Einhard: EINHARDI VITA KAROLI MAGNI

Gloriosissimi imperatoris Karoli vitam et gesta, quae subiecta sunt, Einhartus, vir inter omnes huius temporis palatinos non solum pro scientia, verum et pro universa morum honestate laudis egregiae, descripsisse cognoscitur et purissimae veritatis, utpote qui his pene omnibus interfuerit, testimonio roborasse. Natus enim in orientali Francia in pago qui dicitur Moingewi, in Fuldensi cenobio sub pedagogio sancti Bonifacii martiris prima puerilis nutriturae rudimenta suscepit. Indeque pocius propter singularitatem capacitatis et intelligentiae, quam ob nobilitatis, quod in eo minus erat insigne, a Baugolfo abbate monasterii supradicti in palacium Karoli translatus est; quippe qui omnium regum avidissimus erat sapientes diligenter inquirere et, ut cum omni delectatione philosopharentur, excolere.

The life and deeds of the most glorious Emperor Charles, which are set below, are known to have been described by Einhard, a man among all the palatines of this time of outstanding praise not only for scientia, but also for the universal honesty of morals, and to have been confirmed by the testimony of most pure truth, inasmuch as he was present at nearly all these things. For born in eastern Francia, in the district which is called Moingewi, he received the first rudiments of boyish nurture in the coenobium of Fulda under the pedagogy of Saint Boniface the martyr. And from there, rather on account of the singularity of his capacity and intelligence than on account of nobility—which in him was less conspicuous—he was transferred by Baugolf, abbot of the aforesaid monastery, into the palace of Charles; since he, of all kings, was most avid to inquire diligently after the wise and to cultivate them, that they might philosophize with every delight.

Ideo regni a Deo sibi commissi nebulosam et ut ita dicam pene cecam latitudinem totius scientiae nova irradiatione et huic barbariei ante partim incognita luminosam reddidit, Deo illustrante. Nunc vero, relabentibus in contraria studiis, lumen sapientiae, quod minus diligitur, rarescit in plurimis. Predictus itaque homuncio — nam statura despicabilis videbatur — in aula Karoli, amatoris sapientiae, tantum gloriae incrementi merito prudentiae et probitatis est assecutus, ut inter omnes maiestatis regiae ministros pene nullus haberetur, cui rex id temporis potentissimus et sapientissimus plura familiaritatis suae secreta committeret.

Therefore he made the nebulous and, so to speak, almost blind breadth of the kingdom committed to him by God luminous by a new irradiation of all knowledge — and one previously in part unknown to this barbarity — God illuminating. Now indeed, with pursuits slipping back into contrary ways, the light of wisdom, which is less loved, grows rare among very many. The aforesaid little man — for he seemed contemptible in stature — in the court of Charles, a lover of wisdom, attained so great an increment of glory by the merit of prudence and probity, that among all the ministers of royal majesty scarcely any was accounted, to whom the king, at that time most powerful and most wise, would entrust more secrets of his familiarity.

Et re vera non inmerito; cum non modo ipsius Karoli temporibus, sed et — quod maioris est miraculi — sub Lodowico imperatore, cum diversis et multis perturbationibus Francorum res publica fluctuaret et in multis decideret, mira quadam et divinitus provisa libratione se ipsum Deo protegente custodierit, ut subtilitatis nomen, quod multis invidiam comparavit et risum, ipsum nec inmature deseruerit nec periculis irremediabilibus manciparit. Haec dicimus, ut in dictis eius minus quisque habeat dubitationis, dum non ignoret, eum et dilectioni provectoris sui laudem precipuam et curiositati lectorum veritatem debere perspicuam. Huic opusculo ego Strabo titulos et incisiones, prout visum est congruum, inserui, ut ad singula facilior querenti quod placuerit elucescat accessus.

And in very truth, not undeservedly; since not only in the times of Charles himself, but also — which is a greater marvel — under Emperor Louis, when with diverse and many perturbations the commonwealth of the Franks was heaving and in many respects was sinking down, by a certain wondrous and divinely provided libration he kept himself, God protecting him, so that the name of subtlety, which procured for many envy and laughter, neither deserted him untimely nor delivered him over to irremediable dangers. We say these things, that each may have less doubt about his statements, while he does not ignore that he owes both to the love of his promoter a chief praise and to the curiosity of readers a perspicuous truth. To this little work I, Strabo, inserted titles and incisions, as seemed congruent, so that for each item an easier access might shine forth for the seeker to that which shall have pleased.

Prologus

Prologue

Karolus gratia dei rex Francorum et Langobardorum ac patricius Romanorum Baugulfo abbati nec non et omni congregationi, fidelibus oratoribus nostris, in omnipotentis dei nomine amabilem direximus salutem.

Charles, by the grace of God king of the Franks and of the Lombards and patrician of the Romans, to Abbot Baugulf and likewise to the whole congregation, our faithful intercessors, in the name of almighty God we have sent a kindly greeting.

Vitam et conversationem et ex parte non modica res gestas domini et nutritoris mei Karoli, excellentissimi et merito famosissimi regis, postquam scribere animus tulit, quanta potui brevitate conplexus sum, operam inpendens, ut de his quae ad meam notitiam pervenire potuerunt nihil omitterem neque prolixitate narrandi nova quaeque fastidientium animos offenderem; si tamen hoc ullo mode vitari potest, ut nova scriptione non offendantur qui vetera et a viris doctissimis atque disertissimis confecta monumenta fastidiunt. Et quamquam plures esse non ambigam, qui otio ac litteris dediti statum aevi praesentis non arbitrentur ita neglegendum, ut omnia penitus quae nunc fiunt velut nulla memoria digna silentio atque oblivioni tradantur, potiusque velint amore diuturnitatis inlecti aliorum praeclara facta qualibuscumque scriptis inserere quam sui nominis famam posteritatis memoriae nihil scribendo subtrahere, tamen ab huiuscemodi scriptione non existimavi temperandum, quando mihi conscius eram nullum ea veracius quam me scribere posse, quibus ipse interfui, quaeque praesens oculata, ut dicunt, fide cognovi et, utrum ab alio scriberentur necne, liquido scire non potui. Satiusque iudicavi eadem cum aliis velut communiter litteris mandata memoriae posterorum tradere quam regis excellentissimi et omnium sua aetate maximi clarissimam vitam et egregios atque moderni temporis hominibus vix imitabiles actus pati oblivionis tenebris aboleri.

The life and conduct and, in no small part, the deeds done of my lord and nourisher Charles, most excellent and deservedly most famous king, after my spirit undertook to write, I have encompassed with as much brevity as I could, expending effort that of those things which could come to my knowledge I should omit nothing, nor by the prolixity of narrating offend the minds of those who disdain every new thing; if indeed this can in any way be avoided—that those be not offended by a new writing who disdain the old monuments composed by the most learned and most eloquent men. And although I do not doubt that there are many who, devoted to leisure and letters, do not think the condition of the present age ought so to be neglected that all the things which now are done be handed over wholly to silence and oblivion as if worthy of no memory, and would rather, enticed by love of diuturnity, insert the illustrious deeds of others into writings of whatever sort than, by writing nothing, subtract the fame of their own name from the memory of posterity, nevertheless I did not think I should refrain from a writing of this kind, since I was conscious that no one could write these things more truthfully than I—those in which I myself took part, and which, being present, I learned with ocular, as they say, faith—and whether they would be written by another or not I could not clearly know. And I judged it better to hand down the same things to the memory of posterity, consigned to letters together with others as it were in common, than to allow the most illustrious life of the most excellent king, and the greatest of all in his age, and the distinguished deeds and acts scarcely imitable by men of the modern time, to be abolished by the shadows of oblivion.

Suberat et alia non inrationabilis, ut opinor, causa, quae vel sola sufficere posset, ut me ad haec scribenda conpelleret, nutrimentum videlicet in me inpensum et perpetua, postquam in aula eius conversari coepi, cum ipso ac liberis eius amicitia; qua me ita sibi devinxit debitoremque tam vivo quam mortuo constituit, ut merito ingratus videri et iudicari possem, si tot beneficiorum in me conlatorum inmemor clarissima et inlustrissima hominis optime de me meriti gesta silentio praeterirem patererque vitam eius, quasi qui numquam vixerit, sine litteris ac debita laude manere; cui scribendae atque explicandae non meum ingeniolum, quod exile et parvum, immo poene nullum est, sed Tullianam par erat desudare facundiam. En tibi librum praeclarissimi et maximi viri memoriam continentem; in quo praeter illius facta non est quod admireris, nisi forte, quod homo barbarus et in Romana locutione perparum exercitatus aliquid me decenter aut commode Latine scribere posse putaverim atque in tantam inpudentiam proruperim, ut illud Ciceronis putarem contemnendum, quod in primo Tusculanarum libro, cum de Latinis scriptoribus loqueretur, ita dixisse legitur: "mandare quemquam", inquit, "litteris cogitationes suas, qui eas nec disponere nec inlustrare possit nec delectatione aliqua adlicere lectorem, hominis est intemperanter abutentis et otio et litteris." Poterat quidem haec oratoris egregii sententia me a scribendo deterrere, nisi animo praemeditatum haberem hominum iudicia potius experiri et haec scribendo ingenioli mei periculum facere quam tanti viri memoriam mihi parcendo praeterire.

There was also another not unreasonable, as I think, cause, which could by itself suffice to compel me to write these things—namely the nourishment expended upon me and the perpetual friendship with him and his children, after I began to dwell in his aula; by which he so bound me to himself and established me a debtor to him both living and dead, that I might deservedly seem and be judged ungrateful, if, unmindful of so many benefactions conferred upon me, I should pass over in silence the most most famous and most illustrious deeds of the man who most well deserved of me, and allow his life, as if he had never lived, to remain without letters and due praise; for the writing and unfolding of which not my little ingenium, which is meager and small—indeed almost none—but a Tullian facundity ought to sweat. Lo, for you, a book containing the memory of a most distinguished and greatest man; in which, apart from his deeds, there is nothing for you to admire, unless perhaps this: that I, a barbarian and very little exercised in Roman locution, have thought that I could write anything decently or suitably in Latin, and have burst forth into such impudence, that I thought that saying of Cicero to be contemned, which in the first book of the Tusculans, when he was speaking about Latin writers, is read to have said thus: “For anyone,” he says, “to commit his thoughts to letters, who can neither dispose them nor illuminate them nor by some delectation allure the reader, is the part of a man intemperately abusing both leisure and letters.” This sentence indeed of that excellent orator could have deterred me from writing, unless I had premeditated in my mind to test rather the judgments of men and by writing to make a trial of my little ingenium than, by sparing myself, to pass over the memory of so great a man.

[1] Gens Meroingorum, de qua Franci reges sibi creare soliti erant, usque in Hildricum regem, qui iussu Stephani Romani pontificis depositus ac detonsus atque in monasterium trusus est, durasse putatur. Quae licet in illo finita possit videri, tamen iam dudum nullius vigoris erat, nec quicquam in se clarum praeter inane regis vocabulum praeferebat. Nam et opes et potentia regni penes palatii praefectos, qui maiores domus dicebantur, et ad quos summa imperii pertinebat, tenebantur.

[1] The nation of the Merovingians, from which the Franks were accustomed to create kings for themselves, is thought to have lasted down to King Childeric, who, by the order of Stephen, the Roman pontiff, was deposed and shorn and thrust into a monastery. Although it may seem to have come to an end in him, yet long before it was of no vigor, nor did it display in itself anything illustrious except the empty appellation of king. For both the wealth and the power of the kingdom were held by the prefects of the palace, who were called mayors of the palace, and to whom the supreme authority of the government pertained.

Neque regi aliud relinquebatur, quam ut regio tantum nomine contentus crine profuso, barba summissa, solio resideret ac speciem dominantis effingeret, legatos undecumque venientes audiret eisque abeuntibus responsa, quae erat edoctus vel etiam iussus, ex sua velut potestate redderet; cum praeter inutile regis nomen et precarium vitae stipendium, quod ei praefectus aulae prout videbatur exhibebat, nihil aliud proprii possideret quam unam et eam praeparvi reditus villam, in qua domum et ex qua famulos sibi necessaria ministrantes atque obsequium exhibentes paucae numerositatis habebat. Quocumque eundum erat, carpento ibat, quod bubus iunctis et bubulco rustico more agente trahebatur. Sic ad palatium, sic ad publicum populi sui conventum, qui annuatim ob regni utilitatem celebrabatur, ire, sic domum redire solebat.

Nor was anything else left to the king, than that, content with the royal name alone, with hair let loose and beard let down, he should sit upon the throne and counterfeit the semblance of a ruler, hear envoys coming from wherever, and, when they departed, return answers—such as he had been schooled in, or even commanded—to deliver as though from his own authority; since, besides the useless title of king and the precarious stipend for his livelihood, which the prefect of the palace supplied to him as it seemed good to him, he possessed nothing else as his own except a single estate—and that of very small revenue—in which he had a household, and from which he had servants of scant number ministering the necessities to him and paying him attendance. Wherever he had to go, he went by carriage, which was drawn by yoked oxen and driven by a cowherd acting in rustic fashion. Thus to the palace, thus to the public assembly of his people, which was celebrated yearly for the utility of the kingdom, he was wont to go, and thus to return home.

At regni administrationem et omnia quae vel domi vel foris agenda ac disponenda erant praefectus aulae procurabat.

But the administration of the kingdom, and all things that either at home or abroad had to be done and arranged, were managed by the prefect of the palace.

[2] Quo officio tum, cum Hildricus deponebatur, Pippinus pater Karoli regis iam velut hereditario fungebatur. Nam pater eius Karolus, qui tyrannos per totam Franciam dominatum sibi vindicantes oppressit et Sarracenos Galliam occupare temptantes duobus magnis proeliis, uno in Aquitania apud Pictavium civitatem, altero iuxta Narbonam apud Birram fluvium, ita devicit, ut in Hispaniam eos redire conpelleret, eundem magistratum a patre Pippino sibi dimissum egregie administravit. Qui honor non aliis a populo dari consueverat quam his qui et claritate generis et opum amplitudine ceteris eminebant.

