The Dark Ages
Iwas taught that the Roman Empire fell to the barbarians in 476 AD. My next grade teacher was vague. There were the Dark Ages, Medieval times and Middle Ages. I heard the word Byzantine only once, when the Turks captured Constantinople in 1455 AD. The Crusades took place halfway between.
Teachers/professors in the upper grades were fluent about the Renaissance and Reformation. Yet, frankly, I remain ignorant on Rome after its legions were defeated. For some reason, historical novelists ignore the subject. While no longer centre stage, its characters weren’t mere spear-carriers.
Yank Tim Severin did his homework and in Saxon: The Pope’s Assassin fills us in to an extent of Rome during those faint years. The plot is built around actual events, embellished with poetic license. The reader is informed that the Ostrogoths had moved on, kings replaced emperors, Holy Mother Church was ascending.
Corruption was rampant, grudgingly accepted as the way of life. Wealth, not moral rectitude, brought promotion. Every position was for sale. Those who couldn’t come up with the price resented those who did.
If ever there was a person unfit for the role he bought, it was Pope Leo. Ambitious but not bright, the pontiff grabbed everything that wasn’t nailed down, not least other men’s wives and daughters. Husbands and fathers hated him.
In 799, Leo was waylaid and beaten within an inch of his life. Seeking support abroad, he found it in the Kingdom of the Franks, however with conditions. On Christmas day 800, he presided at the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile an archbishop tapped one of the few honest people he knew to investigate an attempted murder. The Saxon prince Sigwulf’s list of suspects contain half the populace of the Holy City, including many women. Can he narrow it down?
Severin’s tale is informative. Still, there’s a controversy among historians whether Charlemagne didn’t crown himself emperor, like Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself of the French a millennium later. In any event, no one shed a tear when Leo passed away with his soul presumably gone below.