On this Christmas Day in 800 AD Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king, Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome
On this Christmas Day in 800 AD Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king, Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome
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Who did this bautiful painting?
I love the one guy on the left looking back at the painter’s perspective and pointing at Charlemagne.
‟You getting this bro?”
He was not crowned King of the Franks.He alrady was.
The Roman Emperor must’ve been confused when word of this reached him in his palace in Constantinople.
Wow a heretic crowning a barbarian as the roman emperor!!!Clearly a historic moment…/s
Especially since there was an empress at the capital allready…
And thus, the greatest LARPping in European history began, whereby the germanic elites who brought down the western half of the Roman Empire, decided, they were actually the Roman Empire.
Meanwhile, the actual Romans left in the east, who kept their identity all the way to the 19th century, from the peasantry all the way to the top, were labeled as ‘Greeks’ or, much later, by historiographers as ‘Byzantines’.
There is no better example for Eurocentric historiography, other than the fact, that up to this day, the medieval Roman Empire, is referred to, as the Byzantine Empire, while the Holy Roman Empire, an empire that was neither holy, barely an empire and especially not Roman, is referred to by its actual name.
Vive l’empereur !
Ironic that the very barbarians that Rome battled for hundreds of years would eventually adapt Roman culture (creating the west) and eventually create dynasty’s of Roman emperors.
That fact that Rome’s true successor (Greek Byzantium) already had a emperor surely wouldn’t cause any issues down the line…
Say what you will about all those later “emperors” whose rule barely extended past their personal holdings in the HRE, but Charlemagne gave it a really good effort. He expanded his realm by a fair bit, he tried to revive roman culture so much as he was capable of, he gave his rule the highest justification that was possible in the cultural and religious frame of the time. He couldn’t know that the trend in his realm was towards fragmentation rather than unification, or that his grandsons would willingly partition it for their personal gain.
Irene wasn’t the first nor the last woman to rule in the Eastern Roman Empire.Some other are Pulcheria,Theodora,Zoe and Theodora who ruled by popular demand,Theodora wife of Theophilos.So the Wests claim is bogus.
St. Peters existed back then? Was it a smaller church?
Also known by his Latin name, Carolus Biggus.