[2] With which office then, when Hildric was being deposed, Pippin, father of King Charles, was already discharging it as if by hereditary right. For his father Charles, who crushed the tyrants throughout France claiming dominion for themselves and in two great battles defeated the Saracens attempting to occupy Gaul—one in Aquitania at the city of Poitiers, the other near Narbonne at the Birra river—so prevailed that he compelled them to return into Spain, excellently administered the same magistracy, resigned to himself by his father Pippin. Which honor was not accustomed to be given by the people to any others than to those who stood out above the rest both by the clarity of their lineage and by the amplitude of their wealth.

Hunc cum Pippinus pater Karoli regis ab avo et patre sibi et fratri Karlomanno relictum, summa cum eo concordia divisum, aliquot annis velut sub rege memorato tenuisset, frater eius Karlomannus - incertum quibus de causis, tamen videtur, quod amore conversationis contemplativae succensus -, operosa temporalis regni administratione relicta, Romam se in otium contulit, ibique habitu permutato monachus factus in monte Soracte apud ecclesiam beati Silvestri constructo monasterio cum fratribus secum ad hoc venientibus per aliquot annos optata quiete perfruitur. Sed cum ex Francia multi nobilium ob vota solvenda Romam sollemniter commearent et eum velut dominum quondam suum praeterire nollent, otium, quo maxime delectabatur, crebra salutatione interrumpentes locum mutare conpellunt. Nam huiuscemodi frequentiam cum suo proposito officere vidisset, relicto monte in Samnium provinciam ad monasterium sancti.Benedicti situm in castro Casino secessit et ibi quod reliquum erat temporalis vitae religiose conversando conplevit.

This office, which Pippin, father of King Charles, having been left by his grandfather and father to himself and to his brother Carloman, and divided with him in utmost concord, had held for several years as though under the aforesaid king, his brother Carloman—uncertain for what causes; yet it seems, inflamed by love of the contemplative conversation—having left the toilsome administration of the temporal kingdom, betook himself to Rome into leisure; and there, his habit changed, made a monk on Mount Soracte, at the church of the blessed Sylvester, a monastery having been constructed, together with brethren coming with him for this, he enjoyed for some years the desired quiet. But when many of the nobles from Francia, for the paying of vows, used solemnly to travel to Rome and were unwilling to pass him by as their former lord, interrupting by frequent salutations the leisure in which he especially delighted, they compelled him to change his place. For when he saw that a frequency of this kind hindered his purpose, leaving the mountain he withdrew into the province of Samnium, to the monastery of Saint Benedict situated in the castrum of Cassino, and there, by living religiously, he completed what remained of his temporal life.

[3] Pippinus autem per auctoritatem Romani pontificis ex praefecto palatii rex constitutus, cum per annos XV aut eo amplius Francis solus imperaret, finito Aquitanico bello, quod contra Waifarium ducem Aquitaniae ab eo susceptum per continuos novem annos gerebatur, apud Parisios morbo aquae intercutis diem obiit, superstitibus liberis Karlo et Karlomanno, ad quos successio regni divino nutu pervenerat. Franci siquidem facto sollemniter generali conventu ambos sibi reges constituunt, ea conditione praemissa, ut totum regni corpus ex aequo partirentur, et Karolus eam partem, quam pater eorum Pippinus tenuerat, Karlomannus vero eam, cui patruus eorum Karlomannus praeerat, regendi gratia susciperet. Susceptae sunt utrimque conditiones, et pars regni divisi iuxta modum sibi propositum ab utroque recepta est.

[3] But Pippin, constituted king by the authority of the Roman pontiff from the office of prefect of the palace, when for 15 years or more he alone ruled the Franks, the Aquitanian war having been ended—which had been undertaken by him against Waifarius, duke of Aquitaine, and was waged for a continuous nine years—at Paris died of the disease of dropsy, his sons Charles and Carloman surviving, to whom the succession of the kingdom had come by divine nod. For the Franks, a general assembly having been solemnly held, appoint both as kings for themselves, with this condition set forth beforehand: that they should divide the whole body of the realm equally, and that Charles should assume for the sake of ruling that part which their father Pippin had held, but Carloman that to which their uncle Carloman had presided. The conditions were accepted on both sides, and the part of the divided kingdom, according to the manner proposed to them, was received by each.

Mansitque ista, quamvis cum summa difficultate, concordia, multis ex parte Karlomanni societatem separare molientibus, adeo ut quidam eos etiam bello committere sint meditati. Sed in hoc plus suspecti quam periculi fuisse ipse rerum exitus adprobavit, cum defuncto Karlomanno uxor eius et filii cum quibusdam, qui ex optimatum eius numero primores erant, Italiam fuga petiit et nullis existentibus causis, spreto mariti fratre, sub Desiderii regis Langobardorum patrocinium se cum liberis suis contulit. Et Karlomannus quidem post administratum communiter biennio regnum morbo decessit; Karolus autem fratre defuncto consensu omnium Francorum rex constituitur.

And that concord did remain, though with the utmost difficulty, many from Carloman’s party striving to sever the association, to such a degree that certain men even contemplated committing them to war. But the outcome of affairs itself proved that in this there had been more suspicion than peril, for upon Carloman’s death his wife and sons, together with certain men who were foremost among his optimates, sought Italy in flight, and, with no causes existing, spurning her husband’s brother, she betook herself with her children under the patronage of Desiderius, king of the Langobards. And Carloman indeed, after the kingdom had been administered in common for two years, died of illness; but Charles, his brother being deceased, by the consent of all the Franks was constituted king.

[4] De cuius nativitate atque infantia vel etiam pueritia quia neque scriptis usquam aliquid declaratum est, neque quisquam modo superesse invenitur, qui horum se dicat habere notitiam, scribere ineptum iudicans ad actus et mores ceterasque vitae illius partes explicandas ac demonstrandas, omissis incognitis, transire disposui; ita tamen, ut, primo res gestas et domi et foris, deinde mores et studia eius, tum de regni administratione et fine narrando, nihil de his quae cognitu vel digna vel necessaria sunt praetermittam.

[4] Concerning his nativity and infancy and even boyhood, since neither anywhere in the writings has anything been declared, nor is anyone now found to survive who says he has knowledge of these things, judging it inept to write for the deeds and character and the other parts of that life to be explicated and demonstrated, with the unknowns omitted, I have resolved to pass over; yet in such a way that, by first relating his deeds both at home and abroad, then his character and pursuits, then by narrating about the administration of the kingdom and its end, I will omit nothing of those things which are either worthy or necessary to be known.

[5] Omnium bellorum, quae gessit, primo Aquitanicum, a patre inchoatum, sed nondum finitum, quia cito peragi posse videbatur, fratre adhuc vivo, etiam et auxilium ferre rogato, suscepit. Et licet eum frater promisso frustrasset auxilio, susceptam expeditionem strenuissime exsecutus non prius incepto desistere aut semel suscepto labori cedere voluit, quam hoc, quod efficere moliebatur, perseverantia quadam ac iugitate perfecto fine concluderet. Nam et Hunoldum, qui post Waifarii mortem Aquitaniam occupare bellumque iam poene peractum reparare temptaverat, Aquitaniam relinquere et Wasconiam petere coegit.

[5] Of all the wars that he waged, the first was the Aquitanian, begun by his father but not yet finished, since it seemed able to be brought quickly to completion; with his brother still alive, and indeed having been asked to bring aid, he undertook it. And although his brother had disappointed him of the promised aid, having executed the undertaken expedition most strenuously, he was unwilling to desist from the enterprise or to yield to the labor once undertaken before he should conclude, with a certain perseverance and constancy, with a perfect end, this which he was striving to effect. For he even compelled Hunold, who after the death of Waifarius had attempted to occupy Aquitaine and to restore the war now almost finished, to abandon Aquitaine and to seek Wasconia.

Quem tamen ibi consistere non sustinens, transmisso amne Garonna et aedificato castro Frontiaco, Lupo Wasconum duci per legatos mandat, ut perfugam reddat; quod ni festinato faciat, bello se eum expostulaturum. Sed Lupus saniori usus consilio non solum Hunoldum reddidit, sed etiam se ipsum cum provincia cui praeerat eius potestati permisit.

Not bearing, however, that he should remain there, with the river Garonne crossed and a fort built at Frontiacus, he sends word through legates to Lupus, duke of the Wascones, to hand back the fugitive; unless he do this with haste, he declares he will demand it of him by war. But Lupus, employing sounder counsel, not only returned Hunold, but even submitted himself, together with the province which he governed, to his power.

[6] Conpositis in Aquitania rebus eoque bello finito, regni quoque socio iam rebus humanis exempto, rogatu et precibus Hadriani Romanae urbis episcopi exoratus bellum contra Langobardos suscepit. Quod prius quidem et a patre eius, Stephano papa supplicante, cum magna difficultate susceptum est; quia quidam e primoribus Francorum, cum quibus consultare solebat, adeo voluntati eius renisi sunt, ut se regem deserturos domumque redituros libera voce proclamarent. Susceptum tamen est tunc contra Haistulfum regem et celerrime conpletum.

[6] With affairs in Aquitaine set in order and that war ended, and with the partner of the realm too now removed from human affairs, he, prevailed upon by the request and prayers of Hadrian, bishop of the city of Rome, undertook a war against the Langobards. Which previously indeed had also been undertaken by his father, with Pope Stephen supplicating, but with great difficulty; for certain of the foremost men of the Franks, with whom he was accustomed to take counsel, so resisted his will that they proclaimed with a free voice that they would desert the king and return home. Nevertheless it was then undertaken against King Aistulf and was completed most swiftly.

Sed licet sibi et patri belli suscipiendi similis ac potius eadem causa subesse videretur, haud simili tamen et labore certatum et fine constat esse conpletum. Pippinus siquidem Haistulfum regem paucorum dierum obsidione apud Ticenum conpulit et obsides dare et erepta Romanis oppida atque castella restituere atque, ut reddita non repeterentur, sacramento fidem facere; Karolus vero post inchoatum a se bellum non prius destitit, quam et Desiderium regem, quem longa obsidione fatigaverat, in deditionem susciperet, filium eius Adalgisum, in quem spes omnium inclinatae videbantur, non solum regno, sed etiam Italia excedere conpelleret, omnia Romanis erepta restitueret, Hruodgausum Foroiuliani ducatus praefectum res novas molientem opprimeret totamque Italiam suae ditioni subiugaret subactaeque filium suum Pippinum regem inponeret. Italiam intranti quam difficilis Alpium transitus fuerit, quantoque Francorum labore invia montium iuga et eminentes in caelum scopuli atque asperae cautes superatae sint, hoc loco describerem, nisi vitae illius modum potius quam bellorum, quae gessit, eventus memoriae mandare praesenti opere animo esset propositum.

But although to himself and to his father a like, or rather the same, cause for undertaking war seemed to be present, yet it is agreed that the contest was carried on with no like labor and completed with no like end. For Pippin compelled King Aistulf by a siege of a few days at Ticinum both to give hostages and to restore to the Romans the towns and forts snatched away, and, that what had been restored should not be reclaimed, to pledge faith by an oath; but Charles, after the war had been begun by himself, did not desist before he both received King Desiderius, whom he had wearied by a long siege, into surrender, compelled his son Adalgis, upon whom the hopes of all seemed to incline, to withdraw not only from the kingship but even from Italy, restored all things taken from the Romans, crushed Hruodgausus, prefect of the Foroiulian duchy, who was engineering innovations, and subjugated all Italy to his dominion and set his son Pippin as king over the subdued. How difficult the crossing of the Alps was for him on entering Italy, and with how great a toil of the Franks the pathless mountain ridges and crags soaring into the sky and rough rocks were overcome, I would describe in this place, were it not my purpose in the present work to entrust to memory rather the manner of his life than the outcomes of the wars he waged.

Finis tamen huius belli fuit subacta Italia et rex Desiderius perpetuo exilio deportatus et filius eius Adalgisus Italia pulsus et res a Langobardorum regibus ereptae Hadriano Romanae ecclesiae rectori restitutae.

The end, however, of this war was Italy subdued, and King Desiderius carried off into perpetual exile, and his son Adalgisus driven from Italy, and the things snatched away by the kings of the Langobards restored to Hadrian, the rector of the Roman Church.

[7] Post cuius finem Saxonicum, quod quasi intermissum videbatur, repetitum est. Quo nullum neque prolixius neque atrocius Francorumque populo laboriosius susceptum est; quia Saxones, sicut omnes fere Germaniam incolentes nationes, et natura feroces et cultui daemonum dediti nostraeque religioni contrarii neque divina neque humana iura vel polluere vel transgredi inhonestum arbitrabantur. Suberant et causae, quae cotidie pacem conturbare poterant, termini videlicet nostri et illorum poene ubique in plano contigui, praeter pauca loca, in quibus vel silvae maiores vel montium iuga interiecta utrorumque agros certo limite disterminant, in quibus caedes et rapinae et incendia vicissim fieri non cessabant.

[7] After the end of which, the Saxon war, which seemed as though intermitted, was taken up again. Than this none was undertaken more prolonged, more atrocious, or more laborious for the people of the Franks; because the Saxons, like almost all the nations inhabiting Germany, both fierce by nature and devoted to the cult of demons and opposed to our religion, did not consider it dishonorable either to defile or to transgress divine or human laws. There were also underlying causes which could disturb peace daily—namely, that our boundaries and theirs were almost everywhere contiguous on the plain, except for a few places in which either larger forests or the ridges of mountains set between demarcate the fields of each by a fixed limit—where slaughters and rapine and arsons in turn did not cease to occur.

Quibus adeo Franci sunt irritati, ut non iam vicissitudinem reddere, sed apertum contra eos bellum suscipere dignum iudicarent. Susceptum est igitur adversus eos bellum, quod magna utrimque animositate, tamen maiore Saxonum quam Francorum damno, per continuos triginta tres annos gerebatur. Poterat siquidem citius finiri, si Saxonum hoc perfidia pateretur.

