Charles the Great and his significance for the Byzantine Empire.

            “The coronation of Charles is not only the central event of the Middle Ages; it is also one of those very few events of which, taking them singly, it may be said that if they had not happened, the history of the world would have been different.”[102] At present this event is important primarily because it concerned the Byzantine Empire.

            In the conception of the medieval man the Roman Empire was a single empire, so that in previous centuries two or more emperors were viewed as two rulers governing one state. It is wrong to speak of the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476. The idea of a single empire lay behind the militaristic policy of Justinian in the sixth century, and this idea was still alive in the year 800, when the famous imperial coronation of Charles the Great occurred in Rome.

            While theoretically the conception of a single empire still prevailed in the ideology of the Middle Ages, in actual reality this conception was obsolete. The eastern or Byzantine Graeco-Slavic world of the late eighth century and the western Romano-Germanic world of the same period were, in language, in ethnographical composition, and in cultural problems, two distinctly different, separate worlds. The idea of a single empire was out of date and is a historical anachronism from the modern point of view, though not in the opinion of the Middle Ages.

            Iconoclasm contributed its share toward preparing the event of 800. The papacy, which energetically protested against the iconoclastic measures of the Byzantine emperors and excommunicated the iconoclasts, turned to the West in the hope of finding friendship and defense in the Frankish kingdom among the rising major-domos (mayors of the palace), and later the kings of the Carolingian house. At the end of the eighth century the Frankish throne was occupied by the most famous representative of this house, Charles the Great or Charlemagne. Alcuin, a scholar and teacher at his court, wrote him a famous letter in June 799:

Hitherto there have been three exalted persons in the world. (The first is) the Apostolic sublimity who rules in his stead the see of the blessed Peter, the chief of the Apostles … Another is the imperial dignitary and secular possessor of the second Rome; but the report of how wickedly the ruler of that empire was dethroned, not through aliens but through his own citizens,[103] spreads everywhere, The third is (the possessor of) the royal dignity which the will of our Lord Jesus Christ has bestowed upon you as a ruler of the Christian people, more excellent in power than the other dignitaries, more famous in wisdom, more sublime in the dignity of the kingdom. You are the avenger of crimes, the guide of those who have gone astray, the consoler of those who are in distress; it is given to you to exalt the good.[104]

The mutual interests of the pope and the king of the Franks which eventually led to the coronation of the latter is a complex question, variously regarded in historical literature. The event itself is well known. On Christmas Day of the year 800, during the solemn service in the Church of St. Peter, Pope Leo III placed the imperial crown upon the head of the kneeling Charles. The people present in the church proclaimed “To Charles, the most pious Augustus crowned by God, to the Great and Peace-giving, many years and victory!”

            Scholars have expressed differing opinions on the significance of Charles’ acceptance of the imperial rank. Some have believed that the title of emperor gave him no new rights and that in reality he still remained, as before, only “a king of the Franks and Lombards, and a Roman patrician;”[105] that is, that in receiving the crown Charles assumed only a new name. Others have thought that through the coronation of Charles in the year 800 a new western empire was created which was entirely independent of the existence of the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. To regard the event of 800 in either of these ways would mean to introduce into this analysis the opinions of later times. At the end of the eighth century there was not, and could not be, any question of a “titulary” emperor, or of the formation of a separate western empire. The coronation of Charles must be analyzed from a contemporary point of view, i.e. as it was looked upon by the participants of the event, by Charles the Great and Leo III.

            Neither of these rulers intended to create a western empire which would counterbalance the Eastern Empire. Charles was undoubtedly convinced that upon receiving the title of emperor in the year 800 he became the sole ruler and the continuator of the single Roman Empire. The event meant only that Rome had reclaimed from Constantinople the right of imperial election.

            The mind of that time could not conceive of the simultaneous existence of two empires; in its very substance the Empire was single. “The imperial dogma of a sole empire rested upon the dogma of a sole God, since only in his capacity of God’s temporary deputy could the emperor exercise divine authority on earth.”[106] The prevailing conditions of this period facilitated the popular acceptance of this view of imperial power, and it was the only view possible at the time.

