By Rev. W. G. WILLIAMS, A. M.

III.
THE FRANKS AND MEROVINGIANS.

After the fall of the Western Empire the Franks step into the foreground and show themselves of all the German tribes the most capable of founding a stable government. From the first they were distinguished from the others by their superior military discipline, and by their pride and ambition. They had always been looked upon as formidable warriors. Few of them wore helmets and mail; their breasts and backs were covered only by the shield. From the hips downward they wrapped themselves in close-fitting linen or leather, so as to display each man’s tall, upright form. Their principal weapon was the two-edged battle-axe, which served for throwing as well as striking. They also carried frightful javelins with barbed points. Their own laws describe them as brave warriors, profound in their plans, manly and healthy in body, handsome, bold, impetuous, and hardy. But their enemies, perhaps with some justice, denounced them as the most faithless and cruel of men. The distinguishing ornament of the kings was their hair, which was left uncut, flowing freely over the shoulder. The people were still heathen, untamed and uncivilized, yet in constant intercourse with the Romans in Gaul.[A]

CLOVIS, THE FIRST FRANKISH KING.

The name of Clovis is not alone to be remembered as that of the founder of the kingdom of the Franks, but for the remarkable so-called conversion which he experienced during a hard-fought battle with the Alemanni. While the result was yet in doubt, Clovis, in the face of his army, called upon the new God, Christ, and vowed to serve him, if he would help him now. He was victorious; received instruction from St. Remigius, and was then baptized, with three thousand of his noblest Franks, in the cathedral at Rheims. “Bow thy head in silence, Sigambrian,” said the saint; “worship what thou hast hitherto destroyed; war against what thou hast worshiped.” This was by no means the only instance of wholesale conversions to Christianity in consequence of a victory. The heathen, when defeated by Christians, commonly ascribed the result to the superior strength of the Christian God, and often resolved to seek his protection for themselves. It was the Catholic, not the Arian faith, which Clovis adopted. He was straightway recognized by the Pope as “the most Christian king,” the appointed protector and propagator of the true faith against Arian Germany.

Clovis built up his kingdom with many a deed of blood, but with great vigor. His empire comprised German as well as Roman territory; but struck root firmly in the old native soil, from which it drew ever new strength: and therefore it was that its duration was not merely momentary, like that of the Gothic kingdoms, but it proved the beginning of the monarchy of the Middle Ages, the beginning of a new national life, in which Roman form was animated with fresh German strength. Clovis ruled his wide realm from Paris, a city which had existed even before the days of CÆsar and the Romans in Gaul. He died in Paris at the early age of forty-five.[B]

From Clovis to Karl der Grosse (French, Charlemagne; Latin, Carolus Magnus), a period of two hundred and fifty years, we witness not only the vicissitudes incident to the establishment of a new social and political order upon the ruins of the old, with all the ferocity of manner and barbarity of action to be expected in such an age; but also there is the gradual displacement of the old pagan religions by the newer one called Christianity. It is a period of strifes, of jealousies, and blood. It was toward the last of this period that occurred the memorable battle of Poitiers, between the Franks under Karl, afterward surnamed Martel, and the Saracens, who having crossed from Africa and possessed themselves of entire Spain, next collected a large army, and under command of Abderrahman, Viceroy of the Caliph of Damascus, set out for the conquest of France and Germany, as yet an undivided nationality. Thus the new Christian faith of Europe, still engaged in quelling the last strength of the ancient paganism, was suddenly called upon to meet the newer faith of Mohammed, which had determined to subdue the world.

Not only France, but the Eastern Empire, Italy and England looked to Karl, in this emergency. The Saracens crossed the Pyrenees with 350,000 warriors, accompanied by their wives and children, as if they were sure of victory and meant to possess the land. Karl called the military strength of the whole broad kingdom into the field, collected an army nearly equal in numbers, and finally, in October, 732, the two hosts stood face to face, near the city of Poitiers. It was a struggle almost as grand, and as fraught with important consequences to the world, as that of AËtius and Attila, nearly 300 years before. Six days were spent in preparations, and on the seventh the battle began. The Saracens attacked with that daring and impetuosity which had gained them so many victories; but, as the old chronicle says, “the Franks, with their strong hearts and powerful bodies, stood like a wall, and hewed down the Arabs with iron hands.” When night fell, 200,000 dead and wounded lay upon the field. Karl made preparations for resuming the battle on the following morning, but he found no enemy. The Saracens had retired during the night, leaving their camps and stores behind them, and their leader, Abderrahman, among the slain. This was the first great check the cause of Islam received, after a series of victories more wonderful than those of Rome. From that day the people bestowed upon Karl the surname of Martel, the Hammer, and as Charles Martel he is best known in history.[C]