By these things the Franks were so irritated that they judged it worthy not now to repay in vicissitude, but to undertake open war against them. Therefore war was undertaken against them, which, with great animosity on both sides, yet with greater loss to the Saxons than to the Franks, was waged for a continuous thirty-three years. Indeed, it could have been finished more quickly, if the perfidy of the Saxons had allowed this.

Difficile dictu est, quoties superati ac supplices regi se dediderunt, imperata facturos polliciti sunt, obsides qui imperabantur absque dilatione dederunt, legatos qui mittebantur susceperunt, aliquoties ita domiti et emolliti, ut etiam cultum daemonum dimittere et Christianae religioni se subdere velle promitterent; Sed sicut ad haec facienda aliquoties proni, sic ad eadem pervertenda semper fuere praecipites, non sit ut satis aestimare, ad utrum horum faciliores verius dici possint; quippe cum post inchoatum cum eis bellum vix ullus annus exactus sit, quo non ab eis huiuscemodi facta sit permutatio. Sed magnanimitas regis ac perpetua tam in adversis quam in prosperis mentis constantia nulla eorum mutabilitate vel vinci poterat vel ab his quae agere coeperat defatigari. Nam numquam eos huiuscemodi aliquid perpetrantes inpune ferre passus est, quin aut ipse per se ducto aut per comites suos misso exercitu perfidiam ulcisceretur et dignam ab eis poenam exigeret, usque dum, omnibus qui resistere solebant profligatis et in suam potestatem redactis, decem milia hominum ex his qui utrasque ripas Albis fluminis incolebant cum uxoribus et parvulis sublatos transtulit et huc atque illuc per Galliam et Germaniam multimoda divisione distribuit.

It is difficult to say how many times, defeated and as suppliants, they surrendered themselves to the king, promised they would do what was commanded, gave without delay the hostages that were imposed, received the legates who were sent, at times so tamed and softened that they even promised to abandon the worship of daemons and to subject themselves to the Christian religion; but just as at times they were prone to do these things, so were they always headlong to overturn the same, nor is it easy enough to assess to which of these they may more truly be said to be the more facile; since, after the war with them was begun, scarcely any year has passed in which such a change of this sort was not made by them. But the magnanimity of the king and the perpetual constancy of mind, as much in adversities as in prosperities, could by no mutability of theirs be either conquered or wearied from those things which he had begun to carry out. For he never allowed them, perpetrating anything of this kind, to go unpunished, but either he himself, with an army led by himself, or through his counts with an army sent, avenged the perfidy and exacted from them a worthy penalty, until, with all who were wont to resist routed and reduced into his power, he removed and transferred ten thousand people from among those who inhabited both banks of the river Elbe, together with their wives and little children, and distributed them here and there through Gaul and Germany by a manifold partition.

Eaque conditione a rege proposita et ab illis suscepta tractum per tot annos bellum constat esse finitum, ut, abiecto daemonum cultu et relictis patriis caerimoniis, Christianae fidei atque religionis sacramenta susciperent et Francis adunati unus cum eis populus efficerentur.

And on that condition, proposed by the king and undertaken by them, it is established that the war, drawn out through so many years, was brought to an end, namely, that, with the cult of demons cast aside and their ancestral ceremonies left behind, they should receive the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion and, united to the Franks, be made one people with them.

[8] Hoc bello, licet per multum temporis spatium traheretur, ipse non amplius cum hoste quam bis acie conflixit, semel iuxta montem qui Osneggi dicitur in loco Theotmelli nominato et iterum apud Hasa fluvium, et hoc uno mense, paucis quoque interpositis diebus. His duobus proeliis hostes adeo profligati ac devicti sunt, ut ulterius regem neque provocare neque venienti resistere, nisi aliqua loci munitione defensi, auderent. Plures tamen eo bello tam ex nobilitate Francorum quam Saxonum et functi summis honoribus viri consumpti sunt.

[8] In this war, although it was drawn out through a great span of time, he himself engaged with the enemy in pitched battle no more than twice: once near the mountain which is called Osneggi, in a place named Theotmelli, and again at the Hasa river—and this within one month, with only a few days intervening. In these two battles the enemies were so profligated and vanquished that thereafter they dared neither to provoke the king nor to resist him as he came, unless defended by some fortification of position. Yet in that war many were consumed, both from the nobility of the Franks and of the Saxons, and men who had held the highest honors.

Tandemque anno tricesimo tertio finitum est, cum interim tot ac tanta in diversis terrarum partibus bella contra Francos et exorta sint et sollertia regis administrata, ut merito intuentibus in dubium venire possit, utrum in eo aut laborum patientiam aut felicitatem potius mirari conveniat. Nam biennio ante Italicum hoc bellum sumpsit exordium, et cum sine intermissione gereretur, nihil tamen ex his quae aliubi erant gerenda dimissum aut ulla in parte ab aeque operoso certamine cessatum est. Nam rex, omnium qui sua aetate gentibus dominabantur et prudentia maximus et animi magnitudine praestantissimus, nihil in his quae vel suscipienda erant vel exsequenda aut propter laborem detractavit aut propter periculum exhorruit, verum unumquodque secundumsuam qualitatem et subire et ferre doctus nec in adversis cedere nec in prosperis falso blandienti fortunae adsentiri solebat.

And at length in the thirty-third year it was brought to an end, while in the meantime so many and so great wars in diverse parts of the earth against the Franks both had arisen and were administered by the king’s ingenuity, that it may justly come into doubt for observers whether in him one ought rather to admire the patience in labors or his felicity. For two years earlier this Italian war took its beginning, and although it was being conducted without intermission, nevertheless nothing of the things that had to be carried on elsewhere was omitted, nor in any quarter was there a cessation from an equally toilsome contest. For the king, of all who in his age held sway over nations both the greatest in prudence and most outstanding in greatness of spirit, in those things that either had to be undertaken or executed neither shirked on account of labor nor shuddered on account of danger, but, taught to undergo and to bear each thing according to its own quality, was wont neither to yield in adversities nor in prosperous circumstances to assent to fortune falsely flattering.

[9] Cum enim assiduo ac poene continuo cum Saxonibus bello certaretur, dispositis per congrua confiniorum loca praesidiis, Hispaniam quam maximo poterat belli apparatu adgreditur; saltuque Pyrinei superato, omnibus, quae adierat, oppidis atque castellis in deditionem acceptis, salvo et incolomi exercitu revertitur; praeter quod in ipso Pyrinei iugo Wasconicam perfidiam parumper in redeundo contigit experiri. Nam cum agmine longo, ut loci et angustiarum situs permittebat, porrectus iret exercitus, Wascones in summi montis vertice positis insidiis - est enim locus ex opacitate silvarum, quarum ibi maxima est copia, insidiis ponendis oportunus - extremam impedimentorum partem et eos qui novissimi agminis incedentes subsidio praecedentes tuebantur desuper incursantes in subiectam vallem deiciunt, consertoque cum eis proelio usque ad unum omnes interficiunt, ac direptis impedimentis, noctis beneficio, quae iam instabat, protecti summa cum celeritate in diversa disperguntur. Adiuvabat in hoc facto Wascones et levitas armorum et loci, in quo res gerebatur, situs, econtra Francos et armorum gravitas et loci iniquitas per omnia Wasconibus reddidit impares.

[9] For while a constant and almost continuous war was being contested with the Saxons, with garrisons posted at suitable places along the borders, he attacks Spain with the greatest apparatus of war he could; and, the pass of the Pyrenees having been crossed, with all the towns and strongholds he had approached received into surrender, he returns with his army safe and unharmed—except that on the very ridge of the Pyrenees it befell him, on the return, to experience for a little while Wasconian treachery. For as the army, extended in a long column, as the nature of the place and the narrowness allowed, was proceeding, the Wascones, with ambushes set on the summit of the mountain—for the place, from the shadowiness of the woods, of which there is there a very great supply, is suitable for laying ambushes—charging from above, cast down into the valley beneath the hindmost part of the baggage-train and those who, advancing as the very last of the column, were protecting the ones going before by way of support; and, battle having been joined with them, they slay them all to a man, and, the baggage plundered, shielded by the benefit of night, which was already at hand, they scatter in different directions with the utmost speed. Aided in this deed were the Wascones both by the lightness of their arms and by the site of the place in which the affair was being conducted; conversely, both the heaviness of the arms and the disadvantage of the terrain rendered the Franks in every respect unequal to the Wascones.

In quo proelio Eggihardus regiae mensae praepositus, Anshelmus comes palatii et Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus cum aliis conpluribus interficiuntur. Neque hoc factum ad praesens vindicari poterat, quia hostis re perpetrata ita dispersus est, ut ne fama quidem remaneret, ubinam gentium quaeri potuisset.

In which battle Eggihard, superintendent of the royal table, Anselm, count of the palace, and Hruodland, prefect of the Britannic frontier, are slain, together with many others. Nor could this deed be avenged for the present, because the enemy, the matter once carried through, was so dispersed that not even a report remained as to where in the world they could have been sought.

[10] Domuit et Brittones, qui ad occidentem in extrema quadam parte Galliae super litus oceani residentes dicto audientes non erant, missa in eos expeditione, qua et obsides dare et quae imperarentur se facturos polliceri coacti sunt. Ipse postea cum exercitu Italiam ingressus ac per Romam iter agens Capuam Campaniae urbem accessit atque ibi positis castris bellum Beneventanis, ni dederentur, comminatus est. Praevenit hoc dux gentis Aragisus: filios suos Rumoldum et Grimoldum cum magna pecunia obviam regi mittens rogat, ut filios obsides suscipiat, seque cum gente imperata facturum pollicetur, praeter hoc solum, si ipse ad conspectum venire cogeretur.

[10] He also subdued the Britons, who to the west, in a certain farthest part of Gaul, sitting upon the shore of the ocean, were not obedient to command, by an expedition sent against them, whereby they were forced both to give hostages and to promise that they would do what was commanded. He himself afterwards, with the army having entered Italy and making his way through Rome, approached Capua, a city of Campania, and there, with camp pitched, threatened war to the Beneventans, unless they surrendered. This was forestalled by the duke of the people, Aragisus: sending his sons Rumold and Grimold with a great sum of money to meet the king, he asks that the sons be accepted as hostages, and he promises that he himself with the people will do what is commanded, except for this one thing—that he be compelled to come into his presence.

Rex, utilitate gentis magis quam animi eius obstinatione considerata, et oblatos sibi obsides suscepit eique, ut ad conspectum venire non cogeretur, pro magno munere concessit; unoque ex filiis, qui minor erat, obsidatus gratia retento, maiorem patri remisit; legatisque ob sacramenta fidelitatis a Beneventanis exigenda atque suscipienda cum Aragiso dimissis Romam redit, consumptisque ibi in sanctorum veneratione locorum aliquot diebus in Galliam revertitur.

The king, having considered the utility of the nation rather than the obstinacy of his spirit, both accepted the hostages offered to him and granted to him, as a great favor, that he should not be compelled to come into his presence; and, one of the sons, who was the younger, having been retained as a hostage, he sent the elder back to his father; and, the legates having been sent off with Aragisus to exact and to receive the oaths of fidelity from the Beneventans, he returned to Rome, and, after several days were consumed there in the veneration of the holy places, he returned to Gaul.

[11] Baioaricum deinde bellum et repente ortum et celeri fine conpletum est. Quod superbia simul ac socordia Tassilonis ducis excitavit; qui hortatu uxoris, quae filia Desiderii regis erat ac patris exilium per maritum ulcisci posse putabat, iuncto foedere cum Hunis, qui Baioariis sunt ab oriente contermini, non solum imperata non facere, sed bello regem provocare temptabat. Cuius contumaciam, quia nimia videbatur, animositas regis ferre nequiverat, ac proinde copiis undique contractis Baioariam petiturus ipse ad Lechum amnem cum magno venit exercitu.

[11] The Bavarian war then both suddenly arose and was brought to completion with a swift end. This the pride together with the sloth of Duke Tassilo stirred up; who, at the prompting of his wife, who was the daughter of King Desiderius and thought she could avenge her father’s exile through her husband, with a pact joined with the Huns, who are conterminous with the Bavarians on the east, was attempting not only not to do the things commanded, but to provoke the king to war. The king’s spirit could not bear his contumacy, because it seemed excessive; and so, with forces gathered from all sides, intending to make for Bavaria, he himself came with a great army to the river Lech.

Is fluvius Baioarios ab Alamannis dividit. Cuius in ripa castris conlocatis, priusquam provinciam intraret, animum ducis per legatos statuit experiri. Sed nec ille pertinaciter agere vel sibi vel genti utile ratus supplex se regi permisit, obsides qui imperabantur dedit, inter quos et filium suum Theodonem, data insuper fide cum iuramento, quod ab illius potestate ad defectionem nemini suadenti adsentire deberet.

That river divides the Bavarians from the Alemanni. With the camp placed on its bank, before he should enter the province, he resolved to test the mind of the duke through legates. But he, judging that to act pertinaciously would be useful neither to himself nor to his people, presented himself to the king as a suppliant, gave the hostages that were commanded—among whom also his son Theodo—faith moreover being pledged with an oath, that he ought to assent to no one persuading him to defection from that man’s authority.

Sicque bello, quod quasi maximum futurum videbatur, celerrimus est finis inpositus. Tassilo tamen postmodum ad regem evocatus neque redire permissus, neque provincia, quam tenebat, ulterius duci, sed comitibus ad regendum commissa est.

And so upon the war, which seemed as if it would be the greatest, a most swift end was imposed. Tassilo, however, afterward summoned to the king, was not permitted to return, nor was the province which he held any longer assigned to a duke, but was entrusted to counts for governing.

[12] His motibus ita conpositis, Sclavis, qui nostra consuetudine Wilzi, proprie vero, id est sua locutione, Welatabi dicuntur, bellum inlatum est. In quo et Saxones velut auxiliares inter ceteras nationes, quae regis signa iussae sequebantur, quamquam ficta et minus devota oboedientia, militabant. Causa belli erat, quod Abodritos, qui cum Francis olim foederati erant, adsidua incursione lacessebant nec iussionibus coerceri poterant.

