From 768 to 843, Leo III, the "traitor to Rome," calculated Charlemagne to unify Europe

The more difficult the situation, the more willing the fool is to believe in the power of religion rather than in man's own reason.

This is also the reason why at the time of the Guanzhong drought at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Wudou Rice Sect in Hanzhong rose rapidly. Similar situations include the rise of Buddhism during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the rise of Taoism and Buddhism in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and so on.

This rule is common throughout the world, and even in modern societies, such as post-war Japan and today's South Korea.

The Frankish kingdom, with the usurpation of the throne by Pepin the Younger, completed the transition from the Merovingian to the Carolines. Dynastic succession is often accompanied by the collapse and reorganization of the power system, and in the process, the foolish people's trust in the central government is unstable, which also allows religious power to expand rapidly.

Clovis, the founder of the Frankish Kingdom, introduced Catholicism to the Frankish Kingdom in order to maintain and strengthen the monarchy. His original intention was to use the power of religious belief to win the hearts and minds of the people, but he underestimated the need for spiritual beliefs that the fools had doubled down on in the chaotic world.

So Catholicism soon swept the country, and within a few years, this country, which originally believed in polytheism and the supremacy of kingship, became a spiritual puppet of theocracy from the bottom up.

In 768, the new Frankish king Charles ascended the throne, a devout Christian who would later become known as Charles the Great.

Today, both in Europe and around the world, people marvel at the achievements of King Charles. But before we go into detail about his achievements, we must understand a big premise, that is, this European emperor of Germanic blood has spent his whole life bowing to the promotion of Christianity.

It can be said that all the achievements of King Charles were accomplished incidentally in the process of promoting Christianity.

King Charles's methods were both hard and soft. On the one hand, he could train a powerful army and then send them to drive the Arabs out of Spain with fire and swords, and by the way force the Germanic pagans along the way to convert to Christianity. On the other hand, he can establish close ties with the Holy See and indoctrinate Europeans to believe in Christ from the cultural and religious level through the way of writing books and building schools.

If one had to make a comparison, King Charles's achievements in war and conquest were still far higher than his achievements in culture. After all, from the establishment of the Frankish kingdom by the Franks, and then from the Frankish kingdom to King Charles, the Franks did not enter the "age of civilization" for a long time, and a large part of the habits belonging to the barbarians remained in their blood.

During King Charles's lifetime, he suppressed the Aquitaines, eliminated the Lombard kingdom, and incorporated Venetiania, Eastria, Dalmatia, and Corsica into the kingdom.

He hammered the Saxons back and forth 18 times, finally pressing the Saxons' faces to the ground. The resilient Bavarians, whom we have mentioned earlier, were also forced to convert to Christianity in the face of Charlemagne's fire and sword.

In 795 AD, Pope Hadrian I died and was succeeded by Leo III, a "vignette" that profoundly influenced Christianity and the Frankish kingdom a few years later.

Power and interests are always tied together, and religious beliefs can be used to control the people and influence the world, so they naturally have power, so they are naturally profitable.

In fact, the election of the pope is not as "otherworldly" as the believers portray it, and it seems that every pope is noble and great. Leo III's ascension to the throne, for example, was full of discord.

During the reign of Hadrian I, there was a strife on the European continent. The Franks re-emerged, the forces clashed with each other, and the shattered Roman world was in turmoil. In the process, Pope Hadrian I, as a religious leader, and many Roman nobles formed a network of interests in the Roman world.

Many aristocrats became staunch "Hadrians", who "respected tradition" and "respected the pope", but in the final analysis they "respected interests".

The practice of the "Hadrian" aristocracy is understandable, but the problem arises after hadrian I's death. In order to protect their own interests, different aristocratic groups within the "Hadrians" chose their own identified successors of the "Hadrians" to support them, and as a result, they were unable to reach a consensus on who would be the next pope.

At this time, Leo III, whose political talent was much higher than religious piety, emerged, and through his mediation between many forces, he dangerously ascended to the papal throne in 795 AD.

But soon the nobles discovered that the new pope was a "half-hanger" to anyone, and that he would not be in full line, so that no nobles of any kind could fully obtain the part of the benefits they thought they should have.

As a result, in 799 A.D., the nobles launched a "rebellion" that ousted Leo III from power and deposed him, subsequently placing him under house arrest.

Leo III was a very chicken thief, and on the surface he was soft and respectful to the opposition. When the opposition let down his guard slightly, he quickly escaped from prison and fled.

Where to escape? Charles's Frankish Kingdom.

Charles was very happy with the arrival of Leo III, as he happened to be thinking about how to further his influence and that of the Frankish kingdom on the European continent. So he told Leo III, "I am a devout believer, and my vocation is to protect the church with the force of my hands, and your vocation is to support my force with prayer." ”

The old statesman Leo III certainly understood what Charles meant and responded to him. Charles then sent an elite army to escort Leo III back to Rome in the name of the Council of Deliberations.

As soon as they arrived in Rome, the soldiers, on Charles's orders, declared null and void all the allegations made by the nobles and clergy who had previously opposed Leo III, and if any so, were expelled from the city by the Franks. But even so, Leo III was still out of control, and the waves of opposition to Leo III rose and fell in the city of Rome.

Of course, according to what Leo III did later, perhaps Leo III at this time was not unable to control the city of Rome, he was probably in the next big game.

In November 800, because the situation in the city of Rome had been unstable, Charles simply led a large army to Rome. He first publicly expressed his support for Leo III, and then coerced all bishops and nobles to recognize the legitimacy of Leo III's papal status.

