[In the following excerpt, Painter explains some limitations of the Life of Charlemagne and discusses why Einhard used the work of the Roman historian Suetonius as his chief model.]

Charlemagne or Charles the Great who is counted as Charles I in the conventional lists of kings of France was one of the truly imposing figures of history. At the height of his power he ruled all the Christian lands of Western Europe except the British Isles and southern Italy and Sicily under the titles of king of the Franks and the Lombards and Roman emperor. He held this vast realm in a grip of iron and cowed its foes on every frontier. He also initiated and encouraged a revival of learning which is sometimes called the Carolingian Renaissance. While this was a brief flash of light in a dark age, it left sparks which made the succeeding period less gloomy and supplied the beginnings of a permanent revival in the twelfth century.

In order to understand the magnitude of Charlemagne's achievement it is necessary to know something of the world into which he was born. In the fifth and sixth centuries after Christ, Germanic invaders overran the western provinces of the Roman Empire. In the year 700 most of England was ruled by a number of Anglo-Saxon kings, Spain by Visigothic monarchs, and northern and central Italy by the kings of the Lombards. The lands covered today by France and Belgium and the part of Germany known in the Middle Ages as Franconia formed the Frankish state ruled by the kings of the Merovingian line. In 711 Moslems from North Africa overwhelmed the Visigothic kingdom and occupied Spain. Along the eastern frontier of the Frankish state were such Germanic peoples as the Saxons and Bavarians. The plains of the Danube Valley were occupied by a Turkish people called Avars. Southern Italy, Sicily, and a few isolated districts such as Rome and Ravenna recognized the sovereignty of the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, the successor to the Roman emperors.

Roman civilization had gradually disappeared under the rule of the Germanic kings. Except for Ireland where a few monks still cherished the ancient learning and Northumbria where both Irish and Roman missionaries had fostered a brief revival, Western Europe knew little of bare literacy and practically nothing of real learning. In the Frankish state even the bishops were barely literate.

The economic system of the Roman Empire had also decayed. The Germanic kings had no interest in keeping up roads and bridges and less in policing the trade routes. Overland trade had largely disappeared. The Mediterranean which had formed the heart of the Roman system of communications was harassed by Moslem fleets. As trade declined, the circulation of money grew less and less. By 700 Western Europe was essentially a region of localized agricultural economy. The farmer raised his own raw material and made the crude goods his family needed. The nobles lived on the rents collected from men who farmed their land.

In 700 the Merovingian state was weak and disorganized. The kings were mere figureheads, and the land was ruled by cliques of nobles who fought each other fiercely for power. Its armies were half-armed mobs of little effectiveness in war. While the realm was officially Christian and kings and nobles made generous gifts to churches and monasteries, the clergy were hard to distinguish in life and thought from the secular lords. Christian ethics had as yet had little effect on the ways of the Germans.

Charlemagne's grandfather, Charles Martel, was the head of a victorious noble group. As mayor of the palace, or as he usually called himself dux or leader of the Franks, he organized an effective military force by seizing church lands and using them to support soldiers who would serve him as heavily armed cavalry. He repulsed a Moslem invasion and conquered part of Saxony. His successor, Pepin, reorganized the Frankish church with the aid of the great Anglo-Saxon missionary, St. Boniface of Crediton. Pepin removed the last Merovingian king and was himself crowned king, first by St. Boniface and later by Pope Stephen. He drove the Lombards from the vicinity of Rome and gave the government of that region to the pope. This was the origin of the later states of the Church.

Einhard's biography will tell you what Charlemagne accomplished, but it is important to remember the difficulties he faced which Einhard does not mention because he took them for granted. Charlemagne had no revenue in money. He and his court lived on the produce of the royal estates. He supported his officials and his cavalry by giving them land and the labor to farm it. The rest of his army was a general levy of infantry from his subjects. How he succeeded in mustering large armies at distant frontiers and supplying them during long and strenuous campaigns is almost incomprehensible. Just as difficult to understand is how he procured the obedience of his officials scattered over his vast realm. The only possible answer seems to be that he was a man of amazing ability and force of character. We do not need Einhard to show us that Charlemagne was a great man—the chronicles of his reign and the official documents which are still preserved show that. But Einhard gives us a picture of the man and his way of life.

Einhard was born in the ancient Frankish homeland in the valley of the River Main about 775. He was brought up in the monastery of Fulda, which was the chief center of learning in the Frankish lands. In 791 or 792 his abbot persuaded Charlemagne to take him into his court. Early in his reign Charlemagne had gathered men of learning about him and established a palace school headed by a Northumbrian scholar named Alcuin. Soon after Einhard's arrival Alcuin retired to a monastery near Tours. When in 799 Charlemagne asked Alcuin a question about the classics, he told him to consult Einhard. Although Einhard clearly was on intimate terms with Charlemagne and carried out a number of errands for him on affairs of state, he never achieved high office during his reign. But after Charlemagne's death in 814 his son and successor Louis the Pious made Einhard his private secretary and loaded him with honors and benefices. He retired from court in 828, when the quarrels between Louis and his sons grew acute, and lived in a quiet retreat until 840.

Einhard wrote a number of works, but his Vita Caroli Magni or Life of Charlemagne is by far the most interesting. It was written between 817 and 836, probably between 817 and 830. Einhard made extensive use of the chronicles known as the annales royales, which furnished his basic material on Charlemagne's campaigns and political activities. He also consulted works by some of his colleagues in the palace school and documents in the royal archives to which he had access as secretary of Louis the Pious. While he made a number of mistakes in interpreting this material, on the whole his work appears accurate when compared with other sources. Finally, he drew on his own memory of Charlemagne, his character, and his way of life. To the historian this is his great contribution.

When Einhard undertook the task of writing a biography of his patron, he was faced with a serious problem. How did one write a biography? The only models being produced by his contemporaries were lives of saints, and they would hardly serve his purpose. Hence he turned to one of the few classical works available, De Vita Caesarum, the Lives of the Caesars by the Roman historian Suetonius. He used particularly the biography of Augustus. From this work he took the general form and organization of his work. He also borrowed many descriptive phrases. Some scholars have charged that he used expressions of Suetonius even when they did not really apply to Charlemagne and so distorted his result. The best recent opinion, however, holds that he used Suetonius wisely as a guide and copied only phrases that were appropriate.

Einhard was obviously writing to honor Charlemagne. He clearly passes over delicately various details he considered embarrassing, such as the morals of the king's daughters. Nevertheless, his account has the ring of truth. The Charlemagne he describes could have done what we know he actually did. The biography was immensely popular. Some eighty manuscripts still survive and a number of these were produced in the ninth and tenth centuries. This fame was well deserved. Einhard wrote the first medieval biography of a lay figure, and his subject was the greatest man of the age whose memory was revered in both history and legend throughout the Middle Ages.