[12] With these movements thus composed, war was brought against the Slavs, who by our custom are called the Wilzi, but properly—i.e., in their own locution—the Welatabi. In this war even the Saxons, as auxiliaries among the other nations which, having been ordered, were following the king’s standards, served, although with feigned and less devoted obedience. The cause of the war was that the Abodrites, who had once been federated with the Franks, were harassing by assiduous incursion and could not be restrained by commands.

Sinus quidam ab occidentali oceano orientem versus porrigitur, longitudinis quidem inconpertae, latitudinis vero quae nusquam centum milia passuum excedat, cum in multis locis contractior inveniatur. Hunc multae circumsedent nationes; Dani siquidem ac Sueones, ques Nordmannos vocamus, et septentrionale litus et omnes in eo insulas tenent. At litus australe Sclavi et Aisti et aliae diversae incolunt nationes; inter quos vel praecipui sunt, quibus tunc a rege bellum inferebatur, Welatabi.

A certain bay stretches out from the western ocean toward the east, of length indeed unknown, but of breadth which nowhere exceeds 100 miles, since in many places it is found narrower. Many nations sit around this; indeed the Danes and the Swedes, whom we call Northmen, hold both the northern shore and all the islands in it. But the southern shore the Slavs and the Aesti and other diverse nations inhabit; among whom the Welatabi are particularly preeminent, against whom war was then being brought by the king.

Quos ille una tantum et quam per se gesserat expeditione ita contudit ac domuit, ut ulterius imperata facere minime rennuendum iudicarent.

Whom he, with only a single expedition, and one which he had carried out by himself, so crushed and subdued that they judged that henceforth the things commanded were by no means to be refused.

[13] Maximum omnium, quae ab illo gesta sunt, bellorum praeter Saxonicum huic bello successit, illud videlicet, quod contra Avares sive Hunos susceptum est. Quod ille et animosius quam cetera et longe maiori apparatu administravit. Unam tamen per se in Pannoniam - nam hanc provinciam ea gens tum incolebat - expeditionem fecit, cetera filio suo Pippino ac praefectis provinciarum, comitibus etiam atque legatis perficienda commisit.

[13] The greatest, of all the wars that were waged by him, after the Saxon war, succeeded to this war—namely that which was undertaken against the Avars or Huns. This he conducted both more animosely than the rest and with by far greater apparatus. One expedition, however, he made by himself, in person, into Pannonia—for that nation then inhabited this province—the rest he entrusted, to be brought to completion, to his son Pippin and to the prefects of the provinces, and also to the counts and legates.

Quod cum ab his strenuissime fuisset administratum, octavo tandem anno conpletum est. Quot proelia in eo gesta, quantum sanguinis effusum sit, testatur vacua omni habitatore Pannonia et locus, in quo regia Kagani erat, ita desertus, ut ne vestigium quidem in eo humanae habitationis appareat. Tota in hoc bello Hunorum nobilitas periit.

When this had been most strenuously administered by them, it was at last completed in the eighth year. How many battles were fought in it, how much blood was poured out, is attested by Pannonia, empty of every inhabitant, and by the place where the Khagan’s royal residence was, so deserted that not even a trace of human habitation appears in it. The whole nobility of the Huns perished in this war.

tota gloria decidit. Omnis pecunia et congesti ex longo tempore thesauri direpti sunt. Neque ullum bellum contra Francos exortum humana potest memoria recordari, quo illi magis ditati et opibus aucti sint.

All glory has fallen. All money and the treasures heaped up over a long time were plundered. Nor can human memory recall any war arisen against the Franks, in which they were more enriched and augmented in resources.

Quippe cum usque in id temporis poene pauperes viderentur, tantum auri et argenti in regia repertum, tot spolia pretiosa in proeliis sublata, ut merito credi possit hoc Francos Hunis iuste eripuisse, quod Huni prius aliis gentibus iniuste eripuerunt. Duo tantum ex proceribus Francorum eo bello perierunt: Ericus dux Foroiulanus in Liburnia iuxta Tharsaticam maritimam civitatem insidiis oppidanorum interceptus, et Geroldus Baioariae praefectus in Pannonia, cum contra Hunos proeliaturus aciem strueret, incertum a quo, cum duobus tantum, qui eum obequitantem ac singulos hortantem comitabantur, interfectus est. Ceterum incruentum poene Francis hoc bellum fuit et prosperrimum exitum habuit, tametsi diutius sui magnitudine traheretur.

Since, indeed, up to that time they seemed almost poor, so much gold and silver was found in the royal palace, so many precious spoils were carried off in the battles, that it can deservedly be believed that the Franks justly snatched from the Huns what the Huns had previously unjustly snatched from other gentes. Only two of the Frankish nobles perished in that war: Eric, duke of Forum Iulii, in Liburnia, near the maritime city Tharsatica, was cut off by the ambush of the townsmen; and Gerold, prefect of Bavaria, in Pannonia, when he was drawing up the battle line to fight against the Huns, was killed—uncertain by whom—with only two men, who were accompanying him as he rode about and encouraged individuals, being with him. Otherwise, this war was almost bloodless for the Franks and had a most prosperous outcome, although it was drawn out longer by its own magnitude.

[14] Post quod et Saxonicum suae prolixitati convenientem finem accepit. Boemanicum quoque et Linonicum, quae postea exorta sunt, diu durare non potuerunt. Quorum utrumque ductu Karoli iunioris celeri fine conpletum est.

[14] After which the Saxon affair too received an end befitting its own prolixity. The Bohemian and likewise the Linonian (wars), which arose later, were not able to last long. Both of these were brought to a swift conclusion under the leadership of Charles the Younger.

Ultimum contra Nordmannos, qui Dani vocantur, primo pyraticam exercentes, deinde maiori classe litora Galliae atque Germaniae vastantes, bellum susceptum est. Quorum rex Godofridus adeo vana spe inflatus erat, ut sibi totius Germaniae promitteret potestatem. Frisiam quoque atque Saxoniam haud aliter atque suas provincias aestimabat.

Lastly, against the Northmen, who are called Danes, at first practicing piracy, then with a larger fleet devastating the shores of Gaul and Germany, a war was undertaken. Their king Godofridus was so inflated with vain hope that he promised to himself the power of all Germany. Frisia also and Saxony he esteemed not otherwise than as his own provinces.

Iam Abodritos, vicinos suos, in suam ditionem redegerat, iam eos sibi vectigales fecerat. Iactabat etiam se brevi Aquasgrani, ubi regis comitatus erat, cum maximis copiis adventurum. Nec dictis eius, quamvis vanissimis, omnino fides abnuebatur, quin potius putaretur tale aliquid inchoaturus, nisi festinata fuisset morte praeventus.

He had already reduced the Abodrites, his neighbors, into his own dominion, already had made them tributary to himself. He was boasting, too, that shortly at Aquasgrani (Aachen), where the king’s comitatus was, he would arrive with very great forces. Nor was credence entirely denied to his words, however most vain, but rather he was thought about to begin something of the kind, had he not been forestalled by a hasty death.

Nam a proprio satellite interfectus et suae vitae et belli a se inchoati finem acceleravit.

For, slain by his own satellite (bodyguard), he accelerated the end both of his life and of the war begun by himself.

[15] Haec sunt bella, quae rex potentissimus per annos XLVII - tot enim annis regnaverat - in diversis terrarum partibus summa prudentia atque felicitate gessit. Quibus regnum Francorum, quod post patrem Pippinum magnum quidem et forte susceperat, ita nobiliter ampliavit, ut poene duplum illi adiecerit. Nam cum prius non amplius quam ea pars Galliae, quae inter Rhenum et Ligerem oceanumque ac mare Balearicum iacet, et pars Germaniae, quae inter Saxoniam et Danubium Rhenumque ac Salam fluvium, qui Thuringos et Sorabos dividit, posita a Francis qui Orientales dicuntur incolitur, et praeter haec Alamanni atque Baioarii ad regni Francorum potestatem pertinerent: ipse per bella memorata primo Aquitaniam et Wasconiam totumque Pyrinei montis iugum et usque ad Hiberum amnem, qui apud Navarros ortus et fertilissimos Hispaniae agros secans sub Dertosae civitatis moenia Balearico mari miscetur; deinde Italiam totam, quae ab Augusta Praetoria usque in Calabriam inferiorem, in qua Graecorum ac Beneventanorum constat esse confinia, decies centum et eo amplius passuum milibus longitudine porrigitur; tum Saxoniam, quae quidem Germaniae pars non modica est et eius quae a Francis incolitur duplum in late habere putatur, cum ei longitudine possit esse consimilis; post quam utramque Pannoniam et adpositam in altera Danubii ripa Daciam, Histriam quoque et Liburniam atque Dalmaciam, exceptis maritimis civitatibus, quas ob amicitiam et iunctum cum eo foedus Constantinopolitanum imperatorem habere permisit; deinde omnes barbaras ac feras nationes, quae inter Rhenum ac Visulam fluvios oceanumque ac Danubium positae, lingua quidem poene similes, moribus vero atque habitu valde dissimiles, Germaniam incolunt, ita perdomuit, ut eas tributarias efficeret; inter quas fere praecipuae sunt Welatabi, Sorabi, Abodriti, Boemani - cum his namque bello conflixit -; ceteras, quarum multo maior est numerus, in deditionem suscepit.

[15] These are the wars which the most powerful king, through 47 years — for so many years had he reigned — in diverse parts of the earth carried on with the highest prudence and good fortune. By these he so nobly enlarged the kingdom of the Franks, which after his father Pippin he had indeed received great and valiant, that he added to it almost a double. For whereas before not more than that part of Gaul which lies between the Rhine and the Loire and the Ocean and the Balearic Sea, and that part of Germany which lies between Saxony and the Danube and the Rhine and the river Saale, which divides the Thuringians and the Sorbs, was inhabited by the Franks who are called the Eastern, and besides these the Alemanni and the Bavarians belonged to the power of the kingdom of the Franks: he himself, through the wars mentioned, first Aquitaine and Gascony and the whole ridge of the Pyrenaean mountain and as far as the river Ebro, which, rising among the Navarrese and cutting through the most fertile fields of Spain, is mingled with the Balearic Sea beneath the walls of the city of Dertosa; then all Italy, which stretches in length from Augusta Praetoria as far as Lower Calabria, in which it is agreed that the borders of the Greeks and of the Beneventans are, for a thousand and more miles; then Saxony, which indeed is no small part of Germany and is thought in breadth to have the double of that which is inhabited by the Franks, while it can be similar to it in length; after which both Pannonias and Dacia placed on the other bank of the Danube, as well as Histria and Liburnia and Dalmatia, except the maritime cities, which, on account of friendship and the treaty joined with him, he allowed the Constantinopolitan emperor to have; then all the barbarian and wild nations which, placed between the Rhine and the Vistula rivers and the Ocean and the Danube, in language indeed almost similar, but in customs and dress very dissimilar, inhabit Germany, he so subdued that he made them tributary; among which the chief almost are the Welatabi, the Sorbs, the Abodrites, the Bohemians — for with these he did in fact join battle —; the rest, whose number is much greater, he received into surrender.

[16] Auxit etiam gloriam regni sui quibusdam regibus ac gentibus per amicitiam sibi conciliatis. Adeo namque Hadefonsum Galleciae atque Asturicae regem sibi societate devinxit, ut is, cum ad eum vel litteras vel legatos mitteret, non aliter se apud illum quam proprium suum appellari iuberet. Scottorum quoque reges sic habuit ad suam voluntatem per munificentiam inclinatos, ut eum numquam aliter nisi dominum seque subditos et servos eius pronuntiarent.

[16] He also increased the glory of his realm by winning over to himself certain kings and peoples through amity. For to such a degree did he bind to himself by alliance Hadefonsus (Alfonso), king of Galicia and Asturias, that whenever he sent to him either letters or legates, he would order that he be addressed there in no other way than as his own man. He likewise had the kings of the Scots so inclined to his will through munificence that they never proclaimed him otherwise than lord, and themselves his subjects and servants.

Extant epistolae ab eis ad illum missae, quibus huiusmodi affectus eorum erga illum indicatur. Cum Aaron rege Persarum, qui excepta India totum poene tenebat orientem, talem habuit in amicitia concordiam, ut is gratiam eius omnium, qui in toto orbe terrarum erant, regum ac principum amicitiae praeponeret solumque illum honore ac munificentia sibi colendum iudicaret. Ac proinde, cum legati eius, quos cum donariis ad sacratissimum Domini ac salvatoris nostri sepulchrum locumque resurrectionis miserat, ad eum venissent et ei domini sui voluntatem indicassent, non solum quae petebantur fieri permisit, sed etiam sacrum illum et salutarem locum, ut illius potestati adscriberetur, concessit; et revertentibus legatis suos adiungens inter vestes et aromata et ceteras orientalium terrarum opes ingentia illi dona direxit, cum ei ante paucos annos eum, quem tunc solum habebat, roganti mitteret elefantum.

There exist letters sent by them to him, by which their disposition of this sort toward him is indicated. With Aaron, king of the Persians, who, India excepted, held almost all the Orient, he had such concord in friendship that Aaron preferred his favor to the friendship of all the kings and princes who were in the whole orb of lands, and judged that he alone should be honored and cultivated with honor and munificence. And accordingly, when his envoys—whom he had sent with donaries to the most sacred sepulcher of the Lord and our Savior and the place of resurrection—had come to him and had indicated to him their lord’s will, he not only permitted the things that were being asked to be done, but even granted that that sacred and health-bringing place be ascribed to his authority; and, adding his own men to the envoys as they returned, he sent to him immense gifts—among garments and aromatics and the other wealth of the eastern lands—although a few years before he had sent him, when he asked, the elephant which at that time he alone possessed.

Imperatores etiam Constantinopolitani, Niciforus, Michahel et Leo, ultro amicitiam et societatem eius expetentes conplures ad eum misere legatos. Cum quibus tamen propter susceptum a se imperatoris nomen et ob hoc eis, quasi qui imperium eis eripere vellet, valde suspectum foedus firmissimum statuit, ut nulla inter partes cuiuslibet scandali remaneret occasio. Erat enim semper Romanis et Grecis Francorum suspecta potentia.

