indulged in free license, but treated the sacred rite of marriage as a covenant dissoluble at his pleasure. Once we have heard, and but once, the church raise its authoritative, its comminatory voice, and that not to forbid the King of the Franks from wedding a second wife while his first was alive, but from marrying a Lombard princess. One pious ecclesiastic alone in his dominion, he a relative, ventured to protest aloud." GUIZOT (Histoire de la civilisation en France, leçon XX.): "Charlemagne marque la limite à laquelle est enfin consommée la dissolution de l'ancien monde romain et barbare, et où commence la formation du monde nouveau."

VETAULT (Charlemagne, 455, 458): "Charlemagne fut, en effet, le père du monde moderne et de la societé européenne. . . . Si Ch. ne peut être légitemement honoré comme un saint, il a droit du moins à la première place, parmis tous les héros, dans l'admiration des hommes; car on ne trouverait pas un autre souverain qui ait autant aimé l'humanité et lui ait fait plus de bien. Il est le plus glorieux, parce que il a mérité d'être proclamé le plus

honnête des grands hommes."

GIESEBRECHT, the historian of the German emperors, gives a glowing description of Charlemagne (I. 140): "Many high-minded rulers arose in the ten centuries after Charles, but none had a higher aim. To be ranked with him, satisfied the boldest conquerors, the wisest princes of peace. French chivalry of later times glorified Charlemagne as the first cavalier; the German burgeoisie as the fatherly friend of the people and the most righteous judge; the Catholic Church raised him to the number of her saints; the poetry of all nations derived ever new inspiration and strength from his mighty person. Never perhaps has richer life proceeded from the activity of a mortal man (Nie vielleicht ist reicheres Leben von der Wirksamkeit eines sterblichen Menschen ausgegangen).”

We add the eloquent testimony of an American author, PARKE GODWIN (History of France, N. Y., 1860, vol. i. p. 410): "There is to me something indescribably grand in the figure of many of the barbaric chiefsAlariks, Ataulfs, Theodoriks, and Euriks-who succeeded to the power of the Romans, and in their wild, heroic way, endeavored to raise a fabric of state on the ruins of the ancient empire. But none of those figures is so imposing and majestic as that of Karl, the son of Pippin, whose name, for the first and only time in history, the admiration of mankind has indissolubly blended with the title the Great. By the peculiarity of his position in respect to ancient and modern times-by the extraordinary length of his reign, by the number and importance of the transactions in which he was engaged, by the extent and splendor of his conquests, by his signal services to the Church, and by the grandeur of his personal qualities-he impressed himself so profoundly upon the character of his times, that he stands almost alone and apart in the annals of Europe. For nearly a thousand years before him, or since the days of Julius Cæsar, no

monarch had won so universal and brilliant a renown; and for nearly a thousand years after him, or until the days of Charles V. of Germany, no monarch attained any thing like an equal dominion. A link between the old and new, he revived the Empire of the West, with a degree of glory that it had only enjoyed in its prime; while, at the same time, the modern history of every Continental nation was made to begin with him. Germany claims him as one of her most illustrious sons; France, as her noblest king; Italy, as her chosen emperor; and the Church as her most prodigal benefactor and worthy saint. All the institutions of the Middle Ages-political, literary, scientific, and ecclesiastical-delighted to trace their traditionary origins to his hand: he was considered the source of the peerage, the inspirer of chivalry, the founder of universities, and the endower of the churches; and the genius of romance, kindling its fantastic torches at the flame of his deeds, lighted up a new and marvellous world about him, filled with wonderful adventures and heroic forms. Thus by a double immortality, the one the deliberate award of history, and the other the prodigal gift of fiction, he claims the study of mankind.”

II. THE CANONIZATION OF CHARLEMAGNE is perpetuated in the Officium in festo Sancti Caroli Magni imperatoris et confessoris, as celebrated in churches of Germany, France, and Spain. Baronius (Annal. ad ann. 814) says that the canonization was not accepted by the Roman church, because Paschalis was no legitimate pope, but neither was it forbidden. Alban Butler, in his Lives of Saints, gives a eulogistic biography of the "Blessed Charlemagne," and covers his besetting sin with the following unhistorical assertion: "The incontinence, into which he fell in his youth, he expiated by sincere repentance, so that several churches in Germany and France honor him among the saints."

On the poetic and legendary history of Charlemagne, see Vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi, written about 1100 under the name of Turpin, archbishop of Rheims; the work of Gaston, above quoted; an essay of Léon Gautier (La légende de Charlemagne) in Vétault, pp. 461-485; and E. Koschwitz: Karls des Grossen Reise nach Jerusalem und Constantinopel, Heilbronn u. London, 1880.

The monogram of Charles with the additions of a scribe in a document signed by Charles at Kufstein, Aug. 31, 790. Copied from Stacke, l. c.

§ 57. Founding of the Holy Roman Empire, A. D. 800. Charlemagne and Leo III.

G. SUGENHEIM: Geschichte der Entstehung und Ausbildung des Kirchenstaates. Leipz. 1854.

F. SCHARPFF: Die Entstehung des Kirchenstaats. Freib. i. B. 1860. TH. D. MOCK: De Donatione a Carolo Mag. sedi apostolicæ anno 774 oblata. Munich 1861.

