Charlemagne

ON S. CHARLEMAGNE, EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS, KING OF THE FRANKS.

Year 814.

Charles the Great, Emperor, at Aachen in Belgian Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 1604

From various sources.

Section I. The public veneration of S. Charles.

[1] Charles the Great, King of the Franks and the first Emperor of the Romans (after the imperial dignity was restored to the West after four centuries), is honored with the customary honors of the Saints and sacred anniversaries. His name was inscribed in the sacred tables by Guido of Crema, The public veneration of S. Charlemagne: styled Paschal III; who, although he was called Pope contrary to right and law by the faction of the schismatics adhering to the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa while Alexander III was legitimately governing the Catholic Church, nevertheless Charles, on account of his illustrious good deeds, was held to be a Saint both perhaps before and at least afterward, with the connivance of the Roman Pontiffs: temples were dedicated to him, and the celebration of the Ecclesiastical Office was bestowed upon him.

[2] Which Henry Spondanus, Bishop of Pamiers, in his Epitome of the Annals of Baronius, year 814, number 5, declares thus: "If you consider the things written about him, An encomium from Henry Spondanus: you will behold a worthy exemplar of virtues and a model of religion complete in all its parts, to whom (in my judgment) neither the Emperors who preceded him nor those who afterward succeeded him can be fully compared. But neither would he have had an equal in morals, had he not defiled conjugal chastity by the introduction of concubines. But later penance wiped away those stains, when he wore down his aged flesh with a garment of haircloth perpetually adhering to his naked body. On account of the merit of his excellent virtues, the Gallican Church celebrates his birthday; and under the Emperor Frederick, the one styled Pope Paschal enrolled him in the number of the Saints. But since he was not a legitimate Pontiff, this kind of canonization was not received by the Roman Church. However, since legitimate Pontiffs are not found to have opposed it, the matter has persevered by tacit permission or tolerance, so that he is honored in his own Church where he was buried. For thus the principal interpreters of the Canons have declared. Moreover, his cult is known to have been afterward propagated to other Churches of France, Belgium, and Germany, in which the same Charles is honored with the title of sanctity, and the writings of very many historians of the affairs of the Franks favor this." Thus Spondanus.

[3] We have certainly seen the Breviaries of very many Churches in which S. Charles the Emperor is honored on 28 January, either with an Office of nine Lessons or of three. And indeed in the Church of Minden this public prayer is recited on that day: The Ecclesiastical Office for him: "O God, who by the superabundant fruitfulness of Your goodness have raised Blessed Charles the Great, Emperor and Your Confessor, with the veil of the flesh laid aside, to the glory of blessed immortality: mercifully grant that he whom You exalted on earth to the praise and glory of Your name with the honor of empire, we may merit to have as a pious and merciful intercessor always in heaven. Through our Lord." Equal honor is given to him in the ancient Breviary of Paris, of Rheims, of Rouen, of Osnabruck, of Tournai, and others. In that of Rouen this Prayer is read, which is also used for S. Louis the King: "O God, who have translated Blessed Charles Your Confessor from an earthly kingdom to the glory of the heavenly kingdom: grant, we beseech You, that by his merits and intercession You may make us sharers of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ Your Son. Through the same Lord."

[4] His name in Martyrologies. The name of Charles also appears recorded in very many Martyrologies. The most ancient is that which is believed to have been composed by Rabanus under Lothar, the grandson of Charles, in which only this is found: "Charles died." The Bruges MS.: "On this day the burial of Lord Charles the Great, Emperor." The MS. of S. Lambert at Liege: "On the same day, Charles the Great, Emperor." In the MS. of the imperial monastery of S. Maximin at Trier, which otherwise corresponds in almost everything to the Martyrology of Rabanus published by Henry Canisius, there is no mention of Charles. But in the Necrology and in the catalogue of Anniversaries the following is found: "Charles the Great, Emperor, who gave to this Church three estates, namely Stensele, Luniciacum, and Wimariskirca." Wandelbert on this day:

"Light, glory, love of the world, both the worship and the grief of the fatherland, Exalted with the lofty honor of empire, Then Charles, departing, left the scepter to Louis."

The Martyrology of Usuard printed at Paris in the year 1536: "Likewise S. Charles the Emperor." Ferrarius: "At Aachen, S. Charles the Great." Various Belgian MSS. in both Latin and German: "At Aachen, the burial of S. Charles, King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans."

[5] The MS. Florarium: "At Aachen, the burial of Blessed Charles, Emperor of the Romans, King of the Franks, and Duke of the Brabantines, who on account of the greatness of his works was surnamed the Great. From him is named the illustrious stock of the Carolingians, than which no more noble or more religious lineage has ever appeared under heaven, except the genealogy of Christ. He died in the year of salvation 814, in the seventy-first year of his age." From this immoderate praise of the Carolingians, Is he to be called Duke of Brabant? or Karlings, and from the title of Duke of the Brabantines, one may conjecture that the author of that Florarium was a Brabantine. But Charles is nowhere read to have possessed or governed by any particular right or title the province which, in dignity the chief of the Belgian provinces, is called Brabant, before he succeeded his father in the kingdom; nor was it then called Brabant: which nomenclature was taken up much later by the Counts of Louvain, who, because they possessed part of the territory which was anciently called Bracbantum, called their other lands Brabant, and themselves Dukes of Lower Lorraine and Brabant, being themselves descended from the Counts of Hainaut; and from them the other Dukes of Brabant, by far the most celebrated, were descended, whom the Burgundians succeeded, and these the Austrians. Nevertheless, both Pepin and Charles and the other members of that family had private possessions, or allodial estates as they are called, throughout Belgium, and especially in the district which is now called Brabant.

[6] Various MSS. distinguished with the name of Usuard, but also amplified in various ways, celebrate the birthday of Charles thus: "At Aachen, the burial of S. Charles, King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans, who, having pacified and extended his kingdom and empire, and having religiously ordered the state of the holy Church and most zealously amplified the faith, in the year of the Lord eight hundred and fourteen, in the seventy-first year of his age, the forty-seventh of his reign, Fuller encomia in various Martyrologies; and the fourteenth of his empire, departed to the Lord. He, on account of the greatness of his works, was surnamed the Great." The Carthusians of Cologne have nearly the same in their additions to Usuard. The Aachen Martyrology, cited by Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium and in his additions to Usuard: "On the same day, at the basilica of Aachen, the birthday of S. Charles the Confessor, the first of the stock of the Franks who, by divine ordinance, became Augustus of the Romans; who from the beginning of his life, despising the pomp of the world, by the sword of imperial power and by the word of holy preaching and by the example of a salutary life, converted Gascony,* Germany, and Gaul. He also converted to the Lord Frisia, Alemannia, and by a triple trophy, Saxony. He also built at his own expense, to the praise and honor of the holy and undivided Trinity, twenty-seven churches, of which the one at Aachen holds the pre-eminence in excellence, glorious in its present suffrages." Galesineus: "At Aachen in Germany, S. Charles the King, Confessor. He, having built many most august temples and converted nations to the Christian religion, and having performed other things most illustriously with the highest zeal for piety, obtained the surname of the Great, and then at last rested in the Lord and was enrolled in the number of the Saints by Pope Paschal." Actually by the Pseudo-Pope.

[7] Other writers also honorably record Charles in the Calendars of the Saints: Ghinius, Miraeus, Canisius, Felicius, Maurolycus, and with the most ample encomium of all, Saussay, which we shall give below. Some assert certain things about him which need correction, drawn from authors of unproven credibility. Thus Maurolycus: "Here pertains the memory of Charles, But some things are apocryphal. surnamed the Great, Emperor, whose illustrious deeds for Christ are greatly celebrated by Turpin, Bishop of Rheims. For returning from a Jerusalem expedition, he carried away from Byzantium a part of the Cross and a nail and the crown of thorns to Gaul. He built twenty-four monasteries. He endowed with great resources and honors four Prelates: those of Trier, Cologne, Mainz, and Salzburg. And in the year of salvation 814, in the seventy-first year of his age, the forty-seventh of his reign, and the fourteenth of his empire, he died at Aachen in Lorraine." Felicius has nearly the same; the German Martyrology has more, but that erroneously, in that it relates that he vindicated the Holy Land from the servitude of the Saracens; but the author of the book entitled the Violet of the Saints errs far more.

Side Note: In the 2nd edition, "Spain and Galicia." Section II. The history of S. Charles.

[8] So many have committed to writing the illustrious deeds of Charles that, if anyone wished to collect them all, The Life of S. Charles written by many: he would produce many volumes. It is by no means our intention to pursue individually everything that others have committed to memory, much less, as we diligently do elsewhere, to bring forward the genuine and complete works of the authors themselves: both because most are in common circulation, some having been published long ago by Pithou, Freher, and others, and nearly all recently and carefully by Andre du Chesne; and because, as we have already said, a certain immense mass would result.

[9] We shall give one author, Eginhard (or Eginart, or Einard), Most faithfully by Eginhard, who, as he himself confesses, was nourished by Charles in the royal Court, and although he was small of body, was nevertheless great in spirit and in practical experience — indeed he was honored with the surname of "the Great" by Walafrid Strabo, and was called by others "the Wise," "a man most learned in all things," "the most prudent of the men of his time." A wise and pious man: He had a wife, Imma, most illustrious in birth and virtue; but afterward, by mutual consent having renounced the conjugal life, Eginhard founded the monastery of Seligenstadt on his own estate and was also its first Abbot. He is also reported to have undertaken the administration of the monastery of Fontenelle from Louis the Pious, and of the monastery of Fossatum from Charles the Bald. In the Chronicle of the monastery of S. Bavo at Ghent, the following is found about him: "In the year 826, Eginhard, Chaplain of the most pious Emperor Louis, was made Abbot of the monastery of Ghent; he described the illustrious deeds and acts of the Emperor Charles the Great. In the year 843, Eginhard, the fifteenth Abbot of Ghent, died on the eighth day before the Kalends of August; Henry, otherwise called Einkericus of Dacnam, succeeded him." He therefore wrote both other books and the Annals of the Franks from the year 741 to 829 (for these, formerly ascribed to the monk Adelmus or Ademar, du Chesne and others assign to Eginhard), as well as the notable booklet on the life and conduct of Charles. This booklet, after various editions, collated with two ancient manuscript codices — This edition, whence taken. one from the monastery of Gladbach in the province of Julich, the other from the college of the Society of Jesus at Paderborn in Westphalia — and with the edition of Andre du Chesne, most diligently prepared according to the authority of five other MSS. of the best repute, we shall give.

[10] There exists in various MSS. and has been published several times a book on the deeds of Charles the Great under the name of Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, What was published under the name of Turpin is fabulous; stuffed with infamous and shameful inventions, written by some man who was not only idle but ignorant and foolish — which it is surprising that Trithemius did not perceive. Indeed neither Hincmar, nor Flodoard the careful historian of Rheims, nor Sigebert, nor other older authors anywhere mention this composition. Tilpin, or Turpin, was Archbishop of Rheims, having been a monk of Saint-Denis near Paris, and is read to have attended the Roman Council under Pope Stephen in the year 769 with some other Bishops from Gaul, and to have received the pallium from Pope Hadrian in the year 773. He died on 2 September, having sat for about 42 or 47 years, as Flodoard writes, perhaps reckoning from the death of S. Abel. He is thought to have died in the year 811, since in that year Wulfarius, his successor, is found to have subscribed to the Testament of Charles the Great. Whence the imposture of the fictitious author, writing as Turpin, can be perceived, since he narrates even the death of Charles, although Tilpin died three years before Charles.

[11] Some men, otherwise lovers of letters, have nevertheless embraced these fables as true histories: even the author of the Spanish Chronicle, whom some consider to be Liudprand, who writes that Charles came to Toledo around the year of Christ 809 Rashly credited by others. and married Galiana, the daughter of King Galafrius; whom others write to have been the mother of Louis the Pious, although in that year Louis himself, then King of Aquitaine, having entered Spain with a hostile army, besieged Tortosa. Others, having perceived perhaps this most disgraceful error, write that he came to Spain in the year 761, in which year indeed, having followed his father into Aquitaine against Waifar, he stormed many places, being still quite young in age, and came as far as Limoges — but he was still far away then from the city of Toledo. We indeed believe Liudprand to have been wiser than to credit or write such things; although there are other delusions of Pseudo-Turpin which have not all been transcribed into that Chronicle.

[12] We have seen in a MS. codex of the monastery of Korsendonk of the Canons Regular Another written in the time of Frederick Barbarossa, a Life of S. Charles written in the time of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, after the year 1165, by an anonymous author, divided into three sections. The author indicates his own period with these words: "We intend therefore to weave together briefly certain notable deeds of virtue and a celebrated and glorious series of miracles, to the praise of God and of the aforesaid most pious Emperor; so that the true worshiper of Christ, Frederick, Emperor of the Romans, truly Augustus, being more certain of the sanctity of the morals and life of the most blessed Charles the Great, may more fully and more perfectly rejoice that he has brought forth into the light of the nations that sun which was hidden for three hundred and fifty-one years, with divine grace cooperating." From these words one may conjecture that the author himself was also a schismatic. Concerning the canonization of S. Charles (if it is right so to call it, since nothing can be equally opposed to the sacred canons as the election of that man styled Paschal III), but nevertheless concerning the veneration of Charles in the sacred rites begun by the schismatics and his Translation, we shall treat below. He mingles false things with true: That author truly proclaims many things about Charles from the ancient Annals which contemporaries of Charles wrote, but draws some things from that shameful Turpin. To give that entire commentary, even though it has not yet, so far as we know, been published, did not seem fitting; we shall give the Prologue and the titles of the chapters. It reads as follows:

Here begins the Prologue to the Life of S. Charles the Great, the glorious Emperor.

