The soul is mainly pleased with an effort in the serious studies of philosophy and history, and that is to investigate what end the work of a great man has had, and what fruit it was bearer to the world. Every fact owed, so to speak, its genealogy, its past, its future; for even when a sovereign intellect has dazzled you, you cannot help but ask what footprints he left of his passage in life, and in a certain way, what mankind owes to him. But alas! there are too many times in the annals of the world, which left nothing after them, and which we nevertheless love to contemplate, as if we were reading an epic poem! Such it is [172]precisely the aspect under which we now examine the reign of Charlemagne. Where are his enormous, and what are the footprints he left in society with his laws, his highs, his will, his strength? Difficult to assume, but still necessary to give the last fulfillment to the history of the Western emperor.
The laws of Charlemagne, as you find them in the capitulars, have two great intentions: either they aim to confirm the previous legislation, carrying it out and coordinating it with certain new provisions, or they proceed from ideas inherent to the Carlingo system, which forms two very distinct rights, the one that is nothing but the confirmation of the past, the other that belongs to the present. The laws particular to each of the barbarous peoples remained intact under the Carolingians, except for some few modifications ordered by the capitulars. There was still the Salic law, born in the midst of Germany, and compiled by Theodoric, king of Austrasia, which, all resting on the composition, lasted, as a particular right of the Franks, even under the empire of Charlemagne, and it is not evident that the tribe mixed themselves in the most general constitution of the empire of the West, for it was the privilege of the nations subject to Charlemagne to preserve their own code and the institutions of their country together. The Salic law thus passed through the legislation of the empire, very little contracting of the Carlingo concept, and left some traces of itself up to the twelfth century, as various scriptures prove; but then it disappeared in the likeness of the capitulars themselves under the law of the feudal laws.
The law rethought, like the Salic code, impressed with an admirable simplicity, preserved under the Carolingians its natural roughness, nor the additions that Charlemagne made there [144]point they stripped it of its character of personality, which it knew to preserve together with the Frankish origin, which is as valid as the composition. The capitulars themselves were subject to this right. In fact, on what hinges did the Salic law rest and rethink it? on these that every crime could be served with a fine payable to the tax authorities, and for settlement and compensation to the injured party. Now this legislation was entirely in favor of the Treasury, however, by opening up a wide field to fines and rewards, the taxman was enriched with the application of the same law. This benefited from maintaining the said two laws for a long time, since the taxman had an interest in exercising them, as those which constituted his wealth and formed a part of his income. Except that the tracks, as we said, [173]could she last while the primitive nations vanished? Under the Carolingians the Franks, the Burgundians, the Lombards, the Aquitani were still distinguished, but then these distinctions disappear, as new forms in society succeed the ancient ones; peoples are no longer classified by origin, but by law and heritage, and there are nobles, bourgeois, servants, great vassals, censuarii, valvassori.
The Burgundian law, or of the Burgundians, passed more quickly than that of the Franks, although both of these populations had the same origin. The monarchy of the Borgognoni was of a very short duration, and no longer exists after the reigns of Gondebaldo and Sigismondo. Now this law, which did not rest entirely on the principle of compositions, admitted afflictive penalties, not at all in the interest of the taxman, so that it was better to mix and be confused with Roman law. The Salic law was entirely differentiating, and created orders and degrees. The Burgundian code at the meeting, more benign to the vanquished, regulated the interests of the Romans and Burgundians with a great feeling of fairness: if a question or dispute arose, it was judged by a court of jurors composed of half Burgundians and half of Romans. . Which explains how the traces of this legislation disappeared more easily than those of the Salic law. The same observation applies to the code of the Visigoths, which dominated by ecclesiastical laws, and approved by the bishops, remained within the principles of Roman jurisprudence. We see it disappear almost entirely since the reign of Charlemagne; the capitulars do not even mention it, and the formation of the duchy of Aquitaine, and then from this same duchy, of the reign of Lodovico, it fails and falls: the councils had prepared it, and the councils melted it, so much so that at eleventh century no mention is made of Gothic laws, already governed the south of France by the Theodosian code. The same happened with the Lombard legislation: in fact, how could the code of the Lombards last? in such close proximity to Rome, the popes and Constantinople? By the time Charlemagne made his arrival to those laws, they had already almost completely fallen into disuse. Defeated and subjugated by the Franks, the Lombards had nothing more to promise themselves from them, nor an interest in letting themselves be governed by their code. Saxons, Bavarians, Alemanni all had fallen under the yoke of the victor, but all these peoples had greater vigor and pride than the Lombards; and yet the Alemanno kept his law, the Saxon resumed his sylvan independence, the Bavaro his dukes. Indeed, they separated from France since the time of Lodovico Pio. Defeated and subjugated by the Franks, the Lombards had nothing more to promise themselves by them, nor an interest in letting themselves be governed by their code. Saxons, Bavarians, Alemanni all had fallen under the yoke of the victor, but all these peoples had greater vigor and pride than the Lombards; and yet the Alemanno kept his law, the Saxon resumed his sylvan independence, the Bavaro his dukes. Indeed, they separated from France since the time of Lodovico Pio. Defeated and subjugated by the Franks, the Lombards had nothing more to promise themselves from them, nor an interest in letting themselves be governed by their code. Saxons, Bavarians, Alemanni all had fallen under the yoke of the victor, but all these peoples had greater vigor and pride than the Lombards; and yet the Alemanno kept his law, the Saxon regained his sylvan independence, the Bavaro his dukes. Indeed, they separated from France since the time of Lodovico Pio. the Saxon resumed his sylvan independence, the Bavaro his dukes. Indeed, they separated from France since the time of Lodovico Pio. the Saxon resumed his sylvan independence, the Bavaro his dukes. Indeed, they separated from France since the time of Lodovico Pio.
These different legislations were, in the forwarding of the peoples towards the Middle Ages, absorbed by other forms and other customs that triumphed [174]I know those. The first to grow was the power of ecclesiastical laws: whether the decretals of the popes are false or true, or the compilations of Dionysius the Picciolo lie, this is not the real historical question, but what philosophy will establish, it is whether it decrees them. , whatever their true origin, yes or no at that time rendered great service to the legislation and the podestà. In the Middle Ages their concept was just and strong, and in the general breaking up of society the collection of decretals was of no small benefit to customs and laws. Someone already said that the decretals affirmed the absolute sovereignty of Rome and the dictatorship of the popes: what does it do? Was it not perhaps the Roman Church which, in those times of confusion and disorder, gave the moves to the civilization of the world? The decretals imposed a single wife, tightened the bonds between fathers and sons, proclaimed more benign maxims for the slave, stronger repressions for the carnal and violent man. These statutes of the people fell made the capitulars, and together with the barbaric laws which had contracted a selfish and too personal nature: the legislation became harmonious with placing itself universal under the command of a moral podestà, who was the pope.
Roman law, which had never ceased to dominate over a great mass of peoples in Gaul, took that preponderance which always belongs to the eternal principles of just and unjust; overthrew the barbarian laws; the capitulars fall from every force to meet the powerful rules of the Theodosian code; the decretals absorbed the councils. But what entirely destroyed Charlemagne’s legislation were the local or municipal statutes, and above all, the feudal law that arose in the confusion of the ninth and tenth centuries. The existence of such statutes is incontrovertible, even in the apex of the imperial power of Charlemagne, who, in the act that was preparing the framework of his work, found in these statutes an obstacle to the administrative unity he intended.
