An Exploration of the Meaning of Rome and Romanhood to Medieval Western European Claimants to its Succession

Written and researched by Marcus Hermary

Though the Emperor of the Romans reigned in Constantinople, in 800 the Pope crowned Charlemagne, the most eminent among western European rulers, as a new Emperor of the Romans. In doing this, western Europeans, or Latins, asserted a new Roman identity in contest with that of the east. Between the classical era of western Europe and the coronation of Charlemagne, the concept and application of Romanhood underwent significant shifts that allowed for such a title to be claimed by Lombardic and Frankish nobles with no historical connection to pre-medieval Roman authority. Roman identity by the 9th century always came with a claim to succession of the classical Roman Empire as western European states recovered from the decay of Roman governance. Three aspects of Romanhood must be taken into account in order to examine its development: change in definition since the late classical period and how it might have changed following the coronation of Charlemagne; events that may have directed the course of definitional change; and when the change became salient enough to merit its claim by medieval western European nobles to the exclusion of Byzantines. Romanhood has continued to develop into the modern day, and it is a mistake—one partly rooted in the development of medieval western European Romanhood—to conceive of it as something purely ancient, nebulous, and dead.

How Did it Change?

The coronation of Charlemagne signals a historical moment at which medieval Romanhood had become distant enough from classical antiquity such that its claim by Charlemagne and subordination by the Pope were conceivable. It is therefore extremely useful as a benchmark in analyzing the trajectory of Romanhood, as certain necessary developments in definition must have occurred before it. Moreover, its formalization of medieval western Romanhood enforces a settled notion of itself where may have existed fluid definitions following the decline of the Western Roman Empire. During later periods of classical antiquity, marked by the Edict of Caracalla of 212, Romanhood was based on a citizenship which by its universalization had become totally distinct from any conception of Roman ethnicity or geographic limit other than the imperial frontier. Already in the third century, the definition of Romanhood had drastically changed from its concept in previous periods. Primary sources from western Europe following the coronation of Constantine attest to a Romanhood defined by the Latin language and submission to the Christian Pope in Rome. In a 9th century letter addressed to Michael III, Emperor of the Romans in Constantinople, Pope Nicholas I responds to offences made by the emperor’s secretary. Though the secretary’s provocational letter does not survive, Nicholas I’s rebuttals can suggest its content. The Pope attests that the letter dismissed the Latin language as “barbarian and Skythian [sic]” (Fögen, 1998, p. 19) and on this basis contests Michael III’s right to the title of Emperor of the Romans (p. 20). In making this rebuttal, the Pope draws a direct relationship between respect for and proficiency in the Latin language, which he simply calls “the Roman language,” (p. 19) and the legitimacy of one’s Romanhood. Such a definition is convenient for western Europeans, as they had at this time preserved relatively more Latin proficiency than Constantinople had, with the east only recently reviving ancient Roman laws written in Latin. By conflating Romanhood with Latin proficiency, Pope Nicholas I simultaneously excludes his Greek-speaking enemies from the inheritance of Rome and endows his own society and Latin-speaking social class with unquestionable right to claim Romanhood. Furthermore, he titles Latin as “the language of Christian peoples,” (p. 19) thereby associating his own authority as Christian Pope with the authority to claim succession from Rome in the west. So it appears that, at least in the context of argument with the Greek-speaking east, Nicholas I viewed Romanhood as predicated on proficiency in the Latin language and orthodox adherence to the Christian faith and Church.

Another source from the 10th century, Bishop Luitprand’s Relatio de Legatione Constantinopolitana, reveals the perspective of a courtier of the Kingdom of Italy of the Holy Roman Empire with strong ties to the Emperor of the time, Otto the Great, at a moment of diplomatic breakdown between east and west over the subject of Romanhood. Luitprand and other western authors of his time often refer to the Byzantine Emperor as ‘Emperor of the Greeks’ to discount their succession and cement the west’s own. The bishop is sent on an embassy to Constantinople where he documents his encounters with several state officials. With impressive vivacity and spite, Luitprand recounts the many humiliations he suffered in dialogue with the Byzantines. While his mission was to ensure decorous diplomacy between his Lombardic Roman Emperor and this Greek Roman Emperor, it ended in public embarrassment and, significantly, a rigorous challenge of his status as a Roman. A prevalent theme throughout the Relatio is Luitprand’s judgement of the Byzantines as decadent and morally unworthy of claiming Roman succession, until his own claim of Romanhood is protested on the basis that the rulers of his kingdom “are not Romans but Lombards" (Halsall, 1996, para. 448). Here, the Constantinopolitans exclude Lombards from the claim of Roman identity because they perceive them as conquerors of Rome and killers of Romans rather than as Romans themselves. Luitprand’s response is particularly revealing, as he reframes the Lombard invasion as a liberation from tyrants, and critiques the moral character of his interlocutor, Nicephorus II, and with this critique asks the Emperor, “if [his predecessors were] emperors of the Romans, why did they permit Rome to be in the hands of harlots?” (para. 444) Here is clearly demonstrated the way in which westerners and easterners each defined Romanhood in the most convenient ways: Nicephorus claims succession from an unbroken legal line of succession from the ancient emperors, whereas Luitprand claims that if his lineage has allowed Rome and themselves to decay both morally and structurally, he should not be called Emperor of the Romans. However, Luitprand’s defence uncovers yet more of his claimed Romanhood when he abruptly discards it as a defence of his Lombardic kingdom. When cornered in an argument by a Constantinopolitan, he denounces the name of the Romans as one of violence, brutality, and adultery, turning the officials’ argument against them, and setting them against the name of the Christians (para. 448). In a critical moment of embarrassment and erupting stress, Luitprand lays bare the hollowness of his own Romanhood; he tosses it the moment it becomes inconvenient for him to claim, and spits on it as soon as it allows him to denigrate his enemy. Luitprand does not fight for his Romanhood, but capitulates and betrays it. 

