525. Charlemagne: Emperor of the West (Part 3)
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He defied everyone. Turn it down! They lied! To change everything. Make some noise, BD. Timothee Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro. A complete unknown. Only in theaters Christmas Day. Rated R. Under 1790, middle without parent. On the 25th of December, Charles celebrated the nativity of the Lord in Rome.

And the count of the years from Christ's nativity changed from 800 to 801. And that very same day, when the king rose from prayer before the altar that stands above the tomb of St. Peter, Pope Leo placed a crown upon his head and all the Roman people acclaimed him in this manner.

To Charles Augustus, the God-crowned, great and peace-loving emperor of the Romans. Life and victory. And after these acclamations of praise, Charles was saluted by the Pope in the same way that back in ancient times, the Roman emperors had been. And from that moment on, he was addressed as Emperor and Augustus.

Happy Christmas everybody! So what more festive reading could there be than that little reading from the annals of the Kingdom of the Franks and it is describing one of the landmark moments Tom in all history. It is the imperial coronation on Christmas day 800 of Charlemagne. So more than three centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west the emperors have returned

There was an Augustus in Rome once again. Happy Christmas, everyone. And as you say, Dominic, what could possibly be more festive than that scene? An imperial coronation in Rome. The empire has struck back. It has indeed. So as you prepare your sprouts and do your turkey and all that kind of stuff, I hope that you will enjoy our explanation of what the hell is going on here. So...

In the previous episode, we heard about Charles' rise to greatness, how he comes to be Charles the Great Carolus Magnus Charlemagne, as he's known in English. And he commands by far the most potent war machine in Europe.

He has extended his empire beyond the Pyrenees in the West and eastwards into what is now Hungary and all the way up to the River Elbe in the north of Germany. And he has sponsored a great program of education and learning. So he's a very, very formidable figure. And people may wonder, well, if a man like this wants to be emperor, why not? Why shouldn't he be? Go ahead. Yeah.

But the thing is, of course, Charlemagne is not the only player in this particular game. So mentioned in that passage that you read, Dominic, is another key player. And that is the man referred to as Pope Leo. And this is the first time we've heard of him. So who is he? And it's worth diving into his backstory, I think, because according to a key source, the whole idea of this coronation, this proclamation of Charlemagne as Augustus, as emperor, is

was his and his alone. And this key source is one that we've been referring to a number of times over the course of this series, and that is Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne. And in his biography, Einhard writes, Charles made it clear that he would never have entered the cathedral that Christmas day, even though it was the greatest of all the festivals of the church, had he only known in advance what the Pope was planning to do. So in other words, if Einhard is to be trusted when he says this, when Charlemagne goes in,

And the Pope kind of plonks the crown on his head and hails him as Augustus. Charlemagne is taken completely by surprise. It's come as a total bombshell. I mean, who knew this was going to happen? Yeah. I mean, it's intriguing. Is this likely? Is this plausible? And I think that's what we're going to explore now. Did it come as a complete surprise to Charlemagne or was it actually basically his idea? Okay. So in the last episode, the Pope was called Hadrian. That's right. And now we've got a new character, but

Get Hadrian off the stage, Tom. So Hadrian was a kind of Roman patrician kind of character, which I guess so many popes were in those days. Hence his name. He's got a Roman name. He has, yes. So after the great emperor. And as you say, most popes at this point are...

from the Roman nobility. Hadrian is a, you know, he'd been a kind of a subtle, clever political operator. He was the guy who had got Charlemagne to come down and conquer the Lombards and kind of remove that threat to the autonomy of the papacy. He'd been a good

Christian, a good pope in that sense, built lots of churches, but he'd also been a good administrator of Rome in a slightly kind of older sense, a more kind of Caesar-style sense. So he'd repaired the city walls, for instance, and he'd also renovated the four main aqueducts that brought water into the heart of Rome. So in that sense, a kind of secular figure.

And even more so because he does what Roman nobles generally do, even if they're Pope, which is to shamelessly advance his own relatives. So all his kind of various cousins and brothers and so on have been given plum positions in the administration of the city.

And when he dies in 795, again on Christmas Day, so today, back in 795, the vote unexpectedly for Pope doesn't go to a Roman, but goes to a man of relatively humble background from the south of Italy. And this is the guy who takes the name of Leo III. And his election has been unanimous, but Alcindor,

Out in the halls and the villas of the Roman aristocracy, there's consternation because you don't want some bloke from the south of Italy turning up. Right. He's a parvenu. Yeah. And putting his oar into the local government. And the people, obviously, who particularly resent this are Hadrian's relatives because they've not only lost their patron, but they've got this guy coming in and trying to do reforms and bringing his own people in.

And this is a problem because they are still in control of large amounts of the administration of Rome.

And so Leo, who knows that he has a problem here, unsurprisingly is very, very keen to get on the right side of Charlemagne, who's a kind of brooding presence north of the Alps. And so he makes sure the moment he's been elected to send a messenger to the King of the Franks and kind of formally announced that he has been elected Pope. Now, what Leo does not do...

which his forebears had been doing for a fair old time until about 50 years previously, is send a messenger to Constantinople to tell the Roman emperor in Constantinople, who rules there as the heir of Constantine, that he's been elected Pope. So he doesn't do that? No, he doesn't do that. And of course, the emperor in Constantinople, since the collapse of the empire in the West, so since 476, he's been the only Roman emperor there is. And

the Pope traditionally had always seen himself as a subject of the Roman emperor in Constantinople. And because the emperor in Constantinople can lay claim to the inheritance of the Roman empire, I mean, in a sense, you know, it is the Roman empire. There's never been a break. The habit of people in Constantinople is to look on leaders in the West with a fair measure of auteur and often contempt. Yeah.

So the Pope first, obviously a very significant figure and acknowledged as such even by people in Constantinople, but he has traditionally been viewed as a subject of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople and not of the King of the Franks, which is essentially what he's become. So this alliance that previously had

been between the Pope in Rome and the Emperor in Constantinople has now become an alliance between the Pope in Rome and the Frankish King. And of course, the people in Constantinople are very bitter and resentful about this. Also, traditionally, the Byzantines, the Romans of Constantinople have viewed the Franks as basically just barbarians and treated them in a very kind of

imperial manner. So if they behave well, they'll give them nice titles and robes and various things like that.

