Secrets of History
Blessed Charlemagne!
It's a pleasure to come to you
from Bad Aachen, in Germany,
beside this amazing Palatine Chapel,
the remains of Emperor Charlemagne's palace.
I'd like to tell you about its extraordinary story.
In the obscure 8th century,
the man later called Charles the Great,
Charlemagne,
belonged to a new dynasty, the Carolingian Franks.
The flamboyant king of the Franks had a dream:
to rebuild the Christian Roman Empire of 3 centuries earlier.
Over a few years, this religious man of iron
managed to unite lands 2 times bigger than France.
To do this,
he had the formidable efficiency
of the Frankish cavalry,
and also a secret arm of his own invention: school.
Only after several battles
did he obtain the supreme honour:
an imperial crown never since rivalled,
making him over time
the most fascinating of European sovereigns.
He was very charismatic.
A force of nature.
He had great physical energy
making him matchless.
Charlemagne the king lived life to the full.
He had more than 20 women.
Well, to our knowledge.
There was great sexual freedom.
This bon vivant was a champion of Christianity
from Germania to the Spanish frontier.
For the Franks, the king had to
draw his sword
and be on the battlefield.
With the pope's blessing, he fought to unite his kingdom,
to the deep forests sheltering Europe's
last pagans.
They were
enemies of Christ for Charlemagne.
They had no right to live.
Several legends surround this ancient hero,
the emperor with the white beard.
In the Roncevaux pass,
the rear-guard was attacked
not by Saracens,
but by Basques.
These treasures make Charlemagne one of
the most sumptuous kings ever,
from the spectacular to the personal.
Here is an extraordinary object.
It's his talisman.
Chapels and palaces were sanctuaries to this reformer
set on reinventing western culture.
A book cost an awful lot.
A Bible took 400 sheep to make.
The circumstances of his coronation
by Pope Leo III in Rome are confused.
This extraordinary event
gave rise to a lot of controversy.
The pope came up behind the praying Charlemagne
and crowned him himself.
As master of Europe,
Charlemagne became a model in centuries to come.
No one doubts that he was one of the greatest
Christian kings in the West.
I am in the atrium courtyard in Bad Aachen,
once one of the main entrances to Charlemagne's palace.
At the end of the 8th century, it was very different
from how it is today.
There was a basilica,
from the Ancient Greek basileús, meaning "imperial residence",
linked to the Palatine Chapel by a gallery where
the emperor dispensed justice.
Can you see the lion's head?
When you put a finger in it, you can feel a callus.
It's the devil's thumb.
Legend says the devil got his thumb stuck
in this magnificent bronze door.
It was cast in the time of Charlemagne, and shows
the sumptuous elegance of Carolingian artisans
and their ability to imitate Antiquity.
Now I'll show you one of the few
remaining examples of architecture of the time,
the Palatine Chapel.
This Palatine Chapel
has 2 floors and is octagonal,
symbolising the resurrection and rebirth through baptism.
Over my head,
the spectacular chandelier
was a 12th century gift
from Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
It is over 4 m wide, and evokes Heavenly Jerusalem,
a vision of Heaven on Earth,
a bit like Charlemagne's political programme.
This 11th century alter front piece
is entirely made of gold
and is a real picture book.
In the centre are
Christ, his mother Mary, and St Michael,
surrounded by scenes from Christ's last days.
This masterpiece told the story
of the salvation to the largely illiterate faithful.
Apart from what his biographer and friend Eginhard says,
we know little of the real Charlemagne.
You will see that what we do know
allows us to perceive a surprising, colourful personality.
On December 25, 800,
Charlemagne was crowned emperor by the pope,
giving him a title that had not been used
for over 300 years in the West.
He did not quite fit
with the idea you may have of a Roman emperor,
but he was also different
to the popular image we have of him today.
Charlemagne did not have a white beard,
contrary to his image from the Middle Ages,
but typical Frankish big moustache.
He was a very tall man
for the time.
About 1.9 m tall, "around 7 feet tall", they say.
A tall, strong man.
He had a bit of a belly, quite a thick neck,
and, surprisingly, a falsetto voice.
The sight of him was impressive.
It's even said
Charlemagne could strike down with a look
anyone who behaved badly.
For the 30 years before his imperial coronation,
Charlemagne was king of the Franks,
a warrior people from the East
with simple, coarse traditions.
He dressed in the usual Frankish way:
a shirt, braccae,
thongs around his legs.
Luxurious clothes and silks were not his thing.
He only wore them when asked to by the pope.
In winter, he liked to wear an otter skin
or rat skins.
When coats falling just below the backside
came into fashion, he made fun of them.
"What is this bib for?
"When I empty my bowels, I get a cold bottom."
Always on the move,
Charlemagne had no fixed palace.
His court moved
between villas and abbeys in Austrasia,
the heart of Frankish land, from the Rhine to the Seine,
and also within the start of a vast empire,
from Germany to the Pyrenees.
If we were to measure
the distance Charlemagne travelled during his reign,
we'd end up with 1000s of kilometres.
Charlemagne travelled with 100,
perhaps 200 people.
He even took his treasure with him, that's very important,
all the royal jewels, books,
objects showing his royal power.
One of few pieces of his treasure to have survived
is at the French National Library.
It shows Charlemagne's taste for Roman culture,
and also his amazing practical side.
It's a country throne. You can take off the back,
the arms, fold the seat, and take it anywhere.
It's a copy of chairs from Antiquity,
5th century consular diptychs often show
this type of crossed chair
with panther heads.
Charlemagne had all the trappings of power,
but he was not
an absolute sovereign, unlike Roman emperors.
He was surrounded by the main nobles,
who were involved in decisions.
- Your turn, loyal Roland. - Me?
Show us what you can do.
You are my best knight and my lucky charm.
He was very charismatic. He was both someone
with authority, and he was quite friendly.
He was a leader, as we'd say today,
a real born leader,
and he was also someone able to
take people with him, make them agree with his programme.
Imagine life at court as a real community.
Charlemagne was above all a clan man.
Anyone could meet the emperor.
So Charlemagne was appreciated,
he knew his guards, his relatives, his friends.
The prince was accessible,
because he was first among equals,
in a way.
At the palace at Aachen,
to see the king, you had only
go to the swimming pool.
Every day he practiced his favourite sport, swimming.
Imagine this pool
as a more or less modernised Roman bathhouse,
mainly a place to socialise.
In winter, it was cold,
but the palace had hot water.
Everyone would bathe to heat up for a few hours.
When you needed a favour,
help from Charlemagne, you could come and talk to him.
For this northern man,
the most important activity was, of course, hunting.
From autumn, late September,
the king was busy because he was hunting.
Almost all the court would go hunting.
Beware anyone who declined to go with him.
He liked the forests of the Meuse, and the Rhine.
Imagine that
we're hunting bear in Rhineland.
He'd always be in front.
He'd sometimes dismount
and be a pikeman.
He'd kill the boar himself.
As a people, they appreciated
strength.
There was a very barbaric side to their customs.
More than just
a prince's privilege, hunting supplied
the court's colourful banquets.
Charlemagne's
favourite dish was roast meat.