Why did it change?

The two points of Roman identity which Nicholas I invokes—the Latin language and the Christian faith—appear to be carefully chosen in order to at once bolster the Pope’s claim to Romanhood as the head of the Christian Church, which he merges with Roman identity, and to exclude the majority Greek-speaking population in the Byzantine Empire. And Luitprand, when he is pushed, chooses to denigrate Romanhood and defend his Lombard heritage. Luitprand of Cremona does not exhibit a strong definition of ‘Roman.’ Instead, to him, the word is highly malleable, and he uses its fluidity to best whomever he encounters in Constantinople, once denying and denigrating Romanhood and later defending it when such is more appropriate.  His account certainly illustrates the perspective of at least one Holy Roman courtier: that Romanhood is nothing more than a blanket with which to cover oneself on cold nights and hurl away on hot nights, at the convenience of the sleeper.

Charlemagne, according to his surviving correspondence with Byzantine Emperor Michael I, tempered his claims to the title of Roman Emperor. Although the Annals of Lorsch assert the illegitimacy of the Empress Irene of Athens’ successors as a consequence of her usurpation, (Collins, 1998, p. 101) Charlemagne introduced himself in a letter to Michael I as “Emperor and Augustus and also King of the Franks and of the Lombards,” (Muldoon, 1999, p. 47) omitting his grander title ‘of the Romans.’ This suggests a hesitance on Charlemagne’s part to offend the sensibilities of the Eastern Roman Emperor for the sake of diplomatic cordiality. Such cordiality had, prior to Charlemagne’s coronation in 800, brought himself and Irene close to forming a marital alliance before her own removal from the throne (Collins, 1998, p. 120). Together the denunciation of Irene’s femineum imperium found in the Annals and the previous amicability between the emperors suggests that Irene’s perceived illegitimacy—and thus illegitimate claim to Roman succession—came later in the west when excluding Constantinople from Romanhood became politically salient and advantageous.

The  attitudes apparent in Charlemagne’s greetings begin to shift with his successors, namely Louis II of Italy, who in a letter to Eastern Roman Emperor Basil I questions the denial of his claim to Roman succession on the basis of ethnic lineage: “‘Spaniards, Isaurians, and Kazars.’ If these peoples could be legitimate emperors, why not the Franks?” (Muldoon, 1999, p. 48) Like Luitprand, he considers the volatile succession of soldier emperors in Rome’s classical history evidence that complicates Constantinople’s assertion of unbroken succession from the ancient Caesars. Moreover and further in line with Luitprand, Louis II aligned Charlemagne and his heirs with moral uprightness, and moral uprightness with the right to claim imperial succession. Finally, Louis II appeals to the divine right of the Carolingian dynasty to be responsible for Rome and its legacy, as well as the perception of a decadent Constantinople which, through usurpation and poor practice of the Christian faith, has lost its ecclesiastical and thus legitimizing sanction (p. 49).

It is apparent that while Luitprand, Louis II, and Nicholas I among others could point to traits the west inherited from its ancient Roman past, such as the Latin language and the Roman Catholic Church, these did not provide a base strong enough for any indissoluble Roman identity among Holy Roman elites. Instead, as seen in Charlemagne’s dismissiveness and Luitprand’s disposal, the extent to which western Europeans claimed succession from Rome varied depending on context and political viability. It is possible that between the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis II there emerged a formalized defence of Roman succession by the Carolingians of the west predicated upon the Latin language, moral sturdiness, and Christianity as evident by their shared presence in all three authors. It is equally possible, however, that these were threads which these authors could independently identify and invoke based on their presence in Rome’s late classical period and endurance into their contemporary eras, while aspects of legitimacy that instead fell to Constantinople—such as unbroken legal succession and continued practice of large-scale urbanism—were purposefully disregarded for the sake of upholding an existing western antipathy toward Constantinople. By a process of natural filtration through cultural remnants that existed anywhere after Rome’s late classical period, these western Roman authors may have each happened upon the same or similar elements of Romanhood that survived in the west and not in the east, and could therefore be used to exclude and antagonize the east.

