An Empire of Memory (33 page)

48; and Rupert of Deutz, De sancta trinitate et operibus eius, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM (Turnhout,

1972), 23: 1688. On the importance of Ezekiel for the late Carolingians, see now de Jong, Penitential

State, ch. 3. The angels of Ezekiel were rarely given visual expression until the middle of the 12th cent.

There is, however, evidence of an early 11th-cent. fresco from Hildesheim depicting this scene from

Ezekiel. See Anne Derbes, ‘Crusading Ideology and the Frescoes of S. Maria in Cosmedin’, Art

Bulletin, 77 (1995), 465–6 and n. 36.

80 Acts 3: 1–26, 12: 1–10, respectively.

81 Piacenza Pilgrim, Travels from Piacenza, in Jerusalem Pilgrimages before the Crusades, tr. John

Wilkinson (Warminster, 2002), 83; and Bernard the Monk, A Journey to the Holy Places and Babylon,

in Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades, tr. John Wilkinson (Warminster, 2002), 266. The association of the two gates (Beautiful and Blocked) seems to have been common knowledge by the time of the

capture of the city in 1099. In the 12th cent., however, the Beautiful Gate ‘moved’ and was

henceforward associated with the western entrance to the Temple Mount and thus not with the

Blocked Gate. John Wilkinson, Joyce Hill, and W. F. Ryan, Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185

(London, 1988), 40–1.

82 ‘Qui benedictionis causa claves sepulcri dominici ac loci Calvariae, claves etiam civitatis et montis Sion cum vexillo detulerunt.’ Annales Mettenses priores, ed. B. Von Simson, MGH SRG (Hanover,

1905), 10: 86. Virtually verbatim in Chronicon Moissiacense, MGH SS 1: 305. Others, such as Regino

of Prüm, omit the mountain altogether. Regino of Prüm, Chronicon, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG

(Hanover, 1890), 50: 62.

The Franks’ Imagined Empire

119

decision that only makes sense in the context of the entire passage. On Palm Sunday,

Christ’s journey to Jerusalem ended with his entrance into Jerusalem via the

Beautiful Gate but began on the Mount of Olives. The patriarch’s two gifts call to

mind the replication of this messianic journey, beginning on the Mount of Olives

and entering Jerusalem through the Beautiful Gate, just as had occurred before and

as would occur again before the Apocalypse.83

The Annales Altahenses gave Charlemagne everything he needed to complete his

journey as Last Emperor: a piece of the Cross making Charlemagne’s connection to

Christ explicit; a lance to slay the wicked; a relic of the Mount of Olives, whence he

would begin his return journey into Jerusalem; a link to the Beautiful Gate where he

might make his triumphant entry into the city; tablets and inkwells with which to

mark the saved and the damned; relics from the Holy Sepulcher, so that he can worship

the Lord; and a relic from Calvary, where he can finally give up his Christian imperium

to God.84 In this context, it made perfect sense for the Annales Altahenses to follow its

list of gifts by asking Charles to use these tools he has been given to liberate the populus

christianus. That is, after all, both the Frankish king’s and the Last Emperor’s task.

We see now that references to Charlemagne as Last Emperor were oftentimes

allusive but were nonetheless fundamental to how some in the eleventh century

preserved Charlemagne’s memory. By the middle of the eleventh century, the various

versions of the Last Emperor legend provided authors with a stock of tropes that fused

well with contemporary understandings of Charlemagne and his empire. Putting

words like ‘emperor’, ‘Franks’, ‘Jerusalem’, and ‘conqueror’ (among others) together

would conjure both Charlemagne and Last Emperor in many people’s minds, just as

they seem to have done in the Annales Altahenses Maiores and Oxford Roland.85 But

this did not necessarily mean these authors thought that Charlemagne was the Last

Emperor (though the Niederaltaich Annales hint strongly in that direction): rather it

means that our texts associated the two figures, seeing parallel images of universal,

Frankish, Christian empire and tentatively bringing past and future together.

83 On the ceremony of Adventus as mimicking Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and

at the End of Time, see Ernst Kantorowicz, ‘The “King’s Advent” and the Enigmatic Panels in the

Doors of Santa Sabina’, in Selected Studies (Locust Valley, NY, 1965), 37–75. By the 11th cent., the

Mount of Olives was a site replete with apocalyptic significance. It was e.g. where Adso Dervensis said the Last Emperor would relinquish his crown. See Ora Limor, ‘The Place of the End of Days:

Eschatological Geography in Jerusalem’, in Bianca Kühnel (ed.), The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in

Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art: Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday (Jerusalem, 1998), 13–22. Ademar of Chabannes, whose apocalyptic proclivities have been well

documented, also interpolates montis Oliveti for the original montis. See Ademar of Chabannes,

Chronicon, ed. R. Landes and G. Pon, CCCM (Turnhout, 1999), 129: 98.

