THE RECONQUEST OF POLITICAL POWER

When at Christmas of the year 800 the king of the Franks Charlemagne was crowned Emperor, the first in the West since 476, he was hailed by the court poet Alcuin with the name of “Flavius Anicius Carolus” [1]. In spite of the historians who insist on calling Charlemagne a barbarian, descended from barbarian ancestors, this name is a further confirmation that the Carolingians descended from one of those Senatorial families of great landowners, which had immediately integrated into Frankish society, while keeping their property and privileges. We saw in a previous chapter that the family of the Anicis was one of the most eminent and richest in the Roman Senate, and that one of its branches was among the greatest families in Gaul by the end of the third century and belonged in some capacity to the Gens Flavia, being related to more than one emperor (including Carinus, Probus and Anicius Olybrius).

And we also saw conclusively that it was a family of Judaic priestly origin, as were all, or nearly so, of the families that made up the Gallic aristocracy, from whose ranks came virtually the whole of the Catholic clergy, and in particular the bishops. The Franks of barbarian origin held military power, but those of Gallo-Roman origin owned most of the land and controlled the economy and religion. They eventually also regained political and military power.

The Merovingian sovereigns had imposed themselves on Gaul thanks to the backing of the clergy and landed nobility, which continued as in the past to provide for the civil service, and from whose ranks were drawn the functionaries who helped the sovereign to govern the kingdom. Inevitably, since they controlled the economy and religion, these functionaries, and especially those who held the office known by the name of “mayor of the palace”, acquired more and more power. By the turn of the seventh century all the power was already concentrated in the hands of the mayor of the palace, and the king had become virtually a symbolic figurehead, albeit of fundamental importance, because he represented the unity of the Frankish state, and it was anyway in his name that the mayor of the palace governed. The Merovingians were called “roi fainéant” (do-nothing kings) for their ineptitude and lack of political initiative, and it was with this epithet that they went down in history.

The office of mayor of the palace was the prerogative of a restricted number of families of great landowners in a well-defined area, centered on the ancient capital of the prefecture of Gaul, Trier. It was here, in the basin of the Moselle and the Rhine, in Reims, Metz, Tours, in Brabant and in Alsace and Lorraine, where the Roman legions had, from the second century onwards, been infiltrated by members of the cult of the Sol Invictus Mithras, that the priestly families who would go on to conquer the Empire had installed themselves and made their fortunes. And it was here too that the first and most complete integration of the barbarian and Roman populations would take place, thanks to the actions of the priestly families, which for more than a century had been using barbarian militias for their defense, instilling in them respect for Roman law and culture.

Since the Franks (like the other European barbarians, for that matter) never expropriated the lands of the aristocracy or the Gallo-Roman clergy, the great landowners who held and sustained the office of “mayor of the palace” were descendants of Gallo-Roman Senatorial families. There were about thirty families, allied with each other, which we find subsequently at the head of all the European nations.

A characteristic of these families which clearly betrays their priestly origins, was that of their being intimately linked with the Church. Whoever did not devote himself to a political career was destined to become a bishop or abbot, and all the families founded large numbers of monasteries and abbeys in their respective domains. From the time of Pepin the Short onwards, for example, the Carolingians controlled at least a couple of hundred powerful abbeys, which they regarded as their personal property. To preside over them they designated their own sons and daughters, legitimate or otherwise, wives and mothers, as well as close relatives and their most trusted supporters, independently from their state. It was common practice to appoint at the head of the abbeys non-clerical people who had not taken religious orders.

The line between non-clerical and clerical was practically inexistent and the respective roles interchangeable. The nobles (those of Roman origin, that is) could be appointed as bishops from one day to the next, sometimes at a very young age, and they could all become abbots without renouncing their civil appointments or family life. The mother of Pepin II, for example, was an abbess, and so were his wife and daughter. This was a common practice of all the great Carolingian landed nobility. The appointment of bishops and abbots was the prerogative of the king and the great local feudal lords, and the office was always conferred on their children or on their most loyal supporters, in return for their services. And the bishops, in their domains, had all the duties and prerogatives of a non-clerical prince, with the sole difference that their office was not hereditary. Exactly as one would expect from a noble caste whose members consider themselves “priests” by birthright.

