The Merovingian kings had concentrated their political trade in the Frankish nation, in the Salic, and in rethinking, which, absorbed in discord and internal wars, were rarely traded with the peoples of the ancient civilization. The kings of Neustria or Austrasia, and those of Aquitaine or Burgundy, contended between them for the possession of cities and provinces, but as for their communications with the great empire of the East, with Constantinople and with the Caliphate, if there are some very distant and irregular ones. And there are, as it were, so many barbarian chiefs, who demand from the emperor this or that dignity of a palace; peoples just initiated into civilization, who imitate the forms and pomp of the most advanced princes in the luxury and splendor of the throne. The same cannot be said of the cockpit lineage after Carlo Martello, for this lineage leads to a great work; Charlemagne founds an empire that can contend with the caliphate and the monarchy of the gods by size [4]Greeks: and as king and as emperor his correspondence is active, neither alone he receives the homages and tributes of the vanquished, but he still holds regular practices with the popes, with the emperors of the east and with the caliphs.
The practices of the Carolingians are first of all treated naturally with the popes, so much so that the pontificate and the new lineage have made an almost inviolable pact between them, from which, according to lineage, it recognizes its color of civilization and Roman legislation. Stephen I, who consecrated Pippin, ordered the excommunication against anyone who dared to put his hand on his crown, while in return, Pippin donated to the Holy See vast and rich temporal possessions, his cities, his exarchate, Ravenna, Rimini and Bologna. Stephen II then went into debt to Charlemagne for the extension of his domains and for the protection granted to the chair of St. Peter against the Lombards; lineage so often to that infested, which was tamed by the Franks; and this continuation of good offices between Rome and Charlemagne grows even bigger and warmer after the
The latter came out of the great Roman families, descended from senators and consuls, and his palace shone with their images [1]; hated the Lombards, and the Lombards hated him, and heir as he was of the ancient Roman views on the principality of the Eternal City, he would have liked to dominate Italy with the keys of St. Peter, as once the emperors had tamed it with the insignia of the centurions and tribunes; the papal miter succeeded the laurel wreath of the Caesars. Adriano and Charlemagne live among them in close and confident intimacy; and then that the latter is consecrated king of the Lombards, he takes the states of the holy see under the protection of his sword, and no one dares to touch them, Greek, Italian or Saracen. Upon meeting Adriano, he exercises very careful vigilance over Italy for the King of the Franks; notifies him of all the facts that may disturb his power in this part; if a Lombard count or bishop prepares some sedition, Adriano soon hastens to notify his friend; he is the vigilant agent of the Frankish monarchy; the interests are common to each other. The letters from the pope addressed to his son and protector, the king of the Franks, are many and all related to the ordering of Italy and to the seditious and impatient spirit of the Lombards, whom he now denounces as released from any restraint of custom, and now as enemies of the Catholic religion, and implacable adversaries of St. Peter, and of his banner that shone on the Vatican. Adriano testifies in one of them to Charlemagne, his exultation for all the good he does to the Church, and for his good intentions towards he is the vigilant agent of the Frankish monarchy; the interests are common to each other. The letters from the pope addressed to his son and protector, the king of the Franks, are many and all related to the ordering of Italy and to the seditious and impatient spirit of the Lombards, whom he now denounces as released from any restraint of custom, and now as enemies of the Catholic religion, and implacable adversaries of St. Peter, and of his banner that shone on the Vatican. Adriano testifies in one of them to Charlemagne, his exultation for all the good he does to the Church, and for his good intentions towards he is the vigilant agent of the Frankish monarchy; the interests are common to each other. The letters from the pope addressed to his son and protector, the king of the Franks, are many and all related to the ordering of Italy and to the seditious and impatient spirit of the Lombards, whom he now denounces as released from any restraint of custom, and now as enemies of the Catholic religion, and implacable adversaries of St. Peter, and of his banner that shone on the Vatican. Adriano testifies in one of them to Charlemagne, his exultation for all the good he does to the Church, and for his good intentions towards Italy and to the seditious and impatient spirit of the Lombards, whom he now denounces as freed from any restraint of custom, and now as enemies of the Catholic religion, and implacable adversaries of St. Peter, and of his banner which shone on the Vatican. Adriano testifies in one of them to Charlemagne, his exultation for all the good he does to the Church, and for his good intentions towards Italy and to the seditious and impatient spirit of the Lombards, whom he now denounces as freed from any restraint of custom, and now as enemies of the Catholic religion, and implacable adversaries of St. Peter, and of his banner which shone on the Vatican. Adriano testifies in one of them to Charlemagne, his exultation for all the good he does to the Church, and for his good intentions towards [5]of her: “My good and dear son and king lord, instituted by God. I beg you instantaneously, as if I were in front of you in person, to fulfill what you promised the prince of the Apostles for the health of the your soul, and for God to protect your kingdom; and may the prince of the Apostles assist you with greater patronage from His Divine Majesty. Only with the help of St. Peter, guardian of paradise, you have come to the head of all your desires; to him the victory and possession of the kingdom of the Lombards implored you from God; but always have great faith in him, because at his intercession, the Lord will make all the other barbarous nations bow under your feet, etc. ”
And all the other epistles are of similar tenor; all congratulations to Charlemagne for his glorious triumphs; he is the excellent son, the king of Italy by the will of God; he is the one, under whose great sword he protects the patrimony of St. Peter. If there is some evil, some iniquitous who disturbs the papal security, Adriano soon writes to Charlemagne to get him expelled from Italy, still invoking the rights of Rome in the name of the Prince of the Apostles, similar to imprimer in the men, with this prosopopeia, a greater respect for powerful and warlike men. «We have to mourn with your magnificence, sweet and dear son, of Reginaldo, an iniquitous man who sows discord and moves men to evil. He tries by every way to offend the Holy Church of God and us, and he does everything he can to wickedly deprive St. Peter of what you were liberal to him for the salvation of your soul, and he would like to make it his; he also came with his own to our city[2] , and led the inhabitants away. Not believing that you made a gift of it for the exaltation of this Duke Reginaldo, I pray you instantaneously that, for the love of the good apostle St. Peter, you do not let him set foot in Italy [3] . ”
Not only Adriano is content to correspond by letters, but yes he still makes a continuous request to Charlemagne to send him the [6]his missi dominici , knowing, willingly , every thought and will of his dear son, the king of the Franks; and he also insists on having his deputies, nor when they come, the pope himself sends him some bishops in legation to confer with him [5] .