The emperors also of Constantinople, Nicephorus, Michael, and Leo, of their own accord seeking his friendship and alliance, sent to him many legates. With whom, however—because of the imperial name assumed by himself and, on this account, being to them very suspect, as if he wished to snatch the imperium from them—he established a most firm treaty, so that no occasion of any sort of scandal might remain between the parties. For the power of the Franks was always suspect to the Romans and the Greeks.

Unde et illud Grecum extat proverbium: ton Phragkon philon echis, gitona ouk echis.

Whence also that Greek proverb is extant: “you have the Frank as a friend; you do not have a neighbor.”

[17] Qui cum tantus in ampliando regno et subigendis exteris nationibus existeret et in eiusmodi occupationibus assidue versaretur, opera tamen plurima ad regni decorem et commoditatem pertinentia diversis in locis inchoavit, quaedam etiam consummavit. Inter quae praecipua fere non inmerito videri possunt basilica sanctae Dei genitricis Aquisgrani opere mirabili constructa et pons apud Mogontiacum in Rheno quingentorum passuum longitudinis - nam tanta est ibi fluminis latitudo; qui tamen uno, antequam decederet, anno incendio conflagravit, nec refici potuit propter festinatum illius decessum, quamquam in ea meditatione esset, ut pro ligneo lapideum restitueret. Inchoavit et palatia operis egregii, unum haud longe a Mogontiaco civitate, iuxta villam cui vocabulum est Ingilenheim, alterum Noviomagi super Vahalem fluvium, qui Batavorum insulam a parte meridiana praeterfluit.

[17] Although he was so great in enlarging the kingdom and subduing foreign nations and was continually engaged in occupations of that sort, nevertheless he began very many works in various places pertaining to the adornment and convenience of the realm, and even completed some. Among which the chief may almost not without reason seem to be the basilica of the holy Mother of God at Aquisgrani, constructed with marvelous workmanship, and the bridge at Mogontiacum on the Rhine of 500 paces in length - for such is the breadth of the river there; which, however, in a single year, before he departed, was consumed by fire, nor could it be repaired on account of the hastened nature of his decease, although he was in that intention, to replace the wooden one with a stone one. He also began palaces of excellent workmanship, one not far from the city of Mogontiacum, next to the villa whose name is Ingilenheim, the other at Noviomagus upon the Wahal river, which flows past the island of the Batavians on the southern side.

Praecipue tamen aedes sacras ubicumque in toto regno suo vetustate conlapsas conperit, pontificibus et patribus, ad quorum curam pertinebant, ut restaurarentur, imperavit, adhibens curam per legatos, ut imperata perficerent.

Yet especially, wherever in his whole realm he discovered sacred edifices collapsed by age, he ordered the bishops and abbots, to whose care they pertained, to have them restored, applying oversight through legates, so that the things commanded might be brought to completion.

Molitus est et classem contra bellum Nordmannicum, aedificatis ad hoc navibus iuxta flumina, quae et de Gallia et de Germania septentrionalem influunt oceanum. Et quia Nordmanni Gallicum litus atque Germanicum assidua infestatione vastabant, per omnes portus et ostia fluminum, qua naves recipi posse videbantur, stationibus et excubiis dispositis, ne qua hostis exire potuisset, tali munitione prohibuit. Fecit idem a parte meridiana in litore provinciae Narbonensis ac Septimaniae, toto etiam Italiae litore usque Romam contra Mauros nuper pyraticam exercere adgressos; ac per hoc nullo gravi damno vel a Mauris Italia vel Gallia atque Germania a Nordmannis diebus suis adfecta est, praeter quod Centumcellae civitas Etruriae per proditionem a Mauris capta atque vastata est, et in Frisia quaedam insulae Germanico litori contiguae a Nordmannis depraedatae sunt.

He also set in motion a fleet against the Northman war, with ships built for this along the rivers which from both Gaul and Germany flow into the northern ocean. And because the Northmen were laying waste the Gallic and the German littoral with assiduous infestation, he forbade it by such a fortification, having stations and watches arranged through all the ports and mouths of the rivers where ships seemed able to be received, so that no enemy could put out. He did the same on the meridional side, on the shore of the province of Narbonensis and of Septimania, and along the whole littoral of Italy as far as Rome, against the Moors who had lately set about to exercise piratical activity; and through this neither Italy suffered any grave damage from the Moors in his days, nor Gaul and Germany from the Northmen, except that the city of Centumcellae in Etruria was captured and ravaged by the Moors through treachery, and in Frisia certain islands contiguous to the German shore were plundered by the Northmen.

[18] Talem eum in tuendo et ampliando simulque ornando regno fuisse constat. Cuius animi dotes et summam in qualicumque et prospero et adverso eventu constantiam ceteraque ad interiorem atque domesticam viram pertinentia iam abhinc dicere exordiar.

[18] It stands established that he was such in guarding and amplifying and likewise adorning the kingdom. As for the endowments of his mind and his consummate constancy in whatever outcome, both prosperous and adverse, and the other things pertaining to the interior and domestic life, from now I shall begin to speak.

Post mortem patris cum fratre regnum partitus tanta patientia simultates et invidiam eius tulit, ut omnibus mirum videretur, quod ne ad iracundiam quidem ab eo provocari potuisset. Deinde cum matris hortatu filiam Desiderii regis Langobardorum duxisset uxorem, incertum qua de causa, post annum eam repudiavit et Hildigardam de gente Suaborum praecipuae nobilitatis feminam in matrimonium accepit; de qua tres filios, Karolum videlicet, Pippinum et Hludowicum, totidemque filias, Hruodtrudem et Berhtam et Gislam, genuit. Habuit et alias tres filias, Theoderadam et Hiltrudem et Hruodhaidem, duas de Fastrada uxore, quae de Orientalium Francorum, Germanorum videlicet, gente erat, tertiam de concubina quadam, cuius nomen modo memoriae non occurrit.

After the death of his father, having shared the kingdom with his brother, he bore that brother’s quarrels and envy with such patience that it seemed marvelous to everyone that he could not even be provoked to anger by him. Then, at his mother’s urging, when he had taken to wife the daughter of Desiderius, king of the Langobards, for a reason uncertain, after a year he repudiated her and took in marriage Hildegard, a woman of the people of the Suebi (Swabians), of preeminent nobility; by whom he begot three sons—namely Charles, Pippin, and Louis—and just as many daughters, Hruodtrude, Bertha, and Gisela. He had also three other daughters, Theoderada, Hiltrude, and Hruodhaida: two by his wife Fastrada, who was of the nation of the Eastern Franks, that is, the Germans, the third by a certain concubine, whose name does not at the moment occur to memory.

Defuncta Fastrada Liutgardam Alamannam duxit, de qua nihil liberorum tulit. Post cuius mortem quattuor habuit concubinas, Madelgardam scilicet, quae peperit ei filiam nomine Ruothildem, Gersuindam Saxonici generis, de qua ei filia nomine Adaltrud nata est, et Reginam, quae ei Drogonem et Hugum genuit, et Adallindem, ex qua Theodericum procreavit.

With Fastrada deceased, he took Liutgard, an Alemann woman, to wife, by whom he had no children. After whose death he had four concubines, namely Madelgard, who bore him a daughter named Ruothild; Gersuind, of Saxon stock, from whom a daughter named Adaltrud was born to him; and Regina, who bore him Drogo and Hugh; and Adallind, by whom he procreated Theoderic.

Mater quoque eius Berhtrada in magno apud eum honore consenuit. Colebat enim eam cum summa reverentia, ita ut nulla umquam invicem sit exorta discordia, praeter in divortio filiae Desiderii regis, quam illa suadente acceperat. Decessit tandem post mortem Hildigardae, cum iam tres nepotes suos totidemque neptes in filii domo vidisset.

His mother too, Berhtrada, grew old in great honor with him. For he cherished her with the highest reverence, such that no discord ever arose between them, except in the divorce of the daughter of King Desiderius, whom he had taken at her urging. She died at length after the death of Hildegard, when she had already seen three grandsons and just as many granddaughters in her son’s house.

Quam ille in eadem basilica, qua pater situs est, apud Sanctum Dionisium, magno cum honore fecit humari. Erat ei unica soror nomine Gisla, a puellaribus annis religiosae conversationi mancipata, quam similiter ut matrem magna coluit pietate. Quae etiam paucis ante obitum illius annis in eo, quo conversata est, monasterio decessit.

Whom he caused to be buried with great honor in the same basilica in which his father is laid, at Saint Dionysius. He had a single sister named Gisla, dedicated from her maiden years to the religious life, whom likewise, as his mother, he honored with great piety. She also, a few years before his death, passed away in the monastery in which she had lived the religious life.

[19] Liberos suos ita censuit instituendos, ut tam filii quam filiae primo liberalibus studiis, quibus et ipse operam dabat, erudirentur. Tum filios, cum primum aetas patiebatur, more Francorum equitare, armis ac venatibus exerceri fecit, filias vero lanificio adsuescere coloque ac fuso, ne per otium torperent, operam impendere atque ad omnem honestatem erudiri iussit. Ex his omnibus duos tantum filios et unam filiam, priusquam moreretur, amisit, Karolum, qui natu maior erat, et Pippinum, quem regem Italiae praefecerat, et Hruodtrudem, quae filiarum eius primogenita et a Constantino Grecorum imperatore desponsata erat.

[19] He judged his children to be educated thus, that both sons and daughters should first be instructed in the liberal studies, to which he himself also gave effort. Then the sons, as soon as age allowed, after the manner of the Franks, he had ride on horseback and be exercised in arms and in the hunt; but the daughters he ordered to become accustomed to wool‑working and to expend effort at the distaff and spindle, lest they grow torpid through idleness, and to be trained to all honorableness. Of all these, he lost only two sons and one daughter before he died: Charles, who was the elder by birth; and Pippin, whom he had set over Italy as king; and Hruodtrude, who was the firstborn of his daughters and had been betrothed by Constantine, emperor of the Greeks.

Quorum Pippinus unum filium suum Bernhardum, filias autem quinque, Adalhaidem, Atulam, Gundradam, Berhthaidem ac Theoderadam, superstites reliquit. In quibus rex pietatis suae praecipuum documentum ostendit, cum filio defuncto nepotem patri succedere et neptes inter filias suas educari fecisset. Mortes filiorum ac filiae pro magnanimitate, qua excellebat, minus patienter tulit, pietate videlicet, qua non minus insignis erat, conpulsus ad lacrimas.

Of whom Pippin left surviving one son, Bernard, and five daughters—Adalhaid, Atula, Gundrada, Berhthaid, and Theoderada. In these matters the king displayed a chief proof of his pietas, since, his son having died, he caused the grandson to succeed his father, and had the granddaughters brought up among his own daughters. The deaths of his sons and of his daughter he bore less patiently than one might expect from the magnanimity in which he excelled, being compelled to tears by pietas, in which he was no less distinguished.

Nuntiato etiam sibi Hadriani Romani pontificis obitu, quem in amicis praecipuum habebat, sic flevit, acsi fratrem aut carissimum filium amisisset. Erat enim in amicitiis optime temperatus, ut eas et facile admitteret et constantissime retineret, colebatque sanctissime quoscumque hac adfinitate sibi coniunxerat.

When the death of Hadrian, the Roman pontiff—whom he held as preeminent among his friends—was announced to him, he wept thus, as if he had lost a brother or a most dear son. For he was most well-tempered in friendships, so that he both admitted them easily and retained them most constantly, and he cultivated with the utmost sanctity all whom he had conjoined to himself by this affinity.

Filiorum ac filiarum tantam in educando curam habuit, ut numquam domi positus sine ipsis caenaret, numquam iter sine illis faceret. Adequitabant ei filii, filiae vero poene sequebantur, quarum agmen extremum ex satellitum numero ad hoc ordinati tuebantur. Quae cum pulcherrimae essent et ab eo plurimum diligerentur, mirum dictu, quod nullam earum cuiquam aut suorum aut exterorum nuptum dare voluit, sed omnes secum usque ad obitum suum in domo sua retinuit, dicens se earum contubernio carere non posse.

He had so great a care in the educating of his sons and daughters that, whenever he was at home, he never dined without them, and he never made a journey without them. His sons rode alongside him, but his daughters followed almost behind, whose column’s rear was guarded by a number of bodyguards arranged for this very purpose. And though they were most beautiful and were loved by him exceedingly, it is a wonder to tell that he was unwilling to give any of them in marriage to anyone, whether of his own people or of foreigners, but he kept them all with him in his own house up to his death, saying that he could not be without their companionship.

Ac propter hoc, licet alias felix, adversae fortunae malignitatem expertus est. Quod tamen ita dissimulavit, acsi de eis nulla umquam alicuius probri suspicio exorta vel fama dispersa fuisset.

And on account of this, though otherwise fortunate, he experienced the malignity of adverse fortune. This, however, he so dissimulated, as if no suspicion of any reproach concerning them had ever arisen, nor any rumor been spread.

[20] Erat ei filius nomine Pippinus ex concubina editus, cuius inter ceteros mentionem facere distuli, facie quidem pulcher, sed gibbo deformis. Is, cum pater bello contra Hunos suscepto in Baioaria hiemaret, aegritudine simulata, cum quibusdam e primoribus Francorum, qui eum vana regni promissione inlexerant, adversus patrem coniuravit. Quem post fraudem detectam et damnationem coniuratorum detonsum in coenobio Prumia religiosae vitae iamque volentem vacare permisit.

[20] He had a son named Pippin, begotten from a concubine—of whom among the others I have deferred to make mention—handsome indeed in face, but deformed by a hump. He, when his father, a war against the Huns having been undertaken, was wintering in Bavaria, with sickness feigned, conspired against his father together with certain of the foremost of the Franks, who had enticed him by a vain promise of the kingdom. Whom, after the fraud was detected and the conspirators condemned, having been shorn, he permitted, now willing, to devote himself to religious life in the coenobium of Prüm.

Facta est et alia prius contra eum in Germania valida coniuratio. Cuius auctores partim luminibus orbati, partim membris incolomes, omnes tamen exilio deportati sunt; neque ullus ex eis est interfectus nisi tres tantum; qui cum se, ne conprehenderentur, strictis gladiis defenderent, aliquos etiam occidissent, quia aliter coerceri non poterant, interempti sunt. Harum tamen coniurationum Fastradae reginae crudelitas causa et origo extitisse creditur.

