hing should be done as well as
possible. He would point with his finger or with his staff at any person
whom he wished to read in chapel, and when he wished any one to stop he
coughed; and it was expected that at these signals each person would
begin or stop at once, although it might be in the middle of a sentence.

During this time the question of images, which I have already
mentioned,[65] came up again in the Greek Church. A council was held in
787 at Nicaea, where the first general council had met in the time of
Constantine, more than four centuries and a half before;[66] and in this
second Nicene council images were approved of. In the West, the popes
were also for them; but they were condemned in a council at Frankfort,
and a book was written against them in the name of Charles. It is
supposed that this book was mostly the work of Alcuin, but that Charles,
besides allowing it to go forth with his name and authority, had really
himself had a share in making it.

[65] Page 170.

[66] See Part I., chap. XI.

Charles the Great died in the year 814. A short time before his death,
he sent for his son Lewis, and in the great church at Aix-la-Chapelle,
which was Charles's favourite place of abode, he took from the altar a
golden crown, and with his own hands placed it on the head of Lewis. By
this he meant to show that he did not believe the empire to depend on
the pope's will, but considered it to be given to himself and his
successors by God alone.

CHAPTER V.

DECAY OF CHARLES THE GREAT'S EMPIRE.

A.D. 814-887.

Lewis, the son of Charles the Great, was a prince who had very much of
good in him, so that he is commonly called the Pious. But he was of weak
character, and his reign was full of troubles, mostly caused by the
ambition of his own sons, who were helped by a strong party among the
clergy, and even by Pope Gregory the Fourth. At one time he was obliged
to undergo public penance, and some years later he was deprived of his
kingdom and empire, although these acts caused such a shock to the
feelings of men that he found friends who helped him to recover his
power. And after his death (A.D. 840) his children and grandchildren
continued to quarrel among themselves as long as any of them lived.

Besides these quarrels among their princes, the Franks were troubled at
this time by enemies of many kinds.

First of all I may mention the Northmen, who poured down by sea on the
coasts of the more civil