"De gratia septiformis Spiritus;" from which we learn that he had previously called for their opinions on that obscure subject, and had proposed certain questions for their solution. To these inquiries, however, he appears to have received unsatisfactory answers, for he sets himself formally to lay down his own theory on the subject:—a strange occupation, as it may seem to us, for a ruler who ever saw before him so many barbarian tribes to be conquered, and so many semibarbarian ones to be civilized. Further evidence of the almost monkish spirit of erudition animating the swayer of so many sceptres1 may be found in the Capitulary "De Emendatione Librorum*,” published in the year 788, in order to announce to the clergy of his dominions the duty which he had intrusted to Paul the deacon, of compiling a book of extracts from the patristic writings, and at the same time to enjoin on the whole body of the priesthood due care in preserving and emending manuscripts ;-an "Inter cœnandum aut aliquod acroama aut lectorem audiebat. Legebantur ei historiæ et antiquorum res gestæ. Delectabatur et libris sancti Augustini, præcipueque his qui de Civitate Dei prætitulati sunt" (Einh. Vit. Kar. M. c. 24). "Gloriosissimus itaque Karolus per totum regnum suum studia litterarum florere conspiciens set ad maturitatem patrum præcedentium non pervenire condolens et plus quam mortale laborans, in hanc tediatus vocem erupit: ‘O utinam haberem duodecim clericos ita doctos, ut fuerunt Hieronymus et Augustinus!' Ad quod doctissimus Albinus respondit: Creator cœli et terræ similes illis plures non habuit; et tu vis habere duodecim ?" (Monach. Sangal. Gest. Kar. i. 9). Baluz. t. i. coll. 203-6. exhortation which he confirms in the following terms by his own example: "Ad pernoscenda studia liberalium artium nostro etiam quos possumus invitamus exemplo. Inter quæ jampridem universos veteris ac novi instrumenti libros, librariorum imperitia depravatos, Deo nos in omnibus adjuvante examussim correximus.” But the theologians of the court might lay claim to be the teachers and advisers of the Emperor in matters of a very different importance than the nomenclature of the Calendar, or the doubtful orthography of a reviving literature as Charlemagne beheld in them the most influential moral instruments by which to turn the hearts of his subjects from the darkness of semi-Pagan observances to the enlightened precepts of a more rational faith, so they with reason saw in the conqueror of Germany and Lombardy, the martial patron of the Holy See, a man specially raised up by Providence to prepare the way for the reception of the truth among nations by whom it had never yet been heard1. Nor can it be doubted that the conquering hosts of the Franks were far more effective in the conversion of central Europe than could have been the most self-denying of missionaries, or the most undoubtedly miraculous of Italian 1 Pepin, in like manner, "legationem ad Waifarium Aquitanicum principem mittens, petens ei per legatos suos, ut res ecclesiarum de regno ipsius, quæ in Aquitania sitæ erant, redderet, et sub immunitatis nomine, sicut ab antea fuerant, conservatas esse deberent, et judices ac exactores in supradictas res ecclesiarum, quod a longo tempore factum non fuerat, mittere non deberet (4th cont. of Fredegarii Chron. c. 124). P relics; and we may believe that the efforts even of a Boniface would have been productive of but scanty results, had not the Saxons and the Frisons learnt to place an implicit confidence in the faith which claimed their attention supported by so many thousand victorious spears1. But the same men, who instilled into the Imperial mind the theoretical doctrines of Christianity during peace, did not fail to remind him of the necessity of practising them amid the intoxication of barbarian war. 1 "Hinc statuit requies illis ut nulla daretur, Utile consilium comitantur strenua facta." Poeta Saxo ap. Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. Script. t. i. p. 231. An anticipation of the same policy by Carloman, in one of the campaigns against the Saxons, seems to be hinted at in the following account:" Evoluto triennio iterum Carlomannus confinium Saxonum ipsis rebellantibus cum exercitu inrupit; ibique captis habitatoribus, qui suo regno adfines esse videbantur, absque belli discrimine feliciter adquisivit, et plurimi eorum Christo duce baptismi sacramento consecrati fuerunt" (3rd cont. of Fredegarii Chron. c. 113). There remains, for example, among the voluminous correspondence of Alcuin a letter to his master on the occasion of a victory over the Huns*, exhorting him to let a diffusion of the benefits of the Gospel, with a due but not indiscriminate attention to the sacraments of the Church, follow closely after the horrors of bloodshed; while at the same time he warns him against unseasonably testing the sincerity of so rapid a conversion by the ill-judged exaction of the tithes. Again, in another communication† he entreats the conqueror not to risk the loss of the newly converted Saxon nation by oppressing them with unwonted ecclesiastical burdens; while in a third‡ he does not scruple to deter him from a projected expedition to Beneventum. Such examples as the above are sufficient to prove to us how perpetually present with the Emperor was the influence of those clerical advisers who were the constant companions of his leisure moments. But, on the whole, we may draw a parallel between the social position of the clergy under the Anglo-Saxon constitution and under the sway of the Frank Emperor, and assert that in one situation, as in the other, the high moral authority possessed by the clergy depended in no small measure on the limitations of temporal power to which they were subjected; for Charlemagne, willingly though he submitted to clerical teaching so long as it consorted with his preconceived schemes of policy, never + Ep. 80. * Ep. 28. + Ep. 105. condescended to bow, as his successors did, before the assumptions of his subjects, and from the commanding height, at which he was placed by the peculiarities of his birth and of his aspiring genius, he obtained such an authority over every member of the clerical body throughout the European Continent as no other sovereign can hope to rival1. But he was far too astute a master of his craft to be ignorant that in dealing with all men, but most of all with the spiritual lords of mankind, apparent or unimportant concessions are almost ever the price paid for real and substantial power, and we may rest assured that, by enrolling himself as the one layman worthy of being initiated into those mysteries of which the clergy were the exclusive interpreters, he rendered them more compliant to commands which seemed to come from one of themselves. While the impress of constant intercourse with the clergy was stamped on every action of his life and on each of his great reforming schemes, he at the same time acquired over those who had been, and were destined once more to become, the most intractable of subjects a power which for a feebler hand to grasp at would have been certain ruin. If it should appear that we have employed an inordinate portion of our space in detailing the results of sacerdotal influence on the character of Charlemagne, as an individual, and as a sovereign, it must be remembered that of all the monarchs, whom the pages of history lay 1 He is called "episcoporum episcopo" by his monkish S. Gallen biographer (Gest. Kar. i. 25. ap. Pertz. ii. 742). |