Langton and John

Now that King John of England and Pope Innocent III had reconciled, Stephen Langton was allowed to take his place as Archbishop of Canterbury and John had a powerful ally in the pope. As Archbishop he absolved the king of his past wrongdoings. John swore that unjust laws would be repealed.

John did not follow through on that promise. When the barons of England rebelled against the absolute power held by the king, Langton supported them. On 25 August 1213, Langton read aloud to a group of churchmen and barons a charter from King Henry I. This charter granted several liberties (even to Jews, who followed William the Conqueror to England after 1066 and were recognized as valuable sources of money). This Charter of Liberties also allowed more Church rights.

The Charter had been curtailed by royal decrees since the time of Henry, and the barons and Langton wanted them restored. John's refusal to do so led ultimately to John being forced to sign the Magna Carta in June 1215, upholding the rights. This he refused to do, which then led to the First Baron's War. (The illustration is one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta with John's signature.)

Remember, however, that the pope was now John's liege lord, and wanted to support his vassal. Despite the fact that the Charter and Magna Carta allowed Church rights as well, Innocent decided it was appropriate to excommunicate the barons. This decision was sent to Langton, who chose not to pronounce the writ of excommunication.

John knew from the pope that the excommunication was supposed to take place, and so John forbade Langton to perform any of his ecclesiastical functions. Langton went to the pope for support, but Innocent confirmed John's decision. This was 4 November 1215. Langton was released from his suspension in the spring, but told to stay out of England while the First Barons War was running its course.

What did Innocent gain from this? Well, the £700 annually promised by John. A new regime might decide to rebel and stop being the pope's vassal.

Innocent died 16 July 1216. John died on 19 October 1216. Hubert de Burgh immediately went to John's nine-year-old son Henry to keep him safe.

There was the push to crown him immediately. Normally this would be done at Westminster by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but Langton as (of course) out of the country at Pontigny Abbey. There was also no crown (having been lost by John along with many treasures). The boy was knighted by William Marshal, he was anointed by Bishops Sylvester of Worcester and Simon of Exeter, and a gold circlet owned by his mother was placed on his head by Peter des Roches. The event was overseen by the papal legate Cardinal Guala Bicchieri.

During the coronation, Henry paid homage to the papacy, in this case Pope Honorius III. Honorius had a different attitude toward England than Innocent's. I'll talk about him next time.

The Threat of France

The excommunication of King John and the Interdict of England by Pope Innocent III was not creating enough pressure on John to allow Stephen Langton to take his rightful place as Archbishop of Canterbury. Innocent prepared letters (never sent) that are evidence that he might have been asking King Philip II of France to depose John.

Perhaps John knew of this threat. Perhaps it was internal political pressure from the barons of England, but eventually John realized he needed to reconcile with the pope and lift the Interdict and excommunication. This meant, of course, accepting Langton as archbishop.

In May 1213, John accepted the terms of reconciliation from the papal legate Pandulf Verraccio. It was Verraccio who had formally declared the writ of excommunication in John's presence. Now, in 1213, John formally handed all of England to the pope, and the pope returned it to John as a papal fief. (The illustration is by William Blake in 1797, showing John humbling himself before Pandulf.)

There was more, and the arrangement is recorded as the Bulla Aurea ("Golden Bull"; there is more than one agreement referred to by this title). It included annual tribute to the papacy from England of £700 (£500 from England, £200 from Ireland). He also had to compensate the Church for the revenues he had confiscated during the Interdict.

This meant that the pope was John's liege lord to whom he owed obedience. John went further than was probably necessary, but it would benefit him in the future. Now he had the pope behind him to prevent France from attacking. The pope would not allow another country to try to take over a country that was his. John had the pope's support for the rest of his reign (although that did not prevent the Barons' Wars).

But Langton was finally seated. Let's look at the rest of his career, and whether he and John were able to put aside the past and work together for the good of England. Short answer to that question: yes. Longer answer: well, they may have had different ideas of what "good" for England meant.

King John Excommunicated

King John of England wanted John de Gray for Archbishop of Canterbury, but Pope Innocent III consecrated Stephen Langton after a disputed election by the cathedral chapter of Canterbury. John would not allow Langton to enter Canterbury, and so the pope put the country under Interdict.

The Interdict started March 1208, and meant that priests were not allowed to perform church services. This was devastating to a devout population. It was not a complete shutting down of the sacraments, however. Concerned about people's souls, baptisms and last rites for the dying (confession and being granted absolution) were allowed, lest innocent people go to Hell.

John (shown here with his dogs) treated the Interdict as an act of war and became hostile to priests in England. Some priests were willing to ignore the Interdict and perform services; those who were obedient to the pope had their estates seized. John also arrested priests' concubines, requiring fines to get them released. Some priests fled England, and John confiscated their property.

Pope Innocent threatened John with personal excommunication if he did not stop his assault on priests and his refusal to allow Langton to take his position in Canterbury. John stood his ground and was excommunicated in November 1209.

Although this was considered a powerful weapon wielded by the Church, there was recent evidence that it was not that damaging to a ruler. Emperor Otto IV and Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (both allies of John) had been excommunicated by Innocent and survived the process. (Otto had killed a rival; Raymond was considered too lenient about the Cathars.)

John simply continued to absorb the revenue from confiscated church lands. Although his barons would rebel soon and force him to sign the Magna Carta, limiting his executive power, the country did not rebel against him during this time. The Church was losing money, the people were suffering spiritually, and Innocent started making exceptions. Monasteries were allowed to perform Mass. The Eucharist could be offered as part of Last Rites. Burial in Christian ground was taking place anyway.

Then John was threatened from another direction, one he couldn't ignore. It appears the pope was preparing to ask someone else to intervene with England on behalf of the Church.

France.

This was a more serious threat to John's throne. I'll tell you how it turned out tomorrow.

Stephen Langton

Stephen Langton has been mentioned before, ordering English Jews to wear a white band, helping Barons draft what would become the Magna Carta, being asked by Pope Honorius to give a religious position to alchemist Michael Scot, and helping Hubert de Burgh manage the kingdom of England for the child Henry III.

He was born c.1150, the son of a lord of a manor in Lincolnshire. He studied at the University of Paris, staying there for 25 years and becoming known as a great lecturer and theologian. Pope Innocent III summoned him to Rome and made him cardinal-priest (below a cardinal-bishop but higher than a cardinal-deacon) of St. Chrysogonus in Rome.

When Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Walter died in 1205, there was disagreement over his successor. Two different groups of canons of the cathedral chapter elected different men, but Innocent refused to consecrate either and ordered a new election. Sixteen canons had traveled to Rome to plead their case, and they were given the chance to make a decision on behalf of the whole chapter.

