vip
STILL WORKING THROUGH SOME FORMATTING ISSUES, BUT THE VIP LIST IS COMPLETE AND CORRECT AS OF 11/8/2017
possible ancestors are marked with a gold star
Holy Roman
Empire
The
term and concept of a "Holy Roman Empire" are relatively modern, having
first appeared in the 13th century. For Europeans of the time,
the
authority was simply "the Empire," and its
monarch "the Emperor." The powers who formed the new empire had the
goal of reviving, in a Christian context, the ancient Roman Empire and
following its example to bring order to a barbaric and chaotic world.
Of
course there was no small degree of self interest. The pope
gained political, material and military support, and emperors
saw
their revenue streams increase. On balance, however, Europe came out
ahead.
The
imperial throne was occupied for the most part by elected Germanic
kings, but the trappings, symbolism and ritual of the office were those
of the old Western Roman Empire. The emperor was
styled Imperator
Romanorum: "Emperor of the Romans."
The early emperors had no fancy crests
or coats of arms. When Charlemagne was crowned by Pope
Leo III on Christmas Day of the year 800, heraldry was three centuries
in the future. The primary imperial
symbol was the ancient Roman eagle. The chrismon, or so-called monogram
of
Christ (above right), which had been adopted by the Roman emperor
Constantine, was
also in use.
Charles I of France, "Charlemagne,"
742-814: Emperor, 800-814 
Is it
really possible that Charlemagne was my 36th great-grandpappy?
Maybe, if some sketchy connections can be firmed up, or maybe
not. Genealogy reminds me of the "Schrödinger's cat" thought
experiment: There can be no predictable outcome.
Whether I'm his descendant or not,
I'm proud to share a tree with him. Of the 44 (or 47, depending on who
you ask) emperors who held the throne over the course of a millennium,
his is the one name everyone knows. There is a mistaken impression that
the
Carolingian dynasty was named for Charlemagne, but in fact it's named
for Charlie's grandfather, Charles Martel, from the Latin
form of Charles: Carolus.
Charles I left the
world a better place than he found it, for which we can all be
grateful. It was fitting that the cover illustration of Sir
Kenneth Clark's book "Civilisation" was the idealized image of
Charlemagne from about 1350, above left.
Charles II of France,
"the Bald," 823-877: King of West Francia, 843-877; Emperor,
875-877
It's good
to be emperor,
but the office guarantees
neither fame nor legacy. Like most emperors, Charles II was a king of
Franks before being elevated to imperial status. He had been in that
job only two years when a massive Viking force invaded and sacked
Paris. Charles' forces were outnumbered and outfought, and the only way
to get rid of the barbarians was to buy them off--with 7,000 French
livres of gold and silver. That's about 2,570 Kg; do
the math.
Charles inherited from his grandfather
Charlemagne a love of learning and culture, but he was no warrior. That
was unfortunate, because his reign, both as king and emperor,
was
marred by internecine struggles with his brothers, civil wars, betrayal
and widespread strife, with which he was ill-suited to cope. He died
while crossing the Alps en route from Italy to Gaul, where he
hoped to defuse a threat by a pretender.
Lothair of
Aquitaine,
795-855: Emperor, 823-855 (with his
father, Louis I until 840)
Louis I of Aquitaine
"the Pious," 778-840: King of the Franks, Emperor,
814-840
This list is
alphabetical, not chronological, so Louis and his son Lothair appear in
reverse order. Louis, a son of Charlemagne, was called "the pious" for
his deep religious beliefs--the 9th-century image at left portrays him
as a "soldier of Christ"--but his treatment of some of his enemies and
even members of his own family was wantonly cruel.
It was not uncommon for fathers and sons to serve together as co-kings
or co-emperors; Louis had shared the throne with Charlemagne. In part
it was "learning the business," but administering a multi-ethnic empire
that covered virtually all of west-central Europe was a big job. In
Louis and Lothair's case however, Dad might have wanted to keep sonny
boy in sight. Lothair was not just unruly, he was mutinous. He and his
brothers tried to unseat Louis numerous times, always to be foiled and
forgiven.
Lothair got his comeuppance as
emperor when his brothers in turn deposed him and forced him to share
his territories. Lothair acquiesced, but then created a new territory
called Lotharingia after himself and declared himself king of it. The
country occupied what are now the Benelux nations, part of western
Germany and a chunk of northeastern France. There are a lot of
current rulers who would love to make up their own country and retreat
into it--and many of us would be happy to see them go.
