ITALY AND HER INVADERS.
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLY ARNULFINGS.
The first appearance of the ancestors of Charles the Great on the stage
of history is in the year 613, when the long duel between the houses of
Sigibert and Chilperic, kings respectively of Austrasia and Neustria, and
husbands of Brunichildis and Fredegundis, was brought to a close. As has been
said, Chlotochar II, son of Chilperic and Fredegundis, invaded Austrasia, then
under the nominal rule of the infant Sigibert, really governed by his great
grandmother, the once beautiful, always ambitious, and now vindictive
Brunichildis. We are told that it was at the instigation of Arnulf and Pippin
and the other nobles of Austrasia that this invasion was made. Partly by the
help of those men, and partly by the devices of the Major domus Warnachar (who
discovered that Brunichildis was plotting against him and turned conspirator to
save his life), Chlotochar’s invasion was crowned
with complete success. The whole Frankish realm was reunited under the sceptre
of the Neustrian king, and the son of Fredegundis doomed his mother's rival to
a cruel and shameful death.
Who, then, were these two men who at a critical moment led the
Austrasian aristocracy to victory in their lifelong struggle against the
domineering but statesmanlike Brunichildis?
Arnulf, Archbishop of Metz, was sprung from a noble family among the
Ripuarian Franks. More than this cannot be stated concerning his ancestry,
though the imaginative zeal of later genealogists invented for him a pedigree
adorned with the names of kings, saints, and senators. He seems to have been
born about 582, and to have come as a young and clever lad to the Austrasian
Court when Theudebert was reigning there after the expulsion of his grandmother
Brunichildis (599). He rose into high favour with Gundulf,
the Austrasian Mayor of the Palace, showed himself an efficient servant of the
Crown, both in peace and war, and was promoted, we are told, to the presidency
over six ‘provinces' which were usually assigned to as many governors. He
married a noble lady, who bore him two sons, Anschisus and Chlodulf, and he
formed what proved to be a lifelong friendship with another officer of the
Court named Romaric. The talk of the two friends turned often on religious
subjects, and they not unfrequently discussed a plan for renouncing the world,
retiring to some convent, and there continuing their friendly dialogues till
death should sever them.
It was during this period of immersion in worldly affairs, while his
heart longed for the cloister, that the following incident is said to have
happened. He was walking one day over the bridge at Metz, penitent for his sins
and doubtful whether his repentance was accepted in the sight of God. Looking
down into the deep currents of the Moselle, the bottom of which his eye failed
to reach, be drew off the ring from his finger and cast it into the depths of
the river. “Then”, said he to himself, “when I shall receive again this ring
which I now cast away, shall I feel sure that I am loosed from the bonds of
mine iniquities”. Years after, when he was sitting on the episcopal throne of
Metz, a fish was brought to the palace and prepared for the evening meal. In
the fish's intestines the cook found the well-known ring and brought it to his
master, who received with joy this token of the Divine forgiveness, but felt
himself bound thereby to a life of even greater austerity than aforetime.
This anecdote was related by the great Emperor Charles, Arnulf's
descendant in the fifth generation, to his friend and secretary Einhard. It of
course recalls to our mind the well-known story of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos,
but the moral of the two stories is quite dissimilar, and it may be doubted
whether Einhard, and much more whether his master, had ever scanned the pages
of Herodotus.
The holy conversations with Romaric continued, and the two friends were
about to execute their purpose of retiring from the world. Arnulf's pious
eagerness to divide his property among the poor was acquiesced in by his elder
son Anschisus, but opposed by Chlodulf. Divine Providence, so it was held by
later generations, rewarded each brother according to his works. Chlodulf, with
his heart set on wealth, reached no higher dignity than that of Archbishop of
Metz, and dying left no seed, while Anschisus became virtually chief ruler of
Austrasia and was the progenitor of kings and emperors.
When the two friends were at last on the point of retiring into the
wilderness, the Archbishop of Metz died, and the citizens with one voice
demanded that Arnulf, ‘domestic and counsellor of the king', should be ordained
in his stead. There was the usual resistance on Arnulf's part, followed by his
compulsory assumption of the dignity : and this elevation appears to have taken
place about Christmas, 611, very shortly before the overthrow of Theudebert.