The choice they fell on was Stephen Langton; Innocent consecrated him on 17 June 1207. Possibly he was suggested and supported by Innocent, but he was considered the foremost English theologian. Innocent and King John clashed over this, since John had wanted John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich.

King John banished the monks of Canterbury, seized all their revenue, and refused to allow Langton to enter Canterbury. The pope replied by putting all of England under Interdict in March 1208, meaning no one could administer the sacraments.

Langton sailed to Dover to try to meet with John in October 1209, but John would not travel the whole way to meet him, and Langton went back to the continent after waiting a week. He stayed at Pontigny Abbey in Burgundy, where Thomas Becket had also stayed on his exile from England under King John's father, Henry II. Edmund of Abingdon also stayed there in his way to Rome.

In November 1209, John was excommunicated for his denial of Langton. This was serious. We'll continue tomorrow.

The Men Helping the Jews, Part 3

That title is not meant to justify or praise the men of whom I'm speaking. At the time it was thought by Christians that the best approach to dealing with the "problem" of Jews was to kill them or force them to be Christian.

Yesterday I discussed Walter Mauclerc, bishop of Carlisle and first warden of the Domus Conversorum. Today is about Peter des Roches, a soldier and diplomat from Poitou who served King John and then Henry III. He also spent time on the Sixth Crusade (1228 - 1229).

In 1205 he was named bishop of Winchester by John, though he seemed unsuitable. Pope Innocent III confirmed him for John's sake. Peter stayed loyal to John when Innocent placed England under interdict because John did not want to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Peter's loyalty prompted John to name him Chief Justiciar (equivalent to prime minister), but by 1215 he was replaced with Hubert de Burgh, one of the other witnesses to the charter establishing the Domus Conversorum. des Roches also led opposition to de Burgh on behalf of the barons.

He founded several monasteries, and when Dominicans first came to England in 1221 he supported them.

Peter des Roches (like Hubert de Burgh and Walter Mauclerc) eventually fell out of favor with Henry, in his case in 1234. He died in 1238.

There is an odd legend about des Roches in the Lanercost Chronicle, a history covering 1201 to 1346. It records that des Roches was out hunting and came upon King Arthur. The two dined together, and des Roches asked for a token from Arthur so that he could prove that they had met. Arthur told him to close his hand and open it again. When he did so, a butterfly appeared. The Chronicle says that des Roches could repeat this trick for the rest of his life.

As for the issue with John and Stephen Langton, I should explain that more next time.

The Men Helping the Jews, Part 2

Yesterday's post mentioned three witnesses to King Henry III's charter that established the Domus Conversorum. Hubert de Burgh has been discussed before, but Mauclerc and des Roches have not. All three served in positions under Henry's father, King John.

Thirty years before this 1232 charter, Mauclerc showed up as a clerk in Normandy, then having his own church. A year later, however, he is in England and holding a prebend (a portion of the revenue of a church) in Exeter.

He collected taxes for John, who also sent him to Rome as an envoy to Pope Innocent III. Loyal to John, one of his jobs in Rome was to make sure Innocent did not give support to any English barons who might turn to the pope for help against the king. In 1223 he was elevated to be bishop of Carlisle.

As bishop of Carlisle, he came into a very handsome property, Rose Castle (the illustration is recent, but at the time it was likely wooden). Henry's grandfather, Henry II, had confiscated Rose Castle from a man who irritated him. It was still a royal possession, and Henry III handed it off to Mauclerc in 1230.

Mauclerc was part of the embassy in 1225 to arrange marriage between Henry and the daughter of the Duke of Austria. (That marriage did not happen.) In 1228 he was named the royal Treasurer for life, but in 1233 he was expelled from that office and replaced with Peter des Rivaux, the nephew of Peter des Roches. He was the first warden of the Domus Conversorum.

Peter des Roches' influence on the king that caused Mauclerc's removal from office would be reversed when des Roches himself fell from grace, and Mauclerc returned to the king's court. In June 1246 he resigned the bishopric and retired to Oxford, joining a Dominican community there. He died in October 1248 in Oxford, His will left his personal property to Carlisle and to the Dominicans.

Tomorrow we'll look at the other witness to the Domus Conversorum charter, Peter des Roches.

The Men Helping the Jews

Helping them to become Christians, that is. One of my first posts on this blog in the early days was about the Domus Conversorum, the "House of Converts." King Henry III wanted to turn Jews to Christianity, but because he would require them to leave behind their lands and careers, he offered to house, clothe, and feed them.

A charter was produced in January 1232 and began

From King Henry Greetings:

"Know that we, in the sight of God, and for our souls, and for the sake of our predecessors and heirs, have granted and confirmed by this our charter, for us and our heirs, eternally to God and to the glorious Virgin Mary, and to the church, the house of the converts which we founded in the suburbs of London. Namely, a village called New Street, in honor of the same Virgin, and to the converts who reside there and who will reside in the future, seven hundred marks to support those converts and to make the construction of their church and their buildings, to be received every year to our treasury, that is to say, one half to the Easter treasury, and another half to the treasury of St. Michael, until we or the heirs of the same converts shall provide more abundantly in lands or rents, assigned to them in a certain place, from which they can competently support themselves and their families to the honor of God and the aforesaid glorious Virgin."

 There was more, but it ended with

Witnessed,
P. Winton, Bishop
W. Carl, Bishop
H. De Burgh

These were Peter des Roches Bishop of Winchester, Walter Mauclerc Bishop of Carlisle, and Hubert de Burgh, Chief Justiciar and one of the most important men in the kingdom who would fall out with Henry later in 1232. William Mauclerc was the first warden (custos) of the Domus Conversorum, responsible for the proper running of the place and the man to whom they could bring grievances.

I've discussed de Burgh's place in Henry's reign before. I want to talk about Mauclerc and des Roches tomorrow.

N.B. The Domus Conversorum has a special place in my heart. I first learned about it while researching my first Chaucer mystery, A Death in Catte Street. For years I kept asking myself why anyone would give up their whole former life and identity for pauper's wages and dormitory living.  Many scholarly books have been written about the place, and we even have England's records of the names of those who were baptized and entered. There are also records of grievances the residents brought to the king. In have written two novels, each 100,000 words (and each with numerous footnotes), about life for these residents, their challenges getting along, adapting to their new lifestyle and new religion, and challenges in dealing with the outside world. In 2027 I hope to bring these to publication and introduce people to a little-known part of English and religious history.

The Twelfth Council of Toledo

Visigothic King Erwig called a council on 9 January 681, the Twelfth Council of Toledo. Part of his reason was to have the bishops attending confirm his accession to the throne to replace Wamba as legitimate. The Council also declared that laws created by Wamba were null and void.