And is it not natural that municipal law triumphed in the tenth century, in a time when the confusion was so great, and that the power was gone? If the general laws did not protect society, it was necessary for the local laws to protect substances and persons; hence a private right was made, as it were, in every city, in every district, and in this general disorder the concept of unity, to which the capitulars had given shape, subsided; and feudal law [175]it soon came to take the place of all previous legislations. And so it had to happen, however, that this right was in correlation with customs and habits: it rested on the hierarchy of possessions and persons, and above all, on the practice of judicial combat. There was therefore no more talk of capitulars; new ideas had arisen in society, and new duties seemed to arise both for the lord and for the vassal; the long chain of traditions was broken, the high feudal lords, the vassals, the valvassori, all things unknown under the reign of Charlemagne, came into play; the decretals formed ecclesiastical law, already regulated by councils and capitulars; the edicts of the kings of the third lineage no longer had anything to do with earlier legislation. Who follows the history of the last Carolingians, sees the legislation of the capitulars vanish and fall; under Lodovico Pio they still have strength, they are extinguished under Charles the Bald: fannosi rare, because the empire is falling apart, and therefore there can no longer be general principles.
However, we want to confess that this legislation is not entirely dead for everyone, since if France, as it was constituted under the third lineage, remained extraneous to the law of the capitulars, the same did not happen in Alemagna. The exaltation of the Carolingians was an invader that the Austrasians made into Neustria; the proud sons of the Reno, Veser and Elba came to settle in the Neustrian cities; Charlemagne was their natural leader, their creation; they surrounded him with their love, their admiration, so that at the fall of the Western empire the Austrasiians retain the capitulars; and if dead is the progeny of the great Charles, his laws, his institutions still survive. In Germany decretals were not otherwise accepted as ecclesiastical laws, for the contrasts between the house of Swabia and the popes prevented Roman law from taking a natural preponderance among that nation. The feudal laws did not prepare there that comminution of the soil which was seen in France; everything on the Rhine remained carlingo: Carlo Martello had left Austrasia, and the laws of his sons were returning to Austrasia. While the capitulars are no longer for France than a historical curiosity, a monument of erudition worthy of study, in Germany they entered the meeting for the most part in positive law; Goldasto has collected them in his and the laws of his children returned to Austrasia. While the capitulars are no longer for France than a historical curiosity, a monument of erudition worthy of study, in Germany they entered the meeting for the most part in positive law; Goldasto has collected them in his and the laws of his children returned to Austrasia. While the capitulars are no longer for France than a historical curiosity, a monument of erudition worthy of study, in Germany they entered the meeting for the most part in positive law; Goldasto has collected them in hisImperial Constitutions , and from them derive those solemn decrees of the diets which govern the Alemannic nation even in modern times. In France subject to the lineage of the Capets, the capitulars could only be a memory of the conquest; in Germany, they were the natural law of the Alemanni, who kept them as one of the foundations of their public law, and as an ancient relic worthy of their veneration.
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And the political assemblies of the May camp, which became her at the end of the reign of Charlemagne? For as long as this empire lasted, the concept of a dazzling ingenuity, they retained a certain grandeur, and counts and leuds assiduously contributed to it, because they were there to fashion the capitulars, to give their consent to distant expeditions, and to prepare to follow the prince to war, nor as long as the empire lasted in its unity, such meetings ceased to be frequent and regular. According to what Incmaro writes, there was full freedom of suffrages; the capitulars were passed or rejected, and the clerics and leudi voted separately. In which you can see the entire footprints of the war placites that were held in the ancient forests of Germany. Nor did these political assemblies of the May camp perish otherwise with Charlemagne: on the contrary they lasted with the same color of freedom under Lodovico Pio, and the counts not only had an obligation to intervene, as they were the most worthy representatives of the emperor, but also to conduct with it twelve scabini of the most notables, elected from every country, true deputies, who came to attend the placites and to participate in the government of the empire; the free owners of allodial goods were those who elected the scabins, and the bases of national representation were already so widely established, that at the time of Charles the Bald, under whom the May fields still continued, was confirmed maxim: as the most worthy representatives of the emperor, but so still to bring with them twelve scabini of the most notables, elected from every country, true deputies, who came to attend the placiti and to participate in the government of the empire; the free owners of allodial goods were those who elected the scabins, and the bases of national representation were already so widely established, that at the time of Charles the Bald, under whom the May fields still continued, was confirmed maxim: as the most worthy representatives of the emperor, but so still to bring with them twelve scabins of the most notables, elected from every country, true deputies, who came to attend the placiti and to participate in the government of the empire; the free owners of allodial goods were those who elected the scabins, and the bases of national representation were already so widely established, that at the time of Charles the Bald, under whom the May fields still continued, was confirmed maxim: The law is made by the consent of the people and by the constitution of the king [145] . The assemblies cease, and are lost in the time of Carlomanno [146] ; in vain would you seek in those days the war councils, the political congresses of leudi and bishops; everything is confusion and the cockpit institutions have fallen everywhere. From then on there is a kind of suspension in the two great springs of the Carlinga legislation, the councils and the capitulars: there is no longer a firm law, no longer a form consecrated by custom. And how could there have been general assemblies, if the territory was broken up so that every provincial governor became a count and lord of the land he owned?
Two supreme institutions had marked the empire of Charlemagne, those we want to say of the kingdoms of Italy and Aquitaine, the one [177]given to Pippin, the other to Lodovico; now what became these two sovereignties, subordinate to the empire, after his death? Do they still follow their work? Charlemagne had been induced to create such monarchies dependent on his scepter, not so much by the intention of dividing his legacy and breaking it up, but by the desire to secure the action of a supreme regiment. Pippin, king of Italy, died even before his father had reached the falling and feeble age, so he confided the kingdom to Bernardo, one of the bastards of Pippin (because at that time there was very little difference between bastard and legitimate son), thus wishing the emperor to establish hereditary right beyond the Alps, and to somehow preserve the vestiges of the Lombard monarchy. This kingdom of Italy survived its founder a few years, then perished for three powerful reasons, and these are: first of all, so great was the desire of the German emperors to reign on this side of the mountains, that they hastened to break the iron crown in the face of Pipino’s successors, and the passage in Italy of their armies was continuous. And how could this have kept its principles, which had all their strength from Charlemagne, while the latter’s lineage in France was already decaying? The popes, on the other hand, close friends of the Carolingians, had no longer any interest in supporting the kings of Italy, so weak that they could not promise more help or protection. In addition, for the third reason, the desire to break free and become free was already arising in the Lombard cities; each wanted to become a republic;
The monarchy of Aquitaine naturally perished due to the exaltation of Lodovico to the empire. This kingdom was not otherwise composed of a single element, and where in Italy there were only two races, the Lombards and the natives of the country, ancient peoples of Lazio with some Greek intermingled, in Aquitaine, at the meeting, with poorly composed ties, s ‘united as many as ten and more fractions of peoples: the Goths, the Gascons, the Aquitans, the Auvergne, the Saracens, all of which nations, tightened together by force, naturally had to tend to buck. It included the kingdom of Aquitaine, the lands that stretch from the Loire to the Ebro, and was later confided to Pepin I, son of Lodovico Pio, then passed into that other Pepin who fought together with the Normans against Charles the Bald. In the midst of that strange confusion which then occurs, no trace remains of the kingdom of Aquitaine; all those populations divide and subdivide; yes they come [178]forming Dukes of Aquitaine and Gascogne, and Counts of Toulouse and Auvergne; and the constitution of that kingdom disappears together with the empire, a consequence of that great disorder which accompanies the end of the second progeny.