84 According to Pseudo-Methodius, the last duties of the Last Emperor would take place on

Calvary, but according to Adso Dervensis, the Last Emperor would give up his crown to God on

the Mount of Olives.

85 There may also be an echo of the Last Emperor legend in the early 12th-cent. Annales

Nordhumbranis. In the entry for the year 800, this source calls Charlemagne ‘emperor of the whole

world’, has the Greeks effectively cede to him their regnum and imperium, has the populus christianus

heap gifts upon him, and calls on him to expel the nefarious pagans from Jerusalem. Annales

Nordhumbranis, 156. Although the text as it now stands dates to the very early 12th cent., these

annals have roots in the late 8th and early 9th cents. See Joanna Story, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c.750–870 (Burlington, Vt., 2003), 93–133.

120

The Franks Recreate Empire

Others, however, were not so hesitant. On the feast of Pentecost in the year

1000, Emperor Otto III opened Charlemagne’s tomb at Aachen. By ‘participating

in the holiness’ to be found there, Otto attempted to create a symbolic nexus

between Heaven and Earth (a holy man’s tomb) at a time when Heaven and Earth

symbolically meet (Pentecost––the feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit to the

apostles after Christ’s resurrection).86 But the sources discussing this event betrayed

something more. Every account of this event presented Charlemagne as residing in

something resembling a state of suspended animation, life still coursing through his

body. Thietmar of Merseberg’s spare account relates that Charlemagne remained

sitting ‘on a royal throne’. The Chronicon Novaliciense stated that ‘Charles was not

laid out as is the custom for other dead bodies, but was sitting in a throne as if he

were still alive.’87 By showing due reverence to Charlemagne in his tomb, where the

dead emperor seemed ready to ‘spring back to life’ at any moment (just as Pseudo-

Methodius said the Last Emperor would do and just as Charlemagne did in the

Oxford Roland), Otto III and his chroniclers demonstrated their own understand-

ing of Charlemagne’s role as sleeping emperor, the Last Emperor.

The Limousin monk Ademar of Chabannes, who wrote in the 1020s, composed

another account of Otto’s entrance into Charlemagne’s tomb. Ademar was intense-

ly interested in Charlemagne, copying Einhard’s biography, structuring the three

books of his Chronicon with Charlemagne’s reign as the centerpiece, and even

forging a letter from the monks of the Mount of Olives (in Jerusalem) supposedly

intended for the great Frankish ruler.88 The combination of these two powerful

preoccupations perhaps led to Ademar’s peculiar description of the events of

Pentecost 1000, for he presents Charlemagne as ‘an imperial personage who,

although buried, is still erect and ruling, albeit dead––yet not dead, a hieratic figure

similar to Carolingian depictions of Christ in majesty’.89 The passage reads:

In those days, the Emperor Otto [III] was advised in a dream to raise the body of the

Emperor Charlemagne, who had been buried at [Aachen]. At the end of three days’ fast [by

86 The phrase is Knut Görich’s. See idem, ‘Otto III. öffnet das Karlsgrab in Aachen: Überlegungen

zu Heiligenverehung, Heiligsprechung und Traditionsbildung’, in Gerd Althoff and Ernst Schubert

(eds.), Herrschaftsrepräsentation im Ottonischen Sachsen (Sigmaringen, 1998), 396. For a fuller

discussion of Otto III’s entrance into Charlemagne’s tomb, see Gabriele, ‘Otto III’, 111–32.

87 Thietmar of Merseberg, Chronicon, ed. Robert Holtzmann, MGH SRG ns (Berlin, 1935), 9:

185–6; and Chronicon Novaliciense, MGH SS 7: 106. ‘[Karolus n]on enim iacebat, ut mos est aliorum

defunctorum corpora, sed in quandam cathedram ceu vivus residebat.’

