114 



CHARITY 



tions throughout the three kingdoms is upwards 

 of eighty. A society based on similar lines to the 

 English Charity Organisation Society was founded 

 at Buffalo, U.S., in 1877; and Philadelphia, Brook- 

 lyn, Boston, Newport, Detroit, Baltimore, Wash- 

 ington, New York, and many other American towns 

 have since followed the example. 

 Charity, SISTERS OF. See SISTERHOODS. 



Chariva'ri is a French term used to designate 

 a wild tumult and uproar, produced by the beating 

 of pans, kettles, and dishes, mingled with whistling, 

 bawling, groans, and hisses, expressive of displea- 

 sure at the person against whom it is directed. Its 

 etymology is obscure ; the Germans translate it by 

 Katzenmusik, to which in English Cafs-concert 

 corresponds. In France, during the middle ages, a 

 charivari was generally raised against persons con- 

 tracting second nuptials, in which case the widow 

 was specially assailed. On these occasions the 

 participators in it, who were masked, accompanied 

 their hubbub by the singing of satirical and inde- 

 cent verses, and would not cease till the wedding 

 couple had purchased their peace by ransom. 

 Charivari answers to the English concert upon 

 ' marrow-bones and cleavers,' popularly termed 

 'rough music,' with which it was customary to 

 attack a married couple who lived in notorious dis- 

 cord. It was also got up against an unequal match, 

 such as where there was great disparity in age 

 between the bride and bridegroom. The charivari 

 or ' shiveree ' is not uncommon in the frontier 

 districts of the United States. 



Sometimes these customs were of such a licentious 

 and violent character as to require military interfer- 

 ence. As early as the 14th century the church was 

 forced to threaten punishment, and even excom- 

 munication, against those who participated in them. 

 In more recent times, the charivari, from its sug- 

 gesting derision, ridicule, and satire, has come to be 

 employed as the name of several satirical journals, 

 the most famous among which is the CHARIVARI, 

 which was established in Paris, December 2, 1832. 

 Punch (q.v.) is the English Charivari. 



Charjui, a Russian town of Central Asia, on 

 the Amu-Daria or Oxus, where the Transcaspian 

 railway between Merv and Bokhara crosses the 

 river by a great bridge opened in 1888. 



Charkofi". See KHARKOFF. 



Charlatan, a mountebank, quack-doctor, or 

 empiric, and hence any one who makes loud 

 pretensions to knowledge or skill that he does not 

 possess. The word was introduced in the 16th 

 century from the Italian ciarlatano, from ciarlare, 

 ' to babble. ' 



Charlemagne, i.e. Charles the Great, king 

 of the Franks (768-814), and Roman emperor 

 (800-14), was born on 2d April 742, perhaps at 

 Aix-la-Chapelle, and was the eldest son of Pepin 

 the Short, the first Carlovingian ( q. v. ) king of the 

 Franks, and grandson of Charles Martel. On 

 Pepin's death in 768, Charles and his brother 

 Carloman jointly succeeded to the throne ; and by 

 Carloman's death, and the exclusion of both his sons 

 from the throne, the former became sole king in 

 771. In 772 it was resolved in the Diet at Worms 

 to make war against the Saxons, for the security 

 of the frontiers, which they continually threatened, 

 and for the extension of the Christian religion. 

 Charlemagne advanced as far as the Weser in 772, 

 securing his conquests by castles and garrisons. 

 Pope Adrian I. now callecl him to his aid against 

 Desiderius, king of the Lombards. Charlemagne 

 had married the daughter of Desiderius, and had 

 sent her back to her father because she bore him no 

 children, and married Hildegarde, daughter of the 

 Swabian duke, Godfrey. Desiderius had sought 



revenge by urging the pope to crown, the sons of 

 Carloman, and on the pope's refusal Jjftd laid waste 

 the papal territory. Charlemagne crossed the Alps 

 from Geneva, with two armies, by the Great St 

 Bernard and Mont Cenis, in 773, and overthrew the 

 kingdom of the Lombards in 774. The Lombard 

 dukes acknowledged him as their king, and he 

 secured the pope's favour by confirming the gift 

 which Pepin had made to the papal see of the 

 exarchate of Ravenna. In 775 he was again 

 employed in the most northerly part of his 

 dominions, reducing the Saxons to subjection ; in 

 776 he suppressed an insurrection in Italy ; in 777 

 he so completed his victory over the Saxons that 

 their nobles generally acknowledged him as their- 

 sovereign in an assembly at Paderborn. Being now 

 invited to interpose in the wars of the Arabs and 

 Moors in Spain, he hastened to that country in 778, 

 and added to his dominions the region between the- 

 Pyrenees and the Ebro. From Spain he was 

 summoned in haste by a new insurrection of part of 

 the Saxons, who had advanced almost to Cologne, 

 but whom he drove back to the Elbe. In 781 he- 

 went to Italy, where the pope crowned his second 

 son, Pepin, king of Italy, and his third son, 

 Louis, a child three years old, king of Aqui- 

 taine. The Saxons, once more rising in arms, 

 defeated and destroyed a Frankish army in 782, 

 which Charlemagne, after a new victory, fearfully 

 avenged by causing no fewer than 4500 prisoners 

 to be executed as rebels in a single day. A more 

 general rising of the Saxons followed, but in 783- 

 785 the Frankish monarch succeeded in reducing" 

 them completely to subjection, and in persuading 

 their principal chiefs to submit to baptism and to 

 become his faithful vassals. In 788 Bavaria was 

 absorbed in the empire of Charlemagne, an event 

 which brought the Franks into contact with the 

 Avars. They, too, were now subdued, and the 

 Frankish dominions extended to the Raab. The 

 eastern ' mark,' the nucleus of the Austrian empire, 

 was established to defend the frontier in that 

 direction ( 798 ). 



In 800 Charlemagne undertook an Italian cam- 

 paign which was attended with the most moment- 

 ous consequences. Its immediate purpose was. 

 to support Pope Leo III. against the rebellious 

 Romans. When Charlemagne, on Christmas Day 

 800, was worshipping in St Peter's Church, the 

 pope unexpectedly, as it appeared, set a crown 

 upon his head, and, amidst the acclamations of the 

 people, saluted him as Carolus Augustus, emperor 

 of the Romans. Although this added nothing 

 directly to his power, yet it greatly confirmed and 

 increased the respect entertained for him, such was 

 still the lustre of a title with which were associated 

 recollections of all the greatness of the Roman 

 empire. A scheme for the union of the newly 

 revived Western Empire with the Empire of the 

 East by Charlemagne s marriage with Irene ( q. v. ), 

 the Byzantine empress, failed by reason of Irene's 

 overthrow. The remaining years of his reign were 

 spent in further consolidating his vast empire, 

 which extended from the Ebro to the Elbe. 

 Bishoprics were founded in the Saxon country, 

 many of the Slavs beyond the Elbe were brought 

 into dependence on the empire, and the Eider was 

 recognised as the boundary between the Frankish 

 dominions and Denmark. The empire was divided 

 into districts ruled by counts ; counts specially 

 called markgrafen, or counts of the marches, 

 defended the frontiers against attack ; and 

 the unity of rule was maintained by officers, 

 the missi dominici, who were sent out in all 

 directions as the organs of the imperial will. This 

 organisation was promoted also by a great annual 

 military muster and by an annual assemblage of 

 the high officials of the empire. Charlemagne? 