In so much upheaval of the ground that was of the administrative system of Charles? There were three foundations on which this system rested: 1. The military order entrusted to men of war who, under the name of dukes or governors of the marches ( marchis marchiones from which the marquis came ) defended the territory, and prepared the need for war . 2.º The counts, civil magistrates who governed the districts like the ancient prefects of Rome. 3.º The royal messengers, missi dominici, the institution of which was so late and active under Charlemagne. Since the reign of Charles the Bald, disappearing and disappearing, the last vestiges of this system can be seen; a revolution is taking place: those dukes, those counts, those governors of the marches, who obeyed every slightest sign of the emperor, now proclaim their personal independence: they change their titles; those who were just revocable magistrates become independent feudal lords; which of them assumes the effective sovereignty of the lands it governs, which also passes it on as an inheritance to his children. Hence all those vassals who hardly retain any sign of respect towards the crown, although every mayor of theirs had proceeded from her. In such a comminution of authority, what strength could remain to the royal messengers, to these chief magistrates of a centralized power? The first condition, the very essence of such delegates of the prince, rested on the sole authority of the emperor; they were his procurators with a mandate to collect and unite together the divided portions of his authority. Now then, when this authority disappears, when there is no more administrative center, the office of the royal messengers becomes, as to say, a political superfetation in a system that no longer maintains unity; hence it happens that through the second progeny there is already no vestige of the political form of this great Carlingo empire. they were his procurators with a mandate to collect and unite together the divided portions of his authority. Now then, when this authority disappears, when there is no more administrative center, the office of the royal messengers becomes, as to say, a political superfetation in a system that no longer maintains unity; hence it happens that through the second progeny there is no longer any vestige of the political form of this great Carlingo empire. they were his procurators with a mandate to collect and unite together the divided portions of his authority. Now then, when this authority disappears, when there is no more administrative center, the office of the royal messengers becomes, as if to say, a political superfetation in a system that no longer maintains unity; hence it happens that through the second progeny there is no longer any vestige of the political form of this great Carlingo empire.
This mutation and decay referred especially to possessions and persons, due to the eternal divisions established in this part of Roman law. The possessions in those days subjected to a notable upheaval in the conditions of possession: under Charlemagne first of all distinguished the haloes, or free lands owned by a Franco or a Roman, and the benefits granted by the taxman; the free land had no seriousness except that of military service, and all the disciplines imposed by the capitulars refer to it; the benefits did not proceed otherwise from an origin with the allodi, but [179]they were almost always a gift, a concession; Mr. Direct, to make this or that his own, gave him tax land; and whoever accepted a benefit met stricter duties towards the king. Allodii and benefizi, such was the division of the lands under the empire of the second lineage, and benefits were also often those vast estates, so well managed, of the Carolingians. But, due to the lack of it according to lineage, this state of ownership is being modified; he who keeps the benefice from the crown, is quickly released from all duties, and wants to be the absolute master, in imitation of the counts and governors who have remained in full power of the country they governed. Charlemagne had forced minds to tighten and gather around the empire; now the natural reaction wants everything to melt and separate:[147] . In Charlemagne’s safe time, the owner of the allod had an interest in maintaining his liberty and the franchise of the land; but in the disorder and the decline of all authority, he found himself isolated on that shaky ground; and in what way could he, so alone, have been able to defend himself against the corruption of the Normans, and the arrogance of the proud feudal lords? Hence it is that then the possessor of the allod naturally came to place himself under the safeguard and protection of a superior. The distinction, therefore, of haloes and benefices disappears in the tenth century, nor does it have more than feuds and feudal lands; who owns the dominium or dominion, chi the tenimento, that is to say the real enjoyment of the land, by means of servitudes and levels; everything consists of reciprocal obligations, everything is reduced to a hierarchy; the fiefs and retrofeudi succeeded the hatreds and benefices of the first lineage; the simple duty attached to property is replaced by a thousand bizarre customs; where military service and where an obligation of honor; one receives a fiefdom to fulfill the duty of cupbearer, the other to bard the lord’s warhorse as a squire; and if the man who receives a fiefdom is not noble, his obligation is changed into wealth, which is the same as saying that he pays a level in money most of the time.
Nor did the Church’s possessions escape this sudden upheaval, since in vain she invoked miracles for her protection, no longer listening to the legends that defended possessions and farms; too brutal is the generation; too much at the mercy [180]to his rapacious inclinations; and wanting to defend oneself is now in need of walls and an iron arm. So it is that monasteries, bishoprics, cathedrals take their lawyers or vidami, who are the natural defenders of ecclesiastical goods: if there is in the district a count who is frightening for his actions, and has long threatened the religious loneliness, the abbot turns to him, asking him if he wants to be the protector or the defender of the Church, nor is the petiole the benefit he would have of it, but that first of all the abbey gives him a land of his dominion, then sometimes he assures him even of the levels in money, he obliges himself to pray for him in all the necessities of life, and then grants him a tomb under the roof of the monastery, for in those days it was not too common to be able to rest in peace in the tomb, because the war had no respect even for the bones of the dead. Therefore, he who became protector of the abbey was sure to find the bed of his eternal rest under those long and marble vaults; hence we still see in the ancient abbeys those brave knights lying on their monument: they were, while living, lawyers and vidami of the church, and the church granted them the last hospitable roof.
The status of people was from that time on regulated according to having, whereas, during the rule of Charlemagne, peoples were distinguished rather by race, by origins, and by their own individual condition. Franks, Lombards, Romans, such were the main separations in which society started, the populations were still divided, and each had its own law. Except that, the capitulars hint at a distinction of degrees; the title of nobilesit was ancient, and derived from the forests of Germany; the legal division was mainly between free or Frank men and serfs, a distinction of both Germanic and Roman origin. But the hierarchy of ranks, in fact, and the separation of orders, came only from the feudal regiment, born at the end of the Carolingians. At that time the high and middle nobility began to appear; one made up of grand vassals with titles of counts, dukes, marquises and governors; the other distinguished no more than by the name of fideles milites but we do not want to believe that even these simple valvassori were not sometimes men of high state, for we have examples of simple censusaries of counts d’Evreux and counts of Chartres. There were still no weapons or companies to distinguish the families, because the coat of arms had not yet been born; but it was possible to carry signs and symbols with which a nobleman made himself known in battle. The feuds alone had the characteristic marks of the nobility, and the coat of arms came only under the first rulers of the third lineage.
The cherics were, as to rank, placed in a hierarchy as much [181]high, at least as high as that of the nobility; and what should be particularly noted, as a characteristic of the second lineage, is that in the hierarchy the episcopal dignity itself was not by much so splendid as the constitution of the abbey. Beginning with the great foundations of St. Benedict, the abbots have pre-eminence over the bishops; monastic orders have full power; in what exactly the moral strength of society consists; in the monastery there are dignities lined up by order, not other than in the universal society itself: you find the abbot, the dean, the cantor, the archdeacons, the waiter or cubiculario, so much so that you seem to be at the court of the prince with its feudal dignities. The abbots, more powerful than the metropolitan, exercised, under the second lineage, a tremendous action in government; but then things go under the third change, and the bishops acquire ever greater consistency among the Capets.
In the Carlingo period, free men constitute the general orders of society, servitude being only an exception, as can be seen in the capitulars, who continually call the scabini and buonomini to have cooperation in the count’s placites: Franks, Romans, Burgundians were free, and with them whoever dealt with arms, nor could anyone subject them to servitude. But then, at the end of the Carolingians, most of the free owners are called men potestatis, which to say he wanted under the lordship of a master, with men as much as feuds. As long as there was protection for all in society, there was equally a desire and will to remain free, but then that in the flood of the Normans free men saw themselves alone and without protection, a large number of them agreed to give the freedom to acquire the patronage of some powerful master.
