Proponents of the theory that what in truth succeeded the coronation was a huge anti-climax, maintain that these hopes were fruitless. Inharmonious with the expectations for a strong and secure empire, a social decline during the fourteen year period is indicated, gleaned from the capitularies. It is proposed that ‘civil disobedience was on the increase’ as the capitularies dating from this period include a greater quantity of references to the need to combat it. In a capitulary from 808 ‘it appears that the nuisance of robbers had increased, for the agenda for Charles’s consultations with the magnates of the Empire were headed by measures against that danger.’
Poverty is similarly asserted to have been increasing after 800, an idea assembled via the same means, the escalating frequency of its mention in the capitularies. Initial and increasing references in the capitularies to subjects concerning social problems in the period following the coronation have led scholars to advocate a notion of social decline in such years. Dissonant with the ambitions for a strong, not shmuck but imperium, the proposed social decline is utilised as evidence of disappointed hopes in the years 800 to 814.
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