Dan Snow's History Hit - How and Why History: Charlemagne

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Charlemagne was one of history’s most ruthless and ambitious warriors – King of the Franks, then King of the Lombards, conqueror of the Saxons, leading to the Pope crowning him Roman Emperor. But plenty of blood was spilled along the way. So how did Charlemagne manage to unite much of Europe? Why did the Pope crown him emperor? How did his legacy inspire Adolf Hitler? History Hit’s Rob Weinberg asks the big questions about this hugely influential figure to Dr. Sinead O’Sullivan of Queens University Belfast.

Hi everybody, today's episode of Dan's Knows History is a crossover from our new popular series How and Why History. So have a listen to this one. It's all about one of early medieval Europe's most successful rulers. It's Charlemagne. If you like it, search How and Why History wherever you get your podcasts. There's new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. This coming Friday it's How and Why looks at the Red Scare in 20th Century America. If you enjoy this one there's also of course 30 episodes over on history hit tv it's like netflix for history you've got audio and video over there it's brilliant you can sign up for a first month for free using the code pod one pod one and then

you get your next 30 days after that for just one pound euro or dollar so the whole thing's pretty sweet more than enough time to binge listen to all the how and why histories so let's head back now to medieval europe the king who excelled all the princes of his time and wisdom and greatness of soul did not suffer danger to daunt him from anything that had to be taken up or carried through. For he had trained himself to bear and endure whatever came, without yielding in adversity. Words in praise of Charles the Great, Charlemagne, penned in the 9th century AD by his loyal courtier Einhardt. Charlemagne was one of history's most ruthless and ambitious warriors, king of the Franks, then king of the Lombards and conqueror of the Saxons, leading to the Pope crowning him

Roman Emperor. Devoted to Christianity, Charlemagne was dubbed the father of Europe, uniting most of Western Europe for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire. But plenty of blood was spilled along the way. The Saxons, like almost all the tribes of Germany, were a fierce people. He never allowed their faithless behaviour to go unpunished, but either took the field against them in person, or sent his counts with an army to wreak vengeance and exact righteous satisfaction. So how did Charlemagne manage to unite much of Europe? Who were his most formidable enemies?

Why did the Pope crown him emperor? And how did his legacy inspire Adolf Hitler? To answer the big questions on this hugely influential figure, History Hits Rob Weinberg met Dr Sinead O'Sullivan of Queen's University, Belfast. How and why history? Sinead, thanks for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. Firstly, who was Charlemagne and when did he live? Charlemagne was in effect the most successful barbarian king in the early medieval West in the eighth and ninth centuries. And by that, I mean, he had built up a vast empire. He was operating in a period which is really transformative for

medieval history, and that is the period which saw the post-Roman world transformed into the early medieval one. So we're talking about the post-Roman transformation into barbarian successor kingdoms. And within that political sphere, Charlemagne was the most successful of them. Now, he was ruler of a specific group of barbarians, Germans. The group became known as the Carolingians, and these were Franks. The group became known as the Carolingians and these were Franks. The Carolingians themselves were a dynastic family that ruled and rose to power in the 8th and the 9th centuries. When did Charlemagne become King of the Franks? The process is slow and accretive, but he becomes in effect King of the Franks in 768 and it is on the back of a long-term history

so it's not an immediate event. It's building on the work of his father, his grandfather and indeed we could go back to a previous group of Franks, the Merovingians. In other words, when I say the Franks were the most successful of the barbarians in the medieval West, what I mean by that is not just the Carolingian success, but also that of their predecessors, the M them very nice. So we're not talking about constitutional monarchy or nice rulers that attend charity events or do philanthropy. We're talking about rulership through might, through the sword, through warfare, conquest, colonisation, usurpation, suppression of opposition wherever possible, and aggressive tactics of building up

power. That aggressive politics means that they are first and foremost warlords, they are barbarian kings, and they're building up power through the sword, through military expansion. Their objectives are land and conquest, and everything possible that gets in their way is going to be crushed, suppressed. So it is an ambitious dynasty that's building on the military successes of ancestors and appropriating the past to create a fiction of their own myth. to create a fiction of their own myth. Charlemagne is as much about myth as about reality. But he does build up a huge empire that is enormously impressive,

not least insofar as it stretches from the Pyrenees over to Italy, most of modern-day France, parts of Germany, Switzerland and the Low Countries. So it's impressive in scale, albeit of course it doesn't last, but it is a very impressive military and political achievement, even if control is another question and how much he actually controlled the various aspects and parts and regions. In terms of political expansion, he builds up what in effect is an empire. And one could say it's the first big empire in the post-Roman world.

