CHAPTER VII

Summary

Adrian the First died on Christmas Day, 795, after a glorious reign of more than twenty-three years. The news of his death affected Charles profoundly. Long intercourse, and the consciousness of the task which destiny had laid upon them, had made friends of the two men,—the two most striking figures of their time. In the relations which existed between them was manifested, for the first time in the West, the mutual interdependence of Church and State, powers which, under the Greek Empire, had been at open enmity with each other. The Roman Church, having shaken off the yoke of Byzantine Imperialism, could now unite as an independent power with the growing Western Empire, at the head of which stood the Frankish King. Charles honoured the memory of his friend by the solemnisation of masses for his soul, by the distribution of alms in every province of his kingdom, and by an inscription in gold letters on black marble, which he placed over Adrian's tomb in S. Peter's. This inscription, which still exists, is built into the wall on the left of the main entrance in the vestibule of the basilica.