In the scarcity of written information about the early Middle Ages, one work stands out: The Life of Charlemagne by Einhard. This work stands out not because it is incredibly well written or because it goes against all our expected notions of the time, but simply because it exists, and dates back to a time when little other recorded information is available. Though much written record survives from both earlier and later periods, the historian who wishes to study the early Medieval period is greeted with nearly total silence. But simple existence is no reason to study a book. Many bad and inaccurate books surely have been published during all ages. These books serve only to confuse and mislead the historian who wants to know as much as possible about the true essence of life in the past. Does Einhard's work fall into this latter category of mediocre or propagandistic work, or is it a genuine gem of a book that historians can put great trust in? In short, how useful is Einhard's Life of Charlemagne to someone who wants to find out more about Charlemagne and life in Carolingian times?
The Life of Charlemagne is often compared to The Twelve Caesars, a book in which the ancient biographer Suetonius (c.AD 69-c.140) wrote brief (by our standards) accounts of the twelve rulers who reigned from about 65 B.C. to A.D. 96. Part of the reason for this is that Suetonius' work was one of the few models on which Einhard could base his book, as noted by Sidney Painter in his introduction to Ann Arbor edition of The Life of Charlemagne.1 Few books of any type were available when Einhard wrote (ca. 817-830), so writers would not have easy access to a clear guide to the form of a book, and would therefore probably tend to be unpolished, compared with ancient and modern writers. This is exactly the case with Einhard. As he himself notes in his preface, his book lacks a flare for words that one might expect of one who writes about such an important figure of history. This itself is revealing about the acceptable standards of prose in Medieval Europe. There was simply not as much intellectual activity going on in Carolingian Europe and this rubs off on those that do practice what we consider intellectual pursuits. Einhard did not have much competition. Nobody was going to scold him for including a drab sentence. In addition, he may not have been the best writer available to Charlemagne, but there was little basis to judge who would be better.
As a source for the life of Charlemagne himself this book is more of an official recounting of his works than an inquiring look at what really made him tick. The first half of the book (Chapters I to XVIII) especially, is in some ways it is closer to Augustus' autobiographical Achievements of the Divine Augustus than to Suetonius' chapter on Augustus, which Painter says Einhard paid particular attention to.2 It is certainly nothing like a modern journalistic-style account of a person's life.
It is important to note the differences between the circumstances in which Einhard and Suetonius wrote. Einhard's relationship to Charlemagne was much closer than Suetonius' relationship with the emperors he chronicled. Suetonius was chief secretary to Emperor Hadrian,3 but Suetonius never wrote about his imperial employer, only about past emperors. He wrote about Augustus approximately 100 years after that emperor's death. While one might think at first glance that this would tend to make his biography less accurate than Einhard's, the opposite is more probably the case. Being removed from Augustus as he was both in time and in respect to his allegiance, Suetonius had the opportunity to be more critical of Augustus, and present facts that the emperor might not have wanted known to posterity, while Einhard is unable or more probably unwilling to do so because he was a member of Charlemagne's court. Whether or not he actually thought it so, the king's spirit was looming over Einhard's shoulder as he wrote.4
Einhard is at great pains to eliminate anything that would portray his former leader in a negative light. So this tendency to propagandize his life outweighs any advantage over Einhard had over Suetonius' look at Augustus based on timeliness, especially because Suetonius probably had a vast library of documents from Augustus' reign that he could use as research, while Einhard admits that little is written about much of Charlemagne's life.5 Imagine that in 3190 the only extant writing about President Clinton will be a brief summary of his political career written by his chief of staff. Historians of the future would be in a comparable situation to ours today: The work would be interesting and important, but would elucidate far from the whole picture.
Some examples will serve to illustrate Einhard's tendency to glorify Charlemagne. I choose to use Augustus as a model against which to base Charlemagne partly because Einhard used Suetonius' biography of him as a model, and partly because Augustus' autobiographical Achievements is readily available for comparative purposes. As Einhard writes, "So many and grievous were the wars that were declared against the Franks in the meantime, and skillfully conducted by the King, that one may reasonably question whether his fortitude or his good fortune is to be more admired."6 This is clearly the writing of partisan of the kings. One can find statements of a similar tenor in Augustus' autobiography.
By new laws passed on my proposal I brought back into use many exemplary practices of our ancestors which were disappearing in our time, and in many ways I myself transmitted exemplary practices to posterity for their imitation.7
While this is most probably true, it is of interest to see what the author chooses to emphasize about himself and what he chooses to leave out. Compared with statements that Suetonius makes about Augustus: "Under the Triumvirate, many of Augustus' acts won him the hatred of the people."8 Suetonius also writes that Augustus was afraid of thunder and lightning, and used to carry an amulet to ward these off natural phenomena.9 Suetonius is usually plainly pro-Augustus he rarely include statements like the one above, statements that nonetheless would never have come from the pen (or in this case chisel since the Achievements were literally etched in stone!) of Augustus himself. At one point, Suetonius even adds a bit of wry sarcasm, stating simply, "Everyone believes this story," after an impossible set of occurrences.10 But it is clear that Einhard, beyond just being a member of the king's court, was indeed a great admirer of Charlemagne, and this may be what prompted him to write the biography in the first place. He notes, "[H]ere let me express my admiration of his great qualities and his extraordinary constancy alike in good and evil fortune."11 What Einhard was aiming for was a product similar to that of Suetonius, and what he got was a cross between Suetonius and Augustus on himself -- the latter being a work strictly of imperial public relations.