And for that reason, of course, he's looking back to models as are his promoters. And the primary model that they look back to is ancient Rome. So they're building up an imperial concept and construct. And the creation of that is largely the success story of the Carolingians. The fact that even Hitler, when he dreamt of the Third Reich, thought, hmm, Charlemagne 800, Christmas Day, the coronation, the beginning of the first empire in the medieval world. And he saw that as a resurrection of imperial authority. right up into the modern ideology is of the empire of the Romans and particularly that of Augustus, who transits the world from a republic to an empire

in the first century BC. How did Charlemagne set about achieving his mission of conquering all of these places? Well, very simply, land, warfare were the goals, the objectives. How military might, military capacity, aggression, conquest, colonisation. He invaded. in the early medieval West, not too close a neighbour in any fact, because you will largely be targeted. Charlemagne is on the move for land. His power base is largely in what we would call the northern half of France and parts along the Rhine. And he's moving eastwards, southwards, in all directions, in effect, that he can, north as well. He is building up this power base in various ways, but his biggest asset is perhaps not just the military capacity which

builds up a political empire, but it is the fact that he galvanises around himself courts, scholars, galvanises around himself courts, scholars, poets, figures of authority, an aristocratic, a clerical, a scholarly elite that do something very important for Charlemagne. They create his myth. And so it's not just the sword that Charlemagne manages to build up the empire. It's the men that surround him around his table, if you like, his courtiers, men that come from an international base all over Europe, from Ireland to Italy to Spain. And they all buy into the agenda, to the vision, if you like. They all buy into the Carolingian propaganda. They become really powerful spin doctors for Charlemagne. They create the image of Charlemagne above all, and this is the critical point, Charlemagne becomes an image of Christian empire. So, unlike the Romans, the Carolingians are claiming one stage better.

We're even better than Augustus. They're saying we're actually Christian. This king, who showed himself so great in extending his empire and subduing foreign nations, and was constantly occupied with plans to that end, undertook also very many works calculated to adorn and benefit his kingdom, and brought several of them to completion. He was by nature most ready to contract friendships, and not only made friends easily, but clung to them persistently,

and cherished most fondly those with whom he had formed such ties. He liked foreigners, and was at great pains to take them under his protection. He was very forward in succoring the poor and in that gratuitous generosity which the Greeks call arms, so much so that he not only made a point of giving in his own country and his own kingdom, but when he discovered that there were Christians living in poverty in Syria, Egypt and Africa, at Jerusalem, Alexandria and Carthage, he had compassion on their wants and used to send money over the seas to them.

The reason that he zealously strove to make friends with the kings beyond seas was that he might get help and relief to the Christians living under their rule. Was his motive converting all of these conquered peoples to Christianity? Well, I would say very unlikely. This is a barbarian warlord. His ancestors and the history would all seem to indicate ambitions towards building up a barbarian kingship, building up a barbarian kingship, building up an empire of dynastic power, the power of his family and his group, the Carolingians. Christianity was a means, it's a method, it is a powerful tool in the back pocket of these kings. And one reason Christianity sticks in our mind is because the people who

are promoting Charlemagne, his spin doctors, are largely coming from a clerical elite. They're interested in building up the Frankish church as an imperial unified church. And to that effect, they have a vested interest, material and economic as well as cultural, in building up the myth of Charlemagne as a Christian ruler. And this is so powerfully done in the Carolingian age. And the Carolingians aren't the first to do it, but they exploit it to such a high level that it is very impressive. On their coins, their seals, their monograms, their manuscripts, their images of themselves. Everywhere you look, you find images of Christianity and they appropriate very powerful