When did it change?

Romanhood, even at the height of classical Rome’s power, was soluble with local religious, cultural, and ethnic identities that predated their conquest (Pohl et al., 2018, p. 25). In a way that is not dissimilar to the layered identity of many former British colonies until the postwar era, wherein one might identify first as a member of their local culture and secondarily as a Briton, many provincial citizens of the classical Roman Empire conceptualized their identities in layers of regional associations and pan-imperial Roman loyalties (p. 29). With the Western Roman Empire’s fall into decay and urban collapse arose new waves of previously managed migrations, and therefore the confounding and undulation of local identities in the west. Especially relevant to the context of the Holy Roman Empire, the arrival of non-Romanized Germanic migrations heavily influenced the cultural landscape of previously Roman provinces.

In northern Gaul, ruling Franks gradually subsumed the elite families of old Roman Gaul only some generations after the decay of Roman authority in the province, and those elite families who lost influence were filtered into a lower-class Roman identity, which was in opposition to Frankish identity and itself slowly diluted away (p. 5). By the 7th century only some remained in the former Gaul who stubbornly called themselves Romans, though the title Roman appears to have developed a negative perception by most. Procopius does record the continuation of Roman frontier military traditions, however, in the 6th century, as he describes Gallic soldiers who “are clearly recognized as belonging to the legions which they served in ancient times” (p. 16–17). Procopius’ emphasis on these traditions as “the customs of their fathers” (p. 17) suggests that this military tradition’s survival was dependent on its integration into the cultural lineage and identity of its adherents, not necessarily to any extraordinary preservation of Roman identity. But this Frankization of the former Gaul was not universal; in southern Gaul, where fewer Franks had settled, descendants of Roman citizens preserved elements of Roman culture and, importantly, Roman legal custom and practice of authority as well as national myths of ancient Trojan descent (p. 18).

But not even in the Augustan period was Roman identity so simple as the possession of citizenship. Acknowledging the complexity of Roman identity prior to the Middle Ages can inform how the fluidity of Romanhood is not necessarily unique to Medieval western Europe. According to Walter Pohl, the way in which post-classical western Romans assumed Roman identity resembled “code-switching” (p. 4). This code-switching is perhaps parallel to the early medieval dynamic between the vulgar and ‘classical’ dialects of Latin, whereby a western Roman might speak proto-Romance languages in daily life but write formal works and attend Christian services delivered in the refined ‘classical’ Latin of ancient upper-society. Perceiving such an arrangement—where for centuries the Church becomes an unintended bastion of classical Roman language and religion while common life, influenced greatly by regionally unique social and political factors, weathers what remained of the Roman layer of provincial identities—makes the developments between Constantine and Charlemagne easier to follow. Such code-switching even resurfaces when Charlemagne omits his title of Emperor of the Romans when addressing Michael I, or when Luitprand cracks under intense pressure.

Conclusion

Again like Luitprand, it often appears that wherever in western Europe it had outlived the empire’s central authority, strong identification with Romanhood dissolved among most of the population whenever it became disadvantageous to claim for extended periods of time. This does not speak to the prior existence of a merely superficial Roman identity, but it does corroborate later evidence that Romanhood was often an object of convenience to be defended rather than an obvious reality to be taken for granted. Such a dynamic—that being the apparently constant pressure to defend the claim of Roman succession in the Holy Roman Empire from its eastern detractors—implies that it had never become nearly as solidified as a national identity, even within the Italian peninsula, as it had in the Eastern Roman Empire. The apparent absence of what may be termed a Roman folk identity taking root in the Holy Roman Empire following Charlemagne’s coronation may be owed to the lack of centralization and urbanism in the feudal west; what in the Eastern Roman Empire was the domain of individual Rhōmaioi was reserved for Holy Roman nobility. The Romanhood of the Holy Roman Empire cannot be so plainly dismissed as superficial, but it can certainly be called distinct from the Romanhood of the Eastern Roman Empire in much the same way its system of governance, however it can be generalized, was distinct from that of the Eastern Roman Empire. Where the latter called upon ancient lineages and urban grandiosity, the former called upon the Roman Church and its ancient language.

Works Cited

Collins, R. (1998). Charlemagne. University Of Toronto Press.

Halsall, P. (1996). Internet history sourcebooks: Medieval sourcebook. Fordham.Edu. https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/source/liudprand1.asp

Fögen, M. (1998) Reanimation of Roman law in the ninth century: remarks on reasons and results. Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, 5(1), 11–22

Muldoon, J. (1999). Empire and order. Springer.

Pohl, W., Gantner, C., Grifoni, C., & Pollheimer-Mohaupt, M. (2018). Transformations of Romanness. Walter de Gruyter GmbH.