Charlemagne (c. 742-814), great in history and even greater in legend, succeeded Pepin III.

Desiderius, King of the Lombards, the successor of Aistulf, wrested from the Pope the cities of which Aistulf had been deprived. Thereupon Pope Hadrian I appealed to Charlemagne, who was then fighting against the Saxons. He crossed the Alps, began the siege of Pavia, and went to Rome, where he kept the Easter of 774 and renewed the donation made to the Pope by his father, Pepin III. He then witnessed the capitulation of Pavia and was crowned King of the Lombards. The peninsula, however, was not at peace. In 799 Pope Leo III was attacked and wounded by the family of his predecessor, Hadrian. He fled for refuge to Charlemagne, then at Paderborn, and the two returned to Rome in triumph.

Leo had previously recognized the temporal supremacy of Charlemagne over Rome, even sending to him the keys of St. Peter's tomb. And now, on Christmas Day 800, Charlemagne knelt before the tomb, and was crowned by the Pope and proclaimed Emperor and Augustus. The great significance of Charlemagne's coronation is this. The old Eastern Roman Empire still existed at Constantinople. But the old Latin Empire of the West was dead and had been replaced in a large measure by the papacy. Charlemagne by becoming the master of northern and central Italy and receiving an imperial crown at Rome, made his Empire appear as the continuation of the Roman Empire of the West. But he also transferred to his Empire much of the spiritual prestige and international cohesion of the Catholic Church of the Latin world. His rule was theocratic. The Pope was a necessary part of this theocracy. He was the power beside the king, but he was not behind the king; the king often acted on his own initiative. And though the Carolingian kingdom was soon severed, the influence of the close union between Church and State under Charlemagne was not forgotten. It left a deep mark upon the institutions of the Church and prepared for the later rivalry between the Empire and the Papacy.

The conversion of the Saxons was the result of the conquests of Charlemagne. The Saxons, like the Frisians, had no love for Christianity, for to them Christianity was in a special sense the Frankish religion as it had been the Roman religion to the Goths of the sixth century. Two Anglo-Saxon missionaries, Ewald the Black and Ewald the White, had gone early in the eighth century to preach to their continental kinsmen and received the martyr's crown.

Christianity made little or no progress and Charlemagne determined to subdue a people whose independence was a menace to his empire. His first expedition (772) resulted in the capture of the stronghold Eresburg and the destruction of Irminsul, a pillar held sacred by the Saxons. As soon as he left the country the Saxons rose again, and in spite of treaties, killed every Frankish priest and warrior whom they could find (782). Charles then punished their treachery by beheading 4,500 Saxons at Verden. After a battle at Detmold, and another on the Hase, the power of the Saxons crumbled, and by 804 it was crushed. In 786 the law forbade, under pain of death, the practice of heathen rites and the refusal of Christian baptism. The two Saxon chiefs Widukind and Abbio then received baptism. Bishoprics were founded at Bremen, Minden, and Verden, and before long Minster, Paderborn, and Halberstadt were added.

The subjugation of the Saxons by Charlemagne was connected with a serious interlude in Spain.

THE CHANSON OF ROLAND

The Muslim conquest of Spain in 732 drove back the Christian frontier far north, so that by 756 it only included the Asturias, Santander, parts of Burgos, Leon, and Galicia. The invaders, however, were torn by dissensions, and it was not until the arrival of Abdurrahman at Seville, in the latter year, that the Muslim power began to be united and secure. In 777 Arabi, governor of Barcelona, formed a league against Abdurrahman and invited the help of Charlemagne. Charles, believing that he had sufficiently tamed the Saxons, crossed the Pyrenees with an army and besieged Saragossa. He was recalled by the news that Widukind had returned to Saxony and had reached Cologne, and it was on his way back to France through Roncesvalles that the rear-guard of his army was annihilated by the Basques. There Roland fell, the hero immortalized in the 'Chanson de Roland'. It is a sober and noble epic. The oldest recension of it is the work of an Anglo-Norman scribe of the twelfth century, and is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Following the lines that we should expect in popular tradition and poetry, the defeat of Charlemagne's forces is represented as a national disaster, and the Basque assailants become a vast army of Saracens, Muslims who are the sworn foes of Franks and Christendom.

Abdurrahman beat his fellow Muslim and captured Saragossa. But eighteen years later Charlemagne conquered the Spanish March beyond the Pyrenees and in 801 he extended his sway over Barcelona.

THE THEOLOGICAL EMPEROR

Charlemagne was in some degree like Constantine and the other 'theological emperors' of the fourth century. He seriously regarded himself as the protector of Christianity, one whose warriors would defend the bodies of the faithful and whose priests would defend their souls. His great mental activity, his genius for organization, and his grasp of detail were all at the service of the Church. Under his influence no less than 477 decisions affecting religion and morals were passed by various ecclesiastical councils, and the work begun by St. Boniface gained year by year in strength and symmetry.