He liked roasted meat.
According to Eginhard, he seemed unhappy during fasts,
but he respected them.
Charlemagne had quite free manners.
When a bishop served himself first without offering
anything to the king and courtiers,
Charlemagne said, "Go on.
"Don't worry, take it all."
He liked eating and drinking,
but he didn't like drunkenness.
Given his build, he would have held his drink well.
As concerns women, this bon vivant
multiplied marriages throughout his life.
He had more than 20 women.
He had a total of more than 20 women,
well, as far as we know, of course.
We might not know all of them.
It's a society where monogamous, indissoluble
marriage
had not yet been imposed by the Church,
even if the Church was trying to get it accepted.
There was sexual freedom,
which is a predatory freedom. For men, of course, not women.
My dear king...
Do you not think that an heir should be appointed?
From adolescence to his death,
Charlemagne had 5 main wives:
Himiltrude, his first love,
Desiderata the Lombard,
Hildegarde, who bore him 9 children,
and also Fastrada and Luitgard.
The ideal build
for Carolingians was:
long braided hair, brooches,
jewels...
Otherwise, quite marked hips
and chest.
We know he had affection
for Fastrada.
He perhaps did for
Hildegarde, but she was
more the mother of his children.
When Charlemagne
wanted a wife, he looked for a brother-in-law.
By multiplying marriages one after the other,
he was trying to multiply his alliances within
Frankish aristocracy.
He chose his 5 wives from the 5 regions
of his empire.
Charlemagne didn't marry girls
who he'd never leave,
which intrigued his contemporaries.
Charlemagne
adored his girls and he wanted to show they were beautiful.
It seems Charlemagne loved excessively,
or possessed excessively.
Incest has been brought up. Certainly not.
Why didn't Charlemagne find them husbands?
He didn't want any sons-in-law.
Giving his daughters in marriage to aristocrats
would risk them claiming
a share of royal power
in the name of Carolingian blood.
Nevertheless, these young girls would have met
young aristocrats,
and what was going to happen happened:
they had relationships with men,
and he had to hide
his humiliation.
Eginhard says he didn't show
how aggrieved he was by what happened.
To console himself, the king,
who spoke Frankish, which is close to Old German,
took refuge in the spiritual.
He wasn't an intellectual, but he took an interest
in everything, his environment, science...
Charlemagne liked clarity,
rationality.
He liked things to be clear, distinct.
Charlemagne never learned how to write.
Until late in life, he'd try
to write at night.
He'd hide
the disappointing results under his pillows.
At the time,
you only learnt how to write when you could read.
You can read without being able to write.
To compensate his shortcomings, the king of the Franks gathered
some of the best minds of his time
in the Palatine Academy.
There were about 20 aristocrats
who lived in the palace, 20 or so well-read people
who enjoyed poetic jousting.
Flaccus, the faithful priest of eternal bliss in Jesus...
Each chose a name.
Charlemagne was David, referencing biblical right.
For example, Alcuin was Horace, Theodulf was Pindar...
Alcuin, what do you say about the position of temporal
and spiritual powers?
It should rather be imagined as
a reconstruction
of the entourages of Roman emperors.
A very knowledgeable circle
in which culture is displayed for the sake of it.
Charlemagne's court was the origin
of a big political project.
In the late 8th century,
the West was broken into a mosaic of peoples
descended from barbarian invasions.
Charlemagne dreamed of uniting these diverse groups
like in the time of the Roman Empire.
The idea of an empire, as understood in Carolingian times,
is the idea of the 4th century empire,
a Christian empire.
Model emperors were Constantine and Theodosius,
the Christian emperors.
There was a successor to the Roman emperors,
but he was in the East, in Byzantium,
very far from the Frankish kingdom.
When Charlemagne and his entourage
thought of a western empire,
they wanted to break from Byzantium,
to try to reconstruct a world that had never existed
But which could be called "western Christianity".
Charlemagne's goal was to establish
a Christian society
as widely as he could.
The thought he'd been chosen by God
not only him, but the Frankish people,
to create the city of God of Earth.
Christianisation was
central to Charlemagne's campaign.
His Christianisation
wasn't simply preaching,
sending missionaries.
He did not use good apostles.
Charlemagne
implemented the project, the idea, with fire
and steel.
The Palatine Chapel in Aachen
dates from the end of his reign.
It is like Charlemagne's political self-portrait,
Frankish king and Christian king.
Around the year 800,
was the biggest dome north of the Alps.
To outdo the Byzantine emperor, his rival,
Charles brought antique marble
and porphyry columns
from Rome and Ravenna in Italy by ox-cart.
Originally, this mosaic vault
showed a majestic Christ
at the Last Judgment.
It was replaced in the 19th century by this decoration
in Neo-Byzantine style.
I am going to show you
the place the sovereign went each day
for mass.
Sitting on this throne on the 1st floor,
Charlemagne perfectly took the role
of intermediary between God and men
he believed was his.
From up there,
he had an ideal observation point
for overseeing the liturgy.
King of the Franks, emperor,
He was God's only lieutenant on Earth.
At his birth around 742,
Charles' destiny was far from being mapped out.
The imperial crown was barely a dream.
In a Frankish monarchy,
where legitimacy has a fragile basis,
he had to impose himself from the very start.
At the end of his childhood,
young Charles received his "spatha", a Frankish warrior's sword
during a solemn ceremony.
This was
a fundamental step on the path to royal power.
May my enemies fear this sword!
It's possible
Charles proved himself promising from a young age.
It was a society where you did important things young,
because life was short.
The exact circumstances
of Charlemagne's birth are uncertain.
The year was 742 or 748.
As for the place,
it might have been Quierzy, a village in the Oise valley.
In the 8th century,
there was a Carolingian palace here.
Charlemagne was perhaps
born there during a court visit.
Legend has it that Charlemagne was born here on Easter Monday.
It's nice to think he chose to be born at Easter
and to have
the career he then had.
According to the estate's owner, the Carolingian villa was
where this little manor is.
We think the building was big,
surrounded by gardens, vegetable patches,
to provide food for royal visits.
These villas were rich farmers' estates,
princely stud farms.
They were big one-storey houses,
thatched rooves, shingle rooves.
Sometimes stone foundations.
They were very rustic.
Charles' parents were Pepin the Short and
Bertrada of Laon, "Bertha Broadfoot".
He grew up at court
and followed his father on outings.
At court, you'd learn to hunt,
to fight, to receive ambassadors,
to play the part,
to say the right things at the right time.
It was a more political education than at a monastery.
Charles had to be well prepared
since the dynasty was fragile.
His father had just taken royal power.
Charlemagne was a son of amateurs.
When he was born, his father wasn't king.
All his life, Charlemagne
had a major problem:
his family was not a royal family.
Young Charles belonged to an Austrasian line,
the Pippinides, going back to the 7th century.
These aristocrats were mayors of the palace,
the equivalent of prime ministers.
The most famous of them was Charlemagne's grandfather,
Charles Martel.
The mayor of the palace managed the king's house.
He controlled all resources.
He could command the army in place of the king,
he could dispense justice in place of the king.
