 8 Charlemagne Just before his death, Pepin the Short had divided his lands between his two sons, Charles, who was about twenty-six, and Carleman, a youth some years younger. As they had no affection for each other, this division did not work well. Carleman gave little promise of statesman-like qualities. He was peevish and jealous and easily persuaded by the nobles who surrounded him that his elder brother was a rival who intended to rob him of his possessions. It might be of his life. There seems to have been no ground for this suspicion, but, nevertheless, he spent his days in trying to hinder whatever schemes Charles proposed, and when he died, three years later, there was a general breath of relief. Enumerating the blessings that heaven had bestowed on Charlemagne, a monk writing to the king about this time completed his list with a candid statement, the fifth, and not least, that God has removed your brother from this earthly kingdom. Charlemagne was exactly the kind of person to seize the fancy of the early Middle Ages. Tall and well-built, with an eagle nose and eyes that flashed like a lion when he was angry, so that none dared to meet their gaze, he excelled all his court and strength, energy, and skill. He could straighten out with his fingers four horseshoes locked together, lift a warrior fully equipped for battle to the level of his shoulder, and fell a horse in its rider with a single blow. It was his delight to keep up old national customs and to wear the Frankish dress with its linen tunic, cross-guarded leggings, and long mantle reaching to the feet. What is the use of these rags, he once inquired contemptuously of his courtiers, pointing to their short clothes, will they cover me in bed or shield me from the wind and rain when I ride abroad? This criticism was characteristic of the king, intent on a multitude of schemes for the extension or improvement of his lands, and so eager to realize him that he would start on fresh ones when still heavily encumbered with the old, he was yet, for all his enthusiasm, no vague dreamer, but a level-headed man looking questions in the face and demanding a practical answer. By the irony of fate, it is the least practical and most important task he undertook that has made his name world-famous. For the story of Charlemagne and his paladins told in the greatest of medieval epics, the Chanson de Roland, exceeds today in popularity even the exploits of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This much is history that Charlemagne invited secretly by some discontented demirs to evade Spain and attack the caliph of Cordova, crossed the Pyrenees, and, after reducing several towns successfully, was forced to retreat. On his way back across the mountains his rearguard was cut off by a Gascon Mountaineers and slaughtered almost to a man, while he and the rest of his army escaped with difficulty. On this meagre and rather inglorious foundation, poets of the 11th century based a cycle of romance. Charlemagne is the central figure, but round him are grouped numerous paladins or famous knights, including the inseparable friends Oliver and Roland, warden of the Breton marches. After numerous deeds of glory in the land of Spain, the king, it was said, was forced by treachery to turn back towards the French mountains, and he had already passed the summits when Roland, in charge of the rearguard, found himself entrapped in the pass of Renceval by a large force of Gascon. His horn was slung at his side, but he disdained to summon help from those in the van, and drawing his good-sword durenda laid about him valently. The Gascon fell back, dismayed by the vigorous resistance of the French, but thirty thousand Saracens came to their aid and the odds were now overwhelming. Oliver lay dead, and, covered with wounds, Roland fell to the ground also, but first of all he broke durenda in half, that none save he might use this peerless blade. Putting his horn to his lips, with his dying breath he sounded a blast that was heard by Charlemagne in his camp more than eight miles away. Surely that is the horn of Roland, cried the king uneasily. But treacherous courtiers explained away the sound, and it was not till a breathless messenger came with the news of the reverse that he hastened toward the scene of the battle. There, in the pass, stretched on the ground amid the heaped-up bodies of their enemies, he found his paladins, Roland with his arm spread in the form of a cross, his broken sword beside him, and seeing him the king fell on his knees weeping. Oh, right arm of thy sovereign's body, honor of the Frank's sort of justice. Why did I leave thee here to perish? How can I behold you dead and not die with thee? At last, restraining his grief, Charlemagne gathered his forces together, and the very sun, we are told, stood still to watch his terrible vengeance on Gascons and Saracens for the slaughter of Christians at Rolseva. The chanson de Roland is one of the masterpieces of French literature. It is not history, but in its fiction lies the substantial germ of truth. Charlemagne in the early ninth century was what poets described him more than two hundred years later, the central figure in Christendom, the recognized champion of the cross, whether against Mohammedans or Pagans. Through your prosperity, wrote Alquin, an Anglo-Saxon monk and scholar who lived in his court, Christendom is preserved, the Catholic faith defended, the law of justice made known to all men. When the popes sought help against the Lombards, it was to Charlemagne as to his father Pepin that they naturally turned. Charlemagne had hoped at the beginning of his reign to maintain a friendship with King Didier of Lombardy, and had even married his daughter, an alliance that roused the pope at that date to demand in somewhat violent language, do you not know that all children of the Lombards are lepers that the race has outcast from the family of nations? For these there is neither part nor lot in the heavenly kingdom. May they broil with the devil and his angels in everlasting fire. Charlemagne went his own way in spite of the papal denunciations, but he soon tired of his bride who was plain and feeble in health, and divorced her that he might marry a beautiful German princess. This was, of course, a direct insult to King Didier, who henceforth regarded the Frankish king as his enemy, and Rome took care that the gulf, once made between the sovereigns, should not be bridged. In papal eyes the Lombards had really become accursed. It is true that they had been, since the days of Gregory the Great, Orthodox Catholics, that their churches were some of the most beautiful in Italy, their monasteries the most famous for learning, and Pavia their capital, a center for students and men of letters. Their sin did not lie in heretical views, but in the position of their kingdom that now included not only modern Lombardy in the north, but also the Duchy of Spoletum in south Italy. Between stretched the papal dominions like a broad wall from Ravenna to the western Mediterranean, and on either side the Lombards chafed, trying to annex a piece of land here or a city there, while the Popes watched them, linkside, eager on their part to dispossess such dangerous neighbors, but unable to do so without assistance from beyond the Alps. Soon after the death of his younger brother, Charlemagne was persuaded to take up the papal cause and invade Italy. At Geneva, where he held the Mayfield or annual military review of his troops, he laid the object of his campaign before them and was answered by their shouts of approval. It was a formidable host, for the Franks expected every man who owned land in their dominions to appear at these gatherings prepared for war. The rich would be mounted, protected by mail shirts and iron head pieces and armed with sword and dagger. The poor would come on foot, some with bows and arrows, others with lance and shield, and the humblest of all with merely scythes or wooden clubs. Tenets on the royal domains must bring with them all the free men on their estates, and while it was possible to obtain exemption the fine demanded was so heavy that few could pay it. When the army set out in battle array it was accompanied by numerous baggage carts, lumbering wagons covered with leather awnings that contained enough food for three months as well as extra clothes and weapons. It was the general hope that on the return journey the wagons would be filled to overflowing with the spoils of the conquered enemy. The Lombards had ceased with the growth of luxury and comfortable town life to be warriors like the Franks, and Charlemagne met with almost as little resistance as Pepin in past campaigns. After a vain attempt to hold the western passes of the Alps, Didier and his army fled to Pavia, where they fortified themselves, leaving the rest of the country at the mercy of the invaders. Frankish chroniclers in later years drew a realistic picture of Didier, crouching in one of the high towers of the city, awaiting in trembling suspense the coming of the terrible Charles. Beside him stood Otger, a Frankish duke who had been a follower of the dead Charlemagne and was therefore hostile to his elder brother. It Charles and that great host demanded the king continually as first a long line of baggage wagons came winding across the plane and then an army of the common folk, and after them the bishops with their train of abbots and clerks. Every time his companion answered him, No, not yet. Then Didier hated the light of day. He stammered and sobbed and said, Let us go down and hide in the earth from so terrible a foe. And Otger, too, was afraid. Well, he knew the might and wrath of the peerless Charles. In his better days he had often been at court, and he