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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Map
Author’s Note
Part One: Karl-lo-Magne
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part Two: Hiernom Rakoczy, Comes Sant’ Germainius
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Copyright
for Wiley Saichek
Author’s Note
The rise of the Frankish chieftain known to history as Charlemagne has become so cloaked in legend that the real man is hard to find in the myth. Probably the most obvious difference between the historical and fabled man was that Frankish he may have been, but French he was not. The Franks were a powerful Germanic tribe occupying, among other territory, that part of Gaul called Francia that includes modern-day France. Their language was Teutonic, and their customs were based on German tribal structures. In the words of the late-Empire Romans and Byzantine Greeks, the Franks were barbarians; Charlemagne, being a good Frank, spelled his name Karlus, or Karl, as his sigil clearly shows. He also stood over six feet four inches in a time when the average nobleman was about five feet two inches. No wonder he was called The Large, or The Great (lo Magne).
When Pepin the Short became King of the Franks in 754, he ended the Merovingian dynasty that preceded his rulership. He also gave his support to the Roman Catholic Church and in exchange for Church recognition of his claims, promised to hold the western territory of the Roman Empire for the Church. Pepin conferred the region of Italy known as the Papal States on the Church by claiming Byzantine lands in Italy and declaring that these territories now belonged to the Pope. Known as the Donation of Pepin, it marked the beginning of Papal politico-temporal power in Europe, and guaranteed Church support of Pepin’s claims on the Frankish throne. Upon Pepin’s death in 768, his two sons, Karl and Karloman, were bequeathed Pepin’s divided kingdom. After Karloman’s death in 771 rumored to be by poison but possibly from appendicitis—Karl-lo-Magne, then about twenty-nine years old, became King of all the Franks and began an ambitious program of empire building. He also reconfirmed the Donation of Pepin, thus uniting his efforts with the interests of the Catholic Church.
With the Christian world divided and emotions running high on both sides, one might suppose that the position of Jews would be problematic. In Karl-lo-Magne’s territories, Jews were highly regarded members of the community. It was not uncommon for Christians to attend Jewish services, and for Jews to go to Mass and be entertained by Bishops and regional nobility. A few Jews were elevated to positions of considerable power in Karl-lo-Magne’s court, and Jewish scholars were often consulted on Old Testament doctrinal issues. In the Roman Church, Jews held important posts as scholars, secretaries, and legal advisors. Certain regions of Karl-lo-Magne’s kingdom were anti-Jewish, but those regions tended to general xenophobia, and their unsympathetic attitudes were not limited to Jews alone, but to all manner of outsiders.
The world of Charlemagne was a precarious place, existing amid the remnants of the western half of the Roman Empire, trying to keep the powerful Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) at bay, battling other barbarian tribes, and oftentimes fending off insurrections within their own ranks. The lofty goals of ordered peace under the restoration of Roman law often seemed not only unattainable but absurd. Karl-lo-Magne included scholarship and, to a lesser degree, arts among the various talents he sought out for his Court, a decision that was to shine a bright light on his reign that is mostly lacking in the backwater of Europe during that period called the Dark Ages. By having men of letters as well as soldiers around him, Karl-lo-Magne guaranteed he would be remembered, for much of the work of the intellectual community was to document Karl-lo-Magne’s activities.
And what a lot of activities there were: Karl-lo-Magne was on campaign for most of his reign—campaigns against the Moors and the Saxons and the Longobards (Lombards—Germanic peoples living in northern Italy) were undertaken regularly, Karl-lo-Magne leading his forces on campaign. Most of Frankish society was predicated on war, something Karl-lo-Magne tried to modify to some extent even while exploiting the Franks’ capacity for it. He not only strove to achieve a single code of laws for his subjects and to make education available—if not compulsory—for all upper-class children, he tried to establish a sense of what today would be called national identity. He, himself, spoke German, Latin, and a little Greek, but could not read nor write beyond signing his name and sigil; most of his military supporters were also illiterate, employing clerks and scribes to handle any reading or writing, which bound the military class to the Church ever more closely, since monks were the largest generally literate class in all Frankish territory. Karl-lo-Magne put money into the development of canals for merchants’ traffic, into building fortresses and castles, into establishing centers of learning, into creating an ongoing political tie with the Church, and into expanding the system of roads in his empire, any one of which would have been a major achievement for a ruler of the period, and were all the more remarkable in that his efforts, for the most part, paid off, at least during his reign. By the time of his death in January of 814 at the seriously advanced age of seventy-one or -two, Karl-lo-Magne had dramatically changed the face of Europe. By becoming the military head of the Roman Empire in the West—as compared to the Roman Empire in the East as the Byzantine Empire styled itself—he laid the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, which, though neither holy nor Roman nor an Empire, still shaped European politics for the next eight hundred years.
