The Historians' History of the World 07

At this moment, when everything appeared to be culminating in a fresh crisis, Louis the Pious (or Débonnaire) died, on the 20th of June, 840. A striking example of contrast between a great father and a less gifted, though by no means an incapable, son.

Louis had won his spurs as a sort of viceroy to Charles, and certain merits were his, particularly his conduct with regard to the mark of Spain, though he always acted in dependence upon the higher controlling authority. But the task of independently wielding the supreme power after his father’s death was beyond his powers. He lacked the living imagination which alone could weld together divergent elements, and thus maintain the supreme power and secure the existence of the empire for the future. At first he followed the impulses he received from Charlemagne’s old advisers, but afterwards was guided by the contrary influences of the second family, with which he had surrounded himself.

So he found himself entangled in the machinations of the factions which were arising around him at the very outset of the conflict. He came into open feud with his nearest relatives, of whom some followed one direction and the others another. It is not probable that he failed through excessive good nature; we have seen how he recoiled from the pressure of hostile elements, calmly bore everything and yielded; but he never yielded in the main point, but awaited the moment when he could reassert his rights. Moreover, he never ceased thinking how to mete out punishment to his enemies; he identified the empire with his own person.

But less important than the secular was the ecclesiastical complication in which he became entangled. By not keeping the arrogance of the secular magnates within proper limits, he aroused the pretensions of the ecclesiastical hierarchy which, under his rule, reached their full development. They were aimed not only at the existence but at the very idea of empire. And perhaps one might be allowed to say everything happened just as it was bound to happen. The elements that were striving for independence were in existence. Louis was not the man to repel and curb them to their old obedience. In attempting to do so he found that he was the weaker, and he had, consequently, to experience the tortures that disputed authority has to endure in times of faction. He was not able to harmonise the tenure of supreme power with the claims of the right of succession.

The epoch is characterised by the complication of the disputes for succession and an attempt to raise the ecclesiastical power to a position of preponderating prestige in the empire. It is Louis’ merit, that neither in one case nor the other did he permit his authority to succumb. He never allowed his jurisdiction over the clergy to be wrested from him, and relying upon the good will of his people always managed to maintain his tenure of the imperium. At his death he bequeathed the insignia of the realm to his eldest son.c

QUARRELS OF HIS SUCCESSORS

[840 A.D.]

It was evident already during the lifetime of Louis the Pious that his sons lived in mutual hatred and jealousy, and could not agree together in harmony. From the first, the sons of the first marriage and their half-brother were on a footing of envy and enmity, dissension also reigned amongst the former because their aims and pursuits mutually clashed. Ludwig, king of Bavaria, afterwards called the German, was both more just and more benevolent in disposition; he had besides the wisest intentions when the empire of Charles I was broken up, for he wished to see the division made on a basis of national principle. But the eldest brother, Lothair, was false and revengeful; and as he was at the same time filled with an inexhaustible egotism, he was bent on excluding his brothers as well as his nephews, by treachery, from all share in the empire, or at any rate on overreaching them to the best of his ability.

Ninth-century Cross-bow