Afterwards Pope Adrian invites Charlemagne, his friend, to come quickly to Italy, which he has the purpose of seeing him, and conferring with him. The presence in Rome of Charlemagne is desired, all the more so since the pontiff sees himself threatened by many malevolent people, among whom he still points to the Greeks, the Lombards, the Napolitans who squeeze and encircle the patrimony of Saint Peter, to usurp it [6 ] . “Saluting your benevolence, we announce you with these letters how the Napolitani offenders, connected with the Greeks hated by God, listening to the evil advice of d’Arigiso, Duke of Benevento, have stolen the city of Terracina, previously subject to the dominion of San Pietro and to your podestà. We did not want to do anything in such a contingency, without first having your advice, and therefore we beg[7]to send Volfrino to us as soon as possible, so that, being here towards the calends of August, he may, under your orders, move with the Tuscans, the Spoletini, and also with the sad Beneventani, and recover the said city of Terracina, and together with it Gaeta or Naples, in order to return to St. Peter what belongs to his heritage in the territory of Naples itself. On Easter day we had a parliament with Pietro, the envoy of the shrewd Neapolitans, and asked him what belongs to St. children of the noblest among them and of the city of Terracina; and he adhered to them on condition that they were confided in the hands of the Sicilian patrician. Except that we did not want to conclude anything without your advice, wanting us only to negotiate for your use, and knowing how treacherous they are in their designs, but who still have lively practices with Arigiso, Duke of Benevento, who receives every day from the patrician of Sicily. Besides that, I know very well that they are waiting for the children of the guilty Desire, to then fight all united against us and against you. We therefore beseech you to come to our aid, that from you alone and from the apostle saint I know well that they are waiting for the children of the guilty Desire, to then fight all united against us and against you. We therefore beseech you to come to our aid, that from you alone and from the apostle saint I know well that they are waiting for the children of the guilty Desire, to then fight all united against us and against you. We therefore beseech you to come to our aid, that from you alone and from the apostle saint [7]Peter let us expect strength and valor. We care little about the city of Terracina, but we would not like it to become an opportunity for the Benevento people to escape your empire. Therefore we ask you to help us as soon as possible, so that you deserve to reign eternally with the saints ».
Hadrian is the ancient Roman who is struggling to expand and consolidate the patrimony of St. Peter, but who, as he is the heir of the memories of the patriciate, wants nothing more than to ensure the dominion of Rome over Italy; this prominence is the goal of his desires; he is completely possessed in Rome, in its monuments, in its circuses, in its basilicas; Rome was the ancient metropolis of Lazio, and this was still a goddess under the popes. From the great things Hadrian descends to the more minute, so much so that he also asks Charlemagne for the materials to build his basilicas; the construction of public monuments was taken care of, as we read in Roman history, of the consuls and emperors, as one of the duties of the building, so the pontiff took care of it, and wrote: “Then you let us know, dear and most excellent son, be you happy to adhere to our request regarding the necessary beams for the restoration of the holy church, we ask you to ensure that they reach the church of San Pietro beautifully and tidily around the time of the August Kalends. As for the vault or cornice, which also wants to be restored in the basilica of the said apostle, it would be advisable first to send a master who would see what kind of timber is required to restore it to the state it was in ancient times; the master will then go to Spoleto and look for this wood there, because we don’t have any in the village suitable for this purpose. But our most holy brother, Archbishop Volcaro, don’t hurry to come until the wood is completely dry, because if it were still green we wouldn’t know what to do with it. ” we ask you to make them arrive beautiful and manicured to the church of San Pietro around the time of the August Kalends. As for the vault or cornice, which also wants to be restored in the basilica of the said apostle, it would be advisable first to send a master who would see what kind of timber is required to restore it to the state it was in ancient times; the master will then go to Spoleto and look for this wood there, because we don’t have any in the village suitable for this purpose. But our most holy brother, Archbishop Volcaro, don’t hurry to come until the wood is completely dry, because if it were still green we wouldn’t know what to do with it ». we ask you to make them arrive beautiful and manicured to the church of San Pietro around the time of the August Kalends. As for the vault or cornice, which also wants to be restored in the basilica of the said apostle, it would be advisable first to send a master who would see what kind of timber is required to restore it to the state it was in ancient times; the master will then go to Spoleto and look for this wood there, because we don’t have any in the village suitable for this purpose. But our most holy brother, Archbishop Volcaro, don’t hurry to come until the wood is completely dry, because if it were still green we wouldn’t know what to do with it ». who also wants to be restored in the basilica of the said apostle, it would be better to send a master who would see what kind of timber is required to restore it to the state it was in ancient times; the master will then go to Spoleto and look for this wood there, because we don’t have any in the village suitable for this purpose. But our most holy brother, Archbishop Volcaro, don’t hurry to come until the wood is completely dry, because if it were still green we wouldn’t know what to do with it ». who also wants to be restored in the basilica of the said apostle, it would be better to send a master who would see what kind of timber is required to restore it to the state it was in ancient times; the master will then go to Spoleto and look for this wood there, because we don’t have any in the village suitable for this purpose. But our most holy brother, Archbishop Volcaro, don’t hurry to come until the wood is completely dry, because if it were still green we wouldn’t know what to do with it ».
