were so harried, so weakened, that they ceased to be a serious menace.

Charlemagne[16] had thus in very truth created a new empire. He had
established at least one central spot, so hedged round by border
dependencies that no later wave of barbarians ever quite succeeded in
submerging it. The bones of the great Emperor, in their cathedral
sepulchre at Aix, have never been disturbed by an unfriendly hand, Paris
submitted to no new conquest until over a thousand years later, when the
nineteenth century had stolen the barbarity from war. It was then no
more than a just acknowledgment of Charlemagne's work when, on Christmas
Day of the year 800, as he rose from kneeling at the cathedral altar in
Rome, he was crowned by the Pope whom he had defended, and hailed by an
enthusiastic people as lord of a re-created "Holy Roman Empire."

In England, also, the centuries of warfare among the Britons and the
various antagonistic Teutonic tribes seemed drawing to an end. Egbert
established the "heptarchy";[17] that is, became overlord of all the
lesser kings. Truly for a moment civilization seemed reëstablished. The
arts returned to prominence. England could send so noteworthy a scholar
as Alcuin to the aid of the great Emperor. Charlemagne encouraged
learning; Alcuin established schools. Once more men sowed and reaped in
security. The "Roman peace" seemed come again.


[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME V.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _Visigoths Pillage Rome_, page 1.