said, When you see the plain bristle with harvest of spears and rivers of black steel come pouring in on your city walls, then you may look for the coming of Charles. While he yet spoke a black cloud arose in the west, and the glorious daylight was turned to darkness. The emperor came on, a dawn of spears darker than night rose on the beleaguered city. King Charles, that man of iron, appeared. Iron his helmet, iron his arm-guards, iron the corselet on his breast and shoulders. His left hand grasped an iron lance, iron the spirit, iron the hue of his worst deed. Before, behind, and at his side, rode men arrayed in the same guise. Iron filled the plain and opened spaces, iron points flashed back the sunlight. There is the man whom you would see, said Otger to the king, and so saying he swooned away like one dead. In spite of this picture of Carolingian might, it took the Franks six months to reduce Pavia, and then Didier at last surrendering was sent to a monastery, while Charlemagne proclaimed his self-king of the newly acquired territories. During the siege, leaving capable generals to conduct it, he himself had gone to Rome where he was received with feasting and joy. Crowds of citizens came out of the gates to welcome him, carrying palms and olive branches, and hailing him as patrician and defender of the church. Dismounting from his horse, he passed on foot through the streets of Rome to the cathedral, and there, in the manner of the ordinary pilgrim, climbed the steps on his knees until the pope, awaiting him at the top, raised and embraced him. From the choir arose the exultant shout, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. A few days later, once more standing in St. Peter's, Charlemagne affixed his seal to the donation Pepin had given to the church. The document was entered amongst the papal archives, but it has long since disappeared, and with it the exact information as to the territory's concern. About this time the papal court produced another document, the so-called Donation of Constantine, in which the first of the Christian emperors apparently granted to the popes the western half of the Roman Empire. Centuries later this was proved to be a forgery, but for a long while people accepted it as genuine, and the power of the popes was greatly increased. We do not know how much Charle believed in papal supremacy and temporal matters, but throughout his reign his attitude to the pope over Italian fares was rather that of master to servant than the reverse. It was only when spiritual questions were under discussion that he was prepared to yield as if to a higher authority. When he had reduced pavia, Charlemagne left Lombardy to be ruled by one of his sons and returned to France, but it was not very long before he was called back to Italy as fresh trouble had arisen there. The cause was the unpopularity of Pope Leo III in Rome and the surrounding country where turbulent nobles rebelled as often as they could against the papal government. One day, as Leo was riding through the city at the head of a religious procession, a band of armed men rushed out from a side street, separated him from his attendants, dragged him from his horse, and beat him mercilessly, leaving him half dead. It was even said that they put out his eyes and cut off his tongue, but that these were later restored by a miracle. Leo, at any rate whole, though shaken, succeeded in reaching Charlemagne's presence and the king was faced by the problem of going to Rome to restore order. Had it been merely a matter of exacting vengeance he would have found little difficulty with his army of stalwart Franks behind him, but Leo's enemies were not slow in bringing forward accusations against their victim that they claimed justified their assault. Charlemagne was thus in an awkward position for he was too honest a ruler to refuse to hear both sides, and his respect for the papal office could not blind him to the possibility of evil in the acts of the person who held it, especially in the case of an ambitious statesman like Leo III. He felt that it was his duty to sift the matter to the bottom, and yet by what law could the king of France, or even of Italy, put Christ's vice regent upon his trial and cross-examine him? One way of dealing with this problem would have been to seek judgment at Constantinople as the seat of empire, a final appeal unto Caesar such as St. Paul had made in classical times. But ever since Pepin the Short had given the ex-archate of Ravenna to the Pope instead of restoring it to the Byzantine emperors, relations with the east never cordial had grown more strained. Now they were at a breaking point. The late emperor, a mere boy, had been thrown into a dungeon and blinded by his mother, the Empress Irene, in order that she might usurp his throne, and the Western Empire recoiled from the idea of accepting such a woman as arbiter of their destinies. Thus Charlemagne forced to act on his own responsibility, examined the evidence laid before him, and declared Leo innocent of the crimes of which he had been accused. In one sense it was a complete triumph for the Pope. But Leo was a clear-sided statesman and knew that the power to which he had been restored rested on a weak foundation. The very fact that he had been compelled to appeal for justice to a temporal sovereign lowered the office that he held in the eyes of the world, and he possessed no guarantee that, once the Franks had left Rome, his enemies would not again attack him. Without a recognized champion, always ready to enforce her will, the papacy remained at the mercy of those who chose to oppose or hinder her. In the dramatic scene that took place in St. Peter's Cathedral on Christmas Day, 8800, Leo found a way out of his difficulties. Arrayed in glorious vestments, he said mass before the high altar, lit by a thousand candles hanging at the arched entrance to the chancel. In the half-gloom beyond, knelt Charlemagne and his sons, and at the end of the service, Leo, approaching them with a golden crown in his hands, placed it upon the king's head. Instantly the congregation burst into the cry with which Roman emperors of old had been acclaimed at their accession. To Charles Augustus crowned of God the Great and Pacific Emperor Long Life and Victory. From that time, says a Frankish chronicle commenting on the scene, there was no more a Roman Empire at Constantinople. Leo had found his champion, and in anointing and crowning him had emphasized the dignity of his own office. He had also pleased the citizens of Rome, who rejoiced to have an emperor again after the lapse of more than three centuries. Charlemagne alone was doubtful of the greatness that had been thrust upon him, and he accepted it with reluctance. He had troubles enough near home without him broiling himself with Constantinople. But, as it turned out, the Eastern Empire was too busy deposing the Empress Irene to object actively to its rejection in the West, and Irene's successors agreed to acknowledge the imperial rank of their rival in return for the session of certain coveted lands on the Eastern Adriatic. Other sovereigns hastened to pay their respects to the new Emperor. Charlemagne received several embassies in search of alliance from Harun al-Rashid, the Caliph of Baghdad. Harun al-Rashid ruled over a mighty empire stretching from Persia to Egypt, and then slung North African coast to the Strait of Gibraltar. On one occasion he sent Charlemagne at present of a wonderful water-clock that, as it struck the hour of twelve, opened as many windows through which armed horsemen rode forth and back again. Far more exciting in western eyes was the unhappy elephant that for nine years remained the glory of the imperial court at Aachen. Its death, when they were about to lead it forth on an expedition against the northern tribes of Germany, is noted sadly in the national annals. Rulers less fortunate than Harun al-Rashid sought not so much the friendship of the Western Emperor as his protection, and through his influence exiled kings of Wessex and Northumberland were able to recover their thrones. The most significant tribute of all to the honor in which Charlemagne's name was held was the petition of the Patriarch of Jerusalem that he would come and rescue Christ's city from the infidel. The message was accompanied by a banner and the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. But Charlemagne, though deeply moved by such a call to the defense of Christendom, knew that the campaign was beyond his power and put it from him. Were there not infidels to be subdued within the boundaries of his own empire, fierce Saxon tribes that year after year made mock both of the sovereignty of the Franks and of their religion? The Saxons lived amongst the range of low hills between the Rhine and the Elba. By the end of the eighth century, when other Teutonic races such as the Franks and the Bavarians had yielded to the civilizing influence of Christianity, they still cherished their old beliefs in the gods of nature and offered sacrifices to spirits dwelling in groves and fountains. The chief object of their worship was a huge tree trunk that they kept hidden in the heart of a forest, their priests declaring that the whole heavens rested upon it. This ermine-soul, or all supporting pillar, was the bond between one group of Saxons and another that led them to rally round their chiefs when any foreign army appeared on their soil, though if at peace with the rest of the world they would fight amongst themselves for sheer love of battle. A part of the Saxon race had settled in the island of Britain when the Roman authority weakened at the break-up of the empire, and amongst the descendants of these settlers were some Christian priests who determined to