The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West

by Tom Holland

  A thousand years had passed now since an angel, parting the veil which conceals from mankind the plans of the Almighty for the future, had given to St. John a revelation of the last days. And the saint, writing it down, had recorded how a great battle was destined to be fought; and how the Beast, at its end, would be captured and thrown into a lake of fire. But before that could be brought about, and the world born anew, Christ Himself, “clad in a robe dipped in blood,” was destined to lead out the armies of heaven. “From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.”139

  On 15 July, the crusaders finally broke into Jerusalem and took possession of the object of all their yearnings. The wine press was duly trodden: the streets were made to flow with blood. And at the end of it, when the slaughter was done, and the whole city drenched in gore, the triumphant warriors of Christ, weeping with joy and disbelief, assembled before the Sepulchre of the Saviour and knelt in an ecstasy of worship.

  Meanwhile, on the Temple Mount, where it had been foretold that Antichrist would materialise at the end of days enthroned in fearsome and flame-lit glory, all was stillness. The slaughter upon the rock of the Temple had been especially terrible, and not a living thing had been left there to stir. Already, in the summer heat, the corpses were starting to reek.

  Antichrist did not appear.

  Timeline

  All dates are anno Domini.

  ?33 The crucifixion of Jesus.

  ?64 The execution of St. Peter in Rome.

  ?95 St. John writes the Book of Revelation.

  ?287 The martyrdom of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion.

  312 Constantine captures Rome, supposedly after a vision of Christ.

  330 The founding of Constantinople.

  426 St. Augustine completes his book on the City of God.

  ?507 The conversion of Clovis, King of the Franks.

  711 The Muslim invasion of Spain.

  751 Pepin makes himself king, deposing the dynasty of Clovis.

  754 Pope Stephen II, having crossed the Alps, anoints Pepin.

  800 Charlemagne is crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III.

  843 The Treaty of Verdun: Charlemagne’s empire is divided between his three grandsons.

  846 Muslim pirates sack St. Peter’s in Rome.

  856 Viking pirates sack Orléans.

  899 The Hungarians begin their raids on Christendom.

  905 The termination of the Carolingian line of emperors: the imperial throne of the West is left vacant.

  910 The founding of the abbey of Cluny.

  911 Rollo, a Viking warlord, agrees to convert to Christianity, and is granted the overlordship of what will become Normandy.

  919 Henry, the Duke of Saxony, is elected King of East Francia.

  929 Abd al-Rahman III, Emir of Al-Andalus, proclaims himself Caliph.

  936 Henry, King of East Francia, dies, and is succeeded by his son, Otto.

  939 The Battle of Andernach: Otto crushes a revolt led by his brother.

  955 The Battle of the Lech: the threat to Christendom from the Hungarians is destroyed for good.

  962 Otto is crowned emperor by Pope John XII.

  966 The baptism of Miesco, Duke of the Poles.

  967 Magdeburg is established as an archbishopric.

  969 The assassination in Constantinople of Nicephorus Phocas, and his replacement as emperor by John Tzimiskes.

  972 The arrival of Theophanu, John Tzimiskes’s niece, in Rome. A council is held at Aurillac, designed to promote the Peace of God.

  973 The death of Otto. He is succeeded by his son, Otto II. Edgar, King of the English, stages an imperial coronation at Bath, and establishes a single currency.

  975 The death of Edgar.

  978 The murder of Edward, Edgar’s son, at Corfe. He is succeeded as king by his half-brother, Ethelred.

  982 The Battle of Cotrone. Otto II retreats to Rome.

  983 The revolt of the Slavs. Otto II dies in Rome. His infant son, Otto III, is crowned king.

  986 The settlement of Greenland.

  987 Hugh Capet is elected King of France. Fulk Nerra becomes Count of Anjou. Sweyn Forkbeard deposes his father, Harald Bluetooth, to become King of Denmark.

  988 Vladimir of Kiev converts to Christianity.

  991 The Battle of Maldon. Fire in Rome almost destroys St. Peter’s.

  992 The death of Adso of Montier-en-Der while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

  994 Odilo becomes Abbot of Cluny. The relics of St. Martial are publicly displayed on a hill above Limoges in a successful attempt to arrest a pestilence.