In his efforts to create unity among his people, Karl-lo-Magne banned the speaking of Celtic, destroyed major pagan shrines, broke the hold of minor princes and regional warlords, pushed back the Moors in the southwest, the Longobards in the south, the Avars in the southeast, and the Saxons in the northeast, and generally drew all power under his wing, extending his control to all aspects of his empire. This usually also included certain Church privileges that Karl-lo-Magne took upon himself, particularly the appointment of Bishops, who not only had the authority of the Church but generally had rich revenues from their bishoprics not unlike the revenues that the lay authorities had from their fiscs, counties, and duchies. Bishoprics were valuable prizes and were far more secular in their character than they are in modern times—although i
t is as well to keep in mind that for Karl-lo-Magne and his contemporaries, the eighth and ninth centuries were modern times—and were sought after by high-ranking families to add to their material and territorial wealth. Bishops hunted, banqueted, drank, whored, kept slaves and musicians and mistresses, had bastards to whom they bequeathed Church property, were touchy about their prestige, and tended to behave very much the way the military nobles did.
In spite of Karl-lo-Magne’s efforts, the languages of his subjects remained fairly chaotic once the Royal Court and the upper echelons of the Church were left behind; even at that level of society, the language was an amalgam of German and Latin, with little formality and fewer rules; certainly the formal structure of Classical Latin was gone, and had been replaced by a haphazard application of Latinate rules on German vocabulary that occasionally bangs its linguistic shins on present-day academic training. Also the Latin itself had worn down over time—for example, the Classical Latin caldarium (heated bath) had become caladarium the century before. Because of that, I have used the terms of the period when they are regularized enough to be correctly consistent. When that consistency is lacking, I have used the modern terms for the sake of comprehensibility. For example, I used the modern title Bishop instead of the nine different regional versions of that title used in Frankish territory during Karl-lo-Magne’s reign, and the modern names of cities and towns when there were multiple names for the places in question. There are a few terms and offices that are peculiar to the period—for example: magnatus-i (high-ranking non-military functionary), missidominici (Carolingian Inspectors General and couriers), mariscalcus-i (masters of horses and stables), buticularius-ii (butler: in charge of household economy, particularly provisioning the kitchen)—that are precise and consistent, and those I have used in their original forms. Items of clothing have their period names, as do units of measure, although these often varied from place to place. There were also Frankish names for all the months, as well as Roman ones, but I have used their contemporary names for clarity’s sake. At the time, few persons had last names in the sense that modern persons do; compound names were fairly rare but not unheard-of, but lacked the connecting hyphen that such names have today: Gynethe Mehaut is like Marie-Louise, not like Mary Smith. Merchants were generally known by their city of principal business, such as Gerardius of Arles; artisans were identified by the trades: Clovis the Joiner, Irmold the Fletcher, etc. The military upper class were known usually by the land they controlled, and while most had clan or family names as well as personal name, they were more indicative of lineage than many last names are now.
Although Karl-lo-Magne’s capitol was at Aachen, he maintained a number of Royal Residences throughout his realm, such as Paderborn—once he conquered the Saxons whose capital it was—and often traveled to them, taking his entire household, including his widowed mother, Bertrada (Bertha), called Big-Foot, until her death, and most of his daughters with him, along with dozens of courtiers, soldiers, nobles, petitioners, monks, scribes, women, entertainers, servants, and slaves. This formidable company traveled much as an army of the period did, moving across the land slowly and commandeering food and shelter everywhere they went. His residences had permanent staffs whose job it was to keep the residence ready for Karl-lo-Magne’s visits. A small group of officials had the duty of notifying and supervising preparations for Karl-lo-Magne’s—and his Court’s—arrival. Other high-ranking nobles were sometimes ordered to receive all of Karl-lo-Magne’s retinue, which, while an honor and a sign of favor, could also prove costly for the appointed host, who had to feed, house, and entertain the visitors in as grand a style as courtesy (meaning courtly standards, not good behavior) demanded. Even religious institutions, such as monasteries and the households of Bishops, could be required to host Karl-lo-Magne’s entourage, for the political reality of the time established a quid-pro-quo arrangement between the Franks and the Church in Frankish territories.
The Church contributed to the life of the empire in many ways, perhaps none so significant as the establishment of major monasteries and convents throughout Karl-lo-Magne’s realm. Not only did these thriving communities contribute to the local economy, they served as learning centers and safe havens. The vast, forested expanse of the central Frankish lands was peppered with religious communities offering hospitality to travelers and refuge for those driven from their farms by war or plague or famine. Since priests were not yet forbidden to marry, many of them maintained private households in towns and villages, fairly isolated in their work, and as such did not have the powerful community presence of (technically celibate) monks, whose monasteries were often villages in themselves, where God’s Work dictated the behavior of the occupants—at least in theory. In many ways the monasteries actually served as a substitute for towns, which were small, dangerous, and disease-ridden. Most monasteries and convents were dedicated to maintaining the prestige of their patron saints, and not only because it added to their importance but because the reputation of a saint was often all that stood between the non-military religious and the greedy military elite, who were disinclined to attack a monastery or convent if the patron saint was considered a powerful one, who could be counted upon to exact supernatural revenge for any abuse of his or her monks.
