An Empire of Memory (12 page)

zur historischen Dichtung im karolingischen Europa (Vienna, 1978), 199–211. Hugh of Fleury, Historia

Ecclesiastica, MGH SS 9: 361. Hugh copies Einhard’s account verbatim but simply adds ‘sed etiam

sacrum sanctae Mariae Latinae locum’. Annales Altahenses Maiores, ed. Edmund L. B. A. B. Oefele,

MGH SRG (Hanover, 1891), 4: 4. This text is discussed in great depth in Ch. 4, below.

124 ‘Hic est Karolus imperator, filius Pipini parvi, qui acquisivit regnum usque Hierosolimis.’

Annales Elnonenses minores, MGH SS 5: 18. The text seems to have been written c.1064.

125 On the dating of the relic and text, see Dorothea Walz, ‘Karl der Grosse: Ein verhinderter

Seefahrer. Die Reichenauer Heiligbluterzählung aus dem zehnten Jahrhundert’, in Franz-Reiner

Erkens (ed.), Karl der Grosse und das Erbe der Kulturen (Berlin, 2001), 234, 236. The text itself is

found in a liturgical manuscript from the 10th cent. and in three later copies. It did, however, begin to travel outside of the monastery in the 11th cent. after it was included in the chronicles of Marianus

Scotus and Sigebert of Gembloux. See Walz, ‘Karl der Grosse’, 234 n. 1; and Folz, Souvenir, 24.

126 Translatio sanguinis Domini, MGH SS 4: 447–9.

The Birth of a Frankish Golden Age

39

prefect of Huesca named Azan and the discovery of the Holy Blood at Mantua.127

Moreover, the narrative’s elaborate anecdote sits squarely within a conception of

Charlemagne’s Golden Age common to other contemporary religious houses.

Charlemagne’s possession of the relics authenticated them and his role in their

transfer legitimized a monastery’s claim to those relics. By facilitating the relics’

transfer from East to West, Charlemagne initiated Reichenau’s own Golden Age

and facilitated God’s special blessing on the monastery.128 In addition, the Trans-

latio sanguinis depicts a close, deferential relationship between the prefect of

Jerusalem and Charles. Azan looked beyond the Byzantines as if they were not

even there. Charlemagne was the emperor Azan admired, the man he wished to

impress, the protector he desired.

The prolific early eleventh-century forger Ademar of Chabannes also based his

version of Charlemagne’s legendary relationship with the East on the ARF.

Although Ademar copied the ARF’s account of the patriarch’s embassy in 800

verbatim in his Chronicon, he elsewhere invented documents to supplement the

legend. In the entry for the year 808, the ARF stated that Byzantine monks at

St Sabas in Jerusalem accused Frankish monks on the Mount of Olives of heresy

because they followed Western customs. In 809, a letter arrived from one of the

Frankish monks about the dispute, in response to which Charles called a council

together to discuss the problem (the Filioque controversy). Ademar forged both the

monk’s letter and a letter by Pope Leo III in response to its arrival. Both letters

made some assumptions.129 The letters assumed that their reader already knew

Ademar’s Chronicon (or the ARF), hence the patriarch’s gifts and Charlemagne’s

avowed dominion over Jerusalem, for both letters depended for their meaning

upon the legitimacy of the monk’s appeal to Charlemagne for aid. The monk’s

letter consistently implied Charles’s status as a defender of orthodoxy and appealed

to his actions as precedents. Pope Leo’s letter to Charlemagne exhorted him to

intervene on behalf of the monks because Charles, as the defender of orthodoxy,

had it within his power to make peace among all of his subjects.130 Both the

Frankish monks in Jerusalem and Pope Leo recognized Charlemagne as their

temporal and spiritual protector. As with the Translatio sanguinis, no one mentions

the Caliph, the Byzantine emperor, or the patriarch of Jerusalem. Even the pope

defers to Charlemagne. The letters implied that all Christians East and West should

respect Charlemagne’s authority, even in theological matters, presumably because

he was their emperor.

127 The Translatio sanguinis is often regarded as a step along the way to the legend of Charlemagne’s

journey to the Holy Land. For example, Musca, Carlo Magno, 75; and Walz, ‘Karl’, 244. This

conclusion misses something essential to the legend’s development, which should become clear

below. For similarities to the ARF, see the entry for 799, which records that Azan, the prefect of

Huesca, sent legates with keys to his city to Charles. The entry for 804 notes that Charlemagne is

associated with Mantua’s discovery of a Holy Blood relic. Annales regni, ed. Krauze, 108, 119,

respectively.