  996 Otto III appoints his cousin as the first German pope, and is crowned as emperor. Robert II “the Pious” becomes King of France. Al-Hakim becomes the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt.

  997 The martyrdom of St. Adalbert. The suppression of a peasant insurrection in Normandy. Al-Mansur, the effective ruler of al-Andalus, sacks Santiago.

  998 Otto III suppresses an insurrection in Rome.

  999 Otto III appoints Gerbert of Aurillac as Pope.

  1000 Otto III visits the shrine of St. Adalbert in Poland and the tomb of Charlemagne in Aachen. The conversion of Iceland to Christianity. The death of Olaf Trygvasson, following his defeat by Sweyn Forkbeard.

  1002 The death of Otto III. He is succeeded by Henry II. The death of al-Mansur. Ethelred orders a pogrom of Danes living in England: the St. Brice’s Day Massacre.

  1003 Henry II enters an alliance with the Wends.

  1004 Muslim pirates sack Pisa.

  1006 Count Richard II of Normandy lays claim to the title of “duke.”

  1009 The massacre of the Berber residents of Córdoba. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is demolished on the orders of the Caliph al-Hakim.

  1010 Berber forces lay Córdoba under siege. Jews are persecuted – and almost certainly massacred – for the first time in France.

  1013 The fall and sack of Córdoba. Sweyn Forkbeard invades England.

  1014 The death of Sweyn Forkbeard and the return from exile in Normandy of Ethelred.

  1016 The death of Ethelred. Canute establishes himself as King of England. Turkish horsemen attack Armenia.

  1018 A band of Norman mercenaries take service with the Byzantines in southern Italy.

  1022 Twelve clerics are burned to death for heresy in Orléans.

  1024 The death of Henry II marks the extinction of the Liudolfing dynasty. Conrad II is elected as king.

  1026 A mass pilgrimage, sponsored by Duke Richard III of Normandy, arrives in Jerusalem.

  1027 Canute arrives in Rome for Conrad II’s coronation as emperor.

  1028 The public frustration of Adémar’s attempt to prove that St. Martial had been one of Christ’s original apostles.

  1030 The Battle of Stiklestad and the death of Olaf, King of Norway. Olaf’s half-brother, Harald Hardrada, seeks sanctuary with Yaroslav, the King of the Rus.

  1031 Olaf’s body is exhumed and found to be incorrupt: he starts to be hailed as a saint.

  1033 Adémar – and a great crowd of other pilgrims – arrive in Jerusalem. Peter Damian becomes a hermit.

  1035 The arrival in Jerusalem of Duke Robert of Normandy is followed soon afterwards by his death in Nicaea. He is succeeded as duke by his infant son, William. The death of Canute. Harald Hardrada travels to Constantinople.

  1039 Henry III succeeds his father, Conrad II, as king of the Reich.

  1043 Henry III marries Agnes of Aquitaine. Edward “the Confessor” is crowned as King of England.

  1044 Harald Hardrada flees Constantinople.

  1045 Harald Hardrada marries Elizabeth, Yaroslav’s daughter.

  1046 The Synod of Sutri: Henry III disposes of three rival popes, and replaces them with a German appointee of his own.

  1047 The arrival of Robert of Hauteville – soon to be nicknamed “Guiscard” – in southern Italy. Duke William of Normandy
wins his first battle. Harald Hardrada becomes undisputed King of Norway.

  1048 Bruno of Toul is crowned in Rome as Pope Leo IX. He tours the Rhineland, and stages a council in Reims. Hugh of Semur becomes Abbot of Cluny in succession to Odilo.

  1053 The Battle of Civitate: Leo IX is taken prisoner by the Normans.

  1054 Cardinal Humbert’s embassy to Constantinople: its ultimate result is schism between the churches of the Old and the New Rome. The death of Leo IX.

  1055 Beatrice and Matilda of Tuscany are exiled by Henry III to the Rhineland.

  1056 The death of Henry III. He is succeeded as king by his infant son, Henry IV.

  1057 Peter Damian becomes a cardinal. Street battles break out in Milan between supporters of the archbishop and insurrectionists known as the “Patarenes.” Beatrice and Matilda return to Tuscany.

  1059 The cardinals lay claim to the right to choose a pope. Peter Damian arrives in Milan in an attempt to make peace between the archbishop and the Patarenes. Robert Guiscard is accepted as a papal vessel, and invested with the dukedom of Apulia.