Although the venerable memory of the orthodox Charles the Great is celebrated everywhere and variously as a spice of fragrant aroma, Its prologue; and although his marvelous and magnificent writings are spread abroad through diverse tracts of lands, it has nevertheless pleased us to select in brief and by way of excerpt certain aromatic virtues from so great a garden of delights, in which so many kinds of flowers have been planted, that we may present them to the thirsting souls of the faithful of Christ as a fragrance of sweetness. Because it is a matter of true rashness to be charged with, that the channel of our aridity should presume upon the torrent of so great a river — yet hoping in Him who perfects praise for Himself from the mouths of infants and sucklings — we have excerpted certain roses and lilies from the wide-spreading garden, which we have inserted into the present little work according to place and time. We intend therefore to weave together briefly certain notable deeds of virtue and a celebrated and glorious series of miracles, to the praise of God and of the aforesaid most pious Emperor, so that the true worshiper of Christ, Frederick, Emperor of the Romans, truly Augustus, being more certain of the sanctity of the morals and life of the most blessed Charles the Great, may more fully and more perfectly rejoice that he has brought forth into the light of the nations that sun which was hidden for three hundred and fifty-one years, with divine grace cooperating. For we truly hope that he, the author of this canonization, was preselected by God for this purpose, whom we believe to have shone upon the world as a second Charles the Great from that first most just Charles the Great. But the excellent deeds of the Blessed Charles himself and the triumphal history of his wars we leave to others, which are found in manifold ways in the Catalogue of Valiant Men and in his Chronicles, and we ourselves have elsewhere written a Micrologus with dutiful diligence. Therefore, having implored the grace of the Holy Spirit, which knows no sluggish delays, in order to amplify the praise of the offspring, let us touch upon the root of this very planting, which the Heavenly Father truly planted and watered. For the sake of clarity of what follows, however, we distinguish in advance the sum of the whole work chapter by chapter.

CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST BOOK, OR FIRST SECTION.

I. Chapters. The genealogical series of Blessed Charles. The vision of Pope Stephen. II. On the life and merits of the most blessed Charles. III. With what affection he was made Emperor of all. IV. On the keys of the Lord's sepulchre sent to the Emperor. V. On the first-fruits of his empire consecrated to God. VI. On the imperial doctrine and eloquence. VII. On his care in the law of heaven. VIII. On his vigilance in the justice of the forum. IX. How he established his son Louis as heir of his paternal sanctity and kingdom at Aachen. How King Charles instructed his son Louis. X. On the condemnation of the heresiarchs Felix and Elipandus. XI. On the authority of the Roman See employed. XII. On the rejection of the Seventh Synod.* XIII. On his pious devotion in building churches. XIV. The names of the twenty-three monasteries, in alphabetical order. XV. On the excellence of the holy Church of Aachen. XVI. On the virtue of imperial hospitality. XVII. On the liberal munificence of imperial almsgiving.

CHAPTERS OF THE SECOND BOOK, OR SECOND SECTION.

XVIII. On the pilgrimage of the most blessed Charles the Great made in praise of God, and how from Constantinople at the chapel of the Eagle he brought the nail and the crown of the Lord. XIX. On the expulsion of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. XX. On the embassy directed to the Emperor. XXI. Copy of the letter of the Patriarch John. XXII. Copy of the letter of the Emperor of Constantinople. XXIII. The vision of the Emperor Constantine. XXIV. How the legates came to the King at Paris. XXV. On the oracle by the voice of a bird calling the King of the Franks as if with a human voice and showing the way. XXVI. On the restoration of the See of Jerusalem. XXVII. On the most munificent liberality of Constantine. XXVIII. On the most prudent deliberation of the counsel of Blessed Charles. XXIX. The friendly dispute of the two Emperors. XXX. The devout petition for the sufferings of Christ. XXXI. On the opening of the case of the crown of thorns. XXXII. How the crown flowered in a fragrance of sweetness and a splendor of inestimable light. XXXIII. On the reception of the flowers in the imperial glove. XXXIV. On the imperial glove suspended in the air. XXXV. A voice in praise of those singing psalms to Christ. XXXVI. On the healing of three hundred and one. XXXVII. On a certain boy restored to health. XXXVIII. On the depositing of the relics in a buffalo hide. XXXIX. On the resurrection of a certain boy and the salvation of forty-nine others at the castle of Ligmedon. XL. What and how great were the miracles of God at Aachen. XLI. On the convocation of the Princes and of all the people.

CHAPTERS OF THE THIRD BOOK, OR THIRD SECTION.

XLII. Letter of Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, sent to Leobrand, Dean of Aachen, asserting the sanctity of the Blessed Charles the Great. XLIII. On the blessed vision of the starry way. XLIV. How S. James appeared to the Blessed Charles the Great. XLV. On the sudden fall of the walls of Pamplona. XLVI. On the overthrow of the idols of Spain and on the idol of Mohammed. XLVII. The imperial grant bestowed upon the Church of Blessed James and other venerable places. XLVIII. On the divinely wrought vengeance upon a certain infidel in the army of Caesar. XLIX. On the lances fixed in the ground by night and clothed with bark and leaves in the morning. L. On the producing of a spring from the hollow of a torrent. LI. On the two shields of blood-red color seen at Heresburg. LII. How two youths in white garments were seen by divine power at Fritzlar. A miracle revealed at the consecration of the monastery of Aman. LIII. On the venerable apostolate of Charles the Great, dear to God. LIV. On the heavenly presages of the imperial passing. LV. Copy of the blessed memorial. LVI. On the salutary distribution of testamentary compassion. LVII. The names of the twenty-one metropolitans of that time. LVIII. On the glorious but tearful imperial passing. LIX. "Love justice, you who judge the earth." LX. On the blessed vision of the imperial Translation.

Side Note: This was ignorantly done at Frankfurt in the year 794. Section III. The Encomium of S. Charles from the Gallican Martyrology of Andre Saussay, J.U.C.L.

[15] On the same day, S. Charles, the most Christian King of the Franks and the first Emperor of this nation, surnamed the Great, and in truth the greatest, who from the very beginning of his life, adorned with the heroic endowments of both body and mind, The piety of S. Charles, devoted with his whole heart to the divine service, by the sword of royal power, by the zeal for the propagation of the Gospel, and by the examples of a religious life, converted most of the barbarian nations, and among them especially the Saxons, Bohemians, Slavs, Bavarians, Huns, Zeal for souls, and Danes, from the abominable rites of idols to the salutary worship of Christ, the true God. He vindicated the Roman Church, the mother of all, from manifold oppression, Reverence for the Roman See, freed her from enemies, and restored her to her former beauty and honor, heaping immense benefits upon her. He extinguished most of the heresies that were destructively raging throughout the Western world, and took care that the collapsed ecclesiastical discipline be repaired; and that piety which had long been withering he caused to flourish again splendidly, and having diligently cultivated it, he advanced it far and wide throughout the whole world. He went to Rome four times for the sake of his vow, Pious pilgrimages, and having kissed the sacred footprints from heaven with the greatest veneration, he left to all posterity a singular example of devotion. He restored to its present honor the sepulchre of S. James the Apostle, which had been befouled with the abominable filth of idols, and traversing the church dedicated to him which he had vindicated, with pious devotion, he wore for the greater part of the journey a garment bristling with horsehair. Honor procured for the Saints, He commanded that the deeds of the Blessed be written by Paul the Deacon, and that they be publicly read on the appointed days. He took care that the Calendars of the Martyrs and the homilies of the Fathers be collected, and that the memorable affairs of all the nations over which he ruled be committed to writing for the cultivation of religion.

[16] Zeal for sacred things, He attended divine worship in the sacred temple assiduously, and never neglected the stated prayers and canonical hours, whether of the day or night, when he was able. He attended those performing sacred functions with great devotion. He furnished the liturgical furniture, vestments, vessels, and all the ornament of the temples so copiously Ecclesiastical adornment: that he did not even wish the guardians of the sacred doors to perform their duty in profane dress. The harmony of ecclesiastical chant, he himself being admirably skilled in the art of singing and chanting and experienced in sacred practice, he recalled to the usage which had fallen into disuse. He brought to Toulouse six bodies of Apostles, namely of Simon and Jude, Relics of Saints translated: Philip, both Jameses, and Barnabas, together with the head of S. Bartholomew and innumerable relics of the holy Martyrs, collected from pious spoils, and placed them, to be honored in perpetuity, in the basilica of S. Saturninus, which was most dear to him.

[17] He sent as a gift to Rome the spoils of the enemy, especially of the Huns, for adorning the church of Blessed Peter. He committed to the Kings of the Franks the guardianship of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Pontiffs. Defense of the Roman Church: He himself restored to his dignity Pope Leo, who had been grievously abused by his own people, having punished the offenders with zeal for God; and he received the Pope with the greatest veneration when he came to him. He convened various Councils, with the permission of the supreme See, to eliminate false doctrines and to assert the judgment of the Catholic and Roman Church (which he most steadfastly retained and observed in all things from his earliest infancy to the last moment of his life). He fortified the kingdom and empire with the most just and most religious laws; for the increase of the Christian religion he established nine episcopal sees in Germany and raised two to the rank of metropolitans. Sacred buildings: He built the basilica of Aachen, dedicated to the most holy Mother of God, with a most magnificent structure. He built twenty-seven principal churches and restored almost innumerable others that had fallen into ruin from age.

[18] His modesty, In clothing and diet he exhibited a modesty and temperance entirely Christian. At table he always employed a sacred reading, especially from the books of S. Augustine; he used an incomparable clemency toward conquered enemies, for he never killed any of them outside the battle line; those caught in conspiracy he punished with a light fine. Clemency, Upon the Saxons, so often rebellious and so often treasonous and conquered, he imposed no other law than that they should earnestly worship Christ, having abjured the impiety of idols. At length, after so many things piously and illustriously accomplished, this most obedient son of the Church, Other distinctions of his, this magnanimous defender of religion, this truly most Christian King, this thrice-great Emperor — the faith having been most zealously amplified, the state of the Church having been religiously ordered and excellently adorned, his kingdom also having been magnificently extended and the Christian world everywhere pacified — in the year of the Lord eight hundred and fourteen, the forty-eighth of his reign, His death, the fourteenth of his empire, and the seventieth of his age, his ten-year penance having been completed, his resources having been distributed with religious and royal munificence to the principal Churches of the West for the increase of divine worship and the nourishment of the clergy, fortified by the sacred rites, he happily departed from his laborious and mortal empire to a tranquil kingdom and an immortal triumph. And on account of the greatness of his faith and works, Canonization, just as he merited to be enrolled in the company of the Saints in heaven, so with the same honor, on account of his immense benefits to the Christian world, he has been accustomed to be celebrated by the faithful, not without the acquiescence of the Church. That he would one day be worthy of this honor, testimonies of divine grace and virtue presignified while he was still living in the flesh.

[19] For besides the fact that the heavenly beings appeared to him more than once, as to one already enrolled as a citizen of the heavenly Zion (especially S. Salvius the Martyr, whose sacred remains he clothed with fitting worship; and S. Swibert, whom he caused to be enrolled in the catalogue of the Blessed by Pope Leo; Familiarity with the Saints; indeed Christ the Lord Himself, when Charles was receiving the sacred communion on Easter Day, gave Himself to him in the form of a most beautiful and most loving child): besides these, I say, insignia of a mind pleasing to God, not obscure indications of divine favor also very frequently appeared toward the pious Prince. Of these the following was illustrious: Other miracles, that when in the first Saxon war he had stormed Eresburg, the fortress of the Saxons, and thence hastened to overthrow the idol at Eimensred, in the greatest drought and lack of water, at his prayer (as of a second Moses) a most abundant stream suddenly sprang forth with copious waves, by which the whole army, already panting with thirst for three days, was refreshed and recovered its strength. Moreover, in his absence, when the Saxon, having seized the opportunity, had pitched camp at the town of Fristoria and was attempting to destroy the principal church of Blessed Boniface with flames, he was unable to accomplish this by any effort, since two heavenly beings in shining apparel so struck terror into the enemy that they all seized upon flight in rivalry with one another.

[20] By tokens of this kind, the protection of the Deity more often declared how pleasing to Him were the efforts and virtue of Charles: Penance, whom certainly this course and this end (the stain having been excellently wiped away, which in so long a course he could scarcely fail to contract from human lot amid so many entanglements) abundantly revealed to be worthy of an eternal triumph and a crown of glory. Relics, His body, long ago solemnly elevated by the Bishops of Germany, is observed with the customary honor paid to the heavenly beings at Aachen. His head, moreover, is honored at Osnabruck in the province of Cologne, together with certain relics of the holy Martyrs Crispin and Crispinian.

LIFE BY THE AUTHOR EGINHARD

from two MSS. and various editions.

Charles the Great, Emperor, at Aachen in Belgian Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 1580

By the author Eginhard, from MSS.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.