Alcuin of York’s administration of the major monasteries helped in cementing the goals and policies of Karl-lo-Magne; he also protected Church interests by encouraging mutual support among regional military and religious institutions. By maintaining a standard of performance for scholarship, Alcuin made it possible for the monasteries to provide a dependable recording service to the ruling class, which inclined the nobles to value—and therefore protect—the monasteries. The work of the clerical scholars done during Karl-lo-Magne’s reign proved invaluable to Karl-lo-Magne as well as to later centuries through the compilation of descriptiones and itineraries—comprehensive lists and catalogs of the world around them; they also reformed writing through the invention of the Carolingian minuscule, or what we call lowercase letters, such as the ones you are reading right now.
Until the thirteenth century, the Church had no policy on stigmata, leaving it up to local religious authorities to decide if the wounds were holy or damnable in their implication. Rare though it was, the stigmata did occur from time to time, and response to it varied from veneration to persecution, depending on the prevailing superstition of the era. St. Francis of Assisi was the first stigmatic to have his injuries officially recognized as spiritually favorable, a perception that has carried on to the present day. At the time of Karl-lo-Magne, the stigmata phenomenon was considered dangerous, whether good or bad in its interpretation, and for that reason, stigmatics were carefully watched by Church authorities.
During Karl-lo-Magne’s reign, two major agrarian developments—the three-field rotation system of farming, and the standardized horseshoe—significantly changed agriculture and travel. For the first time since the Roman Empire in the West fell, crop surpluses became possible, for the three-field rotation, planting two fields and leaving one fallow for grazing each year, reduced the catastrophic impact of crop failure by having two crops each harvest season instead of one. Famine still occurred but less regularly than before, and was more quickly recovered from. The innovation of the standardized horse shoe simplified military campaigns and farming alike and made travel a bit less precarious by ensuring shoes for horses that were readily and relatively inexpensively available. Another Frankish innovation that came shortly after Karl-lo-Magne’s death was the invention of a heavy, wheeled plow that allowed for a deep, turned furrow rather than a shallow scratch in the top soil; this allowed for tathing—covering the fields in dung and straw during the winter—which could be plowed back into the earth in the spring, replenishing the earth with fertilizer as well as supporting the crop rotation. In the gradual disintegration that followed Karl-lo-Magne’s death, farming continued to flourish in western Europe.
These improvements would not have been possible without the in
crease in iron mining in German territories. This, along with silver mining in what is now western Poland, made the Franks rich and powerful, providing the raw material of wealth and the means to control the market. Frankish iron made the heavy plow and standardized horseshoe possible by producing a supply of ore that was more than adequate to military needs; it allowed for horses to carry and pull heavier loads, and for larger, heavier horses to be bred—both unlikely without the standardized shoe, made possible by the increased supply of iron. Suddenly scissors, shears, sickles, knives, spades, and other iron utensils were also being made for a much more general market than had been possible since the fourth century. Because the Franks controlled the silver mines, the Carolingian monetary system—such as it was—was silver-based, not gold. Money was in short supply in any case, no matter of what metal; most commerce was based on trade of goods and services. A further problem with gold was that it had to be got from other governments, and could be costly in more ways than one. Rather than burden himself with gold-based obligations, Karl-lo-Magne saved his gold for royal ornaments and ceremonial objects and minted almost all his coins in silver.
The population of Europe during Karl-lo-Magne’s reign—and for almost a thousand years thereafter—was about 80 percent peasant, 10 percent military and clergy, 8 percent artisan (predominantly masons, smiths, potters, weavers, leather-workers, millers, and all manner of wrights), and 2 percent merchant classes. In this population, days and seasons were more important than specific dates, and the society reflected that: the calendar had not been regularized, and though Karl-lo-Magne used the Pope’s calendar for state documents, many of his subjects did not, resulting in a level of official confusion that lasted well into the Medieval period. Karl-lo-Magne also had his own system of months, which he used generally. Time was reckoned by sundials and canonical Hours, and not by any agreed-upon discrete measurement of minutes. Sunrise and sunset established the limits of the peasants’ and artisans’ day, the religious lived by the eight Hours of the Divine Office (with an optional observation of Nocturne or Vigil), which was around-the-clock schedule of prayers and chanting, keeping a somewhat different schedule in the eighth century than they do now; the military lived by the pragmatic demands of campaigning.
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