464 CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 



romances of chivalry, relates the fabled expedition of Charlemagne and his 

 paladins into Spain. It is in two distinct parts : the first five chapters were 

 written in the middle of the eleventh, and the others in the beginning of the 

 twelfth century. Here is the place to speak of the beautiful " Chanson de 

 Roland," but there is no need to mention the narrative of the pseudo- 

 Philomene concerning the doings of Charlemagne at Narbonne and at 

 Carcassonne, and his fabled expedition to the Holy Land to restore the 

 Patriarch of Jerusalem, whom the Arabs had driven out (Fig. 359). 



Eginhard and Paul Diacre are the only trustworthy historians of the reign 

 of Charlemagne. Paul Warnefride, surnamed Diacre, because he had taken 

 deacon's orders, was secretary to the Lombard king, Didier, and afterwards 

 lived at the court of Charlemagne before he went into the Monastery of 

 Monte Cassini, where he completed his History of the Lombards ('' De Gestis 

 Langobardorum ") and his Abridgment of Roman History. It would be a 

 mistake to suppose that barbarism, which appeared to have been arrested in 

 its onward progress during the reign of Charlemagne, resumed its sway in 

 the troubled reigns which followed. There was a rapid addition to the 

 number of historians, who made their voices heard even in this (tenth) century 

 of disorder and social transition. Every reign, every epoch, and every abbey 

 had its chroniclers. In the ninth century, Ermold le Noir, Abbot of Aniane, 

 wrote the Life of Louis the Debonnairc ; and Nithard, a soldier and grandson 

 of Charlemagne, who was born in 790 and died in 858, wrote a history of the 

 quarrels and strife which took place amongst the sons of that sovereign. 



The tenth century produced many good historians in nearly every country 

 of Europe. In Italy, Luitprand, Bishop of Cremona, and twice ambassador 

 at Constantinople, wrote the History of contemporary Germany (862 to 984) ; 

 Witikind, monk of an abbey near Paderborn, wrote the Annals of the 

 Imperial House under the Othos ; and Dudon, Canon of St. Quintin, under- 

 took the History of the early Dukes of Normandy. There was an abundance of 

 historians, in fact ; and while Abbon, Abbot of the old Benedictine monastery 

 of Fleury-sur- Loire (died in 933) described in epic verse the siege of Paris by 

 the Normans ("De Bello Parisiacsc Urbis") a siege of which he was an eye- 

 witness Flodoard, Canon of Rheims, who died in 966, wrote some local 

 Chronicles, in which are recorded many events of general interest. 



Most of the numerous historians of the eleventh century were prelates 

 and monks, among whom may be mentioned Dithmar, Bishop of Merseburg 



