An Empire of Memory (15 page)

36 Vigneras, ‘Abbaye’, 125–6. The diplomas are at Recueil des actes de Philippe Ier, ed. Prou, nos. 85, 175, respectively.

37 ‘Postquam abbas cui nomen Fulcradus erat, dominice abbacie adeptus est sedem, inito cum suis

consilio, ab intimis viscerum profunda trahens suspiria, comitem evocat Aldebertum, prece ut utebatur

pia absconsi thesauri manifestari sibi precatur dignitatem.’ Liber de Const. 39.

38 Similarly, Elizabeth Pastan has recently shown how the Charlemagne window at Chartres is more

about their relic of the Sancta Camisia than Charlemagne. See Elizabeth Pastan, ‘Charlemagne as Saint?

Relics and the Choice of Window Subjects at Chartres Cathedral’, in Legend of Charlemagne, 97–135.

Charlemagne’s Journey to the East

51

primarily as Christ’s earthly representative. Charles founds an abbey dedicated to

Christ with a relic given him by Christ himself, forging, as an intermediary, an intimate

connection between monastery and divine. And when Charlemagne departs the

narrative, the Holy Virtue, that tangible link between Charroux and Christ, becomes

the new centerpiece for the second part of the Historia. The relic itself is the most

important aspect of the text. Even without terrestrial authority, because of its posses-

sion of the Holy Virtue, the monastery is a power in its own right. Removing

Charlemagne from the text does not alter that fact. On the other hand, removing

references to Charroux and the Holy Virtue from the account strips the narrative of all

of its meaning. The Historia is fundamentally a document about the spiritual and

religious claims of a particular monastery.

Even though the Historia seems to have been an intensely local narrative like the

Chronicon of Benedict of St Andrew, the Historia enjoyed a substantial afterlife.

Part of the reason behind the Historia’s liveliness must have been Charroux’s

presence on a popular pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostella, as well as

Charroux’s status as a popular pilgrimage destination in its own right. Indeed,

pilgrims flocked from all over Europe to see the Holy Virtue.39 Amy Remensnyder

notes that a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century gloss on Peter Comestor’s

Historia Scholastica (composed c.1169–73) recounts a version of Charlemagne’s

journey to the East found in Charroux’s Historia. In the gloss, as in the Historia,

Charlemagne goes to Jerusalem to get some relics, including the Holy Virtue. Here,

however, Charlemagne takes the relics to Aachen, leaving it to Charles the Bald to

pass them to their final destination (in this case, Charroux).40 Repeated throughout

the late Middle Ages, this gloss appeared in the late twelfth-century Pseudo-Bede’s

Account of the Holy Land, Gervase of Tilbury’s early thirteenth-century De otiis

imperialibus, Pope Innocent III’s (1198–1216) writings on the mass, and Jacobus

de Voragine’s late thirteenth-century Legenda aurea.41

A C A P E T IA N T R A N S L A T I O : C . 1 0 8 0

During the reign of King Philip I of the Franks, someone associated with his

entourage created another account of Charlemagne’s journey to the East.42 The

39 For instance, Beech notes that the origin of the English and Flemish foundations dependent on

Charroux likely stems from a group of Flemish nobles who visited Charroux on their way to Santiago.

See Beech, ‘Aquitanians’, 76; de Monsabert, ‘Introduction’, p. x; Schwering-Illert, Abteikirche, 80–1.

40 Remensnyder found fourteen manuscripts containing the gloss in the Bibliothèque Nationale

and Vatican Library alone. Remensnyder, Remembering, 155 n. 23. This tradition melds the Charroux

legend with another late 11th-cent. narrative of Charlemagne’s journey to the East, the Descriptio

qualiter, discussed below.

41 Pseudo-Bede, Account of the Holy Land, in Anonymous Pilgrims I.–VIII. (Eleventh and Twelfth

centuries), tr. Aubrey Stewart, Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Series, 13 vols. (London, 1894), vi. 65–6. Aryeh Graboïs suggests it dates to the late 12th cent. (c.1187). Aryeh Graboïs, Le Pèlerin occidental en Terre sainte au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1998), 212. On Gervase, Innocent, and Jacobus, see Remensnyder,

Remembering, 172.