JAMES BRYCE: The Holy Roman Empire. Lond. & N. York (Macmillan & Co.) 6th ed. 1876, 8th ed. 1880. German translation by Arthur Winckler.

HEINRICH VON SYBEL: Die Schenkungen der Karolinger an die Päpste. In Sybel's "Hist. Zeitschrift," München & Leipz. 1880, pp. 46-85. Comp. BAXMANN: I. 307 sqq.; VÉTAULT: Ch. III. pp. 113 sqq. (Charlemagne, patrice des Romains-Formation des états de l'église).

Charlemagne inherited the protectorate of the temporal dominions of the pope which had been wrested from the Lombards by Pepin, as the Lombards had wrested them from the Eastern emperor. When the Lombards again rebelled and the pope (Hadrian) again appealed to the transalpine monarch for help, Charles in the third year of his sole reign (774) came to the rescue, crossed the Alps with an army-a formidable undertaking in those days-subdued Italy with the exception of a small part of the South still belonging to the Greek empire, held a triumphal entry in Rome, and renewed and probably enlarged his father's gift to the pope. The original documents have perished, and no contemporary authority vouches for the details; but the fact is undoubted. The gift rested only on the right of conquest. Henceforward he always styled himself "Rex Francorum et Longobardorum, et Patricius Romanorum." His authority over the immediate territory of the Lombards in Northern Italy was as complete as that in France, but the precise nature of his

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authority over the pope's dominion as Patrician of the Romans became after his death an apple of discord for centuries. drian, to judge from his letters, considered himself as much an absolute sovereign in his dominion as Charles in his.

In 781 at Easter Charles revisited Rome with his son Pepin, who on that occasion was anointed by the pope "King for Italy" ("Rex in Italiam "). On a third visit, in 787, he spent a few days with his friend, Hadrian, in the interest of the patrimony of St. Peter. When Leo III. followed Hadrian (796) he immediately dispatched to Charles, as tokens of submission, the keys and standards of the city, and the keys of the sepulchre of Peter.

A few years afterwards a terrible riot broke out in Rome in which the pope was assaulted and almost killed (799). He fled for help to Charles, then at Paderborn in Westphalia, and was promised assistance. The next year Charles again crossed the Alps and declared his intention to investigate the charges of certain unknown crimes against Leo, but no witness appeared to prove them. Leo publicly read a declaration of his own innocence, probably at the request of Charles, but with a protest that this declaration should not be taken for a precedent. Soon afterwards occurred the great event which marks an era in the ecclesiastical and political history of Europe.

THE CORONATION OF CHARLES AS EMPEROR.

While Charles was celebrating Christmas in St. Peter's, in the year of our Lord 800, and kneeling in prayer before the altar, the pope, as under a sudden inspiration (but no doubt in consequence of a premeditated scheme), placed a golden crown upon his head, and the Roman people shouted three times: "To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans, life and victory!" Forthwith, after ancient custom, he was adored by the pope, and was styled henceforth (instead of Patrician) Emperor and Augustus.1

1 Annales Laurissenses ad ann. 801: "Ipsa die sacratissima natalis Domini cum

The new emperor presented to the pope a round table of silver with the picture of Constantinople, and many gifts of gold, and remained in Rome till Easter. The moment or manner of the coronation may have been unexpected by Charles (if we are to believe his word), but it is hardly conceivable that it was not the result of a previous arrangement between him and Leo. Alcuin seems to have aided the scheme. In his view the pope occupied the first, the emperor the second, the king the third degree in the scale of earthly dignities. He sent to Charles from Tours before his coronation a splendid Bible with the inscription: Ad splendorem imperialis potentiæ.1

On his return to France Charles compelled all his subjects to take a new oath to him as 66 Cæsar." He assumed the full title "Serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus, magnus et pacificus imperator, Romanum gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam Dei rex Francorum et Longobardorum."

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ACT.

The act of coronation was on the part of the pope a final declaration of independence and self-emancipation against the Greek emperor, as the legal ruler of Rome. Charles seems to have felt this, and hence he proposed to unite the two empires by marrying Irene, who had put her son to death and usurped the Greek crown (797). But the same rebellion had been virtually committed before by the pope in sending the keys of the city to Pepin, and by the French king in accepting this token of temporal sovereignty. Public opinion justified the act on the principle that might makes right. The Greek emperor, being unable

Rex ad Missam ante confessionem b. Petri Apostoli ab oratione surgeret, Leo P. coronam capiti ejus imposuit, et a cuncto Romanorum populo acclamatum est: 'Karolo Augusto, a Deo coronato, magno et pacifico Imperatori Romanorum, vita et victoria! Et post Laudes ab Apostolico more antiquorum principum adoratus est, atque, ablato Patricii nomine, Imperator et Augustus est appellatus." Comp. Eginhard, Annal. ad ann. 800, and Vita Car., c. 28.

1 But the date of the letter and the meaning of imperialis are not quite certain See Rettberg, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, I. 430, and Baxmann, Politik der Päpste, I. 313 sqq.