They then set about to revise the Visigothic Code that had been established in 654 by King Reccesuinth (seen here), called the Liber Iudiciorum, or "Book of Judgements." That code had abolished the idea of treating Romans and Goths differently under the law and made consistent rules for everyone to live by.

This code also contained canon law from the Catholic Church as well as secular laws. Some of the religious laws are attributed to the influence of Julian of Toledo, archbishop of Toledo (and implicated in the plot—if that is what it was—to replace Wamba with Erwig).

The Council affirmed the right of the archbishop of Toledo to approve all bishops across the entire Visigothic kingdom. (Once again suggesting Julian of Toledo's strong hand in these decisions.)

There were rules on penance, and the proper conduct for bishops and priests. Then it created 28 rules regarding Jews. (The illustration is a synagogue in Toledo.)

Erwig wanted what he called the "plague" of the Jews eradicated. He did change earlier laws to rule out execution, however. (The Eighth Council had declared a converted Jew who practiced his old religion would be put to death.) The goal was to convert them to Christianity. If they refused to convert, then they were prohibited from celebrating their religious feasts, following Jewish dietary laws, performing circumcisions, working on Sundays (Saturday was the Jewish sabbath), or marrying without a priest's blessing.

To assure this, Jews were monitored. They were prevented from leaving the country, and required to "check in" regularly with a bishop. The Council ordered confiscation of Jewish property. If Jews had purchased anything of value from Christians, they had to re-sell it back at a lower price.

Catholics who aided Jews were fined.

Once converted, however, it was important to prevent them from reverting to their old customs. On Jewish holidays, converts were required to appear in public in places where the Jewish festivals were not being celebrated, to prove that they were not reverting to their old practices.

Centuries later, England had a slightly more accommodating way to deal with Jews who convert to Christianity. I'll tell you more tomorrow.

King Erwig

Visigothic King Wamba ruled from 672 to 680, when something happened to him. There are different stories about how he ended his reign. The main one is that he fell ill, took up monastic vows to save his soul while on his supposed deathbed, then recovered, but could not renounce the vows and had to abdicate.

Two centuries later a historian said he was poisoned and ill, but had to step down after recovering. Another version is that he slept (possibly being given a sleeping potion), whereupon Erwig shaved his head. A shaved head meant he was not allowed to rule, but he was glad to step away from the responsibility and join a monastery, where he lived until he died in 687. It was said that he named Erwig as his successor.

The abdication took place on 14 October. His successor, Erwig, was anointed king on 31 October—rather quickly.

A few months later, Erwig opened the Twelfth Council of Toledo. The Council confirmed that the abdication of Wamba and succession of Erwig were legitimate, but historians think the speed with which Erwig was anointed suggest there was a plan all along to replace Wamba. A later story suggests that Julian of Toledo, a monk who was (suspiciously) named Primate of the Visigothic Church by Erwig, was involved in administering whatever was given to Wamba to incapacitate him..

Erwig had married the daughter of an earlier Visigothic king, but his appointment was viewed with suspicion by the nobles. A Thirteenth Council of Toledo in 683 and a Fourteenth Council in 684 were called to (among other things), confirm Erwig's legitimacy and to pass laws to protect him and his queen and family.

The Twelfth Council also eliminated Wamba's attempt to create a diocese whose bishop would be episcopus sub regula, "a bishop under a rule" who would not have the secular power of typical bishops.

Something held in common by Erwig and Wamba and the Twelfth Council of Toledo was their hatred of the Jews. We will examine that tomorrow.

King Wamba

When the Third Council of Braga was held in 675 (a century after the Second), the Visigothic king at the time tried to influence it.

Wamba, whose name means "big paunch," became king in 672. He had an immediate double revolt to deal with. A rival for the kingship, Hilderic the governor of Nîmes in southern France, rebelled but was suppressed by a general named Paul sent by Wamba.

That general, however, convinced the men under him to renounce their loyalty to the king and support Paul himself instead. He started calling himself Flavius Paulus, and the followers of Hilderic and others joined him. Soon he had many followers in southern France and northern Spain, and was calling himself "King of the East."

Wamba marched from his location in Cantabria in northern Spain to Paul's location and fairly quickly regained control of the region and people. Paul retreated to Nîmes, but didn't last long. A year after Wamba ascended to the throne, the revolts had been put down, Nîmes had been (re-)captured, and Paul and his chief leaders were put on trial, convicted, and sent to prison for life after being scalped.

Religious leaders had supported Paul as well, particularly the Bishop of Maguelohne. Wamba was a reformist when it came to the Church, and he wanted to make a change in the power structure. He tried to found a new diocese on monastic principles, whose bishop would be episcopus sub regula, "a bishop under a rule" who would not have the secular power of typical bishops.

This was a manner of diocesan practice in early Iberian church structure under the Visigoths and Suevi. In it, the bishop and clergy would live ascetic lives. The best-known example was St. Fructuosus of Braga.

The Third Council of Braga repeated the Second's decree that bishops should not take fees for ordaining a priest, and rectors of churches must not use their household to do work on their privately owned farms unless they paid them properly. This was in line with Wamba's aim of simpler living for the clergy in his kingdom.

A few years later, however, the Twelfth Council of Toledo had a different opinion. I'll tell you about the transition from Wamba to his successor tomorrow.

The Second Council of Braga

There were several religious councils held at Braga, the 11th of which took place as late as 1566. (The illustration is Braga at the time of the last Council.) We talked about the First yesterday. The Second Council, held in 572 only 11 years after the first, wanted not only to formalize some of the practices of the clergy, it addressed behaviors of the clergy and bishops.

There were ten decrees from the Second Council, and they laid out some things that seem so appropriate that one wonders that they were necessary.

The first says simply that bishops need to make sure that priests are performing the rituals and sacraments properly. Makes sense. Number two is quite simple: a bishop must not be tyrannical towards his priests. Well, that was unexpected.

Then the council addressed matters beneficial to the clergy and preventing the bishop from taking advantage of them. There should be no fee charged for entering Holy Orders, no fee for distributing holy chrism, no fee for consecrating a church. It sounds like some bishops were making money from their duties.

No church was to be consecrated unless the bishop determined that those managing it were appropriate. And a church built on private property was okay, unless it was set up so that the landowner could receive payment from those using it.

A priest who accused someone of "unchastity" needed evidence of two or three witnesses; otherwise, that priest should be excommunicated.

The metropolitan (highest-ranking bishop, determined by the First Council as the earliest ordained bishop), would declare the date of Easter. This would be shared after Christmas, so that people could prepare for Lent. (This was years before the Synod of Whitby and the official debate to determine the proper date for Easter.)