carry the gospel to the heathen tribes of Germany, men and women of their own race, but still living in spiritual darkness. The most famous of these missionaries was St. Winifrith or St. Boniface, according to the Latin version of his name, it means, he who brings peace. About the time that Charles Martel was Duke of the Franks, Boniface arrived in Germany and began to travel from one part of the country to the other, explaining the gospel of Christ and persuading those whom he converted to build churches and monasteries. When he went to Rome to give an account of his work, the Pope made him a bishop and sent him to preach in the Duchy of Bavaria. Later, as his influence increased and he gathered disciples around him, he was able to found not only Perry's churches but bishoprics with a central arch-bishopric mind. Thus, long before Germany became a nation, she possessed a church with an organized government that belonged not to one but to all of her provinces. Only in the north and far east of Germany, heathenism still held sway, and St. Boniface, after he had gone at the Pope's wish to help the Franks reform their church, determined to make one last effort to complete his missionary work in the land he had chosen as his own. He was now sixty-five but nothing daunted by the hardships and dangers of the task before him, he set off with a few disciples to Friesland and began to preach to the wild pagan tribes who lived there. Before he could gain a hearing, however, he was attacked and, refusing to defend himself, was put to death. Thus passed away the apostle of Germany and with him much of the kindliness of his message. Christianity was to come indeed to these northern tribes but through violence in the sword rather than by the influence of a gentle life. Charlemagne had a sincere love of the Catholic faith whose champion he believed himself, but he considered that only folly and obstinacy could blind men's eyes to the truth of Christianity, and he was determined to enforce its doctrines by the sword if necessary. The Saxons, on the other hand, though if they were beaten in battle they might yield for a time and might promise to pay tribute to the Franks and build churches, remained heathens at heart. When an opportunity occurred, and they learned that the greater part of the Frankish army was in Italy or on the Spanish border, they would sally forth across their boundaries and drive out or kill the missionaries. Charlemagne knew that he could have no peace within his empire until he had subdued the Saxons, but the task he had set himself was harder than he had imagined, and it was thirty-eight years before he could claim that he had succeeded. The final conquest of the Saxons, says Eganhard, a scholar who lived at Charlemagne's court and wrote his life, would have been accomplished sooner but for their treachery. It is hard to tell how often they broke faith, surrendering to the King and accepting his terms, and then breaking out into wild rebellion once more. Eganhard continues that Charlemagne's method was never to allow a revolt to remain unpunished but to set out at once with an army in exact vengeance. On one of these campaigns he succeeded in reaching the forest where the sacred trunk ermensul was kept, and set fire to it and destroyed it. But the Saxons, though as heartened for the moment, soon rallied under the banner of a famous chief called Whittacand. We know little of the latter except his undaunted courage that made him refuse for many years to submit to a foe so much stronger that he must obviously gain the final victory. Charlemagne, exasperated by the repeated opposition, used every means to forward his aim. Sometimes he would bribe separate chieftains to betray their side. But often he would employ methods of deliberate cruelty in order to strike terror into his foes. Four thousand five hundred Saxons who had started a rebellion were once cut off and captured by the Franks. They pleaded that Whittacand, who had escaped into Denmark, had prompted them to act against their better judgment. If Whittacand is not here, you must pay the penalty in his stead, return to King relentlessly, and the whole number were put to the sword. At different times he transplanted hundreds of Saxman households into the heart of France, and in the place of this great multitude, as the Chronicle describes them, he established Frankish garrisons. He also sent missionaries to build churches in the conquered territories and compelled the inhabitants to become Christians. Often the bishops and priests, thus sent, would have to fly before a sudden raid of heathen Saxons hiding in the neighboring forests and marshes, and lacking the courage of St. Boniface. A few would hesitate to return when the danger was suppressed. What ought I to do? cried one of the most timid appealing to Charlemagne. In Christ's name go back to thy diocese, was the stern answer. While the king expected the same obedience and devotion from church officials as from captains in his army, he took care that they should not lack his support in the work he had set them to do. If any man among the Saxons, being not yet baptized, shall hide himself and refuse to come to baptism, let him die the death. If any man despised the Lenten Feast for contempt of Christianity, let him die the death. Let all men, whether nobles free or serfs, give to the churches and the priests the tenth part of their substance and labor. These capitularies or laws show that Charlemagne was still half a barbarian at heart, and matched pagan savagery with a severity more ruthless because it was more calculating. In the end Wittekund himself, in spite of his courage, was forced to surrender and accept baptism, and gradually the whole of Saxony fell under the Frankish yoke. The Duchy of Bavaria, that had been Christian for many years, did not offer nearly so stubborn a resistance, and after he had reduced both it and Saxony to submission, Charlemagne was ruler not merely in name, but in reality of an empire that had been included France, the modern Holland and Belgium, Germany, and the greater part of Italy. Some of the conquests he had made were to fall away, but Germany, that had suffered most at his hands, emerged in the end the greatest achievement of his foreign wars. He swept away the black deceitful knight and taught our race to know the only light, wrote a Saxon monk of the ninth century, showing it already some of the bitterness had vanished. In a few generations, says a modern writer, the Saxons were conspicuous for their loyalty to the faith. No story of Charlemagne would be true to life that admitted his harsh dealings with his Saxon foe. And yet it would be equally unfair to paint him as only a warrior, mercilessly exterminating all who opposed him in barbaric fashion. Far more than a conqueror, he was an empire-builder to whom war was not an end in itself, as it was to his Frankish forefathers, but a means toward the safeguarding of his realm. The forts and outworks that he planted along his boundaries, the churches that he built in the midst of hostile territory, belonged indeed to his policy of inspiring terror and awe, but Charlemagne had also other designs only in part of a military nature, roads and bridges that should make a network of communication across the empire, acting like channels of civilization in assisting transport and encouraging trade and intercourse, royal palaces that should become centers of justice for the surrounding country, monasteries that should shed the light of knowledge and of faith. All of these formed part of his dream of a Roman empire brought back to her old, stately life and power. A canal joining the Rhine and Danube, and thus making a continuous waterway between east and west, was planned and even begun, but it had to wait till modern times for its completion. Charlemagne possessed the vision and enterprise that did not quail before big undertakings, but he lacked the money and labor necessary for carrying them out. Unlike the Roman emperors of classic times he had no treasury on whose taxes he could draw, but depended, save for certain rents, on the revenues of his private estates that were usually paid in kind, that is to say, not in coin, but the rate of so many head of cattle or so much milk-corn or barley according to the means of the tenant. Of these supplies he kept a careful account, even to the number of hens on the royal farms and the quantity of eggs that they laid. Yet at their greatest extent revenues in kind could do little more than satisfy the daily needs of the palace. The chief debt that the Frankish nation owed to the state was not financial but military, the obligation of service in the field laid on every freeman. As the empire increased in size this became so irksome that the system was somewhat modified. In future men who possessed less than a certain quantity of land might join together and pay one or two of their number according to the size of their joint properties to represent them in the army abroad, while a rest remained at home to see to the cultivation of the crops. Charlemagne was very anxious to raise a body of laborers from each district to assist in his building schemes, but this suggestion awoke a storm of indignation. Landowners maintained that they were only required by law to repair the roads and bridges in their own neighborhood, not to put their tenants at the disposal of the emperor, that he might send them at his whim from Aquitaine to Bavaria or from Austria to Lombardy. And in the face of this opposition many of his designs ceased abruptly from lack of labor. A royal palace and cathedral adorned with columns and mosaics from Ravena were however completed at Aachen. In here Charlemagne established his principal residence and