conquest. It was bestowed on Pepin; after his death. intrusted to Bernhard, Pepin's illegitimate but only son. Wiser counsels prevailed. The two elder sons of Charlemagne died without issue; Louis the third son was summoned from his kingdom of Aquitaine, and solemnly crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, as successor to the whole Empire.

April, 813.

Louis,1- his name of Pious bespeaks the man, thus the heir of Charlemagne, had inherited the religion of his father. But in his gentler and less resolute character that religion wrought with an abasing and enfeebling rather than ennobling influence. As King of Aquitaine Louis had been distinguished for some valor, activity, and conduct in war against the Saracens of Spain; 2 but far more for his munificence to the churches and convents of his kingdom. The more rigid clergy had looked forward with eager hope to the sole dominion of the pious king; the statesmen among them had concurred in the preservation of the line of the Empire; yet Louis would himself have chosen as his example his ancestor Carloman, who retired from the world into the monastery of Monte Casino, rather than that of his father, the lord and conqueror of so many realms. It required the author

1 Ermoldus gives the German derivation of the name Louis (Hludwig): 66 Nempe sonat Hluto præclarum, Wigch quoque Mars est."— Apud Pertz, ii. p. 468.

2 The panegyrist of Louis, the poet Ermondus Nigellus, asserts his vigorous administration of Aquitaine., He describes at full length the siege of Barcelona, giving probably a much larger share of glory than his due to Louis. For his general character see Thegan. c. xix. Louis understood Greek; spoke Latin as his vernacular tongue. On the youth of Louis see the excellent work of Funck, "Ludwig der Fromme." Sir F. Palgrave highly colors the character and accomplishments of Louis. Louis the Pious renounced the Pagan (Teutonic?) poetry which he was accustomed to repeat in his youth. - Thegan. p. 19.

CHAP. II.

LOUIS THE PIOUS.

515

ity of Charlemagne, not unsupported even by the most austere of the clergy, the admirers of his piety, to prevent him from turning monk.1

Yet, on his accession, the religion of Louis might seem to display itself in its strength rather than in its weakness. The license of his father's court shrank away from the sight of the holy sovereign. The concubines of the late Emperor, even his daughters and their paramours, disappeared from the sacred precincts of the palace. Louis stood forward the reformer, not the slave of the clergy. To outward appearance, like Charlemagne, he was the Pope, or rather the Caliph of his realm. He condescended to sit in council with his bishops, but he was the ostensible head of the council; his commissioners were still bearers of unresisted commands to ecclesiastical as to temporal princes. Yet the discerning eye might detect the coming change. The ascendency is passing from the Emperor to the bishops. It is singular, too, that the nobles almost disappear; in each transaction, temporal as well as ecclesiastical, the bishops advance into more distinct prominence, the nobles recede into obscurity. The great ecclesiastics, too, are now almost all of Teutonic race. The effete and dissolute Roman hierarchy has died away. German ambition seizes the high places in the church; German force animates their counsels. The great prelates, Ebbo of Rheims, Agobard of Lyons, Theodolf of Orleans, are manifestly of Teutonic descent. Benedict of Aniane is the assumed name of Witiza, son of the Gothic Count of Mage

1 Louis was a serious man. When at the banquet the jonglers and mimes made the whole board burst out into laughter, Louis was never seen to smile.

lone; Benedict, the most rigorous of ascetics, who stooped to the name, but thought the rule of the elder Benedict of Nursia far below monastic perfection. The bastard descendants of Charles Martel appear, two of them even now, not as kings or nobles, but as abbots or monks; compelled, perhaps, to shroud themselves from the jealousy of the legitimate race by this disqualification for temporal rule, only to exercise a more powerful influence through their sacred character.1 Adalhard, Wala, Bernarius, were the sons of Bernhard, an illegitimate son of Charles Martel. Adalhard, Abbot of Corvey, and Bernarius, were already monks the Count Wala was amongst the most honored counsellors of Charlemagne. The nomination of Louis to the sole empire had not been unopposed. Count Wala, some of the higher prelates, Theodolf of Orleans, no doubt Wala's own brothers Adalhard and Bernarius, would have preferred, and were known or suspected to have pressed upon the Emperor the young Bernhard, the son, whom Charle magne had legitimated, or might have legitimated, of the elder Pepin, rather than the monk-King of Aquitaine. Wala indeed had hastened, after the death of Charlemagne, to pay his earliest homage at Orleans to Louis. He thought it more safe, however, to shave his imperilled head, and become a monk. The whole family was proscribed. Adalhard was banished to the island of Noirmoutiers; Bernarius to Lerins; Theodrada and Gundrada the sisters, Gundrada, who alone Aug. 1.

