CHARLEMAGNE.* This is a charming volume. Dr. Hodgkin writes, as
might be expected, out of the fullness of knowledge; but his learn- ing sits lightly on him. Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, is one of the four great rulers who have most fascinated the
• Foreign Statesmen: Charles the Groat. By Thomas Hodgkin, HALL. London : Macmillan and Co.
imagination of the Western world ; and of the four— Alexander, Cmsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon—it is he who gathered round him the greatest amount of romance, of poetry, and of legend. Historically, his revival of the Western Empire of Rome lasted a thousand years, till put an end to in the present century by a conqueror like himself. For five hundred years his legendary exploits formed the theme of an enormous literature. Dr. Hodgkin does not deal with this; but the true history of the great Emperor could hardly be told in more attractive guise. The narrative runs clearly and easily. The many allusions to modern history, the parallels constantly suggested, keep the reader's attention pleasantly alive, and make the perusal as enjoyable as a novel to one of historical tastes.
At first sight we are inclined to rebel against the arrange- ment. Eighty pages, out of only two hundred and fifty, to be waded through before we begin the real biography, seem to be preposterous. It is a thing which can be justified only by its success ; but after .perusal we can hardly wish it otherwise, so necessary does our author make this intro- duction to prepare the stage on which the hero is to appear. There is no time lost afterwards in dealing with the accessories, the action flows on without check to the end.
There are few heroes of his date whom wr. know so well as we do Charlemagne. He was happy iii his biographers. Alfred had his Asser, and learned men sat at the Court of the English King ; but Asser cannot compare with Einhard as biographer and chronicler. There was no one like Alcuin at Alfred's Court, and the body of laws which he left behind him give no such insight into his personal character and habits as do the capitula and missives of Charlemagne. Perhaps Dr. Hodgkin accentuates a little too much the literary and civilised side of Charlemagne's Court. He makes, as the title of the series intimates, the ruler and the states- man more prominent than the man. But there is another aspect of the picture. The great Frank warrior, with his passion for the chase, and his preference of the rude, wild North over the more polished South, seemed ever a barbarian to the dwellers in the cities of the South, who often claimed descent from the haughty patricians of the older Rome. With impotent vanity they disdained him, even while submitting to his rule. To them a marriage with the Frank was a misalliance, and in spite of all ecclesiastical law, it was long before Frank and Gaul could live together peaceably as monks in one monastery. The cities of Southern Gaul, whose chief officials bore the name of Consuls down to the Revolu- tion, were probably really the least assimilated to his rule of all the dominions of Charlemagne.
In nothing does our author show his skill in historical narrative more than by the way he makes even the dreary history of the Saxon wars interesting. He calls them "the thirty years' war" of the eighth century, and thus suggests that an interest may attach to them equal to that of the thirty years" of which Schiller told the story. Only we look in vain for any hint of Dr. Hodgkin's opinion how far the ravages of the North men in France and in England towards the close of the century were a direct result of the ruthless wars and religious policy of Charlemagne towards the Saxons. A separate chapter is given to Roncesvalles. Here, trusting doubtless to guide-books, we are told of St. Jean de la Port (read St. Jean Pied de Port) and "the wild and narrow defile of Roncesvalles." The old Roman road which Charlemagne would follow, and which all armies followed until quite lately, creeps up the flanks of Altobiscar, and continues along the lofty plateau until it dips to St. Michel or to St. Jean, and is miles away from the ravine of , Valcarlos. It was doubtless from the crest of Altobiscar that the mountaineers rushed on the baggage and rear-guard, and forced them down the slopes till the last desperate stand would be made on the comparative:, level ground where perhaps even then stood the villa of Ronoesvalles.
In the chapter on the "Relations with the East," the prestige which still hung round the Eastern, the true Roman, Empire is well insisted on. It is certainly not exaggerated. Years after the death of Charlemagne our English Edgar used the Greek term " Basileus " as the most portentous of his titles. The relations of Charlemagne with the Papacy, and the influence of his conduct, and the teaching of Boniface and of Alcuin on the subsequent development of Western Christianity, axe carefully indicated. The temporary efface-
ment of the Spanish Church by the Moorish conquest, the subjugation of Southern Gaul by the Franks, the conversion of the Teutonic races mainly by Irish and English missionaries, bad left Rome a free field in the West. Charlemagne, Boniface, Alcuin, and others, with the Pope, were able unopposed to lay the foundations of the distinctively medimval Church of Rome ; and this, in spite of the Council of Frankfort, in spite of the authority which Charlemagne exercised over the Bishops, and his general attitude of supreme protector of the Church, became ever more and more independent of the civil power, and more and more fully subject to the will of the Papacy. On the possible Carolingian origin of Feudalism Dr. Hodgkin writes very cautiously : "It was, so to speak, in the air,' even as democracy, trades' unions, socialism, and similar ideas are in the air of the nineteenth century. Feudalism apparently had to be, and it sprang and grew up, one knoweth not how." It certainly appears to us that the administration of Charle- magne, and his relations with his subjects, matters of war excepted, were more like those of a Byzantine Emperor than of a later Feudal Sovereign.
Occasionally, but not often, Dr. Hodgkin indulges in a little tall talk, as when he speaks of "the Visigoth, the Ostrogoth, the Vandal, the Burgundian, the Lombard, coming forth from the immemorial solitude of their forests;" or when discussing the Iconoclast controversy : "the cause of idolatry" and "the right to salute and grovel in adoration before the holy images." In the last line of p. 157 is a slip : "He crossed the Danube at Cologne." The chronicler says, " Renunt ad Coloniam transiens." But these are very small matters. If read with a good historical atlas we consider this book to be the best introduction for a beginner to the story of medimval Europe, and of its foundations as laid by the great Emperor of the West, that we have yet seen.
Previous page