But they also make sure, if they possibly can, to grab members of the Frankish royal family, keep them as hostages in Constantinople, as guarantors of good behavior. So they are not in the habit of viewing the Frankish king as in any way an equal, still less a superior. And essentially, seen from Constantinople, both the Frankish king and the pope are kind of, you know, they're rubes, they're hicks. Yeah, hicks.

Who cares about the West? It's a backwater, isn't it? It's always been a backwater for centuries. All the action, all the wealth, all the glamour, all the sophistication is in the Eastern Mediterranean. Who cares what these basically hairy barbarians, they're still kind of barbarians, the Franks to the people in Constantinople, aren't they? However...

Charlemagne, as you described in the previous episodes, is a warlord of a different order because he is just so much more powerful and his realm is so much greater and his military machine is so much more impressive. So do the Roman emperors in Constantinople, do they treat him differently from his predecessors, from previous Frankish kings, would you say? I think they do. And I think it reflects not just Frankish strength, but also a Byzantine weakness. Yeah.

empire has been going through a very rough stage. Its glory seems very diminished, and particularly in contrast to Charlemagne's realm. In fact, in 781, the Byzantine emperor, Constantine VI, had been betrothed to one of Charlemagne's daughters. This was a kind of long-term investment because Constantine VI was only 10 at the time, and Charlemagne's daughter was only six. So the wedding was going to happen down the line.

But then in 787, it's Charles who cancels the engagement. So this really offends Byzantine amour-propre. You know, they're kind of very offended by this. And Constantine's mother, Irene, who is very much on the scene, is angry.

furious about this. And Dominic, you introduced Irene onto the rest of history, didn't you? In, I think, was it the second Love Island? She was a contestant on that. Do you remember that? Really? I don't even remember that, Tom. So long ago. I think you did. I've done so many episodes. I have no recollection of that whatsoever. So you're like that priest in the previous episode. Who's forgotten. Yeah. Forgotten everything he ever learned. Yeah. Well, in which case I will just give you a quick sketch of Irene.

She's from a very aristocratic Athenian family. She's come to Constantinople. She put her husband in her shadow. She's put her son in her shadow. She is essentially ruling as Constantine.

co-empress with her son. And, you know, she's very, very indignant on his behalf. And the following year, she sends a kind of marker to Charlemagne that she's not going to be pushed around by sending an expeditionary force to southern Italy, which is obviously in the Frankish sphere of influence, but also traditionally has been occupied by the Byzantines. So it's

It's interpreted by Charlemagne as a hostile move. And when Leo III, having become Pope, then neglects to inform Irene and Constantine VI of his election, it kind of rubs salt in the wound. And then...

In 797, there is a really spectacular crisis in Constantinople because the problem is that Constantine VI basically is useless. He is politically maladroit. He is impulsive. He's cruel. He's a very unpleasant young man.

Even Irene thinks this. And so she takes very firm measures. And we're told what these firm measures were by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes, who writes, on the 15th of August 797, the Emperor Constantine VI was terribly and irrevocably blinded by the will of his mother and her counsellors with the intention of killing him. In this way, his mother Irene took power. So parenting hints from the court of the Caesars in Constantinople.

very robust approach to disobedience from children. And as a result of this, Irene becomes the first and in fact, the only ruling empress in the whole sweep of Roman history.

And she is acknowledged as such grudgingly in Constantinople. But elsewhere, there are people who feel, well, you can't have a woman ruling the Roman Empire. And in fact, she doesn't last that long, does she? She only lasts about five years. There's a brilliant book on her by Judith Herron, Women in Purple. Yes. Really good book. Yeah. But in the West, essentially the assumption is that she has not adopted the purple, that she can't have done because she's a woman. Yeah.

and that therefore the throne of the Caesar sits vacant. Nice opportunity there for somebody who fancies himself as a bit of an emperor. You might think that. And all the more so because in Rome, as in the new Rome, a crisis brewing. And this too is a crisis that, according to some sources, will involve a blinding. And

Essentially, the context for this is what Rosamund McKittrick, in her recent book on Charlemagne, describes as the squalid local politics of Rome. And it's all about local faction fighting. It's all about the resentment of Hadrian's relatives at this Parvenu Pope who's come in and is sticking his oar in. So that's still simmering, right? That's absolutely still simmering. And on the 25th of April, 797, so that's the same year that in

on centernopal poor old constantine the sixth is being blinded by mum the pope is ambushed as he rides out of his palace to go to mass and the people ambushing him are thugs who have been hired by the late pope hadrian's kinsmen and we have a quite detailed account very favorable to leo

written after his death. And it describes how the Pope has pulled off his horse. He has all his clothes ripped off him. His assailants try to put out his eyes and to cut out his tongue. They then drag him into a monastery right in front of its altar. And again, they blind him. They hack out what remains of his tongue. So hold on, they blinded him twice at this point. He's definitely been blinded, right?

It's unclear. I mean, it seems that the first attempt at blinding didn't work. I mean, I don't know how you could, if you really set on blinding someone, it seems quite easy. Yeah, come on. It's not that complicated. But anyway, he's definitely blinded, or is he? And he's in a terrible way. And he gets formally deposed by his enemies in Rome. He's accused of adultery and perjury. And he's then taken off to a monastery where he's put under lock and key.

But then Dominic, an absolute miracle. So it's recorded in his life. It happened that through God's foreknowledge and action, Leo recovered his sight and his tongue was restored to him so he could speak. So amazing. He can see and he can talk again. Sounds to me that they had probably not done a very competent job of either the gouging of the eyes or the severing of the tongue. Because I don't believe those things could grow back. Anyway. Or perhaps it was all made up. Well, perhaps. Yeah. So anyway.

He flees Rome, basically. He's exiled from Rome. And of course, he goes to see the obvious person, which is, I read, the Lord Charles, King of the Franks and Lombards and patrician of the Romans. So he basically throws himself on Charlemagne's, says to Charlemagne, give me a hand here.

