traces whereof are among us and upon us to this CHAP. V. day. d The great Emperor was buried at Aachen, in that basilica which it had been the delight of his later years to erect and adorn with the treasures of ancient art. His tomb under the dome - where now we see an enormous slab, with the words 'Carolo Magno' was inscribed, 'Magnus atque Orthodoxus Imperator.' Poets, fostered by his own. zeal, sang of him who had given to the Franks the sway of Romulus. The gorgeous mists of romance gradually rose and wreathed themselves round his name, till by canonization as a saint he received the highest glory the world or the Church could confer." For the Roman d This basilica was built upon the model of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and as it was the first church of any size that had been erected in those regions for centuries past, it excited extraordinary interest among the Franks and Gauls. In many of its features it resembles the beautiful church of San Vitale, at Ravenna (also supposed to have been influenced by that of the Holy Sepulchre), which was begun by Theodorich, and completed under Justinian. Probably San Vitale was used as a pattern by Charles's architects: we know that he caused marble columns (along with a statue of Theodorich) to be brought from Ravenna to deck the church at Aachen. Over the tomb of Charles, below the central dome (to which the existing Pointed choir was added some centuries later), there hangs a huge chandelier, the gift of Frederick Barbarossa. eRomuleum Francis praestitit imperium.'- Elegy of Ermoldus Nigellus, in Pertz, M. G. H. t. ii. So too Florus the Deacon Huic etenim cessit etiam gens Romula genti, (Ap. Migne, cxix. p. 251.) fA curious illustration of the influence of the name and fame of Charles, even on remote nations, is supplied by a story in the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson. Alfhild, a concubine of St. Olaf, had given birth to a child at night, while Olaf was asleep; and Sigvat his favourite skald, seeing it to be weak, and fearing it might die, caused it to be baptized at once, and gave it the name of Magnus. When the king awoke and heard what had been done, he was angry, and calling Sigvat asked, 'Why hast thou called the child CHAP. V. Church claimed then, as she claims still, the privilege which, in one form or another, humanity seems scarce able to deny itself, of raising to honours almost divine its great departed; and as in pagan times temples had risen to a deified Emperor, so churches were dedicated to St. Charlemagne. Between Sanctus Carolus and Divus Julius how strange an analogy and how strange a contrast! Magnus, which is not a name of our race?' The skald answered, 'I called him after king Karl Magnus, who I knew had been the best man in the world.' The child grew up to be king Magnus the Good, the most popular and one of the greatest of the Norwegian kings; and from him the name became a common one, as it is to-day, over all the North. CHAPTER VI CAROLINGIAN AND ITALIAN EMPERORS a LEWIS the Pious, left by Charles's death sole heir, had been some years before associated with his father in the Empire, and had been crowned by his father's hand in a way which, intentionally or not, appeared to deny the need of papal sanction. But it was soon seen that the strength to grasp the sceptre had not passed with it. Too mild to restrain his turbulent nobles, and thrown by overconscientiousness into the hands of the clergy, he had reigned few years when dissensions broke out on all sides. Charles had wished the Empire to continue one, under the supremacy of a single Emperor, but with its several parts, Lombardy, Aquitaine, Austrasia, Bavaria, each a kingdom. held by a scion of the reigning house. A scheme dangerous in itself, and rendered more so by the absence or neglect of regular rules of succession, could with difficulty have been managed by a wise and firm monarch. Lewis tried in vain to satisfy his sons (Lothar, Lewis, and Charles) by dividing and redividing his dominions: they rebelled; he was deposed, and forced by the bishops to do penance, again restored, but without power, a tool in the hands of contending factions. On his death the sons flew to arms, and the first of the dynastic quarrels of modern Europe was fought out on the field of Fontenay. In the a Usage has established this translation of 'Hludowicus Pius,' but 'gentle' or 'kind-hearted' would better express the meaning of the epithet. CHAP. VI. Pious. CHAP. VI. Verdun, A.D. 843. Lothar I. partition treaty of Verdun which followed, the Teutonic Partition of principle of equal division among heirs triumphed over the Roman one of the transmission of an indivisible Empire: the practical sovereignty of all three brothers was admitted in their respective territories, while a barren precedence was reserved to Lothar, with the imperial title which he, as the eldest, already enjoyed. A more important result was the separation of the Gaulish and German nationalities. Their difference of feeling, shewn already in the support of Lewis the Pious by the Germans against the Gallo-Franks and the Church, perhaps an early instance of the aversion of the Teutonic peoples to the pretensions of the spiritual power, took now a permanent shape: modern Germany proclaims the era of A.D. 843 the beginning of her national existence, and celebrated its thousandth anniversary in 1843. To Charles the Bald was given Francia Occidentalis, that is to say, Neustria and Aquitaine; to Lothar, who as Emperor must possess the two capitals, Rome and Aachen, a long and narrow kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and including the northern half of Italy; Lewis (surnamed, from his kingdom, the German) received all east of the Rhine, Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Austria, Carinthia, with possible supremacies over Czechs in far-off Bohemia and Moravia. Throughout these regions German or some Slavonic tongue was spoken; through Charles's kingdom a corrupt language, equally removed from Latin and from modern French. Lothar's, being mixed and having no national basis, was the weakest of the three, and soon dissolved into the separate sovereignties of Italy, Burgundy, and Lotharingia, the name of which is perpetuated in the German Lothringen, the French Lorraine. On the tangled history of the period that follows it is not possible to do more than touch. After passing from b Lewis II. Charles II (the Bald). Charles III (the Fat). End of the Carolingian Empire of the West, one branch of the Carolingian line to another, the imperial CHAP. VI. sceptre was at last possessed and disgraced by Charles the Fat, who united all the dominions of his great-grandfather. This unworthy heir could not avail himself of recovered territory to strengthen or defend the expiring monarchy. He was driven out of Italy in A.D. 887, and his death in 888 has been usually taken as the date of the extinction of the Carolingian Empire of the West. The Germans, still attached to the ancient line, chose Arnulf, an illegitimate A.D. 888. Carolingian (grandson of Lewis the German), for their king: he entered Italy and was crowned Emperor by his partisan the Corsican Pope Formosus, in 896. But Germany, divided and helpless, was in no condition to maintain her power over the Southern lands: Arnulf retreated in haste, leaving Rome and Italy to sixty years of stormy independence. That time was indeed the nadir of order and civilization. From all sides the torrent of barbarism which Charles the Great had stemmed was rushing down upon his Empire. The Saracen wasted the Mediterranean coasts, and sacked Rome herself. The Dane and Norseman swept the Atlantic and the North Sea, pierced France and Germany by their rivers, burning, slaying, carrying off into captivity: pouring through the Straits of Gibraltar, they fell upon Provence and Italy. By land, while Wends and Czechs and Obotrites threw off the German yoke and threatened the borders, the wild Hungarian bands, pressing in from the steppes of the Caspian, dashed over Germany like the flying spray of a new wave of barbarism, and carried the terror of their battleaxes to the Apennines and the Under such strokes the already loosened fabric ocean. b The dynasty of the region which was to become modern France (Francia occidentalis) had the least share of it. Charles the Bald was the only West Frankish Emperor, and reigned a very short time. |