He could stand in for
the king.
Charles Martel got his name from the arm he used, a type of
hammer with which he crushed his enemies.
In the 730s,
his grandfather faced a new kind of threat:
Arab troops from Spain.
They were Muslim, and they made
forays far within the Frankish kingdom.
Charles Martel feared
dechristianisation of the south
of the Frankish kingdom.
He said, "If we let them settle,
"the Frankish kingdom won't be Christian."
He really feared that.
In Poitiers, in 732,
there was a legendary battle
which put Charles Martel down in history.
It is uncertain whether Charles Martel
stopped an invasion.
It's clear that the Arab army at Poitiers
wasn't there to conquer.
It wasn't big enough for that.
It was looking for spoils.
We don't know if it was a real battle or a skirmish.
What is sure
is that Charles Martel made the most of the event
by informing nearby powers, notably the papacy,
of a great victory over the Arabs.
The victory at Poitiers legitimised
the quest for the throne.
Charles Martel never reached the throne.
His son Pepin, a mayor of the palace,
dethroned Childeric III, the last Merovingian,
in 751,
using an unusual strategy.
To give
the deposition a somewhat legitimate air,
Pepin the Short called upon the pope.
He sent an ambassador to pope Zachary
to ask
to be called king.
He wouldn't have sent to Rome if he didn't know the answer.
Best that the kingdom belong to he who holds the power,
than he who no longer has any authority.
Pepin didn't have to speak twice.
The next year, 751,
he was crowned king of the Franks
and side-lined the last Merovingian.
This started
a long-lasting alliance
between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty.
In the mid-8th century, Rome, hemmed in by the Lombard kingdom,
wanted to assert its statehood.
In exchange for spiritual legitimacy,
the pope asked the king of the Franks
to be his military arm.
The papacy could only regain
its position with the help of a political and military power.
The popes did not get this from the Lombards.
They looked to Byzantium, but it was too far.
So they took the closest, worthiest and strongest.
This man was the king of the Franks.
In 754, the alliance became stronger.
The pope crossed the Alps to flee the Lombards,
and joined Pepin's court.
It was the first trip by a pope out of Italy and let Charles
play a political role for the first time.
It was an important event.
Pope Stephen II arrived in Ponthion
after being greeted in Champagne by little Charles,
later Charlemagne,
who had been sent ahead.
In the name of my father, King Pepin,
you are welcome to the Kingdom of the Franks.
Going to welcome the pope, whom he'd be told
was perhaps
the most holy person in the Christian world,
is undoubtedly
one of the things
that marked him most deeply as a child.
The pope's visit
included a major event for the Frankish monarchy:
anointing of Pepin the Short.
It took place
at Saint-Dennis abbey.
It was in some ways the centre of power.
Parcels of land all over Europe
belonged to Saint Dennis abbeys.
It had very important
temporal and symbolic power.
Saint Dennis was the patron saint
of the Merovingian dynasty
and became more important
during the Carolingian period.
All Frankish aristocracy was there,
the anointment used a new ceremony
inspired by Visigoth rituals and the ordination of bishops.
Holy Oil was put on certain
parts of the bodies of Pepin the Short,
on Charlemagne, his 12-year-old son,
and on Carloman, his 3-year-old son.
It was a way to say
that these kings are like Old Testament kings.
They are in a way God's chosen ones on Earth.
It was the 1st
anointing of a Frankish king.
So it was a big event.
It wasn't Pepin the person who became holy,
but all the dynasty.
The pope's support, the 1st anointment,
so now,
the Carolingian claim could not be questioned.
At his death in 768,
Pepin left a privileged alliance with the pope
and half a kingdom to each of his sons:
the arc from the south-west to the north to Charlemagne,
and the inner zone to Carloman.
It's said that Pepin had planned
the brothers' capitals to be Noyon and Soissons,
towns which are close together,
so that they could
collaborate.
There was no project to collaborate,
even during the 1st year.
There had always been a rivalry
between the two brothers.
One person prevented fighting,
their mother, Bertrada.
Bertha seems to have wanted
to practice a sort of regency
when Pepin the Short died in 768.
She did everything to keep the peace between her children.
Bertrada was probably
the reason that war did not break out.
While you are with me, mother, I need not fear my brother.
I will always support you, my dear son.
Charlemagne loved his mother dearly.
There was only one disagreement between Charlemagne
and his mother,
when she wanted him
to marry the Lombard king's daughter.
Bertrada wanted peace with Italy.
She got Charlemagne to marry one of King Didier's
daughters.
Please let me introduce my daughter, Desiderata.
At first, Charlemagne obeyed his mother
and abandoned his first love Himiltrude.
His Lombard marriage was short.
Pushed by Frankish aristocrats,
the king changed tactics.
She was soon abandoned
because Charlemagne had decided to fight the Lombards.
The alliance with the Lombards led to failure
and Charlemagne's wish to take charge
and distance from his mother.
He broke relations with Bertrada.
I, Charles, king of all the Franks,
will now make all important decisions alone.
Charles removed his mother from court,
and there was nothing to prevent conflict with his brother.
Tensions climaxed during a revolt in Aquitaine,
in Charles' kingdom.
Charlemagne raised an army
to fight the Aquitaines and subdue them,
and he expected
his brothers' help
which never came.
It was a serious political shot.
It must be said, it seemed like treason.
The brotherly war was only prevented by an unexpected event:
Carloman's death.
Aged only 20,
he left a widow, two sons
and many questions.
Carloman
had bled a lot from his nose.
The origin of this could have been a violent poison
administered by someone in his entourage,
perhaps on Charlemagne's orders,
without this ever being proved in writing.
Whatever it was, he died
at a good time, enabling Charlemagne to immediately
invade his territories,
to be hailed as king in his brother's capital
and to completely ignore the rights his nephews, Carloman's sons,
had to his territory.
In 771, aged 29, Charlemagne was the only person
leading the reunified Frankish kingdom.
I am now in Reims,
the coronation town,
in the former archbishops' palace adjoining the cathedral,
the Palace of Tau.
The building was here
in Charlemagne's time, and finished under Louis XIV.
We're entering the coronation of the Virgin room.
Emperor Charlemagne is probably
amongst these gigantic kings.
The Palace of Tau also has a treasure:
several objects given by kings of France
when they were crowned.
They are usually displayed behind glass,
but today we have the rare privilege
of seeing them up close.
This sumptuous reliquary of the Resurrection
was given by Henry II in 1547.
You can see Jesus leaving his tomb
surrounded by sleeping Roman soldiers.
Here is Saint Ursula's ship,
given by King Henry III to the Archbishop of Reims.
Here is an extraordinary unique object.
It supposedly belonged to Charlemagne.
It is his talisman, a piece of jewellery
with gold, pearls,
emeralds and sapphires, that he wore around his neck.
This masterpiece of Carolingian goldsmithery
has a reliquary inset
the sovereign always kept with him.
According to legend, it holds a piece
of the True Cross.
In 1166,
the emperor of Germany found it on Charlemagne's corpse.
It was a gift from Caliph Haroun al-Rachid of Bagdad,
with whom Charlemagne had a friendly relationship,
despite the distance.
