Einhard (c. 770-840) was a Frankish scholar, courtier and administrator in Charlemagne's circle who wrote the most famous near-contemporary biography of the emperor. Notker the Stammerer (c. 840-912), a monk of St Gall, wrote a later anecdotal life shaped by monastic memory and moral exemplum. Together they show Charlemagne as history, model and legend.
Two Lives of Charlemagne pairs Einhard's Life of Charlemagne with Notker the Stammerer's later anecdotes about the emperor. Einhard writes as a court insider shaped by classical biography, especially Suetonius.
