523. Charlemagne: Return of the Kings (Part 1)
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The Merovingian dynasty, from which the Franks were accustomed to choose their kings, is thought to have lasted down to King Chilperic III, who was deposed on the order of Stephen II, the Pope of Rome. His hair was cut short and he was shut up in a monastery. Though this dynasty may seem to have come to an end only with Chilperic III, it had really lost all power years before and it no longer possessed anything at all of importance beyond the empty title of king. The wealth and the power of the kingdom were held tight in the hands of certain leading officials of the court who were called the mayors of the palace and on them supreme authority devolved. All that was left to the king was that content with his royal title he should sit on the throne with his hair long and his beard flowing and act the part of a ruler. Whenever he needed to travel, he went in a cart which was drawn in rural manner by yoked oxen, with a cow herd to drive them.
In this fashion, he would go to the palace and to the General Assembly of his people, which was held each year to settle the affairs of the kingdom, and in this fashion he would return home again. That's the opening to the life of Charlemagne by Einhardt, the Frankish scholar and courtier. And he wrote that just after Charlemagne's death. And he's describing the greatest, the most famous of all Frankish kings, one of the titanic names in all European history. Lots of people, I think, Tom, will have heard the name of Charlemagne. But to be completely honest, I think a lot of people have heard the name and have no real sense of who he was. Was he French? Was he German? Obviously, he was neither.
Well, he's the father of both and yet was neither. Now, Einhardt, let's just talk about Einhardt for a second, because he writes this very extraordinary biography of Charlemagne, doesn't he? Yeah, pretty unique, really. Yeah. And he was very proud of the fact that he was so familiar personally with Charlemagne, wasn't he?
Yeah. He was also a very short man, Dominic. So like Benjamin Lay.
Oh, yes. We love a short man on The Rest Is History. We do. Yes.
Well, so the thing that's unusual about this is that it's a biography in a kind of Roman style. It echoes Suetonius, the biographer of the Caesars. And that's not a coincidence because Einhardt as a young boy had been sent by his parents to a monastery, not to become a monk, but kind of rather like being sent to a boarding school or something like that.
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