King Desiderius

I mentioned here how Charlemagne fought and defeated Desiderius, King of the Lombards, and sent him to live out his days in a monastery. An interesting note in their relationship is that Desiderius was also Charlemagne's father-in-law.

Was his father-in-law. Charlemagne married Desiderius' eldest daughter, Desiderata, in 770. Marrying her was a political move, forging an alliance between the Lombards and the Franks. The marriage was annulled in 771, however, and she was sent back to her father.

The political alliances of Desiderius were all over the map, so to speak. When he was named King of the Lombards upon the death of his predecessor, King Aistulf, Aistulf's predecessor, his brother Rachis, who had been in a monastery, left it and tried to take the throne. Desiderius defeated him with the help of Pope Stephen II, after promising that he would give lands to the pope. The pope went for this, since Aistulf had made raids against papal lands. Desiderius, however, was not very forthcoming about handing control of the territories over to the papacy, so by the time Pope Stephen III came along, he was opposed to Charlemagne's marriage to Desiderata, and pushed for the annulment. It didn't really require what we think of as "annulment"; in the Middle Ages, "repudiation" was sufficient: the husband "repudiated" his wife and sent her back to her family. It was a holdover from Roman law. There were at least two dozen repudiated queens in the Middle Ages

Desiderius later tried, like Aistulf, to encroach on papal-controlled lands around Rome, and this time Pope Hadrian I called on Charlemagne's aid. It was expedient for Charlemagne to take up the request, since it allowed him to do a favor for the pope and annex Lombardy.

There was another "family connection" between Charlemagne and Desiderius. In 774, Charlemagne's brother Carloman died. Carloman's wife, Gerberga, might have expected her sons to inherit his territory, but Charlemagne simply absorbed it into his own. Gerberge fled with her sons to Pavia (and later, Verona) and took refuge with Desiderius. Desiderius, unhappy with the treatment of his daughter by Charlemagne, took in the refugees. This contributed to Charlemagne's willingness to besiege Pavia in aid of Pope Hadrian. The family was likely sent to monasteries, just like Desiderius, who was surely sorry that he ever got mixed up with the Frankish royal family.

What did Charlemagne do for a wife after Desiderata? He had three more. Let me tell you about them tomorrow.

Conquest of Lombardy

Although there once existed an agreement between the papacy and the Lombards, the desire of King Aistulf to take more land on the Italian Peninsula started an attempt by the popes to curtail Lombardy's power. To do so, they not only pointed out the hostility to them presented by the Lombards, but also their "heathenism" because of the type of Christianity they practiced. The years-long process culminated in calling on their most devout and powerful champions, Charlemagne.

The immediate precursor to the war between the Franks under Charlemagne and the Lombards came when Pope Hadrian I expelled the Lombard officials from the papal curia. King Desiderius then invaded papal territory, and Hadrian sent to Charlemagne for help.

Awkwardly, there were ties between the Frankish and the Lombard royal families. Charlemagne's co-ruler was his brother Carloman, whose widow Gerberge had gone to shelter at Desiderius' court, later settling in Verona. Desiderius claimed that her children should have a stake in ruling Gaul. Even more awkwardly, Charlemagne had married Desiderius' daughter, Desiderata, but had divorced her after a year and sent her back to her father—a grave insult.

Charlemagne brought at least 10,000 troops to the city of Pavia in September of 773. Although he had brought no siege engines with which to take the fortified city, Pavia had under-prepared for a siege anyway, having neglected to stock extra supplies. (The illustration shows part of the original medieval outer wall, now incorporated into housing inside the city.) Desiderius had sent his son, Adelchis, to Verona to guard Gerberge and her family. Charlemagne sent a small troop to Verona, taking it easily after Adelchis fled to Constantinople.

Charlemagne spent the first months of 774 subduing the land around Pavia. By summer, famine was a real problem in Pavia; Desiderius surrendered in June. Charlemagne declared himself Rex Langobardorum, "King of the Lombards." It was unusual to take the title of king over a subjugated land, rather than simply annex it to yours.

Although Desiderius was no longer king, he was allowed to live another 42 years. Let us look at his life and career next.

The Law of Frisians

Nowadays, Frisian or Friesian conjures images of horses. The Friesian is one of the oldest horse breeds, popular as a war horse in the 16th and 17th centuries. Their origin is Frisia in the northern Netherlands and northwestern Germany.

When Frisians joined Widukind in rebellion during the reign of Charlemagne, they guaranteed life would change: Charlemagne prevailed, and forced the Frisians to accept Christianity and a set of laws he imposed upon them. This was the Lex Frisionum, the "Law of he Frisians."

The Lex was based on existing Frisian law. There were four legal classes—nobles, freemen, serfs, and slaves—and fines were applied differently to the different classes. (Clergy were not subject to civil law.) Twenty-two chapters of the Lex were all about fines, including wergild, the payment to relatives of a killed person. As with the Anglo-Saxons (and unlike many other cultures), the wergild was equal whether a man or woman.

The Lex includes two references to trial by ordeal, mentioned here and elsewhere. The Frisian method was to hold a stone that has been pulled from boiling water. Blisters were expected, but if they healed within three days, the holder was deemed innocent. A noble could mark himself innocent by Canonical Purgation, described in the post on Oath of Purgation.

The problem with the Lex Frisionum is that we don't have any original documents. What we know about it comes from a 1557 version, compiled with other Germanic law documents from the monastery at Fulda. We don't know how faithful that copy was to the original; some scholars point out that Charlemagne would not have allowed pagan elements to remain. Like so much of history, we only know what we have, and so much is speculation.

