Einhard’s The Life of Charlemagne

Life of Charlemagne is a biography written by Einhard circa 829-836.  Biographies were extremely rare in this era and the detailed account of Charlemagne’s life, while biased, offers a unique view into his world and the job of running an empire.  Charlemagne wished to restore the Roman Empire under Christian rule and is famous for his accomplishment this goal.  Life of Charlemagne should be preserved because it is a biography, a rarity for its time period, and it offers a detailed look into the life of not just anyone from the medieval times, but a figure of prominence.
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Life of Charlemagne was typical of its era in that it was a means of gaining the support of the people without modern technology.  Today we have the media to spread political feelings and sway the public to support their leaders but in this was just another form of propaganda employed to make citizens like Charlemagne. At a time when the authoritarian power needed methods of gaining and retaining the support of its subjects, so the issuing of a document like Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne would have been pretty standard procedure.  Despite its unfortunate untimeliness (after the death of Charlemagne) it still would have caught the hearts of those who read it and given them pride in their ruler.
The Life of Charlemagne is unique because it was the “first political biography written since the classical age”(Wilson 138).  This was also a very intimate account of Charlemagne’s life because Einhard knew him so well.  While the biography is sugar-coated to protect Charlemagne’s legacy, it still gives many details into his life.  For example, Einhard states that Charlemagne “employed the building blocks of religion he brought to Europe” (Wilson 89) to unite the people within his empire.  He doesn’t suggest that Charlemagne was just trying to spread the religion, he wanted to be the man in charge and Christianity was a useful tool in accomplishing this goal.
Not many people could read very well at this time so long forms of written material weren’t the most effective way of gaining admiration.  Charlemagne himself couldn’t read but he championed those who could.  It is for this reason that he wanted religion to educate the people.  Fittingly, it was at the institutions he had founded and instilled the value of teaching that people could go and listen to an educated literate member of the church tell about the life of Charlemagne
People at the time probably celebrated the work because it suggested that their highest ruler had all of their best interests at heart.  For example, “he needed the military prowess” of the warrior caste, but knew that “their tendency to exploit underlings made them dangerously destabilizing element of society” (Wilson 46).  Thanks to his biography the average citizen would think that Charlemagne hadn’t played favorites.  Their continued confidence in the government despite the death of Charlemagne would have been an invaluable resource to those who took over after his death.
I think people today are impressed by the in-depth and complex analysis of Charlemagne by Einhard.  He went to great lengths to describe Charlemagne’s personality and to elaborate on why Einhard behaved the way he did.  While man may have made huge jumps in our understanding of science, we are still only humans and continue operating with the same basic motivations and thoughts.  That said, people today are probably impressed by the complexity of that expressed by Einhard, albeit he was well-educated for his era.  Today’s society also sees through the façade that Einhard creates for Charlemagne.  We have much more experience with corrupt governments and authoritarian powers than anyone at the time.  Because of this we are familiar with bias in writing and propaganda.  We also know more about Charlemagne’s life than citizens in his empire.  Thanks to this knowledge, we can see that Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne is heavily biased.  Wilson even wrote that “it’s unfortunate that our best source for the life of Charlemagne is a one-sided interpretation of the emperor’s character” (Wilson 137).
Personally I was re¬¬¬ally amazed by the complex thoughts of not only Charlemagne but also Einhard.  It sounds bad, but given the extensive education we do through just to graduate from high school and advances in technology and science; it’s easy for us to assume we are much more complex thinkers than people in the past.  However, there are many constants in human society which make interactions within societies pretty much the same throughout human history.  Just because these ancient figures weren’t aware of electricity or a heliocentric universe didn’t mean they didn’t understand how others think.  People are basically the same no matter when they lived because we are all driven by the same stimuli.  Charlemagne understood the motivations of the people he ruled and how to rule in a way which would please his subjects while maintaining his role as the ruler of the kingdom.  I can only begin to understand the complex interactions that motivate people to rise up and protest against the ruling power in their society.  Charlemagne however was able to navigate these complex factors which contribute to human behavior and reach decisions which would please the people.  I guess I was just surprised by his ability to relate to his people and rule them justly.  While some of this is I should have known that he would have an extraordinary ability to understand his people and make wise decisions.  Otherwise he wouldn’t be a great figure in history that we learn about to this day.¬

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The Life of Charlemagne is comparable to Dante’s Divine Comedy because it was meant for everyone to hear and also to persuade the people to behave in a certain way.  While they carried different messages, Life of Charlemagne that the people should trust and support their rulers, and Divine Comedy, that strict adherence to the Christian way of life should be followed to avoid eternal damnation, they were both communicated through literature.  Divine Comedy would have been a useful tool to the authoritarian entities at the time because it inspired continued and deeper devotion to Christianity which was a tool implemented by Charlemagne to better his role as a ruler.  The more they supported Christianity, the more access they would gain to the educational resources he provided them through the church, and the more they would recognize and appreciate his efforts to educate his people.
Divine Comedy would have had a greater influence over the people because it was about their religion and was meant to scare them into behaving properly.  Upon reading or listening to the story, citizens from the middle ages would have felt an immediate need to act and save their souls so as to avoid the fiery punishment waiting for them.  Those who heard The Life of Charlemagne would have appreciated their leader and shown more loyalty to the empire of which they were a part.  While both works influenced their reader’s, Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne would not have elicited the same response from its readers as Divine Comedy because it’s message was one of celebration.  The very purpose of Divine Comedy is to describe the repercussions for sinning so it scared its readers and convinced them that a terrible punishment awaited them if they didn’t improve their behavior.
Because it provides a look into the life of Charlemagne, a superstar from the time period, and it is the first biography written since the Roman era, The Life of Charlemagne deserves to be preserved.
Works Cited:
Fiero, Gloria. The Humanistic Tradition. The McGraw Hill Companies, 2002.
Halsall, Paul. "Medieval sourcebook: the monk of St Gall." Fordham. Edu. January 1999. Internet medieval source book, Web. 3-20-2011. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/stgall-charlemagne.html
Picherit, Jean-Louis, trans. The Journey of Charlemagne to Jerusalem and Constantinople. Birmingham, ala.: Summa Publications, 1984.
Quizot, Francois. The History of Civilization in Europe. Translated by William Hazlitt. London: Penguin, 1997.
Wilson, Derek. Charlemagne. 1st. 1. London: Vintage Books, 2005. Print.