Clovis had created an immense kingdom, which stretched from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. On his death it was divided up among his sons, and in this way two Frankish kingdoms were created, perennially struggling for supremacy, Austrasia in the north-east, and Neustria in the west and central-south. In the course of yet another clash between the two kingdoms, in 613, two men distinguished themselves in particular, both of them at the roots of the Carolingian dynasty: Arnulf and Pepin I.

Arnulf was born around 580 to a family which owned vast domains in the plains of Woevre (a large tract of land between the Meuse and the Moselle) and in the area around Worms. As a boy, as was the custom in the noble families of Roman origin, he received a good literary education, with, of course, the accent on religion. As an adolescent he was sent to court under the guardianship of the then- mayor of the palace, a certain Gandolf, a rich landowner from Metz, who was apparently from the same Senatorial family as Bishop Gregory of Tours.

Despite his monastic tendencies, Arnulf married and had numerous children. He acquired ever more influence at court and tied his interests to those of a noble in the same situation, Pepin, sealing an enduring alliance through the marriage of their children. Pepin came from a family that owned immense tracts of land. The domains of his clan extended to various parts, around Metz, in Brabant, in Heysbaye and around Namur, in the Meuse Basin, which had become the main communicating road for the economic traffic of northern Europe. Pepin had married a certain Itta, sister of the Bishop of Trier, whose dowry included, apart from her numerous virtues, huge tracts of land.

With the help of Arnulf and Pepin, the Merovingian king Chlothar II reunited the kingdom of the Franks under his own dominion in 613, and as a show of gratitude offered Arnulf the vacant seat of Bishop of Metz, the capital of Austrasia. When Chlothar instated his son Dagobert, just ten years old, at the head of the kingdom of Austrasia, he entrusted him to the care of Arnulf, who also had the responsibility of government. To share this responsibility he appointed Pepin as mayor of the palace. Pepin soon remained alone in the government of Austrasia, because Arnulf withdrew to one of the monasteries to which he had disseminated his possessions in the area of Metz, in the foothills of the Vosges Mountains.

Pepin I's successor, his son Grimoald, thought the moment had arrived to get rid of the Merovingian dynasty and instate himself in its place. King Siegeberd II had no sons and despaired of ever having any, so he accepted Grimoald's proposal of adopting his son, giving him a typical Merovingian name, Childebert, destined to succeed him. Some time later, however, Siegeberd was presented with a son, Dagobert, by his legitimate queen, and he designated him his heir and entrusted him to Grimoald. Grimoald, however, on the death of the king, refused to acknowledge his will, and proclaimed his own son as his successor, locking the legitimate heir up in a convent. The reaction of the Frankish nobility, especially that of Neustria, was immediate: Grimoald and his son were killed and the Merovingian dynasty restored. Evidently, it was not yet the right moment.

 

The Carolingians

 

After a period of eclipse, Grimoald's son, Pepin II, known as “the Short”, regained control of the whole kingdom of the Franks, who governed on behalf of the Merovingian sovereign Theodoric III. Pepin installed friends and relatives at the head of a large number of bishoprics and abbeys in France, as well as distributing fiefdoms to his supporters. On his death he was succeeded in the office of mayor of the palace by his son Charles, who would give his name to the following dynasty, being considered the first king in the family, though actually he never wore the crown and was never elected king. But he was considered such in practice, especially by the pope and the bishops in France. On the death of the Merovingian sovereign Chlothar IV, who he had instated himself, he continued to govern alone, still with the title of mayor of the palace. On his death, the abbot Willibrord wrote a note in the official calendar of the abbey of St. Denis, where Charles was buried: “October 741, death of King Charles”. In effect he had governed like a real sovereign, while never actually having that title.

Charles's most notable enterprise was the defeat he inflicted, near Poitiers, on October 25, 732, on an Arab army that had invaded France. Charles was hailed as the savior of Christianity, and for this victory was given the nickname of “the Hammer” [2], a deliberate parallel with Judas Maccabeus (Maccabeus means Hammer), the founder of the Hasmonean dynasty. It was a significant parallel, because the Hasmoneans were kings and their descendants were of royal blood, authorized to wear the crown (Josephus Flavius declares himself to be a descendant of the Hasmoneans on his mother's side).