Yes. And as he goes, of course, the news of what's been happening ripples out before him. And it has to be said that sympathies are overwhelmingly on his side. Even before the Pope has reached Charlemagne, there are people saying, oh, well, hold on. You know, we've got these reports that he's been blinded and then his tongue pulled out. And now we gather that he can see and talk what's going on there. Perhaps there's a bit of exaggeration going on here. But certainly when Leo reaches Charlemagne, he's greeted with great sympathy. And

By a kind of unfortunate coincidence, ambassadors from Irene, who claims to be the Empress of Constantinople, but in the opinion of lots of people in the West, isn't an Empress at all. They are also with Charlemagne. And you have the sense there that Charlemagne has become the arbiter of both the Roman Emperor and of the Pope.

These two intimidating figures who had always viewed the King of the Franks as an absolute parvenu. And he greets them in this kind of fresh, rough-hewn fortress called Paderborn, which had been built back in the 770s as a base for prosecuting the Saxon wars, but which Charlemagne, just the year before, had founded as a bishopric. So you can see him presenting himself as

to the leaders of the ancient world as this vibrant go-ahead figure who is raising fortifications and churches in the wilds that had never been conquered by the ancient Romans. And it's very, very impressive. And markers of his prowess as a warlord, therefore, are kind of very much being pushed in the noses of both the Byzantine ambassadors and of the Pope himself. Now, what the Pope

and Charlemagne discuss, we don't know. We don't have a record of it. But we can probably take a guess because we do know what Alcuin thought about it. And Alcuin, he's in distant tour, he's in this monastery, this Yorkshireman who had been Charlemagne's great teacher, but he still very much got his finger on the pulse of geopolitics. And

He writes a letter to Charles before the arrival of both the papal and Byzantine ambassadors. And in it, he points out how extraordinary what is happening actually is. Because as he says, there are three great figures of authority whom God has appointed to rule the world. And these are the Pope, the Emperor in the second Rome, so Constantinople, and Charlemagne himself.

And he says, you know, the Pope is caught up in a scandal. The emperor in Constantinople is a woman. This imposes on you a massive duty to God to do what is right for the Christian people. And he says, Alcuin says this specifically, the Christian people depend upon the excellence of your power, the luster of your wisdom and the loftiness of your dignity as a ruler. Behold, upon you alone rests the entire health deteriorated as it is.

of the churches of Christ. And it's hard to imagine that the implications of that letter are not very much on Charlemagne's mind as he consults with the Pope.

No pressure, but he's got a great opportunity here, right? Because basically the other two authority figures are tarnished. You know, there's question marks, shall we say, hanging over them. The question mark, of course, the Carolingian innovation. So Charlemagne has an opportunity here to really assert himself as primus inter pares, right? The most important of all these characters. Yes. So two or three years pass and we are now in the summer of 1820.

AD 800. So the turning of the century. And that summer, I think it's really telling, Charlemagne decides to head westwards to Tours.

where, of course, Alcuin is abbot. He holds a summit there with his sons. So he's consulting with his great teacher and advisor. He's consulting with his sons. And of course, he has the opportunity to pray the Shrine of Saint Martin, the most significant of all the patron saints of the Franks. He then heads for Paris, which...

had been the capital of Clovis, the Frankish king who had first converted to Christianity. And interestingly, Notre Dame has just opened as we're recording this episode. And in front of Notre Dame, there's a great equestrian statue of Charlemagne. I think he's brandishing a sword.

But this is the only visit that Charlemagne makes to the ancient capital of the Franks. But again, you're thinking, is he going to places that are significant in the history of Franks because he's gearing himself up for a spectacular innovation? He wants reassurance that he's got God and kind of Frankish history on his side.

Anyway, be that as it may, autumn is now starting to close in. And so he heads southwards and he makes for Ravenna, again, a very historically significant city. Yeah, of course. You know, it had been the seat of the last Roman emperors of the West. It's where the Byzantine governor of Italy had been at his capital. So again, kind of a place saturated in Western ideals of Roman imperialism.

And then he goes across the Apennines and he approaches Rome. And he's met on the 23rd of November, 799 by Pope Leo, about 15 miles outside Rome. He's entertained, we're told by chronicler, with great honour. And then the following day, he makes a splendid entry into Rome. We're not told how many people he's got with him, but no doubt it's a very impressive and intimidating escort.

So Charlemagne is now in Rome. There's a month to go before Christmas Day. And the most pressing issue in front of both Charlemagne and the Pope is what to do about the charges that have been levelled against Leo. Fortunately for Leo, and indeed probably for Charlemagne, Alcuin has prepared a legal case arguing that Popes can't be tried. And so therefore the charges of adultery and perjury that Leo's rivals had brought against him are basically swept under the carpet. Brilliant, you know.

all is good as new. Leo is ready to go. And so this is the background to the coronation on Christmas day, 800. And so the big question, you know, that we framed at the beginning of this episode is, did Charlemagne know what was going to happen? Or is Einhard right when he says that it came as a complete surprise? And I don't know what you think, Dominic, but I mean. Pretty obvious. Yeah. I mean,

I mean, he's been to Tours. He's specially prayed there with his sons. He's been to Ravenna, which is the former imperial capital. He's met the Pope outside Rome. They've gone in with a huge escort with all great honor and all this kind of thing. He's prepared a legal case for the Pope so the Pope can't be tried for adultery and perjury.

Come on. I mean, it's blindingly obvious that this is all part of a long planned and very elaborate scheme. I mean, this is pure power politics, isn't it? He goes into Rome and he is expecting the quid pro quo. I mean, it is pure power politics, but it's pure power politics intermingled with politics.

I think Charlemagne's sense that he is fulfilling God's purpose, that this is what God wants him to do because he has arranged the affairs of the nation to make it the obvious thing to do. And I think we have a sense of what Charlemagne was thinking from a

a kind of analistic account, so a kind of year-by-year account that is the nearest to the actual event, so the actual coronation. And this account of the coronation specifically says that the Pope offers the imperial to Charlemagne for two reasons. And the first of these is, in the land of the Greeks, there was no one who held the name of emperor. So Irene doesn't qualify. The imperial throne in Constantinople is vacant.