images. Images from the Old Testament like David. You might think, David, gosh, isn't that just an arcane reference to the Old Testament? Who cares about an Old Testament monarch? Well, but in the Middle Ages, David was, of course, the king from the Old Testament. That was a military success story. He builds up the united monarchy of Judah and of Israel. His capital is Jerusalem. That's also the Christian capital. So they're playing upon Christian ideology to build up their kingship. And they do it in all

sorts of fascinating ways. Who amongst Charlemagne's enemies were the most formidable? So, well, that's again a toss-up, but if I was to bank on it, I would say the Saxons. But maybe we could turn the tables around and say who is the more formidable? Is it Charlemagne or the Saxons? After all, the Saxons are bearing the brunt of Carolingian conquest and colonisation. Charlemagne is the invader here. Why? He's

barbarian. He's looking at adjoining territories and he's thinking, let's invade, let's conquer these territories. And we get attack, counter-attack, resistance. And indeed, there's considerable evidence that the Saxons offer resistance, not least that Charlemagne is over three decades in military engagements with the Saxons. It's not an easy conquest for him. It's ferocious opposition, but eventual capitulation. And what Charlemagne encounters, how he suppresses and incorporates the Saxons, is a very interesting blueprint for Carolingian expansion and the building up of an empire, expansion and the building up of an empire because it comes with hardcore Christianisation.

And indeed, what we're seeing with the conquest of Saxony is colonisation and Christianisation go hand in hand. And that's going to be the blueprint for expansion into the Slavic territories and the incorporation of Slavic Europe by the Germans. Germanisation and Christianisation go hand in hand in the Slavic East and Charlemagne sets that process afoot. He's very much about, for example, with Saxony, he implements very strong draconian legislation that guarantees enforced conversion for the Saxons. But something then very interesting happens with the Saxons. As with most of the conquered territories, similarly, we can see the same process in northern Italy

with the Lombards, another barbarian group who again are incorporated into the Carolingian world. And that process is one, yes, they are incorporated, conquered, annexed by all sorts of means and methods. But eventually, the conquered or assimilated peoples become themselves the spokespeople for a Carolingian agenda. They become Carolingianised. And one of the most successful aspects of Carolingian power was not the empire that they built. It was rather, I suppose, in effect, that everybody bought into the vision and that they did manage to

Carolingianise history. They took over from another group, the Merovingians, and basically wrote them out of the historical narrative. And conquered groups become the spokespeople of this empire. So the Saxons, who are themselves conquered, in effect become the greatest transmitters of Carolingian culture and look to Carolingian places of ritual, like the centre of the Carolingian world, like Aachen near Cologne. That's the capital of Charlemagne's empire. They look to that as a symbol of their power. So the Carolingians provide the symbols of empire and rulership for medieval kings to come.

The Romans had inflicted many injuries upon the pontiff Leo, tearing out his eyes and cutting out his tongue so that he had been complied to call upon the king for help. Charles accordingly went to Rome, to set in order the affairs of the church, which were in great confusion, and passed the whole winter there. It was then that he received the titles of Emperor and Augustus, to which he at first had such an aversion that he declared that he would not have set foot in the church the day that they were conferred,

although it was a great feast day, if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies

teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Why did the Pope crown Charlemagne Emperor of the Roman Empire?

I indicated that the Carolingians were open to every means possible to build up their power base and they were quite lucky insofar as an opportunity arose that they exploited to their full advantage. And that was an opportunity that came from the medieval papacy. In effect, it was an invitation to suppress another barbarian group that had been slowly but very impressively building up power in Italy. That's the Lombards. Now, the Lombards are a problem for the papacy.

They're building up power in the Italian peninsula from the 6th century onwards. By the 8th century, the popes really are worried and they look to where in Europe can they get military intervention. And by this stage, for various reasons that are quite complex, but largely theological, cultural and political rifts with the Eastern Roman Empire, so Byzantine world,

is in a sense not where they look for this military support. They look westwards and the most successful, the most powerful barbarian group that they set their eyes on are the Franks. Now, Charlemagne isn't the first to be aligned for the popes to look for help to. Indeed, Charlemagne's father, Pippin, was also asked by the pope for help.