We will now discover another side to Charlemagne,
the war leader.
During most of his reign,
he was constantly making war to consolidate, enlarge
and unify his territory.
For the Franks,
the king should hold his sword, even if he didn't fight,
but he had to be on the battlefield.
He could not have been king
if he'd stayed in his palace.
If he wasn't there,
his legitimacy would be damaged,
perhaps even wiped out.
Contrary to what you might think, Charlemagne
was not really a conqueror.
I'd say he didn't deliberately
try to seize
territories just to enlarge
the Frankish kingdom.
His aim was to consolidate
his kingdom or his empire.
In his quest for unity,
Charlemagne first had to eliminate his main rival,
the Lombard king Didier,
who dreamed of commanding the pope.
Charles crossed the Alps and invaded Lombardy.
The Carolingian army was organised.
It was quite big and had a powerful
heavy cavalry unit.
The Carolingians rapidly occupied
all northern Italy,
because no one could fight
the Carolingian cavalry.
The Franks made King Didier take refuge in his capital,
Pavia.
The cavalry battle gave way to a drawn-out siege.
This gave the king a chance
to go on his 1st pilgrimage to Rome, the heart
of the Christian world.
The ancient city of Roman emperors
amazed him.
The city was
partly abandoned,
with monuments that were partly maintained.
The material power it had lost, it conserved
in spiritual influence.
The city of the papacy remained
the city of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
All the great churches and Roman basilicas
were still there.
He would have climbed to St Peter's
kissing every step.
So he practically climbed on his knees.
His meeting with Adrian I
was an extraordinary moment for Charlemagne,
who met the pope,
the reputed heir to all imperial history.
Adrian I, like any pope
at the time,
came from very high aristocratic nobility.
There was an air of spiritual and intellectual authority
to this young man.
After paying his respects to the pope,
Charles performed his devotion
to Saint Peter of Rome.
Saint Peter's tomb has a magical power
that gives off energy
unknown elsewhere.
Adrian I intended to use Charles
to be freed of the Lombards,
and the king of the Franks realised for the 1st time
what the title of emperor meant.
What he would have noticed
during his pilgrimage to Rome
is Rome as the source and head of Christianity.
That would have been
very striking.
It's obvious
that seeing Rome gave Charlemagne
the imperial idea
that took hold in his mind
in the 790s.
Things were ending in Lombardy.
A few weeks later, Pavia fell into Frankish hands.
He captured the Lombard King,
and put him away in a monastery.
He also seized his nephews, who had taken refuge there.
They soon disappear from the records.
It seems
that they were put to death by Charlemagne.
Charlemagne,
obviously, could be a little worried about would become
of his nephews
since they could claim half the kingdom, by Frankish law,
but there is no reason
to think he got rid of them using violence,
although all trace of them does disappear.
One western monarchy with a claim to
some of the Frankish kingdom remained: the Lombards,
an old, eminent people.
By becoming king of the Lombards,
taking the crown by force,
in 774, he became the Byzantine emperor's only rival.
Another major undertaking,
was Spain, then under Arab domination.
In 777, the emir of Zaragoza, in conflict with his sovereign,
went to Charlemagne to ask for his support
and give him the keys to his city.
He seems to have made
this trip
to consolidate the borders
of his kingdom in the Pyrenees.
Charlemagne
had not planned a conquest of Spain,
but the possibility had been handed to him on a plate.
As usual,
even though he had no plan, he agreed.
Only, at Zaragoza,
the emir had been replaced
and the doors were closed.
Charlemagne had with him
great lords, aristocrats
who had taken part in the expedition
to take something home.
Since they couldn't take Zaragoza,
to not return empty-handed,
they went to Pamplona.
The Franks pillaged the city,
albeit Christian, and razed its walls.
Then they returned to Austrasia.
An unplanned event that is integral
to the legend of Charlemagne occurred.
Charlemagne's army was slow.
It was
accompanied by hundreds of ox-carts
carrying equipment.
So it fragmented along the roads.
Crossing back over the Pyrenees, at Roncevaux pass,
the army's rear-guard
was attacked,
not by Saracens,
but by Basques
who protected the region, and the Basques
annihilated the rear-guard.
A dozen aristocrats were killed in the skirmish,
including Roland, count of the Breton border,
immortalised 200 years later
in the well-known Song of Roland,
written during the 1st crusade.
The Song of Roland,
in the 10th and 11th centuries, made the attack
into an heroic combat
almost Homer-esque, opposing Franks and Muslims,
not Franks and Basques.
It was a completely different context,
involving opposition
between Muslims and Christians,
and so,
this episode could show
Charlemagne to be the first crusader,
in a certain way,
although religion had nothing to do with it.
The failure in Spain had an unexpected result:
the Christian Charlemagne became close to
the Caliph of Bagdad,
a rival of the Muslims of Spain.
Caliphe Haroun al-Rachid sent precious objects
to Charlemagne, to seal their good
relationship.
He sent an armillary sphere.
Haroun al-Rachid sent a truly splendid
hydraulic clock, with knights
which came out to mark the hour.
He also sent an elephant.
It was called
Abul-Abbas.
Charlemagne never thought of changing its name.
He received a gift from the caliph of Bagdad,
so he was very proud of it.
There is a striking imbalance between Charlemagne's gifts
and Haroun al-Rachid's.
Against the elephant and the hydraulic clock,
Charlemagne sent horses, dogs,
some chainmail coats,
but nothing elaborate.
Charlemagne's politics of territorial unification
included regaining
areas formerly under Frankish control,
particularly Saxony, a land of swamps and forests,
the last pagan stronghold
in western Europe.
A large part of the Saxon population worshipped
natural elements,
meaning trees, rocks, the sky.
In the heart of Saxony, the Saxons venerated
what they called Irminsul.
This was a gigantic tree
which was supposedly
the base of the sky on Earth.
The tree was important to Germanic
beliefs.
It was a divinity.
The biggest tree in the forest.
For Charlemagne,
they were Christ's enemies,
who had no right to live.
When they didn't convert, he was worse than anything.
The first thing Charlemagne did
was to cut down the Irminsul,
to show the Saxons
the emptiness of their faith
compared with Christianity.
With the Irminsul down,
Christianisation could begin.
The only effective tool was the Church,
because it was in every parish.
Charlemagne ordered
a massive unification of the population by forced baptism.
Charlemagne imposed baptism
on pain of death,
much to the concern of the Church,
who thought forced baptism an aberration.
This policy created fierce resistance
among the Saxons,
personified in a charismatic chief, Widukind.
Widukind's strategy
was to let Charlemagne penetrate into Saxony
during warm days.
Eventually,
they submitted, but only as a ruse,
and when winter came,
they killed
the few remaining Franks.
Meaning that the next spring,
Charlemagne had to do it all again.
Faced with these tactics on difficult ground,
Charlemagne adapted by taking a hard line.
Charlemagne
divided his army into squads,
and small mobile companies which went everywhere,
into every home.
When they entered a home
and thought the man of the house would revolt,
they simply set fire to the house.
By revolting, they had
broken their vow of loyalty to Charlemagne,
and, much more seriously,
broke their baptismal vows,
so they broke their word to God.
