Emperor of the Romans

Charlemagne’s prodigious range of activities during the first 30 years of his reign were prelude to what some contemporaries and many later observers viewed as the culminating event of his reign: his coronation as Roman emperor. In considerable part, that event was the consequence of an idea shaped by the interpretation given to Charlemagne’s actions as ruler. Over the years, some of the king’s chief political, religious, and cultural advisers became convinced that a new community was taking shape under the aegis of the king and the Frankish people, whom, as one pope avowed, “the Lord God of Israel has blessed.” They spoke of that community as the imperium Christianum, comprising all who adhered to the orthodox faith proclaimed by the Roman church. This community accepted the dominion of a monarch increasingly hailed as the “new David” and the “new Constantine,” the guardian of Christendom and executor of God’s will. Concern for the welfare of the imperium Christianum was heightened by the perceived unfitness of the heretical emperors in Constantinople to claim authority over the Christian community—especially after a woman, Irene, became Eastern emperor in 797. In a larger sense, developments in the 8th century produced the perception in the Carolingian world that the Latin West and the Greek East were diverging in ways that negated the universalist claims of the Eastern emperors.

Then, in 799, an even greater threat to the well being of imperium Christianum emerged. The pope’s capacity to lead God’s people came into question when Pope Leo III was physically attacked by a faction of Romans, including high functionaries in the papal curia, who believed that he was guilty of tyranny and serious personal misconduct. Leo fled to the court of his protector, whose role as rector of Christendom was now dramatically revealed. Charlemagne provided an escort that restored Leo III to the papal office; then, after extensive consultation in Francia, he went to Rome in late 800 to face the delicate issue of judging the vicar of St. Peter and of restoring order in the Papal States. After a series of deliberations with Frankish and Roman clerical and lay notables, it was arranged that, in lieu of being judged, the pope would publicly swear an oath purging himself of the charges against him; some hints in the record suggest that these deliberations also led to a decision to redefine Charlemagne’s position. Two days after Leo’s act of purgation, as Charlemagne attended mass on Christmas Day in the basilica of St. Peter, the pope placed a crown on his head, while the Romans assembled for worship proclaimed him “emperor of the Romans.”

Historians have long debated where responsibility for this dramatic event should be placed. Despite the claim of Einhard, Charlemagne’s court biographer, that the king would not have gone to St. Peter’s on that fateful day had he known what was going to happen, the evidence leaves little doubt that king and pope collaborated in planning the coronation: the restoration of the Roman Empire in the West was advantageous to both. Given the pope’s tenuous position at that moment and the king’s penchant for bold action, it seems highly likely that Charlemagne and his advisers made the key decision involving a new title for the king, leaving it to the pope to arrange the ceremony that would formalize the decision. The new title granted Charlemagne the necessary legal authority to judge and punish those who had conspired against the pope. It also provided suitable recognition of his role as ruler over an empire of diverse peoples and as guardian of orthodox Christendom, and it gave him equal status with his tainted rivals in Constantinople. By once again sanctioning a title for the Carolingians, the pope strengthened his ties with his protector and added lustre to the papal office by virtue of his role in bestowing the imperial crown on the “new Constantine.”

On the assessment of Charlemagne’s years as Holy Roman emperor, historians are not in full accord. Some have seen the period as one of emerging crisis, in which the activities of the aging emperor were increasingly constricted. Because Charlemagne no longer led successful military ventures, the resources with which to reward royal followers declined. At the same time, new external enemies appeared to threaten the realm, especially seagoing Northmen (Vikings) and Saracens. There were also signs of structural inadequacy in the system of government, which constantly took upon itself new responsibilities without a commensurate increase in human or material resources, and growing resistance to royal control by lay and ecclesiastical magnates who began to grasp the political, social, and economic power to be derived from royal grants of land and immunities. Other historians, however, have stressed such things as increased royal concern for the helpless, continued efforts to strengthen royal administration, active diplomacy, the maintenance of religious reform, and support of cultural renewal, all of which they see as evidence of vitality during Charlemagne’s last years.

Within this larger context there were developments that suggest that the imperial title meant little to its recipient. Indeed, in 802, when he first formally used the enigmatic title “Emperor Governing the Roman Empire,” he retained his old title of “King of the Franks and of the Lombards.” He continued to live in the traditional Frankish way, eschewing modes of conduct and protocol associated with imperial dignity. He relied less on the advice of the circle that had shaped the ideology that led to the revival of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the emperor seemed oblivious to the idea of a unified political entity implicit in the imperial title when, in 806, he decreed that on his death his realm would be divided among his three sons.

Other evidence, however, indicates that the imperial title was important to him. Charlemagne engaged in a long military and diplomatic campaign that finally, in 812, gained recognition of his title from the Eastern emperor. After 800 his religious reform program stressed changes in behaviour that implied that membership in the imperium Christianum required new modes of public conduct. He attempted to bring greater uniformity to the diverse legal systems prevailing in his empire. The terminology and the symbols employed by the court to set forth its policies and the artistic motifs employed in the building complex at Aachen reflected an awareness of the imperial office as a source of ideological elements capable of buttressing the ruler’s authority. In 813 Charlemagne assured the perpetuation of the imperial title by bestowing with his own hands the imperial crown on his only surviving son, Louis the Pious. The coronation of 813 suggests that Charlemagne believed that the office had some value and that he wished to exclude the papacy from any part in its bestowal. In its entirety the evidence leads to the conclusion that Charlemagne saw the imperial title as a personal award in recognition of his services to Christendom, to be used as he saw fit to enhance his ability and that of his heirs to direct the imperium Christianum to its divinely ordained end.

Legacy

In January 814 Charlemagne fell ill with a fever after bathing in his beloved warm springs at Aachen; he died one week later. Writing in the 840s, the emperor’s grandson, the historian Nithard, avowed that at the end of his life the great king had “left all Europe filled with every goodness.” Modern historians have made apparent the exaggeration in that statement by calling attention to the inadequacies of Charlemagne’s political apparatus, the limitations of his military forces in the face of new threats from seafaring foes, the failure of his religious reforms to affect the great mass of Christians, the narrow traditionalism and clerical bias of his cultural program, and the oppressive features of his economic and social programs. Such critical attention of Charlemagne’s role, however, cannot efface the fact that his effort to adjust traditional Frankish ideas of leadership and the public good to new currents in society made a crucial difference in European history. His renewal of the Roman Empire in the West provided the ideological foundation for a politically unified Europe, an idea that has inspired Europeans ever since—sometimes with unhappy consequences. His feats as a ruler, both real and imagined, served as a standard to which many generations of European rulers looked for guidance in defining and discharging their royal functions. His religious reforms solidified the organizational structures and the liturgical practices that eventually enfolded most of Europe into a single “Church.” His definition of the role of the secular authority in directing religious life laid the basis for the tension-filled interaction between temporal and spiritual authority that played a crucial role in shaping both political and religious institutions in later western European history. His cultural renaissance provided the basic tools—schools, curricula, textbooks, libraries, and teaching techniques—upon which later cultural revivals would be based. The impetus he gave to the lord-vassal relationship and to the system of agriculture known as manorialism (in which peasants held land from a lord in exchange for dues and service) played a vital role in establishing the seignorial system (in which lords exercised political and economic power over a given territory and its population); the seignorial system in turn had the potential for imposing political and social order and for stimulating economic growth. Such accomplishments certainly justify the superlatives by which he was known in his own time: Carolus Magnus (“Charles the Great”) and Europae pater (“father of Europe”).