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cahnUnfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.
(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )
(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )
Re: Charlemagne and Irene
Date: 2023-09-10 09:10 pm (UTC)these days, I am also among the claimed ancestors of the European Union
Hee, it's like King Arthur, only with more historical attestation!
So here I was, one of the sons of Pippin.
Me: wait, was the musical Pippin actually about Charlemagne?? I never saw the whole thing, just know some songs...
Wikipedia: The protagonist, Pippin, and his father, Charlemagne, are characters derived from two historical figures of the early Middle Ages, though the plot is fictional and presents no historical accuracy regarding either.
Me: I remember the songs were pretty weird!
usually, I kept my daughters with me and allowed them love affairs instead of marrying them off
...wait, why? Wasn't it more useful to marry them off?
but that's when Dad-in-Law called an ecunemical council and installed iconoclasm, which is a really big issue we won't get into in this introduction.
Haha, fair! I do know a little about this courtesy of paying minimal attention when reading John Julius Norwich years and years ago (which obviously I don't remember any of the people, and at this point most of what I've retained is, "it was a great big deal and there were lots of ecumenical fights about it," which is enough to get by for this intro anyway :) )
Which left me with my nine years old kid as Regent. Not to mention that my late husband had five (!) younger half brothers.
Me: EEK.
I first got rid of my brothers-in-law by making them monks, which automatically disqualified them from the throne.
...nice!
So yes. I engineered another coup, deposed my son, had him blinded and declared myself sole Empress.
WHAT. Wow. There's not a TV series about this lady? Or is there?
The monks writing the chronicles were in something of a bind, given that they had just declared me the new Helena
LOLOLOLOL
Charlemagne: Time for another trip to Rome, thought I, with a grateful Pope Leo in my luggage train. I was of course STUNNED with surprise when he crowned me Emperor of the Romans once we had arrived in the Eternal City. But hey! No other Emperor of the Romans around now, was there? What with young Constantine VI gone.
HAHAHAHA. Shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
...but like wait, why wasn't Irene emperor of the Romans, if Constantine VI was?
This is when Byzantine historians claim that Charlemagne/Irene OTP and clearly we should marry, and would have but for intrigues interfering with our future happiness, while Frankish historians never ever mention it.
RIGHT. I now see the connection :)
Re: Charlemagne and Irene
Date: 2023-09-10 11:51 pm (UTC)I have been toying with that idea. Of course, going back and collecting the old ones is more work than I have time for right now, but...maybe we could collect the new ones as we go? (We're still fairly behind on
...but like wait, why wasn't Irene emperor of the Romans, if Constantine VI was?
Same reason as MT: because she was a WOMAN!
This is all (well, the Byzantine stuff in less detail than Selena's wonderful write-up) also covered in the History of the Germans prologue, episode 2 or 3.
Technically, there is NO WAY AnhaltSophie should have been empress, being not even a Romanov but just married to a descendant of a Romanov, and a lot of the support she got in the coup presupposed she was going to be regent for her son, but then Catherine was like, "Nah." And then she had to do everything she could to keep her son Paul from gaining any power or insight into government as he became an adult.
Catherine was definitely aided by the fact that there was ample 18th century precedent for female rulers in Russia, unlike MT or Irene.
Re: Charlemagne and Irene
Date: 2023-09-11 12:54 pm (UTC)In fairness to Irene, look at the precedents she could check among Roman Empresses with strong personalities and ruling instincts who'd put all into bringing their sons into power:
1) Debatable: Livia. Debatable because Suetonius' version and Tacitus' insinuation which Robert Graves used so entertainingly in I, Claudius, that all those deaths of the heirs Augustus had before reluctantly agreeing to Livia's son Tiberius were arranged by her might have been pure male slander. But she definitely lobbyed for Tiberius... and never had as much influence when he became Emperor as she did when Augustus was still alive. Tiberius went out of his way to avoid her, and when she died, he refused to make her a goddess though the Senate was willing and ready. (It was left to Livia's grandson Claudius to do that.)
2) Definitely: Agrippina. The original imperial stage mom, so to speak. Also a target of male horror and insinuation, but what's really striking when listening to an Agrippina admirer like Emma Southon is that Agrippina was better off with Uncle-Husband Claudius than with Son Nero, and not just because Nero would kill her; she had actual political power during her marriage with Claudius and could exert it openly. (Not just by founding Cologne, without which German history would have been missing a lot. Thanks, Agrippina.) Whereas after a short while into Nero's reign, she fell out with her son and from then on he tormented her and in the end killed her. I'm sure Irene was very much thinking of Agrippina when deciding what to do.
