07. The Carlovingians
CHAPTER VII. The Carlovingians (741-768)
I said that at this time the bishops and other clergy had grown idle and selfish, and taught the people nothing. The chief teachers of the people were the monks. These were men who shut themselves up in a house by themselves, called a monastery, and spent most of their time in praying. They were not allowed to marry, and they never saw their friends, or went to shows or amusements of any kind. They wore a plain dress, usually brown or black, hanging loose round their feet, and their hair was shaven. In each monastery there was a chief man chosen by the monks from among themselves, and called an abbot, whom they all obeyed.
These monks did not always live in the monastery; sometimes the abbot would send out one or two to preach in a particular town, or in some savage country, such as Saxony, where the people had not yet learned to be Christians. In the east of Europe the monks often joined in disturbances that rose in the cities, and excited the people to join together against some emperor or pope, but the western monks were far more quiet and peaceable, and taught the people only to know and to do what was right, according to their own ideas.
Many of the monks who did not go out to teach the heathen, but stayed in the convent, studied, read books or wrote them, and copied out books that had been written, or old songs; for as neither printing nor paper had at that time been invented, anything that people wanted their children and grandchildren to remember had to be written down on parchment and kept in a great roll, and as the writing it down was often a long business, and the monks had plenty of time to spare, copying out writings of all kinds came to be one of their chief employments. They did it very beautifully, with little pictures or patterns, called illuminations, at the beginnings and ends of lines and chapters.
The monks were very much respected because of their knowledge, their virtue, and their industry. Men who were tired of their life, who had been disappointed or defeated, or who repented of wrong things they had done, often made themselves monks. Sometimes children were put into monasteries by their relations to prevent them from becoming kings or chiefs, or great men in any way, for no monk could ever come out into the world again. Sometimes, also, men who had led good and happy lives thought that they should be better and happier in a monastery than in their homes or kingdoms.
In the time of Charles Martel several kings became monks. An English monk named Winfrid had been sent by the Pope and by Charles Martel to preach to the Saxons. He persuaded thousands of them to be baptized, and the king, as a reward, made him a bishop, and afterwards an archbishop. But Winfrid would not be satisfied while there were still ignorant people to be taught; he gave his bishopric to a friend, and went to teach in a wild part of the country, where many people were persuaded by him to agree to be baptized. On the morning when they were all assembled for the baptism, a body of heathens attacked them, and killed Winfrid, with the whole assembly. Winfrid is also called Boniface, and you may sometimes hear him spoken of as St. Boniface.
There was one person in Europe whom all the monks and abbots considered as their head in whatever country they lived, and whom they all obeyed absolutely, and that was the Bishop of Rome, called the Pope. As Rome had been the most powerful city in the world, and even at this time was one of the most important, so the Bishop of Rome had more power than the bishop of any other city, and was called pope or father. Many of the other bishops obeyed him and imitated him in all that he did; all monks and abbots obeyed him, and even kings and princes always tried to please him, because it was considered that he could give, subjects leave to disobey their kings, or to turn them out of their kingdoms; so they all wished to have the Pope for their friend.
A Pope died in Rome just at the same time as Charles Martel, Duke of the Franks, and the chief clergy chose a new Pope called Zacharias.
The elder of Karl's two sons, after ruling well and prosperously for six years over half of the land his father left, went into a monastery and made over all his lands to his younger brother Pepin. He joined an Italian monastery, and lived there peacefully for some years. But at that time many Frankish chiefs made journeys to Rome, and their road passed near the monastery of the Duke of the Franks, so that they thought it only proper to pay him a visit on their way; till at last he was so much disturbed by the number of his visitors, and their talk about wars and battles, and all the affairs of the kingdom, that he went away to another monastery out of the reach of all travellers, and lived there in quiet and contentment for the rest of his life. When his elder brother became a monk, Pepin, the second son of Charles Martel, became the only duke of the Franks. He is known as Pepin le Bref, or the Short. He was not long duke, for by this time every one began to think it absurd that one set of men should have the name of kings, while another set had all the power. One Merovingian king after another had led the same lazy useless life; at this time there was one called Hilderik. Pepin asked the Pope whether he might make himself king and turn out Hilderik.
Zacharias wished to make friends with Pepin, who was, strong and warlike, and would, Zacharias hoped, help him against some of his enemies. So the answer of the Pope was: "He who has the power, ought also to have the name, of king." The Pope having agreed to this change, all the Franks did the same. Hilderik's long flowing locks, the sign of his being a king, were cut off, and he was shut up in a monastery. He died two years afterwards, and was the last of the Merovingian kings.
Pepin was crowned by Winfrid, whom I mentioned before, and he was the first of another line of kings called the Carlovingians, from Carolus, Latin for Charles, which was the name of Pepin's father, and of his still greater son.
Pepin, who owed his crown to the Pope, did him good service in return for it. He marched into Italy to defend Rome and its bishop against some fierce Italian enemies called the Lombards. He drove back the Lombards, took from them some of the land which they had conquered from other enemies, and though it was not his to give, made a present of it to the Pope, who till then had had no land. But from this time Pepin's gift was handed down from one Pope to another, and by degrees they conquered more, and became masters of a kingdom in Italy.
Pepin had, like his father, to fight against the Saxons, but he was not able to conquer them, though he kept them out of France. He besieged a town in Southern Gaul belonging to the Arabs for seven years, and at last took it, and drove the last remaining Arabs over the Pyrenees and back into Spain. Pepin reigned for sixteen years; he then fell ill and died, dividing his kingdom between his two sons.