CHARACTER OF THE GERMAN CHRISTIANITY AT THIS TIME.

The Christianity of the Germans, and even that of the Roman provinces, for many generations after the date of their “conversion,” was a very different kind of religion from that which is now held by enlightened Christians. Constantine and several of his successors were actually worshiped after death by multitudes of the Christians of those days. The apostolic doctrines were not conceived as a system of belief by the people, nor even by their teachers; the personal sovereignty of Christ as a king and warrior, and the future heaven or hell to be awarded by him, were apprehended as practical truths, but were overlaid with a dense mass of superstitious notions and observances, many of them legacies from heathenism. Above all, the Germans indulged without stint their passion for the wonderful; and the power of Christianity over them depended largely on the supply of miracles and of potent relics which it could furnish them. The workers of miraculous cures were numerous; they were esteemed as the favorites of heaven, and cities and princes contended with one another for their bones. Some of the popes were wise enough to discourage the zeal for miracles; and as late as A. D. 590, Pope Gregory I. wrote to St. Augustine, of England, cautioning him against spiritual pride as a worker of them. But it was not long before the papacy became the great center from which relics of the saints were distributed throughout the Church. The Roman catacombs were ransacked, and bones of saints found in an abundance sufficient to supply Christendom for ages. The Pope’s guaranty of genuineness was final; and this resource contributed immeasurably to increase the wealth and power of the Holy See. The legends of the saints, as circulated and preserved, mainly by tradition, were for centuries the intellectual food of the Church at large; and were filled with idle and monotonous tales of wonderful cures in mind and body, wrought by the holy men and women in their lives, or by their corpses or their tombs. No doubt was entertained, even by the most intelligent, of the truth of these miracles. The modern conception of nature, as the work of a divine will which is unchangeable, and which therefore expresses itself in fixed, uniform laws, was then unknown. The spiritual conception of Christianity, as life by a personal trust in a pure, holy, and loving God, was set forth, indeed, by a few writers and preachers, and was doubtless verified in the experience of many a humble heart; but it was far above the thoughts of the people, or even of the clergy at large. To them no religion was of any value which was not magical in its methods and powers, and a charm to secure good fortune or to avert danger. In short, the Church was one thing, Christianity another; and the priestly ambition of the great organization to rule over men’s lives and estates entirely eclipsed and obscured the spiritual work of the kingdom which is not of this world. Nothing in the early German character is more attractive than the habitual and general chastity of the people, and their reverence for the marriage tie. But the great migrations corrupted them; and the degradation of marriage in the succeeding centuries was promoted and completed by the influence of the Church. Hardly any agency can be traced in history which has wrought greater social and moral evil than the contempt for human love and for the marriage tie, which was sedulously cultivated by the Roman Church from the beginning of the fourth century. Yet, there are indications enough to satisfy us that the doctrines of the New Testament had not lost their power; and that truth, purity, divine charity, and Christian heroism were yet kept alive in many hearts. Thousands of men and women, whose minds and lives were darkened by the teachings and practices of asceticism, monasticism and gross superstitions, still cherished a devout, self-sacrificing love for their unseen Master and Lord and stood ready to die for him. Even the idea of Christian brotherhood was not entirely lost; and the common worship of the same Redeemer by master and slave did much to mitigate the horrors that grew out of their relation.[D]

CHARLES THE GREAT.

