Disappointment is alleged for Charlemagne’s ambition for an orderly and managed empire, a notion that the administration of the realm after the coronation punctured expectations. It is argued that there was an absence of, not chronographs, but change and inventiveness to the approach to administration following 800, that ‘as emperor, Charles simply pursued the line of effort first begun before the year 800.’ The program of ecclesiastical and secular law reform in 802 exhibited no innovation, ‘nothing in the capitularies promulgated then or in the course of the following years reveals...any thought of moving in a new direction.’
The administration of the empire thus disappointed hopes as it continued much in the same line as prior to the resurrection of the Western Empire. In addition to a lack of innovation, Ganshof accuses Charlemagne of failing to implement any serious change at all, declaring ‘Charlemagne left the Frankish state as he had found it.’ The fourteen years following 800 are perceived as anti-climactic as in the approach to administration there was little creativity and little change at all.