[1] The life and conduct, and in no small part the deeds, of my Lord and nurturer Charles, The Life of Charles the Great the most excellent and deservedly most famous King — after the desire to write seized me, I have encompassed with as great brevity as I could, taking care to omit nothing of those things which could come to my knowledge, briefly, and not to offend with prolixity of narration the minds of those who are disgusted by anything new: if indeed this can in any way be avoided, that those not be offended by a new writing who are disgusted even by the old and most excellent monuments composed by the most learned and eloquent men. And although I do not doubt that there are many who, devoted to leisure and letters, do not judge the state of the present age to be so neglected that all things which now occur should be consigned to silence and oblivion as worthy of no remembrance; and who would rather, allured by the love of lasting fame, insert the illustrious deeds of others in writings of whatever kind, than by writing nothing subtract the fame of their own name from the memory of posterity: nevertheless I did not think I should abstain from a description of this kind, since I was conscious but most faithfully, that no one could write these things more truthfully than I, who was present at them, which I knew with eyewitness faith, as they say; and I could not clearly know whether they would be written by another or not: and I judged it better to deliver these same things, as if in common with others, committed to writing for the memory of posterity, than to suffer the most illustrious life and the excellent and scarcely imitable deeds of the most excellent King, the greatest of all in his age, to be abolished by the darkness of oblivion.

[2] There was also another not unreasonable cause, as I think, which alone could suffice His household member to compel me to write these things: namely, the nurturing bestowed upon me, and the perpetual friendship, from the time I began to live in his court, with both him and his children, by which he so bound me to himself and made me so much his debtor, both in life and in death, that I might rightly seem and be judged ungrateful if, forgetful of so many benefits conferred upon me, I were to pass over in silence the most illustrious and brilliant deeds of a man who had deserved so well of me, and were to suffer his life to remain without writing and due praise, as though he had never lived. For writing and setting forth his life, it was not fitting that my meager talent, which is slight and small, indeed almost nothing, should labor, but rather a Ciceronian eloquence. Behold for you a book containing the memory of the most illustrious and greatest man, in which, besides his deeds, there is nothing for you to wonder at, unless perhaps that I, a barbarian and very little practiced in Roman speech, thought that I could write something decently or suitably in Latin, and broke forth into such impudence as to think that that saying of Cicero Eginhard writes, should be despised, which in the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, when speaking of Latin writers, he is read to have said thus: "For anyone to commit his thoughts to writing who can neither arrange nor illuminate them, nor attract the reader by any pleasure, is the mark of a man intemperately abusing both his leisure and his letters." That judgment of the excellent orator could indeed have deterred me from writing, had I not previously resolved in my mind rather to submit to the judgment of men and to risk the peril of my poor talent in writing, than to pass over the memory of so great a man by sparing myself.

CHAPTER I.

The grandfather, father, and brother of S. Charles.

[3] The house of the Merovingians, from which the Franks were accustomed to choose their Kings, is considered to have lasted until King Childeric, who by the command of Pope Stephen of Rome was deposed and tonsured and thrust into a monastery; which, although it may seem to have ended in him, had nevertheless [The authority of the Frankish Kings having become obsolete, the Mayors of the Palace rule everything,] already for some time been of no vigor, and bore nothing illustrious in itself except the empty title of King. For both the wealth and the power of the kingdom were held by the Prefects of the Palace, who were called Mayors of the House, and to whom the supreme authority pertained; nor was anything left to the King except that, content with the royal name alone, with flowing hair and long beard, he would sit upon the throne and play the role of one who rules, hearing legates coming from everywhere and giving them upon their departure the answers which he had been taught or even commanded, as though from his own authority; when, besides the useless name of King and a precarious living allowance which the Prefect of the Court exhibited to him as he saw fit, he possessed nothing of his own except one villa of very small income, in which he had a house and from which he had servants ministering necessities to him and showing obedience, of small number. Wherever he had to go, he went in a cart drawn by yoked oxen and driven by a herdsman in rustic fashion; thus he was accustomed to go to the palace, thus to the public assembly of his people which was celebrated annually for the welfare of the kingdom, and thus to return home. But the Prefect of the Court managed the administration of the kingdom and all things which had to be done and arranged either at home or abroad.

[4] In this office, at the time when Childeric was deposed, Pepin, the father of King Charles, was already functioning, as if by hereditary right. For his father Charles, who suppressed the tyrants claiming dominion for themselves throughout all Francia Martellus, the victorious, and defeated the Saracens attempting to occupy Gaul in two great battles — one in Aquitaine near the city of Poitiers, the other near Narbonne at the river Birra — so thoroughly that he compelled them to return to Spain, had excellently administered the same magistracy left to him by his father Pepin. This honor was not customary to be given by the people to any others than those who were eminent above the rest both in the distinction of their birth and in the amplitude of their resources.

[5] When Pepin, the father of King Charles, had held this office, left to him and his brother Carloman by his grandfather and father, divided with the greatest concord between them, Then Pepin and Carloman; for some years as if under the aforesaid King, his brother Carloman, for uncertain reasons — though he seems to have been inflamed by the love of the contemplative life — having abandoned the laborious administration of the temporal kingdom, betook himself to Rome for retirement, and there, having changed his habit and become a monk, in a monastery built on Mount Soracte near the church of Blessed Silvester, with the Brothers who had come with him for this purpose, He becomes a monk, enjoyed the quiet he desired for some years. But since many Nobles from Francia were accustomed to come solemnly to Rome to fulfill their vows, Loving quiet: and were unwilling to pass by him as their former lord, interrupting with their frequent greetings the retirement which was his greatest delight, they compelled him to change his location. For when he saw that this kind of frequentation was hindering his purpose, he left the mountain and withdrew to the province of Samnium, to the monastery of S. Benedict, situated in the castle of Cassino, and there completed whatever remained of his temporal life in religious living.

[6] But Pepin, having been constituted King from Prefect of the Palace by the authority of the Roman Pontiff, Pepin is elected King: after ruling the Franks alone for fifteen years or more, when the Aquitanian war, which had been undertaken by him against Duke Waifar of Aquitaine and was waged for nine continuous years, was finished, died at Paris of the disease of dropsy, leaving as survivors his children Charles and Carloman, to whom the succession of the kingdom had come by divine will. The Franks indeed, having solemnly held a general assembly, Charles and Carloman succeed; constituted both of them Kings for themselves, on the prior condition that they should divide the whole body of the kingdom equally; and Charles should undertake to rule that part which their father Pepin had held, and Carloman that over which their uncle Carloman had presided. The conditions were accepted on both sides, and the part of the divided kingdom was received by each according to the terms proposed to him; and this concord lasted, although with the greatest difficulty, with many on Carloman's side seeking to break the alliance, to the point that some even plotted to bring them to war. But in this there was more suspicion than danger, as the very outcome of events proved; for when Carloman died, his wife with her children and certain chief men from the number of his nobles fled to Italy, and for no existing reasons, spurning her husband's brother, He dies soon. she placed herself with her children under the protection of Desiderius, King of the Lombards. And indeed Carloman, after administering the kingdom jointly for two years, departed by illness.

p. Cassino. Du Chesne and other editions read "the citadel of Cassino." The town of Cassino, taken from the Volscians, was held for some time by the Samnites; therefore Eginhard assigns it to Samnium. Of Monte Cassino, or Casino, and the town once situated on its side, and the most religious monastery of S. Benedict, we must treat more often elsewhere.

q. Rather, he came to Gaul in the year 753 by the command of his Abbot, says the same Eginhard in his Annals, so that at his brother's court he might resist the requests of the Roman Pontiff. He is thought to have done this unwillingly, because neither did he dare to despise the commands of his Abbot, nor did the Abbot dare to resist the orders of the King of the Lombards, who had commanded him to do this. Carloman, detained in Gaul by his brother, died at Vienne in the year 755, and his body was sent back to the monastery of S. Benedict. His memory is found in monastic and other Martyrologies on 17 August.

r. Others call him Gaiferius.

s. The Aquitanian war was begun in the year 760, concluded in 768 with the killing of Waifar; but afterward it flared up again.

t. On the eighth day before the Kalends of October.

v. Charles received the insignia of the kingdom in the city of Noyon, Carloman in Soissons. Eginhard in his Annals. Carloman died in the year 771, 4 December.

CHAPTER II.

The Aquitanian, Lombard, and Saxon Wars.

[7] Charles, upon the death of his brother, reigns alone. When his brother died, Charles was constituted King by the consent of all the Franks. Concerning his birth and infancy, or even his boyhood, since nothing has been declared anywhere in writing, and no one is now found to survive who claims to have knowledge of these matters, I judged it inept to write about them; and I have resolved, omitting what is unknown, to pass on to setting forth and demonstrating his deeds and character and the other aspects of his life: in such a way, however, that by narrating first his deeds both at home and abroad, then his character and pursuits, and then the administration and end of his reign, I may omit nothing of those things which are either worthy or necessary to be known.

[8] Of all the wars he waged, first he undertook the Aquitanian war, begun but not yet finished by his father, because it seemed that it could be quickly brought to an end — his brother, who was still alive, having been asked to bring aid. And although his brother had frustrated him of the promised aid, he nevertheless carried out the expedition most vigorously, and refused either to desist from what he had begun or to yield from a labor once undertaken, until by a certain perseverance and continuity he brought it to a completed conclusion. For he also compelled Hunold, who after the death of Waifar had attempted to occupy Aquitaine Hunold is conquered. and to renew the war that was already almost finished, to abandon Aquitaine and to seek Gascony. Yet not suffering him to remain there, having crossed the river Garonne, he sent word through legates to Lupus, Duke of the Gascons, to return the fugitive; and if he did not do so promptly, he would demand it of him by war. But Lupus, using wiser counsel, not only returned Hunold but also submitted both himself and the province The Gascon voluntarily submits. over which he presided to Charles's power.

[9] When affairs were settled in Aquitaine and that war was finished, and when his partner in the kingdom had already departed from human affairs, he was prevailed upon by the request and prayers of Hadrian, Bishop of the city of Rome, to undertake war against the Lombards; which had also been previously undertaken by his father, at the entreaty of Pope Stephen, with great difficulty, because certain chief men of the Franks, with whom he was accustomed to take counsel, so resisted his will that they openly proclaimed they would desert the King and return home. The war was nevertheless undertaken at that time against King Aistulf, Aistulf conquered by Pepin; and most swiftly completed. But although a similar cause, indeed the very same, seemed to underlie both his and his father's reason for undertaking the war, it is clear that the campaign was carried out with dissimilar labor and concluded with a dissimilar end. For Pepin compelled King Aistulf, by a siege of only a few days at Pavia, to give hostages and to restore to the Romans the towns and castles he had seized, and to give a sworn pledge that he would not reclaim what had been returned. By Charles, Desiderius is conquered, But Charles, after he had begun the war, did not desist until he had received into surrender King Desiderius, whom he had exhausted by a long siege; and compelled his son Adalgisus, upon whom the hopes of all seemed to rest, to withdraw not only from the kingdom And Rotgaudus. but also from Italy itself; and restored everything that had been seized from the Romans; and crushed Rotgaudus, Prefect of the Duchy of Friuli, who was plotting revolution; and subjugated all of Italy to his dominion; and set over the conquered land his son Pepin as King. Italy subjugated. How difficult the passage of the Alps was for him entering Italy, and with how great labor of the Franks the impassable ridges of the mountains and the cliffs towering to the sky and the rough crags were overcome, I would describe in this place, had it not been my proposed intention in the present work to commit to memory the manner of his life rather than the events of the wars he waged. The end of this war, however, was that Italy was subdued, King Desiderius was deported into perpetual exile, his son Adalgisus was expelled from Italy, and the territories seized by the Kings of the Lombards were restored to Hadrian, the ruler of the Roman Church.

[10] After the end of this war, the Saxon war, which seemed to have been as it were interrupted, was resumed — a war than which none was either longer or more atrocious, or more laborious for the Frankish people. The Saxons, formerly idolaters, For the Saxons, like almost all the nations inhabiting Germany, both fierce by nature and devoted to the worship of demons and hostile to our religion, did not consider it dishonorable either to violate or to transgress either divine or human laws. There were also causes which could disturb the peace every day, namely our boundaries and theirs, They carry off plunder, which were almost everywhere contiguous on the plain, except for a few places in which either larger forests or mountain ridges interposed between them separated the fields of both with a certain boundary. In these border regions, slaughter, rapine, and burning did not cease to occur on both sides. By these the Franks were so provoked that they judged it fitting no longer merely to retaliate in kind but to undertake open war against them. War was therefore undertaken against them, which was waged with great spirit on both sides, yet with greater loss to the Saxons than to the Franks, through thirty-three continuous years.

[11] It could indeed have been finished sooner, if the treachery of the Saxons had permitted it. It is difficult to say how many times they were defeated and surrendered as suppliants to the King, promising to do as they were commanded, giving without delay the hostages that were demanded, Inconstant, receiving the legates who were sent: sometimes they were so subdued and softened that they even promised to abandon the worship of demons and to submit themselves to the Christian religion. But just as they were sometimes ready to do these things, so they were always headlong in subverting them — so that it is not easy to judge in which of the two they can more truly be called readier. For after the war with them was begun, scarcely a single year passed in which they did not make a reversal of this kind. But the magnanimity of the King, and the perpetual constancy of his mind in both adverse and prosperous circumstances, could be overcome by no fickleness of theirs, nor wearied from those things which he had begun to do. For he never suffered them to perpetrate anything of this kind with impunity, but either leading an army himself in person or sending one through his Counts, he would avenge their treachery and exact a fitting punishment from them, until at last, when all who were accustomed to resist had been overthrown and reduced to his power, he removed ten thousand men from among those who inhabited both banks of the river Elbe, with their wives and children, and transferred them, Transferred to Francia, distributing them here and there throughout Gaul and Germany in a manifold division. And on the condition proposed by the King and accepted by them, the war drawn out over so many years is known to have been ended: that they should abandon the worship of demons and, leaving their ancestral ceremonies, Made Christian. should accept the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and being united with the Franks, should become one people with them.

