Charlemagne and later \"Roman\" emperors

[Robert Vermaat]

Hello Kai,

Interesting opinion. However, it seems to me that at times you write more out of emotion than of reason? That part of the ERE ‘ravaging, then abandoning’ the West may have looked a bit like that.

This again begs the question on what authority Odoaker made that declaration.

Of Odoacar had no authority to declare the West ‘dead’. This was merely a shrewd move, hoping for recognition when he would not declare himself an equal to Zeno, but a suvbordinate. But Zeno did not fall for that trick.

Quite different to what we have in 800.

How, in your opinion was the situation different by 800? Their was no western emperor, until Charles was made one. From a legal point of view, the only rightful inheritors of the Roman empire resided in Constantinople. At no time in between had there been a legal successor of the Western emperor.
Even more so, the eastern empire had appointed Frankish rulers in military and civilian posts. We don’t know of course how the Franks saw that, merely as a sought-after honorific title or a more practical appointment, but the fact remains that they accepted the right of the eastern emperor to do so. That alone would account for the legal point of view from Constantinople.

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.
[..]Also, the earlier history from 480 to 800 is filled with the western desire to have an Emperor,

can you elaborate on that? Apart from 8th-c. Italy, which other kingdoms wanted to have a Western emperor again? The Franks? The Germans? The British? And ion Italy, who exactly tried to install an emperor, the people of Rome? Italy was not exactly united…
But between 476 and the 8th century, I see no movement to re-create an empire anywhere. The people of Italy were not exactly thrilled by the Justinian reconquest either – not because the wanted to be ruled by their own emperor, but because they were satisfied enough to be ruled by the Goths.

To the people in the west, the title was not empty. This is what matters, their judgment, not ours.

Please elaborate on that. I for one see no continuous movement that recognised a WRE, nor a move on behalf of generations of kings to crown themselves as emperor of the West. The idea was quite dead until the Carolingian re-invention of the Roman imperial idea (which is why we have a copy of the Notitia Dignitatum – it was copied for exactly thát reason!), apart from perhaps a few city states.

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.

Ah, but I never said that – the Byzantines very much knew the value of concept and title. But the East did not go to war because of Charles accepting the title, no, they went to war out of realpolitik, because their territory in Illyria was under threat. Nothing more. If Charles had been a ruler in Northern Germany, I think the Byzantines would never have bothered. But this was a claim they could not deny, because the army of that ruler was active inside their territory.

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.

The Caliph did not address him as Roman emperor, did he? That ‘protector’ title was never part of the original imperial function, was it? Did Theodosius and all emperor after him claim that as a title? I think not. No, the Caliph made a nice (but empty) compliment to Charles, and at the same time a dig against Constantinople, who were his real competitors.
That the argument is used against Charles’ supporters and not again Constantinople is nothing more than logical. Constantinople was the centuries-old Roman empire embodied, Charles was merely a Frankish king with ambitions, used by a Pope with his own ambitions. Neither had any legal right.

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!).

No-one actually did so. ‘defunct’ perhaps, but never ‘dead’, and you’ll probably find no source claiming the legal end of the WRE. That it ended as an institution was carried out by Odoacar in Italy, and the circumstance that after Nepos, no-one coveted that position, nor tried to claim it for centuries. By the 8th century, that changed, but that does not mean that the WRE continued in existence during the interval. From what I read of Belisarius’ experiences in Italy, it seems that the idea of a Roman empire in the West dies within generations.

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.

The city of Rome always remembered its past and former glory – had could they forget it? They lived among the very ruins. But it stopped there, it was only a means to gain importance over other Italian cities, no more. Ever saw a ruler in 7th or even 9th c. Rome who claimed the suzerainty of Spain or Britain by ancient Roman rights? Of course not. The glory was remembered, but the legal ramifications never tested. Everybody knew that the WRE was dead. I think that to many, Constantinople was a different empire, not even seen as the enduring Roman empire. If I sound like a Byzantine courtier it’s because in this case (as has been done in the West from the start of religious conflict with the Pope, throughout the Crusades and into the Enlightenment), Constantinople has always been wilfully disregarded as the true heir of Rome. ‘Greek’ empire no less! ‘Byzantine empire’! The invention of those words show the intent of centuries of Western disposition towards Constantinople. When the Classics were rediscovered in Europe, no-one looked East.

OK, now I sound very emotional myself.