The name of Charlemagne or Carl the Great is known widely. He became the first Emperor since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, which happened centuries before his coronation. Charlemagne had a lot of achievements in the field of politics and country development, education, military conquers and of, course, religion. During Charlemagne’s ruling and due to his actions Christianity became widely popular in the Western Europe. This paper outlines the role religion played in the life of the society of that time and in the life of Charlemagne. The biography of this mighty politician has been followed and carefully written down by two authors.
First one is Einhard, Charlemagne’s personal close friend, a noble and respectable man. The second one is Notker the Stammerer, the Benidictine monk, who was born years after the death of Charlemagne and compiled the monarch’s biography for Carl’s great-grandson. “However much energy Charlemagne may have expended in enlarging his realm and conquering foreign nations, and despite all the time which he devoted to his preoccupation, he nevertheless set in hand many projects which aimed at marking his kingdom more attractive and at increasing public utility” (Einhard, 17). This paper will summarize the general influence the ruling of Carl the Great on the Western European religion in 768-814, in order to see how the conquests and accomplishments of this well known king and Emperor have influenced the society of nowadays.
First of all, Charlemagne has started his ruling with series of conquests in order to increase the territory of his Empire. At that time the territory of Western Europe was inhabited by multiple nations, each of those nations was a pagan society. Territorial conflicts were very frequent. Western Europe was experiencing quite difficult times. Charlemagne turned out to be the solid leader who tried to unite all of these nations and finally establish the state of peace in Europe. This is why he started to expand his Empire to conquer Italian territories, Pyrenees, lands that belonged to the Moors. He also submitted Bavaria, conducted a series of Roncesvalles and Avar campaigns, spent a lot of effort spreading his ruling to the East and battling the Saxons, who were considered “the devil worshipers”, took over some territories of the Slavs (Einhard, 7).
Secondly, Charles the Great saw religion as a strong political power helping to create agreement and peace between the battling nations. He knew that the economic, diplomatic and cultural development was only possible in the peaceful Empire. He had far-sighted plans that he managed to put into practice when the wars were over. Charlemagne was the force bringing Christianity to the territory of Western Europe.
Finally, Charlemagne is depicted by Notker and Einhard as an extremely wise and clever man, believing in the power of education and encouraging his kids to study. This is understandable because both of these authors were working for the royal family and were full of appreciation towards all of its members. At the same time, from the modern point of view the conquests and never ending wars and bloodthirsty battles, forcing the religion on people, are quite shocking. We can see that none of the European nations agreed to accept Christianity willingly, they were rejecting this way of living as it was unnatural for them (Einhard, 7).
In conclusion, Charlemagne’s main goal was to establish unity between European nations, and he chose to achieve that by means of forceful spreading of his religion to all of those nations. This way certainly is violent for the contemporary viewer of the history. At the same time, I think this history is extremely important for the people of nowadays and this topic is of big importance for the modern societies, because Christianity is now a dominant religion in Europe, it has become popular due to Charlemangne’s conquests and expeditions. If not for him, this religion might have never survived till the present times, and no one knows what our world would be like today.
Works Cited
Einhard. The Wars and Political Affairs. n. d. Web.