[12] Although this war was drawn out over a long stretch of time, he himself did not engage with the enemy in pitched battle more than twice: once near the mountain which is called Osneggi, at the place named Theotmelli, and again at the river Hase; and this within one month and with few days intervening. In these two battles the enemy were so routed and conquered that they no longer dared either to provoke the King or to resist his coming, unless they were defended by some fortification of terrain. Nevertheless, in that war many men from both the Frankish and Saxon nobility, men who had held the highest offices, were consumed; and at last the war was ended in the thirty-third year, while in the meantime so many and so great wars against the Franks arose and were conducted by the King's skill in various parts of the world that those who look on might rightly wonder whether in him one should more properly admire his endurance of labors or his good fortune. For this war took its beginning two years before the Italian one; and although it was waged without interruption, nothing of what had to be done elsewhere was omitted, nor was there any cessation in any quarter from an equally laborious contest.

b. The MSS. add "not."

p. This occurred in the year 783.

q. Others read Osnich, others Neggi; perhaps Oswick, as elsewhere Brunswick, etc. That part of Westphalia seems to be indicated where the city and diocese of Osnabruck are. And that this was the place which Eginhard here calls Theotmelli, and others Thietmelle, Thiotmelli, Teotmala, Theotmallin, Theotmaldi, or Teotmalli, may be conjectured from the fact that in the same district is the town of Melle, likewise Gersmel on the river Elsa, which soon joins the Hase; and elsewhere the river Dymelle, into which at the town of Warburg the Tuisco, or Tiotus, or Tuitsche, flows. After that battle was joined, as is clear from the Annals of Eginhard, Charles withdrew to Paderborn; and again in the same month he fought with the same Saxons at the river Hase, which rises above Osnabruck and flows into the Ems at Meppen.

CHAPTER III.

The Spanish, Breton, Beneventan, Bavarian, and Slavic Wars.

[13] For the King, the greatest in prudence among all who in his age held dominion over nations, Charles, prudent and magnanimous, and the most outstanding in greatness of soul, in those things which were to be undertaken or carried out, neither refused anything on account of labor nor shrank from anything on account of danger. Rather, having learned to undergo and endure each thing according to its nature, he was accustomed neither to yield in adversity nor to assent in prosperity to the flattery of false fortune. He advances into Spain: For while the nearly continuous and almost unbroken war with the Saxons was being waged, he stationed garrisons at suitable points along the borders and attacked Spain with the greatest military preparation he could muster; and having crossed the pass of the Pyrenees, with all the towns and castles he had approached having been received in surrender, he returned with his army safe and unharmed — except that in the very pass of the Pyrenees he happened to experience somewhat the perfidy of the Gascons on the return march. For while the army was marching extended in a long column, as the nature of the place and its narrow passes permitted, He suffers some loss from the Gascons: the Gascons, having set ambushes on the summit of the mountain (for the place is suitable for laying ambushes on account of the darkness of the forests, which are very abundant there), rushed down upon the rearmost part of the baggage train and those who, marching at the very end of the column, were protecting the front with their support, and cast them into the valley below; and having joined battle with them, they slew them all to the last man, and having plundered the baggage, under the protection of the approaching night, they scattered in various directions with the greatest speed. In this action the Gascons were aided by the lightness of their arms and the nature of the place where the affair was conducted. On the other hand, the heaviness of their arms and the unfavorableness of the terrain rendered the Franks in every respect unequal to the Gascons. In this battle Eghard, the Steward of the Royal Table, Anselm the Count Palatine, and Roland, Prefect of the Breton March, were killed together with many others. Nor could this deed be avenged at the time, because the enemy, after perpetrating the act, so dispersed that no rumor even remained of where in the world they might be sought.

[14] He also subdued the Bretons, who, residing in a certain furthest part of Gaul upon the shore of the Ocean toward the west, He subdues the Bretons: were not obedient to his commands; an expedition was sent against them, by which they were forced both to give hostages and to promise that they would do whatever was commanded. Afterward the King himself, having entered Italy with his army and passing through Rome, approached Capua, a city of Campania; and having pitched camp there, he threatened war upon the Beneventans unless they surrendered. The Duke of that people, Arichis, prevented this by sending his sons Romuldus and Grimoaldus to meet the King with a large sum of money; he begged the King to accept his sons as hostages, Then the Duke of Benevento: and promised that he and his people would do as commanded — with this sole exception: that he himself not be compelled to come into the King's presence. The King, considering the advantage of the nation more than the obstinacy of the Duke's mind, both accepted the hostages offered to him and granted him as a great favor that he not be compelled to come into his presence; and retaining the younger of his sons for the sake of hostage, he sent the elder back to his father. Having dispatched legates with Arichis to exact and receive oaths of fidelity from the Beneventans, he returned to Rome; and having spent some days there in the veneration of the holy places, he returned to Gaul.

[15] The Bavarian war then both arose suddenly and was brought to a swift end, which the pride and at the same time the negligence of Duke Tassilo had provoked; for he, at the urging of his wife, who was the daughter of King Desiderius and thought she could avenge her father's exile through her husband, having formed an alliance with the Huns, who are neighbors to the Bavarians on the east, Then Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, was attempting not only to refuse obedience to the King's commands but to provoke the King to war. The King's spirit could not endure his contumacy, because it seemed excessive, and therefore, having assembled forces from every quarter, he himself came to the river Lech with a very great army, intending to attack Bavaria. This river divides the Bavarians from the Alemanni; having pitched camp on its bank, before entering the province he resolved to test the mind of the Duke through legates. But the Duke, judging it useful neither for himself nor for his people to act stubbornly, submitted himself as a suppliant to the King; he gave the hostages that were demanded, among whom was also his own son Theodo; and furthermore pledging his faith with an oath that he should not assent to anyone counseling defection from the King's authority and protection. And so the swiftest end was imposed upon the war which seemed as though it would be the greatest. Tassilo was, however, afterward summoned to the King, and was not permitted to return, And he strips the rebel of his duchy: nor was the province which he held any longer entrusted to a Duke, but to Counts for its governance.

[16] When these disturbances were thus settled, war was brought upon the Slavs who by our custom are called Wilzi, but properly, that is, in their own language, are called Welatabi; in which war also the Saxons served as auxiliaries among the other nations who were commanded to follow the King's standards, although with feigned and less than devoted obedience. The cause of the war was that they were harassing the Abodrites, who had formerly been allied with the Franks, with constant raids, and could not be restrained by commands. He subjugates the Slavic Wilzi: A certain gulf stretches from the Western Ocean toward the east, of unknown length indeed, but of a width which nowhere exceeds a hundred thousand paces, while in many places it is found to be narrower. Many nations dwell around it: the Danes and Swedes, whom we call Northmen, hold both the northern shore and all the islands in it. But the southern shore is inhabited by Slavs and Aesti and other various nations, among whom the most prominent were the Welatabi, against whom war was then being waged by the King; whom he so crushed and subdued in a single expedition, which he conducted in person, that they judged it by no means possible to refuse obedience to his commands thereafter.

p. The Obodrites, or Abodrites, held the territory of Mecklenburg and Wagria. They are discussed in the life of S. Canute Lavard, Abodrites. their King, on 7 January. Charles gave them the trans-Elbian districts of the Saxons in the year 804, the Saxons having been transferred to Francia.

q. It is strange that this should be written by an otherwise careful author. The length was known even to more ancient writers, and the width in some places is 200,000 paces.

r. This signifies "Northern men."

s. This was a general name, and not of a single nation. For there were Slavs of Bohemia, Slavs Lini, Slavs Sorabi, Slavs Wilzi, Slavs, Slavs Suburbi, etc.

t. Aesti, Called by others Aesti, Haesti, or Estonians; some portion of the nation still retains the name. They formerly inhabited more widely what beyond the Vistula now seems to be contained in Prussia and Livonia.

CHAPTER IV.

The Avar, Bohemian, and Danish Wars. The boundaries of Charles's empire.

[17] The greatest of all the wars he waged, after the Saxon, succeeded this war — namely, the one undertaken against the Avars, or Huns — which he both conducted with greater spirit than the rest He conquers the Huns, and administered with far greater preparation. He undertook, however, only one expedition by himself into Pannonia, for that nation then inhabited this province; the rest he entrusted to be completed by his son Pepin and the Prefects of the provinces, and also to the Counts and legates. When these wars had been most vigorously administered by them, it was at length completed in the eighth year. How many battles were fought in it, The province rendered almost empty, how much blood was shed, is attested by Pannonia, empty of all inhabitants, and by the place where the royal seat of the Cagan was, so deserted that not even a trace of human habitation appears in it. In this war the whole nobility of the Huns perished; all their glory fell; all their wealth and treasures accumulated over a long time were plundered. His own people enriched. Nor can human memory recall any war waged against the Franks by which they were more enriched and increased in resources; since up to that time they had appeared nearly poor, so much gold and silver was found in the royal seat, so many precious spoils were taken in the battles, that it may rightly be believed that the Franks justly seized from the Huns what the Huns had previously unjustly seized from other nations. Only two of the chief men of the Franks perished in that war: Eric, Duke of Friuli, killed in Liburnia near the maritime city of Tarsatica by an ambush of the townspeople; and Gerhold, Prefect of Bavaria, killed in Pannonia while arraying his battle line for combat against the Huns — it is uncertain by whom — together with only two companions who were riding alongside him as he rode up and down exhorting each man. Otherwise this war was almost bloodless for the Franks and had a most prosperous outcome, although it was drawn out for some time on account of its magnitude. After which the Saxon war also received an end corresponding to its prolonged duration.

[18] He conquers the Bohemians; likewise the Hilinones. The Bohemian and Hilinian wars, which arose afterward, could not last long; both of them were completed with a swift end under the command of Charles the Younger. The last war to be undertaken was also that against the Northmen, who are called Danes, at first practicing piracy, then devastating the coasts of Gaul and Germany with a larger fleet. Their King Godefrid was so inflated with vain hope that he promised himself power over all of Germany. He also reckoned Frisia and Saxony as no different from his own provinces. Godefrid the Dane, breathing great things, is carried off by death. He had already reduced his neighbors the Abodrites to his dominion; he had already made them his tributaries. He even boasted that he would soon come to Aachen, where the King's court was, with the greatest forces. Nor was credence entirely refused to his words, however vain, but it was thought that he would attempt something of the kind, had he not been prevented by a premature death. For having been killed by one of his own attendants, he hastened the end both of his own life and of the war he had begun.

[19] These are the wars which the most powerful King waged in various parts of the world over forty-seven years (for he reigned that many years), Charles broadly extends the Frankish Empire. with the highest prudence and good fortune. By which he so nobly extended the Kingdom of the Franks, which he had received from his father Pepin great and strong indeed, that he nearly doubled it. For whereas previously no more belonged to the power of the Frankish kingdom than that part of Gaul which lies between the Rhine and the Loire and the Ocean and the Balearic Sea; and that part of Germany which is inhabited by the Franks called Eastern, situated between Saxony and the Danube and the Rhine and the river Saale, which divides the Thuringians and the Sorbs; and besides these the Alemanni and the Bavarians; he himself, through the wars enumerated, first acquired Aquitaine and Gascony and the whole ridge of the Pyrenean mountain, and as far as the river Ebro, which, rising among the Navarrese and cutting through the most fertile fields of Spain, mingles with the Balearic Sea beneath the walls of the city of Tortosa; then all of Italy, which stretches in length from Aosta all the way to lower Calabria, in which the borders of the Greeks and the Beneventans are known to be, for a thousand miles and more; then Saxony, which is indeed no small part of Germany and is thought to have twice the breadth of that which is inhabited by the Franks, while in length it may be comparable; after that, both Pannonias and Dacia, situated on the other bank of the Danube opposite them, and also Istria and Liburnia and Dalmatia, except for the maritime cities which, on account of friendship and the treaty joined with him, he permitted the Emperor of Constantinople to retain; then all the barbarous and fierce nations inhabiting Germany, situated between the rivers Rhine and Vistula and the Ocean and the Danube, nearly similar in language but very different in customs and dress — he so thoroughly subdued them as to make them tributary. Among these the most prominent are the Welatabi, Sorbs, Abodrites, and Bohemians; for with these he fought in war. The rest, of whom the number is far greater, he received in surrender.

b. In the year 791.

g. Others read "sua."

i.

Eginhard in his Annals for the year 808 connects the Hilinian war with the Danish war, of which he will treat presently: Hilinones. For when the King of Denmark had invaded the region of the Abodrites, Charles, the Emperor's son, joined the Elbe with a bridge and most swiftly transported the army which he commanded across to the Hilinones and Smeldingi, who had also defected to Godefrid; and having laid waste their fields all around and having crossed the river again, he withdrew into Saxony. And in the year 811, the King sent one army across the Elbe against the Hilinones, which also devastated them and restored on the bank of the river Elbe the castle of Huochbochus, which had been destroyed by the Wilzi the previous year. The same things are found in other Annals of the Franks, where, however, they are called Linones and Smeldingi; and that castle is called Hobuoki, Hoohoki, and Heobuoki, which Albert of Stade asserts to be Hamburg. Concerning the same peoples, the Saxon Poet in book 3:

"There are certain Slavs called by the surname Lini."

p. Others read "appositam" i.e., "placed next to" rather than "opposed to".

