In Which We Seek Charlemagne's Ancient Murder Knife and Buttock Holder
In Which We Seek Charlemagne's Ancient Murder Knife and Buttock Holder
Europe Trip Travelogue 2: Onward!
My favorite thing about Charlemagne, ancient king of the Franks, is his sense of irony. He was born in 747 AD, lived to be 66 years old, and killed thousands upon thousands of people.
He was so good at killing people that he became very good friends with the Pope (because religion, I guess). He was sainted at one point but the church later pumped the brakes and no longer recognizes him as such.
But because he was so tight with the Pope, and murdered anyone who might have disagreed, he was eventually crowned Emperor of Rome on Christmas Day in 800 AD.
Throughout all this murder his bejeweled sword became legendary as the instrument of his rule. That sword had a name: Joyeuse. Or, in English, “joyous.”
joyous (adj.) - 1. full of happiness and joy.
Because of Charlemagne’s dedication to that hyper-dark middle-aged ironic sword naming, I knew we had to visit his home town and the seat of his power, Aachen, Germany.
I Believe Aachen Fly
It’s always a good sign, when planning to meet a friend who lives abroad in a city they know well, to hear that friend ask, “So, uh, why do you want to go there?”
But Aachen has the Centre Charlemagne, the Aachener Dom with Charlemagne’s throne, and tons of other fun irony-loving Carolingian stuff. So, WGW and I lined up to take the guided tour of the Aachener Dom and to see the throne where that enormously murderous ass once perched.
But there was a problem. There was only one slot left in the English audio tour and without the tour there would be no chance to see the throne. The lady said she’d give me a sheet to read, in English, if I wanted to take the German language tour instead.
I’m happy to say I was accepted by the German speakers as one of their own. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. In reality they just didn’t notice or care that I was reading factoids off a paper in English. Even though I didn’t understand a word of the tour I could tell the tour guide was good. She got a lot of laughs. I laughed along in an effort to fit in.
This benign subterfuge paid off.
Yep that’s the real thing. The very ass-encapsulation device once be-buttocked by Charlemagne himself. Pictured behind are my friends the German-speakers.
Except it’s not quite that easy. Charlemagne lived a long time ago. Nobody really knows whether the stuff they have lying around really once belonged to Charlemagne, or whether someone just said it belonged to him and everyone repeated it since then.
Wikipedia unequivocally states that the throne of Charlemagne was built and used by him. But the Aachener Dom’s own web site points out that this is not verifiable. As Einhard, ancient historian and member of Charlemagne’s court once wrote, “History’s a bitch.”
Here’s some more of the Aachener Dom. These stained glass windows are relatively modern.
And here’s the outside at twilight.
As for Joyeuse, the ironic murder knife, we didn’t see that for two reasons. First, it’s in the Louvre which is in Paris. Second, the sword in the Louvre which is called Joyeuse, while significant because it has been used in the coronation of so many other royals, is probably not Charlemagne’s sword.
It’s tough to know for sure exactly what folks were doing last week. Quite a bit tougher still to know what they were doing 1200 years ago. But what we do know is that if you kill enough people, especially people like the Lombards who are bothering the Pope, you can be crowned Roman emperor. And, not for nothing, also King of the Lombards.
Ahh, irony.