Mailing a Letter

Large empires such as the Roman Empire needed ways to communicate quickly and efficiently with their far-flung domains. For the Romans, it was the cursus publicus, a series of stations along the main Roman roads where messages were passed along to fresh couriers. After the decline of the empire, the value of the  cursus publicus caused it to be maintained. Theodoric maintained the Roman postal system in his own domain, as did the Carolingian Empire in theirs.

When the Carolingian Empire ended (888 CE), however, there was no longer any organized attempt for a postal system throughout any part of Europe. Kings and popes, of course, had the large staff available and could appoint someone to deliver a message, but outside of those official types of correspondence, what were the options?

One of the more efficient systems was created by Italian merchants centuries later. A lot of travel and trade used the Mediterranean, and the Mediterranean was dominated by Genoa, Florence, and Venice. Italian businesses became so large that branches were created, and the owners could not be everywhere that needed them. Orders and messages needed to be sent to subordinates, customers, deliverymen, etc.

The large businesses set up posting stations with fast horses and riders at several points along their trade routes, but eventually they realized they were duplicating each others' work. In 1357, seventeen companies in Florence collaborated on a single message delivery system. Florence to Paris was 700 miles, and ideally a message was delivered in three weeks. Weather could be a mitigating factor, but their system was the best option.

Couriers were not worthy of being named historically, but we do know one. Geoffrey Chaucer was paid nine shillings by his master, Lionel of Antwerp, to deliver letters from France to London while Lionel and his father (Edward III) took part in the Treaty of Brétigny. (Footnote: Chaucer was in London for two weeks before Lionel returned. What can an unattached page do in a fortnight? That is the frame for my mystery novel A Death in Catte Street, available via the links in the upper-right of this blog's main page.)

Lionel, a younger son of Edward III, does not get the attention given to Edward's other progeny like the Black Prince or John of Gaunt. He will get a little more of what is due him next time.

Medieval Architecture

7th c. Asturian Church of Santa Cristina de Lena, Spain

This will be a brief introduction to the styles of medieval architecture that existed over the centuries. They are given names to represent the eras, but keep in mind that there was no firm dividing line between the different eras. In order to compare apples to apples, we will look at church architecture for examples of the evolution of building styles.

Early Christian
Prior to a uniform style of architecture for churches, christian churches often simply appropriated pagan temples of worship. One of the most famous buildings of antiquity, the Parthenon, was converted to a christian church just before 600CE, becoming the Church of the Parthenos Maria [Greek: "Virgin Mary"]. A common style was the basilica [Greek "royal"], which was originally a large building for public gatherings. Basilicas had a long main aisle (the nave), supported by columns and flanked by side aisles. A wide area at one end, the apse, became the location of the altar. A basilica often had a dome. This basic floor plan became popular for churches, especially in the Eastern Empire. The most famous basilica is the Hagia Sophia [Greek: "Holy Wisdom"] in Istanbul (was Constantinople).

Pre-Romanesque
This term is often used to denote the collection of different styles that arose during certain dynasties or in different cultures, such as Merovingian, Carolingian, Ottonian, Asturian, Norse; it is a catch-all term that includes the Early Christian as well.

Romanesque
Romanesque is a modern term that describes the style that was prevalent in the 11th and 12th centuries throughout Europe. Brought to England by William the Conqueror, there we call it "Norman." Romanesque buildings are known by their massive stone structure with barrel vaults and round (or sometimes slightly pointed) arches. Tourists can experience Thanksgiving in a Romanesque building described here.

Gothic
Gothic architecture has appeared here. Its chief elements are soaring height, large glass windows allowing more light than previous styles, pointed arches, (often) flying buttresses to support the thin walls. The first church to combine several of these elements into the first truly "Gothic" church was the Abbey of St.-Denis. This style is what folk most often picture when they think of medieval churches.

About eight miles south of St.-Denis is the world's most recognizable Gothic cathedral, Notre Dame, which suffered from a devastating fire a couple weeks ago. I want to say something about that next.

Charles the (Not) Simple

Charles the Simple

Charles III, called "the Simple" (from Latin Carolus Simplex) was a King of Francia (what we think of today as France) and Lotharingia (what we think of today as the Rhineland, western Switzerland, and the Low Countries).

He was born 17 September 879, the third son of Louis the Stammerer (son of Charles the Bald) and Adelaide of Paris. His father died before Charles was born, and Charles might have succeeded him as king, but his cousin Charles the Fat was put on the throne by the nobility. When Charles the Fat was deposed in 887—he was increasingly seen as spineless after paying off the Vikings and showing little inclination to military solutions—the nobility again skipped over Charles in favor of Odo of Paris. Eventually, however, a faction within Francia decided that Charles the Simple should be made the rightful ruler; he was crowned king in 893, but only assumed the throne once Odo died in 898.

Charles negotiated with the Vikings whom Charles the Fat had paid off. In exchange for peace, he granted them lands on the continent. Their leader, Rollo, was baptized and married Charles' daughter, Gisela. Their heirs became the Dukes of Normandy, leading eventually to William the Conqueror.

