Charlemagne (742 – 814 A.D.)

Charlemagne (742 – 814 A.D.), king of the Franks was conversant in Latin and Greek. The great king of the Franks memorized great portions of the Old Testament. Although Charlemagne could read he never learned to write.

"Charles saw the state as more than the king’s private property. He was strongly influenced by the ideas of St. Augustine and the Old Testament, and felt a responsibility to create an ordered, harmonious society in which all men could work together toward eternal salvation. To achieve Christian concord, he labored to discover the causes of disorder and injustice. He issued a flood of laws, called capitularies, to correct abuses and prevent their reoccurrence. He imposed on his local agents, the courts, the responsibility to enact these laws and to do justice to all who had complaints. Repeatedly he sent his loyal agents to the missi dominici across his realm to check on the state of local affairs and correct abuses. This activity did much to bring order and justice out of the political chaos that had plagued the Frankish state at an earlier age."

A Dictionary of Christian Biography declares,

“The maxims of government which he adopted were drawn much more from the theocracy of the Old Testament than from the despotism of the Roman empire.”