Charlemagne is a man, as we can see from history, of an evidently scientific nature. Often from the midst of primitive civilizations men emerge who run with unspeakable ardor towards study, and it happens then that something rough, wild, strange is mixed in their works, which portrays their early education. It is true that Charlemagne enthusiastically loves Roman studies, but in essence he still remains Germanic. Eginardo narrates that he barely knew how to combine the letters and hardly compose the characters of his name of Karolus [57], written at the bottom of orders and diplomas. Does he study Roman science out of genius, or just to give greater luster and depth to his work? A man of war and conquest, he has nevertheless understood all the profit which he can draw from Latin education, – in wishing to grace the customs and spirits; he saw Italy, its monuments, its greatness; he heard her language, her music; and what pro cavar could not be for peoples of great Roman or Byzantine education? He is in friendship with the popes, who have around them bishops and abbots who speak [49]the Greek or Latin language, and they write in Latin, he will lead the double move of the Church and of science, and like all sovereign minds, he dominates and rules everything he touches.
Three men help him to carry out his drawings of scientific order; Alcuin, Teodolfo and Landrado, who represent three civilizations, three languages, three peoples; Alcuin is a Saxon by lineage, like Saint Boniface, he speaks the language of those peoples tamed by Charlemagne to the banks of the Elbe, and has their lively and ardent imagination; Teodolfo is Lombard, and represents Latin literature beyond the Alps, the civilization of Milan, Ravenna and Rome; Landrado is a man of Germanic homeland, and he preserves and perpetuates the profound, solid and certain knowledge. Alcuin is a cherico of very strong studies, like all the Anglo-Saxon clerics of that time, and he made laborious and fruitful investigations into Sacred Scripture, grammar, rhetoric and much written.
Teodolfo is the poet of the Italians; most of his works are in verse, he describes everything in his beautiful language, and it is seen that he studied Horace, Virgil and Ovid as well. One of the missi dominici, as he was, from Charlemagne, in the southern provinces, the witty trip to Brindisi suggests to him the thought of describing in verse the places he visited in his legation, and he does it with a singular magisterium. The painting which he presents there of the Septimania and Provence is lively, colorful, nor does he even visit a city without all of them referring to the minute its origins, uses, customs. Landrado, a laborious writer, like all those of the Germanic race, has continuous correspondence with the abbots, teaches the cherics, women, children, for example of St. Jerome, compares and punctuates the works of Sacred Scripture, and all patience, corrects Merovingian characters, giving them a purer and more studied form, which at first they did not have. Alcuin is also a great corrector and punctuator of Greek and Latin; hard and patient critic, corrects errors in biblical manuscripts; then he learns Hebrew, Syriac, and is so identified with Rome, which he gives the title of Pandette to the collection of his works; her work around the Bible is solemn, but the Bible is the great book of the peoples, and the whole generation applies it: in the abbeys the psalms are commented, the nuns themselves syllogize around the meaning of the sacred books, and the abbess certainly the monastery of Neustria, in correspondence with Alcuin, tells him how that sentence of the prophet weighs on the soul: all men are lying . Like the early fathers of the Church, Alcuin is in correspondence with women consecrated to the monastic life, and we have a treatise of that learned abbot addressed to the virgin Eulalia; those young girls, devoted to solitude, thought themselves strong [50]so as to read Saint Augustine [58] , and Alcuin made a restricted one for their use [59] .
Theodulf teaches with equal ardor, and summarizes and comments and makes restrictions also for the use of the laity, and it is very difficult since the interpretation of the sacred books. Alcuin and Teodolfo put it to everyone’s attention because of compendiums in Latin and also in the vernacular. All these minds are stirred up under the strong and generous impulse of Charlemagne, who animates and protects them; Alcuin is guided by rich abbeys, Theodolfo is promoted to the bishopric of Orleans, Lanfranco is awarded the Lyon subway; everyone makes tools for Charlemagne to enlighten and sublimate him; one teaches him letters, the other Latin and Greek, and he keeps with them all an intimate and familiar correspondence.