gathered his court around him. The life of this new Rome, as he loved to call it, was simple in the extreme, for the emperor, like a true Frank, hated unnecessary ostentation in ceremony. When the chief nobles and officials assembled twice a year in the spring and autumn to debate on public matters he would receive them in person, thanking them for the gifts they had brought him, and walking up and down amongst them to jest with one and ask questions of another with an informality that would have scandalized the court at Constantinople. In this easy intercourse between sovereign and subject lay the secret of Charlemagne's personal magnetism. To warriors and churchmen, as to officials and the ordinary freemen of his domains, he was not some far-removed authority, who could be approached only through a maze of court intrigue, but a man like themselves with virtues and failings they could understand. If his temper was hasty and terrible when roused, it would soon melt away into a genial humor that appreciated to the full the rough practical jokes in which the age delighted. The chronicles tell us, with much satisfaction, how Charlemagne once persuaded a Jew to offer a vain glorious bishop ever fond of vanities a painted mouse that he pretended he had brought back straight from Judea. The bishop at first declined to give more than three pounds for such a treasure, but deceived by the Jew's prompt refusal to part with it, for so paltry as some, consented at length to hand over a bushel of silver in exchange. The emperor, erring this, gathered the rest of the bishops at his court together, see what one of you has paid for a mouse, he exclaimed gleefully. And we may be sure that the story did not stop at the royal presence, but spread throughout the country where haughty ecclesiastics were looked on with little favor. We're told that Charlemagne loved to bombard the people he met from the pope downwards with difficult questions, but it was not merely a malicious desire to bring them to confusion that prompted his inquiries, alert himself and keenly interested in whatever business he had in hand, he despised slipshod or inefficient knowledge. He expected a bishop to be an authority on theology, an official to be an expert on methods of government, a scholar to be well grounded in the ordinary sciences of his day. Hard work was the surest road to his favor, and he spared neither himself nor those who entered his service. Even at night he would place writing materials beneath his pillow that if he woke or thought of anything it might be noted down. On one occasion he visited the palace school that he had founded and discovered that well boys of humble birth were making the most of their opportunities, the sons of the nobles despising book-learning had frittered away their time. Commending those who had done well the emperor attuned to the others with an angry frown. Relying on your birth and wealth, he exclaimed, and carrying nothing for our commands and your own improvement, you have neglected the study of letters and have indulged yourself in pleasures and idleness. By the king of heaven I care little for your noble birth. Know this, unless straight away you make up for your former negligence by earnest study you need never expect any favor from the hand of Charles. It was with the wealthy nobles and landowners that Charlemagne fought some of his hardest battles, though no sword was drawn or open war declared. Not only were most of the high offices at court in their hands, but it was from their ranks that the counts, and later the viscounts, were chosen who ruled over the districts into which the empire was divided and subdivided. The count received a third of the gifts and rents from his province that would otherwise have been paid to the king. And these, if he were unscrupulous, he could increase at the expense of those he governed. He presided in the local law courts and was responsible for the administration of justice, the exaction of fines, and for the building of roads and bridges. He was in fact a petty king and would often tyrannize over the people and neglect their royal interests to forward his selfish ambitions. The Merovingians had tried to limit the authority of the counts and other provincial officials by occasionally sending private agents of their own to inquire into the state of the provinces and to reform the abuses that they found. Charlemagne adopted this practice as a regular system, and at the annual assemblies he appointed Missy, or messengers, who should take a tour of inspection in the district to which they had been sent, at least four times in the year, and afterwards report on their progress to the emperor. Wherever they went, the count or viscount must yield up his authority to them for the time being, allowing them to sit in his court and hear all the grievances and complaints that the men and women of the district carried to bring forward. If the Missy insisted on certain reforms, the count must carry them out, and also make atonement for any charges proved against him. Here are some of the evils that the men of Istria, a province on the eastern Adriatic, suffered at the hands of their lord, Johannes, and that the inquiries of the royal Missy at length brought to light. Johannes had sold the people on his estates as serfs to his sons and daughters. He had forced them to build houses for his family and to go on voyages on his business across the seat of Venice and Ravenna. He had seized the common land and used it as his own, bringing in slobs from across the border to till it for his private use. He had robbed his tenants of their horses and their money on the plea of the emperor's service and had given them nothing in exchange. If the emperor will help us, they cried, we may be saved, but if not, we had better die than live. From this account we can see that Charlemagne appeared to the mass of his subjects as their champion against the tyranny of the nobles, and in this sense his government may be called popular, but the old popular assemblies of the Franks at which the laws were made had ceased by this reign to be anything but aristocratic gatherings summoned to approve the measures laid before them. The emperor's capitularies would be based on the advice he had received from his most trusted Missy, and when they had been discussed by the principal nobles they would be read to the general assembly and ratified by a formal acceptance that meant nothing because it rarely or never changed into a refusal. Besides introducing new legislation in the form of royal edicts or capitularies, Charlemagne commanded that a collection should be made of all the old tribal laws, such as the Salek Law of the Franks, and of the chief codes that had been handed down by tradition or word of mouth for generations, and this compilation was revised and brought up to date. It was very useful a necessary piece of work, and yet Charlemagne, for all his industry, does not deserve to be ranked as a great lawgiver like Justinian. The very earnestness of his desire to secure immediate justice made his capitularies hasty and inadequate. He would not wait to trace some evil to its root and then try to eradicate it, but would pass a number of laws on the matter only touching the surface of what was wrong and creating confusion by the multiplicity of instructions and the contradictions they contained. Sometimes the Missy themselves were not a success, but would take bribes from the rich landowners on their tour of inspection, and this would mean more government machinery and fresh laws to bring them under the royal control in their turn. If it was difficult to make wise laws it was even harder in that rough age to carry them out, for the nobles found it to their interest to defy or at least hinder an authority that struck at their power, while a mass of the people were too ignorant to bear responsibility and few save those educated in palace schools could become trustworthy counts or royal agents. Dimly, however, the nation understood that the emperor held some high ideal of government, planned for their prosperity. No one cried out to him, says the chronicle, but straight away he should have good justice. And in every church throughout France those who had not been called to follow him to battle prayed for his safety and that God would subdue the barbarians before his triumph and arms. To Charlemagne there was a higher vision than that of mere victory in battle, a vision born of his favorite book, The Savetus Day, where in St. Augustine had described the perfect emperor, holding his scepter as a gift God had given and might take away, and conquering his enemies that he might lead them to a greater knowledge in prosperity. Charlemagne believed that to him had been entrusted the guardianship of the Catholic Church, not only from the heathen without its pale, but from false doctrine and evil living within. To the pope, as Christ's vice regent, he bore himself humbly, as on the day when he had climbed St. Peter's steps on his knees. But to the pope as a man dealing with other men, he spoke as a Lord to his vassal, tendering his views and expecting compliance, in return for which he guaranteed the support of his sword. May the ruler of the church be rightly ruled by thee, O King, and mayest thou be ruled by the right hand of the Almighty. In this prayer Alquin probably expressed the emperor's opinion of his own position. Leo III, on the other hand, preferred to talk of his champion as a faithful son of the Mother Church of Rome, thereby implying that the emperor should pay a son's duty of obedience. But he himself was never in a strong enough position to enforce this point of view, and the clash of empire and papacy was left for a later age. In his own dominions