years. Though the Age of the Barbarians had been ended by the greatest
of them, the era which he inaugurated was an era not of revival but of
new development.




III

THE EMPIRE AND THE NEW MONARCHIES (800-1000 A.D.)


The imperial policy of Charles the Great constitutes a preface to the
history of the later Middle Ages. He holds the balance between nascent
forces which are to distract the future by their conflicts. He pays
impartial homage to ideas which statesmen less imperious or more
critical will afterwards regard as irreconcilable. He is at one and the
same time an autocrat, the head of a ruling aristocracy, and a popular
ruler who solicits the co-operation of primary assemblies. From the
highest to the lowest his subjects must acknowledge their unconditional
and immediate allegiance to his person; yet he tolerates the existence
of tribal duchies, he revives the Lombard kingdom, and creates that of
Aquitaine, as appanages for his younger sons. He fosters the growth of
territorial feudalism, and lends the sanction of royal authority to the
claims of the lord upon his vassal; but simultaneously he contrives
expedients for controlling feudalism and stifling its natural
development. He exalts the Church, and he enslaves her. He is there to
do the will of God as expounded by the clergy; but he disposes of sees
and abbacies like vacant fiefs, he dictates to the Pope, he interferes
with the liturgy, he claims a voice in the definition of dogma and the