Theology is the science of that age, it is the foundation of all discussion. Aren’t Catholic dommas the basis of that society? All religious faith includes, and would not know the spirit of that century, whoever believed there in the action of philosophy, even if speculative, completely extraneous to that believing generation. Except that some books of Sophistic Greeks began to penetrate the Frankish Empire under the Carolingians, and the compilations that appeared under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite, preceded the doctrines of the Scotus by more than a century. I do not want to magnify the height of the discoveries of ancient times, because on the contrary, those who suppose wanted a wide freedom of investigation at that time of strength and Catholicism, would show not knowing that such daring ingenuity would not even have been understood in those days, when the religious theorists themselves had nothing but material, and the controversies were all about the cult of images. However, the practices with Constantinople owed the progress of philosophy, although quotations from the books of Aristotle were very rare, which were not known, to say the least, except for the Arabic translations of the ninth century. It is incontrovertible that the compilation under the false name of Dionysius the Areopagite, which spread in the West towards the reign of Charles the Bald, operated powerfully on philosophical studies; the Scotus came only to complete them, in the twelfth century; and the world drew its first light on the facets of Greek knowledge, which preserves vases in the schools of Constantinople;
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Moreover, in the West, progress was neither great nor vigorous; and if the truth is true, can he give the name of astronomy to the calculations to fix the dates and to the ecclesiastical calculations of movable feasts? In terms of astronomy, there was a dispute around the Aristotelian system, around the Alexandrian school, around the Ptolemaic system; Theodolfo and Alcuin were of different opinion; he wanted the astronomical year to begin in September; he placed what he called the leap of the moonin November. The theoreticals by Alcuin expounded on the lunar system are singular; at the time that the moon approached that astronomical leap, about which the scholars of that century reason so much, he marks certain figures on paper, which he then sends to Charlemagne, and the latter discusses with him to make him persuaded of the accuracy of his own observations, and gives it away with imperfect instruments taken from the Egyptian and Roman civilization. Not otherwise than with all the primitive nations, those learned and wise men observe the movement and phenomena of the stars; at the beginning of the ninth century there was a long solar eclipse, which frightened all those generations; the monk of Angouleme, who deserved the title of astronomer, announced the conjunction of Mercury with the sun in the year 807, and in the month of February that phenomenon was seen in the sky which announced, according to the contemporaries, the clash of armies at war, and perhaps it was nothing but a northern aurora, tinted reddish. The scientific discussion then arose between the memoirs of the Alexandrian school and the books merely of the Aristotelian Greek school; every year, when he was willing to determine Easter according to the rite of the Nicene council, lively discissions arising from astronomical calculations arise; astronomy was made an indispensable science for the priests: “a priest of God must know how to count” says one of Charlemagne’s capitulars. The book of the Ecclesiastical Computation, enjoined by councils to priests and monasteries, thus becomes the foundation of all science, and the astronomers were appointed to all the other teachers,
In the studies of the Middle Ages, geography, a science of which under Charlemagne was very imperfect, was always found united with astronomy; It is true that Theodulf, always a scholar, had tried to compose a spherical globe with all the signs of the zodiac, but the explanation he gives of them is devoid of any exactness. It seems that in this school the theory of Ptolemy about the shape of the earth dominates; but they do not understand well about the bases of a spherical system: Alcuin puts it as a principle that the earth is square, and the world, according to him, is stationary on four cardinal points [60] , and divided into three parts, Europe , Affrica [52]and Indies, which are vaguely described by him as an immense space on the eastern side. All that was known in those days of geography came from pilgrims and traveling bishops, who went to preach the faith among the barbarians; the cities and provinces were crudely marked on some parchment or papyrus, and all that was preserved from the ancient world was taken from the Roman or Byzantine school.
Nevertheless, science forms all the occupation of those men who want to discover its hidden mysteries, and Theodolfo, the Italian poet, a man of imagination, represents it under the image of a tree, with its decorated branches and with its flowering branches. twigs of a thousand colors; grammar forms the root, on the one hand rhetoric emerges, on the other the dialectic arises with all the luxuriance of a luxuriant scion, then music, geometry and astronomy come, like three tightly embraced sisters; and this symbol comes from Theodolfo not without a certain daring of thought. In time that other scholars do nothing but apply himself to Sacred Scripture and to the study of psalms and biblical books, he confesses that he enjoys an interior delight in reading, and meditating on pagan authors, and in his pamphlets the quotation of Virgil’s beautiful verses and of the comedies of Terentius continues. Also the verses of the Saxon Alcuin san of the study of the ancients; celebrates the arrival of Pope Leo in France, and uses the poetic language in writing epitaphs and describing the orginal dust of Time, which runs near eternity, while he blames those who dedicate themselves too much to profane authors and Virgil mainly, and that he says to one of his disciples: “you are too Virgilian,” and that a bishop who is his friend reproaches his overwhelming passion for the Aeneid. In some monasteries in those days Greek was spoken; there were schools where it was publicly taught, and Latin was the common language of the Church. It is therefore no surprise that the ancients were read and consulted as masters in literature and poetry. Charlemagne himself did not disdain the mechanism of Latin verses, as we saw in his tender epitaph of Pope Adrian, and he too used that poetic language in his epistles to Paul the Deacon.
