The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

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[Footnote 85: Theophanes (p. 343) specifies those of Sicily and
Calabria, which yielded an annual rent of three talents and a
half of gold, (perhaps 7000l. sterling.) Liutprand more pompously
enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in Greece, Judaea,
Persia, Mesopotamia Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya, which were
detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor, (Legat. ad
Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italica rum, tom. ii. pars i. p.
481.)]

[Footnote 86: The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum, with
Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise,
tom. i. p. 145: ) by the confession of the Greeks, the patriarch
of Constantinople had detached from Rome the metropolitans of
Thessalonica, Athens Corinth, Nicopolis, and Patrae, (Luc.
Holsten. Geograph. Sacra, p. 22) and his spiritual conquests
extended to Naples and Amalphi (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i.
p. 517-524, Pagi, A. D 780, No. 11.)]

[Footnote 87: In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore
reversis, in aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant
errore .... de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum
increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereticum
eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia decernemus, (Epist.
Hadrian. Papae ad Carolum Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii. p.
1598;) to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite to his
conduct, that he preferred the salvation of souls and rule of
faith to the goods of this transitory world.]

[Footnote 88: Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than
the advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See
Ducange, Gloss Lat. tom. i. p. 297.) His antagonist Muratori
reduces the popes to be no more than the exarchs of the emperor.
In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
p. 264, 265,) they held Rome under the empire as the most
honorable species of fief or benefice - premuntur nocte
caliginosa!]

Before the ruin of Paganism in Rome, the competition for a
wealthy bishopric had often been productive of tumult and
bloodshed. The people was less numerous, but the times were more
savage, the prize more important, and the chair of St. Peter was
fiercely disputed by the leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the
rank of sovereign. The reign of Adrian the First ^89 surpasses
the measure of past or succeeding ages; ^90 the walls of Rome,
the sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the
friendship of Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he
secretly edified the throne of his successors, and displayed in a
narrow space the virtues of a great prince. His memory was
revered; but in the next election, a priest of the Lateran, Leo
the Third, was preferred to the nephew and the favorite of
Adrian, whom he had promoted to the first dignities of the
church. Their acquiescence or repentance disguised, above four
years, the blackest intention of revenge, till the day of a
procession, when a furious band of conspirators dispersed the
unarmed multitude, and assaulted with blows and wounds the sacred
person of the pope. But their enterprise on his life or liberty
was disappointed, perhaps by their own confusion and remorse.
Leo was left for dead on the ground: on his revival from the
swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he recovered his speech
and sight; and this natural event was improved to the miraculous
restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been
deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins. ^91 From
his prison he escaped to the Vatican: the duke of Spoleto
hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne sympathized in his injury,
and in his camp of Paderborn in Westphalia accepted, or
solicited, a visit from the Roman pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps
with a commission of counts and bishops, the guards of his safety
and the judges of his innocence; and it was not without
reluctance, that the conqueror of the Saxons delayed till the
ensuing year the personal discharge of this pious office. In his
fourth and last pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with the due
honors of king and patrician: Leo was permitted to purge himself
by oath of the crimes imputed to his charge: his enemies were
silenced, and the sacrilegious attempt against his life was
punished by the mild and insufficient penalty of exile. On the
festival of Christmas, the last year of the eighth century,
Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter; and, to gratify
the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged the simple dress of his
country for the habit of a patrician. ^92 After the celebration
of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious crown on
his head, ^93 and the dome resounded with the acclamations of the
people, "Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious
Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor of the
Romans!" The head and body of Charlemagne were consecrated by the
royal unction: after the example of the Caesars, he was saluted
or adored by the pontiff: his coronation oath represents a
promise to maintain the faith and privileges of the church; and
the first-fruits were paid in his rich offerings to the shrine of
his apostle. In his familiar conversation, the emperor protested
the ignorance of the intentions of Leo, which he would have
disappointed by his absence on that memorable day. But the
preparations of the ceremony must have disclosed the secret; and
the journey of Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation:
he had acknowledged that the Imperial title was the object of his
ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was the only
adequate reward of his merit and services. ^94

[Footnote 89: His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of
thirty-eight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself the
author, (Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.)

Post patrem lacrymans Carolus haec carmina scripsi.
Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo plango pater ...
Nomina jungo simul titulis, clarissime, nostra
Adrianus, Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater.

The poetry might be supplied by Alcuin; but the tears, the most
glorious tribute, can only belong to Charlemagne.]

[Footnote 90: Every new pope is admonished - "Sancte Pater, non
videbis annos Petri," twenty-five years. On the whole series the
average is about eight years - a short hope for an ambitious
cardinal.]

