Originally published on October 14, 2027 (Episode 479)
Introduction
The story of the Emperor Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, and his wider family is often told as one of glorious triumph followed by unfortunate decline. Emerging in more or less the 750s in what is now France, the Carolingians were part of a religious, political, social, and cultural order that was still haunted by the passing of the Western Roman Empire three centuries before. While many Roman practices endured, as did trade in the Mediterranean basin, institutional life had deteriorated in nearly every respect.
Into this disorder came Charles, and following him an ever-growing host of clerics, bureaucrats, and soldiers, who reordered alphabets, liturgies, and borders, leaving behind a legacy that lasts until this very moment. But what if, my guest James Palmer suggests, there was always a dark side to this success that haunted all its protagonists? What if that process of ordering and tidying could often look—on not very close inspection—very disordered and messy itself? And how might we then think differently about the early Middle Ages?
James T. Palmer is Professor of History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. The author of four previous books on the early Middle Ages, his latest is Charlemagne’s Dream: The Rise and Fall of the Carolingian Empire, and it is the subject of our conversation today.
A note for listeners: There are too many Charleses and Louises in this story for anyone’s comfort, and it can’t be helped. We will try to keep this soap opera as comprehensible as possible. And this is a much more complicated soap opera than any Game of Thrones writer could reproduce, because this was the real Game of Thrones.
About the Guest
James T. Palmer is Professor of History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, where he specializes in the religious, intellectual, and political history of early medieval Europe. His research examines how people in the early Middle Ages understood their world, particularly through religious belief, historical writing, and expectations about the future. His previous books include The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages, Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World, 690–900, and Early Medieval Hagiography. His latest book is Charlemagne’s Dream: The Rise and Fall of the Carolingian Empire.
For Further Investigation
James T. Palmer, Charlemagne’s Dream: The Rise and Fall of the Carolingian Empire Basic Books, 2026)
Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, Two Lives of Charlemagne, edited and translated by David Ganz (Penguin Classics, 2008)
Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008)
Janet L. Nelson, King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne (University of California Press, 2019)
Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean, The Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2011)
Simon MacLean, Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the End of the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge, 2009)
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Tags
Charlemagne, Carolingians, Early Middle Ages, Medieval Europe, Frankish Empire, Louis the Pious, Medieval Christianity, Vikings, Medieval History, James T. Palmer