He also uttered verses in his native language, and often again in German and in Germanic dialect; he had the traditions of his ancestors gathered, and he wanted the heaters and poets to keep the memories of the past and the victories of their ancestors. Hence perhaps the origin of those heroic songs, from which large relics remain today; except that time has destroyed the originals of these monuments in the barbarian language, and just a few words, a few sentences scattered here and there in the Latin inscriptions, indicate the language that was spoken in the eighth century; none however [53]it can be denied that there were no traditions and legends written in the sermon of the fatherland at that time, some of which traditions mingled with the lives of the saints. Heroic songs and chivalry novels were drawn from these early sources; the imagination of the troubadours worked on it with large epics, but the substance of this poem comes from those legends, of which the chronicles make mention, from those songs in the Teutonic language, which were collected with great diligence by order of Charlemagne. Those first songs disappeared, because they were completely foreign to the solitary life of the monks and to their spirit of conservation; the chronic ones, when encountered, were handed down from age to age, with the care and religion of a sacred monument; the language of the cloister was Latin, that of the campo German; the chronic ones belonged to monastic order, heroic songs to the military order; some were kept in the shadow of solitude; the others vanished, like the sound of great battles, prey to the winds of generations.
The heroic songs were recited loudly in battle and in the courts of the feudal lords, but no ancient manuscript came down to us with the notes and scales marked as in those that came later; nevertheless, it is not to be doubted that such songs were not sung, and their very name teaches us this. And were not the Homeric poems also sung for the countryside of Greece? The juggling chants , as Alcuin calls them, were in contrast with the singing of the Church, grave and solemn; and recited on cheerful arias from minstrels and troubadours, where the Catholic hymns proceeded from two origins, from Gallic chant, which had a certain druidic and savage character, and from Roman or Greek still chant, and between the two schools alive and ardent contrast, because the Church of the Gauls wanted to keep its songs.
Charlemagne bowed to the Roman form, as the sweetest and most appropriate for hymns of joy, and the monk of St. Gall tells us how he was delighted by the sung hymns, and how he wanted the cherichs to repeat the lessons loudly and loudly of the cathedral [61] , and how often he attended them, pointing with his finger or with the tip of his staff each one whose turn it was his turn to sing.
The written still chant consisted in putting on the words of hymns or psalms some small squares of notes, whose tails extended up or down; the children carved the syllables, singing, and the cherici played the bass, while the emperor showed, smiling, his contentment in hearing the perfect accord of those voices. One day he liked the song of the Greeks so much that he ordered the Latin words to be sung on the same tone. From Greece also came, as we have already said, that magnificent instrument, the marvel of the whole [54]generation, the organ we will say, which was sent to Charlemagne by the emperor of Constantinople, in the same way that the mechanical clock was sent to him by the caliph of Baghdad. Until that time the Franks had known only certain stringed and wind instruments, but then they heard those thousand sounds, which echoing spread through the cathedral, like the thousand voices of the final judgment, when those pipes, artificially ordered, to all the passions of the heart and soul were expressed, the cherics almost spontaneously renounced the harp and the Roman tibias. The organ is the sacred instrument that best accords with religious aspirations; the organ and the hymns are the true expression of the Middle Ages, and those that better than anything else we can interpret their living and profound affections,
