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The Reign of Charlemagne

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1 Primary Source 1.7 DOCUMENTS RELATING TO CHARLEMAGNE1 Charlemagne, or Charles the Great (742–814), was the first great Western European ruler. As King of the Franks, and a charismatic warlord who instituted far-reaching civil and military reforms, he unified large portions of present-day France, Germany, and Italy. An impassioned patron of the arts and learning, he gave rise to what scholars have called the Carolingian Renaissance. His successors lacked his charisma and singleness of purpose, and the Carolingian Empire soon broke up into competing kingdoms. The selections below give a sense of his life and reign. For these and more related texts, as well as further commentary, click here. Einhard’s Life of Karl the Great Einhard, who lived about 770 to 840, was a scholar, and a member of the court and the circle of Karl the Great. His biography of Karl is the most reliable and intimate account of the life and the character of the emperor that we possess. 3. After ruling as king of the Franks for fifteen years, Pippin died at Paris, leaving two sons to succeed him, Karl and Karlmann. Karlmann, however, died after two years of joint rule, and Karl became king of all the Franks. 5. The first of his wars was that against the duke of Aquitaine,2 which was begun but not completed by his father.3 Karl had asked his brother to aid him in this undertaking, but Karlmann had failed to send the help which he had promised. Karl, however, undertook the war alone and carried it through successfully. Hunold, who had tried to recover the duchy of Aquitaine after the death of Waifer, was driven out of the province and forced to take refuge in Gascony. But Karl advanced across the Garonne, threatening Lupus, the duke of Gascony, with war unless he should surrender the fugitive. Thereupon Lupus not only gave up Hunold, but acknowledged the authority of Karl over his own duchy as well. 6. After the pacification of Aquitaine and the death of his brother, Karl made war on the Lombards in response to the prayer of Adrian, bishop of Rome. His father Pippin had also attacked the Lombards in the time of king Aistulf, at the request of pope Stephen, . but had been content with besieging Aistulf in Ticino and securing pledges that he would restore the places which he had taken and would never renew his attack upon Rome. Karl went further: he overthrew Desiderius, king of 1 Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal, (Eds.), A Source Book for Mediaeval History Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Ages (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), 38-45, 48-51. 2 Borderlands regions of the Merovingian Empire (457–752) had grown almost fully independent under local rulers, called dukes. 3 Charlemagne’s father was Pippin the Short (c. 714–768), the first Carolingian king of the Franks. 2 the Lombards, and drove his son Adalgisus out of Italy; restored to the Romans their possessions; defeated a new rising under Radegaisus, duke of Friuli; and subjugated all of Italy, making his son Pippin king.4 7. Then Karl returned to the attack which he had been making upon the Saxons and which had been interrupted by the Lombard invasion. This was the longest and most severe of all his wars, for the Saxons, being barbarians and pagans like most of the tribes in Germany, were bound by the laws neither of humanity nor of religion. For a long time there had been continual disturbances along the border, since there was no natural barrier marking the boundary between the two races, except in a few places where there were heavier forests or mountains. So the Franks and the Saxons were accustomed to make almost daily raids on the territory of each other, burning, devastating, and slaying. Finally the Franks determined to put an end to this condition of affairs by conquering the Saxons. In this way that war was begun which was waged continually for thirty-three years, and which was characterized by the most violent animosity on both sides, although the Saxons suffered the greater damage. The final conquest of the Saxons 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, giving hostages and promising to accept the Christian faith and abandon their idols, and then breaking out into revolt again. This happened in almost every year of that war, but the determination of the king could not be overcome by the difficulties of the undertaking nor by the treachery of the Saxons. He never allowed a revolt to go unpunished, but immediately led or sent an army into their territory to avenge it. Finally after all the warriors had been overthrown or forced to surrender to the king, he transplanted some ten thousand men with their wives and children, from their home on the Elbe, to Gaul and Germany, distributing them through these provinces. Thus they were brought to accept the terms of the king, agreeing to abandon their pagan faith and accept Christianity, and to be united to the Franks; and this war which had dragged on through so many years was brought to an end. 9. While this long war was going on, the king also made an expedition into Spain, leaving garrisons behind to hold the Saxons in check. Crossing the Pyrenees with a large army he conquered all the cities and fortresses in the region and returned safely with his whole army, except for those that were slain by the treachery of the Basques.5 For when the army was coming back through the passes of the Pyrenees, strung out in a long line of march because of the narrowness of the defiles, the Basques made a sudden attack upon the rear-guard, which was protecting the wagons and baggage of the army. The place was well suited to an ambuscade, being thickly wooded and very steep; the Basques suddenly rushed down from the heights where they had been hiding and fell upon the rear-guard and destroyed it to the man, seizing the baggage and escaping under cover of the approaching night. ... In this attack were slain Eggihard, the king's seneschal, 4 Charlemagne’s conquest of the Lombards cemented his connections with the papacy. 5 This passage reflects the historical basis of the French epic poem, Song of Roland. 3 Anselm, count of the palace, and Hrotland, the warden of the marches of Brittany, along with many others. Up to the present time this attack has not been avenged, for the enemy dispersed so quickly that it was impossible to find them or to discover who were guilty. 10. Karl also conquered the Bretons, a people dwelling in the remote western part of Gaul, along the shores of the ocean. Then he again invaded Italy, this time marching through Eome to Capua, a city of Campania, and forcing the submission of Aragaisus, duke of Beneventum. 11. His next expedition was against Bavaria, which was soon reduced to subjection. This war was caused by the insubordination of duke Tassilo, whose wife, a daughter of Desiderius, urged him on to avenge the overthrow of her father. Tassilo made an alliance with the Huns, his neighbors, and prepared to attack the king. Karl, incensed at such presumption, immediately led an army in person to Bavaria, encamping on the river Lech, which separates Alamannia and Bavaria. Before invading the province he sent an embassy to the duke, who, seeing the hopelessness of attempting to oppose the king, immediately made his submission, offering hostages (among them his son Theodo) and swearing never again to revolt. Thus this war, which in the beginning threatened to be a serious affair, was brought to a rapid and successful conclusion. But the king later summoned Tassilo to his presence and kept him a prisoner, not permitting him to return to his duchy; and from that time on the province was not ruled by a duke, but was divided into counties over which Karl placed counts of his own choosing.6 12. This rebellion having been put down, the king next made an attack upon a tribe of the Slavs, whom we call the Wiltzi, in their own tongue, Welatabi. The cause of this war was the attacks which the Welatabi were making upon the Abodriti, who were formerly allies of the Franks, and their refusal to desist from these attacks at the command of the king. There is a great gulf [Baltic Sea] extending east from the western ocean [Atlantic], whose length is unknown, but whose width nowhere exceeds one hundred miles, and is in many places narrower. Many tribes dwell along its shores: on the northern shore and in the islands, the Danes and the Swedes, whom we call Northmen; on the southern shore, the Slavs and the Aisti, and other tribes, among whom are these Welatabi. These latter were defeated in a single campaign and have never dared to revolt again. 13. The greatest of all the wars of Karl except the Saxon war, was that against the Avars and the Huns. The king himself led one expedition against them into Pannonia, where they dwelt, but intrusted the later ones to his son Pippin and to the dukes and counts of the neighboring regions. The war lasted for eight years, and the bloody character of it is shown by the fact that to-day Pannonia is uninhabited and the site of the Khan's palace is a desert, containing no trace of former human 6 In order to bring the borderlands of his empire under control, he divided them into counties governed by hand-picked officials called counts.
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