Number ten said that fasting was mandatory for a priest before saying Mass, lest he be deprived of his office. Lack of fasting was a Priscillian practice, and stamping out that heresy was important.

Years later, Pope Innocent III (c.1160 – 16 July 1216) gave his approval to the Second Council's declarations.

The Third Council of Braga took place a little more than a century later, and this time the king of the Visigoths was very interested in reforming the church. 'll tell you about the council and King Wamba next time.

Martin of Braga

A pilgrim from the Hungary/Austria region in Europe became an archbishop in Portugal and wrote prolifically, including a piece that was borrowed and re-written more than once for centuries afterward.

Born c.518, Martin of Dumio made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where he became a monk. From there he joined a ship that traveled to Galicia in northern Portugal.

Galicia at the time was populated by a Germanic tribe called the Suevi, who were Christians but followed Arianism (considered heretical), and Martin brought Chalcedonian Christianity (what we now think of as Roman Catholicism) to the people.

Martin started by befriending King Theodomir of the Suevi, and ingratiated himself to the court at the Suevi capital of Braga. Using his personal connections, he persuaded the king and court to convert from Arianism. (The illustration shows Martin and King Miro of the Suevi, Theodomir's successor.)

He then founded a monastery at Dumium (and others), after which the king named him bishop of Dumium (modern Dume). In 561 he attended the First Council of Braga, which determined that the same liturgy should be used by all churches for Masses and vigils. Also, that Dominus vobiscum was how priests should greet the congregation, which should reply with Et cum spiritu tuo. (This greeting and response is lifted from the Book of Ruth 2:4.) It also condemned Priscillianism, declared that priests should not be vegetarians (a Priscillian doctrine), but if they did want to eat just vegetables, those vegetables should be cooked in meat. Astrology was soundly condemned, being also connected to Priscillianism.

Martin was named archbishop of the Diocese of Braga, hence the name by which he is more commonly known. Besides his duties, he wrote prolifically, and translated numerous treatise from Greek to present to the Suevi.

One of his works was a letter written to a bishop, De correctione rusticorum ("On the correction of rural people"). That bishop, Polemius of Astorga, had asked Martin to address the origin of idols. That letter can be seen here with Latin and English side-by-side. Martin explains pagan gods and spirits as demons and devils, allowing no credit to other divine beings except God.

This letter, an example of euhemerism, influenced Æfric of Eynsham's "On False Gods," which in turn was used by Archbishop Wulfstan of York in a similar work.

He also presided over the Second Council of Braga in 572, which I want to talk about tomorrow.

On False Gods

Now that we understand Euhemerism we can look at Ælfric of Eynsham's example of it in his essay De falsis deis ("On false gods"). A handful of manuscripts survive, at least one of which is a translation from Anglo-Saxon to Old Norse.

Ælfric's goal was to explain away all the heathen stories of gods and legends and put the world into a Christian context. Archbishop Wulfstan of York (previously mentioned here) "borrowed" Ælfric's writing for his own homilies, also known as De falsis deis as well as Homily XII. Wulfstan's became very well-known and copied throughout the island. From him we have more complete versions, and we'll use it below.

Of course the problem with heathens is caused by the devil:

Alas, it is because of the devil that many things went wrong long ago, and mankind disobeyed God too greatly, and heathenism altogether did harm too greatly and still does widespread harm. However, we do not read anywhere in books that man established any idolatry anywhere in the world in the time before Noah's flood.

Then they also took it as wisdom, through the devil's teaching, to worship the sun and moon for gods because of their shiny brightness, and they made sacrifices to them that they did not know before, but learned through devil's teaching,

Some men also said that the shiny stars were gods and began some believed gods were also in fire because of the sudden heat, some also believed there were gods in water, and some believed gods were in the earth, because she nourishes all things.

Yet heathens would not be restricted to as few gods as they had before, but took to worshipping various giants and violent men of the world who became mighty in worldly powers and were awe-inspiring while they lived, and they foully followed their own desires.

He then becomes very specific:

One man was in former days living on the island that is called Crete, and he was named Saturn, and he was so savage that he did away with his own children, all except one, and unlike a father he destroyed their lives in their youth.

He nevertheless reluctantly left one alive (though he did away with his brothers) who he was called Jove, and he became a savage fiend. He expelled his own father from the same aforementioned island called Crete, and he would have destroyed him eagerly if he could. This Jove became so wanton that he took his own sister as his wife; she was named Juno, and she became a greatly exalted goddess according to heathen reckoning.

He continues to explain away the named deities of the Classical Era:

There was also a man called Mercury, he was very crafty and deceitful in deed and trickeries, though his speech was fully clever. The heathens made him a renowned god for themselves; ... This false god was honored among the heathens in that day, and he is also called by the name Odin in the Danish manner. Now some of the Danish men say in their error that he, whom they call Thor, was Jove, the son of Mercury, whom they call Odin—but they are not right, for we read in books, both in heathen and in Christian ones, that the evil Jove is, in truth, Saturn's son. 

There was also a woman named Venus; she was Jove's daughter and she was so foul and wicked in lust that she copulated with her own brother, or so the men say, through the devil's teaching, and the heathens also worshipped that evil woman as an exalted woman.

Wulfstan's copying of Æfric's work was only fair, since Ælfric himself based his version on a 6th-century sermon by Martin of Braga. Let's check out Martin tomorrow and see what else he did.

Euhemerism

I said yesterday that I was going to talk about the writings of Ælfric of Eynsham, and I will, but I want to explain the term Euhemerism first. Euhemerism is an attempt to shed light on mythology by interpreting it as springing from actual historical events. Or, in the words of an American historian, it is "the taking of a cosmic god and placing him at a definite point in history as an actual person who was later deified." 

It assumes that real events became exaggerated and fictionalized in the oral transmission. The term comes from a late 4th-century BCE Greek, Euhemerus, who tried to rationalize mythology. Many early Greek philosophers were in agreement. In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates offers an explanation of the story of an Athenian princess "taken away" by the north wind, Boreas. Socrates points out the place where there is a temple to Boreas where a wind might have knocked a young woman off her feet and onto rocks where she was killed.

Early Christian apologists used Euhemerism against paganism by declaring:

That those are no gods whom the common people worship, is known from this: they were formerly kings, who on account of their royal memory subsequently began to be adored by their people even in death. Thence temples were founded to them; thence images were sculptured to retain the countenances of the deceased by the likeness; and men sacrificed victims, and celebrated festal days, by way of giving them honour. Thence to posterity those rites became sacred, which at first had been adopted as a consolation.[from St. Cyprian]

The Middle Ages, and writers like Vincent of Beauvais and Roger Bacon, were willing to believe that supernatural beings were not imaginary, but were part of the natural order of things created by God. Men like Marsilius Ficino produced encyclopedic works to explain the hierarchy of demons, spirits, angels, archangels, etc., in God's creation.

Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda (c.1220) paints the Norse gods as great leaders and kings, tracing back to that great foundation of so much medieval culture, the Trojan War.

The Modern Era also sometimes looks for historic origins of legendary characters, exaggerating them. Dracula, Paul Bunyan, Robin Hood—searching for the kernel of truth that grew into a legend.

But tomorrow we'll talk about Ælfric of Eynsham. Promise.

Ælfric of Eynsham

The oldest sample in writing of Old Dutch happens to be scrawled in the margin of a manuscript stored in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The manuscript in which it sits is a copy of the Homilies of Ælfric of Eynsham.

Ælfric (c. 955 – c. 1010) was English and educated as a Benedictine. When the Abbey of Cerne was finished, Ælfric was sent to teach the Benedictine monks there. While there he became friends with the abbey's chief benefactor, the ealdorman Æthelmær the Stout, and Æthelmær's father, Æthelweard.

While at Cerne, Ælfric thought to write a series of homilies, he says because he found errors in existing writings.

I Ælfric, monk and mass-priest, ..., was sent, in king Æthelred's day, from bishop Ælfeah, Æthelwold's successor, to a minster which is called Cerne, at the prayer of Æthelmær the thane, whose birth and goodness are known everywhere. Then it occurred to my mind, I trust through God's grace, that I would turn this book from the Latin language into the English tongue; not from confidence of great learning, but because I have seen and heard of much error in many English books, which unlearned men, through their simplicity, have esteemed as great wisdom: and I regretted that they knew not nor had not the evangelical doctrines among their writings...

After writing two series of homilies, he wrote three works to help students learn Latin, basing a Latin grammar on the works of Priscian and Donatus. He wrote a grammar, a glossary (with words in groups by subject, not alphabetical order), and a colloquy, a conversational work to help students learn to speak Latin naturally.

He then wrote a Lives of the Saints, attached to which are two more homilies, including De falsis deis ("on false gods"). This work discusses the ongoing battle between Christianity and the religious beliefs of the native Anglo-Saxons and the Danish invaders. It tries to put the pagan beliefs into a Christian framework.

The "of Eynsham" that is usually attached to his name came about when Æthelmær asked him in 1005 to become the first abbot of a new monastery created by Æthelmær, at Eynsham in Oxfordshire.

Tomorrow I want to share some of the details in his writings. In the meantime, you can read some yourself with the Latin and a Modern English translation side-by-side at the Gutenberg Project.

Bodleian: Hebban olla vogala

"Hebban olla vogala" is not the name of a manuscript in the Bodleian Library of Oxford. It is part of a single line scribbled in the margin of a larger manuscript. In 1933, Kenneth Sisam, professor of Anglo-Saxon linguistics at Oxford, looked at a probatio pennae that had been jotted down on a manuscript page sometime before 1100. The manuscript was from St. Andrew's Church in Rochester, Kent. (Some trivia: one of Sisam's students was J.R.R.Tolkien.)

A probatio pennae is done to test a quill pen (see more here). This one was just a scribble. Although faded, this particular "test" is considered to be:

Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic enda thu uuat unbidan uue nu

Directly above it is written a Latin translation:

(H)abent omnes uolucres nidos inceptos nisi ego et tu quid expectamus nu(nc)

which (to us) means:

All birds have begun nests, except me and you – what are we waiting for now?

Sisam recognized that 1) This was a line from a love song, and 2) it was not Old English, or (as originally assumed) Flemish, but instead was the earliest line in Old Dutch so far discovered. The line is not "pure" Old Dutch. The spelling suggests that the unknown monk working on the manuscript was likely from Flanders, working in Kent, and influenced by the Latin and Old English texts he was constantly copying.

The Dutch language was well-developed, but we have nothing of note earlier than this example.

The manuscript on which this "scribble" is found is a a collection of Old English sermons by Ælfric of Eynsham, who has been mentioned before, but not in great detail. Since it's sitting in the Bodleian, I think it's fair game to talk about these homilies and Ælfric next time. See you tomorrow.

Bodleian: The Book of Glendalough

Two things may be said about the Book of Glendalough. One is that it resides in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The second thing? That we don't know for certain what or where the Book of Glendalough is. Let me explain.

First let's look at the obvious facts about the catalog entry known as MS Rawlinson B 502. It is a 166-page vellum manuscript that was composed between 1100 and 1130 CE in Glendalough in the County Wicklow. It is written in Middle Irish and Latin, and has later notes added by owners and scholars and scribes through whose hands it passed. There are two parts to it: separate works that were bound together in the 1600s. Three different scribal hands can be detected. One of the scribes seems to have been the one designated "H," the same who wrote notes into the Book of the Dun Cow.

The subject matter of the first manuscript is the Annals of Tigernach, a history of early Ireland. The second manuscript includes religious poems, a revised edition of a history called "The Six Ages of the World," a poem called a "Song for Columcille" (Columba), and more.

The reason for the uncertain identity? The Book of Glendalough was referenced by other manuscripts, with referrals to some of the texts that we find contained in MS Rawlinson B 502. But MS Rawlinson B 502's provenance and history are not carved in stone. Determining that this manuscript was the same Book of Glendalough that other manuscripts quoted has left room for debate.

Adding to the confusion is that the title "Book of Glendalough" (I am using the English translation of the Gaelic Lebar Glinne Dá Locha) was used to refer to what is now universally known as the Book of Leinster.

Taken at face value, the manuscript has been called "most important and most beautiful ... undoubtedly the most magnificent" of medieval Irish manuscripts by the 20th-century scholar Brian Ó Cuív. For more on the debate, you can read here (requires special access).

From the same century as the Book of Glendalough, tomorrow let us look at a true one-of-a-kind manuscript, the only known example in existence of the Old Dutch language, the Hebban olla vogala. See you then.

Bodleian: Cædmon's Hymn

Our first foray into the special medieval holdings of the Bodleian Library is "Cædmon's Hymn."

Bede wrote that Cædmon was an illiterate man in the late 7th century who cared for the cows at what is now Whitby Abbey. One night, in a dream, he was approached by "someone" who asked him to sing about the beginning of the world. In the dream he first refused, then created a poem.

When he woke up the next morning, he wrote down the remembered poem. Taking it to (we think) Abbess Hilda of Whitby (658–80), it was declared a gift from God. They gave him a test to make a new poem, which he did so well that they had him join the abbey and take monastic vows. They taught him history and doctrine, after which he would compose beautiful poems. (This was all in Anglo-Saxon.)