There was also earlier in Germany another strong conspiracy against him. Of its authors, some were deprived of their eyes, others were unharmed in their limbs, yet all were deported into exile; nor was any of them slain except only three, who, when they defended themselves with drawn swords so as not to be apprehended, and had even killed some, because they could not be restrained otherwise, were killed. Nevertheless, the cruelty of Queen Fastrada is believed to have been the cause and origin of these conspiracies.

Et idcirco in ambabus contra regem conspiratum est, quia uxoris crudelitati consentiens a suae naturae benignitate ac solita mansuetudine inmaniter exorbitasse videbatur. Ceterum per omne vitae suae tempus ita cum summo omnium amore atque favore et domi et foris conversatus est, ut numqunm ei vel minima iniustae crudelitatis nota a quoquam fuisset obiecta.

And therefore in both cases a conspiracy was formed against the king, because, consenting to his wife’s cruelty, he seemed to have inhumanly, exorbitantly deviated from the benignity of his nature and his accustomed mansuetude. Moreover, through the whole time of his life he conducted himself, both at home and abroad, with the highest love and favor of all, such that never had even the least mark of unjust cruelty been objected to him by anyone.

[21] Amabat peregrinos et in eis suscipiendis magnam habebat curam, adeo ut eorum multitudo non solum palatio, verum etiam regno non inmerito videretur onerosa. Ipse tamen prae magnitudine animi huiuscemodi pondere minime gravabatur, cum etiam ingentia incommoda laude liberalitatis ac bonae famae mercede conpensaret.

[21] He loved foreigners and had great care in receiving them, to such a degree that their multitude seemed not undeservedly burdensome not only to the palace but even to the kingdom. He himself, however, on account of greatness of spirit, was in no way weighed down by a burden of this kind, since he even compensated enormous incommodities with the praise of liberality and the reward of good repute.

[22] Corpore fuit amplo atque robusto, statura eminenti, quae tamen iustam non excederet - nam septem suorum pedum proceritatem eius constat habuisse mensuram -, apice capitis rotundo, oculis praegrandibus ac vegetis, naso paululum mediocritatem excedenti, canitie pulchra, facie laeta et hilari. Unde formae auctoritas ac dignitas tam stanti quam sedenti plurima adquirebatur; quamquam cervix obesa et brevior venterque proiectior videretur, tamen haec ceterorum membrorum celabat aequalitas. Incessu firmo totaque corporis habitudine virili; voce clara quidem, sed quae minus corporis formae conveniret.

[22] He was of a broad and robust body, of eminent stature, which nevertheless did not exceed the just measure - for it is agreed that his height had the measure of seven of his own feet -, with the apex of the head rounded, eyes very large and lively, a nose a little exceeding the mean, beautiful gray hair, a face glad and cheerful. Whence to his form authority and dignity were very greatly added both when standing and when sitting; although the neck seemed fat and shorter and the belly more projecting, yet the proportion of the other limbs concealed these. In gait firm and in the whole habitude of the body manly; a voice clear indeed, but one which suited the form of the body less.

Valitudine prospera, praeter quod, antequam decederet, per quatuor annos crebro febribus corripiebatur, ad extremum etiam uno pede claudicaret. Et tunc quidem plura suo arbitratu quam medicorum consilio faciebat, quos poene exosos habebat, quod ei in cibis assa, quibus assuetus erat, dimittere et elixis adsuescere suadebant.

With prosperous health, except that, before he died, for four years he was frequently seized by fevers, and in the end he also limped on one foot. And then indeed he did more by his own judgment than by the counsel of the physicians, whom he held almost in detestation, because they advised him to give up roasted foods, to which he was accustomed, and to accustom himself to boiled ones.

Exercebatur assidue equitando ac venando; quod illi gentilicium erat, quia vix ulla in terris natio invenitur, quae in hac arte Francis possit aequari.

He was exercised assiduously by horseback-riding and hunting; which was of his gens, because scarcely any nation on earth is found that can be equaled to the Franks in this art.

Delectabatur etiam vaporibus aquarum naturaliter calentium, frequenti natatu corpus exercens; cuius adeo peritus fuit, ut nullus ei iuste valeat anteferri. Ob hoc etiam Aquisgrani regiam exstruxit ibique extremis vitae annis usque ad obitum perpetim habitavit. Et non solum filios ad balneum, verum optimates et amicos, aliquando etiam satellitum et custodum corporis turbam invitavit, ita ut nonnumquam centum vel eo amplius homines una lavarentur.

He also took delight in the vapors of waters naturally hot, exercising his body with frequent swimming; in which he was so skilled that no one can justly be set before him. On account of this he also constructed a royal palace at Aachen, and there, through the final years of his life up to his death, he dwelt continually. And he invited not only his sons to the bath, but also the optimates (nobles) and friends, at times even a throng of attendants (satellites) and body-guards, so that sometimes a hundred or even more men bathed together.

[23] Vestitu patrio, id est Francico, utebatur. Ad corpus camisam lineam, et feminalibus lineis induebatur, deinde tunicam, quae limbo serico ambiebatur, et tibialia; tum fasciolis crura et pedes calciamentis constringebat et ex pellibus lutrinis vel murinis thorace confecto umeros ac pectus hieme muniebat, sago veneto amictus et gladio semper accinctus, cuius capulus ac balteus aut aureus aut argenteus erat. Aliquoties et gemmato ense utebatur, quod tamen nonnisi in praecipuis festivitatibus vel si quando exterarum gentium legati venissent.

[23] He used native dress, that is, Frankish. Next to the body he was clothed with a linen chemise and with linen drawers, then a tunic, which was encircled with a silk hem, and hose; then with bands he bound his shins and with shoes his feet, and with a corselet made from otter or marten skins he protected his shoulders and chest in winter, wrapped in a blue cloak and always girt with a sword, whose hilt and baldric were either golden or silver. Several times he also used a gem‑studded sword, but only on principal festivities or if ever legates of foreign nations had come.

Peregrina vero indumenta, quamvis pulcherrima, respuebat nec umquam eis indui patiebatur, excepto quod Romae semel Hadriano pontifice petente et iterum Leone successore eius supplicante longa tunica et clamide amictus, calceis quoque Romano more formatis induebatur. In festivitatibus veste auro texta et calciamentis gemmatis et fibula aurea sagum adstringente, diademate quoque ex auro et gemmis ornatus incedebat. Aliis autem diebus habitus eius parum a communi ac plebeio abhorrebat.

He rejected foreign garments, however very beautiful, and never allowed himself to be clothed in them, except that at Rome, once at the request of the pontiff Hadrian and again at the supplication of his successor Leo, he was wrapped in a long tunic and chlamys, and was also shod with shoes fashioned in the Roman manner. On feast days he went about adorned with a garment woven with gold and with jeweled footwear, and with a golden fibula fastening his cloak, and with a diadem too of gold and gems. On other days his attire differed little from the common and plebeian.

[24] In cibo et potu temperans, sed in potu temperantior, quippe qui ebrietatem in qualicumque homine, nedum in se ac suis, plurimum abhominabatur. Cibo enim non adeo abstinere puterat, ut saepe quereretur noxia corpori suo esse ieiunia. Convivabatur rarissime, et hoc praecipuis tantum festivitatibus, tunc tamen cum magno hominum numero.

[24] Temperate in food and drink, but more temperate in drink, inasmuch as he most abominated drunkenness in whatever man—much less in himself and his own. For he was not able to abstain from food to such a degree that he did not often complain that fasts were harmful to his body. He dined in company very rarely, and this only on the principal festivities, then, however, with a great number of people.

Caena cotidiana quaternis tantum ferculis praebebatur, praeter assam, quam venatores veribus inferre solebant, qua ille libentius quam ullo alio cibo vescebatur. Inter caenandum aut aliquod acroama aut lectorem audiebat. Legebantur ei historiae et antiquorum res gestae.

His daily supper was offered with only four courses, besides the roast, which the hunters were accustomed to carry in on spits, of which he partook more gladly than of any other food. During supper he listened either to some acroama or to a reader. Histories and the deeds of the ancients were read to him.

Delectabatur et libris sancti Augustini, praecipueque his qui de civitate Dei praetitulati sunt. Vini et omnis potus adeo parcus in bibendo erat, ut super caenam raro plus quam ter biberet. Aestate post cibum meridianum pomorum aliquid sumens ac semel bibens, depositis vestibus et calciamentis, velut noctu solitus erat, duabus aut tribus horis quiescebat.

He also took delight in the books of Saint Augustine, and especially those which are entitled On the City of God. In wine and every drink he was so sparing in drinking that at supper he rarely drank more than three times. In summer, after the midday meal, taking some fruit and drinking once, with his garments and footwear set aside, as he was accustomed at night, he used to rest for two or three hours.

Noctibus sic dormiebat, ut somnum quater aut quinquies non solum expergescendo, sed etiam desurgendo interrumperet. Cum calciaretur et amiciretur, non tantum amicos admittebat, verum etiam, si comes palatii litem aliquam esse diceret, quae sine eius iussu definiri non posset, statim litigantes introducere iussit et, velut pro tribunali sederet, lite cognita sententiam dixit; nec hoc tantum eo tempore, sed etiam quicquid ea die cuiuslibet officii agendum aut cuiquam ministrorum iniungendum erat expediebat.

Nocturnally he slept in such a way that he would interrupt his sleep four or five times, not only by waking but even by getting up. When he was being shod and clothed, he not only admitted friends, but even, if the Count of the Palace said there was some lawsuit which could not be defined without his order, he immediately ordered the litigants to be brought in and, as though he were sitting at the tribunal, after the suit was known he gave sentence; and not this only at that time, but he also expedited whatever on that day of any office had to be done or had to be enjoined upon any of the ministers.

[25] Erat eloquentia copiosus et exuberans poteratque quicquid vellet apertissime exprimere. Nec patrio tantum sermone contentus, etiam peregrinis linguis ediscendis operam impendit. In quibus Latinam ita didicit, ut aeque illa ac patria lingua orare sit solitus, Grecam vero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat.

[25] He was copious and exuberant in eloquence and could express most clearly whatever he wished. Nor content with his native speech only, he also expended effort on learning foreign languages. Among these he learned Latin to such a degree that he was accustomed to orate in it as well as in his native tongue; Greek, however, he could understand better than he could pronounce.

Adeo quidem facundus erat, ut etiam dicaculus appareret.

He was indeed so eloquent that he even appeared jocose.

Artes liberales studiosissime coluit, earumque doctores plurimum veneratus magnis adficiebat honoribus. In discenda grammatica Petrum Pisanum diaconem senem audivit, in ceteris disciplinis Albinum cognomento Alcoinum, item diaconem, de Brittania Saxonici generis hominem, virum undecumque doctissimum, praeceptorem habuit, apud quem et rethoricae et dialecticae, praecipue tamen astronomiae ediscendae plurimum et temporis et laboris inpertivit. Discebat artem conputandi et intentione sagaci siderum cursum curiosissime rimabatur.

He most studiously cultivated the liberal arts, and the doctors of these, whom he held in the greatest veneration, he endowed with great honors. In learning grammar he attended the lectures of Peter the Pisan, an aged deacon; in the other disciplines he had as teacher Albinus by cognomen Alcuin, likewise a deacon, a man from Britain of Saxon stock, a man most learned from every quarter, with whom he devoted very much both of time and of labor to mastering rhetoric and dialectic, but especially astronomy. He was learning the art of computation, and with sagacious intention he most curiously probed the course of the stars.

Temptabat et scribere tabulasque et codicellos ad hoc in lecto sub cervicalibus circumferre solebat, ut, cum vacuum tempus esset, manum litteris effigiendis adsuesceret, sed parum successit labor praeposterus ac sero inchoatus.

He also tried to write, and for this purpose he used to carry tablets and little codices in bed under the pillows, so that, when there was vacant time, his hand might grow accustomed to shaping letters; but the preposterous labor, begun too late, met with little success.

[26] Religionem Christianam, qua ab infantia fuerat inbutus, sanctissime et cum summa pietate coluit, ac propter hoc plurimae pulchritudinis basilicam Aquisgrani exstruxit auroque et argento et luminaribus atque ex aere solido cancellis et ianuis adornavit. Ad cuius structuram cum columnas et marmora aliunde habere non posset. Roma atque Ravenna devehenda curavit.

[26] The Christian religion, with which he had been imbued from infancy, he honored most sacredly and with the highest piety; and on account of this he constructed at Aachen a basilica of very great beauty, and adorned it with gold and silver and lights, and with grilles and doors of solid bronze. For the structure of which, since he could not obtain columns and marbles from elsewhere, he arranged for them to be conveyed from Rome and Ravenna.

Ecclesiam et mane et vespere, item nocturnis horis et sacrificii tempore, quoad eum valitudo permiserat, inpigre frequentabat, curabatque magnopere, ut omnia quae in ea gerebantur cum qua maxima fierent honestate, aedituos creberrime commonens, ne quid indecens aut sordidum aut inferri aut in ea remanere permitterent. Sacrorum vasorum ex auro et argento vestimentorumque sacerdotalium tantam in ea copiam procuravit, ut in sacrificiis celebrandis ne ianitoribus quidem, qui ultimi ecclesiastici ordinis sunt, privato habitu ministrare necesse fuisset. Legendi atque psallendi disciplinam diligentissime emendavit.

He attended church both morning and evening, likewise at nocturnal hours and at the time of the sacrifice, as far as his health permitted, and he took great care that all things which were done in it should be performed with the greatest possible decorum, most frequently admonishing the sacristans not to allow anything indecent or sordid either to be brought in or to remain in it. He procured such an abundance there of sacred vessels of gold and silver and of sacerdotal vestments that, in celebrating the sacrifices, not even the doorkeepers, who are the last of the ecclesiastical order, had to minister in private attire. He most diligently emended the discipline of reading and psalmody.

Erat enim utriusque admodum eruditus, quamquam ipse nec publice legeret nec nisi submissim et in commune cantaret.

