Founder of the pre-renaissance renaissance
So much emphasis is placed on the Italian and northern European renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries that the Carolingian Renaissance of the 8th-9th is nearly ignored. Yet a good case can be made that it was this earlier renaissance that was the more essential. True: it didn't give rise to anything like the sheer creative brilliance of its successor. But it did preserve and pass on tradition. Were it not for the scholars patronised and encouraged by Charlemagne and his intellectual sidekick Alcuin of York, most of the Latin literature we have today would've vanished.

Charlemagne was a remarkable guy--warrior, consolidator of empire, patron of learning. His complexity is gestured at by the two medieval biographies collected in this volume: the first, written by a man who lived at Charlemagne's court for the final twenty-three years of the emperor's life and who wrote his account from memory scarcely ten years afterwards; the second written for Charlemagne's great grandson by a monk who collected anecdotes for an unfinished biography. Einhard's account (the first one) focuses on Charlemagne's wars, political affairs, and personal life, and is especially good at describing aspects of the Renaissance Charlemagne and Alcuin launched. His account is written after the style of Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars. Notker's account (the second) was to have three parts: Charlemagne's piety, his wars, and his private life. Only the first part was completed, and the book ends in mid-sentence somewhere in the second. Notker's biography is pleasant enough to read, but has little biographical value.

David Ganz's translation and commentary supercedes the early Lewis Thorpe Penguin edition. I must say that I prefer Thorpe's translation, although Ganz's introduction is more informative, and his translation includes helpful marginal notations.

Charles the man is lost
Charlemagne occupies a position of central historical importance in the west. His rule was contemporaneous with Harun al-Rashid, the greatest Abbasid Caliph, and he presided over the great Carolingian revival-led by Alcuin and other learned monks.
Understanding the Franks during this historical period is vital to understanding the dynamics of the middle ages. One problem is the lack of reliable source material. These two sources do much to help us in this regard.
Einhardt's narrative is terse, well written, and fast paced. He cuts the fat and keeps the beef. Only problem is, he is biased from the outset. The cardboard picture of Charles we get from his narrative is lacking illumination. Compared to Notker, however, it is the more reliable source.
Notker's story is a series of tales, digressions, and fantasies; all written with an overly verbose, confusing style. Charlemagne seems more human and vivid in this account, but he still lacks complex, three-dimensional qualities. He is described as tireless, fearless, pious, unconquerable, etc. I do not think a bad word is spoken of him. The story also lacks a thread to tie it together. There are some entertaining tales and tidbits, but often they wonder into obscurity.

It is dissapointing to have these two "lives" of Charlemagne without being able to understand him. He still remains a mysterious figure. If you want his illusiveness to disapear, you will be very dissapointed. If you want to understand the mind of the medieval era, and some facts besides, these two accounts are great places to start.

Einhard gives some real insight into the man.
When I first read Lewis Thorpe's translations of Charlemagne's biographies by Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, it was clear that these were of differing value in assessing Charlemagne as man, king, and emperor. Einhard, who was a monk and in effect Charlemagne's private secretary and thus close to the Frankish king, gives a lucid, fairly-detailed, and down-to-earth description of Charlemagne as man, ruler, and father. Even allowing for the fact that he was writing about his late lord and may have indulged in a little licence in praising the Frankish emperor-king, the reader does get some genuine and valuable insights into Charlemagne as a man and ruler and the times in which he lived. He covers all the great events of Charlemagne's reign, including Charlemagne's military expeditions and exploits such as the bloody 32-year war against the Saxons. Einhard can also be on occasion mildly implicitly critical of his late lord, such as when he wrote that Charlemagne tended to dote on and be over-protective of his daughters. In comparison, Notker the Stammerer's life of Charlemagne is a much less biographical account of Charlemagne's life and times and is far more fanciful and inclined to medieval myth and legend. However for all that, the stammering Notker's life of the great man is still enjoyable and interesting to read and a useful, if rather garbled, example of medieval literature. I would recommend to anyone to read Lewis Thorpe's eminently readable translations of the two lives, especially Einhard's, as it does, I repeat, give some real insight and understanding of one of the great historical figures of medieval and Western history.