Monastic libraries like that at Fulda provide much of what we know, and since Fulda has been mentioned several times recently, I think I should delve into its significance.

Until next time...

The Acts of Charlemagne

Charlemagne is a known and respected figure in history, his reign establishing a re-birth of arts and education among the Franks, uniting much of western Europe, creating a non-centralized administrative system that managed an empire, re-establishing (with the help of the pope) the "Holy Roman Empire."

Many of those accomplishments, of course, were built on a foundation of decades of war that killed thousands. We've all heard of mass Christianizations by rulers of large sections of the populace, but haven't talked enough about mass slaughters. The two often went hand-in-hand.

Charlemagne spent decades focused on the Saxons to his east, wanting control over their politics and their souls. In 772 he destroyed the Irminsul, an important pagan symbol, and proclaimed rulership over much of Saxon territory. Ten years later, a rebellion rose up among the Saxons against Frankish forces at Süntel in Lower Saxony, joined by the Frisians. The Saxons prevailed, killing envoys of Charlemagne, four counts, and 20 additional noblemen.

When he heard this, the Lord King Charles rushed to the place with all the Franks that he could gather on short notice and advanced to where the Aller flows into the Weser. Then all the Saxons came together again, submitted to the authority of the Lord King, and surrendered the evildoers who were chiefly responsible for this revolt to be put to death—four thousand and five hundred of them. This sentence was carried out. Widukind was not among them since he had fled to Nordmannia [Denmark]. When he had finished this business, the Lord King returned to Francia. [Royal Frankish Annals]

The execution of the 4500 is called the Massacre of Verden. Some annals claim the 4500 were given a choice of baptism or execution, as the woodcut above displays. The instigator was Widukind, who continued being a thorn in Charlemagne's side over the next few bloody years until his final defeat and acceptance of baptism, along with the Frisians who had joined Widukind's Saxons.

Once Charlemagne subjugated a nation, forcing Christianity upon them, he would send missionaries. He would also establish a set of laws for them. In this particular case, the Frisians also asked for their own bishop. Charlemagne sent Ludger, later called "The Apostle of Saxony." He also created the Lex Frisionum, their own set of laws, which I'll dig into next.

The Life of Charlemagne

There are two "Lives" of Charlemagne, one by Einhard who was a member of the Carolingian court for decades, and one by a "Monk of St. Gall." The Monk writes that he was given the idea for the biography when Emperor Charles III visited St. Gall for three days; this can be dated to 883, meaning the Monk was writing 70 years after its subjects death, and 60 years after Einhard's eyewitness account.

Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni ("Life of Charles the Great") is not just a list of wars fought and won—and there were many—but offers insight to the habits and interests of its subject, and in so doing gives a glimpse of daily life in the Frankish court.

One thing we learn is of the close relationship Charlemagne had with the scholars with whom he surrounded himself: they had nicknames for each other. Charles himself was called (King) David, while Einhard's skill at managing building projects and his knowledge of Scripture saw him named Bezaleel, from a character in the Bible

...filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, and in carving of timber. [Exodus, xxxi]

Einhard, writing after Charles' death, forsakes the idea of making up tales of his subject's youth, claiming that no one was currently alive who could tell him anything about the king's life before his time as king. As much as Einhard writes because of his admitted great admiration for Charles, he refuses to do what so many medieval biographers would do: embellish his subject's early life with tales of his prowess, etc.

Of the 47 years' worth of wars discussed, the penultimate with the Huns stands out because of the near-total victory by Charlemagne, after which the spoils of war changed the Franks from "a poor people" to a land with so many riches that their coinage was devalued and commodity prices rose.

Of Charlemagne's personal life, we learn of his wives and concubines and their respective children (Einhard even admits that one name escapes him; the honesty of his account in places is refreshing). We learn that he quarreled with his mother Bertrada only once (when he divorced his first wife whom he had married on Bertrada's advice), and that he treated his sister with the same reverence he treated his mother.

As soon as his sons were old enough, he had them taught to ride and hunt and use weapons. His daughters were taught the arts of the spindle and distaff and to avoid idleness; all his children were taught the liberal arts, and to adopt high principles. When he was at court, dinners were always with the family. His attachment to his children was strong, and he openly wept when two sons and a daughter pre-deceased him. He also wept for the death of Pope Adrian I, whom he considered a great friend.

His sons and daughters also traveled with him, the sons riding up front and the daughters in the rear, guarded. One failing in Charles as a king was the fact that his daughters would have made him some powerful alliances through carefully chosen marriages, yet he never allowed them to be married, keeping them always with him. He had betrothed his eldest, Hruotrud, to Emperor Constantine VI, but it was broken off, possibly because of religious differences, or the distance she would have been from her father?

Despite the affection he showed for his family, he was a king and emperor who had to be harsh at times. Some of those times will be explored tomorrow.

Einhard

Charlemagne, as has been mentioned many times over the years, brought many educated people to his court (Alcuin, for example), promoting learning and art to the point where there was a Carolingian Renascence long before the Renaissance of common knowledge. One of those scholars and historians was the Frankish Eginhard, in Latin called Einhardus; we simply call him Einhard.

Born about 775, when Charlemagne was already king of the Franks and the Lombards, Einhard was sent to be educated at Fulda. He was physically small, and so focused on scholarship and Latin rather than fencing and riding. (His Latin style is considered superior to that of most writers of the time.) Around 791-2 he was accepted to Charlemagne's court and was made "Clerk of the Works" for several construction projects.