Wide, rich and fruitful lands, and vast and populous cities are the gifts that Hadrian, the Roman patrician, wants to procure for his eternal city; he is the most devoted pope ever to the power and memories of the Romans, and therefore, in the guise of an ancient consul, he asks Charlemagne if he wants to free the land of the Sabines, while the wicked prevent him. to take possession of it [8] .
Hadrian then sends relics, flags of silk and gold, and bones of martyrs to Charlemagne, who cares about the raising of the basilicas. Master, as he is, of the great forests of Thuringia, and of the north of Europe, he possesses strong beams, without which the buildings of Rome cannot be erected. We see him then send wood and tin and marble to restore the church of San Pietro which was so damaged by the spring showers, [8]while he also asks for himself, as has been said, some mosaics, remnants of the Greek civilization in Ravenna, for his barbarous cities of Gaul. All of Italy invokes the presence of Charlemagne; the Benevento people rebel, and they can again disturb the peace of the pontificate. «If the Beneventans refuse to submit to your orders, send the army to the calends of May, and come and make a correria against them. That if an army does not keep them in duty from the month of May until September, that very sad Arigiso will try something against you, moved, as it will be, by the suggestions of the Greeks, but who has with him, as everyone knows, the legates them, and others he keeps in Naples. It is up to you to decide what to do, and we are very confident in your powerful judgment. So please take a hand in the
Every good fortune of Charlemagne, his victories, his triumphs, are celebrated in Rome as the feast of the pontificate itself. Charles has won the Bavarians, and the pope congratulates him heartily. “But will not the treacherous Greeks also be placed properly, and punished for the many snares that tend to Charlemagne?” The Greeks are always in agreement with the dukes or with the Lombard or Beneventan counts, they indulge them in their seditious aims, and they assault the pontificate and the mayor of Charlemagne in Italy. Your letters of victory were very happy to us, and we gave thanks to God, reading that your health and that of the queen, our lady, and of your children, is still good. Especially dear there was the understanding of the awe of the Bavarians, which we had already predicted and wished you. Now, I believe that you will remember what we told you in our previous letters about certain Capuans who came to us, to whom we swore before the ark of St. Peter to be faithful to the apostle of God and to your royal excellence. Well, after taking the oath, one of them, Gregory the priest, asked us to speak to each other on the sidelines, saying that after taking a similar oath he could no longer keep anything from us. We asked him to explain it more clearly, and he then told us how in what the great King Charles left Capua last year, Duke Arigiso sent legates to Emperor Constantine, asking him for help and protection, and at the same time the honor of the patriciate, and the entire Duchy of Naples; and ask him to send his cousin Adelgiso with a strong army of soldiers,
Pope Adrian does not know how to give peace to hearing this league of the Greeks [9]with Arigiso, the representative of the Longobard kings. “O my beloved son, he writes to Charlemagne, Constantine sent two of his servants from the palace to confer the patriciate on Arigiso, who carried with them robes of gold, a sword, a comb and a set of shears, to give effect to what he had promised, saying that he would submit to have his hair clipped and to dress in the custom of the Greeks. They asked for more, Romoaldo, son of d’Arigiso, hostage. As for Adelgiso, the emperor alleged that he had not been able to send it to him, because he had started it with an army against Trevigi or Ravenna. Except that, on reaching them, they found their designs defaced by the hands of God and by the help of the Apostles, because Arigiso, and together with him his son Valdone, were dead, and the Beneventans did not want to receive them in any way, while Azzone, your trusty legate, was in Salerno. Then this deacon left, they went to take them on the ground on the Greek tenitor, and they admitted him to the city, where they spent three days in parliaments with Adelberga, widow of Arigiso, and with the Beneventans, who told them: – We have sent deputies to the King Charles to ask him to give us Grimoaldo as duke, and made the same request to him through the deacon Azzone; therefore remain in Naples until Grimoaldo arrives, and what his father Arigiso could not do, Grimoaldo will do, as if he is in possession of the dignities that come to him; he will submit to imperial authority, as his father promised, and will fulfill all his other offers. Wherefore[9] ; and there they reside, enjoying in fantasy the victory they hope to obtain, and plotting snares against the Napolitani themselves, together with Stephen the bishop and Constantine, to whom they sent notice of the death of d’Arigiso and his son, awaiting his orders around to what they do. In which all things, most excellent son, whom God has in custody, make your wise power shine, both for the exaltation of your spiritual mother, the Holy Roman Church, and for our health, as well as for the security of your kingdom. [10 ] . ”
Such are the senses, almost always, of Hadrian’s correspondence with Charlemagne; they are two podestà who understand each other, two interests that are connected, two minds that proceed in harmony to restore the unity of the Church and the empire. And yet when Hadrian died, Charlemagne weeps for him as his friend, and dictates the verses of [10]his epitaph, carved in gold letters on his tomb, and the chief, the great king of the Austrasiians, becomes a Latin poet:
Lagrimando on the father, I Carlo these
I dictate to you. I cry to you,
My love, and my advice,
And our clear names have contexts together.
Adriano and Carlo; I king, you father. Ah! son
Reminds you, I pray to you, and do that quickly
And come to the father who is approaching [11] .