Next to music came painting, but it is still alive only in the tradition of Rome and Byzantium, there being no special art that can refer to the reign of Charles, no more than to the time of the Merovei; everything was removed from the schools of Constantinople or Rome, and the shapeless paintings, such as those that are found today in some rare manuscripts, as to say in the Bible of Charles the Bald, the ivory covers, the copper harnesses, ‘silver and gold, set, and the letters, which are a work of art, have nothing original; the painting, the chiselling, the miniature came from the Byzantines. The Germanic dry form appears at the meeting most profoundly marked in the works of architecture, dominating the Lombard school with its heavy and solid foundations. A few rare relics still offer us a clue to the Carlinga architecture, such as in Poitiers some walls still standing, and in Aachen some remains of the cathedral choir, to which boulders of solid stone were used, and the porphyry columns removed in Ravenna; but they are monuments that never belong to only one age, since the columns and mosaics of previous times are grafted into them. In Aachen, exemplary, there are debris from the imperial palace of Ravenna, and even more curious mosaics; the abbey of San Ricchieri, as it was described by Father Mabillon, recognized its origin from the eighth century. Every day in the meantime it brings some remains of the monuments of antiquity, so that in a short time we will have nothing but dust from the Carlinga age. as in Poitiers some walls still standing, and in Aachen some remains of the choir of the cathedral, to which boulders of solid stone were used, and the porphyry columns removed in Ravenna; but they are monuments that never belong to only one age, since the columns and mosaics of previous times are grafted into them. In Aachen, exemplary, there are debris from the imperial palace of Ravenna, and even more curious mosaics; the abbey of San Ricchieri, as it was described by Father Mabillon, recognized its origin from the eighth century. Every day in the meantime it brings some remains of the monuments of antiquity, so that in a short time we will have nothing but dust from the Carlinga age. as in Poitiers some walls still standing, and in Aachen some remains of the choir of the cathedral, to which boulders of solid stone were used, and the porphyry columns removed in Ravenna; but they are monuments that never belong to only one age, since the columns and mosaics of previous times are grafted into them. In Aachen, exemplary, there are debris from the imperial palace of Ravenna, and even more curious mosaics; the abbey of San Ricchieri, as it was described by Father Mabillon, recognized its origin from the eighth century. Every day in the meantime it brings some remains of the monuments of antiquity, so that in a short time we will have nothing but dust from the Carlinga age. but they are monuments that never belong to only one age, since the columns and mosaics of previous times are grafted into them. In Aachen, as an example, there are debris from the imperial palace of Ravenna, and even more curious mosaics; the abbey of San Ricchieri, as it was described by Father Mabillon, recognized its origin from the eighth century. Every day in the meantime it brings some remains of the monuments of antiquity, so that in a short time we will have nothing but dust from the Carlinga age. but they are monuments that never belong to only one age, since the columns and mosaics of previous times are grafted into them. In Aachen, exemplary, there are debris from the imperial palace of Ravenna, and even more curious mosaics; the abbey of San Ricchieri, as it was described by Father Mabillon, recognized its origin from the eighth century. In the meantime, every day brings some remains of the monuments of antiquity, so that in a short time we will have nothing but dust from the Carlinga age.
This is about the arts. As for the grave sciences, the monastic schools held the first place, favored, in full power, by Charlemagne. What hadn’t the cry of the schools of Corbia, Fontenelles, Ferrieres, San Dionigi and San Germano reached in Ne-Austrian France? Thus in Austrasia no contender school could have the primacy to those of Fulda and St. Gallen, founded by Charlemagne. [55]In Italy, the monastery of Montecassino possessed the best of ancient knowledge; everything was taught there, and especially the interpretation of Scripture. The study of canon law was restricted to ancient councils; civil law was deduced from the capitulars and the Salic law and rethought some cities and peoples of Gaul were governed by Roman law. Considered as a work in the body, the capitulars are a beautiful monument of civil law, and such that they can be placed alongside the Theodosian code and the Justinian: considered, part by part, the law was not a doctrine there, but all formed a collection of edicts of social police, such as to require more obedience than study.
