28 JANUARY --- BLESSED CHARLEMAGNE
Every year on this day, in the German city of Aachen, of Aix-La-Chapelle, there is celebrated the feast of Blessed Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. This year (1998), the Mass in the Emperors old cathedral was offered by the Archbishop Of Rheims, the Primate of France. Just as of old the Emperors were crowned at Aachen, so too were the Kings of France crowned at Rheims. Strange to say, this apparently most German of feasts is also the most French.
Charlemagne, after all, is accounted as "Charles I" in the lists of both Emperors and Kings.
Most people are shocked to hear that Charlemagne is a Blessed. We are taught to think that Kings are as a rule fairly despicable folk, and Charlemagne perhaps more than most. But in reality, as both Dom Gueranger in The Liturgical Year and Alban Butler in the Lives of the Saints are eloquent in pointing out, Charlemagne did indeed live a life of heroic virtue, performed miracles after his death, and in every way was worthy of being raised to the altars. Just as interesting, however, is the fact that later editions of both these works tend to leave him out.
But Charlemagne is an important figure on two counts. The first is that he gave an example of a powerful man --- THE most powerful man in his time --- aspiring to sanctity and achieving it. In the light of recent events concerning the President of the United States, the lesson to be learned is obvious.
But the second count is perhaps even more germane. He was the renovator of the Empire in the West. In my Faq on Monarchy I have dealt with this concept, but it is important to remember the ideal. St. Constantine (yes, in the Eastern Rites of the Church that Emperor too is a Saint) was the first to attempt to establish a temporal equivalent of the Kingdom of God, and physical body, so to speak, for the Church.
In the West, this came to an end in 476 A.D., although it continued in the East. When the Pope crowned Charlemagne as Emperor in 800, the ideal, which had never vanished entirely, was restored. Despite many conflicts between the Imperial and Papal powers, there was an underlying unity which was unbreakable. Hence, as Dom Gueranger tells us, this ceremony for the seventh lesson of Christmas Matins at St. Peters:
This seventh Lesson, according to the Ceremonial of the Roman Church, is to be sung by the Emperor, if he happen to be in Rome at the time; and this is done in order to honour the Imperial power, whose decrees were the occasion of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem, and so fulfilling the designs of God, which he had revealed to the ancient Prophets. The Emperor is led to the Pope, in the same manner as the Knight who had to sing the fifth lesson; he puts on the Cope; two Cardinal-Deacons gird him with the sword, and go with him to the Ambo. The Lesson being concluded, the Emperor again goes before the Pope, and kisses his foot, as being the Vicar of the Christ whom he has just announced. This ceremony was observed in 1468, by the Emperor Frederic III, before the then Pope, Paul II.
This was echoed by the prayers of the Roman Missal. Among the "Occasional Prayers, " (sets of collects, secrets, and post-communions for various intentions, to be said by the priest after finishing the propers), we find the following, "For the Emperor:"
COLLECT
O God, the Protector of all Kingdoms and in particular of the Christian Empire, grant to Thy servant our Emperor N. always to work wisely for the triumph of Thy power, that being s prince in virtue of Thy institution he may always continue mighty by virtue of Thy grace. Through Our Lord.
SECRET
Accept, O Lord, the prayers and offerings of Thy Church for the safety of Thy suppliant servant, and work prodigies habitual to Thine arm for the protection of nations faithful to Thee: that, the enemies of peace having been overcome, Christian peace may allow of Thy being served in security. Through Our Lord.
POSTCOMMUNION
O God, Who hast prepared the Roman Empire to serve for the preaching of the Gospel of the Eternal King: present Thy servant our Emperor N. with heavenly weapons, that the peace of the Churches may not be disturbed by the storms of war. Through Our Lord.
Nor was this the only liturgical treatment the Emperor received. Twice a year, all Catholics came into contact with the Imperial idea. Among the Good Friday Collects was inserted the following:
Let us pray also for our most Christian Emperor N., that Our God and Lord may, for our perpetual peace, subject all barbarous nations to him.
Let us pray. Let us kneel down. R. Arise.
O Almighty and Eternal God, in Whose hands are the powers of all men and the rights of all Kingdoms; graciously look down upon the Roman Empire, that the nations that confide in their fierceness may be repressed by the power of Thy right hand. Through Our Lord. R. Amen.
Then again, on Holy Saturday, during the Exsultet, the prayer blessing the Paschal Candle, the priest would chant:
Regard also our most devout Emperor N., and since Thou knowest, O God, the desires of his heart, grant by the ineffable grace of Thy goodness and mercy, that he may enjoy with all his people the tranquillity of perpetual peace and heavenly victory.
The Empire in the East fell to the Turks in 1453, after which the Russian Tsars claimed the post for themselves. The last Holy Roman Emperor abdicated in 1806, and this is generally accepted as the end of the Institution, although legal experts always point out that the abdication of a sovereign does not dissolve his throne. This last Emperor had, two years earlier, declared himself Emperor of Austria. That line continued until 1918, when Charles I (of Austria---he would have been Charles VIII of the Holy Roman Empire), whose cause for sainthood is now complete, was forced off the throne at the behest of Woodrow Wilson.
It is rather ironic that the line begun with one Charles I, who is a Blessed, should have ended with another Charles I. The year before, Nicholas II abdicated the Russian throne. No longer did any government claim connexion with Constantine.
What is the importance of all this history to us modern Catholics? Well, as Valentin Tomberg put it:
The post of the Emperor
what an abundance of ideas concerning the post---its historical mission, it functions in the light of natural right, and it role in the light of divine right -- of the Emperor of Christendom are to be found amongst medieval authors!
As it is suitable that the institution of a city or kingdom be made according to the model of the institution of the world, similarly it is necessary to draw from divine government the order of the government of a city --- this is the fundamental thesis advance by St. Thomas Aquinas (De regno xiv, 1). This is why the authors of the Middle Ages could not imagine Christianity wothout an Emperor, just as they could not imagine the Universal Church without a Pope. Because if the world is governed hierarchically, Christianity or the Sanctum imperium cannot be otherwise. Hierarchy is a pyramid which exists only when it is complete. And it is the Emperor who is at its summit. Then come the kings, dukes, noblemen, citizens, and peasants. But it is the crown of the Emperor which confers royalty to the royal crowns from which the ducal crowns and all other crowns in turn derive their authority.
The post of the Emperor is nevertheless not only that of the last (or, rather, the first) instance of sole legitimacy. It was also magical, if we understand by magic the action of correspondences between that which is below and that which is above. It was the principle itself of authority from which all lesser authorities derived not only their legitimacy but also their hold over the consciousness of the people. This is why royal crowns one after another lost their lustre and were eclipsed after the imperial crown was eclipsed. Monarchies are unable to exist for long without the Monarchy; kings cannot apportion the crown and sceptre of the Emperor among themselves and pose as emperors in their particular countries, because the shadow of the Emperor is always present. And if in the past it was the Emperor who gave lustre to the royal crowns, it was later the shadow of the absent Emperor which obscured the royal crowns and, consequently, all the other crowns --- those of dukes, princes, counts, etc. A pyramid is not complete without its summit; hierarchy does not exist when it is incomplete. Without an Emperor, there will be, sooner or later, no more Kings. When there are no Kings, there will be, sooner or later, no nobility. When there is no more nobility, there will be, sooner or later, no more bourgeoisie or peasants. This is how one arrives at the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class hostile to the hierarchical principle, which latter, however, is the reflection of divine order. This is why the proletariat professes atheism.
Europe is haunted by the shadow of the Emperor. One senses his absence just as vividly as in former times one sensed his presence. Because the emptiness of the wound speaks, that which we miss know how to make us sense it.
Napoleon, eye-witness to the French Revolution, understood the direction which Europe had taken --- the direction towards the complete destruction of hierarchy. And he sensed the shadow of the Emperor. He knew what had to be restored in Europe, which was not the royal throne of France --- because Kings cannot exist long without the Emperor --- but rather the Imperial throne of Europe. So he decided to fill the gap himself. He made himself Emperor and he made his brothers kings. But it was to the sword that he took recourse. Instead of ruling by the orb --- the globe bearing the cross --- he made the decision to rule by the sword. But, "all who take up the sword will perish by the sword." Hitler also had the delirium of desire to occupy the empty place of the Emperor. He believed he could establish the "thousand-year empire" of tyranny by means of the sword. But again ---"all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword."
No, the post of the Emperor does not belong any longer either to those who desire it or to the choice of the people. It is reserved to the choice of heaven alone. It has become occult. And the crown, the sceptre, the throne, the coat-of-arms of the Emperor are to be found in the catacombs
in the catacombs --- this means to say: under absolute protection.
We are dealing with deep and strange matters here. Yet they are essential for us to understand, as Vladimir Soloviev points out:
For lack of an Imperial power genuinely Christian and Catholic, the Church has not succeeded in establishing social and political justice in Europe. The nations and states of modern times, freed since the Reformation from ecclesiastical surveillance, have attempted to improve upon the work of the Church. The results of the experiment are plain to see. The idea of Christendom as a real though admittedly inadequate unity embracing all the nations of Europe has vanished; the philosophy of the revolutionaries has made praiseworthy attempts to substitute for this unity the unity of the human race --- with what success is well known. A universal militarism transforming whole nations into hostile armies and itself inspired by a national hatred such as the Middle Ages never knew; a deep and irreconcilable social conflict; a class struggle which threatens to whelm everything in fire and blood; and a continuous lessening of moral power in individuals, witnessed to by the constant increase in mental collapse, suicide, and crime---such is the sum total of the progress which secularised Europe has made in the last three or four centuries.
The two great historic experiments, that of the Middle Ages and that of modern times, seem to demonstrate conclusively that neither the Church lacking the assistance of a secular power which is distinct from but responsible to her, nor the secular State relying upon its own resources, can succeed in establishing Christian justice and peace on the earth. The close alliance and organic union of the two powers without confusion and without division is the indispensable condition of true social progress. It remains to enquire whether there is in the Christian world a power capable of taking up the work of Constantine and Charlemagne with better hope of success.
Even the secular world knows the necessity of such an Imperial power. In the 19th century, the two major Protestant powers attempted the task. The results of the British Empire , both for good and for ill, are known to all. Of Prussias efforts, Dom Gueranger declared: "
Christendom is no more. Upon its ruins, like a woeful mimicry of the Holy Empire, Protestantism has raised its false evangelical empire, formed of nought but encroachments, and tracing its recognised origin to the apostasy of that felon knight Albert of Brandenburg." Yet the British and German Empires were still too Christian for the times. In their place we see such efforts as the wholly secular United Nations and European Union, to say nothing of our own United States, prototype for both.
What answer can be made to Solovievs enquiry? He believe that that power was the Russian Empire, following a reconciliation with Rome. We know that that was not to be, at least then or now. What remains of the Empire are fragments.
Nevertheless, they do remain. Across Europe, in Latin America, Canada, the Philippines, and elsewhere, in institutions, customs, and buildings, the mark of the Empire can be seen. Even in our own United States, in places settled before Independence or by the French and Spanish, there yet linger traces; visible only to those who know what to look for, perhaps, (like the double-eagle over the Spanish Governors Palace in San Antonio, Texas), but still present. The Crown of Charlemagne rests in Viennas Hofburg, while his throne is in the upper gallery at Aachens cathedral. The last Imperial claimant went into exile in 1918. When one considers that, from the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 to the coronation of Charlemagne was a span of 324 years, perhaps we need not worry until A.D. 2242. In any case, the due honouring of Charlemagne (as per Dom Gueranger) is a good start.
