After describing the wars of Charles, Einhard, his contemporary, gives a summary of the conqueror’s achievements that deserves to be repeated: “Such are the wars,” he says, “which this most powerful king waged during forty-seven years. For as many years as these he reigned in the different parts of the earth with the greatest wisdom and the greatest success. So the kingdom of the Franks, which he had received from Pippin, his father, already vast and powerful, nobly developed as it was by him, was increased nearly twofold in extent. Before his day this kingdom included only that part of Gaul which lies between the Loire and the Rhine, the ocean and the sea of the Balearic Isles, and that portion of Germany occupied by the Franks (who are called Eastern) whose country lies between Saxony and the Danube, the Rhine and the Saale, the river which divides the Thuringians from the Swabians. Besides this, the Alemanni and the Bavarians acknowledged the overlordship of the Franks. To these possessions Charles added by his conquests first Aquitaine and Gascony, all the chain of the Pyrenees, and all the territories as far as the Elbe. Then all that part of Italy which extends from the valley of Aosta to lower Calabria, where is the frontier between the Beneventines and the Greeks, in length more than a million paces; then Saxony, which is a considerable part of Germany, as long and twice as broad, it seems, as the portion of this country inhabited by the Franks; then the two Pannonias; Dacia, situated on the other bank of the Danube; then Istria, Liburnia, and Dalmatia, with the exception of the coast cities which it pleased him to leave to the Emperor, because of the friendship and the alliance by which they were united. Finally, all the barbarous and savage nations situated between the Rhine and the Vistula, the ocean and the Danube, much alike in language, different in manners, and in their method of existence, all of whom he overcame and rendered tributary.” V THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE