id="n56">56
Eginhard,
57
The coronation scene is described in all the annals of the time, to which it is therefore needless to refer more particularly.
58
Before the end of the tenth century we find the monk Benedict of Soracte ascribing to Charles an expedition to Palestine, and other marvellous exploits. The romance which passes under the name of Archbishop Turpin is well known. All the best stories about Charles – and some of them are very good – may be found in the book of the Monk of St. Gall. Many refer to his dealings with the bishops, towards whom he is described as acting like a good-humoured schoolmaster.
59
Baronius,
60
See especially Greenwood,
61
62
63
64
Lorentz,
65
See a very learned and interesting tract entitled
66
Ἀποκρισιάριοι παρὰ Καρούλλου καὶ Λέοντος αἰτούμενοι ζευχθῆναι αὐτὴν τῷ Καρούλλῳ πρὸς γάμον καὶ ἑνῶσαι τὰ Ἑωὰ καὶ τὰ Ἑσπερία. – Theoph.
67
Their ambassadors at last saluted him by the desired title 'Laudes ei dixerunt imperatorem eum et basileum appellantes.' Eginh.
68
Harun er Rashid; Eginh.
69
So Pope John VIII in a document quoted by Waitz,
70
Pertz,
71
Pütter,
72
'Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit,' is repeated in this conquest of the Teuton by the Roman.
73
The notion that once prevailed that the Irminsûl was the 'pillar of Hermann,' set up on the spot of the defeat of Varus, is now generally discredited. Some German antiquaries take the pillar to be a rude figure of the native god Irmin; but nothing seems to be known of this alleged deity: and it is more probable that the name Irmin is after all merely an altered form of the Keltic word which appears in Welsh as Hir Vaen, the long stone (
74
Eginhard,
75
Most probably the Scots of Ireland – Eginhard,
76
Eginhard,
77
Aix-la-Chapelle. See the lines in Pertz (
This city is commonly called Aken in English books of the seventeenth century, and probably that ought to be taken as its proper English name. That name has, however, fallen so entirely into disuse that I do not venture to use it; and as the employment of the French name Aix-la-Chapelle seems inevitably to produce the belief that the place is and was, even in Charles's time, a French town, there is nothing for it but to fall back upon the comparatively unfamiliar German name.
78
Engilenheim, or Ingelheim, lies near the left shore of the Rhine between Mentz and Bingen.
79
Eginhard,
80
Eginhard,
81
It is not a little curious that of the three whom the modern French have taken to be their national heroes all should have been foreigners, and two foreign conquerors.
82
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 greatly resembles the beautiful church of San Vitale, at Ravenna (also modelled upon that of the Holy Sepulchre) which was begun by Theodoric, and completed under Justinian. Probably San Vitale was used as a pattern by Charles's architects: we know that he caused marble columns to be brought from Ravenna to deck the church at Aachen. Over the tomb of Charles, below the central dome (to which the Gothic choir we now see was added some centuries later), there hangs a huge chandelier, the gift of Frederick Barbarossa.
83
'Romuleum Francis præstitit imperium.' – Elegy of Ermoldus Nigellus, in Pertz;
84
Usage has established this translation of 'Hludowicus Pius,' but 'gentle' or 'kind-hearted' would better express the meaning of the epithet.
85
Von Ranke discovers in this early traces of the aversion of the Germans to the pretensions of the spiritual power. —
86
Singularly enough, when one thinks of modern claims, the dynasty of France (Francia occidentalis) had the least share of it. Charles the Bald was the only West Frankish Emperor, and reigned a very short time.
87
Tac.
88
For an account of the various applications of the name Burgundy, see Appendix, Note A.
89
The accession of Boso took place in A.D. 877, eleven years before Charles the Fat's death. But the new kingdom could not be considered legally settled until the latter date, and its establishment is at any rate a part of that general break-up of the great Carolingian empire whereof A.D. 888 marks the crisis. See Appendix A at the end.
It is a curious mark of the reverence paid to the Carolingian blood, that Boso, a powerful and ambitious prince, seems to have chiefly rested his claims on the fact that he was husband of Irmingard, daughter of the Emperor Lewis II. Baron de Gingins la Sarraz quotes a charter of his (drawn up when he seems to have doubted
