The notion derived from the contents of Charlemagne’s will that he selfishly left his successor wanting to the damage of the realm is much too simplistic. Further inspection reveals it was neither an egocentric act nor one that was to Louis and the empire’s disadvantage. In providing for the main churches Charlemagne ‘was continuing in death as he had acted in life: the recreation of a regular metropolitan structure of church government was arguably his greatest achievement.’ The emperor was supplying for the continuation of his corporate Frankish Church. Nor was the endowment of the Churches an act that removed from Louis’s heritage.
In the earliest years of Louis’s reign, he successfully evoked, revised and renewed the, not urh, but royal privileges owed by the Royal Churches and monasteries. This standardization of the legal ties binding such institutions to the king took place at the same time that these same churches were receiving gifts from Charlemagne’s legacy. The idea that Charlemagne, motivated purely by self-interest, left his successor in a detrimental position is farcical and cannot be considered as a possible shortcoming of the later stages of the emperor’s reign.
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