CHAPTER V.

Treaties with foreigners. Public works.

[20] He also increased the glory of his kingdom by conciliating certain Kings and nations to himself through friendship: for he so bound Alfonso, King of Galicia and Asturias, to himself by alliance Charles allied with the King of Galicia, that when he sent letters or legates to Charles, he would order himself to be called nothing other than Charles's "own man" in his presence. He so inclined the Kings of the Scots to his will through his munificence that they never called him otherwise than "Lord" and themselves his "subjects and servants." With the Kings of the Scots, There exist letters sent by them to him in which this kind of affection of theirs toward him is indicated. With the King of Persia, With Aaron, King of the Persians, who held almost the entire East except India, he had such concord in friendship that the Persian King preferred his favor to the friendship of all the Kings and Princes in the whole world, and judged him alone worthy of being honored and treated with munificence; and therefore, when Charles's legates, whom he had sent with gifts to the most sacred sepulchre and place of the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, came to him and indicated to him the will of their Lord, he not only permitted what was asked to be done, but also conceded that that sacred and salutary place should be ascribed to Charles's authority; and attaching his own envoys to the returning legates, among garments and spices and the other riches of the Eastern lands, he sent enormous gifts to Charles — since a few years before, when Charles had asked, he had sent him the elephant, which was the only one he then had. The Emperors of Constantinople also — Nicephorus, Michael, and Leo — voluntarily seeking his friendship and alliance, sent many legates to him: With the Byzantine Emperors: with whom, nevertheless, on account of the title of Emperor which he had assumed, and on this account being greatly suspected by them as one who wished to seize their empire, he established a most firm treaty, so that no occasion for any scandal would remain between the parties. For the power of the Franks was always suspect to the Romans and Greeks. Whence also that Greek proverb exists: "Have the Frank as your friend, but not as your neighbor."

[21] Although he was so great in extending the kingdom and subjugating foreign nations and was constantly occupied in such undertakings, he nevertheless began many works pertaining to the adornment and convenience of the kingdom in various places, and even completed some of them. He builds the temple at Aachen, Among these the most notable can not undeservedly seem to be the basilica of the holy Mother of God at Aachen, constructed with wondrous workmanship; and the bridge over the Rhine at Mainz, five hundred paces in length (for such is the width of the river there), which, however, was consumed by fire one year before his death The bridge at Mainz, and could not be rebuilt on account of his hastened decease, although he had it in mind to restore it in stone instead of wood. He also began palaces of excellent workmanship, Palaces, one not far from the city of Mainz near the villa whose name is Ingelheim; another at Nijmegen on the river Waal, which flows past the island of the Batavians on the southern side. Especially, however, he commanded the Bishops and Abbots, to whose care they pertained, to restore the sacred buildings wherever in his whole kingdom he found them collapsed from age, taking care that they carry out what was commanded.

[22] He also undertook to build a fleet against the Northmen, having ships constructed for this purpose near the rivers He equips fleets. which from Gaul and Germany flow into the Northern Ocean; and since the Northmen were devastating the Gallic and German shores with constant raiding, he prevented the enemy from being able to sail out by stationing garrisons and watches at all the ports and mouths of rivers where ships seemed able to be received, with such fortification. He did the same on the southern side along the coast of the province of Narbonne and Septimania, and also along the whole coast of Italy as far as Rome, against the Moors who had recently begun to practice piracy; and on this account no serious damage was suffered in his days either by Italy from the Moors or by Gaul and Germany from the Northmen — except that the city of Civitavecchia in Etruria was captured and devastated by the Moors through treachery, and in Frisia certain islands adjacent to the German shore were plundered by the Northmen. Such was he known to have been in protecting and extending and at the same time adorning the kingdom. The endowments of his mind, and his supreme constancy in whatever event, whether prosperous or adverse, and the other things pertaining to his inner and domestic life, I shall begin to tell from this point.

d. In the year 802.

CHAPTER VI.

The wives and children of Charles.

[23] After the death of his father, having divided the kingdom with his brother, he bore his jealousies and envy with such patience that it seemed wonderful to all that he could not even be provoked to anger by him. Then, when at his mother's urging he had married the daughter of Desiderius, King of the Lombards, after a year he repudiated her for an uncertain reason, and took in marriage Hildegard, a woman of the most distinguished nobility from the Swabian nation: The three wives of Charles, by whom he begot three sons — namely Charles, Pepin, and Louis — and as many daughters: Rotrudis, Bertha, and Gisela. He also had three other daughters: Theodrada, Hiltrude, and Rothaid — two by his wife Fastrada, who was of the nation of the Eastern Franks, From these a manifold offspring; namely the Germans; and the third by a certain concubine whose name does not come to memory at the moment. After Fastrada's death, he married Liutgard the Alemannian, by whom he had no children. After her death he had four concubines: Concubines, namely Mathalgard, who bore him a daughter named Rothild; Gerswind, of Saxon lineage, by whom a daughter named Adeltrudis was born to him; and Regina, Their children. who bore him Drogo and Hugo; and Adelaide, by whom he fathered Theoderic. His mother Bertrada grew old in great honor at his court. For he honored her with the highest reverence, so that no discord ever arose between them, He honors his mother, except over the divorce from the daughter of King Desiderius, whom he had married at her persuasion. She died at length after the death of Hildegard, having already seen in her son's house three grandsons and as many granddaughters; he had her buried with great honor in the same basilica in which his father was laid at Saint-Denis. He had an only sister, named Gisela, from her girlhood dedicated to the religious life, And his sister Gisela. whom he likewise honored with great piety, as he did his mother; who also died a few years before his death in the monastery in which she had lived.

[24] He determined that his children should be so educated that both sons and daughters should first be trained in the liberal studies, to which he himself also devoted his attention. Then the sons, How he educated his children; as soon as their age permitted, he caused to be exercised in riding, arms, and hunting, after the manner of the Franks; and he commanded the daughters to accustom themselves to wool-working and to devote themselves to the distaff and spindle, lest they grow torpid through idleness, and to be trained in all propriety. Of all these he lost only two sons and one daughter before his death: Charles, who was the elder-born, and Pepin, whom he had set over Italy as King, and Rotrudis, who was the firstborn of his daughters Generous to his grandchildren; and had been betrothed to Constantine, Emperor of the Greeks. Of these, Pepin left surviving one son of his, Bernard, and five daughters: Adelaide, Atala, Gundrada, Bertaid, and Theodrada. In these the King showed the special proof of his piety, when upon the death of the son he caused the grandson to succeed the father and the granddaughters to be raised among his own daughters. The deaths of his sons and daughter he bore less patiently than the greatness of soul for which he was distinguished, He weeps at the deaths of his own, and of Pope Hadrian, being driven to tears by the piety for which he was no less notable. When the death of Pope Hadrian was also reported to him — whom he considered a special friend — he wept as if he had lost a brother or a most dear son. For he was most excellently disposed in friendships, Tenacious of friendships. so that he both easily admitted them and most constantly retained them; and he most sacredly honored all whom he had joined to himself by this bond.

[25] He had such care in the education of his sons and daughters that he never dined at home without them when he was at home, He keeps his children with him, and never traveled without them: his sons rode alongside him, and his daughters followed behind, and a number of his bodyguards assigned for this purpose protected the rear of their train. Although they were most beautiful and most dearly loved by him, it is a wonder to tell that he was willing to give none of them in marriage to anyone, whether of his own people or of foreigners, but kept them all with him in his own household until his death, saying that he could not bear to be without their company; and on this account, Daughters unmarried. although otherwise fortunate, he experienced the malignity of adverse fortune — which he nevertheless so dissembled as if no suspicion of any disgrace had ever arisen or any rumor been spread concerning them.

p. Blessed Hugo, Abbot. Hugo was educated by Abbot Frodoin of Novalesa and was himself Abbot after him, renowned after death for sanctity and miracles, as we shall say on 13 June.

q. Bertha, mother. Others read Adallindam, Alyndem, Adallindem.

r. Elsewhere she is called Bertha, Bertrane, Bertane. She died in the year 783.

s. Gisela, sister. Certain learned men believe she is the same person who is called Itisberga and who is honored on 21 May.

t. Du Chesne and others read "Grandchildren." We have followed the MSS.

v. Sons, Kings. Charles the Younger died on 4 December 811; Pepin, King of Italy, on 8 July 810.

x. Bernard, grandson. With the very strong Count Wala being added to him for the time being, because it was feared that the Saracens might invade Italy. But Bernard rebelled against his uncle Louis the Pious in the year 817, and was afterward deprived of his eyes by him.

y. Hadrian died in the year 795, on 26 December, having sat for nearly 24 years.

z. Others read "among friends."

aa. But they say that Bertha had long since before Charles's death been married to S. Angilbert.

bb. What that was is indicated by the author of the Life of Louis the Pious, though obscurely: "His spirit had long been disturbed," he says, "although by nature most mild, by that which was practiced by his sisters in the paternal household: by which alone the paternal house was branded with a blemish. Wishing to cure this mischief, and at the same time guarding lest the scandal which had once occurred through Odilo and Hiltrude should revive," etc. What this scandal was is clear from the Chronicle of Fredegar: "Chiltrude," he says, "his (Charles Martel's) daughter, with the favor of the nefarious counsel of her stepmother, fraudulently crossed the Rhine through the hands of her companions and came to Duke Odilo of Bavaria. He then took her in marriage against the will or counsel of her brothers." But Eginhard here rightly wonders at, and tacitly reproaches, the policy of Charles, who did not give his daughters in marriage — which would that other Princes would not imitate, Children are not to be forced to celibacy. who compel their sons, brothers, daughters, and sisters either unwillingly to embrace the ecclesiastical state or to remain celibate, with the danger and scandal of very many sins, fearing lest they be compelled to share with them some portion of the paternal inheritance: thus what Christ Himself only counsels — a life devoted to chastity and holiness — they dare to prescribe contrary to all right.

CHAPTER VII.

The moral virtues of Charles and his manner of living.

[26] He had a son named Pepin, born of a concubine, of whom I deferred mentioning among the rest — handsome of face indeed, but deformed by a hump. When his father, having undertaken the war against the Huns, was wintering in Bavaria, Punishment of a rebellious son: he, feigning illness, conspired against his father with certain chief men of the Franks who had enticed him with the vain promise of a kingdom; whom, after the fraud was detected and the conspirators condemned, he permitted to be tonsured and to devote himself, now willingly, to the religious life in the monastery of Prum. There was also another powerful conspiracy against him earlier in Germany, whose authors were partly blinded, partly left with their limbs unharmed, Clemency toward other conspirators: but all were driven into exile; nor was any of them killed, except only three who, when they defended themselves with drawn swords to avoid capture and had even killed some people, were slain because they could not otherwise be restrained. The cruelty of Queen Fastrada is believed to have been the cause and origin of these conspiracies. And for this reason the conspiracy against the King was formed in both cases, because by consenting to the cruelty of his wife, he seemed to have monstrously departed from the benignity of his nature and his customary mildness. Otherwise, throughout the whole time of his life, he conducted himself both at home and abroad with such great love and favor of all that the slightest reproach of unjust severity was never cast upon him by anyone. He loved foreigners, Benignity toward foreigners: and took great care in receiving them — to such an extent that their multitude seemed to be a burden not undeservedly not only to the palace but even to the kingdom; he himself, however, on account of the greatness of his spirit, was by no means weighed down by a burden of this kind, since he compensated even enormous inconveniences with the praise of liberality and the reward of good reputation.

[27] His stature and appearance: He was ample and robust of body, of eminent stature, which however did not exceed a just measure; for his height is known to have measured seven of his own feet. His head was round at the crown, his eyes very large and lively, his nose exceeding the average slightly, his gray hair handsome, his face cheerful and merry; whence great authority and dignity of appearance were acquired both when standing and when seated. Although his neck might seem rather thick and short and his belly rather prominent, nevertheless the proportion of the other members concealed these things. His gait was firm and the whole bearing of his body manly; his voice was clear indeed, but less befitting his bodily form. His health was prosperous, except that for four years before his death he was frequently seized by fevers, and at last even limped on one foot; and then indeed he did more things at his own discretion than by the advice of physicians — whom he held almost in hatred because they advised him to give up roasted meats, to which he was accustomed, and to accustom himself to boiled ones.

[28] Zeal for hunting, He was constantly exercised in riding and hunting, which was native to his nation, since scarcely any nation can be found in the world which can equal the Franks in this skill. He also took delight in the vapors of naturally hot waters, frequently exercising his body by swimming, in which he was so skilled Swimming, that no one could rightly be preferred to him. On this account also he built a royal residence at Aachen and dwelt there perpetually in the last years of his life until his death; and he invited to the baths not only his sons but also nobles and friends, and sometimes even the throng of his attendants and guards, Baths: so that sometimes a hundred or more men bathed together. He wore the native dress, that is, Frankish: on his body he put a linen shirt and linen drawers; then a tunic which was bordered with a silk band, and stockings; Dress: then he bound his legs with wrappings and his feet with shoes; and with a breastplate made of otter skins he protected his shoulders and breast in winter. He was clad in a blue cloak and was always girded with a sword, whose hilt and belt were either of gold or silver; sometimes he also used a jeweled sword, which, however, he only did on special feast days or whenever legates of foreign nations came. But foreign garments, however beautiful, he rejected and never suffered himself to be dressed in them — except that at Rome once at the request of Pope Hadrian, and again at the entreaty of his successor Leo, he was clothed in a long tunic and mantle, and shoes fashioned in the Roman manner. On feast days he walked adorned in a garment woven with gold, gem-encrusted shoes, a golden brooch fastening his cloak, and a diadem ornamented with gold and gems; but on other days his dress differed little from common and plebeian attire.