This occurred formally with Charles the Hammer's son, Pepin III. Pepin conveniently provided himself with the cover of a Merovingian king appointed by him, the young Childeric III, but prepared his own accession to the throne with care, assuring himself in the first place of the backing of Pope Zachary. As far as the Frankish Church was concerned, it was not necessary for him to gets its backing, because in effect it had been completely under the control of the Pippinid clan and the families allied with it, since it had first appeared on the historical scene. This, in fact, had been the main reason for their irresistible rise. Pepin I, who came to the historical fore at the turn of the seventh century, already appears to have been strictly tied to the Frankish Church. [3] Pepin II continued with his grandfather's policy, appointing his friends and supporters as bishops and abbots throughout the kingdom.

As far as Pepin III, the first king of the Carolingian dynasty, is concerned, he directly controlled, or did so through the families that were his allies, most of the bishops' sees in the Frankish kingdom and more than two hundred monasteries and abbeys, and was careful to put them in the charge of relatives and supporters. In particular, he put his friend Fulrad in charge of the abbey of St Denis, where Charles Hammer was buried, and instated another close ally, Chrodegang, as Bishop of Metz. Before finally attempting his coup d'etat, he made sure of the backing of the pope through the abbot Fulrad. Having obtained it, he locked up the young Merovingian king, Childeric III, in the monastery of St. Bertin (where he died a few years later), assembled the nobles of the kingdom in Soisson and had himself named king. It was November 751.

To crown his triumph and prevent a return of the Merovingians, a few months later Pepin had himself anointed king by the bishops in France, probably at the hands of Boniface, the pope's representative in Gaul, reviving the ancient anointment ritual of the kings of Israel and Judah. In this way he was raised to the level of the Biblical kings. The anointment was repeated at St. Denis three years later, on Christmas Day, by Pope Stephen II in person, who had come to France just for this purpose, and on this occasion Pepin's two sons, Charles and Carloman, were also anointed.

In anointing the new royal family, Pope Stephen “forbade anyone, on penalty of excommunication, to dare in the future to choose a king outside the lineage of these princes, who were raised to the royal rank by Divine mercy through the intercession of the apostles and consecrated by the hand of the Pontiff, their vicar” [4].

Charles and Carloman were adopted as sons of the papacy and the pope also became godfather to Giselle, Pepin's daughter. In return Pepin went to Italy to defend the pope from the excessive power of the Lombards and granted to the papacy those territories which would later form the Church State. And it was probably on this occasion that the so-called “Donation of Constantine” document was drawn up.

Stephen II's coming to France also heralded the end of any relationship of dependence by the papacy on the Emperor of Constantinople [5]. Pepin and his sons were appointed “Roman patricians” and with this title he took on the task of protecting the Holy See.

 

Judaic aspects of the Carolingian kingdom

 

It seems clear that the Carolingians, and the whole clerical and non-clerical nobility behind them, strived to reproduce in every detail the reality of the Jerusalem of the Hasmoneans. One of the first acts of Pepin the Short, after his “anointment” (a Biblical ceremony restored for the first time) was that of introducing to his kingdom the practice of paying “tithes” to the Temple, which had been in force in Israel: from then on the tenth part of all the products of the land were destined for the Church, and it was the king's functionaries who took care of the collection. The practice of paying tithes to the Church was emulated and extended to the whole of the West under Charlemagne and would remain in force for almost a millennium.

The references to Israel were continuous. We have already seen the appellative “Maccabeus” conferred on Charles I. It is also significant that Pope Stephen II and his brother and successor Paul I wrote numerous letters to Pepin, in which they compared him with a “new Moses” [6]. Charlemagne liked to call himself “chief of the new chosen people” [7], and he compared himself with King Josiah, the sovereign of Judah who at the end of the reign of the ungodly Manasseh, spared no efforts in “restoring to the service of God the kingdom that God had entrusted to him” [8]. He took the priestly status seriously, so much so that he considered himself at the same time “king and priest”, to the point of assuming for himself the right to legislate in the religious field and to receive the tribute of obedience from all the clergy, pope included.