His wife was named Emma; legend says she was a daughter of Charlemagne, and that the two eloped but were forgiven by her father. The woodcut above shows the diminutive Einhard being carried by Emma as they flee Court. There is no evidence to support this story, but folklore liked the idea. The Count of Erbach in 1810 claimed descent from Charlemagne through Einhard and Emma.

He was never given a title or a permanent position until after Charlemagne's death, when Louis the Pious made Einhard his private secretary. Einhard spent about 40 years serving the father and son kings, retiring in 830. Before he retired, however, he made use of the Royal Frankish Annals to compose the Vita Karoli Magni ("Life of Charlemagne"), the most thorough—and, of course, biased—contemporary biography we have for Charlemagne. He died in 840.

Einhard was responsible for other works: On the Adoration of the Cross, On the Translations and the Miracles of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus, and a collection of letters. But the biography of Charlemagne is worth taking a closer look, next time we meet.

Louis the Saint

Louis IX of France (1214 - 1270) was crowned at the age of 12 after his father Louis VIII "The Lion" died of dysentery coming back from fighting the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars. His mother, Blanche of Castile, acted as his regent and made sure he was educated, having him taught Latin, rhetoric, writing, and the arts of war and government. Part of his reading instruction was through the Psalter of St. Louis. Through her influence he became very devout. His mother's influence was strong, but when he reached the age of 20 she seems to have become more a counselor than a regent.

Louis' devotion led him to go on two Crusades. He could not convince any of the rulers of Europe to go on Crusade, so he organized and funded the 7th Crusade himself; it did not go very well. The 8th Crusade went even more poorly, and he died while on it.

His failure at Crusading enhanced rather than tarnished his reputation, however, since it showed his religious devotion to one and all. He also built the Sainte-Chapelle ("Holy Chapel") solely to house the Crown of Thorns, which he had received from Baldwin II by paying off a debt of Baldwin for 135,000 livres.

Louis also presided over the Disputations of Paris (parts one and two) in which Jewish leaders were forced to respond to charges of anti-Christian passages in the Talmud, copies of which he would have collected and destroyed. Along with this, he expanded the Inquisition.

Part of his devotion was because he considered French to be foremost in protecting the Church, since the first Christian named "Holy Roman Emperor" was Charlemagne of the Franks. He though France had an obligation as the "eldest daughter of the Church" to lead in Christian behavior, proselytizing, and freeing the Holy Land.

He died in 1270 at Tunis, and the body to be transported from the north coast of Africa to Sicily, thence through Italy, across the Alps, and most of France until they reached St.-Denis. He was declared a saint in 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII.

Here's a question: if someone dies while traveling, what s done with the body? A person of no status might be buried right there. Maybe they'd be wrapped in canvas, or a coffin would be procured. What about a royal personage, though, one for whom you have great respect? How do you prepare a body? Let's talk about that tomorrow.

Adeliza of Louvain

After the death of his first wife, Matilda of Scotland, King Henry I of England needed a second wife. Well, mostly he needed an heir, because the sinking of the White Ship killed his only male heir, William of Adelin. He had plenty of surviving children, but he had not been married to their mother(s), so that presented a legitimacy problem. He found what he needed in Adeliza of Louvain. 

Adeliza (c.1103 - 1151) was 17 or 18 when she wed Henry in 1121, who was about 35 years older than she. She was even younger when negotiations started; Henry had already been looking for a second wife, but the process accelerated after the White Ship. Sometimes called "the fair maid of Brabant," she was known for her beauty. The historian Henry of Huntingdon (once mentioned here) raved that her beauty was completely natural, needing no adornment.

One of her attractive features (aside from her physical features) was her ancestry: as a descendant of Charlemagne, marriage to her would link their children to an age still looked upon as glorious and foundational to contemporary Europe. The two were wed in Windsor Castle on 24 January 1121. They were married for 15 years, during which time she seemed to have always been near him as he traveled his kingdom. She took little interest in administrative duties, however, unlike many queens.

She did, however, turn out to be a patron of the arts, sponsoring French poets. An Anglo-Norman poet, Philippe de Thaon, dedicated a Bestiary in Latin to:

 ...an outstandingly beautiful woman.

And she is courtly and wise, Of good customs and generous:
She is called 'Aaliz', Queen is she crowned,
She is the queen of England; May her soul never know trouble!

She also commissioned a biography of her husband, which no longer exists.

After Henry died on 1 December 1135, she first retired to Wilton Abbey, a Benedictine convent, and shortly after founded a leper hospital. She had several properties that Henry had given her, and when she re-married in 1138, she and William d'Aubigny lived at her castle of Arundel.

Adeliza's relationship to her step-daughter, Matilda, was cordial. They were approximately the same age, and Henry had named Matilda his heir-presumptive until he had an heir with Adeliza. Unfortunately, he and Adeliza did not produce an heir, so technically, Matilda would inherit the throne and country.

...and that's when the trouble started. Tomorrow we re-visit The Anarchy.

The Donation of Pepin

The idea of actual Papal States giving the pope serious temporal power really took off in 756 when Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, gave to Pope Stephen II several territories and towns in the Italian peninsula.

To be fair, the territories were not Pepin's to give, not originally anyway. They were under control of Aistulf, king of the Lombards. A few years earlier, in 751, Aistulf conquered the exarchate of Ravenna. The exarchate of Ravenna was the last piece of Italy considered to be part of the Roman Empire, having been established by Byzantine Emperor Justinian as part of his plan to administer the western part of the fading empire.

