CHARLES THE GREAT 37 
won the imperial crown by conquest. The papal party 
declared that the crown had been bestowed by the 
Pope and that the Empire was “the handmaid of the 
papacy.” The Romans maintained that to the Senate 
and people of Rome belonged the inalienable right of 
granting the crown of the Casars. 
Such were the theories of later times. It is not easy 
to ascertain clearly the motives of the chief actors in 
the drama. Charles himself declared that he had been 
completely taken by surprise, and that had he known 
the plans of the Pope he would not have entered the 
church that day. There is no doubt that he had 
looked forward to reviving the Western Empire, but 
that could only be legally effected with the consent of 
the Emperor at Constantinople. The coronation by 
the Pope was an act of rebellion which precipitated 
matters. From this time it was the great aim of 
Charles’ policy to secure the recognition of Constanti- 
nople, a recognition which at last he obtained in 812, 
when he was saluted as “Imperator” and “ Basileus ” 
by the ambassadors of the Eastern Empire. 
In extent the Empire of Charles was by no means THE 
coincident with the old Roman Empire of the West. San 
Africa and Spain were in the hands of the Moslem ; CHARLES: 
Britain was outside his dominions; in Italy itself, the 
toe and heel of the peninsula, as also the Island of 
Sicily, still maintained their allegiance to the Eastern 
Emperor. But to the north and east, beyond the Irs 
Rhine and Danube, he ruled territories where the EXTENT 
old imperial power had never penetrated. 
The government of such large and heterogeneous AND 
dominions needed statesmanlike qualities of no mean GOVERN- 
order, and Charles, like Julius Caesar, like Augustus,