In Charlemagne's day, Leo III is the one who crowns Charlemagne, but Leo himself has his own problems locally. So there's Italian politics, there is world politics in terms of the Eastern Empire, and then there's the fact that they need to deal with the local problems of the Lombards. And so they invite the Carolingians to deal with this problem. The Carolingians come in. Eventually, under Charlemagne, we do get curtailment. The Lombards are dealt with by the Carolingians. But the Carolingians then don't go away. They basically annex and absorb and take Lombardy. And indeed, intellectually, that fits then the whole idea of empire because now they're in Italy. Italy is synonymous with empire.

The next step is a nice imperial coronation and it's a nice handshake and a thank you. The Pope then thanks the Franks for their military intervention by staging the coronation of Charlemagne. How did Charlemagne's coronation as emperor go down with the Eastern Roman Empire? Well, as you can imagine, rather poorly, very unhappy about this from their point of view. These are not the heirs of Rome. They are the true heirs. They're usurpers. Who are these barbarians from the West that should claim such powerful position? They can't, of course, do anything about it. And that is the problem for them. They have to, in effect, accept it, but they're very deeply unhappy about

this. But the Carolingians are on a path towards building up the propaganda that they are the new Rome, the new empire. If we want a symbol of that, we might look to Aachen, that's in French Aix-la-Chapelle, and that is the capital of Charlemagne, near Cologne. It's a border town today. In Charlemagne's day, it becomes the symbol of his empire. And indeed, it is mythologised almost by his spin doctors, men like Einhardt, who in his great biography of Charlemagne, he tells about the building of the palace in Aachen and he says even the bricks and mortar, the columns, are brought from Rome and from northern Italy, from Ravenna.

So conquered places, but Italy is symbolically very important. And Charlemagne's poets jump on board very quickly and they say Aachen, ah yes, that's not just a nowhere town in the middle of nowhere. This is now the new Rome and they use that terminology. Rome reborn. Of course, that leads into the idea of Renaissance, rebirth of the empire under the new emperor, Charlemagne. Once he was crowned emperor, does Charlemagne continue with his military exploits, or is there

a period of relative peace that follows? Well, peace is not a word that you associate with Charlemagne. But, gosh, if there's even two to three years you're doing well, that is to say, long periods of peace, never. Not in Charlemagne's lifetime. It's a career built on military expansion and conquest. And the Saxons is a good example of that. In terms of lull periods, peace, if you like, the idea of peace is cultivated, however. And if you were to read

Carolingian documents and the Carolingian poets, they often project the notion of peace, tranquility and serenity. But that's propaganda. And indeed, one of the greatest Roman emperors, Augustus, known for a fair bit of military activity, himself was celebrated by his promoters, his propagandists, as issuing and heralding in a time of peace. So that's a part of the political agenda, the political mythology and ideology, peace in our time. But of course, there's nothing like it. It's really a history of warfare and conquest from a Saxon point of view, from a Bavarian point of view, and from a Lombard point of view, from a Slavic point of view, from the Avar point of view. The Avar is the Asiatic group. Again, all of these different groups experience Carolingian military might, and they're certainly not experiencing a heyday of tranquility, peace and calm. That is part of a story told, building up the notion of the aggrandizement, the triumphalism. So just like the Roman emperors triumphing into ancient Rome, celebrating victory, success and peace.

These are the soundbites of the age, of triumphalism, peace, security. The reality, of course, is, I'm sure, very different, certainly in parts. It was after he had received the imperial name that, finding the laws of his people very defective, he determined to add what was wanting, to reconcile the discrepancies, and to correct what was vicious and wrongly cited in them. He also had the old rude songs that celebrate the deeds and wars of the ancient kings written out for transmission to posterity. He began a grammar of his native language. He gave the monks names in his own