[29] Sobriety: In drink and food he was temperate, but more temperate in drink, since he greatly abominated drunkenness in any man, let alone in himself and his own household. Indeed he could not so well abstain from food, so that he often complained that fasting was harmful to his body. He gave banquets very rarely, and only on the principal feast days, and then nevertheless with a great number of people. His daily supper was provided with only four courses, Food: besides the roast which the huntsmen were accustomed to bring in on spits, and which he ate more willingly than any other food. While dining he listened either to some entertainment or to a reader. The histories and the deeds of ancient Kings were read to him. Reading at mealtimes: He also took delight in the books of S. Augustine, and especially in those entitled On the City of God. He was so sparing in drinking wine and all beverages that he rarely drank more than three times during supper. In summer, after the midday meal, taking some fruit and drinking once, Midday rest, he would remove his clothes and shoes, as he was accustomed to do at night, and rest for two or three hours. At night he slept in such a way At night: that he interrupted his sleep four or five times, not merely by waking but also by rising. When he was being shod and dressed, he not only admitted his friends, but even if the Count of the Palace said there was some lawsuit which could not be settled without his order, he would immediately command the litigants to be brought in and, as if sitting on the tribunal, would hear the case and pronounce judgment. And not only this at that time, but he also dispatched whatever business of any kind had to be done on that day, or whatever had to be assigned to any of his ministers.

[30] He was copious and overflowing in eloquence, and could express whatever he wished most clearly. Eloquence: Not content with his native tongue alone, he also devoted his efforts to learning foreign languages; among which he so learned Latin that he was accustomed to pray in it equally as in his native tongue; but Greek he could understand better than he could pronounce it. He was indeed so fluent that he even appeared to be a teacher. He cultivated the liberal arts most zealously, and venerating their teachers greatly, he honored them with great distinctions. In learning Grammar he attended the lectures of Peter the Deacon, an old man of Pisa; Teachers. in the other disciplines he had as his teacher Albinus, surnamed Alcuin, likewise a Deacon, from Britain, a man of Saxon race, a man most learned in all things, under whom he spent a great deal of both time and labor in learning Rhetoric and Dialectic, but especially Astronomy. He also studied the art of computation and with keen attention most curiously investigated the courses of the stars. He also attempted to write, and for this purpose was accustomed to carry tablets and little books under the pillows of his bed, so that when he had free time he might accustom his hand to forming letters. But this labor, begun too late and in reverse order, succeeded rather poorly.

CHAPTER VIII.

Zeal for religion. Decrees.

[31] The Christian religion, with which he had been imbued from infancy, he cultivated most sacredly and with the highest piety and veneration; and for this reason he erected a basilica of the greatest beauty at Aachen, The basilica of Aachen, an illustrious work: and adorned it with gold and silver and lights, and with railings and doors of solid bronze. Since he could not obtain columns and marble for its construction from elsewhere, he had them brought from Rome and Ravenna. He diligently frequented the church morning and evening, and likewise during the night hours and at the time of the sacrifice, as long as his health permitted; and he took the greatest care that all things which were done in it should be performed with the utmost propriety, most frequently admonishing the sacristans not to allow anything unseemly or sordid to be brought into or to remain in it. Sacred vessels and vestments maintained. He procured such a great supply of sacred vessels of silver and gold, and of priestly vestments, that in the celebration of the sacrifice not even the doorkeepers, who are the lowest of the ecclesiastical order, had need to minister in private garb. He most diligently corrected the discipline of reading and chanting, for he was highly accomplished in both, although he did not himself read publicly, nor sing except softly and in the common chant.

[32] In the sustaining of the poor and in gratuitous liberality, which the Greeks call almsgiving, he was most devout, Poor, even abroad, were aided: in that he took care to bestow it not only in his own country and in his own kingdom, but across the seas in Syria and Egypt and Africa — at Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Carthage — where he had learned that Christians were living in poverty, he was accustomed to send money in compassion for their need. Why treaties were struck with the infidels: It was chiefly for this reason that he sought the friendships of the kings across the sea, so that some refreshment and relief might come to the Christians living under their dominion.

[33] He honored above all the sacred and venerable places the Church of Blessed Peter the Apostle in Rome, into whose treasury a great quantity of money, in gold as well as silver, and also gems, was heaped up by him; many and innumerable gifts were sent to the Pontiffs. Nor during the whole time of his reign did he count anything more important than that the city of Rome should flourish in its ancient authority through his effort and his labor, The Roman Church defended: and that the Church of S. Peter should not only be safe and defended through him, but should also be adorned and enriched by his resources above all other Churches. Although he held it in such esteem, nevertheless within the space of the forty-seven years during which he reigned, Pilgrimages. he set out thither only four times for the sake of fulfilling vows and of praying. The causes of his last visit were not only these, but also the fact that the Romans, having inflicted many injuries upon Pope Leo — namely, having torn out his eyes and cut off his tongue — compelled him to implore the faith of the King. Therefore, coming to Rome to restore the state of the Church, which had been greatly disturbed, The Empire, unwillingly offered: he prolonged his stay there for the whole winter season. At which time he received the name of Emperor and Augustus — which he at first so spurned that he affirmed he would not have entered the church on that day, although it was a principal feast, if he could have foreseen the plan of the Pontiff. The indignation of the Emperors of Constantinople over this he bore with great patience, and overcame their envy by magnanimity, in which he was without doubt far superior to them, by sending frequent embassies to them and in his letters calling them brothers.

[34] After assuming the Imperial name, when he perceived that many things were lacking in the laws of his people (for the Franks have two sets of laws, in very many places quite different), he planned to add what was missing, to unite what was discordant, and to correct what was wrongly and erroneously set forth. But in these matters nothing else was done by him except that he added a few chapters, and those incomplete, to the laws. Laws corrected. He did, however, cause the laws of all the nations under his dominion which were not written to be described and committed to writing. Likewise he wrote down and committed to memory the barbarous and most ancient songs in which the deeds and wars of ancient Kings were sung. He also began a grammar Writings, of his native tongue. He also gave names to the months according to the native language, since before that time among the Franks they were designated partly by Latin, partly by barbarous names. Names given to the months and winds. Likewise he designated the twelve winds by their own names, since previously scarcely the names of four winds could be found. And of the months indeed, he called January "Wintarmanot," February "Hornung," March "Lentzmanot," April "Ostarmanot," May "Winnemanot," June "Brachmanot," July "Hewimanot," August "Aranmanot," September "Herbstmanot," October "Winmanot," November "Windtmanot," and December "Heilagmanot." And to the winds he gave names in this manner: the east wind he called "Ostroni," the southeast "Ostsundroni," the south-southeast "Sundostroni," the south wind "Sundroni," the south-southwest "Sundwestroni," the west-southwest "Westsundroni," the west wind "Westroni," the west-northwest "Westnordroni," the north-northwest "Nordwestroni," the north wind "Nordroni," the north-northeast "Nordostroni," and the east-northeast "Ostnordroni."

CHAPTER IX.

Illness, death, burial.

[35] In the last period of his life, when he was now pressed by both illness and old age, he summoned to himself his son Louis, King of Aquitaine, who alone survived of the sons of Hildegard; He creates his son Emperor. and having solemnly assembled the chief men of the Franks from the whole kingdom, by the counsel of all he established him as his partner in the whole kingdom and heir to the Imperial name; and having placed the diadem upon his head, he commanded him to be called Emperor and Augustus. This decision of his was received by all who were present with great favor, for it seemed to them to have been divinely inspired for the welfare of the kingdom. This act increased his majesty and struck no small terror into the foreign nations.

[36] Having then dismissed his son to Aquitaine, he himself, although worn out by old age, set out to hunt not far from the royal residence at Aachen, as was his custom; and having spent in this kind of business what remained of autumn, he returned to Aachen about the Kalends of November. And while wintering there, in the month of January he was seized by a violent fever and took to his bed. Immediately, as was his habit in fevers, he prescribed for himself abstinence from food, believing that by this restraint the disease could be dispelled He suffers from fever and pleurisy: or at least mitigated. But when to the fever was added a pain of the side, which the Greeks call pleurisy, and he still maintained his fast, sustaining his body by nothing other than a very infrequent drink, on the seventh day after he took to his bed, having received the sacred communion, he died He receives communion: in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh from when he had begun to reign, on the fifth day before the Kalends of February, at the third hour of the day. His body, washed and attended to in the solemn manner, He dies was carried into the church and buried amid the greatest mourning of the whole people. There was doubt at first where he should be laid, since he himself had given no instructions about this while alive; at length it entered the minds of all that he could nowhere be more honorably entombed than in the basilica which he himself had built at his own expense in the same town for the love of God our Lord Jesus Christ and for the honor of the holy and eternal Virgin His Mother. He is buried at Aachen. In this he was buried on the same day on which he died; and a gilded arch was erected over the tomb with his image and inscription, and the inscription was written in this manner: His epitaph. BENEATH THIS TOMB LIES THE BODY OF CHARLES, THE GREAT AND ORTHODOX EMPEROR, WHO NOBLY EXTENDED THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS AND HAPPILY RULED FOR FORTY-SEVEN YEARS. HE DIED AT SEVENTY YEARS OF AGE, IN THE YEAR FROM THE INCARNATION OF THE LORD 814, THE SEVENTH INDICTION, ON THE FIFTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF FEBRUARY.

[37] Of the approaching end there were many presages, so that not only others but he himself perceived that it was threatening. Presages of death; During the last three years of his life there were very frequent eclipses of the sun and the moon, and a certain spot of dark color was seen in the sun for the space of seven days. The portico, Eclipses, which he had constructed with laborious mass between the basilica and the royal palace, The portico collapses, collapsed in sudden ruin down to its foundations on the day of the Lord's Ascension. Likewise the bridge over the Rhine at Mainz, which he himself had built of wood over ten years with immense labor and wonderful workmanship, so that it seemed as though it could last forever, The bridge burned, was so consumed by accidental fire in three hours that, besides what was covered by water, not a single splinter of it remained. He himself also, when he was conducting his last expedition against Godefrid, King of the Danes, in Saxony, on a certain day when he had set out from camp before sunrise and begun his march, suddenly saw a torch fallen from heaven crossing A heavenly torch, through the clear sky with immense light from right to left; and while all were wondering what this sign might portend, the horse on which he sat suddenly plunged its head downward and fell, and dashed him to the ground so violently The horse's fall, that the clasp of his cloak was broken and the belt of his sword scattered, and he was lifted up by his servants who hurried to him, disarmed and without support. The javelin also, which he happened to be holding in his hand at the time, slipped from his grasp and lay at a distance of twenty or more feet. In addition to this there was the frequent tremor of the palace at Aachen, Tremor of the palace. and the constant creaking of the ceilings in the rooms where he lived. The basilica also in which he was afterward buried was struck by lightning, and the golden apple with which the summit of the roof was ornamented was shattered by a thunderbolt and thrown upon the house of the Bishop, which was adjacent to the basilica. In the same basilica, on the edge of the cornice which ran around the interior of the building between the upper and lower arches, there was an inscription written in red ochre, containing the name of the author of the same temple, His name effaced. in the last verse of which was read "CHARLES THE PRINCE." It was noted by some that in the same year in which he died, a few months before his death, those letters which expressed "PRINCE" had been so effaced as to be completely invisible. But all the above he either dissembled or disregarded, as if none of these things pertained to his affairs in any way.

d. In the year 810.

CHAPTER X.

The Testament of Charlemagne.

[38] He established testaments by which he would make his daughters and his children by concubines his heirs in some part; He makes a testament, but having been begun late, they could not be completed. However, in the presence of his friends and ministers, he made a division of his treasures and money and garments and other furnishings three years before his death, calling them to witness that the distribution he had made should remain ratified after his death by their endorsement; and he set forth in a summary what he wished to be done with the things he had divided, the plan and text of which is as follows:

[39] In the name of the Lord God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Of which this is a copy. Here begins the description and division which was made by the most glorious and most pious Lord Charles, Emperor Augustus, in the year from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 811, the forty-third year of his reign in Francia and the thirty-sixth in Italy, and the eleventh of his Empire, in the fourth Indiction; which he decreed to make with pious and prudent consideration, and with the Lord's consent accomplished, of his treasures and money which were found in his treasury on that day. In this he especially wished to take care that not only the distribution of alms, which among Christians is solemnly made from their possessions, should be carried out for him also from his own money in due order and reason; but also that his heirs, with all ambiguity removed, might clearly know what ought to pertain to them, and without dispute and contention might be able to divide their shares among themselves in a fitting partition.