Though practising the usual austerities of a medieval saint, fasting for
three days at a time, living on barley-bread and water, wearing a hair-shirt
and working miracles, Arnulf did not lay down the office, whatever it was,
which he held in the Austrasian Court. And in his guidance of the affairs of
the kingdom he was powerfully aided by his friend Pippin, who is usually known
as Pippin of Landen, and who was an Austrasian nobleman with large possessions
between the Meuse and the Moselle.
Between them these two statesmen succeeded in foiling the designs of
Brunichildis to become regent of Austrasia after the death of her two grandsons
Theudebert and Theodoric, and as we have seen, by their timely defection, they
won a bloodless victory for Chlotochar II, who thus became sole monarch of the
Frankish kingdom (613).
But the Austrasian spirit of independence required a separate ruler, and
accordingly in 622 Chlotochar delegated the sovereignty of Austrasia to his son
Dagobert, a young man of about twenty years of age. Arnulf and Pippin were
recognized as the chief advisers of the young king, and the latter nobleman
probably held the office of Mayor of the Palace. On the testimony of historians
who were their contemporaries, and who had therefore no especial reason for
flattering the ancestors of Charlemagne, Dagobert's Austrasian sovereignty
under the guidance of these two men was a time of wise and firm government. A
certain Chrodoald, descended from the dukes of Bavaria, who like some turbulent
baron of the Middle Ages was trampling on the rights of the lowly and setting
himself against the administrators of the law, was by their advice condemned to
death, and this sentence was carried into effect, notwithstanding the attempted
mediation of Chlotochar on his behalf. This execution of Chrodoald perhaps
brought to a head the discord between father and son. Dagobert had not received
the kingdom of Austrasia in its fullness, but had been limited to the regions
eastward of the Ardennes and the Vosges mountains. This limitation rankled in
his mind and in that of his subjects and would perhaps have led to civil war,
but the matter was referred to the arbitration of twelve Franks, Bishop Arnulf
among them, by whom it was amicably arranged, Dagobert receiving all the
Austrasian kingdom properly so-called, but renouncing all claim to the outlying
portions in Aquitaine and Provence, which had been hitherto held by his
predecessors at Metz.
After Dagobert had been five years on the Austrasian throne, he lost the
more eminent of his two counsellors. Arnulf's desire for solitude and seclusion
could be no longer repressed, and in the year 627 he announced to the king that
he was about to lay down his episcopal dignity and depart to the wilderness.
Enraged at this threatened desertion, Dagobert said, “Unless thou stayest with me, I cut off the heads of thy two sons”. “My
sons' lives”, said the bishop, “are in the hands of God, nor will thy life be
long if thou takest away the life of the innocent”.
Dagobert in his anger began to pluck at the dagger which hung from his belt;
but the saint, not heeding his wrath, said, “What are you doing, most miserable
of men? Would you repay evil for good? If you will stain that dagger with my
blood. I do not fear to die in obedience to the commands of Him who died for
me”. A courtier intervened : the queen came upon the scene, and soon the royal
pair were kneeling at the bishop's feet, beseeching him with tears to go to the
wilderness, to do what he would, if only he would grant them forgiveness for
Dagobert's wicked words.
Emerging from the palace, Arnulf met a sight which doubtless shook his
resolution more than all the threats of his master. The lame and blind, the
widows and orphans, of the city, who had heard of his intended abdication of
the see, crowded round the palace gates, crying with doleful voices, “O good
shepherd! who will give us food and clothing when thou art gone? We pray thee,
in Christ's name, do not leave us”. Arnulf gently assured them that some good
and merciful man would be found, to be his successor, and comforted them with
the story of Lazarus, as miserable as any of them, yet carried by angels into
Abraham's bosom. So he passed through the weeping throng, and gained the haven
of his oratory.
A successor named Goeric or Abbo, a man somewhat of his own type of
character, was found to fill his place. The faithful Romaric, who had long
before retired from the world, came to escort his friend to the place which he
had prepared for his reception in the wilderness. But a miracle was to be
wrought ere the late bishop could leave his cathedral city. A fire broke out in
Metz the night before the day fixed for his departure. The royal store-house
was already consumed : the house in which Arnulf was dwelling was threatened.
Romaric and his friends burst into the house, found the saint singing psalms,
told him that the horses were at the door, and adjured him to fly.
“Not so”, said Arnulf. “Take me hence, and set me where I can see this
impious conflagration. If it be God's will that I be burned, I am in His hand”.