Charles himself married (for the second time) to Eadgifu, a daughter of the English King Edward the Elder. Their son was the future King Louis IV of France.

The initial opposition to Charles was not due to the nickname. Although we translate Carolus Simplex as "Charles the Simple," the adjective has become...umm..."simplified" over time. When attached to Charles, it did not mean he was unintelligent; rather, that he was straightforward and direct, acting without subterfuge or guile.

But this quality did not endear him to everyone. Not everyone appreciated giving territory to the Vikings, or some of his other decisions. Odo's brother Robert became the fiscal point for revolt in 922, and Charles had to flee. Returning with a Norman army, he was defeated on 15 June 923, captured and imprisoned, where he died on 7 October 929. Eadgifu fled to England when the revolt took place, but her son Louis would return to become king of France in 936.

The Liberal Alcuin of York

Tiffany window of Charlemagne and Alcuin
at LaFayette College (1898)

Alcuin of York has been mentioned before, primarily in his relationship to intellectual puzzles. This does a disservice to a man who was revered as a scholar and saint, and is one of the primary movers behind the Carolingian Renascence.

We know little about the early life of Alcuin (c.735-804). He came to the cathedral school of York under Archbishop Ecgbert (died 766), who took a great interest in Alcuin's schooling. It was here that Alcuin blossomed into a scholar of liberal studies, helping to develop the curriculum of the York cathedral school to embrace the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic) and Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy). Alcuin himself wrote a textbook on the former, leaving the latter to his student, our old friend Hrabanus Maurus (previously mentioned here).

Sometime after Ecgbert died, Alcuin became the head of the school.* In 781, on his way home from a trip to Rome to see the pope (his mission was to petition the pope to confirm York as an archbishopric, the second in England after Canterbury), he met, for the second time, Charlemagne, who convinced him to stay and help promote learning in Charlemagne's kingdom.

Alcuin settled in the palace school at Aachen in 782, working alongside several of the intellectual lights of the 8th century, such as Peter of Pisa, a grammarian brought there to teach Latin, and Paulinus of Aquileia, a theologian and grammarian who became a good friend of Alcuin's, maintaining a relationship through letters even after Paulinus left the court to take up the position of Patriarch of Aquileia.

The other way that Alcuin was "liberal" is in his attitude toward pagans. Charlemagne followed the not-uncommon Christian royal practice of outlawing paganism, offering conquered pagan peoples the choice of conversion or death. Alcuin objected to this, and made his reasons clear to Charlemagne:

"Faith is a free act of the will, not a forced act. We must appeal to the conscience, not compel it by violence. You can force people to be baptized, but you cannot force them to believe."

Charlemagne eventually abolished the death penalty for paganism.

Alcuin died on the 19th of May 804.

*This school still exists today as St. Peter's.

Electrical Engineers

Electrical and Mechanical Engineers have their own patron saint—at least, in the British Army they do.

Saint Eligius (or Eloi, or Eloy) was born about 588 near Limoges, France. His father recognized skill in him, and sent him as a young man to a noted goldsmith to learn a trade. He became so good at it that he was commissioned by Clothar II, King of the Franks, to make a golden throne decorated with precious stones. With the materials he was given, he made the throne with material left over ("enough for two" it was said). Since it was not unknown for artisans to use less than they were given and hide away the excess for their own wealth, Eligius' honesty in designing the throne was noteworthy.

On the death of Clothar, his son Dagobert became King of the Franks. Dagobert (c.603 - 19 January 639) appointed Eligius his chief councilor. Dagobert is considered the last king of the Merovingian line to wield any real power on his own. After him came the weak kings that allowed the Mayors of the Palace to establish the Carolingian dynasty.

Dagobert and Eligius became very close, and it is said that Dagobert relied in Eligius heavily—sometimes exclusively—for advice. With Dagobert's help (i.e., money) Eligius established several monasteries, purchased and freed slaves brought into Marseilles, sent servants to cut down the bodies of hanged criminals and give them decent burial.

In 642, the goldsmith and councilor became a cleric when Eligius was made Bishop of Noyon. He undertook to convert the non-Christians in his diocese, and preached against simony in the church. Some of his writings have survived.

But it was the legends after his death that gave him his current reputation. Of course he is the patron of goldsmiths and craftsmen, and is often depicted holding a bishop's crozier in one hand and a hammer in the other. By extension, he is the patron of all metalworkers, which would include blacksmiths. Over time, the skills of the blacksmith evolved into the skills of mechanical engineers. But that is not to say that Eligius was not a problem-solver on a par with engineers. The legend tells that he was once faced with a horse that refused to cooperate with being shod. Eligius cut off the leg that needed shoeing, put a horseshoe on the detached hoof, then re-attached the leg to the horse! The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers of the British Army have taken Eligius for their patron saint.

