LITMIR.BIZ

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unbaptized and shall have scorned to come to baptism and shall have wished to remain a pagan." Charlemagne believed the Christianizing of the Saxons so important a part of his duty that he decreed that all should suffer death who entered a church by violence and carried off anything by force, or even failed to abstain from meat during Lent.[41] No one, under penalty of heavy fines, was to make vows, in the pagan fashion, at trees or springs, or partake of any heathen feasts in honor of the demons (as the Christians termed the heathen deities), or fail to present infants for baptism before they were a year old.

      For the support of the local churches, those who lived in the parish were to give toward three hundred acres of land and a house for the priest. "Likewise, in accordance with the mandate of God, we command that all shall give a tithe of their property and labor to the churches and the priests; let the nobles as well as the freemen, likewise the serfs, according to that which God shall have given to each Christian, return a part to God."

      Coöperation of the civil government and the Church.

      These provisions are characteristic of the theory of the Middle Ages according to which the civil government and the Church went hand in hand in ordering and governing the life of the people. Defection from the Church was regarded by the state as quite as serious a crime as treason against itself. While the claims of the two institutions sometimes conflicted, there was no question in the minds either of the king's officials or of the clergy that both the civil and ecclesiastical government were absolutely necessary; neither class ever dreamed that they could get along without the other.

      Foundation of towns in northern Germany.

      Before the Frankish conquest the Saxons had no towns. Now, around the seat of the bishop, or about a monastery, men began to collect and towns and cities to grow up. Of these the chief was Bremen, which is still one of the most important ports of Germany.

      Charlemagne becomes king of the Lombards.

      30. Pippin, it will be remembered, had covenanted with the papacy to protect it from its adversaries. The king of the Lombards had taken advantage of Charlemagne's seeming preoccupation with his German affairs to attack the city of Rome again. The pope immediately demanded the aid of Charlemagne, who prepared to carry out his father's pledges. He ordered the Lombard ruler to return the cities that he had taken from the pope. Upon his refusal to do this, Charlemagne invaded Lombardy in 773 with a great army and took Pavia, the capital, after a long siege. The Lombard king was forced to become a monk, and his treasure was divided among the Frankish soldiers. Charlemagne then took the extremely important step, in 774, of having himself recognized by all the Lombard dukes and counts as king of the Lombards.

       THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE

      Aquitaine and Bavaria incorporated in Charlemagne's empire.

      The considerable provinces of Aquitaine and Bavaria had never formed an integral part of the Frankish realms, but had remained semi-independent under their native dukes up to the time of Charlemagne. Aquitaine, whose dukes had given Pippin much trouble, was incorporated into the Frankish state in 769. As for the Bavarians, Charlemagne felt that so long as they remained under their duke he could not rely upon them to defend the Frankish empire against the Slavs, who were constantly threatening the frontiers. So he compelled the duke of Bavaria to surrender his possessions, shut him up in a monastery, and proceeded to portion out the duchy among his counts. He thus added to his realms the district that lay between his new Saxon conquest and the Lombard kingdom.

      Foreign policy of Charlemagne.

      31. So far we have spoken only of the relations of Charlemagne with the Germans, for even the Lombard kingdom was established by the Germans. He had, however, other peoples to deal with, especially the Slavs on the east (who were one day to build up the kingdoms of Poland, Bohemia, and the vast Russian empire) and, on the opposite boundary of his dominion, the Arabs in Spain. Against these it was necessary to protect his realms, and the second part of Charlemagne's reign was devoted to what may be called his foreign policy. A single campaign in 789 seems to have sufficed to subdue the Slavs, who lay to the north and east of the Saxons, and to force the Bohemians to acknowledge the supremacy of the Frankish king and pay tribute to him.

      The marches and margraves.

      The necessity of insuring the Frankish realms against any new uprising of these non-German nations led to the establishment, on the confines of the kingdom, of marches, i.e., districts under the military control of counts of the march, or margraves.[42] Their business was to prevent any hostile incursions into the interior of the kingdom. Much depended upon the efficiency of these men; in many cases they founded powerful families and later helped to disintegrate the Empire by establishing themselves as practically independent rulers.

      Charlemagne in Spain.

      At an assembly that Charlemagne held in 777, ambassadors appeared before him from certain disaffected Mohammedans. They had fallen out with the emir of Cordova[43] and now offered to become the faithful subjects of Charlemagne if he would come to their aid. In consequence, he undertook his first expedition to Spain in the following year. The district north of the Ebro was conquered by the Franks after some years of war, and Charlemagne established the Spanish March.[44] In this way he began that gradual expulsion of the Mohammedans from the peninsula which was to be carried on by slowly extending conquests until 1492, when Granada, the last Mohammedan stronghold, fell.[45]

      Charlemagne crowned emperor by the pope.

      32. But the most famous of all the achievements of Charlemagne was his reëstablishment of the Western Empire in the year 800. It came about in this wise. Charlemagne went to Rome in that year to settle a controversy between Pope Leo III and his enemies. To celebrate the satisfactory adjustment of the dispute, the pope held a solemn service on Christmas day in St. Peter's. As Charlemagne was kneeling before the altar during this service, the pope approached him and set a crown upon his head, saluting him, amid the acclamation of those present, as "Emperor of the Romans."

      

      Charlemagne merited the title of emperor.

      The reasons for this extraordinary act, which Charlemagne afterward persistently asserted took him completely by surprise, are given in one of the Frankish histories, the Chronicles of Lorsch, as follows: "The name of Emperor had ceased among the Greeks, for they were enduring the reign of a woman [Irene], wherefore it seemed good both to Leo, the apostolic pope, and to the holy fathers [the bishops] who were in council with him, and to all Christian men, that they should name Charles, king of the Franks, as Emperor. For he held Rome itself, where the ancient Cæsars had always dwelt, in addition to all his other possessions in Italy, Gaul and Germany. Wherefore, as God had granted him all these dominions, it seemed just to all that he should take the title of Emperor, too, when it was offered to him at the wish of all Christendom."

      Charlemagne appears to have accepted gracefully the honor thus thrust upon him. Even if he had no right to the imperial title, there was an obvious propriety and expediency in granting it to him under the circumstances. Before his coronation by the pope he was only king of the Franks and the Lombards; but his conquests seemed to entitle him to a more comprehensive designation which should include his outlying dependencies. Then the imperial power at Constantinople had been in the hands of heretics, from the standpoint of the Western Church, ever since Emperor Leo issued his edict against the veneration of images. What was still worse, the throne had been usurped, shortly before the coronation of Charlemagne, by the wicked Irene, who had deposed and blinded her son, Constantine VI. The coronation of Charlemagne was, therefore, only a recognition of the real political conditions in the West.[46]

      Continuity of the Roman Empire.

      The empire now reëstablished in the West was considered to be a continuation of the Roman Empire founded by Augustus. Charlemagne was reckoned the immediate successor of Constantine VI, whom Irene had deposed. Yet, in spite of this fancied continuity, it is hardly necessary to say that the position of the

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