The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]

The imperial assembly consisted of all the lay and clerical lords, i.e., of the high court officials, the bishops, abbots, dukes, counts (Grafen), and the principal men of the royal retinue. It met every spring, usually in connection with the great review of the field of May, and its counsel was asked in all weighty affairs of state or important imperial laws. The council of state, however, was composed only of the high court officials, and the magnates of the empire whom the emperor deemed worthy of special confidence, and summoned to his presence either temporarily or permanently. In the autumn the council of state generally met for especially important sessions which served for the most part as preliminary consultations for the next imperial assembly, and for this purpose was increased by important servants of the emperor from all parts of the empire, and hence might be considered as a sort of imperial assembly in miniature.

The ancient works of art and science had made an impression upon Charles’ mind at an early date. He had wandered in Italy among the ruins of the great world gone by, and had decorated his palaces and the new churches in his native land with ancient works of art. It had thus been revealed to him that a peculiar breath of the divine spirit animated art and science, and also out of the German songs, despised by others, there was wafted to him a breath of fresh, vigorous, intellectual life. Charles raised his eyes far above the narrow bounds in which the western church confined art and science, where only the Roman erudition transformed by the clergy according to its own ideas had held its ground; he felt that Christianity carried with it the tendency towards a universal culture of mankind, but he also felt that it ought also to assimilate all the higher intellectual elements which were scattered in the individuality of different nations. Above all he realised, as no one before him, what treasures of mind were stored in his German mother-tongue, and could be elaborated from it. For this reason he gave especial attention to the German language and poetry; he himself worked on the first German grammar, and was the first who caused the German heroic poems to be written down. He held the clergy to preaching in German to the Germans, to instructing them in the German language. Only thus could the foundation for a German national civilisation be laid; since nothing less than the civilisation of the nation as a whole was the end he had in view.

The idea of a general national culture, which only recent times have called to life, and that in a very imperfect manner, was in fact already conceived in the mind of the great emperor. But national culture could proceed only from scholastic culture, although the latter, which had been preserved almost exclusively among the clergy, had long worn a predominantly theological character. For that reason alone Charles was obliged to nourish and cultivate this theologising scholarship, to which he also attributed the highest value, in all directions. He gathered the first scholars of the day at his court, bringing them not only from Italy but also from England, whither the new Latin science and literature had been transplanted from Rome together with Christianity, and where, invigorated by fresh nourishment, it had put forth new blooms. Charles himself was a most zealous pupil of these men whom he held up as a shining pattern for his clergy, and whose example did indeed have an unusual influence. Even if the emperor’s final ends were far from being attained, nevertheless schools began soon to flourish in the episcopal churches and in the cloisters; the Frankish clergy soon became distinguished for its learning, and even the laity was in some degree affected by the new intellectual life. Theological literature again produced works of lasting influence. Latin poetry was diligently cultivated, the German received rules and an artistic development; the art of reliable historical composition which was able to distinguish between fact and fable, and could grasp great events in their true position, grew up then for the first time among the Germans. In all of this almost solely the work of the clergy may be detected, which allowed itself to be directed by the mind of the emperor. He tried to remove the bishops and abbots from all earthly cares, and ordered them to install secular persons as judges and officials, who should execute justice and collect the revenues of the chapters, so that they themselves might follow their spiritual and intellectual calling with undivided force.