Pope Adrian arranged the exaltation of Charlemagne to the empire, and Leo accomplished it; Leo who has even greater use than Adrian to protect him, but that the other had for himself the Roman people, the patricians, the descendants of the senators; his family was powerful, and the list of his ancestors was read on the banners. Pope Leo, at the meeting, is in aversion to the people of Rome, so he invokes the patriciate of Signor dei Franchi for his help, and the ancient city sees the banners of the northern people waving. Leo comes to see King Charles right up in the middle of his plenary courts of the Rhine, Moselle and Elbe, and prostrates himself before the monarch who soon passes over to Italy to protect the papacy. In those last parliaments, the reconstruction of the Western empire was decreed; this dignity flatters the
From this moment the practices between the emperors and the popes are acquiring a more regular form; in the material order the emperor is everything; in the moral order the head is the pope; the councils govern the Catholic world; the emperor reigns over all the lands that make up the empire, and the bulls themselves bear the date of his exaltation. Charlemagne and Leo join hands, mutually support each other, [11]and such is their union, so constant is their intimacy, that heroic songs and romances of chivalry pretend that Leo was a bastard of Charlemagne; an entirely feudal idea, a Germanic tradition made to justify all those infinite donations of land that the emperor made to the pontiff. This confusion of the empire and the papacy was thereafter the motive cause of the great disputes between the Germanic emperors and Leo’s successors to the pontificate. In fact, how can one distinguish what was of a spiritual order from what was of a temporal order in the Carolingian pact with the popes? Hence the descendants of the House of Swabia repeatedly claimed the rights of Charlemagne, and the popes defied the pretensions of those Alemanni who, covered with iron, descended from the Tyrol as far as the walls of Rome.
The undisputed dignity of the emperors of Constantinople and their cardinal vanity had kept the family of the Merovei vile for several centuries, as the one that reigned over the Barbarians in a part far from their frontiers; and those reigning Greeks, receiving every little humble memorials of these Frankish leaders, with whom they asked for the pallium of the consulate or some dignity of the palace, granted them the titles of tributary heads and kings, according to the scribes, covered with gold. So it is that, with the establishment of the Carlingo lineage, the annals of the empire hardly speak of it in the question of the images, at the time that Leo the Isauric and Constantine Copronymen wrote to Carlo Martello and Pippin, stimulating them to tear apart those false symbols, and to make, for example, gold reliquaries. In all the rest, the Franks were confused with the other barbarians with which the empire was surrounded, and with all the other groups of peoples and tribes. As soon as there is a trace of the correspondence of the Carolingians with the Greeks, and scarcely one or two historians touch upon that Charles who had succeeded the prefects of the palace of the Franks. Later, however, it was quite necessary to estimate the might of this barbarian, who already dominated, for his conquests, the possessions of the Greeks.
Constantine Copronym was succeeded by Leo IV, nor was the exaltation of this new emperor marked by any revolution in the palace, since the question of images absorbed all minds. Leo IV cut the gold bas-reliefs and the silver reliquaries to pieces to remove the precious stones that adorned the sanctuaries, and the legends tell that he took possession of a crown of gold, emeralds and diamonds, hanging to the altar of Saint Sophia, and that, when this crown was approached to the forehead, she burned it like a burning coal. Leo IV died, leaving one to succeed him in the empire [12]child, named Constantine, and the empress Irene, who left a great memory of herself in the annals of the Lower Empire. A strong and inexorable woman, after having, according to the custom of the Greeks, mercilessly mutilated the relatives of her husband, competitors of her in the crown, she held her son in very great suggestion, then when he became older, she had him deposed for reign alone. Lover of the arts, instead of waging war on images, she enlarged and increased the cult, and she owed the preservation of the Byzantine monuments.
The first ties of intimacy between Charlemagne and the Eastern empire are intended to be tied to the kingdom of Irene, since, without a doubt, they began with the invasions of the Lombard provinces and the exarchate of Ravenna, and with the occupation of the fiefs of Friuli, Benevento and Spoleti on the part of the Frankish counts; except that at that time they held the conquest and the war, since these lands were previously owned by the Greeks, and formed, a century before, not a whole century, as many appurtenances of the Eastern empire, together with the Greek Adriatic, and only they had to the golden crown of the emperors, the conquests of the Lombards. Irene had practices of friendship with Charlemagne, king of the Franks when he was crowned at Monza, and the annals say that she proffered her son Constantine in marriage to one of his daughters, named Geltrude, and who also celebrated the spouses. The heroic songs also narrate that Irene,crown empress , she had proffered her hand to Charlemagne, who would thus add a daughter of Greece to his other Frankish and German women, and join the two imperial crowns. Leo III was the ardent promoter of this marriage, but that the popes, true symbols of the principle of unity, wanted to cease the religious disputes between East and West, and the mystical or natural union of Irene with Charlemagne it would have been like the end of the schism through the reintegration of the Roman world.