  1061 The Normans invade Sicily.

  1062 Henry IV is kidnapped by the Archbishop of Cologne.

  1065 Henry IV comes of age. His mother, Agnes, leaves for Rome.

  1066 The death of Edward the Confessor. Harald Godwinsson succeeds him as King of England. The Battle of Stamford Bridge: the defeat and death of Harald Hardrada. The Battle of Hastings: the defeat and death of Harald Godwinsson. William of Normandy is crowned as King of England.

  1070 A public penance is imposed on all who fought at Hastings.

  1071 The Battle of Manzikert.

  1072 Rival bishops are appointed in Milan. The death of Peter Damian. Palermo is captured by the Normans. Alfonso VI becomes King of León.

  1073 Archdeacon Hildebrand is elected Pope. He takes the name Gregory VII. Rebellion against Henry IV breaks out in Saxony.

  1074 The abandonment of Gregory’s expedition to Constantinople and Jerusalem.

  1075 Henry IV suppresses the revolt in Saxony. Gregory charges the Germans not to obey disobedient bishops. Henry imposes his own candidate on the archbishopric of Milan.

  1076 Gregory threatens Henry IV with excommunication. At a conference in Worms, two-thirds of the German bishops renounce their loyalty to Gregory. Gregory excommunicates Henry. Rebellion breaks out again in Saxony, and Henry is threatened with deposition by a gathering of rebellious princes at Tribur.

  1077 Henry IV stages a public penance at Canossa, and is absolved from excommunication. An assembly of princes at Forcheim elects Duke Rodulf of Swabia as king. Civil war in the Reich. The death of Agnes.

  1078 Gregory formally bans the investiture of bishops by emperors and kings.

  1080 Gregory excommunicates Henry IV for a second time. Henry nominates an anti-pope. Rudolf of Swabia dies in battle. Alfonso VI imposes the Roman form of the Mass on his kingdom.

  1081 Henry IV marches abortively on Rome. Alexius Comnenus becomes emperor in Constantinople. Robert Guiscard crosses the Adriatic.

  1082 Robert Guiscard withdraws again to Apulia.

  1083 Henry IV captures St. Peter’s.

  1084 Henry IV captures Rome and is anointed as emperor by Clement III, the newly crowned anti-pope. He retreats before the advance of Robert Guiscard, who rescues Gregory from the Castel Sant’Angelo and sacks Rome.

  1085 Death of Gregory. Alfonso VI captures Toledo. Death of Robert Guiscard.

  1087 Urban II is crowned as Pope.

  1090 The last Muslim outpost in Sicily submits to Norman rule.

  1095 The Council of Piacenza. Urban II tours France. He consecrates the “maior ecclesia” of Cluny. At a council held at Clermont, he calls for an armed expedition to restore Jerusalem to Christendom.

  1097 The capture of Nicaea from the Turks.

  1099 The capture of Jerusalem.

  Notes

  Preface

  1 Lampert of Hersfeld, p. 285. Lampert’s description of Henry’s journey across the Alps has often been criticised for its melodramatic tone, but the descent from the Mont Cenis pass is indeed a steep one, and all the sources are agreed that the winter of 1076–7 was exceptionally bitter.

  2 Wipo. Quoted by Morris, p. 19.

  3 Quoted by Cowdrey (1998), p. 608.

  4 Gregory VII, Register, 3.10a.

  5 Ibid., 4.12.

  6 For the likelihood that the future Pope had attended Henry’s coronation in 1054, see Cowdrey (1998), pp. 34–5.

  7 Tellenbach (1940), p. 1.

  8 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, 6.36.

  9 Bonizo of Sutri, p. 238. The reference is to Henry’s original excommunication.

  10 Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages, p. 34.

  11 Quoted by Zimmerman, p. 3.

  12 Moore (2000), p. 12.

  13 Ironically, the phrase comes from the Bible: Psalm 113. The anecdote is quoted by Leyser (1965), p. 60.

  14 Blumenthal, p. 64.

  15 The thesis that the decades either side of the Millennium witnessed a unique crisis in the order of Christendom was most brilliantly elucidated by the great French historian Georges Duby. The twin poles of the debate today are represented by two other formidable French scholars: Pierre Bonnassie and Dominique Barthélemy. An excellent though cussedly sceptical survey of the historiography can be found in Crouch (2005).