88 On the dating of this section of Ademar’s chronicle see Daniel F. Callahan, ‘The Problem of

“Filioque” and the Letter from the Pilgrim Monks of the Mount of Olives to Pope Leo III and

Charlemagne: Is the Letter Another Forgery by Ademar of Chabannes?’, Revue Bénédictine, 52 (1992),

114 n. 165. On Ademar generally, see Richard Landes, Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceits of History:

Ademar of Chabannes, 989–1034 (Cambridge, 1995); and Daniel F. Callahan, The Making of a

Millennial Pilgrim: Jerusalem and the Cross in the Life and Writings of Ademar of Chabannes

(forthcoming). On Ademar’s fascination with Charlemagne, see Callahan, ‘Problem of “Filioque”’,

111–16; idem, ‘The Tau Cross in the Writings of Ademar of Chabannes,’ in Year 1000, 65; and idem,

‘Ademar of Chabannes, Charlemagne, and the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem of 1033’, in Michael Frassetto

(ed.), Medieval Monks and their World: Ideas and Realities: Studies in Honor of Richard E. Sullivan

(Leiden, 2006), 71–80.

89 Callahan, ‘Problem of “Filioque”’, 113; also Nichols, Romanesque Signs, 82.

The Franks’ Imagined Empire

121

Otto III], [Charlemagne] was found in the place which the Emperor had perceived in his

dream. He was found sitting on a golden throne, within an arched crypt, under the basilica

of St Mary, crowned with a crown of gold and gems, holding a scepter and a sword of the

purest gold, the body itself uncorrupted. . . . A canon of that church . . . , who was enormous

and tall of stature, put the crown on his head as if to take its measure, but found the top of

his head too small for it. . . . He also compared his leg to that of the king, and his was found

to be smaller. Immediately afterward, by a divine miracle, his leg was fractured. . . . Charles’s

body was [re-]buried in the right transept of that basilica . . . and a magnificent golden crypt

constructed over it, and it began to be known by means of many signs and miracles.90

The crown, the throne, the scepter, and sword all point to Charlemagne’s stature as

holy emperor even after his death; the breaking of the canon’s leg after he touched

Charlemagne, the uncorrupted body, as well as the miracles performed at his new

grave, all point to Charlemagne’s sanctity, for these wonders were common

occurrences at the shrines of recognized saints.91 Charlemagne is also portrayed

as a giant––the size of his head and leg much larger than those of the canon,

‘enormous and tall of stature’ himself, who attempted to place Charlemagne’s

crown on his head. Here, Ademar paints a picture of a majestic emperor––the

Last Emperor––who sits erect upon his throne, literally larger than life, untouched

by death, ruling even beyond the grave, seemingly ready to spring back to life at a

moment’s notice to battle the enemies of Christ.

Critical to understanding Ademar’s characterization of Charlemagne are two

small sketches from the autograph of his Chronicon. The first is an image of

Charlemagne that is strikingly reminiscent of contemporary portrayals of Christ-

in-Majesty (Figure 4.2). The second shows the location of Charlemagne’s tomb

within the church of St Mary at Aachen. On the tomb, Ademar inscribes Hic

requiescit Karolus imperator. Normally, this would be taken to mean that this sketch

denotes Charlemagne’s burial chamber but taken in combination with Ademar’s

description of the event and his other sketch in the Chronicon, an equally legitimate

and perhaps more meaningful translation of the sentence could read, ‘Here rests [or

reposes] the Emperor Charles.’92 Otto’s entrance––both as it seems to have

90 ‘Quiebus diebus Otto imperator per somnum monitus est ut levaret corpus Caroli Magni

imperatoris, quod Aquis humatus erat; sed, vetustate obliterante, ignorabatur locus certus, ubi

quiescebat. Et peracto triduano jejunio, inventus est eo loco, quem per visum congnoverat

imperator, sedens in aurea cathedra . . . coronatum corona ex auro et gemmis, tenens sceptrum et

ensem ex auro purissimo, et ipsum corpus incorruptum inventum est. . . . Quidam vero canonicorum,

ejusdem loci . . . , cum enormi et procero corpore esset, coronam Caroli quasi pro mensura capiti suo

circumponens, inventus est strictiori vertice . . . Crus proprium etiam ad cruris mensuram regis

dimetiens, inventus est brevior, et ipsum ejus crus protinus divina virtute confractum est . . . ;

Corpus vero Caroli condictum . . . retro altare sancti Johannis Baptiste, et cripta aurea super illud

mirifica est fabricata, multisque signis et miraculis clarescere cępit.’ Ademar, Chronicon, ed. Landes and Pon, 153. Tr. from Nichols, Romanesque Signs, 67.