A. D. Vows of obedience. Charlemagne, supposing that 7-78. all was satisfactorily arranged, accepted an invitation to go into Spain on a campaign against the Arabians, and actually conquered that country as far as the Ebro, 778 A.D. Once again the Saxons revolted; once again he brought them to subjection, and marched a second time to Italy, 781 A.D. The Saxons took this opportunity of murdering all the Franks in their territory; and now, so bitter was the resentment of Charlemagne that he ordered for execution no less than 4500 Saxons, who had fallen under his power by the chances of war. Through this act of savage cruelty, the whole of Saxon-land was so excited that Charlemagne was obliged to retreat; and it was only when his army had been reinforced that he succeeded in subduing the revolt. At last, in the year 786 A.D., Wittekind, their chief leader, gave himself up, and received from Charlemagne the dukedom of Saxony. Charlemagne now had leisure to protect the north-east boundaries of his kingdom against the Witzen, 789 a.d. Between the years 794 and 798 he was engaged with still further revolts on the part of the Saxons. At this time it happened that a disturbance in Rome compelled the Pope to fly, and he applied for succour to Charlemagne, who restored him to his dominions, punished the ringleaders, and on the 25th of December, 800 A.D., Charlemagne was proclaimed Emperor of the Romans, in the church of St. Peter. By this new title Charlemagne 804. added nothing to his territory, but it had the ef- a. D. fect of giving him higher pretensions and importance among the powers of Europe. At last, in 804 A.D., all the Saxons presented themselves to be baptized into the Christian faith, and recognised the king of the Franks as their sovereign. Among the descendants of these Saxons, the old Saxon tongue is preserved to this day. The Witzen, between the Elbe and the Oder, were also subdued; and the Danes were compelled to take the Eider as their boundary. Charlemagne possessed the qualities of a statesman no less than those of a general; he caused information to be sent to him from all parts of the kingdom, and sent back his commands and instructions with equal facility. He deemed it a matter of the utmost importance not only to acquire knowledge himself, but to disseminate it among his people. He was a man of extensive reading, a ready speaker, and learnt to write after attaining the years of manhood. He invited an Englishman, named Alcuinus, from the county of York, educated under the "Venerable Bede," and renowned for his learning, to come over as tutor to his sons. He founded many schools, and kept them under his own superintendence. He was fond of making plans for buildings, and pursued agriculture and gardening with lively interest. The Franks, it appears, made but poor scholars, and were particularly perplexed with their singing lessons; or, at least, the Italians are said to have paid some very ill compliments A. D. to their vocal powers. Charlemagne was always 814. surrounded with learned men, among whom were those two amiable youths Eginhard and Augibbert, who, if there be truth in the legend, became his sons-in-law. The monks were extremely active in inciting Charlemagne to action. In the year 813 A.D., on the 16th of November, he presented his son Lewis to the assembled people, and with his own hands placed the crown on his head. In 814 A.D., Charlemagne died in the seventy-second year of his age. Among the memorable occurrences of his reign, it may be remarked that an Emir presented him with an elephant, and a Caliph presented him with a clock that struck the hours. This clock was the first work of the kind ever known in Germany. CHAP. XLIII. CLOCKS AND WATCHES-THEIR INVENTION. A. D. IN very early times, the people had no watches; 1000. and only observed the rising and setting of the sun as the natural limits of the day; or, at all events, the only other point they could distinguish was mid-day as discerned by the increase of the heat and the shortening of the shadows. The 1000. observation of increasing and decreasing shadows A. D. led to the discovery of the "gnomon," or sundial; an invention which appears to have been known first to the Egyptians. An observation of the regular and periodical alteration in the length of the shadows naturally taught men to separate the time between the rising of the sun and the shortening of the shadow into equal parts. But the days in summer and winter are of different lengths; in summer long, and in winter short; so that these divisions to make summer-time must have been longer than those for winter. The arrangement was of course imperfect; but the world was obliged to be satisfied with it, till it could discover a better. It had been the custom of the Babylonians to divide the day into twelve equal parts or hours; a custom which soon spread among other nations. Sundials were the only measures of time then known; an instrument which only enabled men to observe the time by day, and even then it required a clear and unclouded sky. This naturally gave a stimulus to still further inventions, and the water-clock was discovered. A cask full of water was placed over another which was empty; and a hole being made in the upper cask, an observation was taken of the time it required to discharge itself into the cask below. Various other means were also adopted, such as immersing an empty cask with a small hole in the bottom into another cask full of water, the hours being counted by the intervals 1000. A. D. of time occupied by the empty cask in filling and sinking. These water-clocks were the only kind in use before, and for some time after, the Christian era. The hours were reckoned from six in the morning; therefore, men called it one o'clock when we say seven; thus, the "sixth hour of the day," and "the ninth hour," mentioned in the twenty-seventh chapter of St. Matthew's gospel, implied respectively our mid-day and three in the afternoon. The Italians, at the present time, count from the setting of the sun on one day to its setting on the next, that is, from one to twentyfour. By means of the water-clock, the Romans divided the night into four watches. The clock which was sent as a present to Charlemagne was a water-clock, but provided with hands, and also with small bullets, which fell on a metal platter in numbers indicating the hour. Water, however, easily settles, nor does it remain of the same bulk in winter as in summer, but expanding and condensing according to the temperature; so sand was soon found to constitute the most accurate measure, and is still used for hour-glasses. All these contrivances, however, were mere make-shifts as compared with wheel-clocks, regulated either by weights or springs. Clocks which are regulated by weights are generally hung on the towers of churches or on walls; they were discovered before the year 1000 A.D., though it is not certainly known by whom. Gerbert, afterwards Pope under the name of Sylvester the Second, made one |