Many therefore voluntarily made themselves servants of this or that church, of this or that lord; the free man no longer had rights, the hierarchy became infinite; then there were those who called themselves guests , and lived under the protection of a monastery or a lord, who assisted them with his power; the colliberti , servants less servants than others, free of the neck, because they held the middle between absolute servitude and freedom; The agricultural or ruricoli , especially settler farmers, free or slaves; the servants themselves divided into mancipii, and in some papers called men only, familiar in some others; then there were the servants of the woods and the servants of the domain. In the time of the Carolingians the servants are all subject to the rule of Roman law, which does not allow them to possess, indeed they give even their peculiarity to the master. But in the tenth century they too begin to own, and we see them having land, exercising jobs, becoming guardians of the forests, stewards of villas, and finally rulers of villages; everyone pays a testatic, a census, and they are, [182]as can be said, the accessory and pertinence of the farm, however, which are fully included in the sale of a fiefdom; they can marry, and the Church recognizes the legitimacy of the sacrament. The free man who married a servant became a servant too, contrary to Roman law, and this new condition of his only ceased with tampering. Over time, the servant became a craftsman, and the trades shook the yoke imposed by the Frankish laws of conquest.
In the strength of his activity and glory, Charlemagne had found himself in communication with several civilizations, and the conquest had placed a thousand defeated and vanquished peoples in his hands. Now it is to be seen what these peoples became, and what was the fate of all those united to his empire.
Charlemagne died when he saw Pope Adrian, his friend, the most intimate confidant of his plans concerning Italy, and he himself had written his epitaph; and behold, for a compensation of providence, Leo survived the aging emperor, to celebrate his glory, and to render him the funeral honors in Rome, the metropolis of the Christian world, where, with the sound of all the bells, those solemn pomp were announced , for the empire of the West had lost its lord. Leo had been a participant in the latter’s designs, had collected the principal facts of his reign, and some were also seen carved on the mosaic of the Lateran palace. Also in the middle of the church of Santa Susanna, you could see a curious monument of the Greek school, representing Leo III who carried a church on the palm of his hand,[148] .
Leo mourned the protector of the Roman see, then he too died in the year 816, and was succeeded by Stephen IV, born of patricians. The popes’ fidelity to the Western empire was not interrupted, and they solemnly swore it in the basilicas to Lodovico, son of Charlemagne; indeed, the same year of his exaltation, Stephen came to France, and he sacred Lodovico in the cathedral of Reims, consuming in this voyage and office his pontificate, which lasted just seven months. Pasquale, his successor, of a Roman homeland, tried a little to shake off the lordship of the empire, and in fact, as Lodovico Pio was weakening, the easier this separation of the papacy from the empire became, however [183]that the popes having connected with the Carolingians, only to be defended by them against the Lombards and the Greeks, as soon as they became powerless to do so, they returned to their absolute sovereignty. We therefore see Pasquale having death sentences pronounced without having recourse to the imperial authority. This Pasquale was a very remarkable man, and an admirer of the sciences and the arts, he gave shelter to the Greeks who fled from Constantinople for the question of images.
After him Rome was definitively disbanded from the Carolingians, so that Lothair was forced to resort to the forum of Christianity, to have his vacillating authority recognized, and while the Western empire was breaking up in pieces and crumbs, the popes changed their practices. them with the Carolingians, since they are no longer an instrument of light, nor a spring of civilization. Great damage was for the Middle Ages this momentary loosening and wearing down of the ties between the pontificate and the peoples of Gaul, since there was no longer any podestà or moral concept before it: the last rays of ancient civilization reverberated from Rome, but then feudality came to make material all the elements of the podestà, Rome no longer had anything to do with that society, and we no longer find any correspondence of popes, nor epistles worthy of taking place in the Carolingian codex; darkness is universal, until Gregory VII strongly resumes and tightens the intellectual and moral dictatorship of society at the end of the eleventh century. Gregory VII is, after Charlemagne, the one who thought more on purpose about the supreme centrification of power.
Turning one’s eye towards Constantinople, one sees there little by little the communications between the two empires; the Byzantine annals no longer speak of that great Western diadem that shone in the face of a single man, and yet, just a few years had passed since the day, that between Nicephorus and Charlemagne the borders of the two empires had been mutually agreed upon, that the correspondence of sovereigns and peoples had stopped on regular bases, and that the Greek embassies had come to seek Charlemagne, up to his court in Aachen. Nicephorus had preceded Charlemagne to the tomb; very happy, in life, while he was all in his war with the Bulgarians, to have been able to conclude a treaty of good harmony with the Western Empire; the very short reign of his son Stauratius did not alter the agreement between the two states, and renounced that he had the crown, Michele Curopolata was surrounded by it in time that the great emperor still lived; and when he died, Leo V ruled the Byzantine empire, who, elected in the field by the soldiers, all turned his forces against the Bulgarians, then, like all those who came out of the Syriac people, set about persecuting the images and to tear apart the masterpieces of art, until the Greeks, relieved, killed him [184]of iron in Constantinople in a sedition. In these emotions, which ended with the exaltation to the throne of Michael the Balbo, hardly is the word of Charlemagne’s successors; the communications between the two empires had been no more than momentary: the civilization of one was too different from that of the other, and if Greeks and Westerners had come close to each other, this had only happened so externally, that in substance they remained indeed friendly enemies. As soon as there remained, with the passage of time, some slight reminiscence of Charlemagne’s treaties with the East, no mention of Constantinople is heard, except at the time of the Crusades, when the Franks, at the sight of Byzantium, forman concept of his greatness, then, by force of conquest they seize that crown, and surround it with a count of their nation.
During the reign of Charlemagne, the empires of the West and the East touched the borders, which aided the correspondence between the two emperors. From another cause he moves the league with the caliphs; the splendor of Charlemagne’s fame had induced Arun-al-Raschild to send him ambassadors and present, and the respective condition of the empire of the West and of the caliphate with regard to Greece, was the cause of these kindnesses, both of which were her emulators. Aaron had preceded Charlemagne at the tomb by four years, and also preceded him in the example of dividing his vast empire by testament among his three sons. Amino, the eldest son, assumed the dignity of caliph, and effeminate prince as he was, he gave himself prey to all the voluptuousness of the menagerie, until he perished in a military conspiracy, which barely counted the age of twenty-eight. He was succeeded by Mammuno, the second of the brothers, in the year that Charlemagne died; and his kingdom was, more than anything else, occupied by the polemics between sect and sect; he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. He was succeeded by Mammuno, the second of the brothers, in the year that Charlemagne died; and his kingdom was, more than anything else, occupied by the polemics between sect and sect; he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. He was succeeded by Mammuno, the second of the brothers, in the year that Charlemagne died; and his kingdom was, more than anything else, occupied by the polemics between sect and sect; he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. the second of the brothers, in the year that Charlemagne died; and his kingdom was, more than anything else, occupied by the polemics between sect and sect; he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. the second of the brothers, in the year that Charlemagne died; and his kingdom was, more than anything else, occupied by the polemics between sect and sect; he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. precisely the year that Charlemagne died; and his kingdom was, more than anything else, occupied by the polemics between sect and sect; he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. precisely the year that Charlemagne died; and his kingdom was, more than anything else, occupied by the polemics between sect and sect; he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. he clarified himself against the Abassids, and therefore revolutions upon revolutions. And nevertheless the epoch of his caliphate is not without splendor, because the oriental literature took a long way under him, and to him was due the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. and he was responsible for the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court. and he was responsible for the Arabic translation of the ancient Greek philosophers. The annals of the poets and other writers of his nation say that he treated with equal kindness both Christians and Muslims subject to his empire; and we, for our histories, remember that he kept some correspondence of politics and commerce with Lodovico Pio, and that, like his predecessor Aaron, he sent envoys to the Aachen court.
After Mammuno everything ends and melts in terms of communications [185]diplomats with the Western Empire; and here is the reason: To keep the practices and treaties between people and people alive it is a profession that the podestà is firmly seated and sure of its duration; now, as long as the scepter of the West was in the hand of a powerful man, the warm oriental minds, strongly struck by so much splendor, greeted Charlemagne, and the caliphs were able to come to him to bow his might, and make treaties with him; but then that this empire had fallen to the bottom, then that nothing else had to present but wreckage, who would still have wanted to conclude treaties with it, and grant it privileges? Hence the caliphs broke up from the West; hatred and religious enmities awakened; Jerusalem and the tomb of Christ experienced the rigors of Islam; Christians were subject to strict supervision, and these, in meeting, all indignant, swore the liberation of the great Sepulcher. From now on there will therefore be between East and West only hostile and warlike practices; already in the love of pilgrimages the crusades are being prepared, which soon broke out with great noise, because those two sovereign spirits, Charlemagne and Arun-al-Raschild, no longer live to communicate their light to each other. In this way we find the major sources of civilization for the West, which were the communications with Rome, with Constantinople and with the Caliphate; and the Gauls fall back into their solitude until the hour of awakening. West if not hostile and war practices; already in the love of pilgrimages the crusades are being prepared, which soon broke out with great noise, because those two sovereign spirits, Charlemagne and Arun-al-Raschild, no longer live to communicate their light to each other. In this way we find the major sources of civilization for the West, which were the communications with Rome, with Constantinople and with the Caliphate; and the Gauls fall back into their solitude until the hour of awakening. West if not hostile and war practices; already in the love of pilgrimages the crusades are being prepared, which soon broke out with great noise, because those two sovereign spirits, Charlemagne and Arun-al-Raschild, no longer live to communicate their light to each other. In this way we find the major sources of civilization for the West, which were the communications with Rome, with Constantinople and with the Caliphate; and the Gauls fell back into their solitude until the hour of waking. In this way we find the major sources of civilization for the West, which were the communications with Rome, with Constantinople and with the Caliphate; and the Gauls fall back into their solitude until the hour of awakening. In this way we find the major sources of civilization for the West, which were the communications with Rome, with Constantinople and with the Caliphate; and the Gauls fall back into their solitude until the hour of awakening.
Charlemagne’s empire was made up of different elements, of various peoples conquered by him, or tamed, or inherited by his father Pepin. Now which ones did these peoples become after him, and what signs of Carolingian civilization? The Alemanni were those from whom Charlemagne derived the purest source of military strength; they had followed him and king and emperor in all wars, and they were men of vigor and vigor, and faithful to every sign of Charlemagne, but he too is of their stock. Hence, even when he died, the Alemanni did not cease to form a body of nation, and kept their imperial dignity almost as a reminder; and, in the vast divisions of Verdun, they had Lothair as their chief lord. The psalter in gold letters of the abbey of St. Hubert represents him of tall and truly Alemannic stature, seated on an ancient chair, the arms of which are formed by a lion and a lioness, dressed in cross bandages, covered with a chlamys knotted over the shoulder, with the crown on his head, the sword in his sheath, and with a long stick in hand in the shape of a scepter. This Lothair is that emperor of Germany who retains the dignity as it was for Charlemagne established by Pope Leo. Among the disorders of the second lineage, Germany also falls apart with the whole empire: the Bavarians form a divided nation, which has its dukes emperor of Germany who retains the dignity as it was for Charlemagne established by Pope Leo. Among the disorders of the second lineage, Germany also falls apart with the whole empire: the Bavarians form a divided nation, which has its dukes emperor of Germany who retains the dignity as it was for Charlemagne established by Pope Leo. Among the disorders of the second lineage, Germany also falls apart with the whole empire: the Bavarians form a divided nation, which has its dukes [186]o king; Lodovico the Germanic becomes lord of all the lands located on the Rhine, and this taking possession of the provinces is the first basis of Alemannic public law. The Bavarians, always faithful to Charlemagne, obey Lodovico because he is of that sacred lineage, and Bavaria is joined by the sovereignty of Pannonia and Carinthia, and the homage of the Bohemians and Moravians. There are already kings of Bavaria and dukes of Lorraine or Saxony: Germany too meets the fate common to all Europe; the division of principalities becomes the cornerstone of its political constitution, but nevertheless it is and remains a cockpit. The Saxons alone show that they do not share the general love and high admiration that Germany brings to the great emperor; However, they retain a grudge that is handed down and perpetuated from generation to generation: the hatred for Charlemagne and the veneration for Vittichindo lasted between them, and those peoples could well be dispersed and squandered, but not the ancient aversion. This resentment of the past is equally ferocious in the Frisians, and as soon as the emperor has closed his eyes, they separate themselves from the empire, and form a separate duchy, to later unite with those counts of Holland who for so long kept the natía their salvation. Charlemagne, seeing into the future, had scattered his accounts throughout Friesland, subjecting them to the government of a duke, who was in charge of military affairs; Lothair had then had the lordship of that province as far as the Meuse, so that he could defend it against the Normans; then it went to fall into the hands of one of the powerful leaders of the Scandinavian peoples, named Gottifredo. And here she is part of the Dania; at which time Friesland succumbed to a terrifying catastrophe: the sea swelled, and the Rhine regurgitated through the land, so that a part of the population was swallowed up by the waters: a truly calamitous and fatal time! However, these Alemannic peoples, as many as there are from north to south, friends or enemies, kept deep memories of Charlemagne, and it could be said that the Caroline blood flowed in almost all the veins of the princes, and dukes, and counts of the countries bathed by the Elba, from the Reno and from the Veser. There they kept their sylvan customs, the custom of their justice, the tradition of their history. And you, noble house of Habsburg, which is the first of your ancestors? And does he not bear the seal of the great imperador of the West on his forehead? And you, worthy royal prosapia of Bavaria, do you not join the Arnoldi and the Carlomanni, who had Charlemagne as an ancestor?
The peoples of Italy or the Lombards, who for the conquest beyond the Alps were the first united with the empire, stood out with the same ease, nor are there other traces of the passage of the [187]Carolingians, that the monuments scattered here and there for the cities; and this period of the Longobard people gradually becomes confused with the customs of the primitive people. In the ninth century there is no longer any distinction between these two races; Italy sees the birth of a thousand different principalities; while the popes preserve the patrimony of St. Peter, contending for it to the emperors of the house of Swabia, Milan retains a tumultuous independence, and the inhabitants of Lombardy, obeying the kings for a while, soon shake its power. There is no greater fragmentation than that of the said Italic peoples in the ninth and tenth centuries; the civil war continues, as if you were at the first birth of Lazio or at the time of the first wars of Rome. On the four sides of the peninsula, and in the midst of the general hustle and bustle, the republics of Venice, Pisa, Genoa and Amalfi emerge; each province becomes a lordship; here the dukes of Friuli revive in a lineage of almost barbarian vassals under the names of Cadaloaco and Balderico: there a Palatine count, named Adalardo, takes possession of the Duchy of Spoleti; new dukes of Benevento leave a Lombard family, which settles in that ancient principality; and these high feudal lords wage fierce war against Naples, a Greek city in one and an Italic one, which later became Norman, and now has its dukes under the protection, though only in name, of the emperors of Constantinople. there a Palatine count, named Adalardo, takes possession of the Duchy of Spoleti; new dukes of Benevento leave a Lombard family, which settles in that ancient principality; and these high feudal lords wage fierce war against Naples, a Greek city in one and an Italic one, which later became Norman, and now has its dukes under the protection, though only in name, of the emperors of Constantinople. there a Palatine count, named Adalardo, takes possession of the Duchy of Spoleti; new dukes of Benevento leave a Lombard family, which settles in that ancient principality; and these high feudal lords wage fierce war against Naples, a Greek city in one and an Italic one, which later became Norman, and now has its dukes under the protection, though only in name, of the emperors of Constantinople.