Otto I von Sachsen
"the Great," 912-973: King of Germany,
936-973; Emperor, 962-973
Otto I is the only emperor other than Charlemagne to be called "The
Great." He was also
the
first Saxon to wear the imperial crown, all earlier emperors being
Franks. He established the second major imperial dynasty, the Ottonian,
which ruled for a half century.
Otto's
greatness lay in his stabilization of the empire. By means of battle,
diplomacy and outright nepotism he put down uprisings foreign and
domestic, unified all the Germanic territories and expanded the scope
of
the empire. He brought the German church under his rule, effectively
making vassals of its bishops and giving him indirect spiritual rule
over his subjects.
At the time of Otto's death
the empire was at the peak of its influence and power. At his last
major event, the celebration of Easter 973, envoys from most of the
world's nations and empires came to offer him homage. He's memorialized
in his home town of Magdeburg by the equestrian statue above.
His support of
learning and the arts led to a brief period called the Ottonian
Renaissance, in which the production of illuminated manuscripts, the
primary art form of the time, flourished, and a new school of
architecture emerged. "Greatness is as greatness does," one might say, and
Otto did greatness well and convincingly.
england 
There
was not always an England. Set apart from both the early chaos and
later order of Europe, the island of Albion (now called Britain) was
for much of its history a battleground between competing native armies
or between early Britons and invading forces, especially Vikings. For
half a millennium--from the departure of the Romans about 410 until the
unification of England about 927--the territory of Britain was shared
and/or contested by multiple kingdoms. Depending on who held which
throne and who married whom, the relationships among early Britannic
kings were fluid and dynamic.
The longest lasting period during this
time was the so-called "Heptarchy," when seven major kingdoms--East
Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia,
Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex--held power. Over
time, the kings of Wessex expanded their power, territory and
influence. Their emblem, the Wessex Wyvern (upper left; cool
alliteration, eh?)spread its wings ever wider until King Æthelstan was
proclaimed King of the English in 927. He is widely
considered
to
have been the first king of England.
Æthelstan of
Wessex, c. 894-939: King
of the Anglo-Saxons, 924-927; King of the English, 927-939
xtricably
connected to the very forging of England and The
number of people in history who can legitimately be identified as the
root from which something great sprung is not large. Æthelstan of
Wessex is one of them. The country that became for a time the world's
greatest empire and a major force in the very making of history grew
directly from the seeds Æthelstan sowed.
The
scion of a legendary royal dynasty, Æthelstan
was born to be a king. His forebears included great warriors and
scholars, and he was learned in both war and culture.
He
was also deeply pious, founding churches all around his realm and
collecting relics which he gave to churches. The painting above left
shows Æthelstan seated with St. John of Beverley, who founded a
monastery in York that gave rise to the town of Beverley. The painting
is anachronistic, as John lived nearly two centuries before Æthelstan,
but it's meant to point up the king's piety.
Pious
he may have been, but his greatest fame rests in the military action he
took which effectively gave birth to an actual nation of England.
Following
a period of peace, and for reasons that are still not fully understood,
an allied army of Cumbrians, Scots and Vikings rose to challenge
Æthelstan. The king met the challenge in the Battle of
Brunanburh
in 937, soundly defeating the invading army and cementing a sense of
nationhood among the English people. Historians are nearly unanimous in
proclaiming Brunanburh to be the most significant battle in early
English history. The nation called England was forged by its outcome.
It would be another three centuries before the English would be united
under their red-cross banner (upper right), but that union was firmly
rooted in Brunanburh.
Eadwig
"All-fair," c. 940-959: King of the English, 955-959
Edgar "the Peaceable,"
943-975: King of the English, 959-975
Imagine
this: Two teenagers are sequentially crowned as kings of a developing
nation. What might one expect? That they would be too immature to
manage the duties of kingship? Or that the experience would mature
them? With Eadwig and Edgar of Wessex the English got both behaviors seriatim. Following
the early deaths of his father and then his uncle, the kingship went to
15-year-old Eadwig. His reign was short but tumultuous, and no small
part of that tumult was sexual.
His byname "All-fair" was bestowed upon
him by the common people due to his good looks, which seem to have
affected numerous women. He sneaked out of his coronation banquet for a
booty call and had to be forcibly returned by Bishop (later
Saint)
Dunstan. That was the first of a long string of incidents in which
Eadwig defied established authority (teenagers haven't changed much,
eh?). Dunstan was ultimately exiled, not to return to England until
after the king's death.