The science of medicine was to the same degree of imperfection; only the writings of Hippocrates had somewhat illuminated the practice; they had knowledge of the simple, as far as Pliny teaches them, and there were some schools to learn medicine as an art, and the capitulars mention it, where they enjoin the sending of children to similar schools. Such was the belief in spells and spells at that time that everyone will easily understand how neglected true science ought to be; it was not educated in those days, but it was believed. The Rules made for the religious orders of St. Benedict required that in every convent there was a brother who was a doctor and a pharmacy, and in chivalric times there were legends about wonderful healings, which the study of simple was nothing more than a pastime of those noble castles. Balm, ointments, drugs and medicaments already beautiful and prepared were brought from Syria, the aphorisms of Hippocrates were carried out, regulated by some tradition of the Alexandrian school. Then everything was done without examination, without observation; they took the facts as they were, and when the chronicle reported an event, the generation gave them full faith; legends, parchments, documents, everything was admitted as a fundamental truth. There is no spirit of criticism in whatever it is; because that generation, all of belief and faith, does not reason at all, but obeys; and even if she argues, yes it does around words; nor does she sink into the interpretations of the scriptural senses; as for rational science, she understands nothing,
In the first fervor of such a restoration of Roman studies, we see an innocent joy in the eighth century scholars; studying past times, contemplating with the ardor of neophytes the beautiful remains of antiquity, they are enthusiastically engulfed in studies, and this admiration in them of ancient times is so ardent, that the bishops, abbots and cherics, scholars of the sciences, the names of ancient poets and orators who are worthy of the cult are given [56]they, and from this knot David the psalmist and Homer the singer of the sublime rhapsodies lend their names to the writers of the eighth and ninth centuries; Charlemagne forms a kind of areopagus and academy, in which each borrowed a name: Davidde [62] , Samuel, Oniaste, Homer, Virgil; nor are they now more called than by these nicknames. Such is the nature of all times of the Risorgimento, and the character of the ages in which I began to study; each throws himself with ardor and enthusiasm towards the things of the past, always new for those who face them neglected. The rarities of books, both in papyrus and parchment, were a reason that they were eagerly sought [63], paid like sacred relics and went around Italy and Greece to collect some. It was not the Arabs who handed down, as was written, most of the Greek authors for imperfect translations, but they came straight from Constantinople, and there are manuscripts which still bear the imprint of Greek studies. Communications with Constantinople were very frequent under Charlemagne, and still more in the time of pilgrimages; on the other hand, Greek was in use in monastic schools; so why resort to the Arabs, to get a second-hand translation from them? Some books of geometry and kabbalistic were able to come from the Arabs, masters as they were of Alexandria; but as for the principal authors of Greece and the Latin poets of antiquity,[64] .
The influence of the Byzantine schools on all forms and the spirit of science was great at that time, so much so that even the Merovingian characters, shapeless as they are, and in which the hues of the Saxon origin are mixed, also disappear. they almost entirely to give rise to the letters so perfectly formed, which are in the bulls of Rome and in the papyri of Constantinople. The few scripts and diplomas that remain of the ninth century are perfectly outlined, and their characters briefly approach those admirable manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries, among which the pen codex of Gregorio Nazianzeno stands out, a beautiful monument of art, owned by the Royal Library, a work of patience and expertise that would no longer be done in our leisure times.
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Charlemagne was the center of all this scientific movement; everything, everything he gathered around his greatness, and while certain chronicles say that he hardly knew his letters, other monuments present him to us for the enlightened protector of the learned. There are no signatures of his hand, because in his diplomas, next to his bull and seal, we find his monogram yes, but still drawn by his scribe or chancellor, according to the principles of the second lineage [65]. Nor is there any contradiction in this sameness of a prince ignorant of himself, and nevertheless protector of the sciences and studies; this leader, this barbarian, loves poetry, like all conquerors, and he makes the healers sing the stories of his country, which Charlemagne also knew, like any other king that he wanted to found a great system of government, the action from ancient literature exercised on the civil company; he remains Germanic yes, for his nature, for his strength, for his origin; but as for thinking, he tries to make himself a Roman. In his military expeditions he is accompanied by leudi, by his accounts; but when he has to order the empire, to make laws of good government, he calls the cherics to his aid and support, and diligent and provided, as he is in everything, correspond with everyone. Few are the monuments written by him first-hand, nor do we have more of his own than a few letters, but they are the work of a man who filled the Middle Ages with his fame, and yet history will collect goddesses, as sacred relics, all that comes from a sublime origin. There is always gold in the midst of this dust, and greatness always in the midst of these ruins!
The abbey of Fulda, a great foundation of the eighth century, is the favorite room of the prince of Austrasia, not otherwise than the abbey of Montecassino is the foundation of the Longobard kings; and Charlemagne then enjoys dealing with those abbots, who with the miter on his head, and with the crosier in his hand, will come so many times to welcome him: our faithful, it is useful that in the churches and monasteries, of which God has confided to us the supreme government, each of the cherics should wait not only to observe a disciplined life, and to practice the duties of our holy religion, but yes again, if the Lord have endowed them with the necessary faculties, to instruct themselves in the study of fine letters, as an honest rule and defense of their good morals. [58]to purge the discourse, so that, with their exemplary life and with the pleasant way of speaking, they fulfill the commandments of God, but what is written is: – You will be acquitted or damned according to your words. – On the occasion of having, this year, several monasteries made it known that they were addressing fervent prayers to heaven for us, we realized, through their letters, that, if the spirit is right, the style is incorrect, and who cannot translate, without scorn, in writing, the good thoughts that come to them suggesting their devotion to us. Now their incorrect writing has put us in fear that their poor doctrine prevents them from understanding the text of Sacred Scripture well, knowing well that, if language errors are harmful, those that distort the meaning are even more harmful.
In which epistle, certainly a work of Alcuin, the love of Charlemagne’s letters is revealed, he wishing that the cherics study and write with elegance and style correction. From the fields of Saxony he then wrote to Hadrian: «Our Lord: King Charles, your son, and your daughter and our woman Fastrada, son and daughter of Our Lord, and all your house greet you; all the priests, bishops, abbots and the whole congregation devoted to God, and thus all the generality of the Frankish people greet you. Your son gives you thanks for the legacies you sent him and for your sweet letters, with which you make him certain of the prosperous conservation of your health. ” Charlemagne then stays in the monastery of Fulda, and from there he agrees with Queen Fastrada, one of his women, about abstinence and fasting. “With the’ help of God (so he), we prayed for three days, beginning at the ninths of September, to implore from the merciful God peace, victory, health, and at the same time a prosperous journey, and to beg him to always help us and support and defend us . Our priests ordered all those who by age and health to do their best to abstain from meat and wine, and to obtain license to drink some wine for these three days, the richest and wealthiest of us donated , according to their strength, but I don’t lack a danajo; besides which each also made alms, more or less abundant, according to his state. Each priest said a mass, except for those impeded by illness, and those cherics who knew the psalms, recited fifty, remaining barefoot while they prayed. Such is the commandment of priests, to which we have all considered it convenient to submit, and it is our wish that you do the same with our faithful. As for you and what can be granted to you for your weakness, we put ourselves in your prudence. ”
[59]
You seem to hear an ancient emperor of Rome, Caesar, for example, arguing with his wife, a worthy Roman matron, of his popes and of the celebration of public feasts. Charlemagne is the guardian of the police of his empire, therefore he invigates the men of arms, the cherici, and because he knows all the podestà of the Church, he makes it corrector and guardian, and also writes in distant parts to make who has no harm in his things; I testify what he writes below to King Offa. «A Scottish priest, who lived some time near us in the parish of Ildeboldo, bishop of Cologne, according to the denunciation of his accuser, sinned, eating meat in Lent. Except that our priests, not having found the accusation sufficiently proven, did not want to sentence it; but no less, they no longer allow him, because of his fault, to live in the place of his abode, so that the ignorant common people may not vilify the honor of the priesthood, and the scandal may not lead others to break the sanctity of fasting; gave it back to the bishop’s tribunal, before which he made his vows to the Lord. We therefore ask you to order that he be brought back to his country to be judged there: for purity of morals and constancy of faith in the womb of the Church of God must also be observed there, so that this one, perfect and immaculate dove with silver wings and golden tail, you must blaze with all its splendor and may scandal not lead others to break the sanctity of fasting; he returned it to the bishop’s tribunal, before which he made his vows to the Lord. We therefore ask you to order that he be brought back to his country to be judged there: for purity of morals and constancy of faith in the womb of the Church of God must also be observed there, so that this one, perfect and immaculate dove with silver wings and golden tail, you must blaze with all its splendor and may scandal not lead others to break the sanctity of fasting; he returned it to the bishop’s tribunal, before which he made his vows to the Lord. We therefore ask you to order that he be brought back to his country to be judged there: for purity of morals and constancy of faith in the womb of the Church of God must also be observed there, so that this one, perfect and immaculate dove with silver wings and golden tail, you must blaze with all its splendor[66] . ”
This universal vigilance of the Church had to be constantly supported by firm acts of the prince; hot controversies stirred the bishops, abbots and monks; in more than one place strict discipline was neglected; where ignorance, and where the passion of cherics; then the broken and noisy living of the monasteries. The abbot of San Martino and his monks did not want to obey the bishop, believing that they were released from any jurisdiction of the Ordinary, so Charlemagne wrote to them in these severe terms: “Bishop Teodolfo complains, in one of his letters, of his ways that which you have treated his people, not even so much about this, as with the little respect you had for the bishop of your city, and with the contempt you showed for our imperial commandments. Now these commandments, We had them written under the authority of our name, and they ordered you to return to this bishop a priest who, having escaped from prison, had come to be hospitalized in the basilica of San Martino; nor was this at all an unjust command. We have had both letters reread, yours and Theodolf’s, and we have [60]found in your words greater bitterness and anger, and no feeling of charity towards him; it seems that there you want rather to defend the offender, and to accuse the bishop, and to give it to the understanding that he can and indeed should be put on indictment, where all human and divine laws agree to prohibit the offender from accuse anyone. In vain, you excuse him, claiming that he has appealed to us, supporting the maxim that every accused and sentenced before the people of his city also has the right to