128 Walz, ‘Karl’, 239–43.

129 On the Filioque issue and the forged letters, see Callahan, ‘Problem of “Filioque”’, 75–134.

130 Ibid. 132–4.

40

The Franks Remember Empire

Here, Ademar, much like the Translatio sanguinis, has created something new,

yet not new. The specific contours of the interaction between Charlemagne, Pope

Leo III, and the monks on the Mount of Olives may have been invented by Ademar

in the early eleventh century but the background to this exchange was painted

with words stolen from earlier Carolingian sources. The ARF, Einhard, Notker,

the Translatio sanguinis, Ademar, et al. shared the same general understanding

of Charlemagne’s Golden Age. Charlemagne and the Franks were the supreme

power in West and East. Each source owed a debt to that which chronologically

came before but each reimagined the material in significant ways. But as much as

any of the sources discussed in this chapter reaffirmed, or even expanded upon,

Charlemagne’s legendary dominion over the East, none strayed too far from their

Carolingian progenitors. The transfer of power from East to West is indirect and

does not occur directly between rulers. The next chapter, however, will show that this

was not always the case, as it introduces the three major sources of Charlemagne’s

journey to the East that predate 1100.

2

The Narratives of Charlemagne’s Journey

to the East before 1100

Benedict, a tenth-century monk of the central Italian monastery of St Andrew on

Monte Soratte, was the first to claim that Charlemagne had journeyed beyond

Europe’s borders. Benedict’s tale, however, seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The

Capetian Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus and the Historia of the Aquitanian

abbey of Charroux, both late eleventh-century creations, conversely enjoyed sub-

stantial afterlives. The Descriptio qualiter became central to later royal histories,

particularly those emanating from Saint-Denis and the court of Emperor Frederick

I Barbarossa (1152–90). Charroux’s Historia traveled north and spread widely after

it was incorporated into Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica in the late twelfth

century. These three texts are, to my knowledge, the only pre-twelfth-century

discussions of Charlemagne’s journey to the East that consist of more than a line

or two.

This chapter will introduce and contextualize these three narratives. We will

discover as much as possible about their respective authors, their provenances, and

their subsequent transmission. For example, both Charroux’s Historia and the

Descriptio qualiter speak of relic translations from Jerusalem to the West, both

texts attempt to link themselves to the Frankish monarchy and the composition

of both can be linked in some way to the reign of the Frankish king Philip I (1060–

1108). Yet, as we will see, there are no substantial links between any of our three

sources. We must then wonder if these pre-twelfth-century narratives of Charlemagne’s

journey to the East have anything at all to do with each other.

A DO NA TI ON TO S T A ND RE W ON M ON TE

S O R A T T E : C . 97 0

In the second half of the tenth century, a monk named Benedict at the Benedictine

house of St Andrew on Monte Soratte (about twenty-five miles north of Rome)

composed a history of his monastery from the time of its legendary founda-

tion under Constantine (306–37) to the reign of Otto II (967–83). The first

known account of Charlemagne’s journey to the Holy Land, written more than

42

The Franks Remember Empire

150 years after his death, lies here, in a brief section of Benedict’s much longer

Chronicon.1

This earliest version of Charlemagne’s journey reads more like a prolonged

meditation on chapter 16 of Einhard’s Vita Karoli than a comprehensive new

narrative. It begins as would a typical account of an early medieval pilgrimage,

encompassing some of the sites most sacred to tenth-century Latin Christendom––

Monte Gargano,2 Jerusalem, Alexandria,3 Constantinople, and Rome. Charle-

magne first gathered his army before proceeding to Monte Gargano, where he

received the blessing of Pope Leo. Leaving Leo, Charles then journeyed down the

length of Italy to Brindisi and sailed for the Holy Land. Upon hearing of Charles’s

arrival in the East, the Islamic Caliph escorted Charles to the Holy Sepulcher, so

that Charlemagne could endow the holy site with gold, jewels, and a banner.