But it adds that Charlemagne deserves a title because he's the master of Rome, which in ancient times had been the seat of the Caesars, and that also he has made himself the ruler of Italy, of Gaul, and of Germany, as the Caesars had been. And therefore...

clearly by merit he has been chosen by God to take up the mantle of the Caesars in Rome and this chronicler does go on to say King Charles was reluctant to deny the Pope's request and so in all humility on that same day the nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ he received the name of emperor with the blessing of the Lord Pope and it must be that use you know it's that sense that he does it with a show of modesty and reluctance of course you know but

Yeah, which is an old Roman trick in itself, right? Remember Augustus and the show of modesty and humility that Augustus made when he was festooned with titles by the Senate centuries earlier. So in that sense, he's behaving exactly as an emperor should, you could argue. I think you absolutely could argue that. And I think you can also see the care and thought that has gone into this moment of

from the fact that even though he is hailed by the people of Rome when he's crowned as Emperor of the Romans, this is not a title that Charlemagne himself ever uses. And the reason for that is that he knows that it would...

You know, he'd be crossing a red line there in Constantinople that they would never be able to accept him if he did that because the emperor in Constantinople has always called himself emperor of the Romans. And so for Charlemagne to usurp that would essentially be a declaration of war.

And so instead, Charlemagne has come up with Alcuin. I mean, who knows? I mean, there's clearly a lot of thought gone into it with a different phrase, which is that he is the emperor governing the Roman Empire. You know, this is clearly the kind of formulation that requires a lot of

top level discussion. You know, it's the kind of thing that today people in, you know, debating EU law in Brussels would be all over it. It's that kind of order of formulation. So I think, and Dominic, you probably agree, it's pretty clear that Charlemagne is not taken by surprise by the Pope, but that he had recognised his opportunity and seized it

And the result of this, an astonishing festive development. For the first time since AD 476, there is an emperor in the West. Thrilling scenes. Come back after the break to find out what happens next to Charlemagne and we will be discussing his place in history. Does he deserve the title Father of Europe? And actually, what happened to the Franks? We'll discuss that too. Come back after the break.

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Learn more at phrma.org slash ipworkswonders. The emperor was strong and well-built. He was tall in stature, but not excessively so, for his height was just seven times the length of his own feet. The top of his head was round, and his eyes were piercing and unusually large.

His nose was slightly longer than normal, he had a fine head of white hair and his expression was amused and good-humoured. As a result, whether he was seated or standing, he always appeared masterful and dignified. His neck was short and rather thick. He took delight in steam baths at the thermal springs and loved to exercise in the water whenever he could.

He was an extremely strong swimmer, and in this sport no one could surpass him. It was for this reason that he built his palace at Aachen, and remained continuously in residence there during the last years of his life, and indeed until the moment of his death.

He would invite not only his sons to bathe with him, but his nobles and friends as well. And occasionally, even a crowd of his attendants and bodyguards, so that sometimes a hundred men or more would be in the water together. So that was Einhardt, the great biographer of Charlemagne. And the question, Tom, is,

Yes.

Do you think these things are all true or are these the kind of formulaic details that you get in the Lives of Emperors? Well, so some of it must be true. I mean, Einhard knew Charlemagne and in the last years of his life was close to him, was very proud of it. Clearly aspects of it are true. The whole, you know, hanging out in baths with Alcuin and his crew and all that kind of stuff. I mean, that does seem to be true. And there is evidence for quite a lot of what Alcuin is describing of his personality, actually in anecdotes that are told about him.

And on occasion, I think in his own kind of distorted words. So his sense of humor, for instance, which occasionally, you know, you kind of get senses of it. Although as Jinty Nelson in her biography of him describes his jokes, actually not as being particularly good humored, but as hinged on humiliation and cruelty.

So perhaps he wasn't quite as jolly as Einhard is making him out to be. But equally, you're right that we can't really be sure which aspects of this description are completely drawn from life and which are drawn from Suetonius, the biography of the Caesars, who provides Einhard with his great model. But certainly the physical descriptions, there's a problem because almost all of them are drawn pretty much word for word from descriptions of

the Caesars in Suetonius' biographies.

So whether he's chosen phrases from Suetonius that map onto Charlemagne, we don't know, or whether he's just kind of constructing a portrait of the king from various fragments. Like a Frankenstein's monster. Yeah. He's basically chosen the best bit of each emperor and bolted them all together. Yes. And this is a kind of process that you see elsewhere in Charlemagne's empire, not least in the palace that Einhard mentions in that description, the one with the baths.

at Aachen, which is still there. It's a wonderful place to visit. You've been to Aachen, Dominic? I've never been to Aachen.

Is it nice? Yeah, it is. And it's kind of right on the western-based border of Germany. Yeah. Basically Belgium, the Netherlands, it's where they all kind of join up. So the heart of Europe, you might say. And certainly it was in the heart of Austrasia, which was the ancient Frankish sub-kingdom that was the Carolingian heartland. So that's one of the reasons why Charlemagne chooses it. But the other reason is, I think that he begins it in 791 when the war against the Avars and the Saxons are really kicking off.

And I think he, you know, he wants it to be readily accessible with the Eastern Front. And in fact, all the loot that gets taken from the Avar. So in the previous episode, we described Ironheart watching it, you know, the wagons rumbling in piled high with jewels and all kinds of stuff. Essentially, it's this loot that enables Charlemagne to build Arkan. You know, he can employ the very best. He's got all this sudden windfall and,

And a bit like Einhard cannibalizing Suetonius for descriptions of Charlemagne. This palace, which also includes a great church, it too consists of various fragments of architectural salvage. So the bathhouse had originally been a Roman one. It gets repaired and installed into the palace. The layout of the roads in the palace, they too are Roman. And Charlemagne wants for

his palace and for his church authentically Roman pillars. And so he has them brought to him from Roman Ravenna, where, of course, you have imperial standard architecture waiting to be plundered. And so there is a sense in which it is a kind of Frankenstein's monster building. But when you go there, I don't think you feel that it is ersatz. I don't think that you feel that it's a pastiche. And certainly,

You don't get any sense of this at all from contemporary chroniclers. Visitors to this complex marvel at it and they are impressed and they are intimidated by the sense it gives them of this

just how great a king Charlemagne is. So again, to quote Nelson, Arkan emanated power through its design and architectural style, through gardens, parks, and forests, through relics and altars, through ceremonial entries, and through rituals whereby rulers were made. So I think it is impressive. So it's exactly as they think it should be. They think a palace, an emperor, should be the sum of their Roman predecessors, right? They perhaps wouldn't have...