3) The Julias of the Severan Dynasty: Julia Domna (wife of Septimius Severus, mother of Caracalla): had to watch one of her sons kill the other right in front of her. Ended up starving herself to death; Julia Bassiana: killed together with son Elagabel; Julia Mamaea: killed with son Severus Alexander (note: while young Severus Alexander TRIED, the first two were fuck-ups as rulers, and young Severus Alexander in the end wasn't the genius necessary to deal with Rome in that situation, either)
=> get your son into power, watch your son fuck up, best case get killed with your son, worst case have your son kill you is probably the moral of the story as far as Irene was concerned. Also, there's always the chance that she did not intend to do more than blind her son (cruel, absolutely, but not unheard of in a world where male Emperors are cool with having their male illegitimate offspring castrated so there won't be a problem) and he really did die of festering wounds.
...or she had fully intended for him to die. We simply don't know.
Podcasts: The three Irene episodes on "History of Byzantium" are:
Episode 78 - A New Helena
Episode 79 - A Mother's Love
Episode 80 - The Isaurian Dynasty (Irene's fall and a retrospective on her dynasty which ends with her)
Plus Robin the podcaster also did two additional episodes on Charlemagne (and Pope Leo)
Episode 81: Charlemagne and Leo (part 1): covers the rise of the
Stewards of GondorCarolingians and Charlemagne's career up to the coronation as Emperor of the Romans in 800Episode 82: Charlemagne and Leo (part 2): how the Byzantines reacted, and how Charles and Leo spun that event, plus the rest of Charlemagne's career
Dirk from History of the Germans covers Charlemagne in the third part of the Prologue, titled "Charlemagne and all that".
Re: Charlemagne and Irene
Date: 2023-09-11 07:19 pm (UTC)Of course, in the days before antibiotics...you have to hope for the best with those festering wounds. (I am reminded of Fritz' friend/pet academic La Mettrie, who overate, got bled, and died of what we think was septic shock from unclean bleeding equipment.)
Re: Charlemagne and Irene
Date: 2023-09-15 03:40 am (UTC)(I am reminded of Fritz' friend/pet academic La Mettrie, who overate, got bled, and died of what we think was septic shock from unclean bleeding equipment.)
I think I forgot salon thought it was septic shock -- I do remember he died suddenly after claiming there was no harm in getting bled and doing so, from when I wrote the Voltaire fandom AU...
Re: Charlemagne and Irene
Date: 2023-09-15 03:47 am (UTC)We could be wrong!
Re: Charlemagne and Irene
Date: 2023-09-11 01:49 pm (UTC)...wait, why? Wasn't it more useful to marry them off?
You'd think, and contemporaries and historians alike were/are confused. Now, given that he survived all but one of his sons (which is why the surviving son, Louis the Pious/Ludwig der Fromme, inherited the entire realm and the imperial title from him, the problem of lack of primogeniture only kicked in with Louis' sons, four of whom made it into adulthood to quarrel as to who would get what), it might simply have been he didn't want to endanger said son by having sons-in-law as competition. Or he really was a helicopter Dad. This is what his contemporary Einhard had to say:
The plan that he adopted for his children's education was, first of all, to have both boys and girls instructed in the liberal arts, to which he also turned his own attention. As soon as their years admitted, in accordance with the custom of the Franks, the boys had to learn horsemanship, and to practise war and the chase, and the girls to familiarize themselves with cloth-making, and to handle distaff and spindle, that they might not grow indolent through idleness, and he fostered in them every virtuous sentiment. He only lost three of all his children before his death, two sons and one daughter, Charles, who was the eldest, Pippin, whom he had made King of Italy, and Hruodrud, his oldest daughter. whom he had betrothed to Constantine [VI, 780-802], Emperor of the Greeks. Pippin left one son, named Bernard, and five daughters, Adelaide, Atula, Guntrada, Berthaid and Theoderada. The King gave a striking proof of his fatherly affection at the time of Pippin's death [810]: he appointed the grandson to succeed Pippin, and had the granddaughters brought up with his own daughters. When his sons and his daughter died, he was not so calm as might have been expected from his remarkably strong mind, for his affections were no less strong, and moved him to tears. Again, when he was told of the death of Hadrian [796], the Roman Pontiff, whom he had loved most of all his friends, he wept as much as if he had lost a brother, or a very dear son. He was by nature most ready to contract friendships, and not only made friends easily, but clung to them persistently, and cherished most fondly those with whom he had formed such ties. He was so careful of the training of his sons and daughters that he never took his meals without them when he was at home, and never made a journey without them; his sons would ride at his side, and his daughters follow him, while a number of his body-guard, detailed for their protection, brought up the rear. Strange to say, although they were very handsome women, and he loved them very dearly, he was never willing to marry any of them to a man of their own nation or to a foreigner, but kept them all at home until his death, saying that he could not dispense with their society. Hence, though other-wise happy, he experienced the malignity of fortune as far as they were concerned; yet he concealed his knowledge of the rumors current in regard to them, and of the suspicions entertained of their honor.
