pg 89]_.
Miracles, [pg 98]_, [pg 100]_, [pg 102]_, [pg 142]_.

[pg 179]
Monks, ignorance of, [pg 70]_.
Moors, precautions against, [pg 31]_.
Mulinheim, [pg xv]_.

Northmen, [pg 23]_, [pg 25]_; Charles’s measures against, [pg 30]_;
rigorous punishment of, [pg 131]_; Charles’s prophesies concerning them,
[pg 139]_; they send envoys to Lewis of Bavaria, [pg 152]_; accept
conversion from Lewis the Pious, [pg 153]_; their deceit, [pg 154]_.

Organ, the Greek, [pg 116]_.
Osning, battle of, [pg 18]_.
Otker at Pavia, [pg 144]_, [pg 146]_.

Paris, Gaston, [pg xxiii]_.
Pavia, siege of, [pg 144]_, [pg 147]_, [pg 148]_.
Persians, envoys of, [pg 116]_; hunting party provided for them, [pg 118]_.
Peter of Pisa, [pg 41]_.
Pippin the younger, [pg 9]_; death, [pg 11]_; war against Lombards, [pg
14]_; legend of his march on Rome, [pg 140]_; slays a bull and a lion, [pg
141]_; his encounter with the devil, [pg 142]_.
Pippin, son of Charles, [pg 15]_; fights against Avars, [pg 24]_, [pg 32]_.
Pippin, Charles’s illegitimate son, conspires against him, [pg 36]_, [pg
132]_; sent to the monastery of St Gall, [pg 133]_; gives advice to Charles,
[pg 134]_; moves to another monastery, [pg 135]_.
Pluralists, Charles’s dislike of, [pg 77]_.
Portents foretelling Charles’s death, [pg 48]_.
Prumia, monastery of, [pg 36]_.

Reading, how practised at Charles’s court, [pg 69]_.

Regensburg, Lewis’s buildings at, [pg 129]_.
Roland, Præfect of the Breton frontier, [pg 20]_.
Rome, Charles’s fondness for, [pg 43]_; Roman jealousy of the Franks, [pg
73]_.

St Augustine, [pg 40]_.
St Columban, [pg xx]_.
St Gall, [pg xx]_.
St Gall, Monk of, xix.; character of his narrative, [pg xxii]_.
St Gall, monastery of, [pg 75]_, [pg 127]_.
St Pancras, [pg 90]_ (and note).
St Peter of Ghent, [pg xv]_.
St Wandrille, [pg xv]_.
Saxons, war with, [pg 16]_, [pg 108]_; perfidy of, [pg 17]_; transplantation
of, [pg 18]_; end of war, [pg 18]_; opinion of the Emperor of
Constantinople, [pg 110]_.
Scotch and Charles, [pg 28]_; visit Frankland, [pg 59]_.
Slavs, war with, [pg 23]_.
Spain, expedition to, [pg 19]_.
Stephen, Pope, [pg 8]_, [pg 72]_.
Stracholf of St Gall, [pg 158]_.

Tancho, the bell-founder, [pg 94]_.
Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, [pg 22]_.
Tours, [pg 61]_.

Waifar, Duke of Aquitania, [pg 11]_.
Walafrid, [pg 1]_.
Welatabi, [pg 23]_.

Werinbert, [pg xxi]_.; [pg 104]_.
Wilzi, [pg 23]_.

[pg 180]

The Riverside Press Limited, Edinburgh.

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