num_pages: 256
description: Among the readings included are several existing letters by Emma (Einhard's wife), The Life of Charlemagne , and The History of His Relics . The latter work transports us into an almost unknown world as Einhard, the cool rationalist, arranges for a relic salesman, a veritable bone seller, to acquire saints? relics from Italy for installation into his new church. The reader is taken on an intrigue-filled trip to Rome, where Einhard's men creep into churches at night to steal bones and then spirit them away to Einhard in the north. The relics are received in town after town as if they were the living saints come to cure the infirm. Einhard's descriptions of the sick, the lame, and the blind of northern Europe vividly expose us to a side of medieval life too rarely encountered in other medieval sources.
language: English
title: Charlemagne's Courtier: The Complete Einhard
titlecomplete: Charlemagne's Courtier: The Complete Einhard (Readings in Medieval Civilizations & Cultures #3)
characters: Charlemagne
genres: Medieval History, Carolingian, History, Biography, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 60
series: Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures
publisher: University of Toronto Press, Higher Education Division