            Relations between Charles and the Byzantine Emperor had begun long before 800. In 781 a marriage had been arranged between Rotrud, Charles’ daughter, whom the Greeks called Eruthro, and Constantine, Emperor of Byzantium, at that time about twelve years old, whose mother Irene was the real ruler of the Empire.[107] A western historian of the period, Paul the Deacon, wrote to Charles: “I rejoice that your beautiful daughter may go across the seas and receive the sceptre in order that the strength of the kingdom, through her, be directed to Asia.”[108]

            The fact that in the Byzantine Empire in the year 797 Irene dethroned the legal emperor, her son Constantine, and became the autocratic ruler of the Empire, was in sharp contradiction to the traditions of the Roman Empire, where no woman had ever ruled with full imperial authority. From the point of view of Charles and Pope Leo, then, the imperial throne was vacant, and in accepting the imperial crown Charles ascended this vacant throne of the undivided Roman Empire and became the legal successor, not of Romulus Augustulus, but of Leo IV, Heraclius, Justinian, Theodosius, and Constantine the Great, the emperors of the eastern line. An interesting confirmation of this view is found in the fact that in western annals referring to the year 800 and to subsequent years, where events were recorded by the years of Byzantine emperors, the name of Charles follows immediately after the name of Constantine VI.

            If such was the view of Charles with regard to his imperial rank, then what was the attitude of the Byzantine Empire to his coronation? The Eastern Empire, too, treated it in accordance with the prevailing views of the period. In upholding Irene’s rights to the throne, the Byzantine Empire looked upon the event of 800 as one of the many attempts of revolt against the legal ruler, and feared, not without reason, that the newly proclaimed emperor, following the example of other insurgents, might decide to advance toward Constantinople in order to dethrone Irene and seize the imperial throne by force. In the eyes of the Byzantine government this event was only a revolt of some western provinces against the legal ruler of the empire.[109]

            Charles was of course fully aware of the precariousness of his position and of the fact that his coronation did not settle the question of his rule over the eastern part of the empire. The German historian P. Schramm, who called Charles’ coronation “an act of violence which infringed on the rights of the Basileus,” pointed out the fact that Charles did not name himself “Emperor of the Romans,” the official title of the Byzantine emperors, but “imperium Romanum gubernans.”[110] Charles realized that after Irene the Byzantine Empire would elect another emperor, whose right to the imperial title would be recognized as indisputable in the East. Anticipating complications, Charles opened negotiations with Irene by proposing marriage to her, hoping “thus to unite the Eastern and Western provinces.”[111] In other words, Charles understood that his title meant very little unless recognized by the Byzantine Empire. Irene received the marriage proposal favorably, but shortly after she was dethroned and exiled (in the year 802) so that the project was never executed.

            After Irene’s fall the Byzantine sceptre came into the hands of Nicephorus, and between Charles and Nicephorus negotiations were carried on, probably in regard to the recognition of Charles’ imperial title. But it was not until the year 812 that the legates of the Byzantine Emperor Michael I Rangabé saluted Charles at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) as emperor. This finally legalized the imperial election of the year 800. It is also perhaps from the year 812 that as a counterpoise to the title yielded to Charlemagne, the title “Emperor of the Romans” (Βασιλευς των Ρωμαιων) began to be used officially in Byzantium, designating the legitimate sovereign of Constantinople, as the symbol of supreme power of the Byzantine emperors.[112] From the year 812 onward there were two Roman emperors, in spite of the fact that in theory there was still only one Roman Empire. “In other words,” said Bury, “the act of 812 A.D. revived, in theory, the position of the fifth century. Michael I and Charles, Leo V and Lewis the Pious, stood to one another as Arcadius to Honorius, as Valentinian III to Theodosius II; the imperium Romanum stretched from the borders of Armenia to the shores of the Atlantic.”[113] It is self-evident that this unity of the Empire was purely nominal and theoretical. Both empires led distinctly different lives. Furthermore, the very idea of unity was being forgotten in the West.

            The imperial rank obtained by Charles for the West was not long lived. During the ensuing troubles, followed by the disintegration of Charles’ monarchy, the title fell to casual holders. It disappeared completely in the first half of the tenth century, only to rise again in the second half, but this time in its unhistorical form of “The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.”

            Only after the year 800 is it possible to speak of an Eastern Roman Empire, and J. B. Bury did this by entitling the third volume of his History of the Byzantine Empire, which embraces events from 802 (the year of Irene’s fall) to the beginning of the Macedonian dynasty, A History of the Eastern Roman Empire, while the first two volumes of his work bear the title of A History of the Later Roman Empire.