the concept of it being a pastiche. They think it's exactly as it should be. When you read books of general history about this period, it will often be sneered at. Historians will say, oh, you know, it's laughable, it's contemptible. And obviously this comes with the perspective of how impressive and imposing and cosmopolitan conceptions

Constantinople is, Baghdad, Cordova, the great capital of Byzantium and the two great capitals of the rival caliphates, the Abbasid Caliphate based in Baghdad and the Umayyad Caliphate based in Cordova. And Aachen can't compare to that. And Baghdad especially, it's the center of the world. It's not just the great cultural center, it's the great trading center. And so it's rich beyond the wildest imagining of the Franks. And this is why both in Einhard and in other chronicles,

They are particularly impressed by embassies that get sent to Charlemagne by the Caliph in Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, so the famous Caliph from the Arabian Nights. And there are two embassies in particular, which the Franks are really wowed by. The first one comes in 802, so that's two years after Charlemagne's coronation. And Harun sends him an elephant.

which is given the name Abul Abbas. And he arrives in Aachen in 802 and is a great favourite. And Charlemagne's very, very keen on him. In 807, again, an embassy comes and it's full of amazing treasures. And this kind of very touching account from Einhardt, who'd obviously seen it, of a clock that

which it's clearly nothing like he's ever seen before. And he describes it in enormous detail, a brass clock constructed with marvelous mechanical skill in which the passage of the 12 hours depended upon a water clock with 12 little copper balls and 12 horsemen, one of which would emerge from one of 12 windows. And it's easy to imagine that these gifts are being sent by Harun to

intimidate Charlemagne, to patronize him as a kind of expression of condescension. But I don't think that's right. I think they are sent as genuine markers of respect, both because Harun can respect an emperor who's been crowned in Rome. The fame of Rome still endures in the lands of Islam. And that is quite something to be an emperor crowned in Rome, even in Baghdad.

It's also because Harun needs Charlemagne, because Harun as the Abbasid Caliphate has a rival in the form of the Umayyad Caliph who's emerged in Spain, in Muslim Spain. And the Umayyad Caliph is their common enemy. And the fact that Harun is a Muslim and Charlemagne is Christian, that's less significant than the fact that both of them have an interest in allying with one another against the common foe.

In fact, shortly after the arrival of the elephant in Aachen, Charlemagne shows that this investment has been worth Haroun's while because he starts a war beyond the Pyrenees, which he'd left alone since the disaster at Roncesvalles. In 804, Charlemagne's son, Louis, captures the great city of Barcelona. This will remain in Christian hands from

now on. So that's good news for Charlemagne. Weirdly, it's also good for Rune. And I think in a similar way, even in Constantinople, I think there's a sense that Charlemagne probably deserves the imperial title. And so in 812, there's been a long delay over a decade, but in 812, businessmen

Byzantine ambassadors do come to Aachen and they bring acknowledgement of Charlemagne's rank. And the compromise is one that Charlemagne had prepared for, that the emperor in Constantinople will be the emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne is just emperor. Both sides are content with that. So it's almost like he's not exactly a subordinate emperor, is he? But he's perhaps just a kind of...

in prestige, just a notch down, because the emperor in Constantinople is the more obvious heir to the legacy of Rome. But they're acknowledging that Charlemagne kind of has a claim, I suppose. Is that right? I think it's even more than that. I think it's the fact that the Byzantines at this point, their empire is very ragged. They've been fighting for survival for almost a century at this point. Whereas the empire of the Franks is incredibly intimidating and impressive. So...

I think this is Charlemagne's great political achievement, that he is the first ruler in what had been the western half of the Roman Empire to be acknowledged in Constantinople and also in Baghdad as an heir to Roman rule. Of course, neither the emperor in Constantinople nor the caliph in Baghdad prepared to acknowledge him as an equal. I mean, neither of them would do that. But

But the fact that they're sending him ambassadors and elephants and clocks and all this, I mean, it's an acknowledgement that he has arrived, that he is a worthy heir of Rome, which is what the Franks had always wanted to be. Charlemagne has finally kind of sealed the deal and they are responding to measurable kind of indices of greatness. So, you know, lands conquered, plunder taken from defeated enemies.

diplomatic muscle exercised, military muscle exercised. But you are right equally, of course, that he does remain an upstart. He's a king who's had to make himself an emperor. He's got a palace that's built with all kinds of stuff nicked from other palaces. Yeah, bits of other people's palaces. Yeah. And the towns that he rules, even Rome, even Aachen, even Paris, even Tours,

compared to Constantinople or Baghdad. I mean, these are just tiny primprinks. They're kind of nothing. And so there's this disconcerting sense when you look at Charlemagne and his empire, that his achievements seem simultaneously imposingly solid. You know, this is a figure like a Roman emperor making the earth shake beneath his tread. And yet at the same time, it seems weirdly insubstantial, like a kind of phantasmagoria that might just

melt on the mist. Right. Because so much of it is based on his own personal charisma, prestige and military nous, rather than institutional underpinnings that might be there in Constantinople or Baghdad. I think that's a key fact. There isn't the kind of institutional muscle memory

that you get in these empires that are drawing on very ancient traditions of imperialism. Charlemagne, he's kind of making it up as he goes along, really. Well, I was going to ask about that, because he doesn't presumably have the kind of bureaucracy. I mean, Constantinople is famous for its bureaucracy. Of course, the same thing is true of Baghdad. They have all kinds of civil service networks and long established, not decades, but centuries. He has his priests with their little kind of

book of the Lord's Prayer and stuff that he's sent out. But in the West, presumably, there's nothing like the kind of really densely sophisticated kind of financial bureaucratic kind of networks that they have out in the East, which has always been so much richer. That's true. There is a kind of concentration of scholars and very, very literate and impressive people in Aachen.

but there isn't, you're right, the concentration that you would get in Constantinople or Baghdad. But in a way, what you do have is a pointer to the future of medieval Europe. You have people who are scattered across the Frankish empire and indeed in Britain as well in the monasteries there. And thanks to Charlemagne's long and very productive reign, these people are now joined by a common culture in a way that had not previously been the case. And so this looks forward

to the culture of the high middle ages when people in Scandinavia or in Spain or in Iceland or whatever will all feel that they're part of a common culture. And in that sense, we said in the previous episode, Charlemagne is the father of Europe. And this cadre of people

scholars, administrators of monks. They are impressive, I think. So just to quote Peter Brown in his book, The Rise of Western Christendom, altogether with the scholar administrators of the Carolingian Empire, we're dealing with a singularly purposeful body of men. In their writings, many of them appear as the first technocrats of Europe.

