cahn

Unfortunately, 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) )

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selenak

Charlemagne not marrying his daughters off but keeping them with him:

...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.