The Iron Crown of Lombardy

The Eastern Emperor Justinian's (482-565 CE) attempt to conquer the Western Empire left it bruised and open to invasion. The Lombard Kingdom was established by Germanic tribes who flowed into the Italian peninsula after its population and political infrastructure was devastated by attacks from Byzantine forces. Between Lombards and Byzantines, Italy was carved into a series of ever-shifting boundaries for the next few centuries.

One of the early rulers of the Lombards married a Bavarian princess named Theodelinda (c.570-628). Because of actions she took that helped stamp out Arianism in Italy, she received some notable religious gifts. One of her gifts was a nail, purported to be from the True Cross and originally in the possession of Emperor Constantine (272-337), who received it from his mother, St. Helena (246-330).

The Iron Crown of Lombardy (see the inner ring?)

What does one do with an iron nail that is a relic of Christ? Turn it into an accessory!

The nail was beaten into a 1-centimeter thin band. Around this band was built a gold crown. It has six sections and is the size of a large arm ring. Historical documents suggest that it used to be larger, but a couple sections were lost and the remainder were re-positioned into the current smaller circle. Some, however, believe it was always this size and meant to be worn on the very top of the head or meant to be part of a larger ensemble. (A lot depends on the size of the original nail, which we cannot know.)

Although we believe the iron nail (the crucial antecedent to the Iron Crown) was brought to the Lombards by Theodelinda in the early 7th century, the Crown itself is believed to have been made in the 8th or early 9th century. DailyMedieval's research has found references to Carolingians taking up the Iron Crown (the "forgotten" King Carloman in 781 and Lothair in 829).

Religious authorities argued over the centuries over the validity of the nail. The Crown was alternately declared a "relic" of Christ or a fake. In 1715 the Congregation of Rites in Rome (which supervises the liturgy and sacraments) allowed that the Crown could be displayed in public as an object of veneration without committing to the authenticity of the "nail."

The Iron Crown of Lombardy is kept at the Cathedral of Monza outside of Milan. Authorities at the Cathedral point out that, despite the centuries of exposure, the inner iron ring shows no rust. A 1985 examination determined that magnets are not attracted to the "iron" ring. More research is needed.

After the Hammer Fell

Nicknames: so easy to get, so hard to get rid of. When Mayor of the Palace and military genius  Charles Martel presented his 12-year-old son to the nobles of the Frankish court, he (jokingly) referred to him as "Pepin the Short." (Really, dad? You get to be called "the Hammer" and I have to be known as "the Short" in all the chronicles? How fair is that?)

Pepin (714-768) was not the only son of Charles Martel to take a leadership role; he's just the one we remember because of his son, Charlemagne. But the Carolingian Age started with Martel, and Pepin was an important part of it before Charlemagne stepped onto the scene. Pepin had two brothers. After the death of their father, Carloman (the eldest) was Mayor of the Palace for Austrasia (including Tournai, Aachen, Cologne and Metz) while Pepin was Mayor of the Palace for Neustria (the territory from Nantes and Tours on the south along the Loire to Soissons in the north). They picked Childeric III to be a puppet king starting in 743, not being willing to take over in their own right.* A third brother, Grifo (son of Charles' second wife), wanted to have some authority, but Pepin and Carloman locked him away in a monastery.

In 747, Carloman decided to retire to a monastery, leaving the running of Austrasia to Pepin. Pepin decided it was time to make a radical change, so he wrote to Pope Zachary with a question: who should be king, the one with the family title or the one who actually exercised the power? By this time, the pope had come to rely on Frankish military support, so he was certainly willing to take the necessary steps. He dethroned Childeric and tonsured him. (The cutting of his hair was a powerful symbol: the Merovingian line believed in not ever cutting their hair as a sign of the royal authority.) Childeric and his son, Theuderic, went to a monastery.

So Pepin the Short (infrequently called Pepin III because his grandfather and great-great-grandfather were both Pepins) became the new King of the Franks, being anointed by the archbishop of Mainz in 752, and then in 754 at St.-Denis in Paris by Pope Stephen II. In order to ensure a succession, the pope anointed Pepin's sons at the same time, establishing that the two boys, Charles and Carloman.

Pepin's first act was to attack the Lombards in Italy, returning control of Ravenna and more to the pope, establishing the Papal States and the pope's temporal authority. He also worked hard to assume control over as much the the Aquitaine as possible. He continued to expand the army and cavalry as his father had done. He fought more battles with Muslims encroaching from Spain and drove them out of Gaul. He was, in fact, never defeated in battle.

Which is not to say that he never died in battle. He died at the age of 54 in a military campaign. He was interred in the church of St.-Denis. Just as the kingdom was divided among Clovis' four sons, so was it divided again between Pepin's sons Charles and Carloman. The Carolingians had the potential to be just as divisive as the Merovingians who came before. Sibling rivalry can be even more bitter, however, when mother plays favorites.

*Childeric was truly plucked from obscurity; modern historians are not sure of his parentage.