clasts had torn away from the successors of St. Peter, and Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence of excommunication unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy.87 The Greeks were now orthodox; but their religion might be tainted by the breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now contumacious; but a discerning eye might discern their approaching conversion, from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes; but the conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a statesman, to the various practice of France and Italy. In his four pilgrimages or visits to the Vatican, he embraced the popes in the commu nion of friendship and piety; knelt before the tomb, and consequently before the image, of the apostle; and joined, without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the Roman liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pon tiffs to renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift of the Exarchate? Had they power to abal. ish his government of Rome? The title of patrician was below the merit and greatness of Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the Western empire that they could pay their obligations or secure their establishment. By this decisive measure they would finally eradicate the claims of the Greeks; from the debasement of a provincial town, the majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin Christians would be united, under a supreme head, in their ancient metropolis, and the conquerors of the West would receive their crown. from the successors of St. Peter. The Roman church would acquire a zealous and respectable advocate; and, under the shadow of the Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise, with honor and safety, the government of the city,88 In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore reversis, in aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant errore . . . . de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereticum eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia decernemus, (Epist. Hadrian. Papæ ad Carolum Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii. p. 1598 ;) to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite to his conduct, that he preferred the salvation of souls and rule of faith to the goods of this transitory world. Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than the advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See Ducange, Gloss. Lat tom. i. p. 297) His antagonist Muratori reduces the popes to De no more than the exarchs of the emperor. In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 264, 265,) they held Rome Before the ruin of Paganism in Rome, the competition for a wealthy bishopric had often been productive of tumult and bloodshed. The people was less numerous, but the times were more savage, the prize more important, and the chair of St. Peter was fiercely disputed by the leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the rank of sovereign. The reign of Adrian the First 89 surpasses the measure of past or succeeding ages; 90 the walls of Rome, the sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the friendship of Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he secretly edified the throne of his successors, and displayed in a narrow space the virtues of a great prince. His memory was revered; but in the next election, a priest of the Lateran, Leo the Third, was preferred to the nephew and the favorite of Adrian, whom he had promoted to the first dignities of the church. Their acquiescence or repentance disguised, above four years, the blackest intention of revenge, till the day of a procession, when a furious band of conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with blows and wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps by their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead on the ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins.91 From his prison he under the empire as the most honorable species of fief or benefice premuntur nocte caliginosâ ! s His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of thirtyeight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself the author, (Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.) Post patrem lacrymans Carolus hæc carmina scripsi. The poetry might be supplied by Alcuin; but the tears, the most glorious tribute, can only belong to Charlemagne. Every new pope is admonished - "Sancte Pater, non videbis annos Petri," twenty-five years. On the whole series the average is about eight years a short hope for an ambitious cardinal. 91 The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars i. p. 197, 198) is sup ported by the credulity of some French annalists; but Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more natural and sincere. "Unas ei oculus paullulum est læsus," says John the deacon of Naples, (Vit Episcop. Napol. in Scriptures Muratori, tom. i. pars ii. p. 312.) The escaped to the Vatican: the duke of Spoleto hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne sympathized in his injury, and in his camp of Paderborn in Westphalia accepted, or solicited, a visit from the Roman pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and bishops, the guards of his safety and the judges of his innocence; and it was not without reluctance, that the conqueror of the Saxons delayed till the ensuing year the personal discharge of this pious office. In his fourth and last pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with the due honors of king and patrician: Leo was permitted to purge himself by oath of the crimes imputed to his charge: his enemies were silenced, and the sacrilegious attempt against his life was punished by the mild and insufficient penalty of exile. On the festival of Christmas, the last year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged the simple dress of his country for the habit of a patrician.92 After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious crown on his head,93 and the dome resounded with the acclamations of the people, "Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!" The head and body of Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the example of the Caesars, he was saluted or adored by the pontiff: his coronation oath represents a promise to maintain the faith and privileges of the church; and the first-fruits were paid in his rich offerings to the shrine of the apostle. In his familiar conversation, the emperor protested his ignorance of the intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by his absence on that memorable day. But the dolphus, a contemporary bishop of Orleans, observes with prudence, (1. iii. carm. 3,) Reddita sunt? mirum est: mirum est auferre nequisse. "Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he appeared at Rome - longâ tunicâ et chlamyde amictus, et calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. xxiii. p. 109-113) describes, like Suetonius, the simplicity of his dress, so popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald returned to France in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne, tom. iv. p. 109.) 93 See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard, (c. xxviii. p. 124-128.) The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p. 399,) the oath by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus,) and the Pope's adoration, more anti. quorum principum, by the Annales Bertiniani, (Script. Murator. tom i. pars ii. p. 505.) preparations of the ceremony must have disclosed the secret and the journey of Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation he had acknowledged that the Imperial titie was the object of his ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was the only adequate reward of his merit and services.94 The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes deserved; but CHARLEMAGNE is the only prince in whose favor the title has been indissolubly blended with the name. That name, with the addition of saint, is inserted in the Roman calendar; and the saint, by a rare felicity, is crowned with the praises of the historians and philosophers of an enlightened age.95 His real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism of the nation and the times from which he emerged: but the apparent magnitude of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal comparison; and the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendor from the nakedness of the surrounding desert. Without injustice to his fame, I may discern some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is not the most conspicuous: 96 but the public happiness could not be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more transient 'amours, the multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long celibacy and licentious manners of his daugh 94 This great event of the translation or restoration of the empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander, (secul. ix. dissert. i. p. 390-397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,) Muratori, (Annali d' Italia, tom. vi p. 339-352,) Sigonius, (de Regno Italiæ, 1. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247251,) Spanheim, (de fictâ Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395-405,) St. Marc, (Abrégé Chronologique, tom. i. p. 438-450,) Gaillard, (Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386-446.) Almost all these moderns have some religious or national bias. 95 By Mably, (Observations sur l'Histoire de France,) Voltaire, (Histoire Générale,) Robertson, (History of Charles V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, 1. xxxi. c. 18.) In the year 1782, M. Gail. Jard published his Histoire de Charlemagne, (in 4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and profitably used. The author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is labored with industry and elegunce. But I have likewise examined the original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the 5th volume of the Historians of France. 96 The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven years after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory, with a vulturn, who is perpetually gnawing the guilty member, while the rest of hu body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound and perfect, (see Gaillard. tom. ii. p. 317-360.) teis,97 whom the father was suspected of loving with to ond a passion.* I shall be scarcely permitted to accuse the ambition of a conqueror; but in a day of equal retribution, the sons of his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of Aquitain, and the four thousand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded on the same spot, would have something to allege against the justice and humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the vanquished Saxons 98 was an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws were not less sanguinary than his arms, and in the discussion of his motives, whatever is subtracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper. The sedentary reader is amazed by his incessant activity of mind and body; and his subjects and enemies were not less aston ished at his sudden presence, at the moment when they believed him at the most distant extremity of the empire; neither peace nor war, nor summer nor winter, were a season of repose; and our fancy cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign with the geography of his expeditions. But this 97 The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98-100, cum Notis Schmincke.) The husband must have been too strong for the historian. 98 Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain of death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1. The refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5. Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime might be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 241-247 ;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends and equals of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicæ, p. 133.) This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly observes, “seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage of Eginhard." Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 16. — M. †M. Guizot (Cours d'Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273) has compiled the following statement of Charlemagne's military campaigns: 1. Against the Aquitanians. |