Eadwig
is known for giving stuff away--notably land and titles--apparently as
a means of currying favor with potential supporters. He was
particularly generous to laymen, possibly due to his
continuing
conflict with the church, which forced the young king to annul his
marriage on the grounds of consanguinity (the wife was his 3rd cousin).
The schism between Eadwig and the nobility proved impossible to heal,
and in the summer of 957 the kingdom was peacefully
but rancorously divided, with Eadwig retaining control of all
land
south of the Thames while his younger brother Edgar would rule in the
North. That situation obtained until October 1, 959, when Eadwig died.
Eadwig's
brother Edgar, who was already king of half the realm, was accepted as
king in the South, and moved quickly to unite the kingdom. He was
everything Eadwig had not been: diplomatic, stable, respectful of the
nobility and the church (he recalled Dunstan from exile and made him
his chief adviser) and desirous of union and peace.
During Edgar's reign the kingdom's laws were reformed and even small
things such as the use of standardized measures were introduced. By the
time of his death Edgar had brought England to a state of union and
stability of which historian George Molyneaux wrote: "Far more
than the reigns of either Alfred or Æthelstan, [Edgar's] was probably
the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional
structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century
kingdom." And that is why the image above left is of Edgar, the
sensible brother.
Henry
I Beauclerc,
1068-1135: King of England, 1100-1135
Henry,
the fourth and youngest son of William the Conqueror, was the first
English king to bear the H-name, which Henry VIII retired four
centuries later. This Henry could have been the template for
Shakespeare's quip, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," from a
play about yet another Henry.
The first Henry's reign was
full of
upheaval, mostly
in the form of bickering and hostilities with his brothers. He had
received no lands directly from his father--only some small
properties that had been his mother's. His brothers William and Robert
both sought control of Normandy and England, leaving Henry to hang on
to and defend what land he could accrue through purchase, trades and
intimidation. Later
historians gave him the byname "Beauclerc" for his alleged love of
learning, but by many accounts he was something of a boor and thug. He
ultimately gained the throne of England when one of his brothers was
killed while hunting and the other was in foreign lands. Supported by
loyal nobles and churchmen, he was crowned King of England on August 5,
1100.
Henry
#1 is generally not well known, and he may not have been one of the
great kings, but reading about the trials he faced could be
instructive--especially if you're interested in what makes crowned
heads rest uneasily.
John Lackland,
1166-1216: King of England, 1199-1216
"The
most evil
monarch in Britain's history" was Marc Morris' evaluation of King John
of England in a June 13, 2015 piece in The Telegraph. It surely takes a
lot of bad acts to deserve such a condemnation, and John was
not
lacking in badness. He offended from the personal level to the
international, raping nobles' wives and daughters, imposing
insupportable taxes, and using extortion and torture to wring money
from subjects to pay for futile wars that ultimately cost him half his
kingdom.
You may recall King John from pop
culture. He's the
often-mentioned but usually offscreen tyrant in all the Robin Hood
stories, and it's his soldiers who are always
trying to
capture Robin and his merry band.
You may also have run across John in
school, if you
were paying attention. He's the guy who so insulted, infuriated,
disgusted and otherwise offended the nobility that they rose up against
him and forced him to sign a document called "Magna Carta," the first
document in history to guarantee freedom from tyranny. Quite an ironic
twist, that.
The name "Lackland" was bestowed on
John in his
youth, when it appeared that as the youngest of Henry II's five sons
his inheritance would be scant. But life and Fate have a way of
upsetting assumptions. Three of his brothers died young, and he became
his father's favorite, receiving lands reaching from Ireland
to
central Europe.
Not one to leave well enough alone, he
sought to
expand his holdings in Europe, ultimately losing
them to
Philip II of France, who called John
"soft-sword" (wink-wink nudge-nudge).
France
The
stylized lily design called "fleur-de-lis" has been emblematic of
France and its predecessor states seemingly forever. It is an ancient
symbol that was widely used before Frankish peoples adopted it, but
since medieval times it has been uniquely theirs.
Just as there has not always been an
England, there
has not always been a France. Central Europe gave rise to a rich
cultural bouillabaisse after the fall of Rome. As the
Roman Empire steadily imploded, great
migrations of peoples from elsewhere crisscrossed Europe seeking riches
and places to settle. The names of some of those tribes still resonate
in our cultural memory: Huns, Vandals, Goths--and the Franks, a
loosely-bound collection of Germanic peoples.
Under
a series of powerful
and
relentless rulers, the Franks became the dominant cultural group in
central Europe.
