So now we have brought the story to a point when we may very well pause a moment and take a look at the map, to see how things have been arranging themselves--to ask ourselves "Who's who?" in A.D. 800 and "Who has what?" It is on Christmas Day of that year that the mighty Charlemagne, the greatest king of the Franks, is consecrated Emperor by the Pope at Rome. That fact in itself tells a story. But as for the world map of that time, you will remember how it was with our England, that the Anglo-Saxons, or one or other of those tribes from Jutland, held all the east; that the boundaries of Wessex went far west, where England is at its broadest; that Mercia was the Middle England, and that in the north was Northumbria, which went up to the southern limits of the Picts and Scots in Caledonia. The West Country, as we call it now, and Wales and the West of Cumberland, as well as Ireland, were still in the hands of the Celts. There were Celts too on the Continent, in Brittany, and in parts of Spain. Spain itself, with little exception, was held by the Moors, but of course the Gothic and Roman population, whom the conquering Moors found there, still remained there too. The Saracens also had all that Northern African strip as far east as Libya and Egypt. They had Egypt itself, Palestine, Syria and away to the east into India and so out of our picture. In Asia Minor they kept up a continual contest for many years with the Eastern Empire. That Eastern Empire itself has become a poor possession in comparison with its extent at the date of the Roman Empire's division. It has a hold on the extreme South of Italy and it also claims the islands {77} of Sardinia, Sicily, and of the Ægean Sea. It holds Asia Minor as far south as the borders of Mesopotamia and northwards to the Black Sea; but in those regions it is continually menaced by the Saracens. What we now call Turkey in Europe is within the Empire, and also the greater part of Thrace. It retains Greece; but of Macedonia it has scarcely any grip. Various barbarian tribes, Slavs, Serbs, Bulgars, have possession of the country up to the Danube. [Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE'S SWORD. (From the Imperial Treasury, Vienna.)]