The story of the Neapolitans at the end of Charlemagne’s reign is curious, when those riotous peoples, in the midst of their frequent and frequent uprisings, are continually threatened by the Saracens of Africa, who yearn for Sicily and the beautiful site of Naples, while from Gaeta and from Amalfi, the main ports of that country, their intrepid merchants arm ships and proudly go out in the course against the infidels. From time to time there are also Greek patricians of such vigor, and history has preserved the name of the patrician Gregory, who lost the fleet of the Saracens, but it is important to note that the Greeks always kept an unquestionable superiority at sea. . There was no more turbulent people in those days than the Neapolitan: and much more than sitting and enjoying the sun lying on the sand of[149] .
The Chronicles of Charlemagne say that he owned a part [188]of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands: or like this? as a high feudal lord, or simply as a protector? All of which fertile islands emerged from his empire almost at the same instant of his death, without any trace of his laws or his government. In fact, did it ever happen that the Frankish counts of the Carlinga age entirely possessed that Mediterranean island which was constantly threatened by the fleets of the Moors and Saracens? A large fleet was needed to exercise real sovereignty over the wet lands closed off by the Mediterranean; and Charlemagne could well have conquered them with a daring expedition, or conquered them with an unexpected correria, but he could not have preserved Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, or the Balearic Islands, without the help of a great force of the sea, which he did not have. Hence they remained exposed to all the piracy of the Moors, whose painful description can be read in the chronicles. Sometimes the pirates, rushing to the coasts of Sicily or Sardinia, kidnapped the virgins who came to draw water from the fountain, or approached the shore; at other times the Barbarians stripped the arks and reliquaries of gold, in imitation of the Normans, who did the same on the northern coasts: where they were planted in some part of the district, retaining the lordship of the cities, and erecting towers to remain in the possession of the country; and where they took possession of the whole land, as they did the Balearic Islands. Except that often the populations, raising themselves at the voice of their bishop or their count, lashed out at pirates, and they freed themselves, without help or support from others. Whatever the fate of those countries, the fact is that at the death of Charlemagne they no longer made an effective part of his empire, nor is there any trace of this, and as soon as some memory of the emperor is found in national songs and in chronic folk.
These Saracens who come to desert the islands of the Mediterranean belong to the same race that conquered Spain, where the Carlingo empire expanded to the Ebro; and Barcelona, Zaragoza, Pamplona, Tortosa, Huesca are in the hands of the Franks. Oh how changed were the times after that audacious invasion of the Saracens as far as Poitiers! But after the death of Charlemagne, what happened to Frankish possessions beyond the Pyrenees? Did the Saracens undoubtedly take advantage of the decay of the second lineage to begin their invasions again? No; the conquests of Charlemagne had in no way changed the first condition of the peoples, and from the historical documents it appears that he had mainly used the Gothic race to maintain the domination of the provinces previously subject to the Saracens;
[189]
If not that at the breakdown of the empire those Goths counts also wanted to become independent, and it is in vain to put them to duty, that they find those who help them and in the Saracens of Spain, and in that race of Gascons who preserve his native freedom. It is right to say of Lodovico Pio that Spain is particularly dear to him; Raised as he was in those southern provinces, and waged several times the war beyond the Pyrenees, he then became protector of Christians in Asturias, in the mountains of Aragon, and even in Extremadura. Once he is dead, the Saracen people regain some strength and return to their correries, whereby Abderamo, who reigns in Córdoba, can rightly send to his beloved city poems in with the boast of himself and his people.
The Saracens arm their fleet, and run threateningly until under Marseilles; it was at that time that the legend tells of Saint Eusebia, abbess of a pious monastery affiliated with San Vittore. She had forty nuns in as many cells, and when the Saracens appeared on the beach, all of them, in order not to remain exposed to the brutal passions of the Barbarians, cut off their noses, so much more disgusting the ugliness of sin than that of the face! In the meantime, the Gothic populations took advantage of this new impulse that pushed the Saracens outside, and everywhere rose up together with the counts of Castile and Aragon, to run to independence, vigorously waging war with the Saracens. Soon we will have the Dukes of Navarre, Gascogne and Aquitaine, while the Charlemagne’s work is gradually breaking at noon, which we will see kings and dukes of Provence of the Germanic lineage, and a kingdom of Arli united to the empire of Lamagna. In that time of confusion there is no distinction of titles: kingdoms, duchies, counties have, so to speak, the same prerogative; in vain you would find a monarchy; the empire of Charlemagne has absorbed everything into itself, and after it there are only scraps and fragments of titles and dignity.
In the time that the whole cockpit opera goes upside down, France, the noble France stands out from the empire, which remains Germanic, and constitutes its personal nationality, and hardly retains some distant communication with Alemagna to the east with Friesland and Holland to the north, with Spain and also with Aquitaine at noon. France no longer has anything of Caroline, nor do the Capeti point collect the succession of those maxims and forms; the counts of Paris have nothing in common with the Germanic lineage; Philip Augustus differs from Charlemagne: he is another type, another civilization; the order of the French monarchy is composed with another concept than that of the empire: he is, so to speak, a fruit of the place; France yes [190]it reconstitutes with the conditions of a new life and with the elements of a vigorous existence. In this work, which began with Charles the Bald, it was devastated by two terrible scourges: the invasions of the Normans and those of the Hungarians. Except that, as is always the case among the nations that make themselves organized, the invasions of the Normans who desert the provinces, transform themselves and organize themselves, and from the scourges they were before, they become elements of strength and life. The establishment of the Normans in Neustria is one of the most notable facts in history; it refreshed the Frankish nation of more vigorous complexion, restored it to young blood, and it was as if you were saying a new branch grafted onto an old trunk: the descendants of the Saxons came to cast a colony into Neustria in the manner that Charlemagne had cast out colonies of Franks into Saxony. And didn’t you do everything in those days for colonies? And was not the exaltation of the Carolingians an Austrian colony between the Seine and the Meuse? The dukes of Normandy became the firmest supporters of the throne of the Capets, until they too became king of England, they return to the ancient competitions with the crown of France.