From then on, anything goes.
Charlemagne used many measures, from deportation,
to pillage and slavery.
At Verden, in 782,
the war seemed to culminate in horror.
He collected
about 4,500 hostages,
boys and men
taken from villages in southern Saxony,
and throughout the day, he had them all decapitated
one by one. 4,500 people decapitated
because of the Saxon revolt.
It's said that
that the water of the river on whose banks the killing
was carried out turned completely red
with blood.
To subdue Saxony,
Charlemagne set up an exceptional legal code:
the Saxon ordinances.
"Anyone who kills a man for sacrifice to pagan idols
"will be condemned to death..."
The slightest breech of Charlemagne's orders or the Christian faith
was punished with death.
For example, if you ate meat during Lent,
you'd be executed.
Religious crime became political crime and vice versa,
justifying
even fiercer repression.
Any attempt to recreate a nation
was stopped with violence, to the point that
Charlemagne's entourage, in particular Abbot Alcuin,
told him he was too heavy-handed.
It took 3 years
for Widukind to decide, in 785,
to give up the fight.
He thought
that if it kept on going for too long,
the last resistance would be the last Saxons,
and the Saxon people would be done for.
Widukind went to meet Charlemagne,
he dismounted,
bent his knee,
and Charlemagne kissed him.
It ended like that. It's symbolic.
The period lent great importance to symbols.
Widukind agreed to embrace the Christian faith,
and his godfather was none other
than his victor, Charlemagne.
Charlemagne's faith in him
forced Widukind to keep his promise, in a way.
Once again, things were slowly moving
towards the start of feudalism.
10 years later, there was a 2nd Saxon ordinance,
in which things punished by death,
breaking Lent, for example,
or refusing to go to Mass,
now led to fines.
This undoubtedly shows
that the Saxons were progressively
adopting the rules of Christianity
that they had been forced to accept.
By defeating Saxony after 30 years of war,
Charlemagne had managed to do
something the Romans had not.
This undivided victory made him
the main defender of Christianity.
This tribune in Aachen's current cathedral
called the "ambon", was used to announce the Good News,
to read holy texts.
It dates from the 11th century
and is decorated to glorify the 4 evangelists.
Set into the gilt copper
are several objects made of hard stone,
including antique cameos, crystal glasses,
and even chess pieces.
The gothic choir where I am now dates from the early 15th century,
but Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen,
had Charlemagne's body put in this silver gilt reliquary
2 centuries earlier.
It is decorated with effigies of his descendants.
Holy Roman emperors
and Charlemagne sit at one end,
surrounded by the pope and the archbishop of Reims.
Opposite is another silver gilt shrine,
richly decorated with precious stones,
holding relics gathered by Charlemagne.
Tradition has it that they are
Mary's cloak, Jesus' swaddling clothes,
John the Baptist's
beheading cloth, and perizoma, the loincloth
Christ wore on the Cross.
Every 7 years, there is a solemn ceremony
showing these symbols of Christ's life to the faithful.
Charlemagne's reign tied in with a real explosion in art,
to the point that
a "Carolingian Renaissance" can be talked of.
Moving on from territorial conquest,
this was a chance for Charlemagne
to take his unification of Europe further.
There is a well-known song learnt by a whole generation:
"Who was the fool Who invented school?"
It was that Blessed Charlemagne
Blessed Charlemagne
He didn't invent school,
but the Romans did.
However - and this is the important part -
Charlemagne was the first
for a long time to take steps
for education.
In a well-known law
called Admonitio generalis,
Charlemagne said,
"Let there be schools in every monastery and every diocese."
Schools for boys with the calling
to become priests or monks,
those who pray for common people
and those who lead common people's religious life.
Gradually,
he asked for schools in the big abbeys
to be open
to some noble children.
For Charlemagne,
developing school was part of his overarching project
to lead the people of his empire to salvation.
It involved
giving Christians access to knowledge
and, obviously, access to the ultimate text,
the Bible.
All of the "Carolingian Renaissance"
concerns knowledge about the Bible
and about God.
To better understand God, rhetoric,
arithmetic, music and especially Latin and its grammar are taught.
The basic book for learning, reading,
writing, is the Biblical book of 150 psalms,
150 prayers in poetic form.
You'd start by learning the book of psalms by heart,
by learning it by heart,
singing it, then reading it, then writing it.
The teacher used a stick.
One wrong answer,
and you'd be hit on your head or fingers.
By training clerks, Charlemagne
was trying to renew the liturgy,
the rituals of religious celebrations.
Liturgy was at the heart of
his cultural unification policy.
In Gaul, there were various traditions.
Mass in Aquitaine was not the same
as that said in the north.
There were variants.
These variants were a sign of dispersion.
It was Babylon.
If you pray
to God in different ways, which is right?
If you celebrate Mass following the rules
of quality
and devotion,
then God will give you His blessing,
and the Franks will triumph.
Charlemagne collected manuscripts that seemed important to him,
in particular about the words of Mass,
he even asked the pope about it.
Charlemagne tried to unify the liturgy
surrounding Gregorian chant,
in theory dating back to pope Gregory I.
In reality,
it was quite new and knowledgeable.
It could no longer
be sung by ordinary people.
The first essays on musicology emerged,
with musical notation
starting to look like ours.
In practice, the unification of liturgy led to
an extraordinary renewal of sacred arts,
notably goldsmithery.
Goudji,
a modern goldsmith of Georgian origin, takes inspiration from
8th century craftsmen.
I had the privilege of being asked
to create these 3 objects: the baptismal basin,
the paschal candlestick and an ewer.
They are used for the baptism ceremony.
For example, Jean-Paul II baptised several adults
in this baptismal basin.
These 3 objects are made from copper repoussé,
so tin-plate copper.
See the applied stones.
Each stone is symbolic.
Obviously, red is the colour of sacrifice.
For example, this fish
is a fossil of a real fish.
It's the symbol of the first Christians.
A master of stone and metal,
Goudji has a very secret workshop in Montmartre,
where he uses techniques from the past.
Here, he does work for important sanctuaries,
such as Chartres Cathedral.
Among the 25 objects made for it
is a Gospel Book
like those of Charlemagne's time.
After the fall of the Roman Empire,
there was a void, not much happened,
then, there was an explosion.
Each object had a precise use.
They're either reliquaries,
or ostensoirs, or ciboriums,
the chalice, pyx, aquamaniles...
So everything was covered
by the formidable development of Christianity at the time.
To lead the cultural unification of Europe,
Charlemagne had a team of scholars
from all corners of the Christian west, such as
the Visigoth poet Theodulf
and the English theologist Alcuin.
There, look.
It's the great Alcuin of York. He will be your new master.
Alcuin was an author,
a theologist.
He wouldn't be very humorous, but he was
a fount of science, and, Eginhard said,
the most knowledgeable of his time.
Alcuin became his minister of culture,
to compare it to today,
his most heeded adviser
and the major thinker of the time.
Charlemagne made his advisers bishops,
and abbots,
and appointed them to abbeys in his kingdom.