42 The text of one of the earliest manuscripts (late 12th cent.) has been published as Descriptio

qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coronam Domini a Constantinopoli Aquisgrani detulerit qualiterque

52

The Franks Remember Empire

Descriptio qualiter, as it is called, begins with the patriarch of Jerusalem fleeing to

the Byzantine ruler at Constantinople. While there, the two of them wrote letters,

dispatched to Charles by four emissaries (two Christians, two Jews), asking for help

in retaking the Holy City. The Greek Emperor Constantine revealed in his letter

that, although he was quite capable of helping the patriarch on his own, God

specifically told him in a vision to summon Charles to the East.

‘Constantine, you have asked God for aid and counsel in this task [freeing Jerusalem

from the pagans]. Here accept the aid of the Charles, the great emperor, king of Gaul

under God, defender of the peace of the Church.’ And He showed me a soldier wearing

shin greaves and a breastplate, carrying a ruddy shield, girded with a sword having a

purple hilt, and a spear of the most white with a tip that often gave off flames. In his

hand, he held a golden helmet. And he had an old, long beard, a beautiful face, and a

body tall of stature. His head was white and gray, and his eyes shone like the stars.43

The emissaries found Charles at Paris and, upon receiving the call, he immediately

departed for Constantinople.

Somewhere along the way, the Franks became lost in a wood and made camp for

the night. Charlemagne, unable to sleep, began to recite from the Psalter. A bird

heard his prayers, hailed him as ‘unconquered caesar’, and led his army out of the

forest and back onto the correct road to Constantinople. As soon as they arrived in

the East, Charles defeated the pagans, reinstalled the patriarch in Jerusalem, and

restored the Eastern empire to good order––in all of two sentences!44 The two

emperors enjoyed pleasant relations back at Constantinople but, his task completed,

Charles asked leave to return to Francia. Charles and his men refused the rich gifts

offered them by the Greek ruler, saying that to accept such gifts would imply they

were mere mercenaries. After much wrangling, however, Charles finally agreed to

return to the West with relics of the Passion. Charlemagne tells Constantine:

‘We are eager, since some of our people are not able to come to Jerusalem to wipe away

their sins, that they should have something visible in our regions, which might soften

Karolus Calvus hec ad Sanctum Dyonisium retulerit, in Die Legende, 103–25. An alternate version of the text (13th cent.) is in Ferdinand Castets, ‘Iter Hierosolymitanum ou Voyage de Charlemagne à

Jérusalem et à Constantinople’, Revue des Langues Romanes, 36 (1892), 439–74. The earliest

manuscript (late 11th or early 12th cent.) is Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine MS 1711 and is edited in

Marc du Pouget, ‘Recherches sur les chroniques latines de Saint-Denis: Édition critique et

commentaire de la Descriptio clavi et corone domini et de deux séries de textes relatifs à la légende

carolingienne’ (Thesis, Paris, 1978). I have been unable to obtain du Pouget’s thesis but I have

examined the manuscript.

43 ‘Constantine rogasti dominum auxilium et consilium huius rei, ecce accipe adiutorem Karolum

magnum imperatorem regem Gallie in domino ac pacis ecclesie propugnatorem. Et ostendit michi

quendam militem ocreatum et loricatum, scutum rubeum habentem, ense precinctum, cuius

manubrium erat purpureum, hasta albissima, cuius cuspis sepe flammas emittebat, ac in manu

cassidem tenebat auream. Et ipse senex prolixa barba, vultu decorus et statura procerus erat,

cuiusque oculi fulgebant tanquam sidera, caput vero canis albescebat.’ Descriptio qualiter, ed.

Rauschen, 106–7.

44 ‘Tandem rex cum exercitu suo Constantinopolim pervenit. Postea vero fugatis paganis ad urbem,

que vexilla vivifice crucis Christique passionis, mortis ac resurrectionis, retinet monimenta, letus et supplex advenit ac patriarche totique christicole plebi cuncta prospera deo opitulante solidavit.’

Descriptio qualiter, ed. Rauschen, 109.