The history of Germany may now for half a century be ranged about the central figure, Charles the Great, more commonly called Charlemagne. Indeed, so conspicuous a figure is he that it is impossible for all subsequent history to lose sight of him. The decayed Merovingian scepter when it fell into his hands was swayed with such unprecedented vigor and ability that its old name soon disappeared, and henceforth it is the Carlovingian, and Charles becomes the head and founder of a new dynasty. The first years of his rule are marked by continuous wars of conquest. The brave and savage Saxons resisted him and the Christianity which he championed until compelled by his all-conquering arms to yield. Saxony emerged from his hands subdued and Christian, divided into eight bishopries, studded with new cities and abbeys which proved centers of civilization; and that wild country, until then barbarous and pagan, entered into communion with the rest of the empire.

He next turned his attention to Italy, where his career of victory was uninterrupted. He visited Rome, and, dismounting at a thousand paces from the walls, walked in procession to the church of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, kissing the steps as he ascended in honor of the saints by whom they had been trodden. In the vestibule of the church he was received by the Pope, who embraced him with great affection, the choir chanting the psalm, “Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.” Then they descended into the vaults, and offered up their prayers together at the shrine of St. Peter.[E]

EXTENT OF HIS EMPIRE—HIS CORONATION.

In the course of a reign of forty-five years, Charlemagne extended the limits of his empire beyond the Danube; subdued Dacia, Dalmatia, and Istria, conquered and subjected all the barbarous tribes to the banks of the Vistula, and successfully encountered the arms of the Saracens, the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Saxons. His war with the Saxons was of more than thirty years duration, and their final conquest was not achieved without an inhuman waste of blood, through what has been considered a mistaken zeal for the propagation of Christianity, by measures which that religion can not be said to sanction or approve. All these wars were very nearly finished in the year 800. Charlemagne then found himself master of France, of Germany, of three-quarters of Italy, and a part of Spain. He had increased by more than a third the extent of territory which his father had left him. These vast possessions were no longer a kingdom, but an empire. He thought he had done enough to be authorized to seat himself on the throne of the West; and, as his father had required at the hands of the Pope his regal crown, so it was from the Pope that he demanded his imperial diadem. He was, therefore, with great ceremony, created Emperor of the West in St. Peter’s, at Rome, by Pope Leo III., on Christmas day 800. It was a great event, for that imperial title which had remained buried under the ruins wrought by the barbarians, was drawn thence by the Roman pontiff, and shown to scattered nations and enemies as a rallying sign.

The crown which he received was destined to be for one thousand and six years the symbol of German unity, whilst the assembled people shouted, “Long life and victory to Carolus Augustus, the great and peace-bringing Roman Emperor, whom God hath crowned!” Thus, 324 years after the imperial dignity had disappeared, it was renewed by Charles. In this coronation act Pope Leo III. had fulfilled a function like St. Remy did in consecrating Clovis. His successors constituted it a privilege, and the pontiffs considered themselves the dispensers of crowns. During the whole of the middle ages the imperial consecration could only be given at Rome, and from the hands of the Holy Father. More than one war arose out of this prerogative.[F]

THE CHARACTER AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF CHARLEMAGNE—HIS PLACE IN HISTORY.

Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, is the name which history has agreed to give to the founder of the German empire—incorporating the epithet with the name itself. We have recited in outline the facts of his wonderful career, as they are recorded in the meagre records of contemporary historians, and must rely upon the same authentic testimony in attempting to estimate his mind, character, and work. But the Charles of history is one; the Charles of heroic legend and popular fame is another. The former is a powerful conqueror and politic statesman, whom some eminent writers regard as the greatest of all monarchs; the latter is a Christian saint, superhuman in strength, beauty, and wisdom, incapable of defeat in war, of error in judgment, or of infirmity or corruption in his own will. Thus the song of Roland says: “His eyes shone like the morning star; his glance was dazzling as the noonday sun. Terrible to his foes, kind to the poor, victorious in war, merciful to offenders, devoted to God, he was an upright judge, who knew all the laws, and taught them to his people as he learned them from the angels. In short, he bore the sword as God’s own servant.” As Theodoric had been the center of the ancient popular minstrelsy, so Charles the Great became the central figure in that more cultivated heroic poetry, chiefly the work of the clergy, in which were celebrated the deeds of the twelve paladins, with Roland and the fight of Roncesvalles:

When we consider the profound impression made on the popular mind by this person, as represented in legend and song, we are almost ready to inquire whether its influence upon later German history was not greater than that of his authentic achievements. But it is true that the entire German race owes to him its first political organization. It was the purpose of his life, which never wavered, to unite all the German tribes under the control of one imperial government and of one Christian Church. In the greater part of this work he succeeded, and thus left the stamp of his mind upon the following centuries, through all the Middle Ages. The national consciousness of the collective German tribes dates from his reign, and it is at the beginning of the ninth century that “the Germans” are first spoken of in contrast with the Roman peoples of the empire, although the national name did not come into general use until four generations later, in the reign of Otto the Great. When Charles mounted the throne, he was twenty-four years of age, in the strength and prime of his youth. His person was huge and strong, combining the presence and muscular power of the heroes of song; so that he found it sport to fight with the gigantic wild bulls in the forest of Ardennes. His passion for labor, war, and danger was that of the adventurous warriors of the great migration. In the momentous affairs of state, he exhibited the want of feeling and the unscrupulousness which have been common to nearly all great warriors; but in daily intercourse with those around him, he had the mildness, cheerfulness, and freshness of spirit which add so much grace to true greatness. These characteristics were those of his people; but that which specially distinguished him was the far-seeing mind, which had caught from ancient Rome the conception of a universal state, and was wise enough, without slavish copying, to adapt this conception to the peculiar requirements of the widely different race he ruled. This lofty intellect appears the more wonderful, that no one can tell how he obtained his mental growth, or who were his instructors; he seems to shine out of the darkness of his age like a sun.

Charlemagne’s active mind gave attention to all matters, great and small. His untiring diligence, and his surprising swiftness in apprehension and decision, enabled him to dispatch an amount of business perhaps never undertaken by another monarch, unless by Frederick II., of Prussia, or by Napoleon Bonaparte. He was simple in his own attire, usually wearing a linen coat, woven at home by the women of his own family, and over it the large, warm Frisian mantle; and he demanded simplicity in his followers, and scoffed at his courtiers when their gorgeous silks and tinsel, brought from the East, were torn to rags in the rough work of the chase. Hunting in his favorite forest of Ardennes was the chief delight and recreation of his court. Next to this, he enjoyed swimming in the warm baths at Aix, which became his favorite residence. At his meals he listened to reading; and even condescended to join the monks, detailed for the purpose, in reading exercises. He founded schools in all the convents, and visited them in person, encouraging the diligent pupils, and reproving the negligent. He also introduced Roman teachers of music, to improve the church-singing of the Franks; while he required that sermons should be preached in the language of the people. Thus he diligently promoted popular education, while he strove to make up by study what he had lost by the neglect of his own culture in youth. He gathered men of learning—poets, historians, and copyists—around him, the most prominent of them being Anglo-Saxons, of whom the wise and pious Alcuin was chief. Even when an old man, he found time, though often only at night, to practice in writing his hand so accustomed to the sword; and having long been familiar with the Latin language, which he tried to diffuse among the people, undertook to learn the Greek also. He highly esteemed his native language, too. He gave German names to the months and the winds; caused a German grammar to be compiled; and took pains to collect the ancient heroic songs of the German minstrels, though his son, in his monkish zeal, destroyed them. He reverenced the clergy highly: granted them tithes throughout the empire, and everywhere watched over the increasing endowments and estates of the Church, in whose possessions at that time both agriculture and morality were better cared for than elsewhere. Most of the bishops and abbots were selected by the king himself.

Charlemagne’s personal character must not be judged by the standards of a time so remote from him as ours. He has been called dissolute; and it is true that he utterly disregarded the marriage tie, when it would limit either his pleasures or his ambition. He married five wives, only to dishonor them. He even encouraged, as it seems, his own daughters to live loose lives at home; refusing to give them in marriage to princes, lest their husbands might become competitors for a share of the kingdom. But he was never controlled by his favorite women, nor did he neglect state business for indulgence. Charlemagne has been censured as cruel; and, indeed, there are few acts recorded in history of more wanton cruelty than his slaughter in cold blood of thousands of Saxons at Verden. Yet this was not done in the exercise of passion or hatred, but as a measure of policy, a means deliberately devised to secure a definite end, in which it was successful. Charlemagne was never cruel upon impulse; but his inclinations were to gentleness and kindness. The key to his character is his unbounded ambition. In the pursuit of power he knew no scruple; the most direct and efficient means were always the right means to him. There is no doubt of his earnest attachment to the Christian Church and to the orthodox doctrines, as he understood them. But this was not associated with an appreciation of Christian morality, or a sense of human brotherhood. His passion for conquest was in large part a fanatical zeal for the propagation of a religion which he regarded as inseparable from his empire.