Charlemagne wanted to make monasteries
a sort of spiritual spinal cord
thanks to which
Christianity could move around his kingdom.
A monk's main mission was to pray for the emperor's salvation
his government's, and success for his armies.
In newly conquered regions,
one of the first things they did
was to create abbeys.
That was where
they carried out most intellectual work involving
writing, copying manuscripts,
and spreading antique culture.
The Benedictine abbey
of Saint Gall, in Switzerland,
was one of the biggest of Carolingian times.
It was rebuilt in the baroque period
and has a church dedicated to Saint Gall.
It also has one of the oldest libraries in the world.
This is
the entrance to the library.
There is an interesting inscription
in Greek which says it is
"a sanctuary of the soul".
This is the idea that you can take a book from the shelves
like you'd get medicine from a pharmacy.
With its stucco and woodwork setting,
the library is a late baroque masterpiece
which holds very rare treasures.
The theme for the paintings here is orthodoxy, faith.
There are 4 representations of the ecumenical council
on the ceiling.
In monasteries, the most important place after the church
was the scriptorium, where manuscripts were copied.
Charlemagne apparently wanted to
collect intellectual and religious material
for his political project.
That means these manuscripts,
since they support a political project,
must be faultless, perfect,
hence his investment in these monasteries
to make high-quality
copies of the manuscripts.
In 560-570, a very readable
and beautiful script called the "Caroline miniscule"
was developed.
Since it was easier to read and write,
it enabled works to be diffused more widely,
it spread everywhere.
Saint Gall has still today
some of the most beautiful examples
of this meticulous work on parchment.
This is one of Saint Gall's
most important books from France.
It is Alcuin's Bible in one volume.
This Bible was circulated throughout Europe.
Charlemagne's goal was to have a uniform text of the Bible
in his kingdom.
Each monastery with a text like this
also had a model for writing.
"In principio creavit Dominus caelum et terra":
"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth."
It took 300 to 400 sheep to make a Bible,
so independently of the work writing
and painting, that already required considerable capital.
At that time, books were luxury items.
When you add the illuminations,
it becomes a collector's item, a very great luxury.
Illuminated manuscripts, in Carolingian times, were
the equivalent of an art collection
in the contemporary world.
Only a few great princes, some very grand monasteries
could afford illuminated manuscripts.
One of the most beautiful of them is in Paris,
at the National Library.
It was the first illustrated manuscript
in Charlemagne's collection,
the Godescalc Gospels.
Apart from liturgical purpose, copying
manuscripts had an unexpected result
from which we still benefit today.
Latin was used by the ancient,
pagan creators of the Roman empire,
so the literate, clerks
discovered
pagan texts from Antiquity.
Through these Carolingian manuscripts,
texts from Antiquity,
from Cicero, Livy, Sallust, etc.,
have been handed down to us.
It is thought that there were 700 antique Latin works.
We know 150 of them.
Our classical culture is 150 texts.
We know these
150 texts from Carolingian manuscripts.
Those the Carolingians didn't select
are not in our classical culture.
We will now see one of the most
beautiful ensembles of holy art in the west,
the treasure of Aachen Cathedral.
Behind this strong room's thick, reinforced doors lie
some precious souvenirs of Charlemagne. Follow me.
Here is the antique sarcophagus which was
his first tomb.
He had it brought from Rome in his lifetime.
It shows the kidnapping of Proserpina by Pluto, god of the underworld.
This arm reliquary indicates
by its shape
the part of Charlemagne's body within.
It was given to the cathedral in 1480
by King Louis XI of France,
whose shield can be seen.
This reliquary holds the top of Charlemagne's skull.
It has the form of an idealised emperor's bust.
It was a gift from the German
emperor Charles IV in 1349 at his coronation.
As you can see,
the French and German royal dynasties
both claim Charlemagne.
This fascination originates
with an event which would forever mark
European history:
Charlemagne's imperial coronation
on December 25, 800.
It must be said the context was ideal.
Following a coup d'état, there was no emperor in Byzantium.
In the last days of 799,
there was an unexpected event in Rome
that led to this outcome for Charlemagne.
In 799,
recently elected pope Leo III had difficulties
with the Roman aristocracy.
During a procession,
the pope was ambushed. It was quite violent,
it seems.
He was severely beaten, and they tried to put out his eyes.
Leo III was a bureaucrat and found it hard
to make himself a great pontiff.
He was a nobody from who knows where.
What is more,
he was too interested in the other sex.
Why didn't they like him? Perhaps
his policies
were too authoritarian for Rome's aristocratic families.
In any event, he had to flee.
To save his skin,
the pope took refuge with Charles, in Paderborn, Saxony,
and asked for help to take back his throne.
Your Highness,
God has chosen you
as the protector of the Church.
Please rise, Holy Father.
Wary of his bad reputation,
Charlemagne was hesitant to act,
but his advisers saw a chance not to be missed.
As his power
and success grew, Charlemagne,
and more so his entourage, made it clear
that the West was Christian under him.
Alcuin had probably been preparing
the revival of the imperial title in western Europe for a while.
Now there was
a really exceptional situation.
If it's God's will, dear master Alcuin, with your help,
I will willingly take the path
to the highest honour of temporal power.
Charlemagne went to Rome
to attempt to reinstate Leo III.
And while he was
there, to try to conquer the empire.
To reinstate Leo III,
he had to be cleared of suspicion.
Charlemagne decided to use an exceptional procedure,
the ordeal, God's judgement.
It could, for example, involve walking over hot coals.
If you do it unscathed, it's God's will.
Your hand is burnt, and your innocence of guilt depends
on the state of your hand.
Your head is held under water, if you survive,
it's by God's will.
With consideration for the pope's dignity,
and to avoid future insult,
Charlemagne chose a less painful method.
He asked Leo III
to say a purgatory oath
in which he swore his innocence.
With this oath, I, Leo,
pope of the Holy Roman Church...
Pope Leo III was asked to take
a purgatory oath denying accusations on Saint Peter's confessio,
and on relics and the Gospels,
the world's most holy objects.
I explain myself before God
and proclaim that I did not
carry out these criminal acts
nor allow anyone else to carry them out.
Things returned to normal.
He was "reconciled",
to use Christian terms.
Leo III was reinstated in his duties,
but was fragile.
The big winner was Charlemagne.
For Charles, it was time for the supreme consecration.
Using his advantage over the pope,
he planned to be crowned emperor 2 days later,
at Christmas.
The ritual used
for the imperial coronation seems improvised.
He arrived at St Peter's in Rome
in his usual ceremonial gown.
There are usually 3 stages
to crowning an emperor.
The emperor is firstly acclaimed.
Proclaimed emperor by the people.
Then, the pope crowns the emperor,
but he crowns someone
who is already emperor.
Finally, the pope bows down in front of the emperor.
It's quite formal.
Acclamations, coronation, prostration.
That's how it usually went.
At the start of the ceremony,
when Charlemagne is praying before St Peter's tomb,
things do not really go as planned.
The pope has
taken a crown from the treasure.
Everyone gave crowns, so he had a crown to give.
It was precious.
The pope came up behind the praying Charlemagne...
and placed the crown
on Charlemagne's head, and then, everyone acclaimed him.
