Harun al-Rashid

Charlemagne’s elephant

by

Several months after Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the west (no big deal) the great man was again on the move, touring the Italian north in the spring of 801. While in Pavia, “he was told that legates from Aaron Amir al Muminin,1.Known to us as Harun al-Rashid. There are several versions of his name in the sources. the rex of the Persians, had arrived at the port of Pisa.”2.King, Royal Annals, 801, p. 94.

This was news indeed. As Charlemagne’s vision had expanded past the European scene, as a good Christian his attention had naturally turned to Jerusalem and the holy lands of Palestine. At some point the sad state of Christian communities to the east had been made known to him, and he had decided to remedy this unacceptable state of affairs. But as those lands were not under his rule and obviously outside the reach of his armies, he would need to use the softer skills of politics and charm to work his will. In those days that meant the dispatch and reception of personal envoys.

Read more

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Known to us as Harun al-Rashid. There are several versions of his name in the sources.
↑2 King, Royal Annals, 801, p. 94.

Eternal Jerusalem

by

When medieval Europe was young, Jerusalem was already ancient. As laborers laid the first stones of the great pyramid of Giza, fifty generations of Jerusalemites had come and gone. After another twenty-five centuries a rustic carpenter’s son started throwing tables around at the Jewish temple located on the city’s high ground. Then another eight centuries or so went by, before a son was born to an usurper king in Europe, who would go on to found the empire that would bear his name.

Jerusalem occupied a special place in the minds and souls of eighth century Europeans. Constantinople was the other great eastern city known (if any would have been known), it was regarded more as the seat of the ‘other’ Christian empire, the palace that gave orders to popes. A rival power.

Read more