Another title he did not disdain was that of “new David, triumphant over the enemies of Israel”. As such, he regarded his mission as that of leading the “new chosen people” to their salvation and imposing the Christian faith on all the pagan peoples. Germans, Slavs, Scandinavians, Magyars, etc., were conquered by force and converted to Christianity by any means, even at the price of atrocities and mass-extermination. The Carolingian army grew similar to an army from the Old Testament, fasting before the battle and throwing themselves into attack singing the “Kirie eleison”.

Charlemagne fought wherever there was heresy, even outside the confines of his kingdom. Significantly, however, the Jews were never persecuted in this period, and in fact enjoyed respect and protection, as well as free access to the royal courts, including the papal one. In 812, Louis the Pious, son and  successor to Charlemagne, promulgated a decree in favor of the merchants, in particular the Jewish ones who attended the court, establishing that “they must be able to enter our palace freely. And if they wish to increase their means of transportation within the kingdom, so as to be able to trade more profitably for themselves and for us, let them be left in peace. The seizing of their goods must be neither tolerated nor inflicted…” [9]. To meet the demands of the Jewish merchants, Louis went so far as to move market day from Saturday to another day of the week. [10]

Conspicuous in its absence is any reference to the Roman world, despite the fact that Charlemagne had revived its empire. But it was not the empire of Rome that he had brought back to life, but that of the Church, inaugurated by Constantine. And actually the only parallel with the Roman world was the one made between Charlemagne and Constantine by Pope Leo III, who in 795 had a mosaic made in the Lateran in which on one side Christ was shown handing a standard to Constantine, and on the other side St. Peter was shown handing a banner to Leo III and a standard to King Charles [11]. The allusion to Charles as the new Constantine is clear. It is a very pertinent and significant parallel in the context of the priestly “theory”. The first had conquered the Roman Empire for the priestly family, the second had reconquered the whole of Europe. [12]

The mentality of Charles and the noble class which supported him was also perfectly analogous to that of the Judaic priestly class at the time of the kingdom of Judah and the Western Roman aristocracy in the fifth century. There was no sense of the state. Only the logic of the family and the religion it controlled dominated. The “state” consisted of Christianity as a whole, at whose summit sat the high priest who from Rome was the guarantor of its unity. The territorial, ethnic, political and administrative sub-divisions had no relevance whatsoever and varied continuously without in any way damaging the unitariness of the Christian world. Charles parceled out his kingdom to his sons and vassals without consideration for nationality. The only inviolable criterion was that power, with its connected property and privileges, was only ever assigned to members of the group of families of priestly origin.

Charlemagne imposed as vassals on all inherited and conquered territories people selected exclusively from among members of the restricted group of families that had helped the Carolingians in their accession to the throne. Which ethnic group they belonged to had not the slightest relevance in the choice of the vassals to whose care the territories were assigned, and linguistic differences were completely ignored, since Latin remained the official language of the clergy and the educated class everywhere.

Each vassal, of course, immediately adopted the vernacular spoken by the population subjected to him, which makes it extremely difficult to establish the true origins of his descendants. At one time, for example, historians presented the various princes, dukes, marquises and barons who governed Germany as having issued from the local populations, which is not at all true. Today even the most nationalistic historians acknowledge that the whole German nobility derives from a class of military officers and royal functionaries installed by the Carolingians, often tied to them by bonds of blood and anyway belonging to the restricted group of families in question.

A school of German historians, headed by Gerd Tallenbach[13], has studied the evolution of this “state aristocracy”, and has demonstrated how Charlemagne instated this group of noble families in the whole of Carolingian Europe. We find them in Italy as counts, abbots and bishops, not only in the conquered Lombard kingdom, but also in the duchy of Spoleto, which was given as a fiefdom to a member of the Lambertini family, who in addition to its primitive Breton domains (Brittany was always an inexhaustible source of priestly families) had obtained important fiefdoms in various parts of the Carolingian Empire, including Alsace.

Another important family in this group was that of the Unruochings. Its founder Unruoch was sent by Charlemagne to Denmark. His brother was made a count in Alamannia, while his son Duke Eberhard of Friuli started an important dynasty in Italy. And so on. The whole of the European aristocracy which instated itself in Europe in the course of the ninth century derived from this restricted number of families. Many of these families vaunted, evidently, “priestly” ancestral origins equivalent to those of the Carolingians, and did not hesitate at the first favorable opportunity to raise themselves to royal status.

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