So it's no wonder that people in the EU are so keen on Charlemagne. I mean, they're always kind of instituting prizes and stuff. In a sense, he has presided over the creation of a tradition that will endure long after his death, through the Middle Ages, survive the Reformation, and in a sense is manifest to this day in the European Union. But of course, all of that is far in the future. The immediate question is what will happen after Charlemagne dies. And in

In the autumn of 813, so one year after he's claimed to the imperial title, he's been acknowledged by the Byzantines, he falls ill. He continues to go hunting and this just makes him worse. Late November, he retires to bed, stays there and he dies on the 28th of January, 814 at the ripe old age of 65. His body is wrapped by his daughters in a great shroud of gold and purple silk.

It's been woven in Constantinople, illustrated with patterns showing charioteers. And he's then placed in an ancient Roman sarcophagus, probably decorated with scenes showing the rape of Proserpina by Pluto. And he's then buried in his chapel at Aachen. And he is succeeded by his son, Louis, the guy who had captured Barcelona, both as king of the Franks and the Lombards and Antiochus.

as emperor. Charlemagne had made really sure that Louis would inherit the title because the year before his death, he had had Louis crowned joint emperor the previous September. And

It was Charlemagne who had done the crowning, not the Pope. And in fact, the Pope hadn't even been invited. And so there seems to be a deliberate policy on Charlemagne's part to exclude the Pope from the ritual of coronation. He wants to kind of hug it to his own dynasty. And then just for good measure, a month after Charlemagne's death, when Louis arrives in Aachen, he has himself crowned as emperor again.

So, I mean, this is a considerable achievement. The empire is handed over intact to a son. And so listeners may be wondering, well, that's great, isn't it? Surely with such a fair wind, the empire of the Franks, as constituted by Charlemagne, will endure for decades and centuries to come. Spoiler alert, it doesn't. So what goes wrong? Because Louis, king of the Franks, king of the Lombards, his emperor, he's

You know, he's got this massive military machine. His father has left him the most incredible legacy of

What on earth happens to this empire that Charlemagne has built and Louis has inherited? Why don't we know more? Why isn't it an empire to conjure with for the next kind of 300 years or something? Well, I think the issue is that Frankish kings, whether they're Merovingian or Carolingian, this is a trend that has been operating since the time of Clovis, cannot help themselves from dividing their kingdoms up between their sons and heirs. So

Although Louis has inherited Charlemagne's empire in its entirety, that had not originally been Charlemagne's intention. Charlemagne had three sons and he was planning to divide the empire up between them. And two of those sons die before Charlemagne does. So that's why Louis is able to inherit it and also able to inherit the title of emperor, which initially Charlemagne had not seen as hereditary. He hadn't been planning to hand that on. Oh, right. So-

Essentially, the fact that Louis inherits the empire intact and the imperial title is an accident. And Louis' problem is that like Charlemagne, he has three sons, but all of them survive him.

And through his reign, these sons are very badly behaved. They're endlessly kind of causing civil wars, trying to kind of grab chunks of the empire. And after Louis' death, they basically tear the Frankish empire into pieces. So in 843, Louis' three sons meet up for one of the most beautiful

politically significant meetings, conferences in the whole of European history. And they meet it at Verdun, as in the great First World War battle. Ironically, given what's going to happen. Yeah, very ironically. Because what is negotiated at Verdun essentially will result in the permanent division of the Frankish Empire into three parts. Because Louis' three surviving sons, Charles, Louis, again, so he will rule as Louis II, and Louisville.

And Lothar, a kind of ancient Merovingian name, they each take a massive chunk of the Frankish empire. So Charles receives the western portion of Francia. This is the future kingdom of France. Louis receives the more German speaking lands to the east. So that includes Saxony, the Duchy of Franconia, a Frankish land that's been planted on the eastern banks of the Rhine.

This will be the future Germany. Lothar, who is the eldest son and who inherits the imperial title, also inherits this kind of rackety inheritance, which is a whole tranche of disparate territories running from the low countries, so the future, the Netherlands and Belgium, down through Burgundy, across the Alps, and including Italy.

What makes this inheritance even more rackety is that Lothar then has three sons of himself, and he divides his kingdom up into three. Absolute madness. And the eldest of Lothar's sons, who again is called Louis, he gets the kingdom of Italy. That's his sole inheritance. And he gets the title of emperor. He hasn't really got any kind of launchpad for it. He doesn't have the muscle that an emperor properly should have. And because his geopolitical power is now so attenuated...

Getting kind of religious sanction becomes all the more important. And so this Louis, the emperor who rules only this chunk of northern Italy, he goes back on the intentions of Charlemagne and he gets the pope involved again because he needs the pope back.

basically to burnish his credentials. And so he goes to Rome and the Pope crowns him. And this essentially establishes as a precedent for future emperors, the fact that you can't really be an emperor unless the Pope crowns you in Rome. So it's brilliant for the Pope, but Louis, it doesn't really help him at all. And the measure of this is that in 871, he gets a very gloating letter from Constantinople saying,

which openly jeers at his claim to be an emperor. Byzantines had respected Charlemagne, but they're not going to acknowledge that this guy who just rules a chunk of Italy, you know, he's an absolute loser. They're not going to allow him to be an emperor. And they say, you know, there is only the single empire. There is only the single emperor that

The Franks have no claim to it. We do not respect your claim. Forget it. So Tom, the obvious question, which will have occurred to probably 99% of the listeners, the Franks destroy their own empire by dividing it up in this way. Why did they not simply pass on the empire to the

oldest or the most proficient son, which is frankly, ironically, which is what kings and emperors all over the world have done for so long. Why do they persist with this? I mean, I suppose you could say, well, they do it because they want to avoid civil wars or whatever. But since the consequences are so baleful for their empire, why on earth do they persist with this ridiculous method of dividing it up?