Except that all this was undermined by the secret intrigues of the Longobard princes who fled to the court of Constantinople; on the contrary, there was an intimation of war between the Greeks and the Latins; and Giovanni, logothete of the Greek militia, came from Sicily to land in the kingdom of Taranto and Naples, to expel the Franks from Italy; but in the first skirmishes, the Greeks, vanquished, gave her legs before the spears of the Franks, and John was taken and put to death by order of Charlemagne. The Greeks, so cults, so enervated by civilization, were no longer worth anything to soldiers, now how could they have fought against the men of the North, against those Franks of Austrasia more talented than the Bulgarians with which their metropolis was threatened? Irene, the protector of images, the woman artist, did not give up [13]for this reason, he decided to marry his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus to Geltrude, and sent a Greek embassy that came to see Charlemagne in Aachen, where new spouses were celebrated, and so much so that these nuptials were agreed shortly thereafter, that The Greek envoys left Geltrude with a very learned eunuch to instruct her on the customs and habits of Byzantium, and thus on the language she owed to the ministers of the palace. The practices between Irene and Charlemagne continued until a new revolution overthrew the authority of the empress, and the historian Theophanes affirms that I was still trying to join the two empires. “Some apocrisarii, he says, were sent to join Irene in marriage with Charlemagne, and unite the Eastern and Western empires into one; but Azzio, who was at heart to secure the empire for his brother, he defied this plan ». A very fruitful event would have been this marriage of the emperor of the west with the emperor of the east, since for it the Roman empire would have been recomposed in its vast borders, and the destroyed barbarians would not have the last remnants of the ancient civilization. Except that in the course of time it is rare for things to be reassembled under the same forms: what falls no longer rises again, and when a building has collapsed, no one can manage to collect the debris so well that it is rebuilt big and strong in everything. as before, one can no longer give life back to those who are dead. West with the Eastern Empire, since for it the Roman Empire would have been reassembled in its vast borders, and the destroyed Barbarians would not have the last remnants of the ancient civilization. Except that in the course of time it is rare for things to be reassembled under the same forms: what falls no longer rises again, and when a building has collapsed, no one can manage to collect the debris so well that it is rebuilt big and strong in everything. as before, one can no longer give life back to those who are dead. West with the Eastern Empire, since for it the Roman Empire would have been reassembled in its vast borders, and the destroyed Barbarians would not have the last remnants of the ancient civilization. Except that in the course of time it is rare for things to be reassembled under the same forms: what falls no longer rises again, and when a building has collapsed, no one can manage to collect the debris so well that it is rebuilt big and strong in everything. as before, one can no longer give life back to those who are dead.
The revolution of the palace of Byzantium, which broke the scepter in Irene’s hand, raised a war man, Nicephorus, to the honor of the purple, who was raised up on shields by the soldiers, as seen in the miniatures of the times, and was by the patriarch crowned in Santa Sofia. Irene, first treated with reverence, as the wife of Leo and mother of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, was then locked up in a monastery, and she who, although previously had the rank and mayor of an empress, ended up bad and confined to the island of Lesbos. A letter from the Frankish legates in Constantinople narrates this domestic revolution, in which they supported Irene as long as they could, as an ally of Charlemagne, but then the movement ended, they abandoned Constantinople to come and report to the emperor the events that troubled the empire of ‘Orient,
Charlemagne’s might was such that Nicephorus well understood that he had to seek, first of all, his love; the frontiers of one touched those of the other and great was the fear of the invasions of the Franks always crowned by victory. So to acquire the friendship and the grace of Charlemagne, Nicephorus sent him a solemn embassy; and expert orators, such as those Greeks were, must justify the exaltation [14]of their lord, and the motives whence the scepter had been swiftly handed to Irene, a friend of the emperor of the Franks. The monk of St. Gall, a lively chronicler, follows, step by step, the Greek ambassadors, who come to greet Charlemagne in the name of Nicephorus. The Franks greatly despised this Byzantine race; the bishops sent by Charles to Constantinople told a thousand stories about the bizarre customs of the Greeks, and these stories went from mouth to mouth, and the good monk of St. Gall tells them this way: “In the time of the war against the Saxons, Charles sent related to the emperor of Constantinople, who asked them if the states of his son Charles [12]they were at peace, or troubled by neighboring nations; and the head of the embassy replied that all were at peace, except for a certain people, called the Saxons, who were infesting the frontiers of France with their plundering: – Oh dear! answered that prince who was rotting in idleness, and was not at all made for war, and why does my beloved son struggle to fight so little enemy, without fame or worth? I give yourself this nation with all it has! When he returned home, the ambassador reported this speech to Charles, who replied these words: “This emperor would have done much more for you if he had given you a good cloak for such a long journey.”
The bishops sent by Charlemagne to the empire of Constantinople, having been, as we see, badly received, had tied it to his finger, and the monk of St. Gallen does not fail to add to him, as the Franks took their revenge. “Shortly thereafter, the Greek emperor also sent his ambassadors to the glorious Charles, and it was downcast that on that occasion the same bishop and the duke of whom it is said were to be found, who, hearing the announcement of the the arrival of those legates, they suggested to the wise monarch to have them lead through the Alps by impassable routes, so much so that worn out and consumed they had everything they brought with them, and were thus obliged to present themselves to him already in bad gear. Then, when he arrived, the bishop and his companion made the constable sit in the midst of all his dependents, and over an elevated seat so that it was impossible not to take this officer for the emperor. So the ambassadors, as soon as they saw him, prostrated themselves on the ground to worship him, but thrown back by Charles’s servants, they were forced to pass into the other rooms further ahead, where, having warned the count of the palace who was speaking to the great crops around him, believing it the prince, again rushed to the ground. Hunted further and slapped they were forced to pass into the other rooms further ahead, where, having warned the count of the palace that he was speaking to the great crops around him, believing him to be the prince, they again rushed to the ground. Hunted further and slapped they were forced to pass into the other rooms further ahead, where, having warned the count of the palace that he was speaking to the great crops around him, believing him to be the prince, they again rushed to the ground. Hunted further and slapped [15]by the bystanders, who went to them saying: – This is not the emperor, – they went further, and found the seneschal of the royal table surrounded by all the familiars, covered in very rich clothes, no longer doubting that he was not the king, here they are new to the ground. Expelled also from this place, they saw in a hall all the servants of the royal chamber around their head, and by then they were sure that this was really the first of mortals. But that officer removed them from this belief, and promised them to do everything he could in one with the first of the court, to obtain for them, if possible, the grace of being admitted to the presence of the August emperor. Some of those who were with him, meanwhile, had a commission to introduce them in a grand ceremony.