Territorial boundaries were fluid for long stretches of time,but
eventually Austrasia, which was approximately congruent with modern
Austria, the Netherlands and northern Germany, gained primacy, becoming
the primary breeding ground of future
emperors.
Another region, Neustria, coalesced
south
and west of Austrasia and was roughly centered on Paris.
Austrasia and Neustria came to dominate the patchwork of duchies and
kingdoms that covered Europe, and that entire territory came to be
called Francia.
Pépin I of Neustria,
"the
Short," 714-768: King of the Franks, 751-768
In most Frankish kingdoms of the early middle ages, the
office with the greatest de facto
power was Mayor of the Palace ("majordomo" in modern parlance). In
kingdoms with a strong mayor, the king was frequently only a figurehead.
Due
to a six-year interregnum, Pepin's father Charles Martel had
effectively ruled all of Francia, holding the office of mayor in both
Neustria and Austrasia. Upon Charles' death Pepin and his older brother
Carolman succeeded him, Pepin
ruling in Neustria and Carloman in Austrasia..They
worked together to hold off challenges to their rule, and to pacify
some dissatisfied nobles and relatives installed a new king, Childeric
III, in 743. Carloman retired to a monastery in 747, leaving Pepin
in effective control of all Francia.
In 751 Pepin took world-changing action.
Forsaking
the system that had made mayors of the palace kings in all but title,
he persuaded Pope Zacharias to depose Childeric, and took
the throne. In doing so he ended the
Merovingian dynasty that had
ruled Francia for nearly three centuries (interestingly, the first and
last Merovingian kings were named Childeric; nice arc). The
illustration above is of Pope Stephen II crowning Pepin.
The first Carolingian king, Pepin
initiated a series
of dynastic kings who would rule Francia (with some interruptions) for
more than two centuries. Following his father's lead he expanded and
stabilized the kingdom, paving the way for his son Charlemagne to bind
the factions of Francia together under the umbrella of empire.
Hugues Capet, 940-996:
King of the Franks, 987-996
Robert II "the
Pious," 972-1031: King of the Franks, 996-1031
Henri I Capet,
1008-1060: King of the Franks,
1031-1060
Taking the Frankish throne two centuries after Pepin, Hugues Capet,
depicted above, was another game changer. Although he could claim
indirect descent from Charlemagne through his paternal grandmother, he
did not come to the throne as a Carolingian, but as the founder of a
new dynasty, which would be called Capetian and would rule Francia for
three and a half centuries.
I've
listed the first three Capetian kings here because the dates of their
reigns are significant: they are continuous and were achieved with no,
or at least a minimum of dispute. Very few medieval successions,
especially of a new dynasty, can make that claim. Beginning
with Hugues, Capetian kings adopted the uncommon but not unknown
strategy of having their heirs crowned during their own lifetime. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that, "This
practice of crowning the heir during the father’s lifetime was
continued by the Capetians until the time of Louis
VII and undoubtedly contributed to the
dynasty’s stability and longevity." As
the power and reach of Carolingian kings dwindled, the dukes
and counts
of the various regions grew more indenpendent, fracturing the alliance
that strong monarchs had been able to hold together. The early Capetian
kings had as their major task the centralization and stabilization of
their shrinking kingdom.
The dynasty got off to a rocky start and
took quite some time to smooth out. The
challenges
and conflicts that faced the early Capetians were so complex and
downright Byzantine (literally--Hugh tried to marry his son Robert to a
woman of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II's court), that I'm not going to
try to detail them here. If you're interested, there are many good
reference works, online and in print, about Hugh and his successors.
Odo,
a.k.a. Eudes of Paris:
859/860-898: King of West Francia, 888-898
I
couldn't resist adding Odo to this list. If you're a fan of the History
Channel's series "Vikings," you know of Odo for his
brilliant and
savage defense of Paris during the Viking siege of 885-886
(historically accurate) and his naughty pleasure with whips (not so
much).
West Francia was essentially the most western part of the empire,
comprising Neustria and areas to the south of it. A member of the
short-lived but historically important Robertian dynasty, Odo held the
titles of Marquis of Neustria, Duke of France and Count of Paris before
he became king. He was elected king by the Western Frankish nobles for
his bravery and skill in the defense of Paris. The detail from an
illuminated manuscript above depicts his coronation by the Archbishop
of Sens.
Odo continued to fight the Vikings and
win significant battles, but faced
challenges from rebellious Frankish nobles who sought his throne, and
in the end was forced
to give up some of his lands in order to retain the crown. He was able
to keep the throne, but died in
898, probably at age 39.
