Two Lives Of Charlemagne Analysis

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The book Two Lives of Charlemagne contains two different biographies of Charles the great or “Charlemagne”, who was king of Franks from 771-814 A.D. The first biography is titled “The Life Of Charlemagne” and is written by Einhard. The second biography is titled “Charlemagne” and is authored by Notker the Stammerer. Both biographies of Charlemagne are classical medieval literature, but they differ in their points of view and focus. Einhard mostly talked about the actual life of Charlemagne, the key political decisions, wars he was in, and the projects he’d been working on to help improve the society in his kingdom. Walahfrid Strabo states that “Einhard was one of the most highly thought of among all the palace officials of that time, not …show more content…
He lived close to him and they were close friends. Einhard also states that no one would be able to write about the life of Charlemagne as he did because no one was closer to the king at the time than Einhard himself. He also did everything in chronological order which is quite amazing. When Charlemagne died Einhard was still working on the project known as The Life of Charlemagne. He wanted the exact and detailed life of Charlemagne such as day to day activities, while Notker never visited Charlemagne or his kingdom. Notker did not enter the dates of events, rather he just talked about events to make the story sound good and just gave his opinions on Charlemagne. Both of these accounts reveal that Charlemagne was a kind and generous king who was very interested and had such enthusiasm and wisdom. Charlemagne cared about the kingdom and the people of the kingdom because he had messengers to report what was going on around the kingdom so he could improve it. It seems that the Carolingian Empire was a safe and peaceful empire because they had a king who actually cared. Out of all the kings I read about in history, Charlemagne seem really great to me because he cared about his people, he was kind and smart, and was great at

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