Charlemagne’s personal character must not be judged by the standards of a time so remote from him as ours. He has been called dissolute; and it is true that he utterly disregarded the marriage tie, when it would limit either his pleasures or his ambition. He married five wives, only to dishonor them. He even encouraged, as it seems, his own daughters to live loose lives at home; refusing to give them in marriage to princes, lest their husbands might become competitors for a share of the kingdom. But he was never controlled by his favorite women, nor did he neglect state business for indulgence. Charlemagne has been censured as cruel; and, indeed, there are few acts recorded in history of more wanton cruelty than his slaughter in cold blood of thousands of Saxons at Verden. Yet this was not done in the exercise of passion or hatred, but as a measure of policy, a means deliberately devised to secure a definite end, in which it was successful. Charlemagne was never cruel upon impulse; but his inclinations were to gentleness and kindness. The key to his character is his unbounded ambition. In the pursuit of power he knew no scruple; the most direct and efficient means were always the right means to him. There is no doubt of his earnest attachment to the Christian Church and to the orthodox doctrines, as he understood them. But this was not associated with an appreciation of Christian morality, or a sense of human brotherhood. His passion for conquest was in large part a fanatical zeal for the propagation of a religion which he regarded as inseparable from his empire.
Charlemagne was held in high honor by foreign nations. The Caliph of Bagdad, Haroun-al-Raschid, wielded in the East a power comparable with his own. To Charlemagne he sent a friendly embassy, with precious gifts, and it was reciprocated in the same spirit. The kings of the Normans expressed their respect for him in a similar way. But his own taste esteemed the ring of a good sword more than gold. His person and his private life have been vividly depicted to us by Einhard (Eginhard), a youth educated at his court, to whom, according to legend, the emperor gave one of his daughters for a wife. Charlemagne was tall and strongly formed, measuring from crown to sole seven times the length of his own foot. He had an open brow, very large, quick eyes, an abundance of fine hair, which was white in his last years, and a cheerful countenance.[G]