The second scourge, as mentioned is, which weighed on the Carolingians in their fall, was the invasion of the Hungarians, a wandering people who show themselves in arms in Burgundy and Austrasia. They are not looking for a permanent home, but they give the sack; and then, like all the other Tartar peoples, they disband, and go away laden with booty. Where are these Hungarians from? And are they not perhaps another reaction of the peoples already tamed by Charlemagne, a wreck of the Carlingo building that falls on the Frankish people? Yes. I am. Those Schiavoni, those inhabitants of Pannonia, those Huns who paid tribute to Charlemagne, at his expiration come proudly to sit on the ruins of the building itself. Oh what a painful sight the destruction of this work! Learn, O conquerors, that you want to force the nature of things: pass,
In the midst of so much chaos of times, how can one look for the traces of trade and industry? Charlemagne, not that he granted special protection to commerce, but had helped its growth with his way of government. All that is grandiose and strong, civil society is an imprint of its nature; the empire was ordered in such a way that it ensured first of all the centrality of power, the immunity of every person, the custody of public roads; on the outside, diplomatic correspondence set up those of commerce; all things that proceeded from an orderly government made to give the impetus on the path of progress, and political life to the nation; but [191]when it fell, it was all disorder and confusion; there was no more luxury, no more traffic, but that the communication routes were no longer safe; the Normans ran the provinces, the peoples fled, towers were erected on every eminent place, but if these were to protect the defenseless inhabitants, they also became the shelter of the lords, who robbed the merchants who tried to travel alone.
The relations of those times make us a painful and tearful painting of this social state, in which it was no longer a trace of that glorious time of the Western empire, when the great caravans of merchants, starting from Syria, from Rome, from Scandinavia and from England, they came to wait in the fairs and landitties of San Dionigi: for now no one wants to perish any more on those streets infested by the Normans and by the people of war. Oh how desolate is the society of the ninth century! That whole generation bursts into screams of pain; the monasteries sing the lamentations of Jeremiah to implore the mercy of God, and it is not yet thirty years that Charlemagne sleeps the eternal sleep! The institutions of the Western emperor did not otherwise penetrate the bowels of this society, which always remained the same; nothing in it has changed, neither needs, nor passions, nor customs; what he did for the benefit of commerce, everything died together with his kingdom; the communication routes are interrupted, the channels remain unfinished.
What he could do for trade does not extend to the future; everything, after him, bumps and breaks; nor could the thing be otherwise, when one cannot go from one city to another without large escorts and by caravans; the wolves come in throngs to howl up to the gates of the cities, so that everyone closes himself and lives within his domestic lares. The eleventh century is so ignorant in geography that the Normans do not know how Anjou is configured, and even less Burgundy and the Isle of France. So, who could think of commercial shops? They therefore limit themselves to daily needs; the garments of cotton wool are woven inside monasteries; he fashioned some agricultural tool; man thinks of the earth as his great nurse, so that you would call that society a family of slaves, with everyone at the foot of the chain that binds them to the bell tower of the parish. Come on, let’s wait to see trade reborn and flourish again, for the ardent love of pilgrimages to arise in the tenth century; and then behold, alongside those men servants, those secluded solitary ones, numerous bands arise, composed of nobles, plebeians, priests, monks, all moving towards a single goal, the liberation of Christ’s sepulcher; set out for the Alps, cross Italy, and which ones to embark in Marseille, all will move for a single goal, the liberation of Christ’s sepulcher; set out for the Alps, cross Italy, and which ones to embark in Marseille, all will move for a single goal, the liberation of Christ’s sepulcher; set out for the Alps, cross Italy, and which ones to embark in Marseille, [192]such as in Venice, Pisa or Amalfi, passing through Greece, and having greeted Constantinople, finally reaching distant Syria. And in this long journey, how many new things come into their sight! The nascent arts, the smuggling cities, however, that if the centrification arranged by Charlemagne is not successful if not at an end, and this is unfortunately too, the individual efforts of some of the municipalities obtain to multiply the wealth of traffic: it is rare that a being able too absolute can something in this element of all wealth; the despot is too imperious in his will, too proud in his commanders; trade, on the other hand, loves to run free, spontaneously, and whoever harnesses it strangles it. Aim to meet the efforts of Charlemagne, the spontaneous impulse that is manifesting itself in Marseille, Venice, Amalfi,[150] . And what remains of Charlemagne’s mercantile institutions? The unity of weight and currency goes away, the goods gabelle falls into oblivion, each city has its particular statutes, each republic its causes of greatness and decay in itself, but everything remains foreign to the Caroline concept.
That tremendous whirlwind of barbarism then sweeps away the newly born limbs; everything under Charlemagne’s scepter tended towards a certain perfection; the Greeks and Romans, great educators of the human race, did beautiful works. In fact, is there anything that can be compared to the manuscripts of the ninth century, and to those characters so clear and beautiful that you would say printed? Let us take a missal or a Theodosian codex of Charlemagne and Lodovico Pio: what clear writing! what old-fashioned dotted drawings! Those letters, above all, purple or very splendid purple, written on a beautiful parchment, which retains its finesse and firmness even after the centuries have browned it!
But what remains of this Carolingic art, already encouraged by the great Charles, after which he succumbed to the agitations of the second lineage? A trifle. The cards become unintelligible, the writing gets confused, no more Serbian trace than the ancient clarity; there is no more skill in the workers: everything shows that we have returned to barbarism, which was for a while in Gaul thinned out. Art becomes still what it was at the beginning of the first lineage; Franco returns Franco; the Barbarian resumes its ancient rind: the luminous point disappears, and everything falls back into darkness. And how could art have flourished, when the broken streets no longer allowed people to go from one city to another, and therefore removed all those reciprocal communications which artists and scholars have [193]need to reciprocate their lights. At the time of Charlemagne, artists were able to greet Rome and Constantinople, and collect the teachings of another age as precious relics; but at the end of the Carolingians they had nothing but the earth covered with mist, the gloomy and gloomy sky, the winter nights, the ringing of bells, the cries of birds of prey, and a nature that had only one voice to announce plague, hunger or death! …
In the midst of so rapid and complete destruction of the work, what happened to the other debris? and the scions of the Carlinga family still survived the ruin of the enormous building erected by Charlemagne? Certainly no family was more numerous than that of the emperor: the branches that planted the Germanic plant were luxuriant, and sons and daughters surrounded the old gentleman, who if he had several wives, it was to have a descendant, in the manner of David and of the patriarchs; and they hand it to him, and at the birth one sees one after the other Carlo, Pipino and Lodovico. The only one of his children whom he has to complain about is the firstborn, handsome in face and uneven in body, Pippin the Hunchback, who rebels together with the Bavarians and with Tassillone; but Charlemagne makes him shave,
Except that death hurls itself upon this family, and draws Charles and the second Pippin one after the other to the tomb, with a funeral accompanied by armigers, and with poets who write their epitaphs. And indeed these young men were two robust minds, and capable intellects, and powerful arms to support the Caroline edifice. We already saw them, still children, in the midst of battles; Charles or Carlotto will follow his father in almost all the wars of Germany, and Pippin personally make the expeditions of Italy against the Huns and the Barbarians. Which two sons, so worthy of their glorious father, and so apt to succeed him, die a few years before he goes down to the tomb; that if they could have reigned after him, the empire would perhaps have consolidated into three large fractions in their firm hands capable of holding it: to Charles the kingdom of Austrasia, Alemagna, Flanders, Friesland, the Rhine, the Elbe, the Meuse; in Pipino Italy, the populations of the Huns, the Avars and the islands of the Mediterranean; to Lodovico Pio the kingdom of Aquitaine and the peoples from the Loire to the Ebro. Certainly it would have been difficult to maintain united an empire made up of such different peoples and such opposing elements; but it is to be considered that Charles, the eldest son, was a German by habits and origin, that Pippin had spent his life between the Alps and the Apennines, and that Certainly it would have been difficult to maintain united an empire made up of such different peoples and such opposing elements; but it is to be considered that Charles, the eldest son, was a German by habits and origin, that Pippin had spent his life between the Alps and the Apennines, and that Certainly it would have been difficult to maintain united an empire made up of such different peoples and such opposing elements; but it is to be considered that Charles, the eldest son, was a German by habits and origin, that Pippin had spent his life between the Alps and the Apennines, and that [194]Lodovico was well liked in Aquitaine, of which he had taken the habits and customs [151] .