They went together to the burning house; they knelt in prayer: the saint raised
the banner of the Cross against the raging flames, which at once began to die
down. Arnulf and his friends having sung matins, returned to their beds and
passed the rest of the night in sleep.
Having disposed of all his worldly goods—now it must be supposed, with
the consent of both his sons—Arnulf retired into the wilderness, apparently
somewhere among the solitudes of the Vosges mountains, and there with his
friend Romaric passed the last fourteen years of his life. He had a few monks
with him, as well as certain lepers, upon whom he waited, performing the most
repulsive and menial offices for them with alacrity. He died in July or August,
641; and his body, at first buried by his friend Romaric at the place which,
called after that friend, still bears the name Remiremont,
was carried with great solemnity by his successor Goeric, to the city of Metz,
where the great cathedral of St. Arnoulf preserves his memory to this day.
The veneration for the canonized bishop of Metz soon spread over Gaul,
and he was accounted in an especial manner the patron of the Frankish nation.
We who read his life with colder sympathies, can yet see that here was a man
who deserved to be held in reverence, a statesman and one acquainted with
courts, who nevertheless held the joys and the rewards of the life eternal more
precious than worldly rank and station. In reading his life, one cannot but
feel that in some way the Frankish nation, or at least the Austrasian portion
of it, has groped its way upwards since the fifth century. Bishop Arnulf s is
an utterly different type of character from the greedy, turbulent, licentious
prelates who deface the pages of Gregory of Tours. And when we study the deeds
of the great race of statesmen and of kings who sprang from the loins of
Arnulf, we shall be often reminded how different was their original from that
of the Merovingian race. The half-heathen and wholly vicious Clovis, descendant
of the sea-monster, was a fitting ancestor of the Chilperics and Childerics, who slew their kinsfolk when they
were strong and their own manhood when they were weak. The saintly and yet
wise-hearted Arnulf was a worthy progenitor of the Pippins and Charleses, who were for two centuries among the foremost
men in Europe, and whose lives, whatever might be their faults, were one long
battle on behalf of Christianity and civilization.
Of the other great ancestor of Charlemagne, Pippin ‘of Landen', there is
less to tell than of Arnulf.
In the year 628, very shortly after Arnulf's retirement from the Court,
Chlotochar II, king of Neustria and Burgundy, died, and his son Dagobert went
from the Rhine-land to Paris to wield the sceptre over the whole Frankish
realm. His advent was hailed with acclamation, for all Neustria had heard of
the young king's wise and just rule over the Austrasian kingdom.
But it was soon and sadly seen how much of that reputation was really
due to his counsellors Arnulf and Pippin. The air of Neustria, the influence of
the corrupt Gallo-Roman civilization, awoke the slumbering vices of the
Merovingian. Three queens at once, and more concubines than the chronicler
cares to enumerate, flaunted it in the Court of Paris, and to supply their
extravagances and his own craving for luxury, Dagobert laid greedy hands on the
property both of his leudes and of the Church. This
latter charge (as the story of his life is written by churchmen) perhaps
requires us not to give too implicit faith to the harsh judgment which they
have pronounced on his character.
The relation borne by Pippin of Landen to Dagobert after the death of
his father is not very clear. He seems to have followed his young sovereign to
Paris, and to have sought to continue to guide him in the administration of his
kingdom. But doubtless there was jealousy in Neustria of the influence of the
Austrasian counsellor, and strangely enough from Austrasia also came a growl of
rage against the too powerful minister. Probably the turbulent nobles against
whom he had asserted the royal prerogatives, now saw their opportunity of
revenge. The chronicler tells us “The fury of the Austrasians against him grew
so vehement that they even sought to render him odious to Dagobert in order
that he might be slain”. These evil designs were foiled, but Pippin seems to
have lost all power at Court, and to have passed the next eight years (630-638)
in retirement, possibly at Orleans, where he was perhaps charged with the
education of Dagobert's young son, Sigibert.
It was during this time of obscuration, probably near its commencement,
that the fortunes of the two retired ministers were linked together by the
marriage of their children. Somewhere about the year 630, Ansegisel (or Anschisus), the younger son of St. Arnulf, married Becga,
daughter of Pippin and sister of the sainted Gertrude, who was the first abbess
of the convent of Nivelles in Brabant, founded by her
mother.
