How Religious Was Charlemagne?

He fancied himself to have a divine commission to set up God's kingdom on earth, but he employed cunning, intrigue and extreme brutality. Every important project of his he invested with religious significance. He destroyed the pagan idols and groves of the Saxons and gave them the choice of being baptized or killed. However, toward the end of his reign Alcuin was able to persuade him that forced baptisms are meaningless, for a man can be forced to be baptized but not forced to believe. While he professed friendship with the popes and on more than one occasion came to their aid when they were threatened by military forces, a historian tells us that "the outcome of his policies seemed always to be a slap in the face for the pope."

In certain religious matters he showed himself superior to the popes and the bishops, and felt free to admonish them as to doctrine, morals and the discharge of their duties; in all respects of which they were coming woefully short. Among the many councils or meetings of ecclesiastics that he summoned was one for the purpose of condemning the teaching that Jesus was the adopted rather than the actual Son of God and to condemn the worship of images, although granting freedom to worship them. When the pope remonstrated, Charlemagne yielded not an inch.

He was quite familiar with the Bible and was fond of quoting it to support his measures. He showed his interest in it by having a revision made with the help of his scholar Alcuin, of which work Charlemagne exclaimed: "God helping us in all things, we have already procured a careful emendation of all the books of the Old and New Testament, which copyists in their ignorance have corrupted." While his personal life came far short of God's righteous requirements, he warned his subjects that his own salvation depended upon their conduct, since God would hold him responsible for their actions.

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