accuse others and to refer them to Caesar. You cite, for example, Saint Paul who, accused by the people before the Jewish princes, appealed to Caesar, and was sent by the princes themselves before him to be judged; but this has nothing to do with the present case. L’ apostle Paul was accused, yes, but not judged, when he appealed to Caesar, and was forgiven him; where this rebellious priest, accused and sentenced, has stolen from his prison to take refuge in a basilica, despite the law that forbade him to enter it until his penance has been completed, and only now, although it is said that he continues in his sinful life, he turns to Caesar, in imitation of the apostle Paul. But, like Paul likewise, he will have come in vain to invoke Caesar, because we command that he be placed in the hands of him from whose strength he has withdrawn, to him alone it belongs, let the guilty speak true or false, translate it before us , nor is it necessary for such a man to have anything innovated in our orders. We cannot be surprised enough by your temerity in opposing, alone, to the acts of our authority. You must already know how many rumors have been made, and not without reason, about your way of life; in fact, now you call yourselves monks, now canons, and sometimes you are neither one another; so that, watching over your good, and wanting to remove your bad reputation, we had chosen for you a teacher and a rector capable of showing you the right way with his words and precepts, and made him come from a distant country, and a religious man of holy life as he was, we trusted that his examples could correct you. But, alas! everything was contrary to our hope, and the devil has found in you almost as many ministers to sow the weeds among the wise and doctors of the Church, and to induce into sin of anger and envy those who themselves punish and correct sinners . Except that, we hope, God will not allow them to succumb to your evil suggestions. As for you, contemptuous of our orders, canons or monks who call yourselves, you will come to the one of our great audiences, which will be assigned to you by our present messenger; nor do you benefit from relieving yourself of the obligation to appear to atone for your unheard-of temerity the letter in which you try to justify your rebellion. ”
[61]
In this letter Charlemagne manifests his anger, and his strong resentment undergoes; Austrasius, who wants everything subject, is amazed that there are those who dare to resist his imperial commands; having said his will, everyone will obey goddesses, and what he says to the abbots, he also says to kings, ruling over all. “It came to my ear, he wrote to Pippin, king of Italy, his son, that some dukes and their subordinates, castaldi [67], vicars, centurions, and their officers, as are the falconers, hunters and others like that, in going through the provinces they inhabit here and there, they levy taxes not only on free men, on the churches of God, on the monasteries of friars and nuns. , on the hospices, on the people and on the workers who work the vineyards, the fields and the lawns of the churches, the latter also using them to build their buildings, continually depriving them of their meat and wine, against all justice, with a thousand others oppression of which they oppress. So it is, my dear son, that we send you this letter, so that you apply all your care and prudence to repair the evil. We were also told that in some places, some of our subjects and yours, claim to be null and void the participation that we have made them of various capitulars written in the law, and under the same pretext they refuse to obey them and have them as laws. Now, you know the speeches that we ourselves have given with you on the purpose of these capitulars, so we ask you to make them known and carried out in the whole kingdom by God entrusted to your vigilance, and we recommend that you take steps to do what we have ordered thus around the killing of bishops and priests, as in other things. In the meantime, with regard to priests, it seems appropriate to us that if the priest is born free, the fine imposed by law be tripled, and the same if he has been even wounded. And if there is any doubt that he was born a servant, inquiries will be made on his origin to find out whether or not he should have the fine paid tripled. Do so also with respect to deacons. ” you know the speeches that we ourselves have given you on the purpose of these capitulars, so we ask you to make them known and carried out in the whole kingdom by God entrusted to your vigilance, and we recommend that you take steps to do what we have ordered in this way around the killing of bishops and priests, as in other things. In the meantime, with regard to priests, it seems appropriate to us that if the priest is born free, the fine imposed by law be tripled, and the same if he has been even wounded. And if there is any doubt that he was born a servant, inquiries will be made on his origin to find out whether or not he should have the fine paid tripled. Do so also with respect to deacons. ” you know the speeches that we ourselves have given you on the purpose of these capitulars, so we ask you to make them known and carried out in the whole kingdom by God entrusted to your vigilance, and we recommend that you take steps to do what we have ordered in this way around the killing of bishops and priests, as in other things. In the meantime, with regard to priests, it seems appropriate to us that if the priest is born free, the fine imposed by law be tripled, and the same if he has been even wounded. And if there is any doubt that he was born a servant, inquiries will be made on his origin to find out whether or not he should have the fine paid