Charlemagne, like the Frankish kings before him, reigned supreme over the church, appointing whom he would as bishops, and using them often as missy to assist him in his government. Yet the church remained in a state, apart from the rest of the nation, supported by the revenues of the large seas belonging to the different bishoprics, and by the tithe the tenth part of the layman's income. When churchmen attended the annual assembly, they were allowed to deliberate apart from the nobles and freemen. When a bishop excommunicated some heretic or sinner, the emperor's court was bound to enforce the sentence. Thus the privileges and rights were many, but Charlemagne determined that the man who enjoyed them must also fulfill the obligations that they carried with them. In earlier years Charles Martel and St. Boniface had struggled hard to raise the character of the Frankish church, and Charlemagne continued their task with his usual energy, insisting on frequent inspections of the monasteries and convents, and on the maintenance of a stricter rule of life within their walls. The ordinary parish clergy were also brought under more vigilant supervision. In accordance with the laws of the Roman church, they were not allowed to marry, nor might they take part in any worldly business, inter-etavarin, carry arms, or go on hunting or hawking. Although all, they were encouraged to educate themselves that they might be able to teach their parishioners and set a good example. Good works are better than knowledge, wrote Charlemagne to his bishops and abbots in a letter of advice, but without knowledge good works are impossible. In accordance with this view, he commanded that a school should be established in every diocese, in order that the boys of the neighborhood might receive a grounding in the ordinary education of their day. His own court became a center of learning, for he himself was keenly interested in all branches of knowledge, from a close study of the scriptures to mathematics or tales of distant lands. Histories he liked to have read out to him at meals. Egan Hart, his biographer, tells us that he never learned to write, but that he was proficient in Latin and could understand Greek. It was his desire to emulate Augustus, the first of the Roman emperors, and gather round him the most literary man of Europe, and he eagerly welcomed foreign scholars and took them into his service. Chief amongst these adopted sons of the empire was Elkwin the Northumbrian, a wanderer on the face of the earth, as he called himself, whom Danish invasions had driven from his native land. Egan settled at the Frankish court, organized the palace school of which we have already made mention, and himself wrote the primers from which the boys were taught. His influence soon extended beyond this sphere, and he became the emperor's chief advisor, inspiring his master with high ideals, while he himself was stirred by the other's vivid personality to share his passion for hard work. It is this almost volcanic energy that gives the force and charm to Charlemagne's many-sided character. We think of him first, it may be, as the warrior, the hero of romance, or else as a statesman planning his empire of the West. At another time we see in him the guardian of his people, the king who wills that justice should be done. But we recall a story such as that of the painted mouse, and instantly his simple, almost school-boy side becomes apparent. The great Charles was no saint, but a frank of the rough type of soldiers he led to battle, capable of cruelty as of kindness, hot tempered, a lover of sport, strong perhaps where his ideals were at stake, but weak towards women, and an overindulgent father who let the intrigues of his daughters bring scandal on his court. Yet another contrast to this homely figure is the scholar and theologian, the friend of Alquin, who believed that without knowledge good works were impossible. Many famous characters in history have equaled or surpassed Charlemagne as general, statesman, or legislature. There have been better scholars and more refined princes, but few or none have followed such diver's aim and achieved by the sheer force their personality such memorable results. Painters and chroniclers loved to depict him in an old age still majestic, and in truth, up till nearly the end of his long reign he kept the fire and vigor of his youth, swimming like a boy in the baths of Alquin, or hunting the wild boar upon the hills, drawing up capitularies or dictating advice to his bishops, doing in fact whatever came to hand with an intensity that would have exhausted anyone less healthy and self-reliant. Fortunately for Charlemagne he had the sturdy constitution of his race, and when at last he died an old man in 814 people believed that he did not share the common fate of humanity. Nearly two hundred years later it was said when the funeral vault was opened he was found seated in his cheer of state, firm of flesh as in life, with his crown on his snowy hair and his sword clasped in his hand. Our Lord gave this boon to Charlemagne that men should speak of him as long as the world endureth. It is a boast that, as centuries passed, sweeping away the memory of lesser heroes, time still justifies. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Europe in the Middle Ages by Iona Lifford Plunkett This sliver-box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 9 The Invasions of the Northmen At the death of Charlemagne the empire that he had built up stretched from Denmark to the Pyrenees and the Duchy of Spoletum south of Rome, from the Atlantic on the west to the Baltic, Bohemia and the Dalmatian coast. It had been a brave attempt to realize the old Roman ideal of all civilized Europe gathered under one ruler. But he himself was well aware that the foundations he had laid were weak. His own personality, that must vanish, was the mortar holding them all together. Without his genius and the terror of his name his possessions were only too likely to fall away. And therefore, instead of attempting to leave a united empire, he nominated one son to be the emperor in name but made a rough division of his territory between three. Only the death of two, just before his own, defeated his aims and united the inheritance under the survivor Louis. The new emperor was like his father in build but without his wideness of outlook. His natural genealogy was sometimes marred by uncontrollable fits of suspicion and cruelty, as in the case of his nephew Bernard, King of Italy, whom he believed to be secretly conspiring to bring about his overthrow. Louis ordered the young man to appear at his court, and when Bernard hesitated, fearing treachery, his uncle sent him a special promise of safety by the empress whom he trusted. Reluctantly Bernard at last obeyed the summons, whereupon he was seized, thrust into a dungeon, and his eyes put out so cruelly that he died. Shortly afterwards the empress died also, and Louis, who had loved her, believed that God was punishing him for his broken word. Overcome by remorse he became so devout in his religious observances that his subjects called him Louis the Pious. Louis, like his father, was ever ready to listen to the petitions of those who were oppressed and to pass laws for their security. For the first sixteen years of his reign the Carolingian dominions put to no test appeared unshaken, and then, of a sudden, just as if a cloud were blotting out the sunlight, prosperity and peace were lost in the horrors of civil war. Louis the Pious had three sons by his first wife, and, following Charlemagne's example, he named the eldest, Lothar, as his successor in the empire, while he divided his lands between the other two. It was only when he married again and another son, Charles, was born to him, that trouble began. This fourth son was the old emperor's favorite, and Louis would gladly have left him a large kingdom, but such a gift he could only make now at the expense of the elder brothers, who hated the young boy as an interloper and were determined that he should receive nothing to which they could lay claim. When Charles was six years old, Louis insisted that the country now called Switzerland, and part of modern Germany, Swabia, should be recognized as his inheritance, and on hearing this, all three elder brothers who had been secretly making disloyal plots broke into open revolt. The history of the next ten years is an ignominious chronicle of the emperor's weakness. Twice were he and his empress imprisoned and insulted, and on each occasion, when the quarrels of his sons amongst themselves led to his release, he was induced to grant a weak forgiveness that led to further rebellion. When Louis died in 840, the seeds of dissension were widely scattered, and those of his house who came after him openly showed that they cared for nothing safe personal ambition. Lothar, the eldest, was proclaimed emperor, and obtained as his share of the dominions a large middle kingdom stretching from the mouth of the Rhine to Italy, and including the two capitals of Aachen and Rome. To the east, in what is now Germany, reigned as brother Louis. Through the west and France, Charles the Bald, the hated younger brother who had succeeded at last in obtaining a substantial inheritance. This division is interesting because it shows two of the nationalities of Europe already emerging from the imperial melting pot. When the brothers Louis and Charles met at Strasbourg in 842 to confirm an alliance they had formed against Lothar, Charles and his followers took the oath in German, Louis and his nobles, in the romance tongue of which modern French is the descendant. This they did that the armies on both sides might clearly understand how their leaders had bound themselves, and