Charlemagne

Talk about writing yourself into a corner: elsewhere on this site I make Charlemagne out to be the poster boy for heterosexuality, and now I have to come up with a gay angle on his biography. Sheesh.

On tap today is Charlemagne by Matthias Becher, a slender volume that packs a lot into its relatively few pages. It’s a bit more academic than some of the books we’ve considered, but Becher opens with one of the biggest tableaux ever screened: Christmas Day A.D. 800, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, is in St. Peter’s being crowned Emperor of Rome by none other than Pope Leo III, who then prostrates himself at Charlemagne’s feet. Mario Puzo would have loved it.

The choice of opening is more than theatrics, however. By beginning in the middle of Charlemagne’s career Becher is able to raise all sorts of matters surrounding his ascent, which the author then unwinds in the course of the book. And really, when you think about it, that coronation scene should strike us as weird…I mean, Monty Python on bad acid weird.

Start with the fact that Pope Leo thought the Emperor of Rome job was open at all. The Western Roman Empire had fallen in A.D. 476, but there was a perfectly good Eastern Roman Empire (a.k.a. the Byzantine Empire) still standing, based in Constantinople. Historically the Pope and the Byzantine Emperor had been on near-equal footing, with assorted other kings like Charlemagne on a lower level. Trouble was, however, that the Byzantines found themselves with a female ruler, Empress Irene. (Yes, there was an Empress Irene.) And in Leo’s view that made the job vacant and in need of filling. Sexism to be sure, and Becher leaves it at that. But we know from other sources that Irene was a truly nasty piece of work and that Byzantium was distracted by internal wars to unseat her. Objectively, the Eastern Empress was in no position to support the Pope.

And Pope Leo needed support just at that moment. He had been kidnapped in an attempted coup and was being held in prison under threat of being blinded and having his tongue cut out. None of which the conspirators could do without Charlemagne’s agreement…in addition to being the big military power in northern Italy, he was protector of Rome. (That was an actual job in the day.) Leo, however, still had considerable authority, including the presumed right to decide who was Emperor. A negotiation is a negotiation, and Charlemagne’s promotion from King of the Franks to Emperor of Rome was payoff for Pope Leo’s restored freedom. In context you can see why Leo wasn’t making a big stand for women’s rights and Irene’s claim to the throne.

The other big, honking fact that should stand out is that Charlemagne, a Frank, was protector of Rome, and thereby of the Roman Catholic Church. I always thought the Franks were part of the barbarians who overran Italy and cratered the Western Roman Empire…and they were. But somewhere in 496 or 497, after the fall of the city of Rome, the Frankish ruler Clovis I converted to Christianity, and significantly to the flavor of Christianity favored by Rome. It was a conversion that made ruling the formerly-Roman, still-Christian citizens of Gaul easier for all concerned. The conversion held through succeeding monarchs, and three centuries later it made perfect sense that the powerful Christian king of the Franks would be protector of Rome. His religion also made it palatable for a Frank to be elevated to its emperor.

And so the great and powerful gathered for that Christmas Day coronation, a scene that looked like it was lifted straight from The Crown, and which was really The Godfather writ large, with all of the intrigue and better outfits.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of Charlemagne’s accession. He ruled for 47 years, and under him there were times of great prosperity and learning. More importantly, the empire he founded, the Holy Roman Empire, lasted for 1006 years, until it was defeated by Napoleon in 1806. The West did not come fully into its own until the fall of Constantinople, but in placing the crown on Charlemagne’s head that Christmas Day, Leo was transferring power to the west, and irreversibly away from the ancient world. The new emperor took as his regal title, “Charles, the most merciful, awe-inspiring, great, and pacific emperor crowned by God, who rules the Roman Empire and who is King of the Franks and Lombards by the grace of God.”

In the end I never found a gay angle to Charlemagne. I couldn’t even find a movie version to riff on…there hasn’t been a feature-length film made of the man’s life, although IMDB thinks there’s one in production now. In biopics casting can do wonders…Cole Porter didn’t look anything like either Cary Grant or Kevin Kline, for example. Charlemagne at least had a lot of physique going for him: athletic and tall, seven feet (a real seven feet: they dug up his skeleton and measured), plus everything seemed to be proportional, always a happy prospect. His feet certainly were…every time you’ve dragged out a foot ruler for something, the Foot in question has been Charlemagne’s.

So I’m thinking we pitch Chris Hemsworth to play Charlemagne. Between that regal title and the coronation sequence, he’ll take a meeting on the project. Trust me on this one, boychick.