Aistulf decided that his conquest of Ravenna and killing of the last ruler of it, the exarch Eutychius, meant he was now the nearest thing to a Roman Emperor. He therefore demanded that Rome itself submit to him and send him a tribute of one gold solidus per person.

Pope Stephen II could not negotiate with Aistulf to back down, so he sent a request to Pepin to come to his aid. The Franks and Lombards were on friendly terms, so Stephen thought Pepin would have better luck. Pepin promised the pope he would arrange the return of the Exarchate of Ravenna. The pope in return anointed Pepin and his sons Charles (Charlemagne) and Carloman as kings of the Franks (they did not need this to be kings, but it was a nice piece of recognition from a figure who was seen as the head of the Christian faith). He also named them patricians of the Romans, an honorary title suggesting they were Roman elite. The pope also pronounced a blessing on Pepin's wife, Bertrada.

So Pepin took his army to Lombardy, surrounded Aistulf's forces, defeated any military opposition, and made Aistulf promise to return Ravenna. A treaty was signed, Pepin turned around to go home, and once he had left Lombardy, Aistulf ignored the treaty. Aistulf besieged Rome. Word went to Pepin. The Frankish army came and forced Aistulf to abandon the siege.

So more than Ravenna became part of the Papal states, because Pepin turned over Lombardy as well and several other cities. Emissaries of the Roman Empire entreated Pepin to give the land to the political empire, not the spiritual papacy, but Pepin would not. The pope would now be a temporal ruler for centuries to come.

You may have heard that there was an earlier gift of land to the pope, called the Donation of Constantine. We will talk about this hoax tomorrow.

Queen Cynethryth

If Eadburh, wife of Beorhtric of Wessex, was as vindictive as history reports—exiling and executing enemies—what was the catalyst for that behavior? Did she learn from growing up and watching her mother, Cynethryth?

It is true that the queens of Mercia seem to have a notable amount of authority compared to other royal women—in fact, Cynethryth of Mercia, wife of King Offa, even had her own coinage with her image on it!—but was she actually as terrible and bloodthirsty as we are told?

We don't know anything about her or her parentage until 770, when her name appears as a witness on a charter. The similarity of her name to that of the wife and daughters of King Penda (c.606 - 655) of Mercia (Cynewise, Cyneburh, Cyneswith) suggests she was of that line, which would make her a distant relative of Offa.

The Vitae duorum Offarum ("The lives of the two Offas") relates and compares the stories of the 4th or 5th century Offa of Angel and the Offa of Mercia who reigned in the second half of the 8th century and was married to Cynethryth. Originally thought to be composed by Matthew Paris, it is now thought to be an earlier work. Of Cynethryth, the Vitae calls her "Drida," and that she was Frankish and condemned for some crime to be set adrift at sea. She drifts to the Welsh shore where she is found and brought before Offa. She claims to be a member of Carolingian royalty, and Offa puts her in the care of his mother, Marcellina. Offa eventually falls in love and marries her, after which she changes her name from Drida to Quindrida (from Thryth to Cynethryth).

The minting of coins in her likeness tells us a lot about how much authority Offa gave her. In one of his letter, Alcuin refers to Cynethryth as "controller of the Royal household." The marriage seemed to be a steady one. Alcuin, writing to their son Ecgfrith, advised him to follow the example of his parents, and comments on her piety.

What the crime was that originally caused her to be set adrift, we'll never know. Æthelberht II, King of East Anglia and Alfred the Great's older brother (died 20 May 794) is said to have been assassinated by Offa. Later chroniclers suggest that Cynethryth was more involved. This may be simply because of the earlier tale of her coming into the picture as an exiled criminal. There are no specifics or evidence that she was inciting executions or assassinations.

It is not unknown, however, that early kings would kill off even relatives in order to make succession clear and avoid attempts at usurpation of civil war. When Offa's and Cynethryth's only son, Ecgfrith, reigned a mere 141 days, the only heir to the throne of Mercia was a very distant relive, Coenwulf, because nearer relatives had been eliminated by Offa. Alcuin himself acknowledged this, writing:

That most noble young man has not died for his sins, but the vengeance for the blood shed by the father has reached the son. For you know how much blood his father shed to secure the kingdom upon his son. ... This was not a strengthening of the kingdom, but its ruin.

The last reference we have to Cynethryth was in 798, when she was present at the Synod of Clovesho in a dispute regarding the monastery at Cookham. I'll explain her connection to that dispute, and talk about the Synods, next time.

An Evil Queen

First, let me say that there was more than one Eadburh. Eadburh was the name of King Alfred the Great's mother-in-law (Alfred's wife was Ealhswitha, daughter of Eadburh (830 - 895) of the Mercian royal family and Æthelred Mucel of Mercia). Then there was Eadburh of Winchester (921 - 951CE), daughter of King Edward the Elder (mentioned here), who became a saint. 

Then there was the Eadburh who was most definitely not a saint.

King Offa of Mercia and Queen Cynethryth had five children: one sone who became king of Mercia after Offa, and four girls. They married their daughter Eadburh (seen to the left) to King Beorhtric of Wessex (reigned 787 - 802) in 789.

According to Asser's Life of King Alfred, Eadburh made many enemies and demanded they be killed or exiled. Possibly jealous of anyone who was too close a confidant of Beorhtric, she (supposedly) attempted to poison one of his favorites, but wound up causing the target and her husband to be killed. Her part in the king's death being discovered, she fled to Francia and appealed for sanctuary from Charlemagne.