[Footnote 91: The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars i. p.
197, 198) is supported by the credulity of some French annalists;
but Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more natural
and sincere. "Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus," says John
the deacon of Naples, (Vit. Episcop. Napol. in Scriptores
Muratori, tom. i. pars ii. p. 312.) Theodolphus, a contemporary
bishop of Orleans, observes with prudence (l. iii. carm. 3.)

Reddita sunt? mirum est: mirum est auferre nequtsse.

Est tamen in dubio, hinc mirer an inde magis.]

[Footnote 92: Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he
appeared at Rome, - longa tunica et chlamyde amictus, et
calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. xxiii. p.
109 - 113) describes, like Suetonius the simplicity of his dress,
so popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald returned to
France in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the
apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne, tom. iv. p. 109.)]

[Footnote 93: See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard, (c.xxviii. p.
124 - 128.) The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p. 399,) the
oath by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus,) and the Pope's
adoration more antiquorum principum, by the Annales Bertiniani,
(Script. Murator. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 505.)]

[Footnote 94: This great event of the translation or restoration
of the empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander,
(secul. ix. dissert. i. p. 390 - 397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,)
Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 339 - 352,) Sigonius, (de
Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247 - 251,) Spanheim, (de
ficta Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395 - 405,)
St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p. 438 - 450,) Gaillard,
(Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386 - 446.) Almost all these
moderns have some religious or national bias.]

The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and
sometimes deserved; but Charlemagne is the only prince in whose
favor the title has been indissolubly blended with the name.
That name, with the addition of saint, is inserted in the Roman
calendar; and the saint, by a rare felicity, is crowned with the
praises of the historians and philosophers of an enlightened age.
^95 His real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism of the
nation and the times from which he emerged: but the apparent
magnitude of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal
comparison; and the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendor
from the nakedness of the surrounding desert. Without injustice
to his fame, I may discern some blemishes in the sanctity and
greatness of the restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral
virtues, chastity is not the most conspicuous: ^96 but the public
happiness could not be materially injured by his nine wives or
concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more transient
amours, the multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the
church, and the long celibacy and licentious manners of his
daughters, ^97 whom the father was suspected of loving with too
fond a passion. ^* I shall be scarcely permitted to accuse the
ambition of a conqueror; but in a day of equal retribution, the
sons of his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of
Aquitain, and the four thousand five hundred Saxons who were
beheaded on the same spot, would have something to allege against
the justice and humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the
vanquished Saxons ^98 was an abuse of the right of conquest; his
laws were not less sanguinary than his arms, and in the
discussion of his motives, whatever is subtracted from bigotry
must be imputed to temper. The sedentary reader is amazed by his
incessant activity of mind and body; and his subjects and enemies
were not less astonished at his sudden presence, at the moment
when they believed him at the most distant extremity of the
empire; neither peace nor war, nor summer nor winter, were a
season of repose; and our fancy cannot easily reconcile the
annals of his reign with the geography of his expeditions. ^! But
this activity was a national, rather than a personal, virtue; the
vagrant life of a Frank was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in
military adventures; and the journeys of Charlemagne were
distinguished only by a more numerous train and a more important
purpose. His military renown must be tried by the scrutiny of his
troops, his enemies, and his actions. Alexander conquered with
the arms of Philip, but the two heroes who preceded Charlemagne
bequeathed him their name, their examples, and the companions of
their victories. At the head of his veteran and superior armies,
he oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were incapable
of confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever
encounter an equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline, or in
arms The science of war has been lost and revived with the arts
of peace; but his campaigns are not illustrated by any siege or
battle of singular difficulty and success; and he might behold,
with envy, the Saracen trophies of his grandfather. After the
Spanish expedition, his rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenaean
mountains; and the soldiers, whose situation was irretrievable,
and whose valor was useless, might accuse, with their last
breath, the want of skill or caution of their general. ^99 I
touch with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly applauded
by a respectable judge. They compose not a system, but a series,
of occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses,
the reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of
his poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve
the laws and the character of the Franks; and his attempts,
however feeble and imperfect, are deserving of praise: the
inveterate evils of the times were suspended or mollified by his
government; ^100 but in his institutions I can seldom discover
the general views and the immortal spirit of a legislator, who
survives himself for the benefit of posterity. The union and
stability of his empire depended on the life of a single man: he
imitated the dangerous practice of dividing his kingdoms among
his sons; and after his numerous diets, the whole constitution
was left to fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy and
despotism. His esteem for the piety and knowledge of the clergy
tempted him to intrust that aspiring order with temporal dominion
and civil jurisdiction; and his son Lewis, when he was stripped
and degraded by the bishops, might accuse, in some measure, the
imprudence of his father. His laws enforced the imposition of
tithes, because the daemons had proclaimed in the air that the
default of payment had been the cause of the last scarcity. ^101
The literary merits of Charlemagne are attested by the foundation
of schools, the introduction of arts, the works which were
published in his name, and his familiar connection with the
subjects and strangers whom he invited to his court to educate
both the prince and people. His own studies were tardy,
laborious, and imperfect; if he spoke Latin, and understood
Greek, he derived the rudiments of knowledge from conversation,
rather than from books; and, in his mature age, the emperor
strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant
now learns in his infancy. ^102 The grammar and logic, the music
and astronomy, of the times, were only cultivated as the
handmaids of superstition; but the curiosity of the human mind
must ultimately tend to its improvement, and the encouragement of
learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre on the
character of Charlemagne. ^103 The dignity of his person, ^104
the length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of
his government, and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish
him from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new aera from his
restoration of the Western empire.

