Warfare In Einhard's Life Of Charlemagne

Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne details some important events of Charlemagne’s life as well as aspects of his character. Charlemagne was one of the most powerful and influential Frankish kings of the Early Middle ages. This was the time between the fall of the Roman Empire and the start of the Renaissance. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, there were few structured civilization. People gravitated away from big cities and began living in small local villages. Because of this people and towns were very isolated from one another. Feudalism became the social system during this time and it was incredibly important due to the isolation of society. Isolated towns were very vulnerable to attack. Feudalism solved this by establishing a

This was not unusual for a king such as Charlemagne and Einhard speaks about Charlemagne’s father and grandfather also pursuing similar military careers. This shows a great deal about the type of society that existed during the middle ages. Today warfare is abhorred and generally only condoned as the last possible option, but during the middle ages, war seems to have been perfectly acceptable. Charlemagne used warfare as a way of building his reputation and growing his kingdom. Of Einhard’s thirty-three chapters ten are devoted solely to describing Charlemagne’s military triumphs; far more than any other topic. Einhard starts out with Charlemagne’s first military undertaking: the Aquitanian War. This war was originally started by Charlemagne’s father but failed to be ended until Charlemagne took the throne. This victory established Charlemagne as a powerful and respectable king. However, Charlemagne did not stop there, his next military pursuit was to provide aid to Hadrian, the Bishop of Rome against the Lombard threat. Like the previous conflict, Charlemagne’s father had attempted this conquest as well. Charlemagne had little difficulty in defeating the Lombards and unlike his father took steps to ensure that the Lombards would no longer pose a threat to the church. Einhard notes that the difference between Charlemagne and his father in the Lombard War was Charlemagne’s ceaselessness. Einhard recounts Charlemagne’s father compelling the Lombard king to surrender hostages, restore to the Roman’s what had been taken and promise to never seize Roman land again. Charlemagne, however, did not stop until the Lombard king surrendered and his heir driven from all of Italy. With this act, Charlemagne showed that he was a stronger king than even his father and gained a great deal of reputation as well as the favor of the church. With two impressive military triumphs