Apparently impressed by his magnanimity, and since they enjoyed such good

relations, the Caliph immediately ‘begged that the manger and sepulcher of our

Lord be conceded into Charles’ power’. Before parting, the two rulers visited

Alexandria together, where men of the two faiths mingled together happily ‘as if

they were brothers’.4

During his return to the West, Charles first stopped at Constantinople, where

the Greek emperors ‘Nikephorus, Michael, and Leo, fearing that their imperial

authority would be taken by Charles, were very suspicious [of the Frankish king]’.5

Nevertheless, Charles assuaged their fears by making a pact of friendship with the

Byzantines, who rewarded him with gold, jewels, and relics. Charles then returned

to Rome, where,

1 The most likely date of composition is 968. Johannes Kunsemüller, ‘Die Chronik Benedikts von

San Andrea’ (Ph.D. diss., Erlangen/Nürenberg, 1961), 90. The only surviving manuscript was made at

the monastery of San Paolo Fuori le Mura, outside of Rome. See Matthias M. Tischler, Einharts Vita

Karoli: Studien zur Entstehung, Überlieferung und Rezeption, 2 vols. (Hanover, 2001), i. 469–70.

Benedict’s entire text can be found in Il Chronicon di Benedetto: Monaco di S. Andrea del Soratte e il Libellus de Imperatoria Potestate in urbe Roma, ed. Giuseppe Zucchetti, FISI (Rome, 1920), lv. Unless

otherwise noted, however, all subsequent citations will refer to Benedict of Monte Soratte, Chronicon, MGH SS 3. The MGH version is more widely available and only omits parts copied from Einhard’s

Vita Karoli.

2 Monte Gargano, in Southern Italy, had been a major cult center for St Michael the Archangel since at least the 6th cent. During the 10th cent., its illustrious visitors included Odo of Cluny, John of Gorze, William of Volpiano, and Emperor Otto III. See the short summary in Daniel F. Callahan, ‘The Cult of

St. Michael the Archangel and the “Terrors of the Year 1000”’, in Apocalyptic Year, 182–5.

3 Alexandria was an early Christian patriarchate and center of Christian learning in the East. The

city was included in the well-known early medieval pilgrim accounts of Adomnan, Bede, and Bernard

the Monk. Bede’s account from c.702 (which is a reworking of Adomnan) begins at Jerusalem, moves

to Alexandria, and then to Constantinople. Bernard’s account of 870 has him traveling to Rome to

receive the blessing of the Pope, then to Monte Gargano, then Alexandria, then Jerusalem, and back to

Rome. He also comments on the ‘excellent relations’ between the Christians and pagans. It seems likely that Benedict was aware of both Bede’s and Bernard’s accounts. All three (Adomnan, Bede, and

Bernard) are in Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades, tr. John Wilkinson (Warminster, 2002).

4 ‘Sed etiam presepe Domini et sepulchrum que petierant Aáron rex, potestatis eius ascribere

concessit. . . . Vertente igitur, prudentissimus rex cum Aáron rex usque in Alexandria pervenit.

Sicque letificantes Francis et Aggarenis, quasi consanguineis esset.’ Benedict, Chronicon, 710.

5 ‘Naciforus, Michahel, it Leo, formidantes quasi imperium ei eripere vellet, valde sub sceptu.’ Ibid. 711.

Charlemagne’s Journey to the East

43

setting the city in order, Charles gave everything, all Pentapolis and Ravenna up to the

borders of Tuscany, into the apostle’s power. He gave thanks to God and the prince of

the apostles, and accepted the apostolic blessing, and was pronounced ‘Augustus’ by all

the Roman people.

Before returning to Francia and bringing this section of Benedict’s Chronicon to a close,

Leo and the Emperor Charles visited Monte Soratte, where the monks happily accepted

a relic of St Andrew, which, Benedict admitted, the monks currently cannot find.6

This section of the Chronicon concentrates on the actions of the ruler and the

proper exercise of political power––the rule of Italy (mostly Rome) and the Franks’

place in that rule. The pilgrimage portion of the Chronicon has Charlemagne

displaying his piety by visiting two of the holiest sites in Christendom, Monte

Gargano and Jerusalem. The return portion of the narrative (after the completion

of his pilgrimage) allows Charlemagne to exhibit his temporal power.7 At Alexan-

dria, the Caliph showers Charles with gifts and they part as equals. At Constanti-