Asser goes on to say that Charlemagne brought out one of his young sons and asked her which she would prefer to marry. (In 802 or just after, when this would have taken place, the 55-year-old Charlemagne would have been a widower, his fourth wife Luitgard having died in 800. Still, it's a little hard to swallow.) Eadburh said she'd prefer the son because of his youth, at which Charlemagne replied: "Had you chosen me, you would have had my son; but because you have chosen my son, you will have neither him nor me."

So Charlemagne makes her an abbess in a convent, but after she is caught having a sexual affair with a Saxon, she is expelled from the convent. She dies as a penniless beggar on the streets of Pavia in Lombardy.

Let's look at this from another angle.

Eadburh, daughter of the powerful Offa of Mercia, married Beorhtric of Wessex (seen to the right). This made Wessex and Mercia allies, to the benefit mostly of Wessex. To keep Offa pleased, Beorhtric might well have given Eadburh plenty of authority. In their 13 years of marriage, however, there was no evidence of offspring. Kings need an heir (it's wise to have "an heir and a spare"), and many in Beorhtric's position would have wanted to put Eadburh away and find someone more fertile, which he did not do. We do not know when Beorhtric was born, but it does not seem likely that he died of old age when Eadburh became a widow.

So why is Asser telling this story at the beginning of a Life of King Alfred? He uses the story to explain why Wessex kings do not let their wives use the title "queen," because Eadburh's actions supposedly tainted the practice.

But wait, there's more.

As in the tragedies of Socrates, "look for the earlier crime." The alliance of Offa and Beorhtric created a power strong enough to make some significant changes in the politics of southern Great Britain. One of their acts was to drive Ecgberht (born about 771-775) into exile in the 780s, whereupon he fled to the court of Charlemagne. Who was Ecgberht? Why drive a child out of Wessex? He was the heir to the throne of Wessex, and by driving him out, Beorhtric became king. After Beorhtric's death, Ecgberht returned and ruled Wessex from 802 until 839.

So why was this important in a biography of Alfred? Because Ecgberht's son and heir was Æthelwulf, and Æthelwulf's son and heir was ... (wait for it) ... Alfred. Asser made sure to denigrate the man responsible for preventing Alfred's grandfather from taking the throne, and made a statement about how regressive Wessex was toward women at the time.

Did Eadburh poison and exile her enemies? If she did, where did she learn such behaviors? Well, the hand that rocks the cradle...

Tomorrow I'll tell you about her mother.

Alfred's Improvements

Alfred the Great (849 - 899) was not an idle king, even when not battling Danish invasions to protect the shores of Great Britain.

Some of his reforms and innovations did involve the military, though. The traditional way to deal with trouble was for each small community to assemble its own men against an attack. The Danes, however, would attack swiftly a small area, conquer it, and fortify it as a new base from which to mount further attacks and to which they could retreat if their further military plan looked like it was failing. They could make steady progress across the country before a large-scale defense could be mounted by a king. After defeating Guthrum at Edington, Alfred used the following respite to plan a standing army, ready to march and strike at the first sign of invaders.

In order to do this, Alfred had to raise taxes. His people had what was called the trinoda necessitas (three-fold tax): obligations for military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. Alfred increased a landholder's taxes based on the productivity of his land. He also created over third fortified places in souther Great Britain from which he could organize resistance to invaders.

He also increased naval power. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle claims that Alfred's ships were larger and faster than ships of the Danes or Frisians. Alfred wanted to stop invaders before they reached shore, if possible.

He was also responsible for some legal reforms. He gathered together many of the laws from the past, including the code of King Ine of Wessex (689 - 726), rejecting laws that didn't please him, and produced a law code of 120 chapters with a strong biblical influence.

Even while dealing with these many "royal obligations" he was encouraging changes in education and culture. Perhaps inspired by Charlemagne's re-birth of culture, he established a school at court for his children and others. He also arranged for translations into English of Latin works he felt everyone should know. Concerned that the Viking invasions were a sign of God's wrath, he founded monasteries and "imported" monks because he found little local interest in populating the monasteries. He made sure copies of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care went to his bishops for the better preparation of priests.

Now, calling anyone "the Great" will always raise questions about the accuracy of the epithet, and Alfred is no exception. Tomorrow we'll hear why some modern historians claim he wasn't that Great. See you then.

The Ottonians

The Ottonians, the Ottonian dynasty, the Ottonian Period in Germany—all these refer to the same topic: a Saxon dynasty of German monarchs (three of whom were named, natürlich, "Otto") that lasted from 919 until 1024CE.

Its founder was not named Otto, however (although his father was); that was Henry the Fowler (876 - 936), son of Otto the Illustrious. He was named primus inter pares (Latin: "first among equals") by the German dukes of Bavaria, Swabia, and Lotharingia during the Hungarian invasions of East Francia, and named Rex Francorum ("King of the Franks") in 919. He was victorious over the Hungarians and amassed sufficient power to be uncontested when he passed his title onto his son, Otto I (912 - 973).

Also known as Otto the Great, one of the chief historical events connected to him is the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire (which, it should be noted, was by any standard definitions neither "holy" nor "Roman" nor an "empire"). Sure, the administrative structure needed to manage the large area (shown in the illustration) was inherited from the Carolingians and Charlemagne, and they got it from the Romans, but it was nowhere near what the Roman Empire had been.

Pope John XXII, however, wanted Otto's help in controlling Rome and the Lombards. Otto was a good choice: he was geographically close to Rome, he had defeated the pagan Magyars in 955, making him look like a hero for Christianity, and he was (in some ways) the successor of a previous Frankish king, Charlemagne, who had been made Holy Roman Emperor in Christmas Day in 800. Otto, whose wife was the Italian Adelaide of Burgundy (931 - 999). stepped in for the pope and conquered the Kingdom of Italy in 961. He was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on 2 February 962.

