Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/249

 THE FRANKISH STATE AND CHARLEMAGNE 209 ruled over other lands and peoples. Moreover, the Byzan- tine Empire now held nothing in the West except southern Italy and Sicily. Charlemagne's territory bore slight re- semblance, however, to the old Roman Empire, since he had nothing in the East and did not have Africa, Britain, or much of Spain in the West. On the other hand, his empire included a good slice of German territory between the Rhine and Elbe which the Romans had never been able to conquer. However, Rome was still a magic name with an eternal heritage, and for Rome once more to have an emperor was an event destined to exert a great future influ-
 * ence, as we shall see. For the present the new title made lit-

tle change in Charles's government, which was already both j as autocratic and as theocratic as it well could be. His sub- jects now kissed his knee and toe after the Byzantine usage; in 802 he exacted a new general oath of allegiance ; that was about all. Frankish Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) remained his j residence and capital. Strange to say, Charlemagne seems not to have been pleased by his coronation. He told his biographer, Einhard, that although it was the day of Christ's birth he would not have entered the church had he known what the pope in- tended to do. Possibly this was merely an expression of mod- est shrinking from so great an honor ; possibly he had even more ambitious schemes under way whose realization was prevented by the pope's officiousness ; possibly as a result of the pope's act he feared hostile complications with Con- stantinople, with which he seems lo have been at that time negotiating and planning a marriage. Finally, in 810-812 he concluded a treaty by which Constantinople recognized him as emperor in the West and he ceded Venice and the Dalmatian coast to the Byzantine Empire. Possibly he did not wish to be crowned by the pope and would have pre- ferred to assume the title himself or to receive it from the hands of the Byzantine emperor as the latter's colleague. At any rate, in the year before his death, he and his Franks themselves attended at Aachen to the imperial coronation of his only surviving son, Louis. Louis, however, who gained