"Cædmon's Hymn" is considered the oldest surviving English poem, and one of the oldest surviving samples of Germanic alliterative verse. It is also the second most numerous of surviving manuscripts, with 22 extant.

The Bodleian Library has four copies. One is from the first half of the 10th century, two from the mid-11th century, and one from the first quarter of the 12th century. (The illustration is Hatton 43, from the mid-11th.) Below is one translation (made in 2011 by American poet Harvey Shapiro):

Guardian of heaven      whom we come to praise
who mapped creation      in His thought's sinews
Glory-Father who     worked out each wonder
began with broad earth      a gift for His children
first roofed it with heaven      the Holy Shaper
established it forever     as in the beginning
called it middle kingdom      fenced it with angels
created a habitation for man     to praise His splendor.

Tomorrow we will look at the Book of Glendalough, from pre-Norman Ireland.

The Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library in Oxford is actually not from the Middle Ages. It was founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley (1545 - 1613), an English diplomat and scholar. What he accomplished, however, was the salvation of what had existed in the Middle Ages.

The first library at Oxford was a collection of books left by Bishop Thomas Cobham of Worcester (died 1327). Those books were chained to tables for research, not for lending.

Between 1435 and 1437, the brother of King Henry V, Humphrey, 1st Duke of Gloucester, donated 281 manuscripts. The space where Cobham's books were stored was too small to accommodate the influx of material. A room above the Divinity School was built (finished in 1488) to store them all. That space is still known as Duke Humfrey's [sic] Library.

The Reformation (1550) saw the ruin of the library (not the building) in order to destroy any vestige of Roman Catholicism. Some books were removed by sympathetic people and hidden to keep them safe. The furniture was removed in 1556. Only three books from the original collection are there now. One was re-acquired only in the last few years.

Thomas Bodley began the restoring of Duke Humfrey's in 1598. Over the next decades, two wings were added, the east wing (Arts End) and west wing (Selden End), creating an "H" shape. It contains collections of art, maps, music, theology, and Western manuscripts.

Now there are five buildings that comprise the Bodleian, with off-site storage near Swindon. Its catalog includes over 13,000,000 items, the second largest collection in England after the British Library. It is one of a handful of "legal deposit" libraries (the British Library is another) to which a copy of all published works must be given.

Although he had access to wealth through his wife and father, Bodley recognized that donations would be needed to maintain the library, and he created the idea of a Benefactors' Book that would record every donation and be kept on display. In it we can see that Sir Walter Raleigh donated £50 in 1603, and Francis Bacon donated a copy of his book  The Advancement of Learning in 1605.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about some of the medieval works that exist inside the Bodleian.

Isaac of Nineveh

Isaac of Nineveh was a 7th-century Syriac Christian, born c.613 in eastern Arabia (Qatar), an area that spoke Arabic and Syrian. He was ordained Bishop of Nineveh in 676, but one record says he left that position not long after starting it. He is often referred to as Isaac the Syrian.

The reason may simply have been the desire to live the life of an ascetic. We are told he retired to a mountain in a province of Iran, and then joined a monastery called Rabban Shapur where he concentrated his energy on writing on Christian mysticism. It is said that his devotion to study was so great that at the time of his death he was nearly blind. (Of course, eyes naturally age as we grow older, and the invention of eyeglasses was centuries away.)

He wrote extensively on theology and asceticism. A later Syriac writer claimed that Isaac wrote seven volumes. They are discussed as three "Parts."  The First Part was translated first into Greek and then into other languages. It is the best known of the Parts, and was translated into English in 1923. It is a collection of homilies whose number and order vary depending on which manuscript one reads.

The Second Part was unknown until 1983, when a British Syriac scholar was reading a manuscript in the Bodleian Library that had been donated by an Assyrian priest who had lived and preached in Flint, Michigan. It contain 41 chapters, but one of the chapters, entitled "Headings on Spiritual Knowledge," has 400 chapters of its own. It was identified by matching it with quotations in other early manuscripts that were known to be by Isaac. Since then, other manuscripts have been identified as version of the Second Part.

The Third part is only known by a 1903 copy of a 14th-century manuscript that has since been lost.

If other Parts still exist, they have not been identified.

Isaac's writings suggest the idea of universal salvation, that all human beings can and will be restored to a proper relationship with God. In his writings we find sentences that claim "God will not abandon anyone." and "There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist." He offers an analogy:

As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God; as a fountain that flows abundantly is not dammed by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of the creatures... If He is compassionate here, we believe that there will be no change in Him; far be it from us that we should wickedly think that God could not possibly be compassionate; God's properties are not liable to variations as those of mortals.

Isaac died c.700 in Umayyad Iran. He is considered a saint in the Church of the East.

The Bodleian Library (as no doubt many other major research libraries in the world) contains donations that have not all been examined closely. Treasures lie within. Let's take a look next time at the Bodleian, and especially at its precursors in Oxford.

Syriac

The Syriac alphabet is a set of 22 consonants; there are no vowels. It was created in the 1st century CE as an offshoot of cursive Aramaic.

Written from right to left, (and occasionally vertically), the vowel sounds were implied by context. In the 8th century, diacritical marks were introduced to represent vowel sounds.

There were three variations of the script, one of which, the oldest and classical version called "Estrangela" is shown here. As the oldest version, Estrangela does not usually adopt the diacritical marks, and is therefore "pure" classical Syriac.

Looking at the table here, one might notice the first letter, ālep̄, and say "Isn't that the vowel "a"? It is actually a glottal stop, so not the same. Just below it on the table, Waw is the consonant "w" but can create the sounds of "o" and "u" when spoken. Yöt on the second row is the letter 'y' but can also create a vowel sound for "I" and "e."

Across the Middle East, Syriac was a major vernacular, literary, and religious language. It ha also been called Edessan, the Mesopotamian, and Aramaic. It was the main language of the early Christian era. As Syriac Christianity spread, the language became known as far as India and China. By the end of the Middle Ages, it became less a daily language and more reserved for liturgical use.

Syriac is still around. In fact, you can order a book designed to teach it to children.

While it flourished, however, it was used by several major authors of the early era. Jacob of Serugh (c.451 - 521) composed hundreds of homilies in verse. The poet Narsai (c.399 - 502) was nicknamed the "Tongue of the East" for his writings that influenced East Syrian liturgical theology. Jacob of Edessa (c.640 - 708) created the first formal Syriac grammar and translated Greek philosophical works into Syriac.

Then there was Isaac of Nineveh, also known as Isaac the Syrian, whose Syriac writings on mysticism were so popular that they were translated from Syriac into Arabic, Ethiopic, and Greek. We'll talk about him more tomorrow.

