Brian "Still Elegant" Speaks of Charlemagne..

Not that I've been awash with projects or even creativity....more like, just sad. Sad again.

Here's a piece I have for you on a mover and shaker who seemed to travel in the right set.

But if you're staying up too late, tossing and turning, burdened by thoughts about Charlemagne? I know how traumatic this can be. It's these little things that can develop into full blown phobias – sleep stealing duress which has been clinically re-named, the
“ Who really was Charlemagne?” Phobia, Or “Your move” midway through “Trivial Pursuit.”

Charlemagne’s strong point was morals. He was so moral that some people actually thought he was kidding. These people met with untimely accidents – usually fatal. Some were just simply stretched too thin. On the rack. Did they do that then?

The story line is, the man was intent on assisting many other people, of many different religions and political leanings, with the improvement of their own moral fiber., notably the heathen Saxons, who had stored an immense treasure in a hallow tree called the Irminsule, in honor of Woden, or Irmin for short. Well, it made prefect sense to them.

So he paid them a visit, baptized them all and chopped down the Irminsule, and much to his surprise, out fell the contents – years worth of pillage and rapine, right into his lap. His missionary zeal and strategies would be adopted by the Spaniards many years later when they felt it would be nice to own Mexico and South America.

Turns out, this moral obligation and concern for the salvation of heathen souls worked out just about everywhere with indigenous people willing to chat with foreigners.

Charlemagne’s altruistic and selfless ambitions worked out so well in fact, that in practically no time at all, he decided to improve the morals of the Avars who had recently gangstered their way into the lands of the Gepids.

Attila the Hun, another famous gang-banger, and one of history’s least understood wanderers, had taken a Gepid for his wife – his last wife as it turned out. He had forgotten to ask her family for her hand in marriage before he slaughtered them in front of the striking blonde. The next morning he was found in his tent, dead in bed.

Ildico, his fetching Gepid, when asked about all of this, just sat staring off to the North, a twisted smile on her lips while she muttered and sputtered umlauts in a strange language. Seeing that the inquiry was going nowhere, his sons gave up and went about the business of burying ole “Flatface.”

The Huns were horrid-looking creatures. They flattened their noses with boards and bandages and scarred their faces in youth so that they wouldn’t have to shave. In the time saved from shaving, they could be flattening their noses. Sometimes male and female Huns would fall in love and get married and everybody wondered what they saw in each other. Attila had three-hundred and one wives. Seldom had he married a Hun. Historians are at a loss to explain this.

Attila was blamed for large acts of grievous fuckery. He has even been blamed for the Fall of Rome, although he was no where near the city at the time. I forget exactly why Rome fell. Perhaps, like my mother has often said, “It was probably just one of those things.” Gibbon has discussed the matter at sufficient length, to put it mildly.

Oh how I wander. Back to the Avars, who, it just so happens, were hoarding great heaps of gold inside a perfectly impregnable fortress, or so they thought! He also endeavored to raise the levels of moral consciousness amongst the Sorbs and the Wiltzez, but soon gave up. It was hopeless. They were all of them, stone cold broke. Whenever he decided to help somebody’s morals, people would bury their small change and hide in the swamps and forests. Charlemagne had a firm grasp of fundamentals. He has therefore been called the first of the moderns.

But that ain’t all. None of this lays the greater questions to rest, right? You’re still crumbling under the weight of sleepless nights, face and head sore from pulling your hair and gnashing your teeth, unable to look in the mirror and confidently tell yourself you shall never want for more – more answers about what it exactly was about the man that made him so popular with the Pope back then; you’re no closer to knowing for sure what enabled him to take that free ride to heaven, right?

It has to be more complicated – salvation, I mean, than merely donations, yeah? Well after this guy spread the word – in so many ways, and doubled up on his donations to Peter’s Church in Rome, then made it abundantly clear that he would not stand for barbarian hordes threatening Rome by holding out on its protector, and he became so obviously great and good by his altruism and vast understanding of the workings of the human soul, he was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, A.D.800 , thus becoming, at least on paper, the successor of the Caesars - about as far as you could go in politics at that time.


He humbly announced that he had never sought the honor, and that he was honestly shocked shitless by the whole affair. It was as if someone had dropped the crown onto his head. One minute he was scratching at the lice, and the next, he felt the smooth regal symbol of his spiritual immortality.

But once he was over the shock – the surprise of his life-time – although he had been selecting his tie and cufflinks to wear at the coronation dinner, maybe twenty years in advance, who are we to call him a barefaced old liar? He had a long white beard. But no sooner did he send out his boar-juice, stained, purple robe to the cleaners, then he was busily engaged in the spiritual betterment of his kingdom. As a legislator, the man was untiring. He held two assemblies of nobles each year, one in autumn to make laws and one in the spring to repeal them. He also issued edicts or capitularies concerning everything he could think of.

He shall be forever remembered for his sobering stance on justice. This is probably what has been keeping you awake all these years. You have just never been able to figure out who he reminds you of. Pay attention!! Probably the beard threw you off.

Charlemagne was all about justice for all.

Like Bushie, the American Emperor. Now do ya see?

He wished that justice would prevail among all classes – all people. It’s why he stole so much gold. To finance his dream. He often spoke of the widow and the orphan and the poor, and how the wronged people should not be punished, as often occurred – and let me remind you, still does. Therefore, he was a warm advocate of the trial by ordeal, according to which those accused of anything had to plunge their arms into boiling pitch to see how they liked it. If they had enough money, and interviewed with the proper officials, the pitch would be lukewarm. OJ Simpson would have been found innocent even then. It seems like then as now, you just simply can not do much for the poor. Justice? Just-us?

One of Charlemagne’s admirers has called him the greatest intellect of the Middle Ages. He did master elementary reading, but he was never able to write more than his name. He slept with pencil and paper under his pillow in case the knack should ever come to him during the night. It somehow never did. He said he could not accustom his fingers, calloused by swordplay, to the “shaping of letters.” The trouble was not in his fingers.
He handled his sword beautifully in parades. For reasons best known to himself, he never appeared personally in battle. He waged fifty-four wars during the forty-three years of his reign. All from the side lines, as it were.

But we learned in books, Charlemagne remade Europe practically single-handed; George Bush Jr. single-handedly brought democracy to Iraq. Now are you starting to get the picture? Charley changed Europe from a mere mess of hostile tribes and governments to an organized and unified whole. Historians are agreed that he brought culture, religion, and civilization in general to all and sundry and laid the foundations of a just and lasting peace among all nations. What will they think up next?

You’ve puzzled too often and too long, losing sleep and boyfriends, girlfriends, over what Charlemagne and George Bush Jr have in common. They have both been called great. They both stole a lot. George Jr. even stole the presidency. But something has been troubling you all these years, right? You’ve known deep inside, that the two men were very different. Sure they both needed someone else to write their names on their lunch boxes. Sure they both let young men fight and die in their wars while they sat some place warm and talked about how much they cared for the people they both ruled. So just what exactly is the crowning difference?

Give up? If I told you it was the shoes, would you guess the rest?

George, a little man, wears big shoes. He’s a wanna-be tough guy. Hopefully he will one day see the error of his smart-ass ways. To me though, he will always be, just a little man. Who wears big shoes. Charlemagne’s height was seven times the length of his foot. Monsieur Gaillard, in his history of Charlemagne, fixed his height at six feet one quarter inches. Now leave me the fuck alone.