They do it because that's what Frankish kings do. And they're the heirs to the traditions of the Carolingian and then before them, the Merovingian monarchy. They do it because that's what their ancestors have always done. And you might think, well, that's a kind of mad barbarian habit. Yeah. I mean, I do think that. People who've stuck with us throughout this entire series may remember that back in episode one, we said, which had come as kind of news to me when I looked into it, that the

that this tradition was not a kind of mad barbarian habit. It actually originated in the desire of Clovis to copy Roman practice because it was the habit of the Roman empire in its final centuries that it was too big and so it needed to be divided up into various parts. Yeah, of course. That's the kind of one of many ironies that shadow the final centuries of the Frankish empire is that they kind of do destroy themselves, but they do it ultimately for Roman reasons. So I

So that is one reason, I think, why the Frankish Empire starts to disintegrate. The other, however, is that the age when the Franks could go on the offensive comes to a stop. And in fact, it is outsiders who start to prey on the Frankish Empire. And there are two...

two bodies of raiders in particular who cause havoc all along the line of the Frankish Dominion. So the first of these, the Arabs come back on the offensive. Their launch pad this time isn't Spain as it had been back in the age of Charles Martel, but North Africa and then after the conquest of Sicily, Southern Italy. And

Throughout the 9th century, the coastline of Italy is subjected to repeated raids. I mean, this is why today so many Italian cities on the coast, especially in southern Italy, are up on hills. There is no option but to retreat from the depredations of the Saracen pirates, as they're described. And in 846, it's the measure of what a menace they are. They actually sail up the Tiber. They can't break through the walls of Rome. But St. Peter's in the Vatican is exposed. The cathedral is sacked.

And a particularly humiliating emblem of how low Frankish power has fallen, a great silver table that Charlemagne had presented to St. Peter is stolen by the pirates and carted off. So that's very bad. But even worse, of course, are old friends, the Vikings. Right.

And they had actually arrived on the scene back in the final years of Charlemagne's reign. So 793 is the famous raid by the Vikings on the shrine of St. Cuthbert on the island of Lindisfarne off Northumbria. And Alcuin as a Northumbrian, he was in Francia when the news came to him, he was appalled. And he writes to the Bishop of Lindisfarne full of distress, kind of, you know, offering his sympathies and prayers.

And by 808, the Danes are starting to launch raids on Saxony. And Charlemagne actually, in his final years, is preparing to go to war against them. And in the end, the only reason he doesn't is that the Danish king, Godefrid, is murdered by one of his own military guards. And so that puts off the Danish attack for a few years. But it's not long before the Vikings and the Danes are back.

And I think there is a case for saying that one of the factors in the emergence of the Vikings may well have been the intrusion of the Franks directly onto the borders of Scandinavia. That rather like Roman power abutting Germany had kind of inspired German militarism and German raids. So the Frankish Empire has a similar effect on the Vikings. Is there not a twist to that, which is that the fact that the Frankish Empire becomes fragmented and power diffused...

makes it all the more ripe for Viking raids. So you get the Vikings sailing up rivers because they can now, because Charlemagne is gone. A strong central authority is gone. They can kind of pick off the different Frankish kingdoms as their targets. Their particular focus is West Francia. So Gaul as was. And yeah, I mean, they sail up the Loire, they sail up the Seine and it is a king of West Francia, the great, great grandson of Charlemagne, Charles the Simple, who in 9-11 gives away a substantial chunk of

monk of what had been the great kingdom of Neustria, so ruled by Fredegund. But he gives it away to a Viking chieftain and this will become the land of the Northmen, Normandy, so to Rollo. So-

As in the kingdoms of Britain, so in West Francia, royal authority disintegrates in the face of these Viking raids. But the heirs of Charlemagne still cling on to the throne of West Francia throughout the 9th century into the 10th century. But then in 987, the great-grandson of Charles the Simple, so the great-great-great-great-grandson of Charlemagne, dies without an heir.

So there is no heir of Charlemagne now to succeed to the throne of West Francia. And so a king from a new family emerges, and this is Hugh Capet. And the Capetians will be the great medieval dynasty that rules a kingdom that is no longer called West Francia, but France. And of course, in the long run, it's the name that will be given to Louis XVI after he's deposed by the revolutionaries. So you could say that

It's with the extinction of the Carolingians, the emergence of this new dynasty, the Capetians, that maybe West Francia becomes France. The Carolingian line is now extinct. The Frankish line is now extinct in what had been West Francia. So what about Lotharingia, which is the name given to the great central tranche of lands that have been ruled by Lothar and East Francia? There too, the lines of Charlemagne go extinct.

So the Lotharingan kings, they have inherited the title of emperor, but it's pathetic. I mean, it's a spectral thing. They have no authority. They rule as phantasms.

And in 901, the last of these Lotharingian kings to be crowned as emperor, I mean, is treated as an absolute joke. And four years after his coronation, he's captured by a rival warlord. He's blinded and he's banished to a monastery in Burgundy where he, for the rest of his life, he just kind of withers away. And of course, there's another

irony here is that this is pretty much the fate that Pepin, the first Carolingian king, had visited on the last Merovingian king. So what goes around comes around. Yeah, there's a lot of blinding in this series, let's be frank about it. So what about the East Francia, Tom, the last bit? This witnesses the biggest irony of all, because the lands in East Francia,

These include, as we said, Saxony. And in 911, the last descendant of Charlemagne to rule East Francia dies without a child. And so there is no descendant of Charlemagne to rule them. And so the lords of East Francia, they still want a Frank. And so they elect the Duke of Franconia, which as its name suggests, is still a Frankish duchy. And this is a guy called Conrad. And

I think the main credential he has is precisely that he is a Frank, but he doesn't last long. 919, so he's ruled for what, eight years? He's severely injured in a battle. He's stretched off the battlefield, brought to bed, and it's clear he's going to die. So on his deathbed, he gets all the noblemen and advisors around him, and he says, look, you should give the royal title to a duke called Henry Heinrich, who had been a perennial rival of Conrad's, but

But Conrad, as he faces death, he wants to do right by his kingdom. And he can recognize that Henry is by miles the ablest man, the man who is best qualified to hold the kingdom together. And so Henry is duly elected as king and messengers are sent out to tell him. And according to tradition, these messengers find Henry fixing birding nests. And so he is known by posterity as Henry the Fowler. Right.