[40] With this intention and purpose, therefore, he first divided all his goods and substance, in gold as well as in silver, gems, and royal ornament, which, as was said, could be found in his treasury on that day, into three parts; then by subdividing those same parts, from two parts he made twenty-one portions, Two-thirds of the private treasure he bequeaths to the Churches: and reserved the third intact. And the division of the two parts into twenty-one portions stands on the following plan: since there are known to be twenty-one metropolitan cities in his kingdom, each of those portions should reach each metropolis through the hands of his heirs and friends in the name of almsgiving; and the Archbishop who at that time was the ruler of that Church, receiving the portion given to his Church, should share it with his Suffragans — in the manner, namely, that a third part should belong to his own Church, and the remaining two parts should be divided among the Suffragans. Of these divisions, which were made from the first two parts and are known to be twenty-one in number according to the number of the metropolitan cities, each one was set apart from the others and lay stored separately in its own repository with the inscription of the city to which it was to be conveyed. The names of the metropolitan cities to which the same alms or donation were given are these: Rome, Ravenna, Milan, Friuli, Grado, Cologne, Mainz, Salzburg (also called Juvavum), Rouen, Trier, Sens, Besancon, Lyon, Rheims, Arles, Vienne, Tarantaise, Embrun, Bordeaux, Tours, and Bourges.

[41] Of the one part, however, which he wished to be kept intact, the plan is this: that when those two had been distributed into the aforesaid divisions and stored under seal, this third should be in daily use, as a thing which no obligation of a vow was known to have alienated from the ownership of its possessor; and this for as long as he himself should survive or should judge its use necessary for himself; but after his death or voluntary abdication of worldly affairs, the same portion should be cut into four subdivisions: and the first of these should be added to the aforesaid twenty-one portions; For the children, the second should be taken up by his sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters and should be divided among them in a just and reasonable partition; the third, in the customary manner of Christianity, should be distributed for the use of the poor; the fourth should likewise in the name of almsgiving be distributed for the support of the servants and handmaidens serving in the uses of the palace. He provides for the poor and for servants. To this third portion of the whole sum, which likewise consists of gold and silver, he wished to have added all vessels and utensils of bronze and iron and other metals, together with arms and garments and other furnishings, whether precious or of little value, made for various uses — such as curtains, coverlets, tapestries, felts, leather goods, saddles, and whatever should be found on that day in his treasury and wardrobe — so that from this the divisions of that portion might be made larger, and the distribution of alms might reach more people.

[42] He forbids the furnishings of the chapel to be dispersed. The chapel — that is, the ecclesiastical ministry — both that which he himself had made and assembled and that which had come to him from his paternal inheritance, he ordained to be kept intact and not torn apart by any division. If, however, any vessels or books or other ornaments should be found which it was clearly established had not been bestowed by him upon the same chapel, whoever wished to have these might buy and keep them at a price of just estimate. Likewise concerning the books, He allows the library to be sold: of which he had assembled a great supply in his library, he established that they should be redeemed at a just price by those who wished to have them, and the price should be distributed to the poor.

[43] Among the rest of his treasures and money it is known that there are three silver tables and one golden table of extraordinary size and weight; concerning which he established and decreed that one of them, which is square in form and contains a representation of the city of Constantinople, He sends a silver table to Rome, should, among the other gifts designated for this purpose, be conveyed to Rome to the basilica of Blessed Peter the Apostle; and the second, which is round in form and adorned with a likeness of the city of Rome, should be given to the Bishop of the Church of Ravenna; the third, Another to Ravenna; which far surpasses the others both in the beauty of its workmanship and in the weight of its mass, which, composed of three connected circles, encompasses a representation of the whole world in subtle and minute depiction, Another, and one golden table, he gives to the poor. and the golden table which was said to be the fourth, he decreed should be added to the increase of that third portion which was to be divided among his heirs and into almsgiving.

[44] This ordinance and arrangement he made and established in the presence of the Bishops, Abbots, and Counts Who subscribed. who were then able to be present, whose names are written here. Bishops: Hildebald, Richulf, Arn, Wolfarius, Bernoinus, Laidrad, John, Theodulf, Jesse, Hetto, Waltgaud. Abbots: Fridugis, Adalung, Engelbert, Irmino. Counts: Walach, Meginher, Othulf, Stephen, Unroch, Burchard, Meginhard, Hatto, Richwin, Eddo, Erchangar, Gerholt, Bero, Hildegern, Rheculf. All these things his son Louis, who succeeded him by divine command, having inspected the same document, took care to fulfill with the greatest devotion as quickly as possible after his death.

p. The MS. of Paderborn reads Fridegisus. He was Abbot of Sithiu, or of S. Bertin.

q. This man was Abbot of S. Vaast at Arras.

r. Paul Petau, in his Syntagma appended to the History of Nithard, and others consider this to be S. Angilbert, the son-in-law of Charles. We shall treat of him on 18 February.

s. Wala, or Walah, Count, was the son of Bernard, brother of King Pepin; later Abbot of Corbie after S. Adalard, his brother, as we said in the latter's Life on 2 January.

t. Others read Odulfus, Otholfus, Onulfus.

v. Others read Wruocus and Vuruchus.

x. Burchard, Count of the Stables, defended Corsica against the Moors in the year 807 and inflicted a sufficiently fitting defeat upon them.

y. Others read Richwingus. He was sent by Louis to Leo the Armenian in the year 814.

z. Others read Geroldus and Geraldus. He is a different person from the one mentioned above, the Prefect of the Avar frontier.

aa. Others read Hildigarius.

bb. Du Chesne reads Riculfus.

ON THE TRANSLATION OF S. CHARLES THE EMPEROR.

Charles the Great, Emperor, at Aachen in Belgian Gaul (S.)

Year of Christ 1165. 27 July. 29 December.

[1] The memory of S. Charles is celebrated in the Martyrologies on the sixth day before the Kalends of August, on which day his relics were elevated and translated. The Cologne Martyrology: "On the same day, the Translation of Blessed Charles the Great, Emperor and Confessor, at Aachen." The Carthusians of Cologne and Molanus in his additions to Usuard also mention it, The Translation of S. Charles. as do Canisius and Saussay. The MS. Florarium expresses the date: "At Aachen, the Translation of S. Charles the Great, Emperor, made under the Emperor Frederick, the first of that name, and Pope Alexander, the third of that name, in the year of salvation 1163." But Guido of Crema, styled Paschal, had not yet succeeded the Antipope Octavian by that year; by whose authority that Translation is said to have been made, in the year 1165.

[2] There exists concerning that Translation and canonization a diploma of Frederick I, called Barbarossa, Concerning it, the diploma of Frederick I. or Redbeard, which we give from the Aachen of Peter Beka and the Belgian Calendar of Aubert Miraeus. To this we append the miracles from the Life which we said above was written at that very time and was divided into three sections and sixty chapters. Moreover, since Frederick attests that the body of S. Charles was elevated by the authority of the Antipope Paschal, it is surprising that in John Chapeaville, volume 2 on the Bishops of Liege, as if from the great Belgian Chronicle (which we do not find to contain this), it is said to have been done by the will and command of Pope Alexander — unless perhaps Alexander later ratified it when Frederick was received back into his grace in the year 1177. It reads thus: "In the second year of the episcopate of this Alexander (Bishop of Liege), namely in the year of the Lord 1166, by the will and command of Pope Alexander and all the Cardinals, on the fourth day before the Kalends of January, in the presence of the Emperor Frederick and many Prelates, at Aachen the bones of Charles the Great, Emperor, were elevated from the place where they had rested for 352 years, with great reverence, and honorably placed in a silver reliquary by Rainald, Archbishop of Cologne, and Alexander, Bishop of Liege, with many offerings which the Emperor and Empress and others presented; where Charles was also canonized and called a holy Confessor."

[3] The head of S. Charles was translated to Osnabruck, as was said above from Saussay. The head of S. Charles at Osnabruck. Concerning it, Werner Rolevinck in his book On the Customs of Westphalia, part 3, chapter 8: "After him," he says, "the glorious Emperor S. Charles, our Apostle, who fully converted this land to the faith. His head is honorably venerated at Osnabruck, together with SS. Crispin and Crispinian and many other relics."

DIPLOMA OF THE EMPEROR FREDERICK I.

On the elevation and canonization of S. Charles.

Charles the Great, Emperor, at Aachen in Belgian Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 1604

From the diploma of Frederick I.

Section I. The body of S. Charles elevated.

[1] In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Frederick, by the favor of divine clemency, Emperor of the Romans, ever Augustus. From the time when, by the ordaining divine clemency, we first received the heights of the Roman Empire to govern, the supreme desire of our will and purpose has been To be imitated by Kings, that we should follow the Kings and Emperors who preceded us, and especially the greatest and most glorious Emperor Charles, as a model of living and ruling our subjects, and in following him should always keep him before our eyes; and that in imitation of him we should preserve throughout our whole Empire the right of the Churches, the unimpaired state of the Commonwealth, and the integrity of the laws.

[2] For he himself, aspiring with the whole intention of his heart toward the rewards of eternal life, to spread the glory of the Christian name and to propagate the worship of the divine religion — The excellent virtues of Charlemagne, how many bishoprics he established, how many abbeys, how many churches he erected from the foundations, with how many estates and benefices he enriched them, with how great a generosity of almsgiving he shone not only in the lands on this side of the sea but also in the lands beyond the sea — his very works and the volumes of his deeds, which are very many and very great, more fully declare with the testimony of eyewitness faith. In extending the faith of Christ also, and in the conversion of the barbarian nation, he was a strong athlete and a true Apostle: as Saxony and Frisia and Westphalia bear witness, and the Spaniards also and the Wends, whom he converted to the Catholic faith by word and by sword. Although the sword did not pass through his own soul, Especially zeal for souls: nevertheless the tribulation of various sufferings and dangerous contests and the daily willingness to die for the conversion of unbelievers made him a Martyr. But now we confess and venerate him on earth as an elect and most holy Confessor, whom we believe to have lived in holy conduct and to have departed to the Lord in pure confession and true penance, and to have been crowned in heaven as a holy and true Confessor among the holy Confessors.

[3] Hence it is that we, confidently encouraged by the glorious deeds and merits of the most holy Emperor Charles, and induced by the earnest petition of our most dear friend Henry, King of England, with the assent and authority of the Lord Paschal, His body elevated under Frederick I. and by the counsel of all the Princes, both secular and ecclesiastical, for the elevation and exaltation of his most holy body and for his canonization, we celebrated a solemn court at Christmas at Aachen; where his most holy body, cautiously hidden for fear of a foreign enemy or a domestic foe, but manifested by divine revelation, to the praise and glory of the name of Christ and to the strengthening of the Roman Empire and the welfare of our beloved consort the Empress Beatrice and our sons Frederick and Henry, with a great assembly of Princes and a copious multitude of Clergy and people, in hymns and spiritual canticles with fear and reverence, we elevated and exalted on the fourth day before the Kalends of January.

[4] When all these things had been gloriously accomplished, and at the aforesaid place, of which he himself had been the founder, By whom the privilege of S. Charles concerning the Church of Aachen was renewed. we were diligently inquiring about the liberty of that place, about the institutions of laws and peace and justice by which he had ruled the whole world, behold the Brethren of that same Church brought forth to us a privilege of S. Charles concerning the foundation and dedication of that most noble Church, and concerning the institutions of human laws and the civil law of that same city, which, lest antiquity should efface it or it should perish through forgetfulness, we renewed by our Imperial authority. The tenor and establishment of that same privilege is as follows.

[6] Now, Fathers, brothers, and friends, supporters and helpers of the glory of our kingdom: concerning all the statutes of my father Pepin, which you have requested to be confirmed and renewed for the advantage and honor of Holy Church, and which you have sought to be established for the defense of secular affairs and laws — I have diminished or refused nothing, but have enlarged everything for the better; I have acquiesced in the sound counsels of all, and have been in your midst as one of those seeking and requesting the equity of the law, contradicting or resisting no one in any worthy and righteous petition. Therefore I was willing to comply with your decree and petition; I heard you as Fathers and brothers. Now I ask that you be willing to become not only hearers of my petition and intention, but also benevolent doers. Nor do I seek anything that is unseemly or intolerable, but what all of Gaul and all Princes ought rather to grant The baths of Granus discovered and restored by Charles. than to deny. You know how I came to the place which takes its name of Aachen from the fitting together of hot waters, entering in the customary manner for the purpose of hunting, but separated from my companions by the intricacy of the forests and the confusion of the roads; I found hot springs and palaces there, which Granus, one of the Roman Princes, brother of Nero and Agrippa, had originally constructed. These, long deserted and demolished by great antiquity, and also overgrown with thickets and brambles, I have now restored, the streams of hot water having been perceived and discovered among the wooded tracts by the hoof of our horse on which I sat. And there I also built a monastery to S. Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all the labor and expense I could, and adorned it with stones of precious marble; which, with the Lord helping and cooperating, took on such a form A basilica built there, that no building can be compared to it.

[7] And so, with such an excellent work of this basilica completed to perfection, and adorned with relics, not only according to my vow and desire but by divine grace, I collected relics of the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and Virgins from various lands and kingdoms, and especially from the Greeks, which I brought into this holy place, so that by their intercessions the kingdom might be strengthened and the forgiveness of sins granted. Consecrated by Leo III: Furthermore, I obtained from the Lord Leo, the Roman Pontiff, the consecration and dedication of this temple, on account of the exceeding great devotion which I had toward the same work and the relics of the Saints which are kept there, deposited through my effort and labor. For it was fitting that this same temple, which appears to surpass all monastic buildings in our kingdom in form and structure, founded in honor of the holy Mother of God by our royal zeal, should excel in the dignity of its consecration, just as the Virgin herself has been exalted, excelling above all choirs of the Saints. And therefore I chose and summoned the Lord Apostolic, who surpasses all ecclesiastical ranks, to consecrate and dedicate it, from the sole consideration of my heart. I also summoned with him the Roman Cardinals, very many Bishops of Italy and of Gaul, together with Abbots and a great number of Clergy of every order, that they might be present at this sacred dedication. There were also summoned many Roman Princes, promoted by prefecture or whatever dignity, to this solemnity — Dukes, Marquises, Counts, Princes of our kingdom, of Italy as well as of Saxony, of Bavaria as well as of Alemannia, and of both Frances, Eastern and Western alike — all complying with my vow and desire.

