\ 56. CHARLES THE GREAT. A. D. 768-814. 237
3. Annals. The Annales Laurissenscs Majorca (probably the official chro
nicle of the court) from 788 to 813; the Annales Einhardi, written after 821) ; the Annales Pctaviani, Laureshamenses, Monellani, and others, more of local than general value. All in the first and second vol. of PERT/, Monaincnta Germanica hist. Script.
4. Biographic*: EINHARD or EGLXIIARD (b. 770, educated at Fulda,
private secretary of Charlemagne, afterwards Benedictine monk)' Vita Caroli Iinpcratoris (English translation by S. 8. Turner, New York, 1880). A true sketch of what Charles was by an admiring and loving hand in almost classical Latin, and after the manner of Sueton's Lives of the Roman emperors. It marks, as Ad. Ebert says (II. 95), the height of the classical studies of the age of Charlemagne. Milman (II. 508) calls it "the best historic work which had appeared in the Latin language for centuries." — POET A SAXO: Annalcs dc Gestis Caroli, from the end of the ninth century. An anonymous monk of St. Gall: De Gestis Caroli, about the same time. In PERTZ, /. c., and JAFFE'S Monumenta Carolina (Bill. Rer. Germ., T. IV.), also in MIGNE, Tom. I., Op. Caroli.
Comp. on the sources ABEL'S Jahrbucher des Frank. Reich* (Berlin, 1866) and WATTENBACH'S Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1858; 4th ed. 1877-78, 2 vols.)
LITERATURE.
J. G. WALCII : Historia Canonisationis Caroli M. Jen., 1750.
PUTTER: De Instauratione Imp. Rom. Gott., 1766.
GAILLARD: Histoire de Charlemagne. Paris, 1784, 4 vols. secd ed. 1819.
GIBBON : Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ch. 49.
J. ELLENDORF : Die Karolinger und die Hierarchic Hirer Zcit. Essen.,
1838, 2 vols.
HEGEWISCH : Geschichte der Regiening Kaiser Karls des Gr. Hamb., 1791. DIPPOLT: Leben K. Karls des Gr. Tub., 1810.
G. P. R. JAMES: The History of Charlemagne. London, 2nd ed. 1847. J?AIIR: Gcsrh. der rom. Lit. im Karoling. Zeitalter. Carlsruhe. 1840. GFRORER : Geschichte der KaroJingcr. Freiburg i. B., 1848, 2 vols. CAPEFIGUE : Charlemagne. Paris, 1842, 2 vols. WARNKOXIG et GERARD : Hist, des Carolingians. Brux. and Paris, 1862,
2 vols.
WAITZ : Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, vols. III. and IV. W. GIESEBRECIIT: Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzdt. Braunschweig,
1863 sqq. (3rd ed.). Bd. I., pp. 106 sqq. DOLLINGER : Kaiserthuin Karls des Grossen, in the Miinchener Hist.
Jahrbuch for 1865.
GA8TOX : Histoire poetique de Charlemagne. Paris, 1865. P. ALBERDINCK THIJM : Karl der Gr. und seine Zeit. Munster, 1868.
238 FOURTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
ABEL : Jahrbiicher des FranJcischen Reichs unter Karl d. Orossen. Berlin, 1866.
WYSS : Karl der Grosse als Oesetzgeber. Zurich, 1869.
RETTBERG: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, I. 419 sqq., II. 382 sqq.
ALPHONSE VETAULT : Charlemagne. Tours, 1877 (556 pp.). With fine illustrations.
L. STACKS : Deutsche Geschichte. Leipzig, 1880. Bd. I. 169 sqq. With illustrations and maps.
Comp. also MILMAN : Latin Christianity, Book IV., ch. 12, and Book V., ch. 1 ; AD. EBERT : Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande (1880), vol. II. 3-108. Of French writers, GUIZOT, and MAR TIN, in their Histories of France ; also PARKE GODWIN, History of France, chs. xvi. and xvii. (vol. I. 410 sqq.).
With the death of Pepin the Short (Sept. 24, 768), the king dom of France was divided between his two sons, Charles and Carloman, the former to rule in the Northern, the latter in the Southern provinces. After the death of his weaker brother (771) Charles, ignoring the claims of his infant nephews, seized the sole reign and more than doubled its extent by his conquests.
CHARACTER AND AIM OF CHARLEMAGNE.
This extraordinary man represents the early history of both France and Germany which afterwards divided into separate streams, and commands the admiration of both countries and nations. His grand ambition was to unite all the Teutonic and Latin races on the Continent under his temporal sceptre in close union with the spiritual dominion of the pope ; in other words, to establish a Christian theocracy, coextensive with the Latin church (exclusive of the British Isles and Scandinavia). He has been called the " Moses of the middle age," who conducted the Germanic race through the desert of barbarism and gave it a new code of political, civil and ecclesiastical laws. He stands at the head of the new Western empire, as Constantine the Great had introduced the Eastern empire, and he is often called the new Constantine, but is as far superior to him as the Latin empire was to the Greek. He was emphatically a man of Providence.
Charlemagne, or Karl der Grosse, towers high above the