History of the Christian Church, Volume IV: Mediaeval Christianity. A.D. 590-1073.

Comp. on the sources Abel’s Jahrbucher des Fränk. Reichs (Berlin, 1866) and Wattenbach’s
Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1858; 4th ed. 1877–78, 2 vols.)
Literature.
J. G. Walch: Historia Canonisationis Caroli M. Jen., 1750.
Putter: De Instauratione Imp. Rom. Gött., 1766.
Gaillard: Histoire de Charlemagne. Paris, 1784, 4 vols. secd ed. 1819.
Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ch. 49.
J. Ellendorf: Die Karolinger und die Hierarchie ihrer Zeit. Essen., 1838, 2 vols.
Hegewisch: Geschichte der Regierung Kaiser Karls des Gr. Hamb., 1791.
Dippolt: Leben K. Karls des Gr. Tub., 1810.
G. P. R. James: The History of Charlemagne. London, 2nd ed. 1847.
Bähr: Gesch. der röm. Lit. im Karoling. Zeitalter. Carlsruhe, 1840.
Gfrörer: Geschichte der Karolinger. Freiburg i. B., 1848, 2 vols.
Capefigue: Charlemagne. Paris, 1842, 2 vols.
Warnkönig et Gerard: Hist. des Carolingians. Brux. and Paris, 1862, 2 vols.
Waitz: Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, vols. III. and IV.
W. Giesebrecht: Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit. Braunschweig, 1863 sqq. (3rd ed.). Bd. I.,
pp. 106 sqq.
Döllinger: Kaiserthum Karls des Grossen, in the Munchener Hist. Jahrbuch for 1865.
Gaston: Histoire poetique de Charlemagne. Paris, 1865.
P. Alberdinck Thijm: Karl der Gr. und seine Zeit. Munster, 1868.
Abel: Jahrbucher des Fränkischen Reichs unter Karl d. Grossen. Berlin, 1866.
Wyss: Karl der Grosse als Gesetzgeber. Zurich, 1869.
Rettberg: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, I. 419 sqq., II. 382 sqq.
Alphonse Vétault: Charlemagne. Tours, 1877 (556 pp.). With fine illustrations.
L. Stacke: Deutsche Geschichte. Leipzig, 1880. Bd. I. 169 sqq. With illustrations and maps.
Comp. also Milman: Latin Christianity, Book IV., ch. 12, and Book V., ch. 1; Ad. Ebert: Geschichte
der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande (1880), vol. II. 3–108. Of French writers, Guizot,
and Martin, in their Histories of France; also Parke Godwin, History of France, chs. xvi. and
xvii. (vol. I. 410 sqq.).
With the death of Pepin the Short (Sept. 24, 768), the kingdom of France was divided between
his two sons, Charles and Carloman, the former to rule in the Northern, the latter in the Southern
provinces. After the death of his weaker brother (771) Charles, ignoring the claims of his infant
nephews, seized the sole reign and more than doubled its extent by his conquests.
Character and Aim of Charlemagne.
This extraordinary man represents the early history of both France and Germany which
afterwards divided into separate streams, and commands the admiration of both countries and
nations. His grand ambition was to unite all the Teutonic and Latin races on the Continent under
his temporal sceptre in close union with the spiritual dominion of the pope; in other words, to
establish a Christian theocracy, coëxtensive with the Latin church (exclusive of the British Isles
and Scandinavia). He has been called the "Moses of the middle age," who conducted the Germanic
race through the desert of barbarism and gave it a now code of political, civil and ecclesiastical
laws. He stands at the head of the new Western empire, as Constantine the Great had introduced