part0016

The once proud and great city of Rome came under attack by the Ostrogoths in the mid-6th century CE and was ravaged to ruin. [62] Under the instructions of Bessas, the general of the Eastern Roman Empire in charge of its former capital, citizens were prohibited from leaving Rome during the year-long siege of the city. Starving, the workers and farmers of the empire—called “plebeians”—resorted to eating dogs, rodents, wild greens, and the low-calorie remnants left behind from the filtered white flour of the wealthy. [63] People wasted away from hunger and died in the streets. By the time they were allowed to leave, many died on the way to find help.

The Ostrogothic ruler, King Totila, succeeded in destroying the final Roman ranks and proceeded to tear down most of the city’s defensive walls. Everyone fled, leaving no more than a few hundred people within the opened gates. Despite an attempt to rebuild the very next year, Totila’s forces kept up the pressure and retook the city in 549 CE. [64] Afterward, he decided to repopulate the city himself, establishing a guard there to protect it against the counterattacks of the Roman-born Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

The next three centuries went by in a similar fashion, though a succession of Byzantine emperors claimed true ownership over the ancient city. They conducted their business in Constantinople, however, and did not deign to spend much time in Rome except to erect statues and impart their importance on the citizens there. By the 7th century CE, Italy had decisively come under the administration of the Alemanni and the Franks, due to the fact that the Byzantine Empire was facing a slew of enemies on its home front. [65] Despite all of them being Christian nations, they nevertheless did not hesitate to inflict war upon one another for gains in wealth or land.

The Christian age was ironically no more peaceful or less warlike for its newfound faith in the Catholic Church. The devoutly Christian King of the Franks, Charles the Great—or Charlemagne, as he became known—conducted a long military campaign against the Lombard Kingdom in the latter part of the 8th century. [66] The Lombards’ authority held in the region surrounding Rome, as well as in Sicily, Sardinia, and the far southern parts of mainland Italy. Charlemagne’s venture was ultimately successful with the lands being handed over to the papacy in exchange for the lives of the royal family.

Italy and the newly conquered Rome maintained strong ties to the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy. Built upon the tradition of Frankish Catholicism that had been in place since Clovis I, Charlemagne worked ferociously to knit together a kingdom that was purely Christian. In the year 800 CE, reigning Pope Leo III personally took the future of Italy in his own hands when he selected King Charles to rule as Holy Roman Emperor. [67]

This was a clever move designed not only for self-protection and the consolidation of authority but to also rebel against the rule of a female on the Byzantine throne. The Byzantine Empress Irene of Athens was unable to defend her own dynastic claim to the land because of ongoing political strife and revolt. Unchallenged, Charlemagne accepted his new territory of Northern Italy and most of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Poland under its newly delineated borders.

Charlemagne kept the Kingdom of the Franks isolated and independent under its own domain, probably because rulership over the Holy Roman Empire was subject to the will of the Pope and not any particular family dynasty. The two realms were closely connected, however, and together they formed the majority of Western Europe. From this foundation, Catholicism was established as the most influential and important religion of medieval Europe. Charlemagne had been ordained by God’s own messenger, or so he believed, to rule the land, and by that same power, his own sons and their sons would take on the Kingdom of the Franks after his death.

For monarchs during this period of European history, religion became the logical reason for why they imparted their power and supposed wisdom on their subjects; it was also the reason given for dynastic rule. No matter what befell a Catholic king, be it assassination, kidnapping, or usurpation, his people were compelled to replace him with a successor of the same lineage. Wealth, lands, and authority were forever to be maintained in the hands of one family, as chosen by God himself. The civilians were taught by their church leaders to respect and almost worship their kings as God’s representatives. Punishment for ignoring this indoctrination or speaking against it was harsh and usually culminated in death.

Though it was internally fragmented, the Holy Roman Empire was politically arranged so that its main export was Catholicism and, therefore, power. The assemblage of the Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the King of the Franks worked together to simultaneously teach their citizens the laws of Christianity and impart a sense of ultimate authority. Immense and ornate Catholic churches were built throughout the realm in which bishops and priests were appointed to provide services for the public. Lateran Palace, in Rome, underwent lavish refurbishments so that it could serve as the permanent home of the Pope. [68] The rulers of the land spared no expense in creating an awe-inspiring Catholic domain, the likes of which most people had never seen.

Rome, Italy, and the rest of Europe had most definitively recovered from the collapse of the original Roman Empire, though everything looked quite different than it had just 500 years previously. With the Catholic Pope at home in rebuilt Rome and most of Europe under the administration of monarchs with unprecedented wealth, power, and military strength, the continent’s farmers, craftsmen, workers, and families refocused their capabilities on serving one god. Catholic Europe strode confidently into the Middle Ages.