The "re-creation" of the empire and its expansion to much of central and Southern Europe sparked a bit of a cultural resurgence, the Ottonian Renaissance. This continued under Otto the Great's son, Otto II, partially because of his marriage to Theophanu, the niece of Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes. This helped create an influx of Byzantine art into Europe.

Otto II died after only 10 years, aged 28. His son, Otto III, was only 3 years old; his regents were his mother Theophanu, his grandmother Adelaide, and Henry II ("the Quarrelsome"), Duke of Bavaria. When he came of age, among other things he installed his confidants as popes: Pope Gregory V and the science-minded Gerbert of Aurillac, Pope Sylvester II.

When Otto III  died young (aged 21 years), he was succeeded by Henry II, a son of his regent Duke Henry. Henry was crowned emperor by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014. He founded numerous dioceses and intertwined secular and religious administrative power. When he died childless in 1024, the Ottonian dynasty ended. The crown went to Conrad II, a great-grandson of a daughter of Otto I, starting the Salian dynasty.

Before we can move to other topics, however, I want to look more at the results of the Ottonian Renaissance. See you tomorrow.

Dog-headedness

Folklores from all over the world include tales of dog-headed humanoids. The phenomenon is referred to as cynocephaly, from the Greek words for "dog" and "head."

The Greeks may have been influenced by Egyptian gods with canine heads, and not just the jackal-headed Anubis; Wepwawet (originally a war deity) had a wolf head, and Duamutef (a son of Horus) had a jackal's head. The Greek physician Ctesias wrote two books in the 5th century BCE, Indica and Persica, about Persian and Indian lands, of a tribe of Cynocephali:

They speak no language, but bark like dogs, and in this manner make themselves understood by each other. Their teeth are larger than those of dogs, their nails like those of these animals, but longer and rounder. They inhabit the mountains as far as the river Indus. Their complexion is swarthy. They are extremely just, like the rest of the Indians with whom they associate. They understand the Indian language but are unable to converse, only barking or making signs with their hands and fingers by way of reply... They live on raw meat. They number about 120,000.

Other Ancient Greek writers including Herodotus, likely influenced by Ctesias, reinforced this knowledge, encouraging the Middle Ages to accept that there were strange races living beyond Europe. (Greek writers also say there was a type of monkey that was cynocephalic; we now assume they had seen baboons.)

With this "knowledge" in hand, it was easy to accept that Cynocephali would appear in other accounts, such as that of two dog-headed saints, Ahrakas and Augani, who served the Coptic Saint Mercurius (3rd century).

The best-known dog-headed personage was St. Christopher, who was sometimes depicted in the Eastern Orthodox tradition as dog-headed. This was likely a misunderstanding of an expanded history for him that referred to him as a Canaanite; this was mis-read as "canine-ish" and resulted in him being portrayed as a Cynocephalus who came from their tribe.

St. Augustine of Hippo in his The City of God addressed the topic of the Cynocephali. He accepted that they might not exist, but if they did exist, were the human (which to him meant mortal and rational). If they were both mortal and rational, then they were human, and therefore could have come from nowhere but a line of descendants from Adam.

Ratramnus (died c.868), a Frankish theologian, was concerned about the Cynocephali, because if they were human, then it was obligatory to bring Christianity to them. 

Even Marco Polo mentions them:

Angamanain is a very large Island. The people are without a king and are Idolaters, and no better than wild beasts. And I assure you all the men of this Island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in the face they are all just like big mastiff dogs! They have a quantity of spices; but they are a most cruel generation, and eat everybody that they can catch, if not of their own race.

The one medieval writer who personally encountered anything approaching Cynocephali was Ibn Battuta (who was mentioned in passing a week ago regarding the Richest Man of All Time):

Fifteen days after leaving Sunaridwan we reached the country of the Barahnakar, whose mouths are like those of dogs. This tribe is a rabble, professing neither the religion of the Hindus nor any other. They live in reed huts roofed with grasses on the seashore, and have abundant banana, areca, and betel trees. Their men are shaped like ourselves, except that their mouths are shaped like those of dogs; this is not the case with their womenfolk, however, who are endowed with surpassing beauty.

Between India and Sumatra is a tribe, the Mentawai, who practice the art of tooth sharpening. He may have encountered them.

Dog-headed humanoids were widespread in literature, mentioned in the Nowell Codex (that contains Beowulf); in a Welsh poem where King Arthur fights them in Edinburgh; lamented at by Charlemagne (in his biography) that he never had a chance to go to war against such a foe; in a Flemish Dominican's popular encyclopedic work corroborating their existence; and many more examples. After the European discovery of the continents west of the Atlantic Ocean, assumptions that the Cynocephali would be found were renewed.

But enough of that. Lots of options to move on from here, but I want to explore that Flemish Dominican who wrote some works that became very popular, based on the number of surviving manuscripts. Next time we will talk about Thomas of Cantimpré.

Ifriqiya

Along the Mediterranean coast of Northern Africa was an area controlled by the Roman Empire called the Africa Proconsularis. When the Empire broke up, the Byzantine Eastern Empire still controlled the territory until the Muslim Empire started its westward move, ultimately reaching the Iberian Peninsula.

To be clear, Islam existed in the area already, but Muslims did not have political control until the Umayyads took over in 703CE. Ifriqiya included modern Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya (shown here in red).