At this time, Charlie was almost satisfied, because this was a Western version of "holding the Son of Heaven and not being subordinate", but the Western world was more religious than the East was more in the theocracy.

The pope of the Christian Catholic church, who is now recognized by the christian world as the supreme spiritual leader, can be regarded as the support of Charles, and the prestige of King Charles in the Western world can be imagined.

Charles's next plan was to become "Emperor of the Romans", but he hoped to first obtain the consent of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Emperor. For if this were the case, it would not only be seen as an acknowledgment by the Byzantine Empire of the state power of the Frankish Kingdom, or simply "submission", but also as a full acquisition of the "legitimacy" that europeans had always respected.

Don't forget, the Franks themselves had a strong Germanic blood, and the original belief was not Christianity.

But before Charles could force the Byzantine Empire to "submit", he was "calculated" by Leo III.

December 25, 800 AD, Christmas Eve. Just as King Charles was present at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for Christmas Mass, Leo III suddenly felt a golden crown and draped it over King Charles's head, declaring that king Charles would henceforth be "Emperor of the Romans."

This move directly lifted King Charles's secular status by a large margin, because from then on he was not only the ruler of the Frankish kingdom, but also the supreme representative of the Roman state principles, and the protector of the Roman Church.

In this way, Leo III completely consolidated his papacy, and at the same time freed the Holy See from the control of the Byzantine Empire, and most importantly, the Romans believed that Leo III had completely tamed the barbarians spiritually in this way.

Although King Charles was not able to achieve the "complete victory" he had hoped for at this time due to leo III's "conspiracy", due to the successful expansion of the Frankish kingdom and the support of the Holy See, King Charles was awarded a new high-ranking title, "Ruler of Europe".

With the coronation of King Charles, his identity also changed from "king" to "emperor", and his Frankish kingdom automatically received the title of "Roman Empire". As a result, King Charles was upgraded to "The Great" or "Charlemagne."

By the way, "Man" itself should correspond to "mangen", that is, "great", in the French language family. One says that it means "the title of the king" in the Germanic context, and the other says that the word is an honorary title of the suffix nature. So "Charlemagne" actually means "Charlemagne," so the word "Charlemagne" is wrong.

Then there is the question of the "Roman Empire". In 27 BC, the Roman Senate awarded Octavian the title of "Augustus", which also signed the end of the Roman republic, and Rome entered the imperial era.

The Roman Empire at this time referred to the roman land centered on the city of Rome.

More than a hundred years later, during the time of Emperor Trajan, the Roman Empire reached its peak with successive expansions, from Britain in the north to Spain in the west, north Africa in the south, and the Euphrates River in the east, all of which were the territory of the Roman Empire, and the Mediterranean Sea also became the inland sea of the Roman Empire.

Since then, the concept of the Roman Empire has actually changed even further, namely "cultural significance is higher than geographical significance". Comparing the history of our country, it is similar to the place where everyone knows that China is China, and in that place it can also be subdivided into "Xia Shang Zhou Qin Han Sui Tang Tang Song Yuan Ming and Qing".

It's just that due to the intricate geographical and blood relations in European history, there has not been a unified one-family-surname empire like the Eastern Dynasty, and their historical changes have always had the same flavor as the Spring and Autumn Warring States period in China's history, and small kingdoms have changed continuously, but nominally everyone belongs to the Same Zhou Dynasty.

The national problems of Europe could not be avoided by every "European conqueror", and the differences in customs and beliefs between different tribes determined that irreconcilable contradictions would always arise within the empire.

Clovis, the founder of the Merovin dynasty, was aware of this problem, so he chose to introduce Christianity within the country, so as to find a common ground for all subjects in the kingdom in terms of religious beliefs, thereby promoting national integration and maintaining the stability of the dynasty.

Charlemagne went a little deeper than Clovis. In addition to continuing to implement the status of Christianity as the state religion and to integrate the beliefs of the Germanic world with the beliefs of the Roman world, Charlemagne also reformed the administrative system of the state, replacing the local administrative system that had been established by blood relations with the division of "counties" and "districts".

The highest magistrate of the place is the non-hereditary earl, which is why today we look at many Western overhead literature works and like to describe several "counts of X counts".

The royal family established the position of emissary of the king, who was constantly sent to the local area to conduct inspections and supervise local administration while preventing the hereditary succession of the earl's title. In a sense, this is also a means of strengthening centralization.

In addition, Charlemagne formally established and implemented the caiyi system within the empire. At the heart of the caiyi system, the subjects provided taxes and military service to the masters, and the masters provided protection and the means of subsistence to the subjects. The advantage of the Caiyi system was the establishment of a pyramid-shaped hierarchy conducive to dynastic rule, which facilitated the administration of the dynasty.

But the Caiyi system also has its own natural loopholes, that is, once the power of the central government falls into decline, the lower Caiyi region can easily become a de facto independent kingdom. This principle is the same as that after the destruction of the Western Zhou Dynasty in China, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty fell into the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period of the two major princes.

After the death of Charlemagne, the shortcomings of the caiyi system quickly became apparent. The Franks on the west bank of the Rhine still used the rhythm set by Charlemagne to accelerate Romanization and get rid of the Germanic "barbarian atmosphere". The Franks on the east bank of the Rhine set off a "tribal fusion fever.".

Eventually, the Romans (mainly French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) were formed, and the East Franks, who spoke tribal languages (in fact, early German).

With the division of the Franks in East and West, the history of Europe is about to usher in the next great turn. Germany, France and Italy, as we see it today, are also about to take the stage of history.