How I Make Decisions - the Magic Eight Ball

We will, for the time being, as we come into the holiday season and also a season/time I expect will not be the very best energy-wise and health-wise for me, be slowing down a bit. I’m aiming for a kind of Monday/Thursday 2-day-a-week post for a couple of months – then we’ll see. I may disappear entirely once more. Then again, I may not.

The Magic Eight Ball says “It is decidedly so” – (kind of sounds like the Eight Ball is reciting a catechism, doesn’t it?) and I always listen to my Magic Eight Ball. Religiously.

so…

onwards, in the days to come, into the next 150 pages or so of Muslim/Arabic history and More Arabian Gibbonian-ness-ness…

We'll be Slowing Down Some - like 2 posts a week

And so we end with The Inevitable Road Sign

Modern Coat of Arms of the City of Rome - Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall is turning into (at least in the West) a history of the CITY OF ROME - and since ROME (City of) had connections and dealings with ALL EUROPE (esp France, Germany, later Spain) Gibbon follows Rome through all of this - I expect he will continue his History of the City down to his present day of 1788

We end today the Grab-Bag chapter 49 of Gibbon, with a long account (mostly extremely medieval, and pointedly 18th century) of the German Empire. I have to say, I am more than somewhat uninterested – we are far, far away from Roman history, except to follow the medieval history of the medieval city of Rome.

I suppose, however, since Rome was at the center of much medieval political maneuvering – ie the Papacy, Crusades, Coronation of Holy Roman Emperors, playground of the larger European Powers (Germany, France, Eastern Europeans, and yes, the Eastern Empire), Gibbon is well within his bounds to discuss the ongoing politics of the City of Rome in the previous 8 centuries before he wrote the last volume of the Decline and Fall in 1788.

So, he’s entitled – I admit it – but the 3rd Volume is NOT REALLY (at times) Roman history, and NOT REALLY the history of the Decline and Fall of Rome anymore. It’s more like the history of a half-abandoned city-patient on continuous, low-level life-support for a period of 10 centuries – not a history of Romans, but a history of the people who VISITED the Romans during her long, protracted and eventful convalescence.

But that’s my take on the purview of his historical writing. His is different. I remember, of course, his initial youthful thesis statement (one he may have later regretted as it turned out to be a multi-decade, titanic endeavor and promptly consumed his professional life) – his aim always WAS (so many years before, to the tuneful ministrations of un-shod mendicants) to present to his readers a history of the Decline of the City of Rome, and to that end he disingenuously mixes the histories of the Empire with those of the City:

It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefoot friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.

(Memoirs, Gibbon 1796)

Modern flag of the City of Rome - I guess I expected an eagle on it or something - but the colors are great - typically style-conscious, fashionable, hip Italian design

I’ve actually started having problems referring to Rome in this 3rd volume (last 1000 pages of the 3000 pages) for a very telling reason – the one I’ve alluded to above – Gibbon has started writing concurrently about both Romans (the citizens of the City of Medieval Rome) and Romans of the Eastern Empire (people he calls by the derogatory title “Greeks” or “Byzantines”.)

Since I refer to the people of the empire centered around Constantinople as Romans (as, of course, they, and their neighbors thought they WERE – ie the Roman State and the Roman People), still, I have difficulty talking about a Roman (City of) revolt against Roman (Empire of) authority in the same sentence, or even the same paragraph. It just gets too confusing – so I end up using the strange term Eastern Romans as a crude, compromising alternative.

And as I loathe the awkward adjective Byzantine (somewhat like bizarrely calling the United States – “New Amsterdammer”, by referring to a large city in the U.S. (New York) and using an ancient, long-disused name of that large city (New Amsterdam) to refer to an entire country) – there just ends up being a great deal of possible confusion. In my mind however, “Roman” is the Eastern Empire and Constantinople, not the half-deserted, farm-town on the Tyber that happens to be the home of numerous Cardinals and one very important Bishop.

But enough of my endless whining and complaining and back to someone really interesting: Gibbon and (finally) the petering out and final end of chapter 49…

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (Red Beard) from the Welf Chronicle

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II - grandson of Barbarossa - one of the most powerful monarchs of the Middle Ages - an incredible man - the Stupor Mundi (wonder of the world) to some, the AntiChrist to others (like the Pope, esp when he was fighting the Pope AND WINNING) who met with a horrible end in Naples and he and his house disappeared, possibly causing the disunity of Germany to be prolonged for centuries

It’s interesting to hear the views of one English Gentleman (living ex-pat on the Continent) and his views of what is required to maintain and expand a well-run empire.

In and introduction to the Medieval German Empire – the Holy Roman Empire – and especially its relations with Italy, Gibbon lists some necessary qualities an empire ought to have to keep its subject members in control. I can’t help not only hearing Gibbon speak of the nascent British Empire and its polyglot, globe-straddling patchwork quilt of loosely held and mixed jurisdictions over subject peoples. I’m also hearing the English gentleman’s views on how one ought to properly hold onto the colonies – esp the North American ones south of the St. Lawrence that are getting a little too uppity for their own good.

Gibbon goes on to describe the rise of the City-States in Italy, which he is honor-bound and tradition-bound to LOVE. Gibbon, after all was/is a classical student, an English gentleman and an admiring reader of Greek democratic authors – Thucydides, etc – who are taught to praise small freedom-loving city-states and denigrate imperial (read: Persian, Eastern) slavery, luxury, and depravity.

Which is all to the good. But it is pure Gibbon that he is in the unenviable position of defending empire (the current one, the English one) and at the same time defending the rise of the small City-State (presumably, England is an example of the eventual development of the freedom-loving City-State into the Magna-Carta-Loving British Empire). That he is unconscious of the conflict between loving the small City-States of Italy and disparaging the German Empire, and being rabidly pro-British-Empire and against the small states encompassed by them

So here is Gibbon on empire:

How to Run an Empire: Inspiring Fear Without Provoking Discontent and Despair

There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest. A torrent of Barbarians may pass over the earth, but an extensive empire must be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts; fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair.

Far different was the situation of the German Caesars, who were ambitious to enslave the kingdom of Italy. Their patrimonial estates were stretched along the Rhine, or scattered in the provinces; but this ample domain was alienated by the imprudence or distress of successive princes; and their revenue, from minute and vexatious prerogative, was scarcely sufficient for the maintenance of their household. Their troops were formed by the legal or voluntary service of their feudal vassals, who passed the Alps with reluctance, assumed the license of rapine and disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of the campaign. Whole armies were swept away by the pestilential influence of the climate: the survivors brought back the bones of their princes and nobles, and the effects of their own intemperance were often imputed to the treachery and malice of the Italians, who rejoiced at least in the calamities of the Barbarians.

This irregular tyranny might contend on equal terms with the petty tyrants of Italy; nor can the people, or the reader, be much interested in the event of the quarrel. But in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Lombards rekindled the flame of industry and freedom; and the generous example was at length imitated by the republics of Tuscany. In the Italian cities a municipal government had never been totally abolished; and their first privileges were granted by the favour and policy of the emperors, who were desirous of erecting a plebeian barrier against the independence of the nobles. But their rapid progress, the daily extension of their power and pretensions, were founded on the numbers and spirit of these rising communities

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.49, p.142)

The Mythical Female Pope - Pope Joan - riding the many-headed beast as the Whore of Babylon - Gibbon thinks the origin of the story is the strong Roman noble woman Marozia of the middle 900's - supposedly Pope Joan hid her sex until after she was elected Pope, but was found out when she gave birth while riding a horse through the City of Rome and was torn to shreds by the rightfully indignant Roman mob - a very strange misogynistic fable

The Whore of Babylon

Gibbon wonders aloud whether the medieval legend of Pope Joan was the (in)famous Roman woman-Senator Marozia (see below). The whole Pope-Joan-Portable-Latrine controversies probably have a lot more to do with Protestant mud-slinging, anti-woman rants than they do with anything approaching a historical question. But for the record:

Here is the story from WIKI:

First, Wiki’s Conclusion:

Against the weight of historical evidence to the contrary, the question remains as to why the Pope Joan story has been so often believed and revisited. Some, such as Philip Jenkins in The New Anti-Catholicism, have suggested that the periodic revival of what he calls this “anti-papal legend” has more to do with feminist and anti-Catholic wishful thinking than historical accuracy

and now, the story…

Pope Joan is a legendary female Pope who, it is purported, reigned for a few years some time in the Middle Ages. The story first appeared in the writings of 13th-century chroniclers, and subsequently spread through Europe. It was widely believed for centuries, though modern historians and religious scholars consider it fictitious, perhaps deriving from historicized folklore regarding Roman monuments or from anti-papal satire.

The first mention of the female pope appears in the chronicle of Jean Pierier de Mailly, but the most popular and influential version was that interpolated into Martin of Troppau’s Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum somewhat later in the 13th century. Most versions say that she was a talented and learned woman who disguised herself as a man, often at the behest of a lover. Due to her abilities, she rises through the church hierarchy, eventually being chosen as pope. However, while riding on horseback one day, she gives birth to a child, thus revealing her sex. In most versions, she dies shortly after, either by being killed by an angry mob or from natural causes, and her memory is shunned by her successors.

The earliest mention of the female pope appears in the Dominican Jean de Mailly’s chronicle of Metz, Chronica Universalis Mettensis, written in the early 13th century. In his telling, the female pope is not named, and the events are set in 1099.

According to Jean:

Query. Concerning a certain Pope or rather female Pope, who is not set down in the list of Popes or Bishops of Rome, because she was a woman who disguised herself as a man and became, by her character and talents, a curial secretary, then a Cardinal and finally Pope. One day, while mounting a horse, she gave birth to a child. Immediately, by Roman justice, she was bound by the feet to a horse’s tail and dragged and stoned by the people for half a league, and, where she died, there she was buried, and at the place is written: ‘Petre, Pater Patrum, Papisse Prodito Partum’ [Oh Peter, Father of Fathers, Betray the childbearing of the woman Pope]. At the same time, the four-day fast called the “fast of the female Pope” was first established” (Jean de Mailly, Chronica Universalis Mettensis).

Jean de Mailly’s story was picked up by his fellow Dominican Etienne de Bourbon, who adapted it for his work on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost. However, the legend gained its greatest prominence when it appeared in the third recension (edited revision) of Martin of Opava’s Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum later in the 13th century. This version, which may have been by Martin himself, is the first to attach a name to the figure, indicating that she was known as “John Anglicus” or “John of Mainz.” It also changes the date from the 11th to the 9th century, indicating that Joan reigned between Leo IV and Benedict III in the 850s.

According to the Chronicon:

John Anglicus, born at Mainz, was Pope for two years, seven months and four days, and died in Rome, after which there was a vacancy in the Papacy of one month. It is claimed that this John was a woman, who as a girl had been led to Athens dressed in the clothes of a man by a certain lover of hers. There she became proficient in a diversity of branches of knowledge, until she had no equal, and, afterward in Rome, she taught the liberal arts and had great masters among her students and audience. A high opinion of her life and learning arose in the city; and she was chosen for Pope. While Pope, however, she became pregnant by her companion. Through ignorance of the exact time when the birth was expected, she was delivered of a child while in procession from St Peter’s to the Lateran, in a lane once named Via Sacra (the sacred way) but now known as the “shunned street” between the Colisseum and St Clement’s church. After her death, it is said she was buried in that same place. The Lord Pope always turns aside from the street, and it is believed by many that this is done because of abhorrence of the event. Nor is she placed on the list of the Holy Pontiffs, both because of her female sex and on account of the foulness of the matter (Martin of Opava, Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum).

One version of the Chronicon gives an alternate fate for the female pope. According to this, she did not die immediately after her exposure as female but was confined and deposed, after which she did many years of penance. Her son from the affair eventually became Bishop of Ostia, and had her interred in his cathedral when she died.

Other references to the female pope are attributed to earlier writers, though none appear in manuscripts that predate the Chronicon. The one most commonly cited is attached to Anastasius Bibliothecarius (d. 886), a compiler of Liber Pontificalis, who would have been a contemporary of the female Pope by the Chronicon’s dating. However, the story is found in only one unreliable manuscript of Anastasius. This manuscript, in the Vatican Library, bears the relevant passage inserted as a footnote at the bottom of a page, out of sequence, and in a different hand, one that dates from after the time of Martin von Troppau. This “witness” to the female Pope is likely to be based upon Martin’s account, and not a possible source for it. The same is true of Marianus Scotus’s Chronicle of the Popes, a text written in the 11th century. Some manuscripts of it contain a brief mention of a female Pope named Joanna (the earliest source to attach to her the female form of the name), but all these manuscripts are, again, later than Martin’s work. Earlier manuscripts do not contain the legend.

( from Pope Joan WIKI)

Sedes Stercoraria (the Dung Chair) or the Slotted Chair, or Chair With A Hole In It - supposedly used to check either the sex of the Pope, or whether or not he was castrated - both titillating in a kind of simplistic suspension-of-disbelief kind of way, but ultimately nonsensical - the truth is stranger than the fiction - the chair was probably a leftover imperial birthing stool, or a portable latrine, and was sat in (briefly) by Popes at some time during their coronation (in the Lateran) to show imperial legitimacy - probably the Popes in question (and their cardinals who pushed for it to happen) had NO IDEA why THEY WERE FORCING the HEAD OF THEIR CHURCH to sit in such a thing - traditions die hard and are usually illogical - a Pope from our time period (800's) would need EVERY KIND OF IMPERIAL PROPAGANDA NECESSARY to ensure a smooth transition of power - even if it meant SITTING ON A FORMER IMPERIAL LATRINE - the 2 surviving examples are in the Vatican and the Louvre

The Strange History of the Holy Portable Latrine – Sedes Stercoraria

The sedes stercoraria (defecation seats), the thrones with holes in it at St. John Lateran did indeed exist, and were used in the elevation of Pope Pascal II in 1099 (Boureau 1988). In fact, one is still in the Vatican Museums, another at the Musée du Louvre. They do indeed have a hole in the seat. The reason for the hole is disputed, but, as both the seats and their holes predated the Pope Joan story, they have nothing to do with a need to check the gender of a Pope. It has been speculated that they originally were Roman bidets or imperial birthing stools, which because of their age and imperial links were used in ceremonies by Popes intent on highlighting their own imperial claims (as they did also with their Latin title, Pontifex Maximus).

Alain Boureau (Boureau 1988:23) quotes the humanist Jacopo d’Angelo de Scarparia who visited Rome in 1406 for the enthronement of Gregory XII in which the Pope sat briefly on two “pierced chairs” at the Lateran: “the vulgar tell the insane fable that he is touched to verify that he is indeed a man” a sign that this corollary of the Pope Joan legend was still current in the Roman street.

Medieval Popes, from the 13th century onward, did indeed avoid the direct route between the Lateran and St Peter’s, as Martin of Opava claimed. However, there is no evidence that this practice dated back any earlier, let alone that it originated in the 9th century as a deliberate rebuff to the memory of the female Pope. The origin of the practice is uncertain, but it is quite likely that it was maintained because of widespread belief in the Joan legend and that it was thought genuinely to date back to that period.

(from Pope Joan WIKI)

Illustration of the supposed USE of the Slotted Chair or Dung Chair (Sedes Stercoraria) - from an 18th cent print - this looks so much like a Protestant Propaganda print of Popish Demonic Insanity that it's a little hard to believe - I'm not sure what's going on - the title (in Latin) says - the Pontifical Marble Chair in the Lateran - but the chair looks nothing like the sedes stercoraria - also the Pope looks too much like a jolly Santa Claus, blessing everyone as his privates are massaged(?) by a Cardinal (who's saying something illegible) - this is a little like using a cartoon from the National Enquirer for historical evidence - but here it is - for some reason on the internet, lots of people have lots of opinions about the sedes - the truth (that they sat on it for imperial prestige) is actually a lot more interesting (to me) than the wild anti-Catholic tales - IMHO

Marozia got nothing but bad press, her rule was called the pornocracy, and her power was highly suspect. It doesn’t help matters any that the historians who mention her are hostile (ex. Liutprand of Cremona – Lombard). At this distance it very hard to tell what’s going on. Gibbon, woman-hating Gibbon, well, powerful-woman-hating Gibbon (I’m sure he liked woman in general, as a sex, esp. for their decorative qualities) has a field day with Marozia (of course).

On a tangential note, some suggest that Marozia is the vague historical precedent for Pope Joan – the shadowy female (and mythical) Medieval Pope.

Here we see Gibbon introducing Marozia and her sister Theodora, (poss. getting Marozia’s sister Theodora mixed up with Marozia’s mother Theodora) as the “two sister prostitutes” – and then continuing from there…

Powerful Women are Pontifically Insulting

The Roman pontiffs, of the ninth and tenth centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and murdered, by their tyrants; and such was their indigence, after the loss and usurpation of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, that they could neither support the state of a prince, nor exercise the charity of a priest. The influence of two sister prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign may have suggested to the darker ages the fable of a female pope.

The bastard son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the second of these became the head of the Latin church. His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otho the Great.

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.49, pp.138-139)

Marozia and Her Son Alberic

Amidst the ruins of Italy, the famous Marozia invited one of the usurpers to assume the character of her third husband; and Hugh, king of Burgundy was introduced by her faction into the mole of Hadrian or Castle of St. Angelo, which commands the principal bridge and entrance of Rome. Her son by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to attend at the nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful service was chastised with a blow by his new father.

The blow was productive of a revolution. “Romans,” exclaimed the youth, “once you were the masters of the world, and these Burgundians the most abject of your slaves. They now reign, these voracious and brutal savages, and my injury is the commencement of your servitude.” The alarum bell rang to arms in every quarter of the city: the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame; Marozia was imprisoned by her victorious son, and his brother, Pope John XI., was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual functions.

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.49, p.140)

a fanciful, poetical Illustration of Harun Al-Rashid from the Thousand and One Nights - supposedly Charlemagne and this the most famous of the Abbasid Caliphs exchanged letters, clocks, and elephants and the key to the holy sepulchre (which must have nettled the Romans to no end had they known)

I’m definitely a little under the weather here today – metaphorically and literally – it must be the beginning of Fall, it’s freezing here – and I’m still thinking through mud, so forgive any lack of cogency and a tendency to wander for extended periods off-topic.

We continue, as we usually do, with the next 10 pages of Gibbon in this, the Grab-bag chapter 49 – a little of everything Western, tangentially Roman (city of Rome), marginally Eastern Roman (the Eastern Empire). We are introduced to the Holy Roman Empire and to the Papacy – as the two (Popes and Western emperors) discover each other, to their mutual benefit and discomfiture.

On the way, we glance briefly at one of the high points of Arab culture – Harun Al-Rashid, Abbasid Caliph, and very, very briefly look at the beginning of the Invasions of the Norsemen, the last great movements of the Migration of Peoples in Northern Europe.

Gibbon, being a good Prostestant, goes out of his way to demonstrate just HOW CORRUPT the Papacy had become in the 900′s and 1000′s after it had broken away from Constantinople – we follow him into the details of John XII’s papacy.

On to… the Sons of Charlemagne…

Photo of the ruins of Castle of Canossa in the Romagna, the place the German Emperor Henry IV in 1077 was forced to walk to in penance to the Pope - a kind of sweet revenge by the Papacy for a century of subservience to German Emperors

Winner of many civil wars within his own family - Louis the Pious, contemporary depiction from 826 as a miles Christi (soldier of Christ), with a poem of Rabanus Maurus overlaid - from WIKI

Traditional portrait of John XII - that it CANNOT LOOK AT ALL LIKE JOHN XII is I guess beside the point (John was 27 when he died, he was made Pope at 19)- perhaps that is why its good to know the truth about such ivory-towered, be-pedestal-ed personages such as Popes -

The influence of two sister prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign may have suggested to the darker ages the fable of a female pope.

The bastard son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the second of these became the head of the Latin church. His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otho the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be dishonoured by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious.

But we read, with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor. The Protestants have dwelt with malicious pleasure on these characters of Antichrist; but to a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.49, pp.138-139)

The vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues? A little Protestant proselytizing strategy for Catholic countries? It sounds like we’re overhearing a comment of the Republican National Committee discussing a strong Democratic candidate.

and what’s more (just to show that Gibbon isn’t entirely out there on the fringe) here’s what WIKI says about John XII:

Pope John XII (c. 937 – May 14, 964), born Octavianus, was Pope from December 16, 955, to May 14, 964. The son of Alberic II, Patrician of Rome (932–954), and his stepsister Alda of Vienne, he was a seventh generation descendant of Charlemagne on his mother’s side.
Before his death, Alberic administered an oath to the Roman nobles in St. Peter’s, that on the next vacancy of the papal chair his only son, Octavianus, should be elected pope. He succeeded his father as Patrician of Rome in 954, at only seventeen years of age. After the death of the reigning pontiff, Agapetus II, Octavanius, then eighteen years of age, was actually chosen his successor on 16 December, 955. His adoption of the apostolic name of John XII was the third example of taking a regnal name upon elevation to the papal chair, the first being John II (533–535) and the second John III. Pope John XII was depicted as a coarse, immoral man in the writings which remain about his papacy, whose life was such that the Lateran was spoken of as a brothel, and the moral corruption in Rome became the subject of general disgrace.

An account is given in Patrologia Latina of the charges leveled against him:
Then, rising up, the cardinal priest Peter testified that he himself had seen John XII celebrate Mass without taking communion. John, bishop of Narni, and John, a cardinal deacon, professed that they themselves saw that a deacon had been ordained in a horse stable, but were unsure of the time. Benedict, cardinal deacon, with other co-deacons and priests, said they knew that he had been paid for ordaining bishops, specifically that he had ordained a ten-year-old bishop in the city of Todi… They testified about his adultery, which they did not see with their own eyes, but nonetheless knew with certainty: he had fornicated with the widow of Rainier, with Stephana his father’s concubine, with the widow Anna, and with his own niece, and he made the sacred palace into a whorehouse. They said that he had gone hunting publicly; that he had blinded his confessor Benedict, and thereafter Benedict had died; that he had killed John, cardinal subdeacon, after castrating him; and that he had set fires, girded on a sword, and put on a helmet and cuirass. All, clerics as well as laymen, declared that he had toasted to the devil with wine. They said when playing at dice, he invoked Jupiter, Venus and other demons. They even said he did not celebrate Matins and the canonical hours nor did he make the sign of the cross.

Enemies defeated him in battle and occupied lands that belonged to the popes. In order to protect himself against the intrigues in Rome and the power of Berengar II of Italy (950–963), John made a deal with Otto I, king of the Germans. He pledged allegiance to Otto and crowned him emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on February 2, 962. In return, Otto promised to recognize only John as pope. Ten days later, the pope and emperor ratified the Diploma Ottonianum, under which the emperor became the guarantor of the independence of the papal states. This was the first effective guarantee of such protection since the Carolingian Empire. After Otto left Rome and reconquered the Papal States from Berengar, however, John became fearful of the emperor’s power and sent envoys to the Magyars and the Byzantine Empire to form a league against Otto. His intrigues were discovered by Otto I, who, after defeating and imprisoning Berengar II, returned to Rome. Otto I subsequently summoned a council which deposed John XII, who was in hiding in the mountains of Campania, and elected Pope Leo VIII (963–965) in his stead.

An attempt at a revolt was made by the inhabitants of Rome even before Otto I left the city. Upon his departure, John XII returned at the head of a formidable company of friends and retainers, thus causing Leo VIII to seek safety in immediate flight. The Emperor determined to make an effort in support of Leo VIII, but before he reached the city John XII had died.

Pope Benedict V (964) soon succeeded him but was successfully deposed by Leo VIII.
Onofrio Panvinio, in the revised edition of Bartolomeo Platina’s book about the popes, added an elaborate note indicating that the legend of Pope Joan may be based on a mistress of John XII: Panvinius, in a note to Platina’s account of pope Joan, suggests that the licentiousness of John XII, who, among his numerous mistresses, had one called Joan, who exercised the chief influence at Rome during his pontificate, may have given rise to the story of “pope Joan

(from John XII, WIKI)

Researching our friend Pope John XII, I found this interesting list of “Sexually Active Popes” – which seems a little provocative to say the least – but I guess there’s a list for everything – who knew?

Map of Viking Expansion - What an incredible map - I love it! from Wiki - Viking Expansion - being of Norse extraction (altho of a family that apparently STAYED in Norway, as we emigrated in the 1860's to the U.S., rather than in the 800's to England) I have some sympathies towards the berserking blond, blue-eyed, axe-wielding longboat-sailors that went a-viking about this time

No, this is not Norsemen, raids in longboats day. Gibbon (I snuck a peek into the next 800 pages) never really attempts the history of Scandinavia (admittedly a tangent of a tangent to Roman history, except for Norman Sicily, etc, still…) – which is about what I expected. Who wants to remember that most of your island was overrun by random raiding Danes, and that even the vaunted Norman Invasion was just one last Norwegian Viking venture into your own weak and divided island? – no one, really – at least no one in 18th century England.

Today we meet Charles the Great - Charlemagne - a saint, and a force to be reckoned with in the late 700s, early 800s - the 1st German/Frank to be crowned Emperor in the West - something that obviously didnt go over very well in the East - Charlemagne Reliquary Bust (containing Carolus's cranium, the top/braincase of his skull) at his palace chapel at Aachen, Germany

The point is, it looked like an empire – to everyone concerned. It just didn’t last. It wasn’t entirely Carol’s fault it started to fall apart as he lay on his deathbed. It wasn’t his fault his sons used their divided inheritance to rapidly destabilize whatever stability Carol had managed to cobble together (on top of a largely Ungrateful and rather Sulky Northern Europe, over 4 decades, through sheer Carolingian willpower alone). It wasn’t Carol’s fault that the last Great Scandinavian Invasions were starting at the end of his reign (the Vikings began their attacks on the fat. prosperous Carolingian ports in the 790′s, and wouldn’t stop entirely for 2 centuries or so).

What is fascinating is the INCREDIBLE POWER that a Northern-European-Centric (read: NON-Mediterranean-centric) empire headed by Charlemagne could harness, IF ONE UNITED the extraordinarily diverse, SEPARATE villages, manors, towns, cities, regions, peoples, etc of N. Europe into ONE unwieldy UNIT. And what is even more fascinating (at least to me), compare this UNIT to the efforts of its competing UNIT in the East, the still-fully-functioning Eastern Romans.

The Eastern Empire managed to make a little revenue and manpower go a long, long way via complicated and firmly entrenched societal values concerning bureaucracy, taxes, law, central administrations, diplomacy, etc. The Northern Europeans could throw hundreds of thousands of men at a problem (like the Franks dismantling the Lombard kingdom) and succeed because while they were enormously disorganized, they were (although they didn’t realize it yet) enormously wealthy now – wealthy in men, will, and resources – their decentralization was one of their strengths – small units reacting flexibly to great dislocations. Charlemagne (and the rest of N. Europe) saw the possibilities of Eastern Roman organization harnessed to N. European decentralized wealth – and realized great things could happen if the two co-habitated. But no one had the knack of decentralized-centralization yet, and so the Carolingian Renaissance faltered, sputtered and ground somewhat to a lurching, on-again, off-again halt.

But… all that is in the future for us – on to – Charlemagne and Rome…

The Famous Fossa Carolina - the 3 km canal that was built to link the Rhine and the Danube in 793 - an example of the Carolingian Renaissance and the *premature* rebirth of Europe - this is the 500m (1/3 mile) of it that is left - pretty impressive for the Dark Ages - even to think of it, let alone DO IT

Gibbon mentions briefly the canals that Carolus had built during his brief Renaissance, lamenting (as usual) the money spent on cathedrals and wondering aloud if it might have been more efficiently employed society-wise on internal improvements such as canals (of course, Gibbon was living in the beginning of the brief Renaissance of canal-building, which was to be prematurely cut off by its insidious, unstoppable competitor, the fledgling railroads – so a quick elegant expression of regret vis-a-vis the absence of devotion to canal building would have been leading-edge stuff for the late 1700′s).

But this from Gibbon on Carolingian canals:

After the reduction of Pannonia, the empire of Charlemagne was bounded only by the conflux of the Danube with the Teyss and the Save: the provinces of Istria, Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an easy, though unprofitable, accession; and it was an effect of his moderation, that he left the maritime cities under the real or nominal sovereignty of the Greeks. But these distant possessions added more to the reputation than to the power of the Latin emperor; nor did he risk any ecclesiastical foundations to reclaim the Barbarians from their vagrant life and idolatrous worship.

Some canals of communication between the rivers, the Saone and the Meuse, the Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted. Their execution would have vivified the empire; and more cost and labor were often wasted in the structure of a cathedral.

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.49, p.130)

and this from WIKI on the Fossa Carolina – the (short) (and apparently executed) canal project by Charlemagne connecting two tributaries of the Rhine and of the Danube:

The Fossa Carolina (or Karlsgraben in German) was a navigable channel connecting the Swabian Rezat river to the Altmühl river (the Rhine basin to the Danube basin). It was created during the Middle Ages long before the Ludwig Canal and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. This Channel was the first to link the Rhine basin to the Danube basin.

In 793 Charlemagne gave orders to dig a 3 kilometers long channel from Treuchtlingen to Weißenburg in Bayern. It seems that the goal of this work was to improve the transportation of goods between Rhineland and Bavaria. Another theory (less credible) tells that the main purpose was to bring back Charlemagne’s war vessels from the Danube to the Rhine. According to some contemporary chroniclers, the channel was unfinished due to heavy rains and geological problems. But other sources let think that it was completed and fully operational. This channel worked with several ponds, dikes and dams.

Today only a 500 meters long part of the Channel still exists.

(from Fossa Carolina WIKI)

WOW! 500 meters of a 1300 year old canal still existing! Anyways… I think it’s interesting.

BIAS - yes, bias assumes that there is some perfect normal distribution out there, and yes, it is not possible to write history without some kind of viewpoint - read: bias - BUT, its still nice sometimes for a historical author to try and LIST THEIR BIASES for the reader to give the reader a FIGHTING CHANCE of usefully employing the historical narrative the author is weaving for his/her benefit. Plot Intensity Bias, screenshot IOS Software

In the midst of all this criticism of Gibbon, in which I freely admit I indulge myself considerably from time to time, often to excess, it’s important (for me) (and for you) to pause and remember WHY Gibbon is IMPORTANT.

Gibbon is one of the first comprehensive historians to try and systematically reference his opinions with footnotes specifically pinpointing the original source from which he draws his broader conclusions. This is important. It wasn’t always like this, in history – and after having read his last chapter (the Great Footnote-Less Chapter 48 – 60 emperors, 600 years, 50 pages) I really, really am grateful to be firmly into chapter 49, where 1/3 to 1/2 the page is often footnotes, and most of his very opinionated historical narrative rests securely on a multitude of ancient and 18th cent histories.

He also is very aware of bias.

Sometimes, not so aware of his own bias, but usually he is unafraid of flouting public opinion and stating an unpopular view of history, realizing the bias of his own times is against him, and he is probably doing himself a disservice. But he goes ahead and does it anyway – and for that we love him.

Charlemagne is a very political topic for historical discussion and here, Gibbon looks at Charlemagne’s coronation. Was it premeditated (Charlemagne says no)? Was it accidental (or a highly political act?) All these considerations were much more dangerous to discuss before in the Europe before 1789 (before the French Revolution) when most of the crowned heads of Europe held their offices directly or indirectly from the Act of Coronation. Gibbon, typically, takes it head-on:

On the festival of Christmas, the last year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged the simple dress of his country for the habit of a patrician. After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious crown on his head, and the dome resounded with the acclamations of the people, “Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!” The head and body of Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the example of the Caesars, he was saluted or adored by the pontiff: his coronation oath represents a promise to maintain the faith and privileges of the church; and the first-fruits were paid in his rich offerings to the shrine of his apostle.

In his familiar conversation, the emperor protested the ignorance of the intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by his absence on that memorable day. But the preparations of the ceremony must have disclosed the secret; and the journey of Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation: he had acknowledged that the Imperial title was the object of his ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was the only adequate reward of his merit and services [94]

Note 094
This great event of the translation or restoration of the empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander, (secul. ix. dissert. i. p. 390 – 397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,) Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 339 – 352,) Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247 – 251,) Spanheim, (de ficta Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395 – 405,) St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p. 438 – 450,) Gaillard, (Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386 – 446.) Almost all these moderns have some religious or national bias.]

I know, I know – a lot of “Last Words” for just a little bit of text “Almost all these moderns have some religious or national bias” – but you don’t know (or maybe you do) how WELCOME and HEARTRENDING it is to read a significant historian, writing a major work, (not to mention after slaving, yourself, in the historical salt mines for years) and come across the tiniest hint of humility and admission of prejudice in historical writing. It brings tears to the eyes.

Continuing on with the Grab-Bag chapter 49 – we look at the Donations of Constantine (fake), and Pepin (real) – which is how, at one time in Central Italy, your landlord COULD be your Pope, all at the same time. We also see the end of Hating-Image-Hating or the end of Iconoclasm. And we get to see (as usual) a lot of Gibbonian soul being bared to 21st cent. eyes.

Mural 1000 years after the fact of The Donation of Pepin to Pope Stephen II - this was the real donation, the donation BACK of the imperial territories wrested from Constantinople by the Lombards from the Empire, and given back by the French (after conquering the conquering Lombards) , not to the Eastern Romans, but to the Bishops of Rome - they got the Ducatus Romae - the lands under the former military Duke of Rome

Beginning with our reading today (the late 740′s and the Lombard king Aistulf’s defeat at the hands of the French king Pepin – when Pepin gave some of the former imperial Byzantine Ducatus of Rome directly to the Pope – Bishop of Rome – to administer) until the final Reunification push into the Papal territories with the fall of the French empeoror Napoleon III (September 20, 1870) (see Italian Reunification) – the Pope’s had temporal (ie real political) power over territories of Italy for over 1100 years.

This came in 2 waves initially, ie 2 acts/documents: The Donation of Constantine (a papal fake), and the Donations of Pepin, Charlemagne (actual basis of papal territories).

As the ultimate lord of political units physically on the Italian peninsula, and as the ultimate lord of all Christians, this temporal power of the popes had proved to be a huge problem for a millenium – something they could neither get convince themselves to get rid of, nor something they could honorably hold on to. The Reformation and Protestants in general had a field day with it. Gibbon (writing 60 years before Italian Reunification really started to gain momentum during the Revolutions of 1848,and 90 years before the Papacy had to give up all its territories to the fledgling Kingdom of Italy) of course drips scorn and contempt when describing the Bishop of Rome’s newly inherited temporal powers. But then again, he was a “recovering Catholic” his whole life, and “hell hath no fury like“, well, in this case, a youthful-converted-Protestant-who-converts-back-out-of-Catholicism-into-Protestantism-again-at-the-strong-insistence-of-his-rich-father.

Remember, that all this hullaballoo about temporal power didn’t amount to a hill of beans in Late Antiquity – bishops already HAD CONTROL over COURTS, often took care of FEEDING THE POOR, RANSOMING the ENSLAVED, RUNNING THE CITY (hospitals, police, sanitation, etc) THROUGHOUT THE EMPIRE – and had been doing it for the last 350 years ever since Constantine. As the cities decayed, and the rich Decurions (leading citizens, great men of the cities) disappeared, the normal government of the cities had devolved upon the empire. As the empire decayed, the empire gave these responsibilities up to the Christian bishops – who were extremely rich, often the leading citizens, often drawn form the very same class of local “disappeared Decurions” and, the nice thing about the church was, as a corporate entity, it just went on and on.

So in these times of rape and pillage (Lombard Dukes ravaging Italy) the bishops of Rome (and of other cities) were ALREADY DOING SOME OF THE DUTIES of a lord, this was just an instance of making it
official.

Of course, long after regular citizens, dukes, kings, etc took BACK the civic duties of an earthly ruler into their own hands, the bishops of Rome kept their mid-Italian belt of territories to themselves – scheming, fighting, killing and generally causing a scandal as the titular vicars of Christ on Earth AND remorseless landlords also.

But here’s how it all fell out in the 700′s:

This is the scene that never happened, but it is the one that captured everyone's imagination - scene from the fresco cycle of the Basilica of the Quattro Santi Coronati, Rome - the Donation of Constantine, 13th century.

1. Donation of Constantine (a Fake)

This from Wiki:

The text and its content

Inserted among the twelfth-century compilation known as the Decretum Gratiani, the document is included among the texts of the False Decretals of Isidore, although it is commonly held not to be one of Isidore’s own forgeries.

Purportedly issued by the fourth century Roman Emperor Constantine I, the Donation grants Pope Sylvester I and his successors, as inheritors of St. Peter, dominion over lands in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, and Africa as well as the city of Rome with Italy and the entire Western Roman Empire, while Constantine would retain imperial authority in the Eastern Roman Empire from his new imperial capital of Constantinople. The text claims that the Donation was Constantine’s gift to Sylvester for instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him, and miraculously curing him of leprosy.

Medieval use and reception

The earliest possible allusion to the Donatio is in a letter in which Pope Hadrian I exhorts Charlemagne to follow Constantine’s example and endow the Roman church. It was clearly a defense of papal interests, perhaps against the claims of either the Byzantine Empire or those of Charlemagne himself, who soon assumed the former imperial dignity in the West and with it the title “Emperor of the Romans”.

In 1054 Pope Leo IX sent a letter to Michael Cærularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, that cited a large portion of the Donation of Constantine, believing it genuine.[3] The official status of this letter is acknowledged in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5, entry on Donation of Constantine, page 120:
“The first pope who used it in an official act and relied upon it was Leo IX; in a letter of 1054 to Michael Cærularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, he cites the “Donatio” to show that the Holy See possessed both an earthly and a heavenly imperium, the royal priesthood.”

Leo IX assured the Patriarch that the donation was completely genuine, not a fable or old wives’ tale, so only the apostolic successor to Peter possessed that primacy and was the rightful head of all the Church. The Patriarch rejected the claims of papal primacy, and subsequently the Catholic Church was split in two in the Great East-West Schism of 1054.

The poet Dante Alighieri held the Donation to be the root of papal worldliness in his Divine Comedy.

( from Donation of Constantine, WIKI)

2. Donations of Pepin, Charlemagne (Actual Sources of Power)

The “Donation of Pepin”, the first in 754, and second in 756, provided a legal basis for the formal organizing of the Papal States, which inaugurated papal temporal rule over civil authorities. The Donations were bestowed by Pepin the Short only three years after he became the first civil ruler appointed by a Pope, about the year 751.

In 753, the Lombards under their king Aistulf (also known as Astolfo) had conquered the Exarchate of Ravenna, the main seat of Byzantine government in Italy, whose Patriarch held territorial power as the representative of the Eastern Roman emperor, independent of the Pope of Rome. The Lombard Duke of Spoleto and the Lombard kings posed a threat to Roman territory, and Aistulf demanded tribute from Pope Zachary, an able diplomat.

After Zachary died in March 752, and after the death of his successor Pope-elect Stephen a mere three days after his own election in March 752, the eventual successor, Pope Stephen II, went to meet Pepin the Short (who had been crowned at Soissons with Zachary’s blessing) at Quiercy-sur-Loire in 753, marking the first time a Pope had crossed the Alps. The Pope was first met by Pepin’s eleven-year-old son, Charles who conveyed him to his father in Ponthion. At Quiercy the Frankish nobles finally gave their consent to a campaign in Lombardy. Roman Catholic tradition asserts that it was then and there that Pepin executed in writing a promise to convey to the Papacy certain territories that were going to be wrested from the Lombards. No actual document has been preserved, but later 8th century sources quote from it.

On July 28, 754 Pope Stephen anointed Pepin, as well as his two sons Charles and Carloman, at Saint-Denis in a memorable ceremony that was recalled in coronation rites of French kings until the end of the ancien regime in the French Revolution of 1789-1799.
In return, in 756, Pepin and his Frankish army forced the last Lombard king to surrender his conquests, and Pepin officially conferred upon the pope the territories belonging to Ravenna, even cities such as Forlì with their hinterlands, laying the Donation of Pepin upon the tomb of Saint Peter, according to traditional later accounts.

The gift included Lombard conquests in the Romagna and in the Duchy of Spoleto and Benevento, and the Pentapolis in the Marche (the “five cities” of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Senigallia and Ancona). The Donations allowed the Pope to reign for the first time as a temporal ruler. This strip of territory extended diagonally across Italy from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic. Over these extensive and mountainous territories the medieval Popes were unable to exercise effective sovereignty, given the pressures of the times, and the new Papal States preserved the old Lombard heritage of many small counties and marquisates, each centered upon a fortified rocca.

Pepin confirmed his Donations in Rome in 756, and in 774 his son Charlemagne again confirmed and reasserted the Donation.

(from Donation of Pepin WIKI)

Empress Irene - of Athens - a woman Gibbon loved to hate - image from Pala d'Oro 10th century, Venice

Image-Worship, It’s All Due to Those Darned Monks and Women

Gibbons ongoing crusade against monks and women – (there should be a word for this, properly Gibbonian like Misomonachokaigynism – hatred monks and women-ism) – anyways…

In a barbed aside, Gibbon casually drops to his knees, fires two quick volleys at his two favorite targets (monks, women) for no apparent reason (at least that I can see, other than pure venom and rhetorical effect), and thunderously sallies forth from his historical castle bearing the banners of “The Male Sex” and “Protestant” proudly before him as he does battle in the ancient fields of Eastern Roman Spirituality. Or something like that. I’ll let you decide. It does make for (as Winston Churchill said, and I freely paraphrase) a grand, marvelous read.

You know, the more I read of Gibbon, I wonder, how did he FARE in all those fabulous Late 18th cent. SALONS gathered around famous, intelligent WOMEN of the day, seeking civilized conversation? With such (low) opinions of his hostesses? He couldn’t have been very popular. And perhaps, he wasn’t, thus the comments.

Gibbon on the empress Irene and the monks (both of whom liked image-worship) and their eventual victory in the Eastern Empire:

While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion, the images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the Eastern empire. Under the reign of Constantine the Fifth, the union of civil and ecclesiastical power had overthrown the tree, without extirpating the root, of superstition.

The idols (for such they were now held) were secretly cherished by the order and the sex most prone to devotion; and the fond alliance of the monks and females obtained a final victory over the reason and authority of man. Leo the Fourth maintained with less rigour the religion of his father and grandfather; but his wife, the fair and ambitious Irene, had imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the heirs of the Idolatry, rather than the philosophy, of their ancestors. During the life of her husband, these sentiments were inflamed by danger and dissimulation, and she could only labor to protect and promote some favourite monks whom she drew from their caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the East.

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.49, p.117)

More Gibbon below….

Gibbon (Quoting the Recorded Acts of the 7th General Council of the Church in Nicea (787)) Gives Yet Another Example of Why One Ought to Despise Monks And All Their Works

Gibbon has nothing but scorn and despair when reviewing the “holy” reasoning of the bishops of the 7th General Council. I imagine it would be shocking to encourage a monk to visit a brothel, but somehow this says more (to me) about Gibbon than it does about the abbot and the monk. Obviously men in the 700′s had MUCH LESS or possibly DIFFERENT views placed upon certain sexual behavior than does Gibbon in the 1780′s. But here it is (Gibbon quoting the Acta quoting an abbot giving advice):

Demon of Fornication Better Than Demon of Not-Worship-Images

No more than eighteen days were allowed for the consummation of this important work: the Iconoclasts appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents: the scene was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern patriarchs, (79) the decrees were framed by the president Taracius, and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of three hundred and fifty bishops.

They unanimously pronounced, that the worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the fathers and councils of the church: but they hesitate whether that worship be relative or direct; whether the Godhead, and the figure of Christ, be entitled to the same mode of adoration.

Of this second Nicene council the acts are still extant; a curious monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly. I shall only notice the judgment of the bishops on the comparative merit of image-worship and morality. A monk had concluded a truce with the daemon of fornication, on condition of interrupting his daily prayers to a picture that hung in his cell. His scruples prompted him to consult the abbot. “Rather than abstain from adoring Christ and his Mother in their holy images, it would be better for you,” replied the casuist, “to enter every brothel, and visit every prostitute, in the city.”

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.49, p.118)

and, finally,

A Little Anti-Catholicism Never Hurt Anyone

An angry book of controversy was composed and published in the name of Charlemagne: under his authority a synod of three hundred bishops was assembled at Frankfort: (83) they blamed the fury of the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of their pretended council, which was long despised by the Barbarians of the West.

Among them the worship of images advanced with a silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is made for their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages which precede the reformation, and of the countries, both in Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of superstition.

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.49, p.120)

Mustang Ranch, a Nevada landmark - Gibbon is shocked that in a transcript of the Acts of the 7th General Church Council at Nice (a rabidly pro-image-worship gathering) , an abbot of a monk proposed that the monk would sin more visiting prostitutes than he would in NEGLECTING to worship icons of the Virgin and Christ

Shady Lady Ranch - male brothel in Central Nevada - sorry I just couldn't resist adding this (I've driven by it and never known it was filled with naked MEN not WOMEN, well, I guess both) to the prostitute-versus-image-worship discussion - the fact that abbots spoke about prostitutes and icon-worship in the same breath AND recorded it for all time in the Acts of a General Church Council show that we are looking at a different culture when we look at the 700's

What a Thought Looks LIke Coming to the Surface of my Mind Today

Kind of a slow day. Very slow for me, not feeling very good at all, I feel, in fact like I’m thinking through mud.

Anyways… continuing with chapter 49 – the Grab-Bag chapter – so far this seems to be a chapter on how Rome went from being imperial to medieval – today Gibbon takes up with the Iconoclasm controversy causing a rift in the Constantinople/Rome alliance, leaving Rome exposed to Lombard attacks. France eventually steps in, first as a protector of the papcy, then within a few years as a conqueror of the Lombards with direct political “patronage” over the Romagna and Papal lands.

The more I look at the Grab-bag character of this chapter, I see Gibbon piecing together various themes, higgledy-piggledy (to use the technical expression) explaining the History of the City of Rome – which will take him on a long voyage during the next 700 years nearly all the way through the Middle Ages and almost into the Early Modern Era.

Italy of the Lombards - Liutprands Italy - Italy after the conquests of Liutprand. Lombard territory shown in green, Byzantine territory in orange - just looking at Rome and the Papal Territories (that narrow orange belt running up the center of Italy) you can see why the Pope would be a little nervous around the Lombards, esp if he didn't feel like he could count on the emperor anymore to do some of the heavy lifting for him politically - I guess that's how you get tough (and the Papacy did get tough in the next 4 centuries), growing up in a rough neighborhood

Like Jordanes for the Goths (a couple of centuries earlier in the 550′s) we have a NATIVE HISTORIAN writing history in a classical tradition of history for the Lombards – that is Paul the Deacon (in the 750′s) – who like Liutprand a lot. Seeing Liutprand through Lombard eyes (Paul’s – he was a Lombard) is very different from seeing him through imperial eyes, or the Papacy’s long memory.

This is all very interesting to me, because you get a very different view of the Lombards from Paul – a much more complicated relationship with the Popes, the Germans, and the Franks, and a positive spin on Lombard behaviors – usually Lombards are treated in history like barely-tamed animals (Gibbon is no exception).

But Lombard hitory wasn’t nearly as cartoonish, black-and-white, evil-versus-good as Gibbon, and possibly some 19th century national/church histories would like to maintain. The Lombards in Paul’s hands, sound less like barbarians ruining a good thing (Italy) and more like a typical Germanic successor kingdom trying to make its way in a very very dangerous world inhabited by powerful and uncontrollable Constantinople Romans and tricky fellow Germans.

Anyways… here it is – this from WIKI:

Liutprand was the King of the Lombards from 712 to 744 and is chiefly remembered for his Donation of Sutri, in 728, and his long reign, which brought him into a series of conflicts, mostly successful, with most of Italy. He profited by Byzantine weakness to enlarge his domains in Emilia and the Romagna.

Liutprand’s life began inauspiciously. His father was driven to exile among the Bavarians, his older brother Sigipert was blinded by Aripert II, king of the Lombards and his mother Theodarada and sister Aurona were mutilated (their noses and ears were cut off). Liutprand was spared only because his youth made him appear harmless. He was released from Aripert I’s custody and allowed to join his father (Paul the Deacon, VI.xxii).

Reign

The reign of Liutprand, son of Ansprand, duke of Asti and briefly king of the Lombards, began the day before his father’s death when magnates called to Ansprand’s deathbed consented to make Liutprand his colleague. Liutprand’s reign endured for thirty-one years. Within the Lombard kingdom he was considered a lawgiver of irreproachable Catholicity.

Relations with the Agilolfings of Bavaria

At the opening of his reign, Liutprand’s chief ally among neighboring rulers was the Agilolfing Theodo I, the Frankish duke of Bavaria. Theodo I’s intervention on Ansprand’s behalf helped him gain the throne. Theodo had taken him in, when he and his father were temporarily expelled by Aripert II in 702, and the hospitality was later cemented with a marriage connection: Liutprand took to wife the Agilolfing Guntrud. The core of Theodo’s policy was resistance to the Merovingian mayors of the palaces in their encroachments north of the Alps, concerns that did not much occupy Liutprand, and maintaining strategic control of the eastern Alpine passes in what is now the Italian Alps, which did. In the spring of 712, Theodo’s son Theodebert, with Ansprand and Liutprand, attacked Lombard strongholds, and with the drowning of their fleeing rival Aripert, Ansprand’s faction were back in power at Pavia.

Theodo died in 717 or 718; under his successor the Lombard ties with the Agilolfing weakened. Until distracted by Byzantine politics in 726, Liutprand’s chief warmaking energies were concentrated on taking Bavarian castles on the River Adige.

Byzantine wars

In his early reign, Liutprand did not attack the Exarchate of Ravenna or the Papacy. But in 726, the Emperor Leo III made his first of many edicts outlawing images or icons (see the iconoclastic controversy). The pope, Gregory II, ordered the people to resist and the Byzantine duke of Naples, Exhiliratus, was killed by a mob while trying to carry out the imperial command to destroy all the icons. Liutprand chose this time of division to strike the Byzantine possessions in Emilia. In 727, he crossed the Po and took Bologna, Osimo, Rimini and Ancona, along with the other cities of Emilia and the Pentapolis. He took Classis, the seaport of Ravenna, but could not take Ravenna itself from the exarch Paul. Paul was soon killed in a riot, however. Eventually, Ravenna would capitulate to Liutprand with barely a fight (737).

The first Moorish raids on Corsica began around 713–719 from the Balearic Islands to the west. Acting as the protector of the Catholic Church and its faithful, Liutprand subjected the island to Lombard government (c. 725), though it was nominally under Byzantine authority. Corsica remained with the Lombard kingdom even after the Frankish conquest, by which time Lombard landholders and churches had established a significant presence on the island.

Donation of Sutri

Having just overwhelmed the Byzantine forces, though it was left to his heirs to make the final vestige of the Exarchate of Ravenna Lombard at last, Liutprand advanced towards Rome along the Via Cassia; he was met at the ancient city of Sutri by Pope Gregory II (728). There the two reached an agreement, by which Sutri and some hill towns in Latium (see Vetralla) were given to the Papacy, “as a gift to the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul” according to the Liber Pontificalis. They were the first extension of Papal territory beyond the confines of the Duchy of Rome. This was the beginning of the Papal States.

In the meantime, Leo sent Eutychius, as Exarch of Ravenna, to take control of Italy. When Eutychius arrived at Naples, he made an agreement whereby Liutprand would attack the Pope if the Greeks aided him in subjugating the contumacious and independent southern Lombard duchies, the Duchy of Spoleto and the Duchy of Benevento. The dukes, Thrasimund II and Godescalc, surrendered — though control of the duchies from Pavia was not to endure for long — and the new exarch marched on Rome. At Rome, Liutprand camped on the far bank of the Tiber in the “Field of Nero” and arbitrated, returning to the exarch the city of Ravenna alone among the Byzantine territories and prevailing on the pope to restore his allegiance to the emperor (730).

Frankish relations

Following the death of Theodo, Liutprand turned from his former Agilolfing allies to bind himself to Charles Martel, duke of the Franks, whose son, Pepin the Short, he adopted and girded with arms at his coming of manhood. In 735–736, a serious illness encouraged Liutprand to raise his nephew Hildeprand to co-kingship. In 736–737, Liutprand crossed the Alps with an army to help Charles expel the Moors from Aix-en-Provence and Arles.

In 738, a long peace was broken by the rebellious Lombard duke of Spoleto, Thrasimund II. When the revolt was suppressed, with nephews of Liutprand established at Beneventum and Spoleto, the dukes fled to Rome and the protection of Pope Gregory III. Liutprand immediately began the conquest of the Ducatus Romanus, the province around Rome. After capturing Orte and Bomarzo, he arrived at Rome and besieged it. The Pope sent an embassy to Charles Martel to beg for aid, promising favour then and in the future world: the cover letter survives. Gregory conferred on him the title of patrician. Gregory’s anti-Lombard rhetoric reached absurd heights considering Liutprand’s orthodoxy; the Lombard king only wanted his rebellious dukes to face justice. Charles ignored the pope’s excessive charges against his erstwhile ally and instead sent back his own embassy to mediate between the two Italian powers. Before any headway was made, however, both pope and Frank died.

Death

Soon after the death of Gregory III (741), Zachary was elected to the Apostolic See; Liutprand happily signed a twenty-year peace and restored the cities of the Duchy of Rome of which he had taken possession. Soon after, his reign ended in peace. Having passed more years on the throne and come closer to bringing the entire peninsula under one rule than any of his predecessors, the great Lombard died in 744 and was buried the church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, in Pavia.

Source

The main source for the career of Liutprand is the Historia Langobardorum of Paul the Deacon, which idealises Liutprand. It was written after 787 and covers the story of the Lombards from 568 to the death of Liutprand in 744. Though written by a Lombard from a Lombard point of view, it contains much information about the Eastern Roman Empire, the Franks, and others.

(from Liutprand, King of the Lombards in Wiki)

Tremissus of Liutprand - Lombard currency

Per Gibbon what Monks ARE NO GOOD AT

We continue today with Iconoclasm (Icon=Image, clasm=Break, Image-Breaking) which flooded the empire from the 720′s through the mid-800′s, peaking in the mid 700′s. The fear in some Orthodox circles was that images were being worshiped almost like pagan idols. Eventually this fear resulted in imperial persecution, a definitive cultural/spiritual break between Italy and Constantinople, and a great deal of ecclesiastical ink and citizen blood being spilt in the process.

We pause to look at the Popes Martin I and Gregory II, and peer for a moment at Gibbon’s view of a 17th cent.(?) Orthodox priest’s view of a painting by Titian and enjoy all the cross-cultural divides which are thus revealed.

Martin was summoned, kidnapped, and exiled and died (in Russia) all because he, as Pope had displeased the Roman emperor Constans II - a different kind of papacy - one where the pope, like the Patriarch was more a bureau of the Roman government than an independent representative of God on Earth. All that was to change with the Iconoclasm Controversy a hundred years later - Rome declared her independence - Modern rendering of Pope Martin I

There was an almost-alternate universe for the papacy while Eastern Rome held Italy – this was from the 570′s through the 720′s when the emperor in Constantinople ruled who was Bishop of Rome as effectively as he (or she) would rule who was Patriarch of Constantinople.

Martin is an example of what could happen when the Bishop of Rome collided with the emperor of Rome. The Bishop lost – bigtime.

Had Constantinople stayed the overseer of Rome, the papacy would have stayed under the thumb of a secular ruler and history in Western Europe would have turned out very differently. But the Iconoclasm controversy and Charlemagne and the Lombards in Northern Italy effectively pushed the papacy out of Roman hands and bounced it back and forth between Lombard and Frankish political protection.

This from WIKI:

Pope Saint Martin I, born near Todi, Umbria in the place now named after him (Pian di San Martino), was pope from 649 to 653, succeeding Theodore I in July 5, 649. The only pope during the Byzantine Papacy whose election was not approved by a iussio from Constantinople, Martin I was abducted by Constans II and died in the Crimean peninsula.

He was the last apocrisiarius (a high diplomatic representative, the title being used by Byzantine ambassadors as well as by the representatives of bishops to the secular authorities) to be elected pope.

He had previously acted as papal apocrisiarius or legate at Constantinople, and was held in high repute for his learning and virtue.

Papacy (649–653)

One of his first official acts was to summon the Lateran Council of 649 to deal with the Monothelites, whom the Church considered heretical. The Council met in the church of St. John Lateran; was attended by 105 bishops (chiefly from Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, with a few from Africa and other quarters); held five sessions or secretarii from October 5 to October 31, 649, and in twenty canons condemned Monothelitism, its authors, and the writings by which Monothelitism had been promulgated. In this condemnation were included, not only the Ecthesis (the exposition of faith of the patriarch Sergius for which the emperor Heraclius had stood sponsor), but also the typus of Paul, the successor of Sergius, which had the support of the reigning emperor (Constans II).

Abduction and exile (653–655)

Martin was very energetic in publishing the decrees of the Lateran Council of 649 in an encyclical, and Constans replied by enjoining his exarch (governor) in Italy to arrest the pope should he persist in this line of conduct and send Martin as a prisoner to Constantinople.

These orders were found impossible to carry out for a considerable space of time, but at last Martin was arrested in the Lateran on June 17, 653, along with Maximus the Confessor. He was hurried out of Rome and conveyed first to Naxos, Greece, and subsequently to Constantinople, arriving on September 17, 653. After suffering an exhausting imprisonment and many alleged public indignities, he was ultimately banished to Chersonesos Taurica (a city in present-day southern Ukraine in the Crimea region), where he arrived on May 15, 655, and died on September 16 of that year.

Place in the calendar of saints

April 14 is the optional memorial of St Martin I. He is also venerated as a saint and martyr in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

(from Pope Martin I in WIKI)

Gregory II used a typically much more direct writing style (which we can only assume was the typical Roman style in the 720s) which was melo-dramatic, direct, and a little petulant and childish to modern ears - not what you'd expect in diplomatic correspondence between 2 powerful governors (Pope and Emperor) in the Early Middle Ages. Pope Gregory II from a 15th Century Florentine Manuscript

And If You Come After Me, Why We Will Just Find Someone Else To Help Us

What’s interesting here is that for the last century, the ROMANS have been protecting the PAPACY FROM the LOMBARDS – now the Pope sees his opportunity and states the unthinkable, in a kind of petulant way.

During ten pure and fortunate years,” says Gregory to the emperor, “we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers. How deplorable is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You now accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion; and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked to cast their horn-books at your head.”

(DEF III, Vol.5, Ch.49. pp.99-101)

Even Children Would Throw Their ABC-Books At YOU!

“You assault us, O tyrant! with a carnal and military hand: unarmed and naked we can only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body and the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance, I will despatch my orders to Rome: I will break in pieces the image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in chains, and in exile, to the foot of the Imperial throne. Would to God that I might be permitted to tread in the footsteps of the holy Martin! but may the fate of Constans serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church!

After his just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut off, in the fullness of his sins, by a domestic servant: the saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, among whom he ended his banishment and his life. But it is our duty to live for the edification and support of the faithful people; nor are we reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat.

Incapable as you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation of the city may perhaps expose it to your depredation but we can remove to the distance of four-and-twenty stadia, to the first fortress of the Lombards, and then – you may pursue the winds. Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union, the mediators of peace, between the East and West? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere, as a God upon earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy.

The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from our hands the sacrament of baptism. The Barbarians have submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice of the shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled into rage: they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East. Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head!”

(DEF III, Vol.5, Ch.49. pp.99-101)

A Whole Lot of Monk-Hating

Monks are BAD artists – and Proud of it

Gibbon gives us here a consistently negative view of monks (one of the literally many hundred examples of his hatred and disdain of monasteries and all things monkish), but inadvertently also shows some very interesting cross-cultural differences between East and West.

In his (always more interesting) footnote to his text, Gibbon references the monks poor artistic abilities by quoting the story of a Greek priest who is scandalized by a religious portrait of Titian (which is obviously a 16th cent. story and so a good 700 years after our time – BUT when you think of it – this is a notable example AGAIN of the STRENGTH of Eastern Rome’s culture, that issues settled in the 800′s were still painfully contested by Orthodox priests in the 1500′s). The problem with the portrait is that IT IS NOT FLAT, BUT APPEARS TO BE 3-DIMENSIONAL, and is therefor like a sculpture and is therefor a blasphemous idolatry – UNLIKE ICONS which are in a peculiar FLAT LATE ROMAN STYLE which is obviously spiritual and much closer to (well, an icon-adorer would say exactly like) the actual holy image of the saint, Virgin, Christ, etc).

Again what fascinates me, is the cultural differences – the priest is upset by the “naturalness” of the portrait, which is a Late Roman trait carried over into the Byzantine Iconoclasm crises of the 700′s and 800′s and was elaborately and intelligently and exhaustively worked out as only Church Fathers (such as John of Damascus) and other keen Greek minds could do. Gibbon sees DEGENERACY. The Catholic Church sees Aids to Faith. We see art. And we are all looking at the same thing.

Gibbon comes from a firm Enlightenment viewpoint, just discovering the use of pure science and reason, addicted to a rational world, and THUS, VERY HOSTILE to Reasonless Imagination and Passion (in his eyes).

John of Damascus and the priest see a kind of Platonic Ideal reflected through the paint on the wood and bringing (through adoration) the mind of man closer to the awesome purity and beauty and power of God – all in all a direct connection to the early Church in the 200′s and the new piety (almost a kind of physics) that positied/viewed spiritual power as “concentrated” in earthly things (martyr’s bones, images, holy places like Jerusalem) and available for use by man.

We today see a different worldview, a different conception of man in the universe as we compare the form and line of a piece of art as an image of a thing’s inner meaning to a mere photographic reproduction of its visible appearance. So, “flat” Iconic art seems to us to be more interested in spiritual truths than accurate representations. Not something Gibbon would have appreciated.

I love this kind of thing – it helps you figure out who you are, and who people in the past think they were – it is the very stuff of history.

Gibbon, on the spread of Image-Creation, that is, Icon-Making:

The fruitful precedent was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and martyrs. In the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features of the Mother of God were deeply inscribed in a marble column; the East and West have been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke; and the Evangelist, who was perhaps a physician, has been forced to exercise the occupation of a painter, so profane and odious in the eyes of the primitive Christians. The Olympian Jove, created by the muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these Catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius (14).

Note 014
“Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the canvass: they are as bad as a group of statues!” It was thus that the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to accept.]

(DEF III, Vol.5, Ch.49, p.91)

No, not the pet from World of Warcraft - but the murky depths of rapidly scanned history which dissolves (in the hours ensuing after a marathon reading session) into a faintly-remembered aftertaste of Anti-Byzantine Prejudice

We end the long and sometimes evasive and murky chapter 48 – 600 years in 50 pages – and start the grab-bag of “Byazantine, Roman Issues” that Gibbon calls chapter 49.

It’s weird, I am strangely less and less irritated – I guess the non-stop, non-information that comprised chapter 48 WAS getting to me. With the start of ICON WORSHIP – the Great Controversy of the 700′s and 800′s that weakened the East, broke the Western Church away from the East and fired the imagination of Eastern Romans for centuries is starting up for us now.

As with all things, it started with an innocent idea – probably a child of the Muslim conquests (partially – in my opinion), since the coincidence of BREAKING ICONS (Icon-oclasm, Icon-breaking) took place exactly at the same time the Muslims were taking over major portions of the empire, AND it was strongest in Asia Minor (the FRONTIER between ISLAM and CHRISTIANITY) and weakest in Greece and the Balkans (the lands furthest away from Islam and closer to Papal Rome).

Anyways, we end with Andronicus’s FAMOUS DEATH, Isaac II Angelus, Alexios Angelus (whom Gibbon never even refers to, at this point he’s so tired of Byzantine rulers he just says “forget all the rest” and ends chapter 48 abruptly in a kind of fit of pique). Then onto Icons, the Image of Edessa (which may or may not be the Shroud of Turin) and more spiritual thoughts, theories, reminiscences by Gibbon.

Death of Andronicus - a grisly medieval depiction from the Bibliothèque Nationale, France. - Andronicus had a hard, but eventful life, and ended up tortured and cut into pieces by the citizenry who had so joyfully requested his return from exile 3 years before - an example to GIBBON of the TRANSIENCE and ULTIMATE WORTHLESSNESS of HUMAN GLORY - and in this case, who are we to disagree?

From Umberto Eco’s Baudolino to Louis L’Amour’s, The Walking Drum – the death of Andronicus fascinates and enthralls. Gibbon is no exception.

This from Gibbon (on Andronicus’s returning to Constantinople, astonished at the news that Isaac Angelus and others have questioned his rule):

On the first alarm, he rushed to Constantinople, impatient for the blood of the guilty; but he was astonished by the silence of the palace, the tumult of the city, and the general desertion of mankind. Andronicus proclaimed a free pardon to his subjects; they neither desired, nor would grant, forgiveness; he offered to resign the crown to his son Manuel; but the virtues of the son could not expiate his father’s crimes.

The sea was still open for his retreat; but the news of the revolution had flown along the coast; when fear had ceased, obedience was no more: the Imperial galley was pursued and taken by an armed brigantine; and the tyrant was dragged to the presence of Isaac Angelus, loaded with fetters, and a long chain round his neck. His eloquence, and the tears of his female companions, pleaded in vain for his life; but, instead of the decencies of a legal execution, the new monarch abandoned the criminal to the numerous sufferers, whom he had deprived of a father, a husband, or a friend.

His teeth and hair, an eye and a hand, were torn from him, as a poor compensation for their loss: and a short respite was allowed, that he might feel the bitterness of death. Astride on a camel, without any danger of a rescue, he was carried through the city, and the basest of the populace rejoiced to trample on the fallen majesty of their prince. After a thousand blows and outrages, Andronicus was hung by the feet, between two pillars, that supported the statues of a wolf and an a sow; and every hand that could reach the public enemy, inflicted on his body some mark of ingenious or brutal cruelty, till two friendly or furious Italians, plunging their swords into his body, released him from all human punishment. In this long and painful agony, “Lord, have mercy upon me!” and “Why will you bruise a broken reed?” were the only words that escaped from his mouth. Our hatred for the tyrant is lost in pity for the man; nor can we blame his pusillanimous resignation, since a Greek Christian was no longer master of his life.

(DEF III, Vol.5, Ch.48, pp.82-83)

and this from WIKI:

Andronikos seems then to have resolved to exterminate the aristocracy, and his plans were nearly successful. But on September 11, 1185, during his absence from the capital, Stephen Hagiochristophorites moved to arrest Isaac Angelos, whose loyalty was suspect. Isaac killed Hagiochristophorites and took refuge in the church of Hagia Sophia. He appealed to the populace, and a tumult arose which spread rapidly over the whole city.

When Andronikos arrived he found that his authority was overthrown: Isaac had been proclaimed Emperor. The deposed Emperor attempted to escape in a boat with his wife Agnes and his mistress, but was captured (note that by some, Andronikos not only survived, but also managed to escape to the then self-proclaimed Kingdom of Cyprus). Isaac handed him over to the city mob and for three days he was exposed to their fury and resentment, remaining for that period tied to a post and beaten. His right hand was cut off, his teeth and hair were pulled out, one of his eyes was gouged out, and, among many other sufferings, boiling water was thrown in his face, punishment probably associated with his handsomeness and life of licentiousness. At last, led to the Hippodrome of Constantinople, he was hung up by the feet between two pillars, and two Latin soldiers competed as to whose sword would penetrate his body more deeply, and finally his body, according to the representation of his death, was torn apart. He died on September 12, 1185. At the news of the emperor’s death, his son and co-emperor John was murdered by his own troops in Thrace.

(Andronicus on WIKI)

As Gibbon would say – sic transit gloria – or more likely, Typical Byzantine Mess – esp since they were only a little over a decade away from losing the whole empire to the Italians (Venetians) due to a fight between 2 brothers for the throne, and an inability for Romans NOT TO UNDERESTIMATE barbarians (in this case, read: Venetians).

Icon of Christ Not-Made-By-Hands (a-cheiro-poietos) - from Novgorod (Russian) - an example of the Image of Edessa (Gibbon's precursor of the whole CLASS of OBJECTS OF WORSHIP called ICONS) as an ICON itself

The Image of Edessa had/has a long history (depending on whether you think the shroud of Turin is the Image of Edessa) – it was for a long time considered a sign from God that Edessa would never be taken by enemies of the empire – the Christian empire that is. Gibbon gives us a brief history:

The image of Edessa.

The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with the original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the genuine features of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles: the statue of Christ at Paneas in Palestine was more probably that of some temporal saviour; the Gnostics and their profane monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some heathen model.

In this distress, a bold and dexterous invention assured at once the likeness of the image and the innocence of the worship. A new super structure of fable was raised on the popular basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence of Christ and Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly deserted by our modern advocates.

The bishop of Caesarea records the epistle, but he most strangely forgets the picture of Christ; the perfect impression of his face on a linen, with which he gratified the faith of the royal stranger who had invoked his healing power, and offered the strong city of Edessa to protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance of the primitive church is explained by the long imprisonment of the image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an oblivion of five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop, and seasonably presented to the devotion of the times.

Its first and most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city from the arms of Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge of the divine promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a foreign enemy. It is true, indeed, that the text of Procopius ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth and valour of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled the assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane historian, of the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium was exposed on the rampart, and that the water which had been sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added new fuel to the flames of the besieged.

After this important service, the image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude; and if the Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous Greeks adored the similitude, which was not the work of any mortal pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine original.

The style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. “How can we with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendour the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in heaven, condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image; He who is seated on the cherubim, visits us this day by a picture, which the Father has delineated with his immaculate hand, which he has formed in an ineffable manner, and which we sanctify by adoring it with fear and love.”

Before the end of the sixth century, these images, made without hands, (in Greek it is a single word {a-cheiro-poietos, not-hand-made-KEN}, were propagated in the camps and cities of the Eastern empire: they were the objects of worship, and the instruments of miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult, their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle the courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions.

Its copies.

Of these pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts of a human pencil, could only pretend to a secondary likeness and improper title: but there were some of higher descent, who derived their resemblance from an immediate contact with the original, endowed, for that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific virtue.

The most ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation with the image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of Rome, or Spain, or Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and bloody sweat applied to his face, and delivered to a holy matron. The fruitful precedent was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and martyrs. In the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features of the Mother of God were deeply inscribed in a marble column; the East and West have been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke; and the Evangelist, who was perhaps a physician, has been forced to exercise the occupation of a painter, so profane and odious in the eyes of the primitive Christians. The Olympian Jove, created by the muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these Catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius.

(DEF III, Vol.5, Ch.49,p.90)

Icon of King Abgar Holding the Image of Edessa (from the 900's after the victory of the Icon-worshippers in the East) (encaustic, 10th century, Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai).

Examples of Western copies of the now lost Image of Edessa - this is the Holy Face of Genoa

Another example of a copy of the lost Image of Edessa - from San Silvestro (Matilda chapel in the Vatican).

Snow, woods, and miles to go

We have in some way reached a crisis in this whirlwind chapter 48 – Gibbon has stopped and filled in a few pages with an incredibly detailed life of the emperor Andronicus (we meet him tomorrow as emperor) BEFORE he was emperor. We also get to see the son and grandson of our favorite Alexis I (John, Manuel) and we suddenly realize we have ENTERED THE MIDDLE AGES and have a WEALTH OF DETAIL now about EVERY SINGLE PERSON IMAGINABLE. That many of the details may be apocryphal, and the stories more fanciful than factual (however you define the word factual) is lost on Gibbon. I really think he is tired of the whole project, and sincerely WISHES IT SAFELY AND CLEANLY DONE. But we (and he) have a good 900 pages to go before that – I might say Gibbon has promises to keep and miles to go before he sleeps – but I won’t.

John II Comnenus - son of Alexis, his sister Anna hated him, unfortunately for John Anna Comnenus was a historian - always be careful WHO you irritate - THEIR story may be current 1000 years later, not yours

Manuel Comnenus - son of John II, the first emperor to TRY and be a WESTERN man, marrying a French girl - the Greeks ended up killing her after Manuel died - the whole Western/Latin thing just didnt fly in Constantinople - from a Miniature in a manuscript

Isaac I - Gold Histamenon coin (successor to the solidus) - Isaac wasn't around that long (being just a kid) to get much more than coins done in his name - he was killed by angry Greek citizens outraged at his French (Western, non-Greek) mother

Where We're Taking It To

 
 
 
Gibbon

We have come a long ways in viewing Eastern Roman history from the time of (and just after) the Revolutionary War (1770′s-1780′s) (that is – Gibbon’s time). A long ways. Gibbons, in writing this chapter takes the common method of organizing history by emperor’s reigns (and there are good reasons to organize your work this way) – but ultimately, the beginning and ending of each reign doesn’t nicely delineate dramatic changes in Roman society. THIS IS ELITE HISTORY – and while it is easier to write, it begs a lot of questions – How can I USE this information? Mostly such kind of history is written to KEEP THE COMMONERS IN LINE, HAVE THEM SUPPORT THE EXISTING REGIME/SOCIAL HIERARCHY, INCULCATE RESPECT AND FEAR of HUMAN and DIVINE LEADERS.

Gibbon also focuses on personality, and personal actions of rules and the elite – which is another ancient reason for writing history – that is – finding examples in people’s lives of the past you can apply to your own life. This is MORAL HISTORY. I personally DESPISE Moral History. History is NOT THE PLACE to get your morals. Morality is an entirely different area of human endeavor. History, in my view, is the Science of Applied Human Behavior – and asks the question “How can I predict future behavior based upon past events?”

Looking at this chapter (48), most of it is in summary, about individual elites and their actions, and (Gibbon says it again and again) a kind of ROMANCE, a beguiling, exotic story of derring-do, evil rulers, wild women, false sons, true love, fickle mobs, war, peace, wealth, poverty, crime, punishment – the whole melodramatic shebang. THIS, (I’m realizing) IS THE REASON I’VE BEEN IRRITATED for the last week or so. That and not feeling well, but that’s another issue.

The Streets

The big story of the Byzantine Empire, of Rome is that of social organization. I mean, you have:

So, what would fascinate me in all of this – today’s reading is emperor Manuel I , kind of the point in Roman history when the barbarian kingdoms of the West (the Frankish, then the French, then the Germans) start to COLONIZE ROME CULTURALLY, where the hallmarks of empire – law, bureaucracy, church, social order, city-life begin to break down into the different and simpler forms of Family Loyalty and (if I can use that word without causing a firestorm of criticism) feudalism.

The loss of the soldier-farmer, the rise of family-centered politics (Comnenos, Ducas families), family-loyalty based administration of the “provinces” (Themes), the “contamination” of Western culture, esp. after the Latin Crusaders in the 1100′s set miniature “Frances” all over Syria, Palestine, and the Aegean Sea. All this would have been interesting.

But instead we get the Romance of Andronicus – which I really enjoyed – but as with most Western Medieval stories, the number of people, relationships, and complex alliances and betrayals quickly exhaust my capacity to keep things straight in my head without a pencil and paper to draw diagrams and take notes.

So, more ranting and raving, and a little historical Ken-THEORIZING – all unasked for, I realize – but there it is – that is the nature of blogs.

Until tomorrow – it’s almost 2AM and I HAVE to get to bed. Buenas’ muchachos!

***NOTE to the interested – being 1/2 New Englander I am genetically inclined to like this poem – and I’m not ashamed to say I DO LIKE IT

THIS IS A METAPHOR for what we will be doing for the next 1000 pages - A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING ALL THROWN TOGETHER IN AN ENGAGING STYLE - interesting, but probably not very historical anymorea photo of a nice bouillabaisse - if you go for that sort of thing

All right, I apologize for my extreme grouchiness lately – partly due to just plaon feeling lousy, but mostly due to an irritating whirlwind review of Byzantine history – 650 – 1204. We gave another 1-1/2 days, then we move on to chapter 49 – a strange mixture of Christian, Papal, Italian, and early Germanic Kingdoms, all kind of lumped together. I get the feeling more and more this last volume, the last 2 books are a kind of bouillabaisse – a soup with a little bit of everything in it – you can FEEL Gibbon getting tired of writing this stuff – he wants desperately to be RID of it.

So I guess it’s natural we would sense a little of his lack of interest too – I don’t know – he seems more and more to be indulging in kind of elaborate salon-talk – witty, anecdotal asides roughly based (now in the 3rd volume) in the middle 600 years or so of the empire. We’ll probably do the last 500 years in 10 pages. Probably. And I’ll still be grouchy. We’ll see.

LOOK HOW LONG JUST THIS 10 PAGES of Gibbon-Reading ARE – LIKE 15 REIGNS – this is a little ridiculous!

Well, on we go for another 200 years of emperors…

A manuscript portrait of one of my favorite emperors - Alexis I Comnenus - or more properly his name in Greek-English - Alexios A Komnenos - (Greeks numbered with letters - ie ABG, 1st 3 letters of alphabet - 1,2,3)

We have SO MANY strong women now, they are coming on so FAST AND FURIOUS, I can’t keep up (in my defense, we are, after all, doing about 100 years every 10 pages now – quite the Gibbonian clip)

So, for now, I’ll just have to list a few them:

Constantine IX had quite the eventful life, yet Gibbon sums it all up as OBSCURE - I hate to say it, but he's getting on my nerves a little in this, his chapter 48 - A beautiful mosaic of Constantine IX Monomachos in the Hagia Sophia

On Constantine VIII and Gibbon’s Dislike of the Obscurest of the Obscure

I Guess this is why this last volume of Gibbon is SO DIFFICULT TO READ – because GIBBON IS SO MISINFORMED – not his fault entirely as this WAS the 1780′s and the very beginning of organized history, but still, there’s so much MORE you could say about Constantine IX MonomachosConstantine VIII

After his decease, his brother Constantine enjoyed, about three years, the power, or rather the pleasures, of royalty; and his only care was the settlement of the succession. He had enjoyed sixty-six years the title of Augustus; and the reign of the two brothers is the longest, and most obscure, of the Byzantine history.

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.48, p.61)

Gibbon Hating Women Yet Again – This Time the Princess Anna Comneni – Who Commits the Fearful Sin of Female Authorship

GibbontTrashes the Princess Anna – daughter of Emp. Alexis I Comnenus (ca.1100) and author of the Alexiad. I HAVE read Anna and I have to say she’s fabulous. You NEVER get a woman’s point of view of historical events, Anna adds crazy details, like how handsome certain courtiers (male) were (ex. “You really couldn’t keep your eyes off of him”) and SUDDENLY YOU REALIZE for the last 6000 years of recorded history, when you were reading about all those women’s faces that launched a thousand ships, there were just as many men’s faces making women weak. It’s just they didn’t blab it all to a million people by writing it down for posterity – but it HAPPENED. A whole other way of looking at history – and reading ANNA opens your eyes up to it. Also her INSANELY xenophobic, romanophilic prejudices – she’s amazed that non-romans don’t eat their young (well, almost).

And what does Gibbon derive from a joyous 8 or 10 hours of reading Princess Anna?

The life of the emperor Alexius has been delineated by a favourite daughter, who was inspired by a tender regard for his person and a laudable zeal to perpetuate his virtues. Conscious of the just suspicions of her readers, the princess Anna Comnena repeatedly protests, that, besides her personal knowledge, she had searched the discourses and writings of the most respectable veterans: and after an interval of thirty years, forgotten by, and forgetful of, the world, her mournful solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear; and that truth, the naked perfect truth, was more dear and sacred than the memory of her parent. Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative which wins our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science betrays in every page the vanity of a female author. The genuine character of Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of virtues; and the perpetual strain of panegyric and apology awakens our jealousy, to question the veracity of the historian and the merit of the hero. We cannot, however, refuse her judicious and important remark, that the disorders of the times were the misfortune and the glory of Alexius; and that every calamity which can afflict a declining empire was accumulated on his reign by the justice of Heaven and the vices of his predecessors

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.48, p.69)

And MORE women hating – the HORRORS of IMPOTENT FEMALES – the Empire Treated Like a Livestock Venture

Gibbon – on the period of the empire when ZOE and THEODORA were active:

Whilst he (Micheal VI) ascended the throne, Theodora sunk into the grave; the last of the Macedonian or Basilian dynasty. I have hastily reviewed, and gladly dismiss, this shameful and destructive period of twenty-eight years, in which the Greeks, degraded below the common level of servitude, were transferred like a herd of cattle by the choice or caprice of two impotent females.

(DEF III, vol.5, ch.48, p.64)

The empress ZOE - a formidable woman and one of my favorite empresses