For he was very erudite in both, although he himself neither read publicly nor sang except softly and in common.

[27] Circa pauperes sustentandos et gratuitam liberalitatem, quam Greci eleimosinam vocant, devotissimus, ut qui non in patria solum et in suo regno id facere curaverit, verum trans maria in Syriam et Aegyptum atque Africam, Hierosolimis, Alexandriae atque Cartagini, ubi Christianos in paupertate vivere conpererat, penuriae illorum conpatiens pecuniam mittere solebat; ob hoc maxime transmarinorum regum amicitias expetens, ut Christianis sub eorum dominatu degentibus refrigerium aliquod ac relevatio proveniret.

[27] Most devoted to sustaining the poor and to gratuitous liberality, which the Greeks call eleemosyne, he, as one who took care to do this not in his fatherland alone and in his own kingdom, but across the seas to Syria and Egypt and likewise Africa—at Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Carthage—where he had discovered Christians living in poverty, was wont, pitying their penury, to send money; for this reason especially seeking the friendships of overseas kings, so that to Christians dwelling under their dominion some refreshment and relief might accrue.

Colebat prae ceteris sacris et venerabilibus locis apud Romam ecclesiam beati Petri apostoli; in cuius donaria magna vis pecuniae tam in auro quam in argento necnon et gemmis ab illo congesta est. Multa et innumera pontificibus munera missa. Neque ille toto regni sui tempore quicquam duxit antiquius, quam ut urbs Roma sua opera suoque labore vetere polleret auctoritate, et ecclesia sancti Petri per illum non solum tuta ac defensa, sed etiam suis opibus prae omnibus ecclesiis esset ornata atque ditata.

He cherished, before the other sacred and venerable places, at Rome the church of the blessed apostle Peter; into whose donaries a great quantity of money, both in gold and in silver, and likewise in gems, was by him amassed. Many and numberless gifts were sent to the pontiffs. Nor did he, in the whole time of his reign, consider anything of higher priority than that the city of Rome, by his effort and by his labor, might be eminent in its ancient authority, and that the church of Saint Peter through him might not only be safe and defended, but also, by his resources, before all churches, be adorned and enriched.

Quam cum tanti penderet, tamen intra XLVII annorum, quibus regnaverat, spatium quater tantum illo votorum solvendorum ac supplicandi causa profectus est.

Although he valued it so highly, nevertheless within the span of 47 years during which he had reigned, he set out thither only four times for the purpose of paying vows and supplicating.

[28] Ultimi adventus sui non solum hae fuere causae, verum etiam quod Romani Leonem pontificem multis affectum iniuriis, erutis scilicet oculis linguaque amputata, fidem regis implorare conpulerunt. Idcirco Romam veniens propter reparandum, qui nimis conturbatus erat, ecclesiae statum ibi totum hiemis tempus extraxit. Quo tempore imperatoris et augusti nomen accepit.

[28] The causes of his last coming were not only these, but also that the Romans, since Leo the pontiff had been afflicted by many injuries—namely, his eyes torn out and his tongue amputated—compelled him to implore the king’s protection. Therefore, coming to Rome for the sake of repairing the state of the church, which had been greatly disturbed, he spent there the whole wintertime. At which time he received the name of emperor and augustus.

Quod primo in tantum aversatus est, ut adfirmaret se eo die, quamvis praecipua festivitas esset, ecclesiam non intraturum, si pontificis consilium praescire potuisset. Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis, Romanis imperatoribus super hoc indignantibus, magna tulit patientia. Vicitque eorum contumaciam magnanimitate, qua eis procul dubio longe praestantior erat, mittendo ad eos crebras legationes et in epistolis fratres eos appellando.

Which at first he so abhorred, that he declared that on that day, although it was a principal festivity, he would not enter the church, if he could have foreknown the pontiff’s counsel. Yet the odium of the assumed name—while the Roman emperors were indignant over this—he bore with great patience. And he conquered their contumacy by magnanimity, in which he was, beyond doubt, far superior to them, by sending to them frequent legations and in his epistles addressing them as brothers.

[29] Post susceptum imperiale nomen, cum adverteret multa legibus populi sui deesse - nam Franci duas habent leges, in plurimis locis valde diversas - cogitavit quae deerant addere et discrepantia unire, prava quoque acperperam prolata corrigere, sed de his nihil aliud ab eo factum est, nisi quod pauca capitula, et ea inperfecta, legibus addidit. Omnium tamen nationum, quae sub eius dominatu erant, iura quae scripta non erant describere ac litteris mandari fecit. Item barbara et antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur, scripsit memoriaeque mandavit.

[29] After the imperial name had been assumed, when he observed that many things were lacking to the laws of his people - for the Franks have two laws, in very many places quite diverse - he thought to add the things that were lacking and to unite the discrepancies, and also to correct things depraved and improperly put forth; but of these nothing else was done by him, except that he added a few chapters, and those imperfect, to the laws. Nevertheless, of all the nations which were under his dominion, he caused the laws which were not written to be described and to be committed to letters. Likewise he wrote down the barbarian and most ancient songs, in which the deeds and wars of the ancient kings were sung, and consigned them to memory.

Inchoavit et grammaticam patrii sermonis.

He also began a grammar of the native speech.

Mensibus etiam iuxta propriam linguam vocabula inposuit, cum ante id temporis apud Francos partim Latinis, partim barbaris nominibus pronuntiarentur. Item ventos duodecim propriis appellationibus insignivit, cum prius non amplius quam vix quattuor ventorum vocabula possent inveniri. Et de mensibus quidem Ianuarium uuintarmanoth, Februarium hornung, Martium lenzinmanoth, Aprilem ostarmanoth, Maium uuinnemanoth, Iunium brachmanoth, Iulium heuuimanoth, Augustum aranmanoth, Septembrem uuitumanoth, Octobrem uuindumemanoth, Novembrem herbistmanoth, Decembrem heilagmanoth appellavit.

He also imposed vocables for the months according to his own tongue, whereas before that time among the Franks they were pronounced partly with Latin, partly with barbarous names. Likewise he designated the twelve winds with proper appellations, since previously scarcely more than four wind-names could be found. And as for the months, indeed, he called January uuintarmanoth, February hornung, March lenzinmanoth, April ostarmanoth, May uuinnemanoth, June brachmanoth, July heuuimanoth, August aranmanoth, September uuitumanoth, October uuindumemanoth, November herbistmanoth, December heilagmanoth.

Ventis vero hoc modo nomina inposuit, ut subsolanum vocaret ostroniuuint, eurum ostsundroni, euroaustrum sundostroni, austrum sundroni, austroafricum sunduuestroni, africum uuestsundroni, zefyrum uuestroni, chorum uuestnordroni, circium norduuestroni, septentrionem nordroni, aquilonem nordostroni, vulturnum ostnordroni.

To the winds indeed he imposed names in this manner, so that he would call the subsolanus ostroniuuint, the eurus ostsundroni, the euroaustrum sundostroni, the auster sundroni, the austroafricum sunduuestroni, the africum uuestsundroni, the zephyr uuestroni, the chorus uuestnordroni, the circius norduuestroni, the septentrio nordroni, the aquilo nordostroni, the vulturnus ostnordroni.

[30] Extremo vitae tempore, cum iam et morbo et senectute premeretur, evocatum ad se Hludowicum filium, Aquitaniae regem, qui solus filiorum Hildigardae supererat, congregatis sollemniter de toto regno Francorum primoribus, cunctorum consilio consortem sibi totius regni et imperialis nominis heredem constituit, inpositoque capiti eius diademate imperatorem et augustum iussit appellari. Susceptum est hoc eius consilium ab omnibus qui aderant magno cum favore; nam divinitus ei propter regni utilitatem videbatur inspiratum. Auxitque maiestatem eius hoc factum et exteris nationibus nun minimum terroris incussit.

[30] At the end of his life, when he was now pressed by both sickness and old age, having summoned to him his son Louis, king of Aquitaine, who alone of Hildegard’s sons survived, with the chiefs from the whole realm of the Franks solemnly assembled, by the counsel of all he appointed him partner with himself of the entire kingdom and heir of the imperial name, and, the diadem having been placed upon his head, he ordered him to be called emperor and Augustus. This plan of his was received by all who were present with great favor; for it seemed to them divinely inspired to him for the utility of the kingdom. And this deed increased his majesty and struck no small terror into foreign nations.

Dimisso deinde in Aquitaniam filio, ipse more solito, quamvis senectute confectus, non longe a regia Aquensi venatum proficiscitur, exactoque in huiuscemodi negotio quod reliquum erat autumni, circa Kalendas Novembris Aquasgrani revertitur.

Having then sent his son off to Aquitaine, he himself, in his customary manner, although worn out by old age, set out to hunt not far from the royal residence at Aachen; and when he had spent what remained of autumn in business of this sort, he returned to Aachen around the Kalends of November.

Cumque ibi hiemaret, mense Ianuario febre valida correptus decubuit. Qui statim, ut in febribus solebat, cibi sibi abstinentiam indixit, arbitratus hac continentia morbum posse depelli vel certe mitigari. Sed accedente ad febrem lateris dolore, quem Greci pleuresin dicunt, illoque adhuc inediam retinente neque corpus aliter quam rarissimo potu sustentante, septimo, postquam decubuit, die, sacra communione percepta, decessit, anno aetatis suae septuagesimo secundo et ex quo regnare coeperat quadragesimo septimo, V. Kalendas Februarii, hora diei tertia.

And when he was wintering there, in the month of January he was seized by a strong fever and took to his bed. At once, as he was wont in fevers, he imposed upon himself an abstinence from food, thinking that by this continence the disease could be driven off or at least mitigated. But with a pain in the side, which the Greeks call pleurisy, being added to the fever, and with him still maintaining fasting and sustaining his body in no other way than by the rarest drink, on the seventh day after he had taken to bed, the sacred communion having been received, he died, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh from when he began to reign, on the 5 Kalends of February, at the third hour of the day.

[31] Corpus more sollemni lotum et curatum et maximo totius populi luctu ecclesiae inlatum atque humatum est. Dubitatum est primo, ubi reponi deberet, eo quod ipse vivus de hoc nihil praecepisset. Tandem omnium animis sedit nusquam eum honestius tumulari posse quam in ea basilica, quam ipse propter amorem Dei et domini nostri Iesu Christi et ob honorem sanctae et aeternae virginis, genetricis eius, proprio sumptu in eodem vico construxit.

[31] The body, washed and tended in the solemn manner, and amid the greatest mourning of the whole people, was brought into the church and interred. There was doubt at first where it ought to be laid to rest, since he himself, while alive, had prescribed nothing about this. At length it settled in the minds of all that nowhere could he be more honorably entombed than in that basilica which he himself, for the love of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the honor of the holy and eternal Virgin, his mother, constructed at his own expense in the same village.

In hac sepultus est eadem die, qua defunctus est, arcusque supra tumulum deauratus cum imagine et titulo exstructus. Titulus ille hoc modo descriptus est:

In this he was buried on the same day on which he died, and a gilded arch above the tomb was erected with an image and an inscription. That inscription was described in this way:

SUB HOC CONDITORIO SITUM EST CORPUS KAROLI MAGNI ATQUE ORTHODOXI IMPERATORIS, QUI REGNUM FRANCORUM NOBILITER AMPLIAVIT ET PER ANNOS XLVII FELICITER REXIT. DECESSIT SEPTUAGENARIUS ANNO DOMINI DCCCXIIII, INDICTIONE VII, V. KAL. FEBR.

Under this sepulcher lies the body of Charles the Great and Orthodox Emperor, who nobly enlarged the kingdom of the Franks and ruled it successfully for 47 years. He died, a septuagenarian, in the year of the Lord 814, Indiction 7, on January 28.

[32] Adpropinquantis finis conplura fuere prodigia, ut non solum alii, sed etiam ipse hoc minitari sentiret. Per tres continuos vitaeque termino proximos annos et solis et lunae creberrima defectio et in sole macula quaedam atri coloris septem dierum spatio visa. Porticus, quam inter basilicam et regiam operosa mole construxerat, die ascensionis Domini subita ruina usque ad fundamenta conlapsa.

[32] Of the approaching end there were many prodigies, so that not only others, but he himself felt this to be threatening. For three continuous years, and very near the terminus of his life, there was the very frequent eclipse of sun and moon, and on the sun a certain spot of black color was seen for the space of seven days. The portico, which he had constructed with laborious mass between the basilica and the royal palace, on the Day of the Lord’s Ascension, collapsed by sudden ruin down to the foundations.

Item pons Rheni apud Mogontiacum, quem ipse per decem annos ingenti labore et opere mirabili de ligno ita construxit, ut perenniter durare posse videretur, ita tribus horis fortuitu incendio conflagravit, ut, praeter quod aqua tegebatur, ne una quidem astula ex eo remaneret. Ipse quoque, cum ultimam in Saxoniam expeditionem contra Godofridum regem Danorum ageret, quadam die, cum ante exortum solis castris egressus iter agere coepisset, vidit repente delapsam caelitus cum ingenti lumine facem a dextra in sinistram per serenum aera transcurrere. Cunctisque hoc signum, quid portenderet, ammirantibus, subito equus, quem sedebat, capite deorsum merso decidit eumque tam graviter ad terram elisit, ut, fibula sagi rupta balteoque gladii dissipato, a festinantibus qui aderant ministris exarmatus et sine amiculo levaretur.

Likewise the bridge of the Rhine at Mogontiacum, which he himself over ten years, with vast labor and marvelous workmanship, constructed out of wood in such a way that it seemed able to endure perpetually, in three hours by a chance fire so conflagrated that, except what was covered by the water, not even a single splinter remained of it. He himself also, when he was conducting his last expedition into Saxony against Godofrid, king of the Danes, on a certain day, when, having gone out from camp before sunrise, he had begun to make the march, suddenly saw a torch, fallen from heaven with immense light, run across the clear air from right to left. And as all were wondering what this sign portended, suddenly the horse which he was riding, with its head plunged downward, fell and dashed him to the ground so grievously that, the clasp of his cloak broken and the sword-belt shattered, he was lifted up by the attendants who were present and hastening, disarmed and without his mantle.

