Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (48 page)

THE EMPIRE SPEAKS

Multiple Voices

The Empire’s polycentric structure necessitated different ways of communicating identity to those in more centralized states. Without a single capital, the Empire always lacked the cultural synergies produced by the concentration of creative, political and financial resources in a single, dominant city like Paris or London. This, however, also brought with it unique strengths. The Empire avoided the cultural tensions between capital and province, court and country, found in other monarchies. Instead, cultural production and the expression of attachment diffused more evenly throughout the Empire, extending a sense of ‘ownership’ more broadly both geographically and socially.

It is perhaps doubtful that these conditions encouraged greater artistic creativity, as has been claimed.
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Nonetheless, the Empire produced the two innovations of the early modern ‘communications revolution’: printing and a regular postal network. Political decentralization frustrated censorship and control, while the absence of a single capital distributed cultural activity, patronage and educational opportunities more evenly.
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Modern Germany still benefits from having more theatres and opera houses than any other European country, while cultural life is also still fairly evenly spread in Austria and Italy. However, we should not exaggerate the level of activity nor its impact on the broader population. It is always easier to analyse images and symbols than to understand how they were received by their audiences.

Both Carolingian and Ottonian rule are associated with a Renaissance, or revival and reinterpretation of classical antiquity, while similar, less extensive developments have been identified during the Staufer era. The Carolingian Renaissance was particularly important as the primary transmitter of ancient Roman imperial models and for the articulation of a Christian moralized politics. This gave Charlemagne and his successors an idea of what an imperial court should look like, but theirs was never a carbon copy of ancient Rome. Moreover, the Carolingian Renaissance did not penetrate far beyond the clergy; indeed, many of the clergy implicitly criticized the emperor for failing to match their ideal of a Christian Roman monarch.
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The Carolingians made a lasting adaptation of imperial Rome to Frankish sensibilities in that their political-cultural practice was about
presentation
, not
representation
. The emperor needed to be present among a select, immediate audience of great lords, rather than be represented through a coherent strategy of images and propaganda intended for a wider but physically distant audience. Much of medieval imperial politics was about creating and managing opportunities for the emperor to engage personally with the political elite. This was a permanent structural characteristic, because the Empire’s monarchs remained itinerant into early modernity. Consequently, the earliest imperial symbols needed to be portable, and it was only under much-changed circumstances that the Luxembourgs and especially the Habsburgs developed a representational court culture closer in essential form to both ancient Rome and their European monarchical contemporaries.

Signs

The imperial crown was the Empire’s most obvious and enduring symbol. As in so many ways, Charlemagne set an important precedent in using a crown denoting divine reward for true faith, rather than the ancient Roman practice of a laurel wreath symbolizing military victory. Custom maintained that the ‘Charles Crown’ (
Karlskrone
) was always used after 800. The surviving imperial crown is certainly very old, but even by the fifteenth century some doubted it was actually Charlemagne’s. Multiple detailed studies by art historians have failed to establish exactly when it was made, as it was clearly modified several times. The general consensus remains that it was produced for either Otto I’s coronation in 962 or that of his son (Otto II) as co-emperor in 967.
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The octagonal design is said to represent Jerusalem, while each plate is richly decorated with images of Christ and Old Testament kings. The crown is ‘closed’ by an arch from front to back denoting its imperial status, in contrast to ‘open’ diadems of mere kings. It was reserved for imperial coronations by the twelfth century, with separate royal crowns used in German, Italian and Burgundian coronations. These secondary crowns never attained the same semi-sacral quality and were often melted down or pawned. There were additional ‘private’ crowns symbolizing purely secular authority. These were scarcely
royal day wear – Rudolf II’s gold crown from 1602 weighs 3.9 kilograms. Although not the last to be made, Rudolf’s crown survived to become the Habsburgs’ dynastic symbol and was used on a revised coat of arms to denote their new Austrian imperial status in 1804 (see
Plate 14
).
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Many other treasures accumulated by the thirteenth century. Like the crown, several existed in multiple copies, or were replaced or altered. Byzantine influence was strong, thanks to Constantinople’s association with ancient Rome and its significance as a source of holy relics. However, the Empire’s rulers and craftsmen displayed innovation of their own. The Ottonians invented the crowned cross combining secular and spiritual images to underscore their holy mission. Otto I added a cross to the imperial orb (
Reichsapfel
), which, by the eleventh century, had replaced the staff as the symbol of earthly rule.
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The Holy Lance (
Sacra Lancea
) contained the ‘victory-bringing nail’ said to have come from Christ’s cross; it had been acquired around 925 by Henry I from Rudolf II of Burgundy. Its potency as a symbol of divinely ordained rule was heightened through association with the Ottonian victory over the Magyars at Lechfeld in 955 and over the Roman rebels in 1001. Around 1000, Otto III sent copies to Boleslav Chrobry and (possibly) Stephen of Hungary as part of his recognition of them as the Empire’s junior partners.
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Three swords became part of the imperial insignia, including the
Gladius Caroli Magni
that was said to be part of Charlemagne’s booty taken from the Avars, having previously belonged to Attila the Hun, though it was most likely made a century later using an east European sabre. It was worn by emperors at their coronation.
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The Imperial Cross is a spectacular item allegedly containing a piece of Christ’s cross once belonging to Charlemagne. Again, its provenance is controversial, but it certainly played an important part in religious processions by the eleventh century. Other important relics included an (alleged) thorn from Christ’s crown, a tooth from John the Baptist, a chip from Christ’s crib, a piece from his carpenter’s apron, the table-cloth from the Last Supper and – for once genuine – Charlemagne’s own Bible, as well as St Stephen’s Purse, containing that saint’s blood, which was placed on a table during royal coronations in Aachen. The sacral significance of these items emphasized the emperor’s position as Christendom’s pre-eminent ruler and his holy mission. However, some
items from other cultures were incorporated, notably the spectacular coronation robes with their palm-tree and camel motifs made by Islamic craftsmen in Sicily, which were acquired by the Staufers, and the red Chinese silk Eagle Dalmatic embroidered with 68 eagle medallions, probably made for Louis IV. By that point, the imperial insignia formed a recognized collection recorded in inventories that did not question them as both authentic and timeless objects. Albrecht Dürer’s painting of Charlemagne from 1510 shows the emperor wearing the imperial crown, the Eagle Dalmatic and the Islamic robes (see
Plate 2
).

Seals were another potent symbol, used to authenticate charters and other documents issued by the imperial chancellery. Carolingian seals and coins followed ancient Roman practice in showing the ruler’s head in profile. This practice continued in West Francia until the end of the Carolingian era, but had already shifted in the east by 899 to show the monarch’s whole body posed in profile as a triumphant warrior. The Ottonians invented a new form in 962 showing the emperor frontally, enthroned, crowned and holding a sceptre and orb as symbols of majesty. Later Ottonian seals got bigger, thicker and more imposing, while after 998 the Ottonian emperors began issuing metallic seals like popes, thereby elevating important charters to ‘Golden Bulls’. The Ottonian style became the model for royal seals across Europe.
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Ottonian seals and court liturgy reflected the changed, more elevated and sacral monarchical ideal, adding images emphasizing the ruler’s proximity to God alongside the more traditional prayers for divine protection. Whereas Carolingian images often showed the emperor surrounded by nobles or intellectuals, those of the Salian era reflected the more command-style monarchy by placing the emperor apart, often as a significantly larger figure than his retinue. The sacral element waned after the 1070s and monarchs appeared more obviously as mortals, especially in regnal and dynastic sequences of miniature portraits. Images became increasingly lifelike after 1300, perhaps in reaction to the imposters claiming to be the long-dead Frederick II, as well as reflecting new ideas of the self. Charles IV had over seventy portraits of himself distributed systematically across the Empire. Again, this reflected a fundamental political shift. As imperial rule came to rest in hereditary territorial possessions under the Luxembourgs, emperors no longer showed themselves so often directly to their important subjects through the traditional royal progress.
Portraits offered an easily portable substitute. Charles is presented recognizably with large eyes, a high forehead and high cheekbones. His son Sigismund was also shown distinctively in portraiture with a mass of blond hair and a forked beard. Presentation as individuals heightened the significance of the ‘authentic’, unchanging insignia symbolizing the Empire’s enduring character: all the Luxembourg portraits, like those by Dürer, show each emperor wearing the same imperial crown.
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While the crown and royal portraits identified the monarch, the Empire increasingly became associated with the image of an eagle. Eagles already symbolized empires and armies in the ancient world and formed part of Byzantine iconography. An imperial eagle adorned the palace in Aachen at least by the time of the humiliating raid by the West Frankish king Lothar in 978, and also appeared atop Otto III’s orb. It is clearly associated with the emperor from Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’ onwards, appearing on all important items associated with the emperor like his coat of arms, insignia, coins, tents and battle flag. The eagle remained single-headed until the later twelfth century, when double-headed versions appeared on civic coats of arms and devices associated with the emperor. By the mid-fourteenth century, the double eagle was firmly fixed as an imperial bird distinguishing it from single-headed royal or princely eagles. Sigismund used a single-headed eagle as king before adopting a double-headed one at his imperial coronation in 1433, but this practice ceased with Maximilian I’s adoption of the elected imperial title in 1508. Maximilian fixed the double eagle to the Habsburg coat of arms, making it a dynastic symbol as well – this was briefly contested in the 1740s by Charles VII, the one non-Habsburg emperor of early modernity, who had the double eagle painted onto Bavarian army flags. Sigismund added halos for the eagle’s heads in 1433 to symbolize the Empire’s holy character, as well as a crown. After 1612, the imperial vicars used an uncrowned double eagle in their periods of office during imperial interregna.
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The double-eagle image spread rapidly throughout the fifteenth century, being embraced by groups as diverse as German students at Bologna University to members of the Hanseatic League, as well as being disseminated in print as broadsheets or illustrations in books about the Empire. The rise of the imperial princes proliferated other, single-headed eagles. In most cases, the eagle changed from the original imperial black to red (Brandenburg, Tirol), or red-and-white-striped
(Hessen, Thuringia). The Teutonic Order adopted a black eagle before this bird became the Empire’s primary symbol, and the black eagle was carried over to Prussia once the Hohenzollerns were raised as kings in 1701. Savoy also retained a black eagle into the nineteenth century, while Tuscany adopted a black double eagle combined with the Tuscan arms during the era of Habsburg rule.
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The eagle had originally been golden until the late thirteenth century, when gold became the most common colour for any background field, for example on flags or coats of arms. The papacy adopted the purple of ancient Rome, but the Empire favoured gold, black, red and white, although in no firm combination. The Staufer imperial battle flag was red with a white cross, persisting today as the Swiss flag. The red-white combination was also adopted by numerous princely dynasties and imperial cities.

The century after 1450 saw rapid change in imperial imagery, reflecting both the transition to a more formalized mixed monarchy, the establishment of Habsburg imperial rule, and the invention of new media like printing. Older elements like the Christian hero persisted into Maximilian I’s reign, but were joined by revived classical images, notably the emperor as Hercules or as Jupiter presiding over a new Olympus. Although pagan, such symbols acquired new value through Renaissance Humanism, which cemented their association with political virtues like justice, clemency and peace. These symbols were also attractive after the Reformation, which made some Christian imagery politically problematic in a state with two recognized faiths. The classical world also supplied numerous non-human motifs that could be employed to symbolize the Empire’s more collective character extending beyond just its monarch. For example, the electors were already described in the Golden Bull of 1356 as the ‘pillars of the Empire’. Pillars, obelisks and columns all symbolized solidity, peace and justice. Other images conveyed more partisan interpretations, reflecting the imperial constitution’s contested character through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For example, presenting the Empire as a ship suggested it required a strong emperor as helmsman.
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