the oath of Strasbourg remains today as evidence of this new growth of nationality that had already acquired distinct national tongues. The partition never done, signed shortly afterwards by all three brothers, acknowledged the division of the empire into three parts, France on the west, Germany in the east, and between them the debatable kingdom of Lotharingia, that, dwindled during the middle ages and modern times into the province of Lorraine, has remained always a source of war and trouble. It would be worrisome to trace and detail the history of the years that followed the partition never done. One historian has described it as a dizzy and unintelligible spectacle of monotonous confusion, a scene of unrestrained treachery, of insatiable and blind rapacity. No son is obedient or loyal to his father, no brother can trust his brother, no uncle spares his nephew. There were rapid alterations in fortune, rapid changing of sides, there was a universal distrust and a universal reliance on falsehood or crime. In 881 Charles the Fat, son of Louis the German of Strasbourg-Authfam, succeeded owing to the deaths of his rival cousins and uncles in uniting for a few years all the dominions of Charlemagne under his scepter. But weak and unhealthy he was not the man to control so great possessions, and very shortly he was deposed and died in prison on an island in Lake Constance. With him faded away the last reflection of the Carolingian glory that had once dazzled the world. In France the descendants of Charles the Bald carried on a precarious existence for several generations, despised and threatened by their own nobles as the later Mirovingians had been, and utterly unable to defend their land from the hostile invasions of Northmen. That beginning in the eighth century seemed likely during the ninth and tenth centuries to paralyze the civilization at trade of Europe as the inroads of Goths, Huns and Vandals had broken up the Roman Empire. The longships of the Northmen had been seen off the French coasts even in the days of Charlemagne, and one of the chroniclers records how the wise king, seeing them, exclaimed, These vessels bear no merchandise but cruel foes, and then continued with prophetic grief, No ye why I weep, truly I fear not that these will injure me, but I am deeply grieved that in my lifetime they should be so near a landing on these shores, and I am overwhelmed with sorrow as I look forward and see what evils they will bring upon my offspring and their people. The Northmen, we can guess from their name, came from the wild, often snowbound, coasts of Scandinavia and Denmark. Few weaklings could survive in such a climate, and the race was tall, well-built and hardy, made up of men and women who despised the fireside and loved to feel a fresh sea wind beating against their faces. Life to them was a perpetual struggle, but a struggle they had glorified into an ideal until they had ceased to dread either its discomforts or dangers. Here is a description of the three classes, Thrall, Churl, and Noble, into which these tribes of Northmen or Vikings were divided. Quote, Thrall was swarthy of skin, his hands wrinkled, his knuckles bent, his fingers thick, his face ugly, his back broad, his heels long. He began to put forth his strength, binding the best, making loads, and bearing home faggots the weary day long. His children busied themselves with the building fences, dunging plow land, tending swine, herding goats, and digging peat. Thrall or Churl was red and ruddy, with rolling eyes, and took to breaking oxen, building plows, timbering houses, and making carts. Thrall, the noble, had yellow hair, his cheeks were rosy, his eyes were keen as a young serpents, his occupation was shaping the shield, bending the bow, hurling the javelin, shaking the lance, riding horses, throwing dice, fencing, and swimming. He began to wake war, to redden the field, and to fell adoomed." To wake war, this was the object of the Vikings' existence. His gods, Odin and Thor, were battle-heroes who struck one another in the flash of lightning, and with a rumble of thunder as they moved their shields. Not for the man who lived long and comfortably, and died at last in his bed, were either the glory of this world or the joys of the next. The Scandinavian Valhalla was no such paradise as the faithful Muslims conceived, where in sunlit gardens, gay with fruit and flowers, he should rest from his labors, attended by hurries or maidens of celestial beauty. The Viking asked for no rest, only for unfailing strength and a foe to kill. In the halls of his paradise, reigned perpetual battle all the day long, and in the evening, feasts where the warrior, miraculously cured of his wounds, could boast of his prowess and rise again on the morrow to fresh deeds of heroic slaughter. In their dragon-ships, the huge prowes fashioned into the heads of fierce animals or monsters, the Viking earls, weary of dicing and throwing the javelin at home, or exiled by their kings for some misdeeds, would sweep in fleets across the North Sea, some to explore Iceland and the far-off shores of Greenland and North America, some to burn the monasteries along the Irish coast, others to raid North Germany, France, or England. At first their only object was plunder, for unlike the Huns they did not despise the luxuries of civilization, only those who allowed its influence to make them soft. At a later date, when they met with little resistance, they began to build homes, and thus the East Coast of England became settled with Danish colonies. "'In this year,' says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, writing under the date 855, the heathen men for the first time remained overwinter in Shepi. During the fifty years that followed, it seemed as if the invaders might sweep away the Anglo-Saxons as completely as the ancestors of these Anglo-Saxons had exterminated the original British inhabitants and their Roman conquerors. That they failed was largely due to one of the most famous of English kings, Alfred the Great, a prince of the royal house of Wessex. Wessex was a province lying mainly to the south of the River Tams, and at Wontagen-Berkshire in the year 849, Alfred was born, cradled in an atmosphere of war and danger. From boyhood he fought by the side of his brothers in a long campaign of which the very victories could not hold at bay the restless Danes. When Alfred succeeded to the throne, he secured a temporary peace and began to build a fleet and reform his army, but in a few years his enemies broke across his boundaries once more, and he, himself, overwhelmed by their numbers, was forced to take refuge in the marshes of Somerset. Here at Athene he built a fort and, collecting around him the English warriors of the neighboring counties, organized so strong a resistance that at last he inflicted a decisive defeat upon the Danish army. King Guthram, his enemy, sued for peace, and at the Treaty of Wedmore consented to become a Christian and to recognize Alfred as King of Wessex, while he, himself, retained the Dane Law to the north of the Tams. This was the beginning of a new England, for from this time Alfred and his descendants, having secured the freedom of Wessex, set themselves to win back, bit by bit, the territory held by the Danes. First of all, under Edward the Elder, Alfred's son, the middle kingdom of Mercia was won back, and the Danes beyond its borders agreed to recognize the King of Wessex as their overlord, while later other Wessex rulers overran Northumbria and the south of Scotland so that by the middle of the 10th century it could be said that England from the fourth to the Channel was under one ruler. The winning back of the Dane Law had not been merely a matter of hewing down Northman, nor did Alfred earn his title of the Great because he could wield a sword bravely and lead other men who could do the same. He was a successful general because in an age of wild fighting he recognized the value of discipline and training. In order to obtain the type of man he required, he increased the number of Thaggans, that is, of nobles whose duty it was to serve the King as horsemen, while he reorganized the furred or local militia. Henceforth, instead of a large army of peasants who must be sent to their homes every autumn to reap the harvest, he arranged for the maintenance of a small force that he could keep in the field as long as required. Its arms were to be supplied by fellow villagers released from the obligation to serve themselves on this condition. Alfred, besides remodeling his army, set up fortresses along his borders and constructed a fleet, and because he believed that no great nation can be built on war alone, he made wise laws and appointed judges, like Charlemagne's Missy, to see that they were carried out. He also founded schools and tried by translating books himself and inviting scholars to his court to teach the man around him the glories and interests of peace. Amongst the books that he chose to set before his people in the Anglo-Saxon tongue was one called Pastoral Care by the Pope Gregory, who had wished to go to England as a missionary, and The Consolations of Philosophy, written by Boethius in prison. I have desired, said Alfred the Great, summing up his ideal of life, to leave to the man who come after me my memory and good works. And the English people of today, descendants of both Anglo-Saxons and their Danish foes, remember with pride and affection this wise king, this truth-teller, this England's darling, as he was called in his own day, who, like Charlemagne, believed in patriotism, justice, and knowledge. For three quarters of a century after Alfred's death his descendants kept alive something, at any rate, of this spirit of greatness. But in 978 