The spiritual life of cathedral churches was stimulated by Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, who formed a group of canons leading a common life but keeping their private property. Monastic life received a new impulse from Witiza, a Languedocian who became known as Benedict of Aniane. And around each bishop the cathedral chapter became a seminary for teaching priests the elements of their clerical duties. Charlemagne was more than modern in his passion for holding examinations. His clergy were not only examined before they were ordained, but were examined after as to the baptisms they administered, the liturgy, their own belief, and their own conduct. Charlemagne, though he could speak Latin and understood Greek, could hardly write at all. But he demanded essays on baptism from his clergy, and by insisting on the regular administration of holy unction, he endeavored to provide his subjects with the best means for facing death as well as for receiving a new birth in Christ.

Side by side with the cathedral and monastic churches were schools. Some of these schools possessed good libraries. Books were copied, and copied in an improved and legible handwriting. Among these books the Bible held the first place. Of the scholars whom Charlemagne delighted to honor at least four must be mentioned here. The first was Paul the Deacon, an Italian, who wrote a valuable history of the Lombards. The second was Theodulf, a Spaniard, who was the best Latin poet of the time. The third was Einhard, a German, who wrote an excellent 'Life' of his patron. But the foremost was the wise and attractive Englishman, Alcuin (d. 804), who had been trained among the good scholarly traditions of York. In his library at York he had a Bible which was brought to Tours and served as the basis of a revised version of the Scriptures. Roman liturgical books also appeared, and the most important of them was the Gregorian Sacramentary. By the imperial command this Roman book, with some modifications, replaced the old Gallican books of France. As time went on, the old Roman books yielded more and more to Frankish books which were not purely Roman, and in Rome itself the liturgy became infected with Frankish influence. But, broadly speaking, liturgical anarchy, was checked. The subjects of Charlemagne worshipped after the manner of the king's chapel, the chapel at Aix, which was copied from the church of San Vitale at Ravenna and resounded with the Roman chant.

Charlemagne did not confine his care to the externals of worship or the instruction given in schools and pulpits. He concerned himself with three subjects of great doctrinal importance. Western Christendom had not been represented at the Second Council of Nicaea, held in 787, the Council which defended the use and veneration of sacred pictures or images. Reports of this Council raised grave misgivings in the West, where it was supposed that the Council had sanctioned the rendering of 'adoration' or divine worship to representations of our Lord and His saints. A Council held in 794 at Frankfurt, under the patronage of Charlemagne, denounced the Second Council of Nicaea as 'most inept' and repudiated the worship of images. The 'Caroline Books' were composed recording this doctrine and sent to Pope Hadrian, who deferred publishing the acts of the Council of Nicaea. The use of pictures and images as means of instruction was permitted among the Franks, but it was long before their Church tolerated the practice of surrounding them with the tapers and the incense so dear to the heart of Oriental Christendom.

But at Frankfurt Charlemagne did more than tilt against images with his potent lance. He defended the Catholic doctrine of Christ’s Person. Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, revived in a new form the old heresy of Adoptionism, teaching that our Lord in his human nature was only the adopted Son of God. As the older form of Adoptionism was acceptable to some Christians exposed to the opposition of Jews who denied the Deity of Christ, so this later form gained followers in a country where Muslims denied that cardinal verity. The heresy was also introduced into Languedoc by a bishop named Felix. The Council of Frankfurt discussed and condemned this error, and Charlemagne sent bishops who persuaded Felix to abandon Adoptionism.

The Church of Spain appears to have influenced Charlemagne at another point. The truth that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father had been asserted by St. John and by the Ecumenical Councils, and was enshrined in the Creed. The further statement that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son was widely accepted in the West and seems implied in the more mature doctrine of some celebrated Eastern fathers. At Toledo in 589 a great Council pronounced an anathema on any one who denied that the Holy Spirit proceeds 'from the Son', and the practice of inserting these words in the creed sung at the liturgy began gradually to prevail. As Charlemagne's rule extended into Spain as far as Barcelona, some of his subjects must have been familiar with the new practice. It was in agreement with the teaching of St. Augustine, and Charlemagne's favorite reading was the noble treatise of that saint called the 'City of God'. It is therefore not surprising that the Filioque was adopted in the royal chapel and spread throughout the Frankish Church. It very soon became a stumbling-block to Oriental Christians, who felt that, whether it was true or false, it was an interpola­tion inserted without adequate authority into one of the most hallowed monuments of the Christian faith.

To the Christian student it comes as a shock to learn that this fervent defender of Christianity and patron of culture, who cared alike for the learned and the poor, was in his sexual morality very near the level of an ancient Jewish monarch. At the instance of Frederick Barbarossa the anti-pope Pascal III canonized Charlemagne.

This canonization the Church has not ratified, and Charlemagne is numbered among her benefactors but not among her saints.