The Elimination of Grief

After Muhammad's death, the Muslim world expanded its reach quickly. Within a century, its reach extended from modern-day Afghanistan and India in the east to the southern border of France (and all around the Mediterranean).

One result of this influence was the adoption of Arabic by Christian writers. Christian authors wrote explanations of their faith in Arabic to reach a wider audience.

The 11th-century Nestorian Archbishop Elijah of Nisibis was one of these, choosing to write several works in Arabic as well as other languages. His best-known is a history called Opus Chronologicum in Latin ("Work of chronology") and Kitāb al-Azmina in Arabic. He modeled it on the Ecclesiastical History of the 4th-century Eusebius of Caesarea. It includes information taken from works written in earlier centuries that are now lost. He also includes tables for calculating Persian and Syriac new years as well as Zoroastrian calendars.

A lesser-known work by Elijah that has survived is the Kitāb dafʿ al-hamm ("The Book of Elimination of Grief"). It blends Christian theology and Islamic ethical philosophy to offer practical and spiritual strategies for overcoming sorrow and anxiety. 

Though Christian, Elijah shows a deep understanding of traditional Islamic thought. The work includes several quotations from the Hadith (the collection of Muhammad's sayings), and refers to the writings of early Islamic Sufi mystics.

The second chapter emphasizes the cultivation of gratitude to combat grief and anxiety. He advises the reader to actively appreciate divine blessings to counter the tendency of humans to lean toward despair.

The work, which survives today (though I cannot locate an English-language edition), is part of a tradition that started earlier with writers like the 9th-century al-Kindi.

Another work of Elijah's was a dictionary and grammar for learning the Syriac language, which was his primary language. Tomorrow, let's take a dive into something really different: Syriac.

Elijah of Nisibis

Thank heavens for people in the past who took the time to write down what they knew—although, to be fair, we have very few means to independently verify the truth of what they wrote. The best we can hope for is to compare what they wrote to the records of others, examine as best we can at this remove what political or religious or personal motives they might have had, and then make a case for their truthfulness.

Elijah of Nisibis was a member of the Church of the East, which is also known as the Assyrian Church, or the Nestorian Church, or even the Babylonian Church. It was different from the Chalcedonian Church, from which modern Roman Catholicism (and therefore Protestantism) and Eastern Orthodoxy descend.

He was originally known as Elijah Bar Shinajah, meaning "Elijah, son of Šena." Šena was not his father, but a reference to a town near what is present-day Al-Zab, Iraq. Born in 975, he was ordained a priest in 994, made a bishop in 1002, and became archbishop of Nisibis in 1008.

A fulfilling life for him, certainly, but he is important to us because of his desire to write and explain, and his desire to have intellectual discussion with non-Christians.

His reputation extended not only among Christian scholars and theologians of his era but also Muslim mutakallimūn and intellectuals. This recognition stemmed not only from his profound knowledge spanning medicine, mathematics, philosophy, Arabic and Syriac philology, ethics, Christian theology, and Islamic Kalām, but also from his adeptness at enculturating his philosophical and theological doctrines within the Islamic world through the adoption of Islamic language and terminology. [source]

(The illustration is part of one of his works written in Arabic script.) While at Nisibis, he met with the Muslim vizier Abū al-Qāsim al-Maġribī for discussions on various topics of mutual interest, and to enable both to learn about the other's faith. The two remained in contact, and a few letters between the two from the following year exist.

The visits, from 15 to 29 July 1026, are called the "Seven Sessions." They were initiated by the vizier himself after he experienced a miraculous cure at the hands of a Christian monk. They were written up by Elijah and covered the following topics:

• God's unity (because of the Trinity, Christianity was considered polytheistic and therefore "false")
• Jesus's incarnation of two natures (divine and human)
• Quranic support for considering some forms of Christianity as monotheistic
• Logical and miraculous justifications for various Christian doctrines
• Elijah's own profession of monotheism
• Language, and considerations of its importance in theology
• Christian perspectives on astrology, Islam, and the soul

Tomorrow I'd like to start exploring some of Elijah's writings. See you then.

Muawiyah I

In the early days of Muhammad (c.570 - 632 CE), the founder of Islam, not everyone in that part of the world automatically agreed with him. A distant kinsman of Muhammad's, Abu Sufyan of the Umayyad clan, opposed the new religious leader. The Battle of Badr had Muhammad's followers on one side and Abu Sufyan on the other. Abu Sufyan's eldest son and father-in-law were killed at the battle.

Then Muhammad married Abu Sufyan's widowed sister in 629 and entered Mecca in 630, whereupon Abu Sufyan became a follower and took a role in the new Muslim state. (The illustration shows Abu Sufyan and other leaders making a pledge to support the new Muslim order.)

Abu Sufyan had two sons, Yazid and Muawiyah, who each were granted command roles in the province. Yazid became governor of Damascus, Jordan, and Palestine. This was under the Rashidun Caliphate. Muawiyah went on to start his own caliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate.

Muawiyah became one of Muhammad's scribes first, moving up the ranks until he became the governor of Syria. There was a powerful tribe, the Banu Kalb, with which Muawiyah formed an alliance. Muawiyah became a leader in the campaigns against the Byzantine Empire.

His duties were not just military, of course. He organized the local government and established a chancellery and postal routes. The Muslim conquest of Ifriqiya (Northern Africa) was begun by him. When the last Rashidun Caliph, Uthman, was assassinated, Muawiyah was chosen to replace him. Muawiyah was the first caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty.

He was different from other caliphs, however, treating himself more as a king above others rather than a first among equals. He was criticized for having a throne that put him physically higher than others. A 9th-century Arab Muslim historian, al-Ya'qubi, described him as:

...the first to have a bodyguard, police-force and chamberlains ... He had somebody walk in front of him with a spear, took alms out of the stipends and sat on a throne with the people below him ... He used forced labour for his building projects ... He was the first to turn this matter [the caliphate] into mere kingship.

There is another anecdote, however, that makes him a little more kind to his subjects. One anecdote, in which he is questioned for letting someone criticize him, has him respond "I do not insert myself between the people and their tongue, so long as they do not insert themselves between us and our sovereignty."

Another supposed saying of his was "I never use my voice if I can use my money, never my whip if I can use my voice, never my sword if I can use my whip; but, if I have to use my sword, I will."

He died in the spring of 680 CE, having caused a controversy by naming his son as his successor rather than having a successor be chosen by his followers. Some of what we know about him comes from a Nestorian chronicler named Elijah of Nisibis, whom I will tell you about tomorrow.