(Einhard's biography of Charlemagne is up IN ENGLISH here, I've just discovered.)
Iconoclasts vs Iconophiles:
Context: The Arab Conquest. For about a century, ever since the tidal wave that was the Islamic movement swept forth the Califate, the Byzantines had taken a battering which completely changed their self understanding. Pre-Muhammad, they had been in the Roman tradition of seeing themselves as the conquerors, "an Empire without End" (Virgil) etc., and sure, there were temporary setbacks, but in the end, naturally Romans were winners. And their 700 years long feud with the Persians, the only other Empire the Romans grudgingly acknowledged as their equal, ending with Heraclios kicking not only out of their temporary conquests but invading their territory and trouncing them just confirmed that view. But then came the newly converted to Islam Arabs and not only conquered the exhausted Persians but everything else, including one Byzantine territory after another, they kept losing and having civil wars and one Emperor toppling the next for a near century, until the Arabs stood at the doorstep of Constantinople itself and everyone thought Byzantium was done for for good. Except it wasn't, because new Emperor Leo III managed to get Constantinople through a near two years siege, and trounce the Arabs by breaking that tidal wave of conquest, and then start reconquering territory. But the Byzantine self image had changed irrevocably. Where before they had seen themselves in the Roman tradition of Go Forth And Conquer, they now saw themselves as the new Jerusalem, a relatively small realm surrounded by a sea of (infidel) enemies getting punished and rewarded by God for their sins and virtues.
Now, Leo III had come on the throne the way all his immediate predecessors had, by ursupation, and he needed legitimacy. Winning the siege was nice and showed God's favour, but he needed more. And clearly there had to be SOME reason why God had let all this Arab conquering happen to his favourite people. (Preferably one that wasn't the fault of their leaders.) And Leo hit upon an idea, which his son Constantine V. evolved further, to wit: icons! Could it be that God was displeased by people worshipping icons?
Constantine V. got a terrible press from the Iconophiles who wrote about him 50 years after his death and had won the struggle, who called him the dungheap and vilified him like you wouldn't believe as if he was all the bad Roman Emperors combined, nicknaming him "the dungheap", so it wasn't until the 20th century that historians took another look and said, hang on, he actually was a very competent Emperor, who re-conquered more of the former Byzantine territory back from the Arabs than his father ever did, restablished a solid civic administration, resettled a country who had survived another attack plague early in his reign in addition to everything else, and as for those stories about him cruelly inflicting his iconoclastic views on helpless iconphilic monks, there's no contemporary record, that's a later spin, and given how many icons survived through his reign, he was hardly Oliver Cromwell. However, like his father Constantinve V. had a legitimacy problem, and as mentioned not just some reconquering to do but a plague to deal with which had heavily depleted his population. He needed an explanation why God had done this and a method for people to feel there was a way they could regain God's favour, and he developed the iconoclasm idea further by calling an ecunemical council. The records of which were later destroyed after the iconphiles won, so we don't know what exactly was said; only fragments survive from later counter arguments by iconophiles. While none of the five Patriarchs of the Church were present (including them one from Constantinople, who had just died), over 350 bishops were, so this was by no means an small affair, and the council took several months of intense debates to conclude that icons had to go from public churches (what you did in your house seems to have been a private affair), because depicing Christ in image was wrong. (Because you could only depict his human nature, thereby missing out his divine nature, and acknowledging only one of Christ's two natures sounds like the Monophysites of heretical memory!) As for depictions of people not Christ, i.e. the Saints, this was also theologically speaking wrong because prayers should be to Christ only and not to other beings. Presto! A theological explanation for the last century, and a way to ensure it won't happen again!
This Constantine V was Irene's father-in-law. As mentioned, her husband, Leo IV, only ruled shortly; he continued his father's iconoclastic policies, but unlike him wasn't successful in battle, so people began to side-eye the idea again and wonder whether icons weren't the way to go after all. Which is how Irene hit upon the idea that calling for another ecumenical council, this one to restore the icons and declare the last one cancelled, was a good way to secure herself support from the clergy.
There's not a TV series about this lady? Or is there?
I don't think so. She might have shown up in a miniseries about Charlemagne that got broadcast here a decade or so ago, but that one was done so badly I stopped watching after the first episode, so I don't know for sure. Robin the podcaster compares her to Walter White of Breaking Bad fame, but it's still very rare for central female characters to get a storyline like that. I mean: the progressive part of your audience might feel insulted because she gets ever more ruthless, including that taboo killing of her own son, and in the end is defeated, despite this being historical, while the conservative part will be pissed off that until her ending, she's mostly in charge, and she's not brought down by some virtuous male but by a couple of schemers who won't last long in power, either.