[Footnote 95: By Mably, (Observations sur l'Histoire de France,)
Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of Charles
V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.) In the
year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de Charlemagne, (in
4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and profitably used. The
author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is labored
with industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the
original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the
5th volume of the Historians of France.]

[Footnote 96: The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven
years after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory,
with a vulture, who is perpetually gnawing the guilty member,
while the rest of his body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound
and perfect, (see Gaillard tom. ii. p. 317 - 360.)]

[Footnote 97: The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of
Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the
probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without
excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98 - 100, cum Notis
Schmincke.) The husband must have been too strong for the
historian.]

[Footnote *: This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly
observes, "seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage
of Eginhard." Hallam's Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16. - M.

[Footnote 98: Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain
of death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1. The
refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A
relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5.
Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime might
be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 241 -
247;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends and equals of
the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p.133.)]

[Footnote !: M. Guizot (Cours d'Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273)
has compiled the following statement of Charlemagne's military
campaigns: -

1. Against the Aquitanians.

18. " the Saxons.

5. " the Lombards.

7. " the Arabs in Spain.

1. " the Thuringians.

4. " the Avars.

2. " the Bretons.

1. " the Bavarians.

4. " the Slaves beyond the Elbe

5. " the Saracens in Italy.

3. " the Danes.

2. " the Greeks.
___

53 total. - M.]

[Footnote 99: In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando,
Orlando, was slain - cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in
Eginhard, (c. 9, p. 51 - 56,) and the fable in an ingenious
Supplement of M. Gaillard, (tom. iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards are
too proud of a victory, which history ascribes to the Gascons,
and romance to the Saracens.

Note: In fact, it was a sudden onset of the Gascons,
assisted by the Beaure mountaineers, and possibly a few
Navarrese. - M.]

[Footnote 100: Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities, represents
the interior disorders and oppression of his reign, (Hist. des
Allemands, tom. ii. p. 45 - 49.)]

[Footnote 101: Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad
ecclesiam conferat. Experimento enim didicimus, in anno, quo
illa valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a daemonibus
devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such is the decree
and assertion of the great Council of Frankfort, (canon xxv. tom.
ix. p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist. of Tithes; Works, vol. iii. part
ii. p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 12)
represent Charlemagne as the first legal author of tithes. Such
obligations have country gentlemen to his memory!]

[Footnote 102: Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms, tentabat
et scribere ... sed parum prospere successit labor praeposterus
et sero inchoatus. The moderns have perverted and corrected this
obvious meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard's dissertation
(tom. iii. p. 247 - 260) betrays his partiality.

Note: This point has been contested; but Mr. Hallam and
Monsieur Sismondl concur with Gibbon. See Middle Ages, iii. 330
Histoire de Francais, tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible observations
of the latter are quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii. p.
451. Fleury, I may add, quotes from Mabillon a remarkable
evidence that Charlemagne "had a mark to himself like an honest,
plain-dealing man." Ibid. - M.]

[Footnote 103: See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138 - 176, and Schmidt,
tom. ii. p. 121 - 129.]

[Footnote 104: M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the true
stature of Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard Freher ad
calcem Eginhart, p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine inches of French,
about six feet one inch and a fourth English, measure. The
romance writers have increased it to eight feet, and the giant
was endowed with matchless strength and appetite: at a single
stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut asunder a horseman and
his horse; at a single repast, he devoured a goose, two fowls, a
quarter of mutton, &c.]