Three great monarchies therefore would have sprung from that gigantic empire; but the son of the sons who survived Charlemagne is Lodovico of Aquitaine, the last born, who is not otherwise an inept youth, and he showed it well by governing with a hand the countries from the Loire to the Pyrenees. He made the war with good success; his merit was the preservation of the entire southern frontier; to him was due the completion of the system of cities and fortified towers on the banks of the Ebro; he is already accustomed to the care of the kingdom, many are his capitulars, and they show that he knows the art of good administration and governance; he did his apprenticeship in the royal podestà, and multiplied the diplomas, spreading them for where he passed, Charlemagne finally, feeling old, made him his companion in the empire;
Was it only weakness of character that caused this ruin, or did they cooperate and hasten other causes?
Lodovico was certainly weakened in his court in Aquitaine, because neither the people of the north knew how to resist the influence of those so soft customs and that warm sun; raised in the midst of almost entirely Roman cities, his advisors, his friends are little less than all Goths or Aquitans; with them and moves to war, he entrusts the government to them, and when he comes to the court of Aachen to assume the participation of the empire, the counts and cherics of the southern provinces accompany him, and he speaks their language, and habitually uses the Latin, nor can he pronounce German, so that the ancient chroniclers take it up again. The leuds that surround Charlemagne, now old and exhausted, wear long robes, and have a stiff and grave appearance, while the nobles of Lodovico’s entourage are gay and pleasant as histrions, they dress scantily, as soon as they have any indication of a beard; and what offends the leuds most is that Lodovico also dresses in the style of those southerners, as if to testify that he is still king of those peoples opposed to the Germanic race. Hence the bad moods and the causes that multiply from the beginning the difficulties around Lodovico Pio, who, having become emperor, was not otherwise served with that devotion and fear that the great Charles knew to inspire, now closed in the tomb[152] . [195]In sum, Lodovico is a man of the south, and how could the counts of the Rhine and the Meuse other than reluctantly obey him? The Carlinga monarchy had its foundation from a great invasion of the Austrasian race in Neustria; Carlo Martello and Pipino had left the Thuringian forests to take possession of the Palatine prefecture of Neustria; after which they had placed the crown of the Merovei in front: of course this was, the north came to the south, and the Germans left their centuries-old forests to throw themselves on Roman civilization; what was this that had been seen for five centuries; Charlemagne had completed the work attempted by his grandfather and his father; given structure to Frankish civilization; the southern peoples had received counts and leuds born in Isvevia and Lorraine; but the Lodovico Pio’s exaltation to change this condition. Now what does this Aquitan Lodovico come to do at the court of Aachen, with those short robes of his, with that shaved beard, with his acrobats of Toulouse and Arli, with those Spaniards of his from Barcelona? Do they speak German or Saxon? Do they partake of the lofty and inexorable sentiments of the Rhine and Meuse leuds? That effeminate gentleman, that cheric of the Garonne and the Loire should not long reign over the indomitable Franks …. Not for this reason the Carolingians were called to succeed the sons of Meroveo. And here is one of the intimate causes of the decay of the second lineage. with that shaved beard of his, with those acrobats of his from Toulouse and Arli, with those Spaniards of his from Barcelona? Do they speak German or Saxon? Do they partake of the lofty and inexorable sentiments of the Rhine and Meuse leuds? That effeminate gentleman, that cherico of the Garonne and the Loire should not long reign over the indomitable Franks …. Not for this reason the Carolingians were called to succeed the sons of Meroveo. And here is one of the intimate causes of the decay of the second lineage. with that shaved beard of his, with those acrobats of his from Toulouse and Arli, with those Spaniards of his from Barcelona? Do they speak German or Saxon? participate in the lofty and inexorable sentiments of the Rhine and Meuse leuds? That effeminate gentleman, that cherico of the Garonne and the Loire should not long reign over the indomitable Franks …. Not for this reason the Carolingians were called to succeed the sons of Meroveo. And here is one of the intimate causes of the decay of the second lineage. that cherico of the Garonne and the Loire did not long to reign over the indomitable Franks …. Not for this reason the Carolingians were called to succeed the sons of Meroveo. And here is one of the intimate causes of the decay of the second lineage. that cherico of the Garonne and the Loire did not long to reign over the indomitable Franks …. Not for this reason the Carolingians were called to succeed the sons of Meroveo. And here is one of the intimate causes of the decay of the second lineage.
To make the confusion in this family complete, some bastards, forgotten, take to the field with arms in hand, to demand their share in the patrimony of the crown and the taxman, which the Carolingians also had such brave sons, who , with no name and no luck, they tried to form a state. Afterwards that the scepter is no longer in Charlemagne’s hand, in his palaces and in his farms it is a disorder not to mention: here a bastard connects with the Barbarians to fight the new emperor; there arises a son unhappy with his part; the daughters of the same Charlemagne, who are many, mingle in this disorderly movement, and with their unseemly life they cause the scandal of the plenary courts. Charlemagne’s mother was a chaste woman, and her wives were also chaste, but the daughters have no trace of the demure nature of Germanic women, and in vain they are closed here and there in the monasteries, so that they escape to throw themselves back into the world. At that time the iron doors of the abbeys often opened wide with the impetus of those children, of those young men forced to receive the tonsure, who, suddenly breaking free from the cloister, took the sword to try again to regain their own heritage; nor were they content with just asking for the patrimony, they took the sword to try again to regain their heritage; nor were they content with just asking for the patrimony, they took the sword to try again to regain their heritage; nor were they content with just asking for the patrimony, [196]but they also put themselves at the head of the Normans or the Saracens, who invaded the homeland. The reign of Charles the Bald saw precisely one of these sons, more spirited than others, named Pepin, the great rebel told by the chronic, an ardent, tireless man. He enters into league with the Saracens: and what does he care about his faith! And it is also rumored that he is an unbeliever; he now invokes and obtains from the alcaids that help which he previously invoked and obtained from the Danes and Scandinavians, guiding them to Brittany. He is certainly a felon and a traitor to his prince and his nation, but he does not have anyone who draws him in prowess and readiness, and it is clear that Charlemagne’s blood is boiling in his veins.
Although this family leaves after itself only unworthy successors, yet such is the splendor that it draws with it, that all the princely progeny of Lamagna are proud of this clear origin. In fact, having Charlemagne’s blood in your veins is the greatest nobility ever. Noverar by ancestors Tassillone, Duke of Bavaria, Bernardo, King of Italy, and Lothair, emperor, is the most beautiful coat of arms of Lamagna. Those dragons depicted in the banners, those crests, those iron helmets, those shields, with the other armadures, were carlinghe memories, and formed the pride of those who inherited the ancestry: on the Rhine, the Danube and the Elbe, you you saw neither the cornflowers of France, nor the beakless blackbirds, nor the peaceful crosses of pilgrims; no, the coat of arms of Germany was something harder, something that held the steep mountains, rushing rivers, the forests of Austrasia and the Ardennes. The two coats of arms of the Carli and Capeti bear no resemblance to each other; the shields and thighs of that cavalry collided later in the battle, and had many broken spears and swords. At Bouvines the ancient quarrel between Neustri and Austrasi was renewed, but in those days France found, in one with the strength of its nation, a powerful king in Philip Augustus, who was beginning the period of greatness for the monarchy of the Capets.
