ABSTRACT
The restoration of the empire in the west in the year 800 was certainly conditioned by the conquests of Charlemagne. All the favourable conditions had been produced by military conquest, and the history of these conquests is the most important strand in the history of the reign. The standards of the Carolingian army were the feature that recalled Greco-Roman warfare: they were light, that horsemen might carry them on lances, and included the old vexillum of the Roman cavalry, a small three-pointed banner, and the draco, a hollow, light vexillum in form of a dragon. Carolingian marshals seem to have been of lesser importance, and rode in charge of horses and transport wagons. The Carolingian poets had too much learning and too much historical conscience to have produced the Donation of Constantine: but the same impulse of enthusiastic, if unhistorical and unscrupulous, piety for Rome produced their hymns, the Donation of Constantine, and the Donations of the two Frankish rulers.
