The Chain of Divine PowerAccording to Medieval ideas, God transcends time which means that all of history is his narrative of spiritual redemption. Therefore, every ruler has power as a direct manifestation of God’s will. As a result, and most usefully for kings like the Carolingians, rebellion against the authorities meant rebellion against God. History could be seen as a chain of power from God to the Old Testament leaders like David and Solomon that he set over his chosen people the Jews, to Jesus Christ seen as the prophesied descendant of David who opened the path of salvation to all peoples. The Church, under the leadership of St. Peter and the popes who followed him, succeeded the Jews as God’s special people. Here biblical rulers begin to overlap with historical rulers. The idea of imperial Rome becomes entwined with Rome under papal control. Because the popes established Carolingian rule, the descendants of Pippin were the next link in the biblical and historical chain of divinely inspired leadership. They were the continuation of the Roman Empire under Christ – literally a Holy Roman Empire.
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The Carolingians were not the first to use the idea of divinely appointed kingship to affirm their power. For example, Giles Brown identifies this idea in Visigoth Spain, Anglo-Saxon England, and the Merovingians.[1] More importantly for this paper, however, along with the Carolingians, Byzantium also specifically believed it was the Christian continuation of the Roman Empire. Karl Leyser, from Oxford University, writes that while Byzantine emperors already ruled according to ancient, “divinely willed certainties,” the new emperors in the West were desperately attempting to gain the same prestige.[2] In other words, while the Carolingians were attempting to create the bonds that would link them to these sources of perceived power, the Byzantines were already firmly established in this tradition. This western desire to be perceived as either Byzantium’s equal in divine favor or as its successor to that claim sparked centuries of rivalry between the two dominant empires.
[1] Brown, “The Carolingian Renaissance,”6.
[2] Karl Leyser, “Theophanu Divina Gratia Imperatrix Augusta: Western and Eastern Emperorship in the Later Tenth Century,” 1.
[2] Karl Leyser, “Theophanu Divina Gratia Imperatrix Augusta: Western and Eastern Emperorship in the Later Tenth Century,” 1.