The Historians' History of the World 07

Such are the wars which this most puissant king waged during forty-seven years—a long reign—in divers parts of the earth with superlative skill and good fortune. By these he so nobly enlarged the kingdom of the Franks which he had taken over after his father Pepin, that great and powerful as it already was, he nearly doubled it. For previously those Franks called Eastern inhabited only that part of Gaul which lies between the Rhine and the Loire, the ocean and the Balearic Sea, and that part of Germany situate between Saxony and the Danube, the Rhine and the Saal which latter river divides the Thuringii from the Sorabi. The Alamanni and the Bavarians also belonged to the sovereignty of the Frankish kingdom. But Charles, by the wars I have enumerated, completely subjugated and made tributary first Aquitaine and Gascony and the whole range of the Pyrenean Mountains even as far as the Ebro, which river in Navarre crosses the most fertile lands of Spain and mingles its waters with the Balearic Sea, beneath the walls of the city Tortosa; then the whole of Italy from Aosta to lower Calabria where men place the boundaries of the Greeks and Beneventines, an extent of more than a thousand miles long; then Saxony which is no small part of Germany and is supposed to be twice as broad as the part in which the Franks dwell, with a length which is equal to that of the other; then both Pannonia and Dacia which lies on the other bank of the Danube, Istria too and Liburnia and Dalmatia, except the maritime towns which because of his friendly feeling for the Constantinopolitan emperor and a treaty to which they had both agreed Charles allowed him to hold; lastly all the wild and uncouth nations which inhabit Germany between the Rhine and the Vistula, the ocean and the Danube, who speak almost the same tongue but are widely different in character and in dress. Chief among these were the Welatabi, Sorabi, Abodriti, and Bæmanni, for these showed resistance in fight; the rest who were more numerous surrendered.

A Saxon Warrior

He also added glory to the kingdom by the friendly sentiments of certain kings and nations which he won to himself. Thus Alfonso, king of Galicia and Asturias was so linked to him by the bond of friendship that when he sent him letters or messengers he gave orders that he should be spoken of as Charles’ servant. The kings of the Scots too had been so bent to his will through his munificence that they never alluded to him in other terms than as their lord and called themselves his humble vassals. Letters from them to him still exist in which it may be seen that their attitude towards him was of this kind. Harun, king of the Persians who held well-nigh all the East if we except India, was in such hearty sympathy with the king that he valued his good will more than that of all the kings and princes in the world, thinking him alone worthy to be honoured by his regard and munificence. When the officers sent by Charles with offerings to the most sacred sepulchre and place of the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour came to Harun and told him what was the will of their master he not only allowed them to do what was required but even yielded up to them that revered and sacred spot to be registered as belonging to the sovereignty of Charles. When the ambassadors returned he sent his own to accompany them bearing splendid presents to the king with garments and spices and other rich products of the East, just as a few years before at Charles’ request he sent him the only elephant he then possessed. Even the Constantinopolitan emperors, Nicephorus, Michael, and Leo expressly sought after his friendly allegiance and sent him numerous embassies. To remove all source of possible offence to them on account of his having adopted the title of emperor, which might truly be suspected as in some sort an attempt to wrest from them the imperial supremacy, he entered into a most rigid treaty. For the power of the Franks was ever an object of suspicion to the Greeks and Romans, whence arose the Greek proverb, “Have a Frank for a friend and not for a neighbour.”