Рѹ́сьскаѧ землѧ
(Kyivan Rus')
Being a Russophile and historian
of Russian art, I was pleasantly surprised when research revealed these
two individuals as possible relatives.
When Moscow was just a small river town
and the site of St. Petersburg was an area along the Neva River favored
by Finnic fishermen,
Novgorod and Kyiv (a.k.a. Kiev) were becoming centers of trade and
power. As
their influence spread, they gave rise to the culture that we now call
Russia. Novgorod is sometimes called the birthplace of Russia, and
Kyiv, in Ukraine,
was certainly its cradle.
But the seeds of Russia came from
elsewhere. They were, in fact--drumroll, please--Viking.
Volodimyr was the third ruler of the
Rurikid
dynasty, founded about 862 when Rurik, a leader of a tribe of Norsemen
who called themselves Rus', responded to "The calling of the Varyags"
(a.k.a. Varangians). The calling was essentially an invitation from
leaders of several fractious Slavic tribes to Nordic clans to come rule
over them and establish order. Wow! What a deal--"come take over our government and do what you want."
As
I've noted elsewhere, heraldry had not yet been invented in the early
middle
ages. The Rurikids, however, did use symbols that served
to mark borders of lands and properties that were under their control.
The seal at upper left is that of Volodimyr the Great, and at
right is the seal of Iaroslav the Wise.
Most
such seals are in the form of a stylized trident, possibly referring
back to a weapon or hunting/fishing tool.
Volodimyr I Sviatoslavich
"the Great," c. 958-1015: Great Prince of
Kievan Rus', 980-1015
Volodimyr, better known by the Russified name Vladimir, was
designated ruler of Novgorod by his father Sviatoslav, but upon the
father's death a war broke out between two of Vladimir's brothers, and
he was forced to flee to Scandinavia where he had family. With their
help, Vladimir assembled an army and marched back to Novgorod, not only
retaking that city, but several others, and eventually the key city,
Kyiv.
Vlad was not a nice man. He stole his
wife, killing
her father in the process. He ultimately killed Yaropolk, his
rebellious older brother, by luring him into a ambush.
Still, Vladimir is called
Great, and is even revered as a saint, due to having forced
Christianity on the Rus'. His people, whose ancient religion he
uprooted, were not so enthusiastic. To
his credit, he researched the issue thoroughly, sending emissaries to
observe and learn about all the religions and sects known to him. He
rejected Islam,not on
any theological grounds, but because it forbade the use of intoxicating
drink. He said, "Drinking
is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure."
His emissaries to Eastern Orthodox
Catholicism
brought back rapturous reports. Overhwhelmed by the majesty and mystery
of
the Divine Liturgy celebrated in the Hagia Sofia, they
said,"We
no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth, [there was] such
beauty, and we know not how to tell of it." If you
remember your first visit to New York, or Paris or Rome, you may
understand their response.
By uniting with the Orthodox church and
thereby with
the Byzantine emperor, Vladimir gained a great power as an ally. As a
bonus, he gained the emperor's sister Anna as his wife--of
course
he had to divorce all those other wives he had gained while enjoying
his paganhood.
Iaroslav I Volodimyrovich
"the
Wise," c. 978-1054: Great Prince of Rus', 1019-1054
The
striking portrait bust at left is a
likeness of Iaroslav the Wise made in 1939 from his skull by Mikhail
Mikhailovich Gerasimov, who
invented the art of forensic sculpture.
Internecine and frequently fratricidal
power
struggles were common among the Rurikids. Such issues delayed
Iaroslav's accession to the throne, as they had his father Vladimir's.
His bloody battles for control closely echoed those of his father, but
he didn't display dad's bloodthirstiness in victory--well, he did
imprison his younger brother Sudislav for life, but hey--sometimes a
ruler just has to be bad.
As the first Rus' prince to be born
Christian,
Iaroslav valued culture and learning. For that reason, and for his
establishment of the first code of Rus' law, he is called "Wise."
During the three and a half decades of his reign Rus' achieved its
apogee of culture and power. Through his marriage and those of his
children, Rus' was also allied with the Byzantine court and the royal
houses of several European countries, including England, France and
Poland.
The Rurikid line controlled Kyivan Rus'
and its
successor states, including Russia, for seven centuries. In 2008
Iaroslav himself was named "greatest Ukrainian" by vote of the viewing
audience of a Ukrainian TV show. That's some legacy.
