XLIX. CHAP. thic kingdom of Alphonfo the Chafte, was comfined to the narrow range of the Austrian mountains. These petty fovereigns revered the power or virtue of the Carlovingian monarch, implored the honour and fupport of his alliance, and ftyled him their common parent, the fole and fupreme emperor of the Weft ". of the Weft". He maintained a more equal intercourfe with the caliph Harun al Rafhid, whofe dominion ftretched from Africa to India, and accepted from his ambassadors a tent, a water-clock, an elephant, and the keys of the holy fepulchre. It is not eafy to conceive the private friendship of a Frank and an Arab, who were strangers to each other's perfon, and language, and religion: but their public correfpondence was founded on vanity, and their remote fituation left no room for a competition of intereft. Twothirds of the Western empire of Rome were fubje& to Charlemagne, and the deficiency was amply fupplied by his command of the inacceffible or invincible nations of Germany. But in the choice of his enemies, we may be reasonably surprised that he so often preferred the poverty of the north to the riches of the fouth. The three-and-thirty campaigns laboriously confumed in the woods and moraffes of Germany, would have fufficed to affert 113 See Eginhard, c. 16, and Caillard, tom. ii. p. 361-385. who mentions, with a loose reference, the intercourse of Charlemagne and Egbert, the emperor's gift of his own fword, and the modeft anfwer of his Saxon difciple. The anecdote, if genuine, would have adorned our English hiftories. 114 The correspondence is mentioned only in the French annals, and the Orientals are ignorant of the caliph's friendship for the Chriftian dog-a polite appellation, which Harun bestows on the emperor of the Greeks. XLIX. the amplitude of his title by the expulfion of the CHAP. Greeks from Italy and the Saracens from Spain. The weakness of the Greeks would have enfured an eafy victory: and the holy crufade against the Saracens would have been prompted by glory and revenge, and loudly juftified by religion and policy. Perhaps, in his expeditions beyond the Rhine and the Elbe, he afpired to fave his monarchy from the fate of the Roman empire, to difarm the enemies of civilized fociety, and to eradicate the feed of future emigrations. But it has been wifely obferved, that in a light of precaution, all conqueft must be ineffectual, unless it could be univerfal; fince the increafing circle must be involved in a larger sphere of hoftility ". The fubjugation of Germany withdrew the veil which had so long concealed the continent or iflands of Scandinavia from the knowledge of Europe, and awakened the torpid courage of their barbarous natives. The fierceft of the Saxon idolaters efcaped from the Christian tyrant to their brethren of the north: the Ocean and Mediterranean were covered with their piratical fleets; and Charlemagne beheld with a figh the deftructive progrefs of the Normans, who, in less than feventy years, precipitated the fall of his race and monarchy. ceffors, Had the pope and the Romans revived the pri- His fucmitive conftitution, the titles of emperor and Auguftus were conferred on Charlemagne for the 115 Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361–365. 471-476. 492. I have borrowed his judicious remarks on Charlemagne's plan of conqueft, and the judicious diftinction of his enemies of the first and the second enceinte (tom. ii. p. 184. 509, &c.). term A. D. 814-887 in italy; XLIX. 911 in Ger CHAP. term of his life; and his fucceffors, on each va cancy, muft have afcended the throne by a formal many; 987 or tacit election. But the affociation of his fon in France. Lewis the Pious afferts the independent right of monarchy and conqueft, and the emperor feems on this occafion to have foreseen and prevented the A. D. 813. latent claims of the clergy. The royal youth was commanded to take the crowd from the altar, and with his own hands to place it on his head, as a gift which he held from God, his father, and the nation 16 The fame ceremony was repeated, though with less energy, in the subsequent affociations of Lothaire and Lewis the fecond; the Carlovingian fceptre was tranfmitted from father to fon in a lineal descent of four generations; and the ambition of the popes was reduced to the empty honour of crowning and anointing these hereditary princes who were already invested with their power and dominion, The pious Lewis furvived his brothers, and embraced the whole empire of Charlemagne; but the nations and the nobles, his bifhops and his children, quickly difcerned that this mighty mafs was no longer infpired by the fame foul; and the foundations were undermined to the centre, while the external furface was yet fair and entire. After a war, or battle, which confumed one hundred thousand Franks, the empire Lewis the 116 Thegan, the biographer of Lewis, relates this coronation; and Baronius has honeftly transcribed it (A. D. 813, No 13, &c. See Gaillard, tom. ii. P. 506, 507, 508.), howsoever adverse to the claims of the popes. For the feries of the Carlovingians, see the hiftorians of France, Italy, and Germany; Pfeffel, Schmidt, Velly, Muratori, and even Voltaire, whofe pictures are fometimes juft and always pleafing. was XLIX Lothaire I. A. D. was divided by treaty between his three fons, who CHAP. was the empire, XLIX. CHAP. was fhewn to the female or illegitimate blood of Charlemagne. Of the greater part, the title and poffeffion were alike doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the contracted scale of their dominions. Those who could appear with an army at the gates of Rome were crowned emperors in the Vatican; but their modefty was more frequently fatisfied with the appellation of kings of Italy; and the whole term of feventy-four years may be deemed a vacancy, from the abdication of Charles the Fat to the establishment of Otho the first. Otho king of Germany appropria es the Weftern enipire, A. D. 962. Otho " was of the noble race of the dukes of relores and Saxony; and if he truly defcended from Witikind, the adverfary and profelyte of Charlemagne, the pofterity of a vanquished people was exalted to reign over their conquerors. His father Henry the Fowler was elected, by the fuffrage of the nation, to fave and institute the kingdom of Germany. Its limits were enlarged on every fide by his fon, the firft and greatest of the Othos. A portion of Gaul to the west of the Rhine, along the banks of the Meuse and the Mofelle, was affigned to the Germans, by whofe blood and lan 18 117 He was the fon cf Otho, the son of Ludolph, in whose favour the dutchy of Saxony had been instituted, A. D. 858. Ruotgerus, the biographer of a St. Bruno (Bibliot. Bunaviana Catalog. tom. iii. vol. ií. p. 679.), gives a splendid character of his family. Atavorum atavi ufque ad hominum memoriam omnes nobiliffimi; nullus in eorum ftirpe ignotus, nullus degener facile reperitur (apud Struvium, Corp. Hift German. p. 216.). Yet Gundling (in Henrico Aucupe) is not fatisfied of his defcent from Witikind. 118 See the treatife of Conringius (de Finibus Imperii Germanici, Francofurt. 1630, in 4to): he rejects the extravagant and improper fcale of the Roman and Carlovingian empires, and difcuffes with moderation the rights of Germany, her vaffals, and her neighbours. guage |