Henry the Fowler does indeed prove to be an excellent king. Conrad had read his man correctly. He in turn has a son, Otto, and Otto proves to be an even more impressive king than his father. Otto inherits the throne in 962, and he scores up a whole list of achievements that are

are kind of very, very reminiscent of the great days of the Carolingian Empire, of the Frankish Empire. So in 955, there's a massive invasion by pagan Hungarians, which seems to threaten the entire future of Eastern Christendom. And Otto leads his mailed horsemen to the rescue, and it's all very Lord of the Rings, riders of Rohan descending onto the fields of Pelennor. Otto smashes them up, saves...

Christendom, the Hungarians are wiped out, and in due course, their remnants will be converted to Christianity, and a victory fit to rank with that of Charles Martel at Tours. And Otto's reward for this in 962 is to be crowned in Rome by the Pope as emperor, so just as Charlemagne had been. And in due course, after his death, just as Charlemagne was, Otto is remembered as the Great, so Otto the Great. So in that sense, I mean, I don't think there's any doubt that

Charlemagne does have an heir, and that heir is Otto the Great and the line of emperors that Otto establishes. And that line, unlike the line that had been established by Charlemagne, will endure unbroken for centuries and centuries and centuries, right the way up to the time of Napoleon, who gets rid of this Holy Roman Empire, as it's come to be called. But of course, this is where the irony comes in because

because where did Henry the Fowler and Otto the Great come from? Of which portion of East Francia were they the Duke? And the answer is Saxony. The very people that Charlemagne had been smiting. Absolutely. So you could say this is proof that the policy of Correctio had worked.

that Charlemagne's military efforts, that the efforts of Christian schoolmen and evangelists had succeeded so brilliantly that the true heirs of the Franks were actually the Saxons in exactly the same way that the Franks had been the heirs of the Romans. So just on the Franks, you say just...

In the same way, the Franks, the Romans. The idea of the Romans obviously lived on. So people saw themselves as the heirs of Romanitas. Rome still denoted a kind of prestige, sophistication, high culture, Christianity, of course. And we're still so familiar with Roman models, Roman togas with their statues and their architecture in Washington, D.C., to give you an obvious example. But what happened to the Franks? Because obviously,

Francia, France. But in Germany, do they claim particularly culturally to the legacy of the Franks? I would guess not so much. There's still Franconia, I guess. There's still Franconia and Nuremberg. I think the Franks, as a coherent people, kind of dissolve rather like Charlemagne's empire does. Yeah. And that, I think, is what gives them

their empire, its sense of insubstantiality. It's because we know that they ultimately will vanish from the pages of history. I think that's why they are less well-known than perhaps they might. Often people have a sense that there's the Roman Empire and then there's the Middle Ages and it's all castles and knights and things. And quite what lies in between is hard to get a handle on. And I think that reflects the fact that the Franks do kind of basically vanish. But of course, there is one further irony, which is that

by the Greeks, by the Muslims, Otto the Great and his heirs, and in fact, the kings of France, and in fact, all Latin Christians will be known as Franks. And the episode that we did, what, kind of 700 episodes ago about the origins of the Franks, we began with people in Thailand calling black Americans, black Franks. And that reflects the fact that in Baghdad,

In the cities of the Caliphate, the memory of Charlemagne and the Frankish Empire endures. And so when they meet with Latin Christians, Muslims call these people Franks. And that's a word that then ripples out from France.

the Near East, out across Asia, to Thailand, to China, wherever. And so in that sense, the Franks do still exist. We are the Franks. Lots of our listeners will be Franks. All that endures really is the name. And I wonder whether part of that is because the Franks themselves felt themselves to be so much in the shadow of Rome and they were trying to revive something and they saw themselves as the heir to something greater than themselves. And so it's the Roman-ness that

has so much more traction than Frankishness does. All that we remember of the Franks now are their names, right? I don't think that's how the Franks themselves would have seen it, but I think that that is the effect. That because the Franks identify themselves with the Roman inheritance so effectively, the potency of that Roman inheritance tends to blot out what was Frankish about them. I think that's right.

Okay, well, a tremendous festive episode, the end of a mighty, mighty series, Tom, an epic series taking us from the final years of the Roman Empire, Julian the Apostate, all the way through to medieval Christendom and Otto the Great. So absolutely tremendous sweep. Happy Christmas, everybody. We will be back at the turn of the year, won't we, Tom? So we will be ringing in the new year with the sound of Mozart and Beethoven. That's very exciting.

So we will be bringing you two special episodes with music from the Royal Albert Hall as we celebrate the lives of arguably the two greatest composers of all time. And then Nothing Says the New Year and A Bright New Start.

than scenes of life from 1930s germany and we will be back after mozart and beethoven with the nazis and actually if you're thinking i know it is christmas day so you might think the moment has passed but if you're trying to think of a present to cheer yourself up to mark the new year what better gift than membership of the rest is history club which you can of course join at

The rest is history.com. And even if you don't want to treat yourself, I think it would be a kind gesture to treat somebody close to you. Don't you, Tom? Glorious. Christmas ever commercial. Brilliant. Wishing everyone, all of you a very happy Christmas and we'll see you for Mozart and Beethoven and then in the new year. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Hello everybody, Dominic Sandbrook here. And I'm Tom Holland and we have some incredibly exciting news to tell you, don't we Dominic? We do. So we often say we've got exciting news but this is genuinely very, very exciting news.

We are thrilled to announce that after the sellout show that we did earlier this year, The Rest Is History will be returning to the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday, the 4th of May to perform live once again with an orchestra. And we will be bringing you a brand new show and this time discussing two more of history's most extraordinary, fascinating and iconic classical composers.

in this case Tchaikovsky and Wagner. And these extraordinary lives will be brought to life thanks to the accompaniment of the renowned Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by the celebrated Oliver Zeffman. So that first show that we did this year was a truly glorious experience.

And we are hoping that this too will be an unforgettable night. There'll be great music. We'll be telling great stories. We'll be delving into the history. So you had better get your hands on tickets for the show as soon as you can. And these tickets will be available from www.royalalberthall.com on Thursday, the 19th of December with a pre-sale for the Restless History Club members and Royal Albert Hall friends and patrons 24 hours earlier on Wednesday, the 18th of December.

at 10am. That is The Rest Is History live with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Tchaikovsky and Wagner. It's at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday the 4th of May. Now the tickets are available for members on Wednesday the 18th of December and for the general public on Thursday the 19th of December and please make sure that you don't miss it.