“Charles, the most illustrious of kings, dazzling like the sun at its rising, and all shining with gold and gems, was seated at a window that gave off great light, leaning on Hector, that was the name of the bishop from him already sent to Constantinople. Around the emperor were lined up in a circle, like the celestial militia, his three sons he had taken on as companions already in the empire, his three daughters with their mother, splendid in virtue in one and in beauty; and prelates of unparalleled appearance and merit; and abbots distinguished by their nobility as well as by their holiness, and dukes, whose appeal was not in ancient times Joshua himself in the field of Galgala. This host, like the one that threw back Cyrus and his Assyrians from the walls of Samaria, could, as if it had David in the middle, rightly sing: All kings and peoples of the earth, all princes and judges of the earth, hired servants and maidens, old men and children, all praise the name of the Lord! – The Greek ambassadors, taken by amazement, felt faint; and having gone out of knowledge, they fell mute and fainted to the ground. The emperor, with all kindness, made them rise from the ground, and endeavored to cheer them up somewhat with words of comfort; but when then they saw filled with so many honors that Hector whom the Greeks had treated with such rudeness and contempt, taken by new fear, they fell back to the ground, nor did they rise until the prince had sworn to them, by the king of Heaven, that he would not hurt any of them. Reassured by this promise, they began to show greater engagement; but, having returned to their homeland, they never set foot in our country again[13] .
«Here is the place to tell how the illustrious Carlo had around him men who were wise in everything. After having celebrated the morning in the presence of the emperor, those Greeks, in the octave of Christmas, sang [16]in secret and in their language some psalms in honor of God, when the king, who was hidden in a nearby room, enraptured by the sweetness of their poetry, ordered his cherics not to put food in their mouth until they had those antiphons brought turn into Latin; therefore it is that all are of one style, and that in one of them is found written conteruit in place of contrivit. Those same ambassadors had brought with them all sorts of instroments, which they saw furtively together with the other rare things they had, were imitated with great diligence by the craftsmen of the sagacious Charles. They are reported mainly in the counterfeiting of an organ, that admirable instrument which, by means of copper wagons and bellows of bullskin, chasing the air, as if by spell, into copper pipes, equal with its roars the roar of the thunder, and with its sweetness the faint sounds of the lyre. This is neither the place nor the time to tell where this organ was placed, nor how long it lasted, nor how it went bad together with a thousand other precious things that the State lost ».
Hence the two sentiments that the aspect of Byzantine civilization inspired in those days; first a high contempt for the cowardice and duplicity of the Greeks, not having the strong and vigorous men who dwelt on the land of France, and in the cities on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, no esteem for those wretched eunuchs, those jesters covered with they did not know their city with sword and spear; then the astonishment and the almost dazzle, from which they were taken to that advanced civilization, to those admirable monuments, to those progresses of industry, to those marvels of sculpture, to hearing a harmonious organ, to seeing a painting of lively color , a rich reliquary, or the purple of their sumptuous cities. These two opposing feelings are manifested in the chronic; if they speak of the Greeks as men, they are words of contempt and hatred of race against race; if they speak at the meeting of the spectacle that Byzantium offers with its monuments, with its gardens, with its statues, with its vast racecourses, then they are all enthusiasm, and the Latin monks themselves cannot help but be amazed at a civilization that looks like a beautiful ivory statue, all sprinkled with gold and gems. The said embassy of Nicephorus to Charlemagne had not only commissioned to establish confederation between the two empires, but also to establish the boundaries of both frontiers in an exact and permanent way; which implied the pure and simple recognition of the title of emperor of the West in the person of Charlemagne. In some fragments that remain to us, on the contrary, one can see the change which is taking place in the diplomatic correspondence of the great prince Austrasius with the Byzantine emperors. He is no morerex only, but [17]basileus and sometimes also imperator ; nor does he call the lord who reigns in Byzantium anymore with the name of father, but yes with that of brother; he is no longer tributary to them, but their equal, decisive change in form, and in Constantinople forms were everything.
The limits of the two empires were, as for Italy, assigned to the frontiers of Puglia, the Duchy of Taranto and Naples; on the Adriatic, to Venice, to Dalmatia, to Istria; towards the Danube the territories were divided by the barbarian nations encamped in the lands from the Danube to the Volga. This contraction was made not without a certain justice and equity, and its most significant effect was the recognition of a Western empire, hailed by the Caesars of Constantinople as a renewal of that time in which the Roman world was divided, with two offices in two major city capitals, Rome and Constantinople. And since ideas survive things, and this Roman empire had left so many glorious memories of its Augustus and its Caesars, it is no surprise that men also of Germanic descent went to honor the empire to restore the empire with the relics of civilization it had left as a legacy to the land. The title of emperor of the West had left great fame even among the barbarous nations, and the splendor of Charlemagne was only more dazzling among the generations.
The fame of this emperor and the din of his conquests and marvels had also penetrated to the East, where, in the year of Hegira 170 and Christ 786, there followed the exaltation of a great caliph named Arun-al- Raschild, or the executioner, and Abulfeda recounts the wars of his early years which secured him the caliphate. The civilizations of India, Persia and Greece had operated on the Arab nation, and traces of it were found everywhere. The Arabs were not otherwise a creative people, but an imitator, repeating the Persian, Indian and Greek traditions; translators as they were Byzantine studies, and expert copiers of Hindustan architecture and arts, or Sassanid monuments, and heirs of the Alexandrian school, and they knew nothing of themselves to create, but right were in forging, imitating, translating. From the day of his exaltation Arun was at war with the emperors, so it is not strange that he sought the alliance of Charlemagne, nor was this policy displeasing to the Franks of the West.[14] , so adverse as they were to the Greeks of Byzantium. According to the chronicles that the caliph sent linked to Charlemagne with a present of a new style, and it was a watch on the far Byzantine, with all that finesse and patience of work that the Arabs able [18]supreme possess. The quadrant was composed of twelve little doors which formed the division of the hours; each door remained open, then at the twelfth hour, twelve little knights, going out together, went around the quadrant, and closed all the doors, and every day like this. This work, all ivory, to the admiration of the whole court of Charlemagne, was placed in the cathedral of Compiegne [15] .
