Direct Characterization Of Charlemagne

On Christmas Day in the year 800 AD, Pope Leo III called Charlemagne to his Church and unbeknownst to the King of the Franks, declared him Emperor and Augustus of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne would go onto rule as Roman Emperor until 814, when he unfortunately succumbs to a fever and dies at the age of seventy-two. A decade or so later, his foster-son and member of his court, Einhard, took it upon himself to memorialize Charlemagne, so that all of prosperity could know of his greatness. Throughout this biography, Einhard highlights all of Charlemagne’s greatest escapades, while also emphasizing his righteous, honorable character. Interestingly enough, these righteous, honorable characteristics are one’s often connected with a Germanic prince,

Specifically, Tacitus devotes much of his Germania to the description of Germanic princes. These princes were highly revered and had much of the power that a Roman Emperor would. Unlike a Roman Emperor, however, these princes earned their power through dynastic succession. In Rome, emperors gained control through corruption and manipulation, not necessarily through a blood right to rule. Einhard makes sure to prove that Charlemagne gained his throne through all the proper channels. In fact, after Pepin, Charlemagne’s father, died, a general assembly agreed that both he and his brother Carloman would rule in conjunction. The fact that a general assembly decided on this again shows Germanic principles. Tacitus in his Germania accentuates the German tribes sense of democracy. In fact, the Germanic tribes are described to hold assemblies to decide most matters of the state. Additionally, Einhard comments that Carloman died of natural causes and then Charlemagne was “unanimously elected King of Franks.” (Einhard 3) The mentioning that Carloman died of natural causes is important, for it further stresses that their was no corruption in Charlemagne’s succession onto the throne. It was a completely natural process, not a forced one which would have been common in