That empire was not unworthy of its title; ^105 and some of
the fairest kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or conquest of
a prince, who reigned at the same time in France, Spain, Italy,
Germany, and Hungary. ^106 I. The Roman province of Gaul had
been transformed into the name and monarchy of France; but, in
the decay of the Merovingian line, its limits were contracted by
the independence of the Britons and the revolt of Aquitain.
Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the shores of
the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and language
are so different from the French, was chastised by the imposition
of tribute, hostages, and peace. After a long and evasive
contest, the rebellion of the dukes of Aquitain was punished by
the forfeiture of their province, their liberty, and their lives.

Harsh and rigorous would have been such treatment of ambitious
governors, who had too faithfully copied the mayors of the
palace. But a recent discovery ^107 has proved that these
unhappy princes were the last and lawful heirs of the blood and
sceptre of Clovis, and younger branch, from the brother of
Dagobert, of the Merovingian house. Their ancient kingdom was
reduced to the duchy of Gascogne, to the counties of Fesenzac and
Armagnac, at the foot of the Pyrenees: their race was propagated
till the beginning of the sixteenth century; and after surviving
their Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel the
injustice, or the favors, of a third dynasty. By the reunion of
Aquitain, France was enlarged to its present boundaries, with the
additions of the Netherlands and Spain, as far as the Rhine. II.

The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather and
father of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part
of Spain, from the rock of Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Amidst
their civil divisions, an Arabian emir of Saragossa implored his
protection in the diet of Paderborn. Charlemagne undertook the
expedition, restored the emir, and, without distinction of faith,
impartially crushed the resistance of the Christians, and
rewarded the obedience and services of the Mahometans. In his
absence he instituted the Spanish march, ^108 which extended from
the Pyrenees to the River Ebro: Barcelona was the residence of
the French governor: he possessed the counties of Rousillon and
Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon were
subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the Lombards, and
patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy,
^109 a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of
Calabria. The duchy of Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread,
at the expense of the Greeks, over the modern kingdom of Naples.
But Arrechis, the reigning duke, refused to be included in the
slavery of his country; assumed the independent title of prince;
and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian monarchy. His defence
was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and the emperor was
content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his fortresses,
and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord. The
artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of
father, but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Benventum
insensibly escaped from the French yoke. ^110 IV. Charlemagne
was the first who united Germany under the same sceptre. The
name of Oriental France is preserved in the circle of Franconia;
and the people of Hesse and Thuringia were recently incorporated
with the victors, by the conformity of religion and government.
The Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans, were the faithful
vassals and confederates of the Franks; and their country was
inscribed within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and
Switzerland. The Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their
laws and manners, were less patient of a master: the repeated
treasons of Tasillo justified the abolition of their hereditary
dukes; and their power was shared among the counts, who judged
and guarded that important frontier. But the north of Germany,
from the Rhine and beyond the Elbe, was still hostile and Pagan;
nor was it till after a war of thirty-three years that the Saxons
bowed under the yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and
their votaries were extirpated: the foundation of eight
bishoprics, of Munster, Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of
Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt, define, on either
side of the Weser, the bounds of ancient Saxony these episcopal
seats were the first schools and cities of that savage land; and
the religion and humanity of the children atoned, in some degree,
for the massacre of the parents. Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or
Sclavonians, of similar manners and various denominations,
overspread the modern dominions of Prussia, Poland, and Bohemia,
and some transient marks of obedience have tempted the French
historian to extend the empire to the Baltic and the Vistula.
The conquest or conversion of those countries is of a more recent
age; but the first union of Bohemia with the Germanic body may be
justly ascribed to the arms of Charlemagne. V. He retaliated on
the Avars, or Huns of Pannonia, the same calamities which they
had inflicted on the nations. Their rings, the wooden
fortifications which encircled their districts and villages, were
broken down by the triple effort of a French army, that was
poured into their country by land and water, through the
Carpathian mountains and along the plain of the Danube. After a
bloody conflict of eight years, the loss of some French generals
was avenged by the slaughter of the most noble Huns: the relics
of the nation submitted the royal residence of the chagan was
left desolate and unknown; and the treasures, the rapine of two
hundred and fifty years, enriched the victorious troops, or
decorated the churches of Italy and Gaul. ^111 After the
reduction of Pannonia, the empire of Charlemagne was bounded only
by the conflux of the Danube with the Teyss and the Save: the
provinces of Istria, Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an easy, though
unprofitable, accession; and it was an effect of his moderation,
that he left the maritime cities under the real or nominal
sovereignty of the Greeks. But these distant possessions added
more to the reputation than to the power of the Latin emperor;
nor did he risk any ecclesiastical foundations to reclaim the
Barbarians from their vagrant life and idolatrous worship. Some
canals of communication between the rivers, the Saone and the
Meuse, the Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted. ^112
Their execution would have vivified the empire; and more cost and
labor were often wasted in the structure of a cathedral. ^*