by Tom Holland
of Ecclesiastical History 45,1994 Wormald, Patrick: 'Eagla lond: The Making of an Allegiance', Journal of Historical Sociology 7,1994
Zimmerman, Harald: Der Canossagang von 1077: Wirkungen und Wirklichkeit (Mainz. 1975) Zotz, Thomas: 'Carolingjan Tradition and Ottonian-Salian Innovation: Comparative Observations on Palatine Policy in the Empire', in Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (London, 1993)
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[1] The first certain use of the document by a pope occurred as late as 1054, but its origin in the events of the second half of the eighth century is almost universally accepted by scholars, with a majority agreeing that it must first have appeared in the 750s or 760s.
[2] The Latin term used by the chroniclers of Henry I's reign is 'imperium'. The German word — despite its unfortunate connotations — conveys a much better sense of its meaning than any alternative word in English.
[3] An alternative version of his death claims that John XII was murdered liv the outraged husband.
[4] Mohammed, in a celebrated hadith (The Book on Government, 4681), declared that 'the gates of Paradise are under the shadows of the swords': a sentiment profoundly shocking to Byzantine sensibilities.
[5] Or, as Gabriel put it, 'those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom God has assigned to thee': Qur'an 33.50.
[6] The origins of the name are notoriously problematic. Some derive it from the Vandals, invaders of the Roman Empire who passed through Spain on their way to North Africa; others from Atlantis, the legendary island written about by Plato, and which was supposed to have been located in the furthest west. The uncertainty persists.
[7] 'Servus', even more than 'pauper', is a word with a complex history. Originally, it meant 'slave'; and the course of evolution by which it came to mean 'serf remains intensely controversial. At the time of the Millennium, it could still be used with both meanings.
[8] The current consensus among historians is that the theory was not true. Studies of rural settlements in Scandinavia do not, in fact, appear to indicate excessive population growth.
[9] The evidence for this depends on an autopsy conducted on Edward's bones in 1963. It is possible, of course, that the pathologist's conclusions were mistaken — or indeed that the bones were not those of Edward at all.
[10] An equally plausible translation is 'Blacktooth' — 'Bluetooth', however, has been immortalised as a sobriquet by its use as a name for wireless technology, uniting different technologies just as Harald was supposed to have united Denmark and Norway. The contemporary enthusiasm for recasting tenth- century warlords as peaceable multiculturalists is a peculiar one — and one from which the Caliphs of Cordoba have regularly benefited as well.
[11] 'Kanisai al-Qumami' - a pun on the Arabic for Church of the Resurrection, 'Kanisai al-Qiyama'.
[12] A theory that is accepted to this day by the Druze of Lebanon, Syria and Israel, who worship al-Hakim as what the Caliph had claimed to be: an incarnation of God.