The monk of St. Gallen who writes about every novel, did not fail to narrate, in all its details, the coming of the ambassadors of Arun, and the practices that had been established between the caliphate and the new emperor of the West. «Some ambassadors were sent to the emperor from Persia, who thought they would do better by landing on the shores of Italy, also moved by the cry of Rome that they knew was subject to the empire of Charles. But they were greeted with suspicion by the bishops of Campania, Tuscany, Romagna, Liguria, and finally Burgundy and Gaul, and also by the abbots and counts, to whom they made manifest the reason for their journey, and by some of them. they did not want to receive, until after a year, those wretches, exhausted and exhausted by the long journey, came to Aachen to find this emperor so famous for his virtues, except that, having arrived and announced to the prince in the most solemn week of Lent, their audience was postponed until the eve of Easter. And on this festival, the greatest of the whole year, being the incomparable prince dressed in unparalleled ornaments, he had the legates of that nation, once a fright of the universe, introduced into his presence, and the greatest Charles appeared to them so much more majestic than any other mortal, who were persuaded that they had never before him seen neither king nor emperor. He welcomed them kindly, and granted them the distinguished grace of being able, like his own children, to go wherever they wanted, to examine everything, to inquire and take note of whatever it was. Enraptured by contentment, to all the riches of In the East they put the good of not departing from the emperor, of contemplating and admiring him continuously. So they went up to the tribune that overhangs the basilica, and from there looking now at the clergy and now at the militia, but still returning with their eyes on the prince, nor being able, in the excess of their exultation, to refrain from their happy cheers, they beat palm to palm tree, and burst out: – So far we have seen nothing but men of the earth; but now that’s it and they burst out: – So far we have seen nothing but men of the earth; but now that’s it and they burst out: – So far we have seen nothing but men of the earth; but now that’s it [19]we see a gold one. Then, as they approached each of the great ones, they admired the novelty of their clothes or weapons; again then returning to the emperor, as the most worthy of their homage. Thus passed the night of Holy Saturday and the coming Sunday to see everything in the church, they were invited on this most holy day to the sumptuous banquet of the most munificent Charles, together with the great of France, indeed of Europe; but astonished at what they saw, they left the table almost starving. And here the following day, at the instant in which the Aurora, leaving Titone’s bed, dispensed the light of the sun [17] , Carlo, intolerant of lazy rest, moves through the forest in search of buffalo and aurochs [18]bringing the legates with him; but those poor Persians, at the sight of those immense beasts, seized by great fright, flee. Meanwhile the brave Carlo, who does not know that it is fear, riding a very fast runner, reaches one of those beasts, draws the sword, and starts to cut off her head; but the blow does not go full, and the ferocious animal breaks the king’s shoe together with the strips that bind it, and rubs the front part of the leg with the bridge of the horns so as to make it then somewhat limp, and furious at the touch wound , flees between plants and crags for a very thick scrub. All the hunters want to take off their shoes in competition to serve their lord, but he does not allow it, saying: – I want to show myself in this state to Hildegard ».
Now in the ancient chronicle, the empress Hildegard is the beloved wife, the solicitous companion of Charlemagne; she had not, however, followed him in this fierce hunt in the forests of Germany, and had remained in the villa or in the court. “Meanwhile Isimbardo, son of Varino, continues the chronicler, had chased the beast, nor daring to get too close to it, threw his javelin at her, catching it between the joint of the shoulder and the chest up to the heart, then presented it still throbbing to the emperor , who, without appearing to be aware of it, leaving the body of the animal to his hunting companions, returned to his palace, and had the queen summoned there, and showing her his torn shoe, said to her: – That he deserves who freed me from the enemy from which I had this wound? – Every good in the world, answered the princess. – The emperor then told her what had happened, and made to bear the terrible horns of the fair as witness, the queen was seen melting in tears, sighing deep, and beating herself [20]the chest with both fists. It was then understood that Isimbardo, in disgrace in those days of his lord, and stripped of all his honor, was the one whose arm had freed the emperor from such a formidable enemy, who rushed to her husband’s feet, obtained from him that at the same Isimbardo was given back everything taken from him, and she was not happy with this, he gave him very large gifts with her hand. The Persians again offered the emperor an elephant with some monkeys, balsam, nard, different essences, aromas, perfumes and medicinal drugs of all kinds, so much so that it seemed they had emptied the East to fill the West with them. In the meantime, having become somewhat more tame with the emperor, it happened that one day when they were more cheerful than usual and warmed by generous wine, they addressed these words to the emperor, who, very temperate, was in all his senses: – Of course, emperor, your power is great, but still much less than what fame spread in the kingdoms of the East. To which Carlo, concealing his inner anger, replied laughing: – And about what are you saying this, my children? and from what was this thought suggested to you? And they then, returning to the early days of their journey, told him in detail everything that had occurred to them in the regions on this side of the seas, saying: – We Persians, Medes, Armenians, Indians and Elenites, there we all fear more than our own lord Arun. What about the Macedonians and the Greeks, who fear your greatness as more apt to oppress them than the waves of the stormy Ionian Sea? How much to all the islanders, between which we passed, and they show themselves so solicitous and devoted to your service, as to believe them well fed in your palace and gratified by your most magnificent and honorable benefits. But the great people at the meeting in your country do not seem too eager to please you, if not in your presence; Proof of this is that when we, on the way, we asked them to deign to do something for us, with regard to your person, that we came to look so far, and they dismissed us without listening and empty-handed. ” On hearing this, the emperor deprived the counts and abbots of all their offices and honors, to whom the ambassadors presented themselves. meeting your country do not seem too eager to please you, if not in your presence; Proof of this is that when we, on the way, we asked them to deign to do something for us, with regard to your person, that we came to look so far, and they dismissed us without listening and empty-handed. ” On hearing this, the emperor deprived the counts and abbots of all their offices and honors, to whom the ambassadors presented themselves. meeting your country do not seem too eager to please you, if not in your presence; Proof of this is that when we, on the way, we asked them to deign to do something for us, with regard to your person, that we came to look so far, and they dismissed us without listening and empty-handed. ” On hearing this, the emperor deprived the counts and abbots of all their offices and honors, to whom the ambassadors presented themselves.[19] ; as for the bishops, they were condemned by him to heavy fines, after which he ordered that the legates be led with the greatest honors and attentive care to the borders of their country.