Iaculum etiam, quod tunc forte manu tenebat, ita elapsum est, ut viginti vel eo amplius pedum spatio longe iaceret. Accessit ad hoc creber Aquensis palatii tremor et in domibus, ubi conversabatur, assiduus laqueariorum crepitus. Tacta etiam de caelo, in qua postea sepultus est, basilica, malumque aureum, quo tecti culmen erat ornatum, ictu fulminis dissipatum et supra domum pontificis, quae basilicae contigua erat, proiectum est.

The javelin too, which by chance he was then holding in his hand, slipped out in such a way that it lay far off at a distance of twenty feet or more. To this there was added the frequent tremor of the palace at Aachen, and in the houses where he stayed the assiduous cracking of the coffered ceilings. The basilica also, in which he was afterwards buried, was touched from heaven, and the golden apple with which the ridge of the roof was adorned was shattered by a stroke of lightning and was hurled onto the house of the pontiff, which was contiguous to the basilica.

Erat in eadem basilica in margine coronae, quae inter superiores et inferiores arcus interiorem aedis partem ambiebat, epigramma sinopide scriptum, continens, quis auctor esset eiusdem templi, cuius in extremo versu legebatur: KAROLUS PRINCEPS. Notatum est a quibusdam eodem, quo decessit, anno paucis ante mortem mensibus eas, quae PRINCEPS exprimebant, litteras ita esse deletas, ut penitus non apparerent. Sed superiora omnia sic aut dissimulavit aut sprevit, acsi nihil horum ad res suas quolibet modo pertineret.

There was in the same basilica, on the margin of the corona, which encircled the inner part of the aedis between the upper and lower arches, an epigram written in sinopia, stating who was the author of that same temple, in the last verse of which was read: KAROLUS PRINCEPS. It was noted by some that, in the same year in which he died, a few months before his death, those letters which spelled PRINCEPS had been so erased that they did not appear at all. But he either dissimulated or spurned all the foregoing things, as if none of these in any way pertained to his affairs.

[33] Testamenta facere instituit, quibus filias et ex concubinis liberos ex aliqua parte sibi heredes faceret, sed tarde inchoata perfici non poterant. Divisionem tamen thesaurorum et pecuniae ac vestium aliaeque suppellectilis coram amicis et ministris suis annis tribus, antequam decederet, fecit, contestatus eos, ut post obitum suum a se facta distributio per illorum suffragium rata permaneret. Quidque ex his quae diviserat fieri vellet, breviario conprehendit; cuius ratio ne textus talis est:

[33] He resolved to make testaments, by which he would make his daughters and the children from concubines heirs to himself from some part; but, begun late, they could not be brought to completion. Nevertheless, a division of his treasures and money and clothing and other furnishings he made in the presence of his friends and his ministers three years before he departed, calling them to witness that after his death the distribution made by him should remain valid through their suffrage. And what he wished to be done from these things which he had divided, he included in a breviary; the tenor and text of which is as follows:

IN NOMINE DOMINI DEI OMNIPOTENTIS, PATRIS ET FILII ET SPIRITUS SANCTI.

IN THE NAME OF THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Descriptio atque divisio, quae facta est a gloriosissimo atque piissimo domno Karolo imperatore augusto anno ab incarnatione domini nostri Iesu Christi DCCCXI, anno vero regni eius in Francia XLIII et in Italia XXXVI, imperii autem XI, indictione IIII, quam pia et prudenti consideratione facere decrevit et Domino annuente perfecit de thesauris suis atque pecunia, quae in illa die in camera eius inventa est. In qua illud praecipue praecavere voluit, ut non solum eleimosinarum largitio, quae sollemniter apud Christianos de possessionibus eorum agitur, pro se quoque de sua pecunia ordine atque ratione perficeretur, sed etiam ut heredes sui omni ambiguitate remota, quid ad se pertinere deberet, liquido cognoscere et sine lite atque contentione sua inter se conpetenti partitione dividere potuissent.

Description and division, which was made by the most glorious and most pious lord Charles, emperor augustus, in the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 811, indeed the 43rd year of his reign in Francia and the 36th in Italy, but the 11th of the empire, in the indiction 4, which by pious and prudent consideration he decreed to make and, with the Lord assenting, completed concerning his treasures and money which on that day was found in his chamber. In this he especially wished to forestall, that not only the largition of alms, which is solemnly carried out among Christians from their possessions, might also for himself be accomplished from his own money with order and reason, but also that his heirs, with every ambiguity removed, might clearly know what ought to pertain to them, and be able, without suit and contention, to divide among themselves, by a fitting partition, what was theirs.

Hac igitur intentione atque proposito omnem substantiam atque suppellectilem suam, quae in auro et argento gemmisque et ornatu regio in illa, ut dictum est, die in camera eius poterat inveniri, primo quidem trina divisione partitus est. Deinde easdem partes subdividendo de duabus partibus XX et unam partem fecit, tertiam integram reservavit. Et duarum quidem partium in XX et unam partem facta divisio tali ratione consistit, ut, quia in regno illius metropolitanae civitates XX et una esse noscuntur, unaquaeque illarum partium ad unamquamque metropolim per manus heredum et amicorum suorum eleimosinae nomine perveniat, et archiepiscopus, qui tunc illius ecclesiae rector extiterit, partem quae ad suam ecclesiam data est suscipiens cum suis suffraganeis partiatur, eo scilicet modo, ut pars tertia suae sit ecclesiae, duae vero partes inter suffraganeos dividantur.

With this intention, therefore, and purpose he partitioned all his substance and furnishings, which in gold and silver and gems and royal ornament on that day, as has been said, could be found in his chamber, first indeed by a threefold division. Then, by subdividing those same parts, out of two parts he made 21 parts, the third he reserved intact. And the division of the two parts into 21 parts stands on such a rationale: since in his kingdom the metropolitan cities are known to be 21, let each of those parts come to each metropolis through the hands of his heirs and friends in the name of alms, and let the archbishop, who at that time is rector of that church, receiving the part that was given to his church, share it with his suffragans, namely in such a way that a third part be for his own church, but two parts be divided among the suffragans.

Harum divisionum, quae ex duabus primis partibus factae sunt et iuxta metropoleorum civitatum numerum XX et una esse noscuntur, unaquaeque ab altera sequestrata semotim in suo repositorio cum superscriptione civitatis, ad quam perferenda est, recondita iacet. Nomina metropoleorum, ad quas eadem eleimosina sive largitio facienda est, haec sunt: Roma, Ravenna, Mediolanum, Forum Iulii, Gradus, Colonia, Mogontiacus, Iuvavum quae et Salzburc, Treveri, Senones, Vesontio, Lugdunum, Ratumagus, Remi, Arelas, Vienna, Darantasia, Ebrodunum, Burdigala, Turones, Bituriges.

Of these divisions, which have been made from the first two parts and are known, according to the number of the metropolitan cities, to be 21, each one, separated from the others, lies stored apart in its own repository with the superscription of the city to which it is to be conveyed. The names of the metropoleis, to which the same alms or largess is to be made, are these: Rome, Ravenna, Milan, Forum Julii, Grado, Cologne, Mainz, Iuvavum, which is Salzburg, Treveri, Senones, Vesontio, Lugdunum, Ratumagus, Remi, Arles, Vienne, Darantasia, Ebrodunum, Bordeaux, Tours, Bituriges.

Unius autem partis, quam integram reservari voluit, talis est ratio, ut, illis duabus in supradictas divisiones distributis et sub sigillo reconditis, haec tertia in usu cotidiano versaretur, velut res, quam nulla voti obligatione a dominio possidentis alienatam esse constaret, et hoc tamdiu, quoadusque vel ille mansisset in corpore vel usum eius sibi necessarium iudicaret. Post obitum vero suum aut voluntariam saecularium rerum carentiam eadem pars quattuor subdivisionibus secaretur, et una quidem earum supradictis XX et unae partibus adderetur, altera a filiis ac filiabus suis filiisque ac filiabus filiorum suorum adsumpta iusta et rationabili inter eos partitione divideretur, tertia vero consueto Christianis more in usum pauperum fuisset erogata, quarta simili modo nomine eleimosinae in servorum et ancillarum usibus palatii famulantium sustentationem distributa veniret. Ad hanc tertiam totius summae portionem, quae similiter ut ceterae ex auro et argento constat, adiungi voluit omnia ex aere et ferro aliisque metallis vasa atque utensilia cum armis et vestibus alioque aut pretioso aut vili ad varies usus facto suppellectili, ut sunt cortinae, stragula, tapetia, filtra, coria, sagmata, et quicquid in camera atque vestiario eius eo die fuisset inventum, ut ex hoc maiores illius partis divisiones fierent et erogatio eleimosinae ad plures pervenire potuisset.

As for the one part which he wished to be reserved intact, such is the arrangement: that, after those two had been distributed into the aforesaid divisions and laid away under seal, this third should be employed in daily use, as a thing which by no obligation of a vow was understood to have been alienated from the dominion of its possessor, and this for so long as either he remained in the body or judged its use necessary for himself. But after his death, or a voluntary renunciation of secular things, the same part should be cut into four subdivisions, and one of them would be added to the aforesaid 21 parts, another, taken up by his sons and daughters and the sons and daughters of his sons, would be divided among them by a just and reasonable partition, the third, in the manner customary for Christians, would be expended for the use of the poor, the fourth, in a similar way under the name of eleemosyne, would be distributed for the support of the servants and handmaids serving in the palace. To this third portion of the whole sum, which likewise, as the others, consists of gold and silver, he wished to have joined all the vessels and utensils of bronze and iron and other metals, together with arms and garments and other furnishings made for various uses, whether precious or cheap, such as curtains, coverlets, tapestries, felts, hides, pack-saddles, and whatever in his chamber and wardrobe on that day should have been found, so that from this larger divisions of that part might be made and the disbursement of eleemosyne might be able to reach more people.

Capellam, id est ecclesiasticum ministerium, tam id quod ipse fecit atque congregavit, quam quod ad eum ex paterna hereditate pervenit, ut integrum esset neque ulla divisione scinderetur, ordinavit. Si qua autem invenirentur aut vasa aut libri aut alia ornamenta, quae liquido constaret eidem capellae ab eo conlata non fuisse, haec qui habere vellet dato iustae aestimationis pretio emeret et haberet. Similiter et de libris, quorum magnam in bibliotheca sua copiam congregavit, statuit, ut ab his qui eos habere vellent iusto pretio fuissent redempti, pretiumque in pauperibus erogatum.

Capella, that is, the ecclesiastical ministry, both that which he himself made and gathered together, and that which came to him from paternal inheritance, he ordained to be intact and not to be cleft by any division. But if there should be found any vessels or books or other ornaments, which it was clear had not been contributed by him to the same chapel, whoever would wish to have these should buy them at the price of a just appraisal and possess them. Likewise also concerning the books, of which he amassed a great abundance in his library, he decreed that they should be redeemed at a just price by those who wished to have them, and that the price be disbursed among the poor.

Inter ceteros thesauros atque pecuniam tres mensas argenteas et auream unam praecipuae magnitudinis et ponderis esse constat. De quibus statuit atque decrevit, ut una ex his, quae forma quadrangula descriptionem urbis Constantinopolitanae continet, inter cetera donaria, quae ad hoc deputata sunt, Romam ad basilicam beati Petri apostoli deferatur, et altera, quae forma rotunda Romanae urbis effigie figurata est, episcopio Ravennatis ecclesiae conferatur. Tertiam, quae ceteris et operis pulchritudine et ponderis gravitate multum excellit, quae ex tribus orbibus conexa totius mundi descriptionem subtili ac minuta figuratione conplectitur, et auream illam, quae quarta esse dicta est, in tertiae illius et inter heredes suos atque in eleimosinam dividendae partis augmento esse constituit.

Among the other treasuries and money, it is agreed that there are three silver tables and one golden, of outstanding magnitude and weight. Of these he determined and decreed that one of them, which in a quadrangular form contains a description of the city of Constantinople, be carried to Rome to the basilica of the blessed Peter the apostle among the other donaries that are deputed for this, and that another, which in a round form is fashioned with the effigy of the Roman city, be conferred upon the episcopium of the Church of Ravenna. The third, which far excels the others both in the beauty of its workmanship and in the heaviness of its weight, which, connected out of three orbs, embraces a description of the whole world in subtle and minute figuration, and that golden one, which is said to be the fourth, he established to be in augmentation of that third part to be divided both among his heirs and into alms.

Hanc constitutionem atque ordinationem coram episcopis, abbatibus comitibusque, qui tunc praesentes esse potuerunt, quorumque hic nomina descripta sunt, fecit atque constituit. Episcopi: Hildibaldus, Richolfus, Arn, Wolfarius, Bernoinus, Laidradus, Iohannes, Theodulfus, Iesse, Heito, Waitgaudus.

This constitution and ordination he made and established in the presence of the bishops, abbots, and counts, who then were able to be present, and whose names are written here.
Bishops: Hildibaldus, Richolfus, Arn, Wolfarius, Bernoinus, Laidradus, Iohannes, Theodulfus, Iesse, Heito, Waitgaudus.

Abbates: Fridugisus, Adalungus, Engilbertus, Irmino.

Abbots: Fridugisus, Adalungus, Engilbertus, Irmino.

Comites: Walah, Meginherus, Otulfus, Stephanus, Unruocus, Burchardus, Meginhardus, Hatto, Rihwinus, Edo, Ercangarius, Geroldus, Bero, Hildigernus, Hroccolfus.

Counts: Walah, Meginherus, Otulfus, Stephanus, Unruocus, Burchardus, Meginhardus, Hatto, Rihwinus, Edo, Ercangarius, Geroldus, Bero, Hildigernus, Hroccolfus.

Haec omnia filius eius Hludowicus, qui ei divina iussione successit, inspecto eodem breviario, quam celerrime poterat post obitum eius summa devotione adimplere curavit.

All these things his son Hludowicus, who succeeded him by divine injunction, after inspecting the same breviary, took care to fulfill with the highest devotion as swiftly as he could after his death.