Charlemagne’s Journey to the East

53

their hearts at the mention of the Lord’s Passion and recall them in worthy piety to the

fruit of penance.’45

The Greek Emperor delighted at this request and opened Helena’s treasury. After

purifying themselves, the two emperors witnessed a number of miracles, then

reclaimed a number of relics, which included thorns from the Crown of Thorns,

pieces of the True Cross, a nail from the Cross, the shroud that covered Jesus in his

tomb, Mary’s tunic, and the arm of St Simeon.46 Now laden with gifts, himself

carrying the relics in a sack around his neck, Charles began the return journey,

stopping for a time at a castle on the route, with the relics working endless miracles

along the way.47

When Charles arrived back at Aachen, he constructed a church dedicated to

Mary, called together the leading prelates of the realm, displayed the relics before

them, and established a feast (eventually called Lendit) to honor them. After

Charles’s death, the narrative shifts its focus to Charles the Bald, who built the

house of canons at Saint-Corneille of Compiègne (now, according to the Descriptio

qualiter, called Karnopolis after him), endowed it with the Holy Shroud, and

translated most of the remaining relics to Saint-Denis. This effectively ends the

account, although some manuscripts conclude with the Visio Karoli––a vision that

a ruler named Charles48 had of himself in hell and only saved from its eternal

torments because of the intervention of Sts Peter and Remigius.49

45 ‘Tribuas gestimus quatinus nostrates, qui ad urbem Iherosolimam causa abholendi sua

peccata venire nequeunt, quiddam in partibus nostris visibile habeant, quod ad passionis dominice

mentionem corda eorum fideliter molliat et ad fructum penitencie digna revocet pietate.’ Descriptio

qualiter, ed. Rauschen, 112.

46 The scene is reminiscent of the discovery of Christ’s tomb after the resurrection. Cf. Luke 24:

1–11. See e.g. another similar scene describing Emperor Otto III’s entrance into Charlemagne’s tomb

in 1000, analyzed in Stephen G. Nichols, Jr., Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and

Iconography (New Haven, Conn., 1983), 76–8. Benzo of Alba reported that Emperor Henry IV

received relics mirroring those found in the Descriptio qualiter––the Holy Shroud, pieces of the True

Cross, and Crown of Thorns––from the Byzantine Emperor in 1082. It is unclear how this is related to

the Descriptio qualiter. See Benzo of Alba, Ad Heinricum IV. Imperatorem, ed. Hans Seyffert, MGH

SRG (Hanover, 1996), 65: 142, 548; and Tilman Struve, ‘Kaisertum und Romgedanke in salischer

Zeit’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 44 (1988), 448 n. 109.

47 The location of the castle is likely the modern Macedonian city of Ochrid (or Ohrid)––also

known by its Greek name, Lychnidos. The city lay on the Roman Via Egnatia, an extension of the Via

Appia (Rome to Brindisi), which connected Dyrrachion (modern Durazzo) with Constantinople, and

served as a western pilgrim road through the Balkans. See the extended discussion of this location in

Matthew Gabriele, ‘The Provenance of the Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus: Remembering the

Carolingians in the Entourage of King Philip I (1060–1108) before the First Crusade’, Viator, 39

(2008), 98 n. 27.

48 The vision was initially written in late 9th cent. and ascribed to Charles the Fat. See the

discussion in Paul Edward Dutton, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln,

Neb., 1994), 233–40. Who this Charles is depends on the manuscript though. In the early 12th-cent.

Paris, Bib. Maz. MS 2013, the vision is had by Charles Martel. In the late 11th-cent. Paris, Bib. Maz.

MS 1711 and the 12th-cent. Paris, BNF MS lat. 12710, it is Charles the Bald.

49 This Visio Karoli is often associated with the Descriptio qualiter in the manuscript tradition but

still seems to be considered a separate text by medieval copyists. Though the Visio Karoli immediately follows the Descriptio qualiter in the Paris, Bib. Maz. MS 1711, it precedes the Descriptio qualiter in some cases (as in Paris BNF MS lat. 12710, the source of Rauschen’s edn.) and is omitted entirely in

others (as it is copied into Barbarossa’s Vita Karoli Magni).

54

The Franks Remember Empire

The Descriptio qualiter proved popular. In Hugh of Fleury’s early twelfth-century

Liber de modernorum regum Francorum qui continent actus, the narrative noted, as

did the Descriptio qualiter, that Compiègne is sometimes called Karnopolis (after

Charles the Bald) and that he gave three major christological relics to Saint-Denis.50

In addition, a portion of a historical miscellany, completed for Saint-Denis c.1118

and possibly linked to Hugh, reiterated the Descriptio qualiter’s description of

Charles the Bald’s gift of relics to Saint-Denis.51 An early twelfth-century fragment

of Hugh’s Historia Ecclesiastica from Saint-Maur-les-Fossés summarized the

Descriptio qualiter’s explanation of how the relics in Compiègne and Saint-Denis

got from Constantinople to their final resting places and (copied almost verbatim)