The End of Constans

Constans II came to the imperial throne as a child, but upon gaining his majority he proved to be capable and even ambitious. His (fruitless) attempt to resolve the Monothelitism controversy has already been discussed, and how he had the Pope himself arrested and sent to Constantinople for trial.

Concerned about delays of traffic on the Silk Road, he sent emissaries to China to discuss with Emperor Taizong of Tang China how to better manage the tribal conflicts in the Turkic Khaganate that were causing disruption. Chinese histories talk of the meetings in which Constans II sent gifts such as red and green gems.

The same Chinese records that tell of emissaries from Constans also record that Arabs besieged Constantinople. History identifies the Arab leader as Muawiyah I, who became the first Umayyad caliph, starting a dynasty that replaced the Rashidun Caliphate. Constans had fought the Rashidun Caliphate for years, and might have lost the empire to the Umayyads completely except for a civil war in the Islamic community that disrupted their westward advance. Muawiyah made a truce with Constans (but would clash with his son, Constantine IV).

Constans wanted to re-establish the unity of the Western Roman and Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. To that end, he visited Rome, the first emperor from Constantinople to do so since the fall of the Western Empire to the Goths. He also thought it a good idea to move the center of imperial power to a more central location.

Syracuse in Sicily would be his new home. Traveling to Italy, he fought with the Lombards who were all over much of the peninsula. Once in Rome, he started stripping buildings of their facades, sending sculptures of stone and bronze back to Constantinople. (This action would in some ways be reversed in 1204.) Understandably, this angered the Italians.

The illustration shows his end. He was killed by a chamberlain in Syracuse while taking a bath. He was either stabbed or beaten with a heavy object. Details are unclear.

As I mentioned, during this time the Umayyad Caliphate was created, starting with Muawiyah I. Let's learn more about him tomorrow.

Constans and Monothelitism

So Constans II survived the attempt by Valentinus to become emperor in 644, and ruled for another 22 years, accomplishing a few "firsts" for an eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor. 

He was the first Byzantine Emperor to visit Rome (in 663) since the fall of the Western Empire in 476. Pope Vitalian greeted him warmly (since 476, the emperor in Constantinople was also the emperor of the entire Roman Empire, west as well as east, and so the pope's secular lord). Constans, however, did not respect Rome: he took (stole) treasures from several buildings, including the Pantheon, to be sent back to Constantinople.

Three years later, he declared that the pope did not have authority over the Archbishop of Ravenna, since Ravenna was the city of Constans' representative, the Exarch. The Exarchate of Ravenna was an administrative district that owed allegiance to Constantinople, not Rome. It was the Exarch Theodore I Calliopas in 652 who arrested Pope Martin I on Constans' orders, dragging him from the Lateran and putting him on a ship to Constantinople for trial, for daring to get involved in Constans' decree about Monothelitism.

The other victim of this move was Maximus the Confessor. Maximus had been an important figure in the administration of Constans' grandfather, Heraclius, rising to the position of protoasekretis (literally "first secretary"; the top notary in the government). Later in life he chose the contemplative lifestyle of a monk. He went to Rome to debate against Monothelitism. When Maximus' arguments helped 105 bishops in a synod to condemn Monothelitism, Constans order him arrested. Put on trial in Constantinople, he was convicted of heresy.

The aftermath was that his tongue was cut out and his right hand cut off so that he could neither speak nor write anything heretical. (The illustration shows his tongue being removed on the right while others on the left bow before the emperor.) Pope Martin and Maximus would both be vindicated by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680 that found that Christ had both a human and divine will.

By that time, however, the emperor that championed Monothelitism would be dead, and not of natural causes. I'll tell you about his untimely and ignoble death tomorrow.

Valentinus Turns Traitor

He was trusted by Emperor Heraclius to support the emperor's son, Constans II, and he did, even going so far as to eliminate the young emperor's rivals. A few years later, however, Valentinus decided that the power he had used to be "king-maker" could be used to be "king" himself.

Valentinus started as an administrative officer in the army. Heraclius had sent him over two million gold solidi to pay to the army to ensure their loyalty. The attempted takeover after Heraclius' death by his step-mother and step-brother did not last long, and Constans became emperor at a young age.

His age required him to be guided by a regency council. Valentinus was the most prominent member of that council, and became the most powerful man in the empire by 642. Valentinus had titles, and contemporary sources say he was allowed to wear imperial purple.

In a further sign of his connection to the emperor, Constans married Valentinus' daughter, Fausta, in 642. Then the first signs of greater ambition appeared in Valentinus. He suggested that the pre-teen Constans needed an adult to rule along with him, and suggested that Valentinus be made co-emperor.

The general population was against this, and Valentinus was named (possibly as a consolation prize) commander-in-chief of the Byzantine army.

A couple years later, however, in 644, Valentinus again attempted to be made emperor. He had soldiers loyal to him who followed him to Constantinople (the illustration is what the city might have looked like at the time) where he demanded to be made emperor. Not only the general population but also leading authorities like the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople opposed this idea.

His demand led to a revolt. Contemporary sources make clear that the mob simply set upon him and killed him. His betrayal did not affect his daughter's standing, and she and Constans had children that continued the Heraclian Dynasty, of which I'll say more tomorrow.

Valentinus to the Rescue

Constantine's arrangement and gift of money to Valentinus for the army, to support Constantine's son in the line of succession, was almost prescient. Constantine died three months after becoming emperor, leaving his step-brother Heraclonas in charge.

Valentinus and troops from Asia Minor went on the march. When they reached the strait across from Constantinople, Heraclonas wisely confirmed his nephew Constans II as co-emperor. This was in September of 641, and Constans was ten years old to Heraclonas' 17 years. (The illustration is a gold solidus with Constans' image.)

Of course, it was Heraclonas' mother, Martina, who had guided her son and tried to contradict the authority of Constantine. The known adversarial relationship Marina had with the son of her husband's first marriage led to rumors that she had poisoned Constantine.

In November of 641, Valentinus and the army crossed to Constantinople, arrested Martina, Heraclonas, and Martina's other sons David and Marinos. The sons were castrated and their noses were cut off, Martina's tongue was slit; all were exiled to Rhodes. After this, they all fall out of the public record.

Constans was too young not to be guided by a regency council. During his reign, Byantines withdrew from Egypt, and the Rashidun Caliphate attempted to expand into the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. Constans took a different approach to Monothelitism than his father, preferring not to take sides. His Typos of Constans of 648 was an edict forbidding the topic to be debated. This, of course, solved nothing and satisfied no one. (His son, Constantine IV, would call the Sixth Ecumenical Council that would settle the matter officially.)

There was a serious hiccup in his reign early on, however, brought about by the man who saved him originally. Tomorrow we'll talk about how Valentinus thought maybe he should be emperor. See you then.