  16 Ferdinand Lot. Quoted by Edmond Pognon (1981), p. 11.

  17 Les Fausses Terreurs de l’An Mil, by Sylvain Gouguenheim.

  18 Carozzi, p. 45.

  19 An argument that derives principally from Richard Landes, Professor of History at Boston University, and doyen of all those scholars who, over the past couple of decades, have argued for the existence of what he himself has termed “The Terribles espoirs of 1000 and the Tacit Fears of 2000” (Landes, Gow and Van Meter, p. 3).

  20 From the second vision of the Visionary of St. Vaast. The quotation provides the frontispiece for a seminal essay by the German scholar Johannes Fried, one of the first to argue in convincing detail for the influence of apocalyptic hopes and anxieties upon Christendom at the turn of the first Millennium. Taken from the English translation in Landes, Gow and Van Meter, p. 17.

  21 Fulton, p. 72.

  22 Glaber, 4.1.

  23 Rees, p. 186.

  24 Lovelock, p. 189.

  25 Ibid., p. 7.

  26 Odo of Cluny, col. 585.

  1 The Return of the King

  1 Matthew 4.9.

  2 Daniel 7.19.

  3 Matthew 5.9.

  4 Matthew 26.52.

  5 1 Peter 5.13. The first independent allusion to Peter’s presence in Rome does not date until AD 96.

  6 Revelation 17.4–6.

  7 Ibid., 20.2.

  8 Romans 13.1.

  9 2 Thessalonians 2.6.

  10 Mark 13.32.

  11 Revelation 21.2.

  12 Christians were expelled from the army some time around 300, just before the great persecution launched by the Emperor Diocletian in 303. This has raised considerable doubts about the veracity of the story of St. Maurice, since he and his legion are supposed to have been martyred for refusing to take part in this self-same persecution. For a convincing explanation of the legend’s origin, see Woods.

  13 Eucherius of Lyon, 9.

  14 Lactantius, 44.5.

  15 Augustine, City of God, 5.25.

  16 Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.31.

  17 Ibid., In Praise of the Emperor Constantine, 1.

  18 “Examples of prayers for the Empire and the Emperor” (c), Folz (1969), p. 176.

  19 Revelation 18.19.

  20 Ibid., 20.8.

  21 Pseudo-Methodius, quoted in Alexander (1985), p. 40.

  22 Ibid., p. 50.

  23 Avitus of Vienne, p. 75.

  24 Augustine, City of God, 4.15.

  25 Ibid., 19.17.

  26 Revelation 20.1–3.

  27 Augustine, City of God, 20.7.

  28
Gregory I, Moralium Libri, col. 1011.

  29 Ibid., Regulae Pastoralis Liber, col. 14.

  30 The bishop was Pope Gregory I, “the Great”: Homiliarum in Evangelia, col. 1213.

  31 Augustine, On Order, 2.1.2.

  32 The etymology was originally St. Jerome’s. Scholars nowadays hold it to be inaccurate.

  33 Michael Psellus, p. 177.

  34 Pre-eminently by Justinian.

  35 This was a very ancient tradition, dating back at least to the early third century, and maybe earlier.

  36 Not until the reign of Gregory VII, however, did this become an official prescription.

  37 A letter of Pope Gregory II. Quoted by Ullman (1969), p. 47.

  38 Lex Salica, pp. 6–8.

  39 1 Peter 2.9. Pope Paul I, in 757, quoted the verse in a letter to Pepin. See Barbero, p. 16.

  40 Donation of Constantine, p. 326.

  41 Ibid., p. 328.

  42 Aethicus Ister, Cosmographia. Quoted by Brown, p. 413.

  43 2 Samuel 5.20.

  44 Alcuin, Letter 9. Ironically, the comment was made in the context of the first Viking raid on Northumbria.

  45 Charlemagne, 2.138.

  46 Angilbertus, line 504.

  47 Einhard, 28.

  48 For the calculations that enabled this to be adduced, see Landes (1988) – a brilliant, though controversial, piece of scholarly detective work. See also Fried, p. 27.

  49 Alcuin, Letter 43.

  50 Futolf of Michelsberg. Quoted by Goetz, p. 154.