Charlemagne and later \"Roman\" emperors

[Kai]

Hello David and Robert,

I will address your points in one text. Odoaker is an important figure because he claimed the west did not need an emperor anymore and thus he could rule as viceroy of the eastern Emperor. This again begs the question on what authority Odoaker made that declaration. Of course, an Augustus could appoint another Augustus in case of unexpected vacancy: Gratian btw was emperor of the west and took the rule over both halves of the empire upon the unexpected death of Valens, later appointing Theodosius to deal with a western rebellion and thus making him emperor. Quite different to what we have in 800.

Not only are more than 300 years of vacancy hardly ‘unexpected’, the east simply considered the western Empire dead at some point. However the west itself never did so. And this is where Charlemagne moved in.
Yet alone in the 8th century just the Italian population made four serious attempts to reinstall a Western Emperor, not counting Charlemagne in. On one of these occasions, the pope Gregory II acted against a rebellion of ‘all of Italy’ trying to proclaim an emperor. Also, the earlier history from 480 to 800 is filled with the western desire to have an Emperor, which of course never made the eastern one happy, who was rather comfortable with ruling alone. Henning Börm and Peter Classen both made very excellent papers on this, one from the classicist’s point of view, the other from the medieval studies’ point of view. Highly recommended. Charlemagne’s ascension is but the logical ending point of that development.

To the people in the west, the title was not empty. This is what matters, their judgment, not ours. Also, for the eastern Emperor it was important enough to go to war over it and change the own title in face of defeat – hardly the actions of people who considered the title empty. And it is not like they were the only ones: the Caliph affirmed Charlemagne’s claim of being Christianity’s foremost protector, a most vital function of the Roman Emperor since Theodosius. Sure he had political reasons to do so. Hell, everyone had! Strangely this argument usually comes up against Charlemagne’s supporters a lot, but the Byzantine legal opinion is repeated without such critique.

I for one do not know exactly who had the authority to declare the WRE dead, certainly not some Magister Militum. (and even less it is up to us!). Alas, I am also not sure who had to authority to reinstall it. However, to me, aristocracy and people of Rome (SPQR would have been the term a few centuries earlier…) seem like an argument not simply discarded by uncritically supporting the Eastern legal position. I am not saying you do, Robert, but unfortunately I have seen this very often on various fora. I sometimes felt like listening to Byzantine courtiers.

Regards

PS: I think the destruction of the Ostrogothic Kingdom which previously checked the Franks, like in 509-510, the reduction of Italy to a depopulated rubble of ruins, the offerings Goths and Byzantines had to make to the Franks to appease them and the overall weak position of Italy after the war played into the Frankish hands like nothing before. However that might be another discussion you are free to open. I will certainly respond later on.