[8] There indeed, with the Lord Apostolic and all the aforesaid noble and distinguished persons assembled, I obtained from all of them, on account of the exceeding great devotion which I had toward that place and the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, that in the same temple a royal seat should be placed, and it should be held as a royal place and the capital of Gaul beyond the Alps, The seat of the Frankish Empire established here. and that in that same seat the Kings, successors and heirs of the kingdom, should be inaugurated, and having been so inaugurated should thenceforth more easily attain Imperial majesty at Rome without any contradiction. This was confirmed and sanctioned by the Lord Leo, the Roman Pontiff, and by me, Charles, Emperor of the Romans, Augustus, and the first founder of this temple and place: that this our statute and decree should remain ratified and inviolable, and that this should be held as the seat of the kingdom beyond the Alps, and should be the capital of all the cities and provinces of Gaul. We have also decreed, with the assent and good will of all the Princes of the kingdom who had assembled for this feast of the dedication, that the Bishops, Dukes, Marquises, Counts, and all Princes of Gaul, the faithful of the kingdom, should protect the royal place and seat as a bulwark against all disturbances, always venerating this place. We have also decreed that if any injury or trickery contrary to the laws which we have established should arise, and should attempt to harm any free man or serf, let him come to Aachen, to this royal seat which we have made the capital of Gaul; let the Judges and defenders of the place come, and with the equity of the law let the cases be decided, let the state of the law be restored, let injury be condemned, and let justice be reformed.

[9] Now therefore, since we have exalted this place by the majesty of the royal seat, by the decree of the Lord Apostolic, and by our imperial power and our assent, and have magnified it by the beauty of this temple and the veneration of very many Saints, it is fitting and does not seem incongruous (since our mind is exceedingly fixed upon this) that my petition — Liberty granted to the entire city, of which I have entreated you to become not only hearers but benevolent doers — should prevail among you: namely, that not only the Clergy and laity who are natives of this place, but also all inhabitants and newcomers who wish to dwell here, present and future, should lead their lives under a safe and free law, without any servile condition; and that all alike, belonging to this seat from their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, even if they reside elsewhere, should not be infringed by any successor of ours or by any schemer or subverter of the laws from the law which I shall dictate in the present assembly, and should never be handed over from the hand of the King to any person, noble or ignoble, as a benefice.

[10] All acquiesced in the petition and will of the Lord and great Emperor Charles, With the approval of the Princes. who had flowed together from various kingdoms for this solemnity of the dedication; and they upheld the decree of the Lord Apostolic and the Emperor as good and accepted before God and men, and all, great and small, acclaimed that this petition of the Emperor should be corroborated and confirmed by the ban of all ranks, of Bishops and also of Abbots.

Section III. Privileges confirmed for the people of Aachen.

[11] Let Aachen therefore rejoice and exult with ineffable joy — the capital of cities — the venerable Clergy together with the most devout people: because in the diadem of the kingdom, with other Princes and glorious places distinguished as most beautiful ornaments, it, placed at the head of the crown, gleams as with the splendor of translucent gems, and rejoices in that singular and bodily patron who adorns the Roman Empire with the illumination of the Christian faith and with the law by which each person ought to live. For this is the change wrought by the right hand of the Most High: that in place of Granus, the brother of Nero, it has as its founder the most holy Charles; in place of a pagan and a criminal, a Catholic Emperor. Adhering, as far as propitious Divinity shall grant, to the footsteps of his piety, we take under our imperial protection the venerable Clergy of Aachen, together with the Church of the most holy Mother of God Mary, built with the most excellent workmanship, and all its estates, Aachen the capital and Seat of the Teutonic kingdom, and also the city of Aachen itself, which is the capital and seat of the Teutonic kingdom, together with all its citizens, both lesser and greater; and we confirm to them all the liberty and justice which the most holy Charles and his successors gave them, establishing and confirming by a law to be valid in perpetuity that all our citizens of Aachen throughout the whole Roman Empire should freely conduct their business, free from all exaction of toll, Adorned with privileges by Frederick I. of road-tax, of guard-duty, and of tribute, without any impediment; and that, as the most holy Emperor Charles established, no one should charge the natives of this sacred and free city with servile condition; no one should presume to deprive them of their liberty. Moreover, no King or Emperor shall have the power to grant to any person in fief any of those belonging to this seat, wherever they may dwell. Furthermore, in order that all the most holy constitutions of the most blessed Charles may obtain the strength of perpetual endurance, we have ordered the present document to be written and to be marked with a golden seal and with the stamp of our signet.

[12] The sign of the Lord Frederick, Emperor of the Romans. I, Henry, Protonotary of the Sacred Palace, have verified it in place of Christian, the Arch-Chancellor and Bishop-Elect of the See of Mainz. Given at Aachen in the year of the Lord's incarnation one thousand one hundred and sixty-six, in the fourteenth Indiction, on the sixth day before the Ides of January, in the reign of the Lord Frederick, Emperor of the Romans, in the fourteenth year of his reign, and the eleventh of his Empire. Done happily in Christ, Amen.

MIRACLES OF S. CHARLES

from the MS. of Korsendonk of the Canons Regular.

Charles the Great, Emperor, at Aachen in Belgian Gaul (S.)

By an anonymous Author, from a MS.

These are chapters 58, 59, and 60 of the Life of the same S. CHARLES, written by an anonymous author in the time of the Emperor Frederick I.

[1] Preface. The faithful word, therefore, and worthy of all acceptance, concerning the life and character and heavenly signs of the most holy Emperor Charles the Great, produced for the least part of his deeds — the scarcity of books pressing upon us — has flowed down even to the worthily memorable events of our own time. Though the opportunity, offered in the fitting natural order of narration, impels us with the zeal of charity to unfold them. For we have heard, and long and widely reported among us by celebrated discourse, and have learned from the account of suitable and trustworthy men, that a glorious miracle happened at Aachen in our times; which, to the praise of God and the most blessed memory of the orthodox Charles the Great, we have by no means presumed to suppress in silence, lest we be justly accused by the judgment of the Lord's talent buried in the earth.

[2] There was therefore in the aforesaid royal city a certain young man, youthful indeed in age, a Cleric by profession, a Subdeacon by order, Guibert by name, whose life had for the most part been excessively given over to reckless and intemperate wantonness. Now it happened one day by chance that the aforesaid Cleric entered the holy Church of Aachen, not for the purpose of prayer, A wanton Cleric, sleeping irreverently in the sacristy, but from mere habit alone. With rash boldness, neglecting the offense of his nocturnal transgression, he presumed to burst into the sacristy against the venerable custom of the place and the Clergy; and before the venerable image of the venerable Charles, reclining his head on account of the vigils of the preceding night, he was irreverently and foolishly — that is, imprudently — overcome by the sleep of drowsiness, and found thereby the sleep of death. For suddenly a certain hand, as those who reported this to us saw, repelled the aforesaid young man, who was reclining upon a certain chest in the aforesaid venerable oratory, with such force and cast him far from the place of his uncircumscribed reclining to the opposite side. Immediately, therefore, oppressed there by a grave illness, He is divinely punished with death. he humbly confessed the error of his transgression; and after a brief interval of days, condemned by the judgment of divine vengeance, he entered the way of all flesh, leaving to the rest an example of the reverence that is owed. Certain scholars who happened to be present at the time saw the aforesaid hand of just retribution, and, fearful and trembling and fleeing, spread abroad what they had seen. Certain persons also, admonished by such a divine vision, changed the habit of their secular life.

[3] After a short succession of time, it happened that a certain man came to Aachen — handsome of face, venerable for his moral uprightness and urbane affability — who could deservedly be shown to be distinguished by the mark of his lineage, and to have been no small man in the possession of property. He was indeed a German, A certain man despoiled of his goods, born, as he himself asserted, in German Burgundy, a Knight by office, Thietmar by name. This man, therefore, unjustly disinherited of his possessions by the violent invasion of a certain very powerful Count of his land, mercilessly despoiled of all his property — since he could nowhere implore the clemency of a spiritual or material sword to receive fitting justice for his loss and injury — with devoted affection, firm hope, and unfeigned faith, admonished by divine revelation, at last flew to the intercession of the most just Charles at Aachen. He implores the aid of S. Charles: Having placed, therefore, out of the abundance of his heart rather than of his goods, written petitions before the venerable image of the aforesaid Emperor, in much and most devout continuation of Masses and prayers, and likewise in the restless affliction of fasts, and also in the giving of alms (as far as was possible for an exile), having spent several days there, he was admonished by the consolatory oracle of a nocturnal vision. Perhaps he was sleeping prostrate amid a great profusion of tears among the lights, and strengthened by a larger hope and a better faith, he returned to his homeland. Moreover, as he himself related, having returned after the circuit of a year to the glorious memorial of blessed Charles, He recovers all. we learned most certainly that by the prayers and merits of the most just Emperor he had obtained a more ample satisfaction of justice than he had either presumed to hope or to pray for. For he gloried not only in having recovered his property fully and entirely with every kind of satisfaction, but he also attested that the violent invader of his possessions and his goods had paid the fitting penalties of deserved vengeance by a most wretched death under the public testimony of the people. Moreover, he asserted that shortly afterward no heir of his oppressor appeared anywhere in that land. He comes to Aachen annually. For every year, as many years as he lived thereafter, he most devoutly observed the day of the memory of the most blessed Charles. Moreover, to the praise and glory of so great an avenger, with liberal munificence he often scattered abundant money of Basel coins upon the pavement of the church.

[4] Amid such great and glorious mighty works of God, by which divine clemency has shone forth continually in His faithful athlete, we exult with joyful and almost immortal rejoicing, exulting in the Lord who has judged worthy to canonize — wonderful in His own wonderful virtue — the truly blessed translation of His most blessed Charles. Since, therefore, we intend with the affection of charity to transmit to posterity, as far as lies in us, and to immortalize in writing so celebrated, so glorious an operation of the divine majesty, let the admirable power of God be preached more firmly and devoutly everywhere and always. Gloriously, therefore, suppressing in silence very many marks of distinction of the aforesaid canonization, we have written down under faithful testimony something that must be brought to light and resounded far and wide to the ends of the earth, which has come to pass by the will of divine Providence. For on the third night after the exaltation of Charles the Great, most dear to God, The exaltation of S. Charles approved by a threefold heavenly light. three candles, divinely kindled upon the pinnacle of the temple, shining miraculously with wonderful splendor, were seen by many nations and peoples in the joy of exultation. And those same three luminaries of heavenly splendor, as if extinguished, circled in a threefold revolution around the cross of the tower of the same church, and illuminated places far and wide, distant by a great extent, with a new brightness of new light, in the new joy of the new translation, while the darkness of night stood astonished. O admirable, O venerable threefold apparition of the Holy Trinity! O truly blessed exultation of the canonization, approved by divine testimony from heaven, which was gloriously revealed on the third night by the threefold circuit of the three lights, and confirmed from heaven by the oracle of the Holy Trinity in all things!

[5] Truly, therefore, let that true worshiper of Christ, the Emperor of the Romans, Augustus, who was the author of that same translation in the Holy Spirit, know that he has cause to exult and rejoice in the Lord; of whose supreme Trinity God is proclaimed the asserter by such manifest tokens. The munificence of Frederick I toward the Church of Aachen. Deservedly exhilarated, therefore, by such a great and blessed revelation, and filled with inestimable joy, that same Emperor, besides the other ample and generous gifts of his imperial munificence, annually offered ten marks for the use of the refectory both for the Canons and for guest Clergy; and he established this his generosity as firm and perpetual for the remedy of his soul and of his own.

[6] But since the continuous series of the work has now flowed down even to the events of our own time, imposing an end upon the present business, we implore pardon not for any prolixity but for our circumscribed and curtailed brevity, because we have touched upon very few things from the innumerable multitude of the sanctity of the most blessed Charles the Great. For we have scarcely tasted the summit of his imperial sanctity, and of his praiseworthy character, and of the heavenly signs written down for his glory. In which matter we leave ourselves this consolation: that we are confident in the Lord that the faithful of Christ are more firmly and devoutly animated to the praise and honor of that same Prince, and that by our example we have roused readers and writers to these and similar things, to whom we grant without envy to fill up in these matters the gaping intervals. Let pious judges, however, advisedly attend to and approve not the battle line of our oration, but the ardent affection of our intention, arising from the defect of human imperfection, Other miracles omitted by the Author. and let those who hope the same in similar matters taste and supplement our toil. For there are also very many other things which, moreover, in the deeds of the Franks and before our times, and also in our own days, full of divine praises, we have heard and learned to have befallen, far and wide, in various ways, like a sweet odor, by the merits of that same most just Emperor, wonderfully and magnificently; in all and each of which God, glorious and wonderful in His Saint, has appeared, and does not cease daily to appear by the fruitful revelation of His benignity. To whom be glory, honor, and dominion through infinite ages of ages, Amen.