These practices between the Western emperor and the caliphs rested particularly on the mutual need to guard the kings of Byzantium; very natural indeed was the admiration of the caliphs for Charlemagne, [21]but also the interest had its part in these offices between sovereign and sovereign. The monk of St. Gallen then goes on to tell of the other marvelous embassies, who came to complir the emperor on his Aachen diets, and especially of certain legates of a king of Africa, who brought him a lion from Libya. , a bear of Numidia, of the iron of Iberia, of the purple of Tire and other rich foodstuffs of that district; and tells how Charles in return received, for as long as he lived, those Libii, very poor as they were in arable land, of the wealth that Europe supplies, in grains, wine, oil, and fed them with a liberal hand, thus preserving them eternally faithful and devoted to themselves, without the need to subject them to shameful tributes. Then touches a legation by Charles himself sent to Persia with his gifts for the king, then returns again to the Caliph Arun, saying how he wanted to give all of himself and his kingdom in the hands of Charlemagne, so much was he taken to his greatness and power. Now, although history does not have to hold as true truth every saying of the monk of St. Gall, so enthusiastic about his prince, it is nevertheless no less true, that all this does not serve to prove the importance, that now the caliphs and emperors of the West they placed in the bonds among themselves, as adverse as the one and the other had the Greeks; beyond which the caliphs had as adversaries the Arabs of Spain, whom the Franks likewise counted among their enemies. Hence Charlemagne and Arun-al-Raschild had no opposite interests; that if the different religious beliefs formed an obstacle to their close intimacy, even though politics and commerce continually gathered them up and had mutual respect. The two empires also did not touch anywhere, and Charlemagne found in the amistà of Arun a way to range with his ships, and to be able to indulge the spirit of pilgrimage, which in those days turned towards Syria. It is true that Arun-al-Raschild did not otherwise surrender the lordship of Palestine to Charlemagne, for this was one of those chronicle traditions, to be placed among the romances of chivalry. and to be able to indulge the spirit of pilgrimage, which in those days turned towards Syria. It is true that Arun-al-Raschild did not otherwise surrender the lordship of Palestine to Charlemagne, for this was one of those chronicle traditions, to be placed among the romances of chivalry. and to be able to indulge the spirit of pilgrimage, which in those days turned towards Syria. It is true that Arun-al-Raschild did not otherwise surrender the lordship of Palestine to Charlemagne, for this was one of those chronicle traditions, to be placed among the romances of chivalry.[20] ; but it still remains that he allowed the pilgrims free passage to Jerusalem. These customs of pilgrimage were familiar to the East, where a sepulcher made entire generations move, and the customs of those wandering peoples made common the journeys from one end of the desert to the other for acts of religion and piety. Privileges and prerogatives were granted on both sides, Charlemagne and Arun made an agreement [22]to conduct himself with the same policy towards the Greeks, and the moral pre-eminence of the Western emperor in the East rose so high, that the origin of most of the trade licenses and mercantile privileges of the French in Syria refers to his reign.
As king as he was emperor, Charlemagne had his correspondences with the emirs of Spain, with the counts of Castile, with the vassals and with the peoples who surrounded his immense Western dominions, so that, scrolling through the diplomas and parchments, you remain amazed at so many tributes, which come to revere the emperor. Now they are the emirs [21]or alcaids of Catalonia or of Guadalquivir, who, full of presents, come to declare themselves vassals among its plenary courts; now they are heads of tribes and dukes and counts who concur to take sides around the supreme authority of the emperor. Charlemagne’s name is so famous throughout the world, that as soon as he shows himself in this or that place, visitors from every country soon come to him, and his kingdom is so adventurous and strong, that as soon as there is only one truly deplorable defeat, that of Roncesvalles. Nor can the practices established between the emirs, the alcaids, the counts of Castile and Charlemagne be called diplomatic correspondences; rather they are feudal homages and submissions for taxes and donations; the only solemn correspondences,
There is some diploma which also testifies to Charlemagne’s correspondences with the leaders, reges or leaders of the Saxon hetarchy, and particularly with Offa, king of Scotland, who, apparently, was a friend of the emperor. England, with all its infinite divisions and fragments, had had the privilege of sending almost all the most powerful converters of peoples that flowed through Germany to preach the law of Christ. These priests, Bonifatius at the head of the list, who came from Great Britain, to announce the faith to the world, had some daring and courage, like all Saxon peoples; therefore it is that eglino certainly crossed Belgica and Neustria, to reach the banks of the Elbe. Charlemagne [23]then he took great care to protect these preachers, who were industrious as they were for the conversion of Saxony, and he urges and prays continually to visit the provinces of his empire, and he wishes that the prevailing example of St. Christian preachers come to secure the conquest; in fact these communications with the Anglo-Saxon priests prepared for the other larger ones which settled in the end of the Carolingians. But until the reign of Alfred the Great, nothing was done for a few moments in England; the Saxon race lived in its military camps, indented in heights, without greater unity than that which existed in Austrasia and Neustria before the exaltation of Charlemagne, and seeking regular communications there,