Control shifted from dynasty to dynasty: from Umayyads to the Aghlabids (who were regents for the Abbasids) to the Fatimids in 909, to their own regents, the Zirids, who slowly grew in power, then to the Almohads and finally the Hafsids. The capital city was Kairouan, or al-Qayrawān, founded in 670 by the Umayyads. It became an intellectual and cultural center for Sunni Islamic scholarship. Charlemagne sent envoys to Kairouan; they returned with reports of the amazing palaces and gardens, not to mention reports of the heavy taxation of the population that paid for the excesses of the ruling class.

Several mosques in Africa are the result of Muslim influence spreading out and southward from Ifriqiya. Swahili absorbs vocabulary from many languages, most recently English, but 16-20% of its vocabulary still is from Arabic, especially administrative terms.

Notable individuals from Ifriqiya include Constantine the African (mentioned in a recent post), and the historian Ibn Khaldun, who would be worth taking a closer look at in the next post.

Abul-Abbas

The Royal Frankish Annals cover the era from Charlemagne's grandfather to his son. In it we find that Caliph Harun al-Rashid gave an elephant to Charlemagne. This was the result of Charlemagne sending his emissary, Isaac the Jew (Isaac Judaeus), to open relations with the Abbasid rulers. Harun al-Rashid sent Isaac back with an elephant, named Abul-Abbas.

So how do you get an elephant from Syria to France? With great difficulty. From Baghdad Isaac took Abul-Abbas to Egypt, and then along the north coast of Africa to Tunisia. The going was slow, and Charlemagne received messages from Harun al-Rashid and from Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab (governor of Africa, whom Isaac would have met in Tunisia) referring to Isaac's mission. Charlemagne ordered a man to Italy, to commission some ships in Genoa to travel to Africa to find Isaac and the elephant and bring them home.

Isaac and Abul-Abbas landed in Genoa in October 801, stayed for the winter, and when the weather turned they crossed the Alps. Isaac reached Charlemagne's court at Aachen on 20 July 802.

Abul-Abbas must have been a lot to maintain, but having the largest land animal anyone had ever seen in your menagerie would have been a great point of pride for Charlemagne. Elephants have long lifespans, and Charlemagne might have had his new pet for a long time, but on an expedition to Denmark in 810, after crossing the Rhine, Abul-Abbas died suddenly while Charlemagne camped at "Lippeham."

We don't know what the records mean by Lippeham, but on the conjecture that it has something to do with the Lippe River, it might be the city of Wesel. We will never know for sure, but there's a story that a colossal bone was found in the Lippe in 1750.

Much of what we know of Isaac the Jew has been revealed in the tale of Abul-Abbas. There was another "Isaac Judaeus," however, in the medieval records: one of the foremost Jewish physicians of his day. Let's take a look at him next time.

(The illustration here is of Abul-Abbas from 12th century Spain; the fresco is 80" high and 53" wide.)

Medieval Zoos

Collections of animals for private amusement or public display have existed for a long time. There is a current trend toward calling them "conservation parks" to move away from the connotations of 20th century zoos that housed animals with no regard to their natural habitats. "Zoo" itself was a shortened form of "zoological garden" or "zoological park" which were common in the 19th century. An early modern zoo, the London Zoo, opened in 1828 as the "Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society of London." References to collections of animals earlier than the 19th century often use the term "menagerie" from the French ménage, "members of a household."

Pre-medieval evidence of menageries abounds in carved stone walls from Egypt and Mesopotamia, where we learn that rulers sent expeditions to collect giraffes, elephants, bears, dolphins, and birds. A Middle Assyrian Emperor had a collection of animals in the 11th century BCE. King Solomon had a menagerie, as did Nebuchadnezzar. Alexander the Great collected different animals from his expeditions and sent them back to Greece. The Romans kept various animals—bears and bulls for example—for entertainment in the Colosseum. (The illustration here is from Villard de Honnecourt.) Cortes destroyed a collection of animals maintained by Montezuma in 1520.

Caliph Harun al-Rashid sent an elephant as a gift to Charlemagne. Charlemagne created three menageries, and they included monkeys, lions, bears, camels, and falcons along with other exotic birds. Henry I of England had lions, leopards, and camels at his Woodstock palace. As early as 1204, "Bad" King John kept a collection of different animals at the Tower of London. The Tower had three leopards added when Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II sent them as a wedding gift to Henry III. The king of Norway sent a "white bear" (could they have subdued and sent a polar bear?) in 1251, and the king of France sent an elephant in 1254.

Clearly the desire to see exotic animals from distant lands (and the prestige of owning them) was of great interest for as long as human beings had the time and resources to collect and maintain them.

About Charlemagne's elephant, though...we've all heard about Hannibal trying to bring elephants over the alps to attack Rome. Bringing elephants to Europe predated Charlemagne by a millennium. What did it take to give an elephant to Charlemagne, and what happened to it? His name was Abul-Abbas, and I'll tell you about him next time.

Jerusalem Hospital

The Hospitallers were nicknamed thus because they were founded by members of the First Crusade who joined together to protect a hospital built at the Benedictine monastery of Saint John the Baptist. That hospital and monastery were in Jerusalem, in a section of the Christian Quarter called Muristan. In fact, "Muristan" comes from the Islamic Bimārestān, meaning "hospital." The hospital in question, however, built in 1023, was not the hospital for which Muristan is named.

The name Muristan appears much earlier, due to a hospital built by Abbot Probus about 600CE at the orders of Pope Gregory I. This was built to treat ill pilgrims who made the trek to the Holy Land. We should note that this is long before any Crusades to "liberate"—actually, "conquer" would be more accurate—the Holy Land. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all managed to coexist through many periods of time—though not always, as you'll see. About 614CE, a Persian army invaded, killing Christians and destroying their structures, including the hospital.

