Theodoric, a masterpiece of human statesmanship, but rather a divine
institution, providentially created before the birth of Christ to school
the nations for the universal domination of His Church. The model of the
Carolingian Emperors was not Augustus but Constantine the Great, the
Most Christian ruler who made it his first business to protect the
Church against heretic and heathen, to endow her with riches, to enforce
her legislation. However his relation to the Pope might be conceived,
the Emperor held his office as the first servant of the Church. What
then were his practical duties? According to some he was pledged to
restore the material unity of Christendom and to subdue all heathen
peoples. This childlike ideal of his office no emperor could put into
practice. Charles the Great waged no important wars after his
coronation; he did not scruple to make peace with the Eastern Empire or
even to exchange courtesies with Haroun al Rashid, the Caliph of Bagdad.
He held, and the sanest of his counsellors agreed, that his first duty
was to protect, unite and reform the societies over which the Church
already exercised a nominal dominion. To conquer other Christian rulers
was no more to be expected of him than that he should surrender his own
royal prerogative; though it was desirable that they should do homage to
him as the earthly representative of spiritual unity.

Within his own realms the imperial office was to make a difference in
the spirit rather than the forms of government. The Empire raised to a
higher power the dignity and the responsibilities which belonged to him
as a king. He conceived himself bound to provide more carefully than
ever for the maintenance of ecclesiastical and the betterment of secular
law. His subjects were to realise that through their allegiance to him
they were God's subjects, bound to observe the law of God as a part of
the law of the Empire; he on his side was to be, to the best of his
power, a moral censor, an educator, a religious missionary, a protector