Charlemagne was held in high honor by foreign nations. The Caliph of Bagdad, Haroun-al-Raschid, wielded in the East a power comparable with his own. To Charlemagne he sent a friendly embassy, with precious gifts, and it was reciprocated in the same spirit. The kings of the Normans expressed their respect for him in a similar way. But his own taste esteemed the ring of a good sword more than gold. His person and his private life have been vividly depicted to us by Einhard (Eginhard), a youth educated at his court, to whom, according to legend, the emperor gave one of his daughters for a wife. Charlemagne was tall and strongly formed, measuring from crown to sole seven times the length of his own foot. He had an open brow, very large, quick eyes, an abundance of fine hair, which was white in his last years, and a cheerful countenance.[G]

RESULTS OF HIS WARS AND RULE.

Some writers have sought to represent Charlemagne as a royal sage, a pacific prince, who only took up arms in self-defense. Truth compels a more faithful though less flattering portraiture. He had no invasion to dread. The Saracens were scattered, the Avars (Bavarians) weakened, and the Saxons impotent to carry on any serious war beyond their forests and marshes. If he led the Franks beyond their own frontiers, it was that he had, like so many other monarchs, the ambition of reigning over more nations, and of leaving a high-sounding name to posterity. All that he attempted beyond the Pyrenees proved abortive. It would have been of greater value had he subdued the Bretons, so far as to have made them sooner enter French nationality, instead of contenting himself with a precarious submission. The conquest of the Lombard kingdom profited neither France nor Italy, but only the Pope, whose political position it raised, and whose independence it secured for the future. The country for which those long wars had the happiest result, was that one which had suffered most from them, Germany. Before Charlemagne, Almayne was still Germany—that is to say, a shapeless chaos of pagan or Christian tribes, but all barbarian, enemies of one another, united by no single tie. There were Franks, Saxons, Thuringians, and Bavarians. After him there was a German people, and there will be a kingdom of Germany. It was great glory for him to have created a people—a glory which few conquerors have acquired; for they destroy much more than they found. His reign lasted forty-four years, and may be summed up as an immense and glorious effort to bring under subjection the barbarian world and all that which survived the Roman civilization; to put an end to the chaos born of invasion, and to found a settled state of society in which the authority of the emperor, closely united to that of the Pope, should maintain order alike in Church and State—a very difficult problem, which it was given Charlemagne to solve, but of which all the difficulties did not become apparent until after his death. The work of Charlemagne, in fact, did not last. The name of this powerful though rude genius is not the less surrounded with a lasting glory; and it has remained in the memory of nations with that of three or four other great men who have done, if not always the greatest amount of good, at least have made the most noise in the world. As to Charlemagne, the amount of good accomplished very far surpasses that which was only vain renown and sterile ambition. He created modern Germany; and if that chain of nations, the links of which he had sought to rivet, broke, his great image loomed over the feudal times as the genius of order, continually inviting the dispersed races to emerge from chaos, and seek union and peace under the sway of a strong and renowned chief.

Charlemagne died, January 28, 814, in his seventy-second year, and was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle, in a church which he had built there after his Italian conquests, in the Lombard style. Eginhard, his secretary and friend, who wrote his life, tells us that he was considerably above six feet in height, and well proportioned in all respects, excepting that his neck was somewhat too short and thick. His imperial crown, which is still preserved at Vienna, would fit only the head of a giant. His air was dignified, but at the same time his manners were social. Charlemagne had no fewer than five wives; of his four sons, only one survived him, Louis, the youngest and most incapable, who succeeded him on the imperial throne.[H]

[To be continued.]