A History of Germany from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Taylor Bayard

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СКАЧАТЬ baptism. One account states that Charlemagne named him Duke of the Saxons and was thenceforth his friend; another, that he sank into obscurity.

      788. SUBJECTION OF BAVARIA.

      Charlemagne was now free to make another journey to Italy, where he suppressed some fresh troubles among the Lombards (as we must henceforth style the Longobards), and forced Aragis, the Duke of Benevento, to render his submission. Then, for the first time, he turned his attention to the Bavarians, whose Duke, Tassilo, had preserved an armed neutrality during the previous wars, but was suspected of secretly conspiring with the Lombards, Byzantines, and even the Avars, for help to enable him to throw off the Frank yoke. At a general diet of the whole empire, held in Worms in 787, Tassilo did not appear, and Charlemagne made this a pretext for invading Bavaria.

      Three armies, in Italy, Suabia and Thuringia, were set in motion at the same time, and resistance appeared so hopeless that Tassilo surrendered at once. Charlemagne pardoned him at first, under stipulations of stricter dependence, but he was convicted of conspiracy at a diet held the following year, when he and his sons were found guilty and sent into a monastery. His dynasty came to an end, and Bavaria was portioned out among a number of Frank Counts, the people, nevertheless, being allowed to retain their own political institutions.

      The incorporation of Bavaria with the Frank empire brought a new task to Charlemagne. The Avars, who had gradually extended their rule across the Alps, nearly to the Adriatic, were strong and dangerous neighbors. In 791 he entered their territory and laid it waste, as far as the river Raab; then, having lost all his horses on the march, he was obliged to return. At home, a new trouble awaited him. His son, Pippin, whom he had installed as king of Lombardy, was discovered to be at the head of a conspiracy to usurp his own throne. Pippin was terribly flogged, and then sent into a monastery for the rest of his days; his fellow-conspirators were executed.

      When Charlemagne applied his system of military conscription to the Saxons, to recruit his army before renewing the war with the Avars, they rose once more in rebellion, slew his agents, burned the churches, and drove out the priests, who had made themselves hated by their despotism and by claiming a tenth part of the produce of the land. Charlemagne was thus obliged to subdue them and to fight the Avars, at the same time. The double war lasted until 796, when the residence of the Avar Khan, with the intrenched "ring" or fort, containing all the treasures amassed by the tribe during the raids of two hundred years, was captured. All the country, as far eastward as the rivers Theiss and Raab, was wasted and almost depopulated. The remnant of the Avars acknowledged themselves Frank subjects, but for greater security, Charlemagne established Bavarian colonies in the fertile land along the Danube. The latter formed a province, called the East-Mark, which became the foundation upon which Austria (the East-kingdom) afterwards rose.

      799.

      The Saxons were subjected—or seemed to be—about the same time. Many of the people retreated into Holstein, which was then called North-Albingia; but Charlemagne allied himself with a branch of the Slavonic Wends, defeated them there, and took possession of their territory. He built fortresses at Halle, Magdeburg, and Büchen, near Hamburg, colonized 10,000 Saxons among the Franks, and replaced them by an equal number of the latter. Then he established Christianity for the fifth time, by ordering that all who failed to present themselves for baptism should be put to death. The indomitable spirit of the people still led to occasional outbreaks, but these became weaker and weaker, and finally ceased as the new faith struck deeper root.

      In the year 799, Pope Leo III. suddenly appeared in Charlemagne's camp at Paderborn, a fugitive from a conspiracy of the Roman nobles, by which his life was threatened. He was received with all possible honors, and after some time spent in secret councils, was sent back to Rome with a strong escort. In the autumn of the following year, Charlemagne followed him. A civil and ecclesiastical assembly was held at Rome, and pronounced the Pope free from the charges made against him; then (no doubt according to previous agreement) on Christmas-Day, 800, Leo III. crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor, in the Cathedral of St. Peter's. The people greeted him with cries of "Life and victory to Carolo Augusto, crowned by God, the great, the peace-bringing Emperor of the Romans!"

      If, by this step, the Pope seemed to forget the aspirations of the Church for temporal power, on the other hand he rendered himself forever independent of his nominal subjection to the Byzantine Emperors. For Charlemagne, the new dignity gave his rule its full and final authority. The people, in whose traditions the grandeur of the old Roman Empire were still kept alive, now beheld it renewed in their ruler and themselves. Charlemagne stood at the head of an Empire which was to include all Christendom, and to imitate, in its civil organization, the spiritual rule of the Church. On the one side were kingdoms, duchies, countships and the communities of the people, all subject to him; on the other side, bishoprics, monasteries and their dependencies, churches and individual souls, subject to the Pope. The latter acknowledged the Emperor as his temporal sovereign: the Emperor acknowledged the Pope as his spiritual sovereign. The idea was grand, and at that time did not seem impossible to fulfil; but the further course of history shows how hostile the two principles may become, when they both grasp at the same power.

      800. CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE.

      The Greek Emperors at Constantinople were not strong enough to protest against this bestowal of a dignity which they claimed for themselves. A long series of negotiations followed, the result of which was that the Emperor Nicephorus, in 812, acknowledged Charlemagne's title. The latter, immediately after his coronation in Rome, drew up a new oath of allegiance, which he required to be taken by the whole male population of the Empire. About this time, he entered into friendly relations with the famous Caliph, Haroun Alraschid of Bagdad. They sent embassies, bearing magnificent presents, to each other's courts, and at Charlemagne's request, Haroun took the holy places in Palestine under his special protection, and allowed the Christians to visit them.

      With the Saracens in Spain, however, the Emperor had constant trouble. They made repeated incursions across the Ebro, into the Spanish Mark, and ravaged the shores of Majorca, Minorca and Corsica, which belonged to the Frank Empire. Moreover, the extension of his frontier on the east brought Charlemagne into collision with the Slavonic tribes in the territory now belonging to Prussia beyond the Elbe, Saxony and Bohemia. He easily defeated them, but could not check their plundering and roving propensities. In the year 808, Holstein as far as the Elbe was invaded by the Danish king, Gottfried, who, after returning home with much booty, commenced the construction of that line of defence along the Eider river, called the Dannewerk, which exists to this day.

      Charlemagne had before this conquered and annexed Friesland. His Empire thus included all France, Switzerland and Germany, stretching eastward along the Danube to Presburg, with Spain to the Ebro, and Italy to the Garigliano river, the later boundary between Rome and Naples. There were no wars serious enough to call him into the field during the latter years of his reign, and he devoted his time to the encouragement of learning and the arts. He established schools, fostered new branches of industry, and sought to build up the higher civilization which follows peace and order. He was very fond of the German language, and by his orders a complete collection was made of the songs and poetical legends of the people. Forsaking Paris, which had been the Frank capital for nearly three centuries, he removed his Court to Aix-la-Chapelle and Ingelheim, near the Rhine, founded the city of Frankfort on the Main, and converted, before he died, all that war-wasted region into a peaceful and populous country.

      810.

      No ruler before Charlemagne, and none for at least four centuries after him, did so much to increase and perpetuate the learning of his time. During his meals, some one always read aloud to him out of old chronicles or theological works. He spoke Latin fluently, and had a good knowledge of Greek. In order to become a good writer, he carried his tablets about with him, and even slept with them under his pillow. The men whom he assembled at his Court were the most intelligent of that age. His chaplain and chief counsellor was Alcuin, an English monk, and a man of great learning. His secretary, Einhard (or Eginhard) СКАЧАТЬ