century;
a pretty late period! A few signatures to deeds appear in the fourteenth
century; in the next they are more frequent. Ibid. The emperor Frederic
Barbarossa could not read (Struvius, Corpus Hist. German. t. i. p. 377),
nor John king of Bohemia in the middle of the fourteenth century
(Sismondi, t. v. p. 205), nor Philip the Hardy, king of France, although
the son of St. Louis. (Velly, t. vi. p. 426.)

[505] Louis IV., king of France, laughing at Fulk count of Anjou, who
sang anthems among the choristers of Tours, received the following pithy
epistle from his learned vassal: Noveritis, domines quod rex illiteratus
est asinus coronatus. Gesta Comitum Andegavensium. In the same book,
Geoffrey, father of our Henry II., is said to be optime literatus; which
perhaps imports little more learning than his ancestor Fulk possessed.

[506] The passage in Eginhard, which has occasioned so much dispute,
speaks for itself: Tentabat et scribere, tabulasque et codicillos ad hoc
in lecticula sub cervicalibus circumferre solebat, ut, cum vacuum tempus
esset, manum effigiandis literis assuefaceret; sed parum prospere
successit labor praeposterus ac sero inchoatus.

Many are still unwilling to believe that Charlemagne could not write. M.
Ampere observes that the emperor asserts himself to have been the author
of the Libri Carolini, and is said by some to have composed verses.
Hist. Litt. de la France, iii. 37. But did not Henry VIII. claim a book
against Luther, which was not written by himself? _Qui facit per alium,
facit per se_, is in all cases a royal prerogative. Even if the book
were Charlemagne's own, might he not have dictated it? I have been
informed that there is a manuscript at Vienna with autograph notes of
Charlemagne in the margin. But is there sufficient evidence of their
genuineness? The great difficulty is to get over the words which I have
quoted from Eginhard. M. Ampere ingeniously conjectures that the passage
does not relate to simple common writing, but to calligraphy; the art of
delineating characters in a beautiful manner, practised by the copyists,
and of which a contemporaneous specimen may be seen in the well-known
Bible of the British Museum. Yet it must be remembered that
Charlemagne's early life passed in the depths of ignorance; and Eginhard
gives a fair reason why he failed in acquiring the art of writing, that
he began too late. Fingers of fifty are not made for a new skill. It is
not, of course, im