Charlemagne was emperor,
but not quite as he would have liked.
Charlemagne was fooled because it was the pope
who made him emperor.
The pope wanted to show
that Charlemagne had material and military strength,
but he had spiritual strength.
He was angry. His biographer said if he'd
known what would happen,
he wouldn't have gone in.
The pope's actions had considerable impact.
From then on,
emperors were crowned differently.
From then on, for the pope to give the imperial crown,
emperors had to come to Rome or not involve the pope
to claim the imperial title.
However the crowning did not change much
in the 58-year-old emperor's life.
Charlemagne put hope in the imperial title,
then he realised his real power was something else.
The imperial title was
a trinket to add to the traditional,
territorial king's long list of titles.
So perhaps Charlemagne
was becoming bitter,
with a need to settle, too.
He was reaching a certain age.
Charlemagne lent a growing importance
to his reforms
and increased capitularies and laws
giving free reign to his practical mind.
He made laws for
everything: the economy, politics, justice,
even the direction the wind blows, since he changed their names
in an attempt to normalise things.
Charlemagne created a single European currency:
the denarius.
The medals offices of the National Library
has a rare example,
which is a tool for communication.
This denarius was forged by Charlemagne when he was emperor.
It has a bust with laurel wreath,
with a little realistic touch
showing his own identity, his moustache.
It's one of few realistic representations of Charlemagne.
On the other side is a little temple
and the legend "Christiana religio".
It's the weight of Church support
and being a Christian king.
For people then,
this type of coin would be one of the main sources
of information about the empire's revival
and one of the main ways
Charlemagne had to tell this powerful news.
The empire was gigantic, for the time,
so it organised
a uniform administrative system.
He used his sons to create sub-kingdoms,
with regional command entrusted to each of them.
A major innovation of Carolingian times
was the organisation of a network
of regional counts
and controllers for the counts
called missi dominici, "the master's envoys".
They were investigators, who travelled
the land in the sovereign's name, to see
the bishop was honest,
the count hadn't cheated in a lawsuit, etc.
One of the most notable
missi domoinici was the poet Theodulf,
bishop of Orleans, and abbot
of Fleury.
In the Loiret, Germigny-des-Prés oratory
still bears witness today of his influence
over Charlemagne.
This church, reputed to be
the oldest in France,
is an oratory, a private church.
It is not a parish church.
It belonged to Theodulf's villa,
which was his holiday residence.
Theodulf played a major role in the iconoclasm crisis.
This opposed Charlemagne and the Byzantines
over the veneration of images.
This theological quarrel inspired the decoration of the country church.
It's unique in Europe, and the last
remaining example of Carolingian mosaics.
Theodulf's idea
was to show God
in the church,
but without using the features of men.
So he used an object: the Ark of the Covenant.
In the Old Testament, this is a chest
where the Hebrews kept their most precious object,
the Tablets of the Law.
So Theodulf thought,
"By showing something that holds God's word,
"I'd show God is there without showing Him."
As emperor,
Charlemagne was passionate about religious questions
so much so he changed the Creed,
the Christian profession of faith.
This theological change had unmeasurable consequences,
further separating
eastern and western Christianity.
By intervening
and saying what people should believe,
and what God is,
he was really being God's lieutenant on Earth.
He was the head of the Church.
The emperor had both
ecclesiastical authority,
and the power of king,
following antique tradition of 4th century emperors
Constantine and Theodosius.
Charlemagne was always
in good health, but had a sad end.
Deaths were mounting around him.
There you are, my son!
Charles, the oldest, the most brilliant
of his sons, died early, soon followed by Pepin of Italy.
He only had one son left, Louis the Pious,
who would be his successor.
He became more sedentary.
He was almost always
in Aachen.
We know he had
extremely painful gout,
so he was a bit weakened.
But it was his well-consolidated empire
that really started to show signs of weakness.
Charlemagne saw the 1st Norman Viking ships
invade Normandy, what would later become Normandy.
From a cliff, Charlemagne saw Danish ships
not far off and shed
a few tears,
"What will happen after I die, when I'm dead,
"what will happen?"
I think he had foreseen
his empire end with him.
Without a doubt, yes, he saw the end.
Eginharf even says it was foreseen
in meteorological signs.
Comets, of course, eclipses...
They weren't very good signs.
In December 813,
he was hunting in the Ardennes
when he suddenly became cold.
He apparently had a pleurisy,
a pneumonia which had got bad and got to him
in the last days of 813.
His doctors prescribed specially prepared dishes,
but he decided to fast
completely
and he weakened.
He died on January 28, 814,
aged around 71 or 72.
For the Middle Ages, it was a good death.
Sudden death was frightening.
You needed time to repent your sins,
to go to Heaven,
and also to sort out your worldly affairs.
In his last moments, he saw his daughters
who were in Aachen.
He was always a clan man,
a tribal man,
and he surely died like that.
Aachen's town hall adjoins this market place,
dominated by Charlemagne's statue
with his crown, sword and orb.
It is a 14th century building, but it was constructed
on the very site of the aula,
the emperor's former residence.
From 936 to 1541,
30 emperors of the Holy Roman Empire
were crowned here
faithful to Charlemagne's memory.
I'm now entering
what is called the "coronation" room.
The new emperor would enter in ceremonial clothes
and attend a great banquet here.
In the mid-19th century, it was decorated
by the Aachen painter Alfred Rethel.
His frescos show
major moments of Charlemagne's life:
the fall of the Irminsul,
taking Pavia in Lombardy,
and the campaign against
Arab-dominated Spain.
Charlemagne was dead,
but his symbolic adventures had only just begun.
His coronation in 800, and the spread of his power
made him an unsurpassable model for European sovereigns,
so much so that he was considered a saint in the Middle Ages.
In Aachen,
January 28 is a special day.
The anniversary of Charlemagne's death is celebrated.
A solemn Mass is held in his honour,
in the church he built 1,200 years ago.
On this day more than any other,
the illustrious emperor's ghost haunts the cathedral.
Aachen is very proud of Charlemagne.
People here celebrate their spectacular past with this Mass.
It's like they live for 2 hours
like Charlemagne were still here.
The legend of Charlemagne who united Europe
has been told for over 1000 years.
The legend has progressively erased his shady side
making him one of the most consensual figures of history.
He does not conjure up fear,
although he terrorised
a lot of the European population.
That's a bit paradoxical.
He had physical energy,
mental soundness which made him matchless.
He was a war criminal,
being also a religious fanatic
behind forced conversions.
Charlemagne's legend begins
with an unusual event.
It happened in 1000,
in Aachen cathedral:
the opening of Charles's tomb by Holy Roman emperor Otto III.
This event gave rise to extraordinary tales.
It's said he found Charles buried,
sitting on a throne,
with the symbols of his power in his hands:
the sceptre, crown, etc.
What Otto did,
of this, we're sure,
he took from Charlemagne's tomb
not the symbols of his power,
but the relics Charlemagne was buried with.
We know he cut his nails,
since nail trimmings could be relics.