there succeeded to the crown a boy of ten named Ethelred, who, as he grew up, earned for himself the nickname of Readless, or Man Without Advice. It is only fair, before condemning Ethelred's conduct, to point out the heavy difficulties with which he was faced. Both the renewed Danish attacks on his shores, and also the jealousies and feuds of his own nobles, the earls, or elder men, who had carved out large estates for themselves that they ruled as petty kings. Even a statesman like Alfred would have needed all his strength and tact to unite these powerful subjects under one banner in order to lead them against the invaders. Ethelred proved himself weak and without any power of leadership. The policy for which he has been chiefly remembered is his levy of attacks called Danegeld, or Danish gold, the sums of money that he raised from his reluctant subjects to pay the Danes to go away. As a wiser man would have realized this really meant that he paid them to return in still larger numbers in order to obtain more money. At last, alarmed at the result of this policy, he did something still more shortsighted and less defensible. He ordered a general massacre of all the Danes in the kingdom. The massacre of St. Bryce's Day, as this drastic measure is usually called, brought on England a bitter revenge at the hands of the angry Vikings. One well-armed force after another landed on the coasts, combining in an attack on the Anglo-Saxon king that drove him from the country to seek refuge in France. Very shortly afterwards he died, and Knut, one of the Danish leaders, forced the country to accept him as her ruler. This accession of a Danish foe might have been expected to undo all the work of Alfred and his sons, but fortunately for England Knut was no reckless Viking with his heart set on war for war's sake. On the contrary, he was by nature a statesman who planned the foundation of a northern empire with England as its central point. He maintained a bodyguard of Danish Huskarls supported by attacks levied on his new subjects in order to ensure his personal safety and the fulfillment of his orders. But otherwise he showed himself an Englishman in every way he could. In a special he made large gifts to monasteries and convents, bestowed favor and lands on English nobles, and accepted the laws and customs of the country whose throne he had usurped. King of Denmark and conqueror of England and Norway he was anxious to ally his empire with the nations of the continent. With this in view he went on a pilgrimage to Rome to win the sympathy of the Pope, and took a great deal of trouble to arrange foreign alliances. He himself married Emma, widow of Ethelred the Readless, and a sister of the Duke of Normandy, thus pleasing the English and bringing himself into touch with France. The mention of Normandy brings us to a second invasion of Northmen, for the Normans, like Knut himself, were of Scandinavian origin. When some of the Vikings during the ninth century had sailed up the Humber and the Tams in the search of plunder and homes, as Charlemagne, according to the chronicler had foreseen, preferred the harbors of the Sain, the Somme, and the La. In their methods they showed the same reckless daring and brutality as the early invaders of England, leaving where they passed smoking ruins of towns and churches. Charles the Bald and the feeble remnant of the Carolingian line who succeeded him were quite unable to deal with this terror and it was only the creation of a duchy of Paris whose forces were commanded by a fighting hero, Odo Capet, that saved the future capital of France. History repeats itself, it has sometimes said, and certainly the fate that the Carolingian mayors of the palace had meted out to their Merovingian kings, their own descendants were destined to receive again in full measure. In 987 died Louis, the good for nothing, the last of the Carolingian kings, leaving as heir to the throne an uncle, Charles, Duke of Lorraine. In his short reign Louis had shown himself feeble and profligate, and the nobles of northern France, weary of a royal house that, like Ethelrad of England, preferred bribing the good will of invaders to fighting them, readily agreed to set Charles on one side and to take in his place Hugh Capet, Duke of Paris, descendant of the famous Odo. Our crown goes not by inheritance, exclaimed the archbishop of Reims, when sanctioning the usurper's claims, but by wisdom and noble blood. The unfortunate Duke of Lorraine, captured after a vain attempt to gain his inheritance, perished in prison, and with him disappeared to Carolingians. The house of Capet, built on their ruin, survived in the direct line until the 14th century, and then in a younger branch, the Valois, until France in modern times was declared a republic. Under the Capets, France became not merely a collection of tribes and races as under the mayor of Ingeans, nor a section of a European empire as under the house of Charlemagne, but a nation, as we see her today, with separate interests and customs to distinguish her from other nations. This process of fusion was slow, and King Hugh and his immediate successors appeared in their own day more as powerful rulers of the small district in which they lived than his overlords of France. When they marched abroad at the head of a large army achieving victories, outlying provinces hastily recognized them as suzerains or overlords, but when they turned their backs and went home, the commands they had issued would be ignored and defied. Amongst the most formidable neighbors of these rulers of Paris were the Dukes of Normandy, descendants of a certain Viking chief, Rolo the Granger, so-called because on account of his size he could find no horse capable of burying him and must therefore gang afoot. This Rolo established himself at ruin, and, because Charles the Simple, one of the later Carolingians, was unable to defeat him in battle, he gave him instead the lands which he had won and created him a duke hoping that, like a poacher turned gamekeeper, he might prove as valuable a subject as he had been at troublesome foe. In return Rolo promised to become a Christian and to acknowledge Charles as his overlord. One of the old chronicles says that when Rolo was asked to ratify this allegiance by kissing his toe, the Viking replied indignity, not so by God, and that a dain who consented to do so in his place was so rough that he tumbled Charles from his throne amid jeers of his companions. This is probably only a tale, for in reality Rolo married a daughter of Charles and settled down in his capital at ruin as a model ruler of a semi-civilized state. Supporting the church added ministering such law and order that it was said when he left a massive bracelet hanging on a tree in Furgati adonso that the ornament remained for three years without anyone daring to steal it. The rulers of the New Duchy were nearly all strong men, hard fighters, shrewd headed, and ambitious, but the greatest of the line was undoubtedly William, an illegitimate son of Duke Robert the Devil. William's ambition was of the restless type of the Scandinavian forefathers, and his duchy in northern France seemed to him too small to match his hopes. When he noted that England was ruled by Edward the Confessor, a feeble son of Ethelred the Readless, who had gained the throne on the death of Knut's two sons, he determined shrewdly that his conquest should lie in this direction. Many things favored his cause, not the least that Edward the Confessor himself, who had been brought up in Normandy and who had no direct heirs, was quite willing to acknowledge William as his successor. The national hero of England at the time Edward died and who promptly proclaimed himself king, was Harold the Saxon, a member of the powerful family of Godwin that had for years controlled and owned a greater part of the land in the south. Unfortunately for Harold, the north and midlands were mainly governed by the House of Borquera and their friends, who hated the family of Godwin as dangerous rivals far more than they dreaded a Norman invasion. Thus any help that they or their tenants proffered was so slow in its rendering and so niggardly in its amount that it proved of very little use. In addition to jealousies at home, Harold at the moment he heard William, Duke of Normandy, had indeed landed on the south coast, was far off in Yorkshire, where he had just succeeded in repelling an invasion of Danes at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. At once he started southward, but as he marched his army melted away, some of the men to enjoy the spoils taken from the Danes, others to attend to their harvests. The deserters could claim that they were following the advice of the father of Christendom, since Pope Gregory VII had given William a banner that he had blessed and had denounced Harold as a perjurer. One of the reasons for Gregory's anger with the Saxons was that Harold had dared to appoint as Archbishop of Canterbury, a bishop of whom he did not approve, while further the crafty William had persuaded him that Harold, who as a young man had been wrecked on the Norman coast, had sworn on the bones of some holy saint that he would never seize the crown of England. He had been a prisoner in William's power and only on this condition had he been set free to return to his native land. The exact truth of events so long ago is hard to reach, but Harold at any rate fought under a cloud of suspicion and neglect, and not all his reckless daring nor the devotion of his brothers and friends could save his fortunes when on the field of Sennlach, standing beneath his dragon banner, he met the shock of the disciplined Norman forces. Chronicles relate that the human wall of Saxon archers and foot soldiers