This is not to say that all of Einhard's book is a coverup for the kings flaws. There are certain passages where Einhard appears to write with great candor. One such is at the end of Chapter XXV, where he writes that the king tried to learn to write, but unfortunately, "as he did not begin his efforts in due season, but late in life, they met with ill success." All in all, though, these passages are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Thus, in many ways Einhard is more useful for general information about Carolingian life than for particular details about Charlemagne's life. Often, the details that Einhard chooses to include in his short work prove to be very telling about what Carolingians (or at least Einhard himself) thought was important. For example, he devotes a full chapter to omens that predicted Charlemagne's death. Einhard lists four foreboding omens:12 First, "Eclipses of both the sun and moon were very frequent during the last three years of his life, and a black spot was visible on the sun for the space of seven days." Second, a gallery Charlemagne had built collapsed on the Day of Ascension. Third, a bridge that took his workers ten years to build was completely burned down. Fourth, the king and his band saw a "ball of fire" (probably simply ball lightning) fall from the sky immediately before the king's horse lost its footing and fell. Fifth, and most cryptically, the word "Princeps" (roughly translatable to "king") etched on a basilica where Charlemagne was eventually buried was effaced to no longer be visible. How this effacement took place, whether by natural causes or vandals, is not clear. The nature of these omens and the importance Einhard places on them shed light on just how steeped in superstition the Carolingians were. As if sunspots formed or the moon realigned itself because a king on earth was nearing his death! Einhard states at the outset that he writes, "omitting nothing worth knowing or necessary to know."13 So to him, omens were important. It is interesting to note that Suetonius also has a chapter on omens that surrounded the death of Augustus.14 If he was really following the Suetonius model closely, this could be one reason Einhard chose to include this information.
Also intriguing is Einhard's preface. In the preface he argues that it is better that he write the book than the works of Charlemagne go unrecorded. But he seems to arguing against a group of people who will think that he is overstepping his bound to even be writing at all.
I have been careful . . . not to offend by a prolix style those minds that despise everything modern, if one can possibly avoid offending by a new work men who seem to despise also the masterpieces of antiquity, the works of most learned and luminous writers.15
It seems that in an age where few people have the audacity to feel that they are qualified to write a book, Einhard has to go to great lengths to explain that the merit of Charlemagne's acts is so important that he simply must write to keep a record of them. He must make the people feel that he is not writing to gratify his own ego, but to perpetuate the glory of his king.
However, even though up until now I have been discussing Einhard's drawbacks, it would be a mistake to think that Einhard would be useless to the historian. Regardless of the fact that Einhard chooses to leave out any hint of scandal or intrigue, what he does choose to record is nonetheless invaluable for someone who wants to learn more about Charlemagne's legendary reign. And this is precisely where the true importance of Einhard is clearly evident. It is often in the throw-away lines or the causal references that we are given useful information about Carolingian times. For example, Einhard writes, "[Charlemagne] only lost three of all his [nine] children before his death."16 If it is remarkable that the king "only" loses one third of his children, then child death rates must be much higher than they are today.
There are other noteworthy facts that Einhard mentions in passing as if they are commonplace, leading us to believe that they must have been. He writes that Einhard had three concubines after his wife died.17 This fact would come from the pen of no modern courtier, if such a thing can be said to exist, or presidential advisor. We also find out from Einhard such things as it was a sign of the kings power for him to wear long hair,18 and that many people would make a pilgrimage to Rome for religious reasons.19
It is also evident from Einhard that Charlemagne was a very religious man, or at least that Einhard wanted us to believe that he was a very religious man. In addition to scattered evidence elsewhere, Einhard devotes two full chapters, XXVI and XXVII, to the king's pious acts. He explains that the king was a patron of a basilica in the first, and in the second, that the king generously donated large amounts of foreign aid to Christians in other counties. Surely the more religious a man was in those days the more respect he got from his peers, and this may be one reason Einhard emphasizes this so much.
Because of the nature of the fact that so little survives from Ninth Century, it is hard to tell exactly how much Einhard leaves out of his biography, and how accurate he is in his treatment of what he does leave in. So the lack of corroborating sources is both the reason why we must study Einhard and the reason why we must take what he says with a grain of salt. Though it is far from a perfect book, it is essential to the student of history who can take it for what it is worth.
1Sidney Painter, introduction, The Life of Charlemagne, by Einhard (U. of Michigan P., 1960) 11.
2Painter, 11.
3Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans. Robert Graves (New York: Penguin Classics, 1989) front cover notes.
4Einhard practically admits this in his preface: "[Charlemagne] strongly endeared me to himself, and made me greatly his debtor as well in death as in life. . . ."
5Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne (U. of Michigan P., 1960) IV.
6Einhard, VIII.
7Augustus, Achievements of the Divine Augustus [Res Gestae Divi Augusti], ed. P.A. Brunt and J. M. Moore (New York: Oxford U. P., 1983) 8:5.
8Suetonius, Augustus 27.
9Suetonius, Augustus 90.
10Suetonius, Augustus 94. The story everyone believes has to do with a senator crying out: "The ruler of the world is now born," when Augustus is born.
11Einhard, XVIII.
12Einhard, XXXII.
13Einhard, IV.
14Suetonius, Augustus 97.
15Einhard, preface.
16Einhard, XIX. Emphasis added.
17Einhard, XVIII.
18Einhard, I.
19Einhard, II.
Augustus. The Achievements of the Divine Augustus [Res Gestae Divi Augusti]. Ed. P. A. Brunt and J. P. Moore. Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1983.
Einhard. The Life of Charlemagne. U. of Michigan P., 1960.
Painter, Sidney. Foreword. The Life of Charlemagne. By Einhard. Unknown location, U.S.: U. of Michigan P., 1960. 5-12.
Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Trans. Robert Graves. Ed. Michael Grant. New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc. 1989.