Charlemagne Essay Research Paper Charlemagne The KingWe

Charlemagne Essay, Research Paper

Charlemagne The King

We know a good deal about Charlemagne because we have two biographies of him written by men who were close to him. The more important of these is by Einhard. He describes Charlemagne as being moderately tall, around six feet tall and powerfully built with a thick neck and deep chest. He had the red hair and blue eyes of his tribe and was possessed of both strength and stamina. He was average of the Franks in his love for hunting and for feasting, but Einhard notes that his king drank in small servings, only three cups of wine with a meal. Charlemagne was an ambitious king, aggressive and ruthless, but equally notable was his perseverance, his ability to carry through on a plan. He was not a great general, but he was a dogged campaigner and was often able to wear the enemy down through sheer force. Indeed, one of his more important attributes was his physical energy. Einhard notes that Charlemagne was able to work longer and harder than his commanders or his secretaries. He was no genius, but he had a good mind and appreciated literature, which he had read to him by others. He was a patron of scholars and brought many of them to his court. All these accomplishments created a wide net of loyalty. Charlemagne had admirers within the Church and among his nobility. His enemies feared both him and his armies. He did not command perfect obedience among his vassals, but none defied him successfully or for long. Charlemagne had one other virtue that is needed if a king is to be called “Great”. He ruled the Franks from 768 to 814; creating an empire that would be the envy and model for many an ambitious monarch after him.

The Lombards had moved into Italy in the later 500s, destroying what was left of the Gothic kingdom and establishing their own. They ruled northern Italy for the next two centuries, until Charlemagne ended their rule. Charlemagne was married to the sister of the Lombard king. He was not interested in maintaining the marriage, however, and while still a young man he repudiated her and sent her away, claiming the marriage was not valid. This made the Lombard king very angry, Desiderius, who immediately began conspiring to harm Charlemagne however he might. To this end, he plotted rebellion with some Frankish lords. When this plot was discovered, Charlemagne had all the excuse he needed to go to war. Charlemagne invaded Italy in 773. He defeated Desiderius at the Battle of Pavia that same year, capturing the king himself, whom he sent off to a monastery for safekeeping. Charlemagne proceeded then to claim for himself the iron crown of the Lombards and with this the Lombards fade into the background. Central Italy was not his because Pepin had given it to the Pope. Southern Italy was still in Greek or Moslem hands. But the Kingdom of Italy, as it came to be known, was ruled by a northern prince. This is why later German kings will claim to have rights and powers here. The story of Saxony was quite different from that of Lombardy. Saxony (is today northwestern Germany and parts of the Netherlands) was still ruled by the Saxons, who had remained pagan. They were a semi-nomadic people who lived in part by preying on farming communities and were a sore thorn in Charlemagne.s side. So, in 772, he decided that it was in the interests of both realm and Church that he does something about the Saxons. He gathered an army, marched into Saxony and defeated the army that was fielded against him. He pushed forward as far as the Weser River, receiving the submission of local chiefs. Then he went home again. The next year he was occupied by the business in Lombardy, and the Saxon chiefs quickly ignored their oaths to receive missionaries and to send tribute payments to the Christian king. In 775, Charlemagne again invaded Saxony and again defeated the army that was sent against him. This time he scoured Saxony from one end to the other, to make sure there were no chieftains left undefeated. To make doubly certain of his new subjects, he forced the chiefs to convert to Christianity.

Charlemagne ruled more territory than any other Frankish king did. The institution of monarchy among the Franks was not equipped to deal with this situation. The Merovingians had signally failed to rule other peoples, or even themselves, and it was this system that Charlemagne had inherited. Charlemagne either created new offices, or adapted old ones to new purposes, to meet the challenge. Typical of the changes he made were those that concerned the governors of his various provinces. Within the Frankish realm, he relied on his counts. A count was appointed by him to rule a particular region within France, these regions being still defined more by the peoples living there than by any specific geographic boundaries. These were areas that were settled and on whose loyalty the king could usually rely. Newly conquered territories, however, were another matter. The ruler here had to be a warrior, whose principal duties were military. Such a territory was called a March. Thus, the territory won by Charlemagne when he invaded Spain is called the Spanish March. Most such marches were on the eastern borders, in German territories. The German word for count is graf, and the word for march is mark. Long after Charlemagne, and even long after the Middle Ages, there were lords in Germany called margraves, still reflecting the administrative inheri