From the moment his tomb was opened,
Charlemagne became the symbolic founder
of imperial power in the West, without really becoming a saint.
Charlemagne was made a saint 150 years later,
through emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
His canonisation is controversial,
because it was done by an antipope.
Barberousse did not recognise pope Alexander III.
He recognised another pope, Paschal,
and it was that pope who agreed
to the canonisation of Charlemagne.
In this strange context, his canonisation is debatable.
Charlemagne's sainthood
has never been confirmed by the Holy See.
Nor denied.
Which means
that Charlemagne is in an intermediary state,
let's say a figure with a saintly reputation.
Frederick Barbarousse's aim was purely political.
He was descended from Charlemagne,
and having a saint
as an ancestor
was a way to improve himself,
especially faced with the papacy, of course.
Charlemagne had always legitimised himself
and was now claimed by the Germanic sovereigns,
and also by the kings of France.
Epic poems from the Middle Ages celebrate
this prestigious ancestor's skills.
In The Song of Roland, Charlemagne's character
is not scary. He's the good king who
dispenses justice fairly, taking good advice.
A venerable Charlemagne,
not a warrior, but a peacemaker,
now more acceptable to public opinion.
When the Capetian monarchy was low on legitimacy,
they called on Charlemagne to help.
The Capetian monarchy valued the holy.
They tended to try
to get closer to the Carolingian monarchy
to have a claim on Charlemagne's legacy.
Through this, they developed a series of symbols
linked to the Carolingians, to sovereign power.
Amongst these objects which were given to the king,
is a sword said to have been Charlemagne's,
named "Joyeuse" in The Song of Roland.
And also the sceptre and a statuette of the emperor.
These precious symbols of the monarchy
have since been in about 30 kings' hands.
However, none of them ever belonged to Charlemagne.
I think that the worth
of a link to Charlemagne is his solidity,
meaning he's a king no one doubts
was one of the greatest Christian kings of the West.
However, this idea was weakened during the Enlightenment.
At that time, the Frankish king
was seen as a bloody warrior.
He was a Frank, a barbarian, a savage
to many Enlightenment philosophers who didn't like him.
Voltaire, referring to Charlemagne, used the expression,
"the tyrant Charles, called 'Magne'", So to Voltaire,
Charlemagne was a terrible
missionary who used violence on the Saxons.
To Voltaire, he was appalling.
However, Charlemagne was not forgotten.
After the French Revolution,
another conqueror came into the foreground.
Although 1000 years apart,
Napoleon and Charlemagne share some features.
When Bonaparte took power
and tried to make an empire in France,
he needed references.
He couldn't look to the French monarchy.
The Old Regime had a bad reputation.
Since he wanted to start a dynasty, the Carolingian dynasty seemed
quite a...
It was a long time ago, so he didn't need to be precise.
It was glorious,
because Charlemagne conquered most of Europe,
so everything fit.
To soak up the figure,
Napoleon went on a pilgrimage to Aachen.
The story is,
Josephine sat on Charlemagne's throne,
which Napoleon hadn't dared to do
- it could bring bad luck -
and the pilgrimage legitimised
the ceremony of December 2 1804 in Paris.
A coronation ceremony
openly inspired by Charlemagne.
The Louvre still has the crown
used on that day.
A crown made for the occasion.
This is the famous crown,
said to be "Charlemagne's".
It never belonged to him,
but it is meant to represent
the crown used by Charlemagne.
It has a crown, in the form of fleur-de-lis,
enhanced with cameos all around it,
and it has arches, because it's an imperial crown.
At the top is an orb, the symbol of the Earth,
obviously topped by a cross.
The goldsmith Martin-Guillaume Biennais
made it from representations of Charlemagne.
It was inspired by engravings
showing the crown on a reliquary in Aachen,
or others said to have been Charlemagne's.
By arranging them together, he created this crown.
The ceremony took place in the pope's presence,
like in the year 800.
The new emperor had learnt a lesson from history.
Napoleon took care to crown himself.
The pope was there,
but did nothing during the ceremony.
So, Napoleon learnt from Charlemagne's misfortune.
Charlemagne was irritated that Leo III had crowned him,
seemingly showing Charlemagne's imperial power
came from the papacy.
Napoleon's ambition was to show that the emperor
was in charge
of the French, not the contrary.
He did it better than Charlemagne.
In the 19th century,
the romantics exalted the figure of Charlemagne
as a hero of epic poems.
At the start of the Republic,
another side of him
attracted the admiration of secular France:
his support for instruction.
He became
a precursor for Jules Ferry's school
who was not a Catholic saint,
in line with anti-clerical
sentiment.
He became a "secular" emperor figure, a protector
of school in the 3rd Republic.
The Carolingian emperor had found a place
in primary school books.
Here are some books from the early 3rd Republic.
They are little Lavisse books.
This one has an image of Charlemagne inspecting schools.
It is composed around a central figure,
Charlemagne the emperor, who dominates the others,
and is passing judgement right and left.
On one side
are rich children who aren't working well,
to his right, he's rewarding poor,
badly dressed children, working hard.
It's saying to the 3rd Republic,
"School uses meritocracy.
"Work hard,
"and be rewarded whatever your social status."
The 3rd Republic developed
what is now called "the national novel"
using monarchs,
some good, some bad.
In this gallery, it's clear Charlemagne was a good figure.
He became Charlemagne with the white beard,
a nice grandfather, a bit like God the Father,
with his beard, he doesn't scare anyone.
This likeable figure
was however used by one of the most
terrifying regimes ever: the Third Reich.
The mayor of Nuremberg gave the chancellor a copy of
Charlemagne's sword in front of 20,000 members of
the national-socialist party.
When
the Nazis were looking for historical references,
there was a debate,
Himmler was fascinated by figures like Widukind,
who were little-known but could easily be adapted,
and Hitler, who wanted more solid historical
links.
Charlemagne was a useful reference
to justify extending the Reich.
He was evidence:
Charlemagne's empire matched the Nazis' empire.
For Hitler,
Europe should find a base in a merger with France,
hence Charlemagne
became a symbol of a link between the two peoples.
A French unit of the Waffen-SS even bore his name.
The Germans made Charlemagne
a central figure
in French-German collaboration.
Fortunately,
later European construction enabled
Charlemagne's image to be wiped of these gruesome memories.
In 1950, Aachen created the annual Charlemagne prize
rewarding those involved
in European unification.
Looking at
European figures, few linked to the foundation of Europe
have a consensus.
The only one who appears consensual,
since he seems to be
a real European, is Charlemagne.
He's very far off in history,
which lets him evolve
into something a bit above the rest.
He is now considered a grandfather of Europe,
and has survived all adoptions
with exceptional longevity.
In 843, at Verdun,
Charlemagne's 3 grandsons divided the Carolingian empire,
ending their grandfather's dream.
Despite this, the memory of emperor Charlemagne
endures today.
Even if he is far from being
the father of democracy,
his incredible energy and charisma
still fascinate us.
As an upholder of Antiquity and founder of Christianity,
Charlemagne is inseparable
with the foundations of European culture.
Thank you for watching
and I will see you very soon
for a new Secrets of History.
Subtitles: Eclair Media