How Great Was Charlemagne?

“CHARLEMAGNE” is French for “Charles the Great.” Uniquely he was called “the Great” even during his own lifetime. Why? Because of his military conquests, his empire building, his statesmanship, his furtherance of agriculture, bridge and road building, culture and education, as well as for his great interest in religion and in the morals of the clergy and of the common people.

However, while called “the Great” by contemporaries and the historians of this world, his life certainly was not an exemplary one to set before youths, and especially not before Christian youths as a model to try to imitate. Great as were his interests, exploits and achievements, so great were also his ruthless ambitions, his cunning and his crimes.

Charlemagne was born an illegitimate son, about the year 732 C.E., his father and mother being persuaded to legalize their marriage first after he was born. Beginning in 768, upon the death of his father, Pepin the Short, Charlemagne shared the kingdom of the Franks with his brother. Then in 771, upon the strangely sudden death of his brother, he became sole ruler of the Franks. He was crowned as emperor by the pope in 800 and died in 814.

His Military Exploits

Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel, was nicknamed “the Hammer” because of his military exploits, particularly his stopping the Turks from overrunning Europe in the Battle of Tours, in 732. The son of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, likewise made a name for himself by military exploits. He got the pope to approve of his usurping the throne of the Franks on the premise that it was better to have the throne occupied by one who had the ability than by one who had the legal right but was a pleasure-loving weakling. Accommodatingly, the Catholic dignitary Boniface anointed Pepin as ruler, and so he came to be the first European monarch to refer to himself as king “by the grace of God.” At that time the kingdom of the Franks consisted mostly of what is France and western Germany today.

While still quite young and coruler with his brother, Charlemagne forcibly put down a rebellion in Acquitaine, in what today is southwestern France. It was the first of more than fifty military campaigns in which he engaged. When the pope called for his help because of being threatened by the Lombard ruler, King Desiderius, Charlemagne defeated that ruler and used the occasion as an excuse to annex the territory of the Lombards and become king of Lombardy.

Charlemagne’s military conquests in Italy, however, were cut short by his need to repel the Saxons, who were continually making forays on Frankland. He launched eighteen expeditions against them over a period of thirty-three years before finally and completely subduing them. According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. 3, p. 497), these wars were “accompanied by extreme brutality and enforced deportation . . . Saxon resistance was nourished by Charles’s efforts to compel the Saxons to accept Christianity.” What a mockery to use “extreme brutality” to compel people to “accept Christianity”! Of course, Charlemagne was neither the first nor the last to commit crimes in the name of the “Christian” religion.

Pursuing his ambition to be ruler of a great empire, Charlemagne, by means of intrigues and threats of force, was able to add Bavaria to his kingdom. This, in turn, brought him up against the Avars, a greatly feared predatory people related to the Huns. For centuries they were the scourge of Europe, on one occasion taking 270,000 prisoners from Constantinople. The historian Lord speaks of them as barbarians who “only thought of plunder,” who “were more formidable for their numbers and destructive ravages than for their military skill.” Their resistance to Charlemagne was such that by the time he had overcome them he had nearly wiped them out.

His one great military reverse was when returning from an expedition into Spain. At Roncesvalles the Gascons attacked his unsuspecting rear guard, wiping out 20,000 of his soldiers and getting away with all the spoils that Charlemagne had taken.

As a result of military expeditions and his political cunning, Charlemagne was able to extend the dominions of Frankland to include most of what today is France, West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, part of Spain, and a good half of Italy. It might be said that success crowned his territorial ambitions, at the cost of his scruples. But does success in itself entitle a ruler to be called “Great”?

His Statesmanship

It is said that Charlemagne changed Europe not only outwardly by his conquests but also inwardly by his statecraft. He had laws refined and put in writing and issued a “voluminous flow” of ordinances known as “capitularies.” Not content with these, he also sent out agents, the missi, by twos, to check on the men he had put in positions of power in his various dominions. Generally one of these was a secular official, the other a religious dignitary. These listened to complaints and corrected matters, for, as he put it, “the emperor cannot exercise the needful care and discipline upon each individual.”

He also concerned himself with repairing and building roads and bridges, encouraged improved farming methods and resettled peoples in the interest of his realm. He established a uniform system of weights and measures and replaced the sixty-seven different kinds of currencies that were minted locally with one for the entire realm; again a masterstroke as far as profit for himself and his government was concerned. His system of 240 to 1 (pence, shilling and pound) was adopted by a king of England; a system which the English only recently have remodeled. Far wiser were France and Germany, which long years ago dropped the 240 to 1 system of Charlemagne for the decimal system.

His Cultural Interests

Charlemagne has been described as “a man of insatiable intellectual curiosity, many-sided in his interests and demanding of those from whom he could learn.” All of which might be said to be but another aspect of his selfish ambition. He persuaded the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin, one of the most learned men of his day, to come to his court to “sow the seeds of learning in Frankland.” Many others from various lands were also attracted by Charlemagne to reside at his royal estate. He commanded priests to establish schools in all towns and villages, where parents could send their children without cost to themselves unless they felt obligated to and were able to pay for their children’s education. Because of this, until quite recent times, the children of France had a day set aside for this “inventor of schools,” namely, “Saint Charlemagne.”