Jump ahead 200 years, and Charlemagne in 800 (after being crowned Holy Roman Emperor) revived Probus' hospital and expanded it, adding a library (Charlemagne was a great supporter of learning, as you can read about in a 2013 post.) Unfortunately, in 1009, Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (sometimes called "the mad caliph" or the "Nero of Islam") destroyed the hospital as well as thousands of other buildings.

Which brings us up to 1023, when merchants from Amalfi and Salerno requested of Caliph Ali az-Zahir the opportunity to rebuild the hospital. It was granted, which brings us back to the Hospitallers several decades later, and the incarnations of the hospital are complete.

But there is a postscript. During excavations for a restaurant, he original structure was discovered and explored between 2000 and 2013 by the Israel Antiquities Authority. At its heyday, between 1099 and 1291, it was 150,000 square feet and could accommodate up to 2000 patients. Evidence exists that it served kosher food to Jewish patients, and that it also housed orphans, many of whom joined the Hospitallers. Bones from horses and camels found suggest it was also used as a stable. Part of a vaulted roof will be incorporated into the restaurant, and so the first home of the Hospitallers lives on in some small fashion.

But what about the "mad caliph" who destroyed a hospital and the kind caliph who let one be built? Would you believe they were father and son? Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree, which we'll go into tomorrow.

The Gentle Prison

We saw here how Charlemagne captured his ex-father-in-law, King Desiderius of the Lombards, and imprisoned him in the Benedictine Abbey of Corbie. Sticking your political enemies away in a monastery was an efficient and humane way to eliminate them from the scene. Monasteries were often remote; the monastic life was carefully regulated, and so someone trying to leave would be discovered quickly; it was not as harsh as a dungeon; your enemies were given plenty of time to contemplate their sin of being your enemy.

In the turmoil that followed the dividing up of the kingdom by Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious, Louis' grandson Charles failed in his attempt to gain some power and was imprisoned at Corbie. He escaped, however, and was made Archbishop of Mainz by Louis the German, showing that imprisonment in a monastery did not mean you were a convict with complete loss of rights or privileges in the eyes of the world.

Corbie, in Picardy, was particularly favored by Charlemagne because his family had close ties to it. Shortly after Desiderius was sent there, Charlemagne's cousin Saint Adalard became its abbot. Corbie was a desirable position, because it was granted freedom from the jurisdiction of local bishops.

One of Corbie's most prominent features—not surprising given its Carolingian patronage, was an extensive library. This library not only had numerous writings by the early Church Fathers, but also many classical texts and non-religious texts. The geometry of Euclid, as transmitted to the Middle Ages by the works of Boethius, was of great interest to scholars at Corbie. A 9th century monk at Corbie, Headboard, wrote extracts from Cicero, microbus, and Martianus Capella.

Carolingian minuscule

This love of scholarship extended for centuries: a 17th century monk of Corbie, Jean Mabillon, is considered the father of paleography, no doubt after studying the centuries of developing styles of scripts. The distinctive script called Carolingian minuscule was developed at Corbie about the time that Saint Adalard was abbot.

This remarkable center of learning did not survive until modern times, alas. In the 17th century, 400 manuscripts were sent to a monastery in Paris and later sold to a Russian diplomat. During the French Revolution the remaining 300 manuscripts at Corbie were sent to Amiens. About 200 manuscripts from Corbie are known to exist today. The monastery itself was damaged extensively during World War I, but has been rebuilt.

Charlemagne's Father-in-Law

Desiderius, from a 15th century miniature

I mentioned here how Charlemagne fought and defeated Desiderius, King of the Lombards, and sent him to live out his days in a monastery. What I left out was that Desiderius was Charlemagne's father-in-law.

Was his father-in-law, that is.  Charlemagne married Desiderius' eldest daughter, Desiderata, in 770. Marrying her was a political move, forging an alliance between the Lombards and the Franks. The marriage was annulled in 771, however, and she was sent back to her father.

The political alliances of Desiderius were all over the map, so to speak. When he was named King of the Lombards upon the death of his predecessor, King Aistulf, Aistulf's predecessor, his brother Rachis, who had been in a monastery, left it and tried to take the throne. Desiderius defeated him with the help of Pope Stephen II, after promising that he would give lands to the pope. The pope went for this, since Aistulf had made raids against papal lands. Desiderius, however, was not very forthcoming about handing control of the territories over to the papacy, so by the time Pope Stephen III came along, he was opposed to Charlemagne's marriage to Desiderata, and pushed for the annulment.

Desiderius later tried, like Aistulf, to encroach on papal-controlled lands around Rome, and this time Pope Adrian I called on Charlemagne's aid. It was expedient for Charlemagne to take up the request, since it allowed him to do a favor for the pope and annex Lombardy.

There was another "family connection" between Charlemagne and Desiderius. In 774, Charlemagne's brother Carloman died. Carloman's wife, Gerberga, might have expected her sons to inherit his territory, but Charlemagne simply absorbed it into his own. Gerber fled with her sons to Pavia (and later, Verona) and took refuge with Desiderius. Desiderius, unhappy with the treatment of his daughter by Charlemagne, took in the refugees. This contributed to Charlemagne's willingness to besiege Pavia in aid of Pope Adrian. The family was likely sent to monasteries, just like Desiderius, who was surely sorry that he ever got mixed up with the Frankish royal family.