There is no doubt that Charlemagne’s achievements would not have been possible without the Frankish army. When Charlemagne assumed the throne, the Franks lacked a permanent force of any significance, and Pepin the Short had been forced to deal piecemeal with the need for arms as it arose.
Charlemagne changed all that. First he established his “Palatine knights,” a band of warriors who served the king in exchange for royal honor and preferment. The counts, as they were also called, were not chosen only from the upper ranks of Frankish aristocracy; a significant number not born into the nobility – and even some serfs – received the honor of this personal relationship with the monarch. The result was a corps that was fiercely loyal and of unusual excellence. Charlemagne drew on the counts not only for military campaigns, but for help in civil administration as well.
What tied the counts to the throne was basic self-interest – royal appointment transformed them into individuals of wealth and great power. Charlemagne knew, however, how to command a double allegiance based on his religious mission. As emperor, he was charged with defending and extending the Christian faith, and the counts, as his personal retainers, shared a sense of this duty to God, which lent their roles a certain mystique. The counts were the pillars of the Carolingian court, but they were something more. They were Christian knights and the pillars of Christ’s terrestrial empire.