Hello there
"He who ordains the fate of kingdoms and the march of the centuries,
the all-powerful disposer of events, having destroyed one
extraordinary image, that of the Romans, which had, it was true, feet
of iron, or even feet of clay, then raised up, among the Franks, the
golden head of a second image, equally remarkable, in the person of
the illustrious Charlemagne." - Notker the Stammerer, monk of Saint
Gall (844)
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This is an interesting and, as well as you may find, a controversial
question depending on personal perspective and what versions of
history to which you subscribe.
So I will start out by saying that the Carolingian Empire was an
accident.
At least according to Lynn Harry Nelson, Emeritus Professor of
Medieval History, The University of Kansas whose ideas are at the
heart of what I'm about to write.
In 751, Islam had split into two contending parties. The Abbasids and
the Umayyads. The Umayyad capital was Damascus. tha Abbasids were
located further east and they built a new capital in Mesopotamia,
called Baghdad. The Abbasids were a revival of Persian culture within
the frameowrk of Islam. As a result of war between them, the Abbasids
overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus and the Abbasids had
little interest in the Mediterranean.
At the same time, Byzantium also lost most of its interest in the
Mediterranean as their attention was turned inland due to various
Slavic peoples threatening the European frontiers. Due to this, the
Byzantine Navy was allowed to deteriorate and the empire concentrated
on building its land forces.
The Franks also turned away from the sea and began to expand into
lands north and east. What little interest the Franks had in naval
power vanished. So the three main Mediterranean powers turned their
attention away from attempts to control the sea lanes all at the same
time.
Socially, Frankish expansion reduced the importance of tribal and
kinship ties among themselves and allowed them to place more of their
energy and loyalty to the concept of a "state."
From the beginning this "Frankish" part of Europe had a lot going
against it. The populations were not homogenous. There were the
descendants of Romans, Visigoths, Burgundians, and various Germanic
tribes. They spoke several different languages and had different
cultural traditions. There were few, if any, institutions of central
government. There were no common laws or standards of weights and
measures, no common currency, no real civil service, and more.
The common concept was that the Roman Empire, embodied in the
Byzantine emperor, was ruler of the Mediterranean and leader of the
Christian Church. Frankish kings were unable to command obedience when
even they proclaimed that the Byzantine emperor was their superior.
And in fact, the Byzantines had a great deal of control over the West
during this time. As late as 660CE, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine
II visited Rome with a large army and an assembly of nobles. Actually
he was robbing the Roman treasury and his army was ferreting out all
the lead and bronze they could find to take back with them. The
Romans welcomed him with a banquet but he left after a week. That was
also pretty much the end of the ancient city of Rome. The ancient
temples, columns, walls, even the great sheets of marble which
protected the banks of the Tiber River were held together with bronze
clamps. When the emperor took the clamps, Rome actually fell apart.
This gives some idea of what the world in the West was like when the
Carolingians came along.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of Charlemagne to later western
civilization was his creation of the machinery of government. Coming
out of the previous Merovingian 'civil service,' was the concept of a
king as the 'steward' of the people. He used a series of letters
known as the "capitularies" to send orders and set standards
throughout the areas he ruled. He sent inspectors out to make sure
his orders were being followed and local officials were doing what
they were supposed to. He created a common currency knows as the
"silver penny." Not only did he create such a common currency, he
matched it to the value of Islamic coinage in order to promote trade
between the two parts of the world. He increased Frankish military
strength by having them conquer different lands, but even more
importantly from the military training standpoint, they had to defend
them after they conquered them. He seemed intent on re-creating the
old Roman Empire.
He built his capital at Aachen which was an old Roman Army base on the
Rhine. He build a palace on the model of ancient Roman palaces and he
built his palace church on the model of the Church of St. Vitale in
Ravenna. St.Vitale was the imperial church when the Roman capital was
located in that city. He even imported Roman columns to build it. He
established a school where he gathered Latin scholars and one of the
most lasting results of that school was the development of a script
called "miniscule." Miniscule meant that some of the letters rose
above an established line and some sank below it. Previous texts were
all uppercase, without punctuation and there was no separation between
words. The lower case letters I'm using to type this are those
developed by Charlemagne's school.
Now we get to why I call the Carolingian Empire an accident. Here is
where my statement about whatever version of history you may subscribe
to comes into play. Whether what follows was a plan of Charlemagne or
the Pope, nobody really knows. You have to weigh the evidence, cross
your fingers, and hope you have made the right choice. But
Charlemagne was to marry the hieress to the Byzantine Empire and by
doing so, establish himself as the legitimate ruler of the Roman
Empire. However, Charlemagne developed cold feet after learning a
little more about his bride, and who could blame him. She had her
young son thrown into a dungeon. She then had his eyes put out with
red-hot pokers following which she proclaimed herself empress. Now if
that isn't sort of a 'turn-off' I don't know what is. Historians have
never decided who planned what and the events are unclear, but on
Christmas Day, 800 CE, supposedly as a surprise, the Pope placed a
crown on Charlemagn's head and proclaimed him Holy Roman Emperor. One
version of the story goes like this: - - "The Romans had inflicted
many injuries upon the Pontiff Leo, tearing out his eyes and cutting
out his tongue, so that he had been comp lied 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. He bore very patiently with the
jealousy which the Roman emperors showed upon his assuming these
titles, for they took this step very ill; and by dint of frequent
embassies and letters, in which he addressed them as brothers, he made
their haughtiness yield to his magnanimity, a quality in which he was
unquestionably much their superior." - Quote from "Life of
Charlemagne" - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/einhard1.html
By gaining the imperial title, Charlemagne received no new lands and
he never intended to make Rome the center of his empire. In fact, from
Christmas Day 800 to his death in 814, Charlemagne never returned to
Rome.
It has been said that the realm was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an
empire. But it did last for over a thousand years and was one of the
most important political forces in medieval europe. The power of the
Byzantine Emperor over western lands was ended. Western rulers now
claimed their right to rule was a direct descent of sovereignty from
Augustus and the Papacy was freed of Byzantine control. Wresting
western Europe free of Byzantine claims may have been as important as
his development of governmental machinery. About the only use
Byzantium had for the West was to dispoil it. The new freedom from
Byzantium allowed the West to develop in its own terms rather than
terms dictated from the East.
As I said, the Carolingian Empire was an accident, however one with
reaching consequences. But as great as Charlemagne's efforts were, he
left behind many weaknesses which also had reaching consequences. The
most important of which was either his neglecting or the inability to
repair the economic infrastructure of the West to what it had been
under the Romans. There was also no way he could create a unified
culture as the Romans were capable of doing. His empire really had no
common bond of language or history. The only reason the Carolingians
got as far as they did is because their main rivals were busy
elsewhere. They had a period of almost seventy years for the
kingdom's evolution to create a single heir and remain free from civil
wars.
Some websites from which the above was composed:
Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance -
http://historyguide.org/ancient/lecture20b.html - by Steven Kreis of
"historyguide.org"
Medieval Sourcebook: Carolingians and After -
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1h.html - by Laura V. Blanchard
and Carolyn Schriber - you will find this site chock full of
information.
Life of Charlemagne -
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/einhard1.html - full text of
book online
If you have any clarificarions you need before you rate the answer,
please ask.
Cheers
digsalot |