tongue, in place of the Latin and barbarous names by which they were formerly known among the Franks. How big was Charlemagne's empire at the time of his death? It's an empire that builds and builds and builds over time. And indeed, by the time we get to the end of his career, we can see this in his titles. He's King of the Franks, Emperor of the Romans, King of Lombardy. So everywhere he goes, he takes a title. On top of that, his empire, in effect, is Western and Central Europe. That is to say, most of France, good portion of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Northern Italy, a bit along the Pyrenees and up into the Low Countries. It's a very impressive political expansion and political consolidation of territories through all sorts of means and

methods. Opportunism, usurpation, rebellion, suppression, warfare, alliances, dynastic and otherwise, papal alliance, of course, the big one with the Pope. So legitimisation projects, his spin doctors legitimise the success story very quickly. One of the things his followers do very quickly is they let no time go to waste in creating the story of success. So as soon as it's done, they're writing it down. And this is a culture where the primary means of communicating a message is through the written word and the Carolingians control that medium magnificently.

The written word is their territory. They control it in their centres of learning. Their centres are the great writing centres of the European medieval West. And in those writing centres, we get the history told of the Carolingians. And no surprise, it's a history of success. What happens after Charlemagne passes away? So his myth becomes solidified by his successors

and by all of those with a vested interest who've been benefiting from the build-up of this political and cultural empire. So many people have received investment and have been bought in now to the Carolingian ideal. Once he dies, it gets solidified by his successors. He, of course, manages to maintain the succession line through his son, Louis the Pious, and then again, the empire is transmitted through Louis the Pious' sons as well. But the empire does split, and it splits within two generations into two major parts, the Western Frankish and the East Frankish empires.

And we get two very powerful empires then developing in those regions, but it does split within two generations. Despite the political fragmentation, although we're still getting powerful units politically surviving, the cultural legacy is very powerful. And indeed, that is the legacy that's going to survive. And indeed, the centres of learning become very important in the post-Carolingian age. And indeed, it's hard even to say when do the Carolingians end because we talk about the Carolingianising of history. Well, that also happens in the sense that in the cultural arena, the Carolingian programme continues into the late 9th and into the 10th centuries with centres of learning that had been promoted, built up and fostered under the Carolingians,

surviving long after Charlemagne and indeed building up into great centres of learning. If you wanted a nice example, a good example of a great Carolingian centre that's built up under the Carolingians and sponsored and promoted by them, St Gallen in Switzerland, so the Abbey of St Gall, it becomes a great centre of learning in the 9th century. So the 9th century becomes a great era of learning in the 9th century. So the 9th century becomes a great era of learning,

of the written word, of written culture, a great era of the book, a great era of documents, if you like. If you want to use the word a golden era, of course, that's a myth promoted by the Carolingians. But there is some reality, of course, to that myth. So is the great legacy of Charlemagne the learning and the academic world that evolved from those institutions of that time? There are many legacies. There is the myth of Charlemagne, a very important myth

that feeds into medieval dynastic culture and into modern nationalism. There is the political construct of an empire that is so fueling ideas of rulership, power and how you politically make up power in the medieval world. and how you politically make up power in the medieval world. But overall, one of the greatest legacies, perhaps I would say this as an intellectual historian, but one of the greatest legacies is certainly in the cultural arena. What you get is the enormous investment in learning literature, in the written word, in centres of learning that undertake huge projects to create and to map the world. And how they construct the world in these centres of learning

is absolutely vitally important for us. It's what shapes the modern world even. It certainly shaped the medieval, but the mapping of the past, the two great pillars that the Carolingians bequeathed and built up were the Greco-Roman, the imperial, and the other one was the Judeo-Christian. It absolutely went at it, lock, stock and barrel. It pushed forward Christianisation and Christianity as a means, as a badge. It was their logo. Look at just an image like the cross. That is an image that is promoted in imperial propaganda by figures like Constantine in the fourth century. It's the great imperial Christian image, the cross. This image that had been, of course, originally an image of capital punishment and of failure

becomes a great symbol of Christian triumph, but not just Christian triumph, imperial triumph. And that Judeo-Christian culture is a pillar that the Carolingians push forward and make the base of their society. And of course, it feeds into European culture very strongly. Sinead O'Sullivan, thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. How and Why History you