tripled. Do so also with respect to deacons. ” so we ask you to make them known and carried out in the whole kingdom entrusted to your vigilance by God, and we recommend that you take steps to do what we have ordered as well as for the killing of bishops and priests, as well as other things. In the meantime, with regard to priests, it seems appropriate to us that if the priest is born free, the fine imposed by law be tripled, and the same if he has been even wounded. And if there is any doubt that he was born a servant, inquiries will be made on his origin to find out whether or not he should have the fine paid tripled. Do so also with respect to deacons. ” so we ask you to make them known and carried out in the whole kingdom entrusted to your vigilance by God, and we recommend that you take steps to do what we have ordered as well as for the killing of bishops and priests, as well as other things. In the meantime, with regard to priests, it seems appropriate to us that if the priest is born free, the fine imposed by law be tripled, and the same if he has been even wounded. And if there is any doubt that he was born a servant, inquiries will be made on his origin to find out whether or not he should have the fine paid tripled. Do so also with respect to deacons. ” with regard to priests, it seems appropriate to us that if the priest is born free, the fine imposed by law be tripled, and the same if he has even been wounded. And if there is any doubt that he was born a servant, inquiries will be made on his origin to find out whether or not he should have the fine paid tripled. Do so also with respect to deacons. ” with regard to priests, it seems appropriate to us that if the priest is born free, the fine imposed by law be tripled, and the same if he has even been wounded. And if there is any doubt that he was born a servant, inquiries will be made on his origin to find out whether or not he should have the fine paid tripled. Do so also with respect to deacons. ”
So much for the political law; here is now a letter from Charlemagne about the preaching of the divine word, because he wants to master both the doctrine, the moral part of man, the intellect. The letter is addressed to the bishop of Liège. «May your fatherhood keep in mind what we have repeatedly told you in council, about preaching in the Holy Church of God, and the way in which she was to preach, and instruct the people according to the authority of the sacred canons. First of all, as far as Catholic law is concerned, we said to you, it is due to those who cannot learn more, to recite [62]at least by heart the Dominical Prayer and the Symbol of the Faith, as the Apostles have taught them, nor is it lawful for anyone to remove a child from the baptismal font, without having first recited, in the presence of your paternity or of any one of them. its priests, the Dominical Prayer and the Symbol. Except that having found several people on the day of the Lord’s Apparition who wanted to have children baptized, we ordered that each of them be separately and diligently examined to see if, as we said, all knew the Sunday Prayer and the Symbol , and several were found which knew neither one nor the other; wherefore it was ordered by us that they should be prevented from removing anyone from the sacred source, until they had learned, so as to recite them in their minds, he gave her two prayers, which was the cause of great shame for many. And afterwards, most excellent bishop, it seemed good to us to order a fast, and that everyone abstain from wine and meat, fasting until the ninth hour, except those who are not allowed to do so from their age or infirmity. ”
Everything is mixed and confused in these times, and while Charlemagne imposes fasting and penances like a bishop, he also orders the abbots to follow him to war with their armigers, and an armament to Abbot Folrado, a man of science. “You will come, so he writes, with your armigers to the assigned place, so that you can then move towards any other place we know how to do you, by armed hand, that is, with weapons, tools, ammunition from the mouth, clothes, everything in short, what is needed in war. Let each of your knights have shield, spear, sword, half sword, his bow, his quiver, his arrows; each of your chariots contain axes, axes, wedges, iron blades, and all other tools useful against the enemy. And of these tools and ammunition from the mouth you have for three weapons and clothing in sufficient quantity for half a year. So much so we order you so that you have it carried out, and that you go peacefully to the assigned place, that is, without touching anything on the way, except the hay, the wood and the water you may need.[68] . ”
These fragments of the epistles of Charlemagne written by him or by his scribes and secretaries, give us better knowledge of the character of the conqueror, the king, the emperor, than not all the systems and classifications [63]of modern times; it is beautiful to see the image of man in his own writings, that all his thinking is transfused into it. In vain would you look for any philosophical division there, everything being mixed and confused together; civil laws with ecclesiastical canons, capitulars with councils. Charlemagne’s might dominates everything from the general government of society to the discipline of the Church and the domestic administration of the palace. By reading this epistolary correspondence of Charlemagne you can form a concept of his character and his podestà, which podestà is a mixture of political and religious attributions, a wild creation that holds the earth, science and barbarism, is his chaos unraveled by the mind of a supreme intellect, the only one, in so much work, superior to its century,
