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By Uta Goerlitz — München the Emperor Charlemagne

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By Uta Goerlitz — München the Emperor Charlemagne Amsterdamer Beiträge zur alteren Germanistik 70 (2013), 195-208 Special Issue Section: Saints and Sovereigns KARL WAS AIN WÂRER GOTES WÎGANT 1 PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETING THE FIGURE OF CHARLEMAGNE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN KAISERCHRONIK 2 by Uta Goerlitz — München Abstract The Kaiserchronik is the first German rhymed chronicle of the Roman Empire from Caesar to around 1150, fifteen years before Charlemagne’s canonization in 1165. A strand of scholarship that goes back to the middle of C19 sees the chronicle’s Charlemagne as an Emperor figure who is decidedly depicted as “German”. This cor- relates with the assumption, widespread in C19 and most of C20, based upon the erroneous equation of “Germanic” to “German”, that the historic Charlemagne was the first medieval “German” Emperor, an assumption debunked by historians in the last few decades. Readings of critics based on these faulty premises have neglected essential characteristics of this Early Middle High German text. One of these characteristics is Charlemagne’s saintly features, which implicitly contradict interpretations of the Emperor figure as a national hero. First, I question traditional interpretive patterns of Charlemagne in the Kaiserchronik. Then I re-examine the chronicle’s Charlemagne account, focusing, on the one hand, on the interferences between the descriptions of Charlemagne as a worldly ruler and, on the other, as a Christian Emperor with saintly characteristics. The Emperor Charlemagne (AD 800–814) was canonized in the year 1165, instigated by Emperor Frederic I Barbarossa and approved by the Antipope Paschal III. This event took place roughly a decade after the composition of the Early Middle High German Kaiserchronik, the central text of the following contribution. First, I will trace the history of interpretations of the Kaiserchronik’s Charlemagne character, who has traditionally been seen only as a ruler figure. Then I will turn to selections of the chronicle, re-addressing the issue of the presentation of Charlemagne in the Kaiserchronik.3 This will demonstrate the im- 1 “Charles was a true warrior of God”. 2 “Chronicle of the Emperors”. 3 The seminal work of Kaiserchronik scholarship is Massmann’s editio princeps (Kaiserchronik, 1849–1854) with an extensive commentary. Moreover, Ohly 1968 (orig. publ. 1940) has been very influential, as well as Nellmann 1963; see also 196 Uta Goerlitz portance of features of saintliness in his characterization. A look at the lemma Kaiserchronik in the most important medieval- ist encyclopedias and manuals is instructive. There is, for instance, the Verfasserlexikon, the well-known Encyclopedia of Authors of German Medieval Literature. In the Verfasserlexikon we read that Charle- magne is a key figure in this first German vernacular (rhyme) chroni- cle written around 1150 (Nellmann 1983 and 2000). The Prologue of the Kaiserchronik, which was composed in Regensburg, presents the work as a “chronicle of the Popes and the Emperors” (crônicâ/ […] von den bâbesen unt von den chunigen, KChr. 17–19).4 After a pre- liminary section about the early history of Rome, it begins with Cae- sar as the first Emperor of the Roman Empire, the Rômisce rîche; the last Emperor of this rîche mentioned is the contemporary Conrad III of Hohenstaufen (1138–1152). Given the chronicle’s temporal scope, it is no surprise that the anonymous chronicler dedicates to Charle- magne, as a historically outstanding emperor, a relatively large por- tion: eight hundred verses out of a total of about 17,000 (KChr. 14282–15091). However, it should catch our attention if we read in our example, the Verfasserlexikon, that the Kaiserchronik attributes to Charlemagne and his reputed brother, Pope Leo, as well as to Charle- magne’s important predecessor, Emperor Constantine the Great, a “German ancestry” (“deutsche Herkunft”, Nellmann 1983: 958). From the beginning, the Verfasserlexikon continues, “the Germans had a leading part in the Roman Empire” (“Die Deutschen […] spielen im Römischen Reich schon zu Anfang eine führende Rolle”, ibid.). Therefore the Frank Charlemagne was presented “without any prob- lem” (“problemlos”, ibid.) as the first “German Emperor”, particularly because the Romans “had proven themselves increasingly inept as a Herrschervolk (a ‘ruling people’)” (“zumal die Römer selbst sich immer mehr als ungeeignetes Herrschervolk erweisen”, ibid.). Ac- cording to the Verfasserlexikon, this is why Charlemagne marks a turning point in the Kaiserchronik; with him begins the series of the Nellmann’s articles in the Verfasserlexikon: 1983 and 2000. Among the older studies mentioned by Nellmann, Gellinek 1971 deserves particular attention. In addition, there are several monographs written after 1990: Pézsa 1993, Müller 1999, Goerlitz 2007 (with references to further studies). 4 I use the authoritative critical edition: Kaiserchronik, ed. Schröder 1892 (repr. 2002, cited: KChr.). .
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