Charlemagne by Derek Wilson

I have a theory that a large part of book-reading depends on the nexus of your mood and interest level. A book may be incredibly interesting in its content but your mental state of mind may be in a place where you just can't engage. Wilson's Charlemagne was like that for me. I started it last fall and was bored to tears before I was done with the introduction. Last week I thought I would give it another try and I simply couldn't put it down. Both mood and book seriously connected. So what was interesting about the book? Most people with a cursory knowledge of Western Civilization know that Charles the Great or Charlemagne is a pivotal figure ruling and bringing together the Germanic and Frankish tribes into a single kingdom and uniting that kingdom with the papacy which in turn would give Europe a Christian identity known as Christendom. Wilson does nothing to deconstruct this idea but demonstrates quite well that much of the Christianizing impetus of the Frankish kingdom originated in Aachen rather than Rome. Charlemagne took his role as the "Holy Roman Emperor" very seriously and was not only a ruler very much engaged in personal piety but also in the expansion and standardization of the Church. Wilson also shows in the book that the greater spiritual influences in Charlemagne's life came from Celtic monks dedicated to missionizing the continent rather than the papacy. These were men of scholarship, purity, and passion for God and these had Charlemagne's attention, respect, and patronage. The Carolingian renaissance is also reviewed (as it rightly should be) and it is interesting to see how different its results were from the Florentine version. The same texts of the ancient world were studied and copied but they were used to support a Christian civilization and apologetic rather than a return to a golden age of Romantic paganism. Perhaps this is part explained by the Fall of Rome being a more recent event and also that, unlike the Florentines, the Greco-Roman cultural patrimony was not their own. Of equal interest is how Charlemagne became greater in legend than he was in life. Virtually all of the subsequent French emperors, Napoleon, and even Hitler all tapped into the Charlemagne story in some way to connect with his greatness in the European memory. The book is a great read and makes you realize Charlemagne is a far greater star in the firmament of Western history.