remained unshaken on the hillside until William, setting a snare, turned in pretended flight. The ruse was successful, for as the Saxons, cheering triumphantly, descended from their position in pursuit, the invaders faced around and charged their disordered ranks. Only Harold and the men of his bodyguard remained firm under the onslaught until at last an arrow fired in the air struck the Saxon king in the eye as he looked up, so that he fell down dead. All resistance was now at an end and William, Duke of Normandy, was left master of the field and ruler of England. Here rose the dragon banner of our realm. Here fought, here fell our Norman slandered king. O garden blossoming out of English blood, O strange hate-healer time, we stroll and stare where might made right eight hundred years ago. These lines of Tennyson, on Battle Abbey, recall the fact that just as the Danes and Saxons were fused into one race, so would the Norman invaders mingle with their descendants until to after generations William as well as Harold should appear a national hero. In his own day the conqueror struck terror into the heart of the Concord. In 1069 when the north of England, too late to help Harold, rose and revolt, he laid waste a desert by sword and fire from the Humber to the Tees. When the Norman Barons and the English Earls challenged his rule he threw them alike into Dungeons. What seemed to the Saxon mind even more wonderful and horrible in his cruelty was the record of all the wealth of his kingdom that he caused to be compiled. This Domes' Day book contained a close account not only of the greatest states, lay and ecclesiastical, but of every small hamlet and even the numbers of livestock on each farm. So very narrowly did he cause the survey to be made, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that there was not a single hide nor a root of land nor it is shameful to relate that which he thought no shame to do. Was there an ox or a cow or a pig? Passed by that was not set down in the account. William it can be seen was thorough in his methods, both in war and peace, and through this very thoroughness he won the respect if not the affection of his new subjects. Ever since the death of Newt the Dane England had suffered either from actual civil war or from a weak ruler who allowed his nobles to quarrel and oppress the rest of the nation. As a result of the Norman conquest the bulk of the population found that they had gained one tyrant instead of many, and how they appreciated the change as shown by the way all through Norman times the middle and lower classes would help their foreign king against his turbulent baronage. This is what a monk, an Anglo-Saxon, and therefore by race an enemy of the conqueror, wrote about him in his Chronicle. Quote, If any would know what manner of man King William was, then will we describe him as we have known him. This King William was a very wise and a great man and more honored and more powerful than any of his predecessors. He was mild to those good men who loved God, but severe beyond major to those who withstood his will. So also he was a very stern and wrathful man, so that none durst do anything against his will, and he kept in prison those earls who acted against his pleasure. He removed bishops from their seas, and at length he spared not his own brother Odo. Amongst other things the good order that William established must not be forgotten. It was such that any man who was himself ought might travel over the kingdom with a bosom full of gold unmolested, and no man durst kill another, however great the injury he might have received from him. End quote. A few lines farther on the chronicler, having mentioned the peace that William gave, sadly relates the tyranny that was the price he extorted in exchange. Quote, Truly there was much trouble in these times and very great distress. He caused castles to be built and oppressed the poor. He was given to avarice and greedily loved gain. He made large forests for the deer and enacted laws therewith so that whoever killed a heart or a hind should be blinded. He loved the tall stags as if he were their father. He also appointed, concerning the hares, that they should go free. The rich complained and the poor murmured, but he was so sturdy that he wrecked not of them. They must will all that the king willed if they should live. Alas, that any man should so exalt himself, may Almighty God show mercy to his soul. End quote. The monk wrote, after September 1087, when the conqueror lay dead, not in any viking glory of battle against a national foe had he passed to his fathers, but in sordid struggle with his eldest son, Robert, who, aided by the French king, had rebelled against him. His crown was at once seized by a second son, William Rufus, and with him the line of Norman kings was firmly established on the English throne. The adventurous spirit of the Northmen had led them from Denmark and Scandinavia to the coasts of England and France, and from France their descendants driven by the same roving instincts had crossed the channel in search of fresh conquests. Other Normans in the 11th century sailed south instead of north. Their talk was of a pilgrimage to Rome, perhaps to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. But when they found that the beautiful island of Sicily had been taken up by the Moslems and that South Italy was divided up among a number of princes too jealous of one another to unite against any invaders, either Christian or pagan, their thoughts turned quite naturally to conquest. An Italian at this time describes the Normans as cunning and revengeful and adds, in their eager search of wealth and dominion, they despise whatever they possess and hope whatever they desire. Such an impression was to be gained by bitter experience, but, not knowing it, Maniasis, the Greek governor of that part of South Italy that still maintained its allegiance to the Eastern Empire, invited these northern warriors in the 11th century to help him win back Sicily from the Saracens. They agreed, attacked in force, gained the greater part of the island, but then quarreled with Maniasis over the spoils. Outraged by what they considered his miserly conduct, they invaded the province of Apulia, made themselves master of it, and established their capital at Melfi. The head of the new Norman state was a certain William de Hoteville, who with several of his brothers had been leaders in the Italian expedition. No member of the house of Hoteville ever saw a neighbor's lands without wanting them for himself. So says a biographer of that family, and if this was their ideal it was certainly shared by William and his numerous brothers. Since other people's possessions were not surrendered without a struggle, even in the Middle Ages, it was fortunate for them that they had the genius to win and hold what they coveted. Pope Leo IX, like his predecessors in the Sea of Peter ever since Charlemagne had confirmed their right to the lands of the Exarch of Ravenna, looked uneasily on invaders of Italy, and he, Leo, therefore attempted to form a league with both the emperors of the East and West that should ruin these presumptuous usurpers. The league came into being, but the Pope's allies failed him, and at the battle of Civitate he was defeated in all but taken prisoner. Here was a chance for Norman diplomacy, or, as Italians would have called it, cunning, and the conquerors promptly declared that it had been with the utmost reluctance that they had made war on the father of Christendom and begged his forgiveness. His absolution was obtained, and a few years later, through the mediation of Hildebrand, then Archdeacon of Rome and later as Pope Gregory VII, one of the leading statesmen of Europe, a compact was arranged by which the Normans recognized Pope Nicholas II as their overlord, while he, on his part, acknowledged their right to keep their conquests. Both parties to this bargain were pleased. The Pope, because he had gained a vassal state, however unruly, and the Normans, since they felt that they no longer reigned on sufferance but had a legal status in the eyes of Europe. Neither had any idea of the mine of trouble they were laying for future generations. The fortunes of the House of Hoteville, thus established, mounted steadily. William died and was succeeded by a younger brother, Robert, named Guisgard or the Wise. During his reign he forced both the Greek governor and the independent princes who held the rest of South Italy to surrender their possessions, while he even carried his war against the Eastern Empire to Greece itself. Only his death put an end to this daring campaign. Robert Guisgard, as master of South Italy, had been created Duke of Apulia. His nephew, Roger II, Count of Sicily, who inherited his stagecraft and strength, induced the Pope to magnify both mainland and island into a joint kingdom, and thereafter reigned as King of Naples. He was a lover of justice, says a chronicler of his day, and the most severe Avenger of Crime. He hated lying and never promised what he did not mean to perform. He never persecuted his private enemies and in war endeavored on all occasions to gain his point without shedding blood. Justice and peace were universally observed through his dominions. Roger II of Naples was evidently a finer and more civilized character than William of England, but in both lay that Norman capacity for establishing and maintaining order that at first seemed so strange in an inheritance from wild Norse ancestors. Clear-sighted, ire-nerved, and adventurer with an instinct for business, the Norman of the early Middle Ages was just the leaven that Europe required to raise her out of the indolent depression of the Dark Ages that followed the Fall of Rome.