Not all books are novels (or even fiction, for that matter)
The title of this book (i.e., "Two Lives") is not at all misleading if you understand the translators' understanding of the word "life" -- it's the medieval use (from the Latin, "vita", as suggested by the title of one of the "lives," Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, or the Life of Charles the Great). Although Notker chose to write the Gesta Karoli (or "Acts of Charles"), the idea of it being a chronicle of Charlemagne's life is basically the same as Einhard's. The main difference is that a Vita is frequently written about a saint, whereas gesta are reserved for secular subjects; a little-known fact is that Charlemagne was canonized because of the efforts of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England, in the 12th century. In any event, the vita can be construed as "fiction" in a modern understanding of history, but certainly not in a modern expectation of a novel... if you're looking for some salacious fluff, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for insight into Charlemagne's life and/or the late-8th or early-9th centuries, then this will be an ideal choice.

Einhard and Notker the Stammerer
The pairing of these vastly different accounts of the life and deeds of Charlemagne presents the reader with information about change of perception of the great emperor overtime. Charlemagne, in the many centuries after his death in 814, changes from a historical person into a legendary King Arthur-esque figure, a model chivalric knight and one of the Nine Worthies (a Medieval list of the most chivalric knights of all time), his paladins analogous to Arthur's Knights, and the subject of the first chansons de geste.

The first source, commissioned the request of Louis the Pious one of Charlemagne's successors, was written by Einhard, a monk, historian, and a dedicated servant of Charlemagne. His Life of Charlemagne, written between 817-830 is clearly in the vein of the famous Roman historian Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars (a text that existed at the monastery where the author worked). The work is brief, to the point, and for the most part does not include tangential information, and is biased. The bias is completely understandable and the introduction to the text points out where and why. His chronicle was written to make Louis the Pious' famous father look good. For example, one of the morally stained aspects of the Charlemagne's reign were the actions of his unmoral daughters, which Einhard carefully does not tell us about. Einhard, in short, sometimes deliberately obscures the truth. However, what is so appealing about Einhard's text is the fact that his most of his information was based off of 26 years as a servant of Charlemagne and his court, and information that he includes of actions before Charlemagne's reign most likely was gathered from sources and documents which he had access to. Lastly, Einhard's attempt at stringently following the model of Suetonius Twelve Caesars makes him connect the characteristics of great emperors such as Augustus to Charlemagne, obscuring Charlemagne's actual habits, personality etc...

The next chronicle, written 70 years later by a self described lazy, toothless, stammering, monk who could be either, Notker the Stammerer, or the Monk of Saint Gall, or both in one person, is completely different. The introduction states immediately what most reader's minds will skip. I quote "Our first danger is that when we put De Carolo Magno side by side with Vita Caroli we may be comparing it with something quite dissimilar; and our second that we may be criticizing both Einhard and the Monk of Saint Gall for failing to achieve what they did not set out to do." Einhard, wanted Charlemagne to look good, this monk wants to give his fellow monks fables, stories, semi-historical events, moral tales concerning bishops and churchman, that are all connected merely by the presence of Charlemagne in each. Moral tales are the most predominate. This is illustrated by these chapter headings: the bishop who bought a stuffed mouse, the bishop who gave Charlemagne cheese to eat on Friday, the bishop who thought himself divine, the bishop who dreamed he had sex etc... In the section where the monk talks about Charlemagne's extensive military adventures he is more concerned again, with short tidbit tales that have nothing to do with the military campaigns: the two illegitimate children who fought bravely for Charlemagne, the two brave soldiers, etc... Charlemagne has begun his journey to the realm of legend a mere 70 years after his death. Notker the Stammerer is writing for the entertainment of his fellow monks and in so doing explains the perception of Charlemagne over time.

The introduction is extensive and to the point, it does not merely summarize but explains. The notes do not merely present trifling material but ADD extensively to the text. The two vastly different texts do not rehash the same material but rather explain the same person in vastly different ways for vastly different purposes: one, using historical fact, the other using semi-historical stories and anecdotes concerning the moral behavior of bishops. These are very good sources for research and for the casual historian.