On the death of Dagobert in 638, we are told that Pippin and the other
leaders of the Austrasians, who up to the king's death had been kept in
control, unanimously asked for Sigibert as their king. Pippin renewed his
former strong friendship with Cunibert, bishop of
Cologne, drew to his side all the Austrasian leudes,
and by his prudent and gentle rule obtained their friendship, and kept it to
the end. Apparently we have here the story of something like a
counterrevolution after the death of Dagobert, by which Pippin, now a man of
about fifty years of age, was recalled amid the acclamations of his countrymen
to undertake the duties of Major Domus for the young king. In this capacity he
accomplished the important task of dividing the treasures unjustly accumulated
by Dagobert. Along with Bishop Cunibert and other
Austrasian nobles, he met at the ‘villa' of Compendium the widowed queen Nantildis and the magnates of Neustria. One-third of the
treasure was assigned to Clovis, the boy-king of Neustria, one-third to the
queen dowager, and the remaining third, allotted to Sigibert, was carried by Cunibert and Pippin to the palace at Metz. Shortly after
this transaction, in the year 639 or 640, Pippin died, “and by his death caused
great sorrow to all the people of Auster (Austrasia), because he had been loved
by them for his goodness and his zeal on behalf of justice”. His friend St.
Arnulf, who doubtless heard of his death in his wilderness abode, followed him
to the tomb in little more than a year.
For sixteen years after the death of Pippin of Landen, the foremost
figure in Austrasian history was his son Grimwald. His name and some points in
his history remind us of his more famous contemporary, Grimwald the Lombard,
duke of Benevento, and, by a successful stroke of treason, king of the
Lombards. There was, as we have seen, some friendly intercourse between Franks
and Lombards in the early part of the sixth century, but apparently there is
nothing to justify us in considering the Austrasian duke as namesake of the
Lombard king.
Not immediately on the death of the elder Pippin did Grimwald obtain the
position of Major Domus in the Austrasian kingdom. That position seems to have
been at first held by a certain Otto, who had been tutor to the new king
Sigibert in his childhood, but after two or three years of struggle, Otto was
slain by Leuthar, duke of the Alamanni, who was ‘of the faction of Grimwald',
and the son of Pippin was recognized by all as Major Domus in his father's
place. As to Grimwald's government during the thirteen or fourteen years that
followed (643 or 642 to 656), we know very little. We are told that he was
loved like his father, and it is conjectured that he fostered the pious
inclinations of his young king, and was, like him, a liberal friend to the
Church : but it is by his premature attempt to turn Majordomat into sovereignty that he is alone famous in history. When Sigibert, king of
Austrasia, died in 656, at the age (for a Merovingian king, the advanced age)
of twenty-six, Grimwald had the long locks of his son Dagobert shorn off, and
sent him to lead a holy life in an Irish monastery, proclaiming his own son, to
whom he had given the Merovingian name Childebert, king of the Franks.
But the time was not yet ripe for such a revolution; neither had the
family of Pippin, though wealthy, powerful, and perhaps popular, yet done any
such deeds as justified them in claiming, as of hereditary right, the
allegiance even of Austrasia, much less of all the Frankish kingdoms. “The
Franks”, we are told by a chronicler, “being moved with great indignation, laid
snares for Grimwald, and taking him prisoner carried him to Clovis [the Second,
brother of Sigibert] for condemnation. Being confined in prison in the city of
Paris, and afflicted with the agony of chains, he, who was worthy of death for
his practices against his lord, ended his life in mighty torments”.
The result of this premature attempt at revolution was for a time to
obscure the fortunes of the two great Austrasian houses. Anschisus, or Ansegisel, Grimwald's brother-in-law, who is the least
noticeable figure among the Arnulfings, after holding
the office of Major Domus for a few years (632-638), before the return of the
elder Pippin, subsides into obscurity, and we hear no more concerning him save
for a late and doubtful statement that he was treacherously slain in 685 by a
certain Gunduin, and that his death was gloriously
avenged by his son. To the deeds of that son, Pippin ‘of Heristal,' grandson of
St. Arnulf on his father's side, grandson of Pippin ‘of Landen' on his mother's
side, we now turn : for now, at last, the shadows are beginning to disperse,
and we begin to see something of the well-known
‘shapes that must
undergo mortality.’
