When Gaozong finally died in 684, it was Li Zhe who became emperor, taking the new name Zhongzong. Needless to say, real authority still lay with Wu, now empress dowager. When Zhongzong looked as if he was about to challenge her power, she had him deposed and replaced him with another of her sons, who became Emperor Ruizong.
Wu now exercised even greater control, preventing Ruizong from meeting any officials or conducting any government business. Anyone who questioned this state of affairs was summarily removed and, frequently, executed. In 686 she offered to return imperial powers to Ruizong, but he had the good sense to decline.
Ever on the lookout for possible threats to her position, Wu encouraged her secret police to infiltrate official circles and identify would-be conspirators. In 688 a putative plot against the empress dowager was smashed, and this sparked a particularly ferocious round of political killings. False accusations, torture and forced suicides became almost routine. Then, in 690, following a series of “spontaneous” petitions demanding that the empress dowager take the throne herself, she acceded to the request. Ruizong was demoted to crown prince and Wu became emperor.
For the next fifteen years Wu ruled using the same ruthless methods that had guaranteed her elevation, and politically motivated denunciations and state-sanctioned killings remained commonplace. In 693 the wife of her son Ruizong (the former emperor and now heir again) was accused of witchcraft and executed. Ruizong was too afraid of his mother to object.
Eventually, in 705, with her own health now failing, Wu was prevailed upon by Ruizong to surrender the throne. Unlike so many of her own victims, she died peacefully in her bed that same year, at the age of 80. While she was in power, imperial politics had been reduced to little more than a deadly game, in which many ended up losers. An old Chinese proverb has it that the rule of a woman is like having a “hen crow like a rooster at daybreak.” Given the country’s experience with Empress Wu, it is scarcely surprising that she has been the only person to put that maxim to the test.
CHARLEMAGNE
768–814
Let peace, concord and unanimity reign among all Christian people … for without peace we cannot please God.
Charlemagne, The Admonitio (789)
Charlemagne—literally “Charles the Great”—transformed his Frankish kingdom into a Christian empire that extended from France’s western coast eastward into Germany, northward into the Low Countries, and southward into Italy. Charlemagne was not only a conqueror; he also presided over a court renowned for its artistic and scholarly achievements, especially in the preservation of classical learning.
The grandson of Charles Martel—the Hammer—who defeated the Islamic invasion of France, Charlemagne succeeded to the Frankish throne jointly with his brother, but the latter’s death three years later left him in sole possession of the crown. His will for power driven by a sense of divine purpose, Charlemagne set about building a Christian realm during a reign of forty-six years and fifty-three military operations. In eighteen campaigns he subdued and converted the pagan Saxons. A decade later he conquered Bavaria, uniting the west Germanic tribes into one political entity for the first time. His influence extended still further. Campaigning from his Bavarian base, Charlemagne turned the Avar principalities (in modern-day Hungary and Austria) and the Slavic states along the Danube into dependents of the greatest empire since that of the Romans. In 773 Pope Adrian summoned him to help against the Lombards. By 778, he was master of Italy. Only once, when he made an unsuccessful incursion into Spain, was Charlemagne’s effort to dominate Europe thwarted.
Pope Leo III’s coronation of Charlemagne as emperor was one of history’s most extraordinary Christmas presents. On Christmas Day AD 800, Charlemagne was attending mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome for the consecration of his son, the future Louis the Pious, as king of Aquitaine. As Charlemagne rose from prayer, the pope slipped an imperial crown on his head. While the Romans present acclaimed him as “Augustus and Emperor,” the astonished Charlemagne, who a minute before had been kneeling at the tomb of the first pope, found himself with the current incumbent at his feet, “adoring” him “after the manner of emperors of old.”
According to the chronicler Einhard, Charlemagne’s imperial coronation caught him completely off guard. Had he known what was going to happen, the emperor reportedly said, he would never have gone to the basilica that day. Charlemagne’s outrage was surely feigned: the smoothness of the operation suggests that there was meticulous planning and negotiation beforehand.
The Byzantines did eventually deign to acknowledge him as “emperor” (although they refused to automatically recognize his successors). For his part, Charlemagne laid no claim to their throne.
The so-called Carolingian Renaissance—named after Charlemagne himself—transformed western Europe’s spiritual and cultural life, as Charlemagne strove to fulfill what he saw as his divinely sanctioned purpose: the creation of a truly Christian empire. From the early years of his reign, Charlemagne sent out appeals for copies of remarkable or rare texts, whether Christian or classical. Libraries and schools flourished in monasteries and cathedrals across his realms. At his court at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) Charlemagne gathered together Europe’s most eminent scholars to instruct a new generation of the clergy, seeking to set up a chain of learning that would ultimately disseminate this Christian culture to the people. Greek was revived, and the intensive learning of Latin became compulsory in all educational establishments.
Charlemagne’s single-minded drive for empire did breed a certain ruthlessness. He had few qualms about dealing with rivals, even among his own family. His nephews mysteriously disappeared when they fell into his hands; he deposed his cousin in order to conquer Bavaria; and when his hunchback son Pepin rebelled in 792, he put down the revolt with brutal force. Having secured the pope’s approval for his conquest of Italy by promising to increase papal territory, Charlemagne reneged on the deal, keeping Lombardy for himself. When the Saxons rebelled, after accepting his sovereignty and converting to Christianity, Charlemagne was merciless. He considered their rebellion apostasy as well as treason, and he put it down with a level of violence rare even in his own violent era: on one occasion he executed 4000 Saxons in a single day. Yet in general he respected the rights and traditions of the lands he conquered.
Finally, Charlemange became a man of mystical myth: he corresponded with the caliph of the Abbasid empire, Haroun, who allowed him to protect the Christians of Jerusalem, where he built a small Christian quarter. The rumor spread that the emperor had secretly visited Jerusalem, inspiring the crusaders and French leaders up into the 20th century. Indeed Christians came to believe Charlemange might be the last emperor before the Last Judgment.
When Charlemagne felt the shadow of death upon him in 813, he crowned his son Louis, king of Aquitaine, as emperor. He died a few months later. Louis succeeded his father—but on his own death he divided his territories between his sons. Charlemagne’s empire did not last long.
HAROUN AL-RASHID
763/6–809
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime