Charlemagne was a king, emperor, conqueror, reformer, and the father of a united Europe. On this episode we look at how he forged the Holy Roman Empire and built the foundations of western civilization as we know it. --- Sponsors: https://www.costofglory.com/cog-retreats/texas-retreat - Austin Retreat with the Cost of Glory January 23-26. Use code TAKEOVER for $200 off. https://www.vesto.com/ - All of your company's financial accounts in one view HTTOTW Premium - For all endnotes, takeaways, and bonus episode, subscribe to How to Take Over the World Premium --- Stay in touch: Twitter/X: @BenWilsonTweets Instagram: @HTTOTW Email me: [email protected] Sources: Two Lives of Charlemagne by Einhard and Notker Charlemagne From the Hammer to the Cross by Richard Winston King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne by Janet Nelson --- Writing, research, and production by Ben Wilson.
Chapter 1: What makes Charlemagne an important historical figure?
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So Charlemagne is born on April 2nd, probably 748 AD. We don't know for sure, but that's the date that most historians now agree on. And we don't know where he was born. So he is born into Francia. Some people pronounce it Francia. Francia or Francia. It becomes France. You can hear the word kind of France in there. But the Germanic tribe is the Franks.
So I think Francia, if you're sort of getting back into the times, is actually the correct pronunciation. And the Franks had been ruled for a long time by this dynasty called the Merovingians. And they start with Clovis. They're great warriors at first. But over the hundreds of years that they rule, they kind of degenerate and they become more figureheads. They're known for their long hair.
OK, so they still have this very courtly, kingly kind of old Germanic appearance, this long hair. But again, over the years, their power erodes and they become more of figureheads. And who really rules for them are these people called mayors of the palace. So you can think of essentially a situation like in the United States where the president just becomes a figurehead.
All he does is he goes to ribbon-cutting ceremonies and he shakes hands and kisses babies, but he doesn't actually set any policy. It's like the King of England, frankly, right now. And so the mayors of the palace, that's actually a much better comparison.
The king of Francia is essentially the king of England, and the mayors of the palace are the prime minister, the guy who actually does everything, controls everything. And so you have one particular mayor of the palace named Charles Martel. Martel means the hammer. Okay. What a great nickname, Charles the Hammer.
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Chapter 2: How did the Germanic peoples rise to power?
From the Italian perspective, like from the Roman perspective, France is this place where like Germany is the place of the true barbarians. Okay. And then you always get these groups that come through and come into France and in what, you know, what we call France, what they would have called Gaul.
And in Gaul, they kind of come into contact with the Mediterranean world, the civilized world, and then they become barbarians. kind of hybrid barbarians. You can think of it almost like if the Germans are wolves, then France is the land, ironically, of the German shepherd or the husky, right? The almost domesticated dog, but still kind of wolfish, right?
Where maybe the Romans are are more actually they're your poodles right there. They're your poodles and your your doodles and your golden retrievers. They're your true civilization, civilized dogs. But France ends up being that sort of stepping stone. And so sort of the first wave of that are these people, the Celts in Gaul.
And, you know, to the Romans, they are these big, tall, scary, blonde, fierce barbarians. But over time, as they come into contact with the Romans, they become more and more civilized and they get along and they...
connect and trade and intermarry and all this stuff and so they stop becoming these big scary dudes and again they become your rottweilers your german shepherds you're sort of um still wolfish but but kind of domesticated dogs and after they're kind of used to the celts um then what happens well then you start getting some germanic tribes that come in and one of the first ones is the franks and so the franks come in and they are this big scary germanic tribe with these
you know, big beards and blonde hair and they're freaky. And then over the years, people in the Mediterranean, the Romans get used to the Franks and they stop becoming so scary. And then what would come after the Franks? Oh, the Vikings and the Normans, right? This process just keeps repeating itself. But the point is that at this moment in time,
yes, the Franks are this sort of in-between people. They still speak a German dialect. They still are a Germanic people with still some cultural associations with their Germanic cousins across the Rhine, but they've also had a lot of contact with the Roman world. And so they're Christian now. That's a big sign of that contact.
And that puts them in closer communication and closer bonds with Rome because of that shared religion. And they now begin to speak Latin. And it's interesting. French is sort of the most distinctive, I think, of the Romance languages. And it's because it's kind of hybrid German. It really does sound like a German trying to speak Latin. Latin is kind of how it originates.
There are a lot of similarities there. And this is not a thought that I came up with. Many people have said this. So Charlemagne is born into this odd sort of liminal world where the Franks are at once Germanic barbarians and yet also in communion with civilized Christendom and Italy and Rome.
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