had preserved her chastity in the licentious

1 Funck, p. 42. He observes further: "Die lustigen Gesellen an Karls Hof, die Buhlen seiner Töchter, denem Ludwig mit seiner Heiligkeit, lächerlich war, konnten naturlich den Bibelleser und Psalmsinger nicht an die Stelle Karls wunschen." Politics make strange coalitions!

CHAT. II.

DIET OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.

517

court of Charlemagne, were ignominiously dismissed from the court.1

A diet at Aix-la-Chapelle was among the earliest acts of Louis the Pious. From this council commissioners were despatched throughout the empire to receive complaints and to redress all acts of oppression.2 Multitudes were found who had been unrighteously despoiled of their property or liberty by the counts or other powerful nobles. The higher clergy were not exempted from this inquest, nor the monasteries. In how many stern and vindictive hearts did this inquest sow the baleful seed of dissatisfaction!

The Emperor is not only the supreme justiciary in his Gallic and German realm; it is his unquestioned right, it is his duty, to decide between the Pope and his rebellious subjects on the claims of Popes to their throne. Leo III. had apparently bestowed the imperial crown on Charlemagne, had recreated the Western Empire; but he had been obliged to submit to the judicial award of Charlemagne. He is again a suppliant to Louis for aid against the Romans and must submit to his haughty justice. Whether, as suggested, the prodigality of Leo had led to intolerable exactions - whether he had tyrannically exercised his power, or the turbulent Romans would bear no control (these animosities must have had a deeper root than the disappointed ambition of Pope Hadrian's nephews) -a conspiracy was formed to depose Pope

1 "Quæ inter venereos palatii ardores et juvenum venustates, etiam inter deliciarum mulcentia, et inter omnis libidinis blandimenta, sola meruit (ut credimus) reportare pudicitiæ palmam."— Vit. Adalh. apud Pertz, ii. p. 527. Theodrada had been married; as a widow, could only claim the secondary praise of unblemished virtue.

• See the Constitutio, Bouquet, vi. p. 410

Leo, and to put him to death. Leo attempted to suppress the tumults with unwonted rigor: he seized and publicly executed the heads of the adverse faction.1 The city burst out in rebellion. Rome became a scene of plunder, carnage, and conflagration. Intelligence was rapidly conveyed to the court of Louis. King Bernhard, who had been among the first to render his allegiance to his uncle at Aix-la-Chapelle, had been confirmed in the government of Italy. He was commanded to interpose, as the delegate of the Emperor. Bernhard fell ill at Rome, but sent a report by the imperial officer, the Count Gerhard, to the sovereign. With him went a humble mission from the Pope, to deprecate the displeasure of that sovereign, expressed at the haste and cruelty of his executions, and to answer the charge made against him by the adverse faction. No sooner had King Bernhard withdrawn from Rome than, on the illness of Leo, a new insurrection broke out. The Romans sallied forth, plundered and burned the farms on the Pope's estates in the neighborhood. They were only compelled to peace by the armed interference of the Duke of Spcleto.

The death of Leo, and, it should seem, the unpopu June 12, 816. lar election of his successor, Stephen JV., exasperated rather than allayed the tumults. Stephen's first acts were to make the Romans swear fealty to the 'Emperor Louis; 2 to despatch a mission, excusing, on account of the popular tumults, his conJune 22. secration without the approbation of the Emperor, or the presence of his legates. In the third 1 A.D. 815, Eginhard, sub ann.

2 Thegan., Vit. Hludovici, ii. 594.

8 "Missis interim duobus legatis, qui quasi pro suâ consecratione imperatori suggererent." - Eginhard. ann. 816.