He also took a great interest in art, resulting in the ‘Carolingian Renaissance,’ as it is called.

The style of letters used by most Western countries today was developed at his instance. It is generally known as the “Roman” or “Latin” type of letters as distinguished from the ornamental Gothic or old German type of letters. Charlemagne’s efforts at education bore such fruit that, years later, King Alfred of England sent to the Franks for scholars to help out in the reeducation of his country. As one French scholar put it, “Charlemagne laid the foundation of all modern education.”

His Religiosity

Charlemagne in his religiosity might be said to have resembled the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who in effect said, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ and who were straining out gnats and gulping down camels. (Matt. 23:2, 3, 24) He fancied himself to have a divine commission to set up God’s kingdom on earth, but he employed cunning, intrigue and extreme brutality. Every important project of his he invested with religious significance. He destroyed the pagan idols and groves of the Saxons and gave them the choice of being baptized or killed. However, toward the end of his reign Alcuin was able to persuade him that forced baptisms are meaningless, for a man can be forced to be baptized but not forced to believe. While he professed friendship with the popes and on more than one occasion came to their aid when they were threatened by military forces, a historian tells us that “the outcome of his policies seemed always to be a slap in the face for the pope.”

In certain religious matters he showed himself superior to the popes and the bishops, and felt free to admonish them as to doctrine, morals and the discharge of their duties; in all respects of which they were coming woefully short. Among the many councils or meetings of ecclesiastics that he summoned was one for the purpose of condemning the teaching that Jesus was the adopted rather than the actual Son of God and to condemn the worship of images, although granting freedom to worship them. When the pope remonstrated, Charlemagne yielded not an inch.

He was quite familiar with the Bible and was fond of quoting it to support his measures. He showed his interest in it by having a revision made with the help of his scholar Alcuin, of which work Charlemagne exclaimed: “God helping us in all things, we have already procured a careful emendation of all the books of the Old and New Testament, which copyists in their ignorance have corrupted.” While his personal life came far short of God’s righteous requirements, he warned his subjects that his own salvation depended upon their conduct, since God would hold him responsible for their actions.

As to his own role in being crowned emperor by pope Leo III on December 25, 800,a there is a wide difference of opinion among scholars of history. Many hold that he knew all about it and was very much in favor of it. But others hold with his personal biographer Einhart, who said that had Charlemagne known in advance about what the pope intended to do he would not have entered the cathedral that day. Giving weight to Einhart’s contention are the observations that in later years “the aging Emperor pursued a course . . . suggesting that the imperial title meant little new in terms of the internal administration of the kingdom. Occasionally a royal action seemed to contradict the entire idea of an empire. . . . In 813, after two of his sons had died, he personally crowned Louis (the Pious) as his successor, thereby excluding the papacy from any part in the selection or installation of the emperor.”​—New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 499.

How Great?

Few men, indeed, during their own lifetime were called “the Great,” as was Charlemagne by many of his contemporaries. But not all of them agreed to this. His ruthlessness in carrying out his ambitions caused more than one plot to be hatched to take his life, and one of these, which involved his firstborn son (whom Charlemagne had slighted because of his being a hunchback), nearly succeeded. But more important than any man’s opinion is what God must have thought of Charlemagne. God looks at the heart. (1 Sam. 16:7) The laws of Jehovah God on the sanctity of human life and blood meant nothing to Charlemagne. No doubt he proceeded on the maxim that “the end justifies the means.” More than that, while he preached morals to others, from the pope on down, especially singling out the clergy and the monks who, in his day, were notorious for their sexual immorality, yet he himself had mistresses and concubines. As one of his biographers put it, his was a “reign that was to see murder, purge and plunder take place side by side with reform, enlightenment and the unification of [parts of] Europe.” Counting also against him were his unscrupulous schemes by which he acquired Bavaria and defeated the Avars. He was even willing to marry murderous Empress Irene so as to unite the Byzantine Empire with his own.

Historians generally consider his having 4,500 Saxon prisoners beheaded in one day​—because of their part in an uprising—​to be “the foulest blot on his life.” And while he often expressed a concern as to how he would fare at God’s hands, there is no record of his having been overcome with remorse at this bloody deed. He had intended it as a lesson to the Saxons, who were ever rising up in rebellion against him. But the deed was futile, for instead of instilling fear into the Saxons, it caused them to become even more rebellious! In his religious conceit he wanted to be known as “King David,” but he could point to no divine commands for his wars as could King David. Besides, King David expressed sincere grief and repentance when he transgressed.

And it must also be acknowledged that the unity of his empire depended chiefly on his own strong personality. He did not build well, for “the political structure that Charlemagne had created disintegrated . . . soon after his death,” his biographer Winston relates. Though known as “Charles the Great,” he was great neither in God’s eyes nor in the eyes of those whose standards are set by God’s Word.

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