The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [1634]
[Footnote 97: The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98 - 100, cum Notis Schmincke.) The husband must have been too strong for the historian.]
[Footnote *: This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly observes, "seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage of Eginhard." Hallam's Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16. - M.
[Footnote 98: Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain of death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1. The refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5. Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime might be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 241 - 247;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends and equals of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p.133.)]
[Footnote !: M. Guizot (Cours d'Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273) has compiled the following statement of Charlemagne's military campaigns: -
1. Against the Aquitanians.
18. " the Saxons.
5. " the Lombards.
7. " the Arabs in Spain.
1. " the Thuringians.
4. " the Avars.
2. " the Bretons.
1. " the Bavarians.
4. " the Slaves beyond the Elbe
5. " the Saracens in Italy.
3. " the Danes.
2. " the Greeks. ___
53 total. - M.]
[Footnote 99: In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando, Orlando, was slain - cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in Eginhard, (c. 9, p. 51 - 56,) and the fable in an ingenious Supplement of M. Gaillard, (tom. iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards are too proud of a victory, which history ascribes to the Gascons, and romance to the Saracens.
Note: In fact, it was a sudden onset of the Gascons, assisted by the Beaure mountaineers, and possibly a few Navarrese. - M.]
[Footnote 100: Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities, represents the interior disorders and oppression of his reign, (Hist. des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 45 - 49.)]
[Footnote 101: Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad ecclesiam conferat. Experimento enim didicimus, in anno, quo illa valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a daemonibus devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such is the decree and assertion of the great Council of Frankfort, (canon xxv. tom. ix. p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist. of Tithes; Works, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 12) represent Charlemagne as the first legal author of tithes. Such obligations have country gentlemen to his memory!]
[Footnote 102: Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms, tentabat et scribere ... sed parum prospere successit labor praeposterus et sero inchoatus. The moderns have perverted and corrected this obvious meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard's dissertation (tom. iii. p. 247 - 260) betrays his partiality.
Note: This point has been contested; but Mr. Hallam and Monsieur Sismondl concur with Gibbon. See Middle Ages, iii. 330 Histoire de Francais, tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible observations of the latter are quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii. p. 451. Fleury, I may add, quotes from Mabillon a remarkable evidence that Charlemagne "had a mark to himself like an honest, plain-dealing man." Ibid. - M.]
[Footnote 103: See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138 - 176, and Schmidt, tom. ii. p. 121 - 129.]
[Footnote 104: M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the true stature of Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard Freher ad calcem Eginhart, p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine inches of French, about six feet one inch and a fourth English, measure. The romance writers have increased it to eight feet, and the giant was endowed with matchless strength and appetite: at a single stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut asunder a horseman and his horse; at a single repast, he devoured a goose, two fowls, a quarter of mutton, &c.]
That empire was not unworthy of