Christmas Day, December 25th, 800 A.D., is one of the watershed dates in Western History. It was on this day that the Sovereign Pontiff and the Successor to St. Peter, Pope Leo III, crowned Charles the King of the Franks with the Crown of Imperial Rome and the people of Rome hailed him as “Augustus”. It had been 324 years—since 476 A.D.—that there had been a Roman Emperor for “Old Rome”.

And here we might stress how great a hold the idea of Imperial Rome still had on Latin Catholic Christianity after so many centuries. Pagan, persecuting Rome had become, by the mysterious Providence of God, Christian Rome.

And so we find in the writings of the Patristic Fathers of the Church the belief that it will be the definitive fall of the Roman Empire which willsignal the days of Anti-Christ: hence, the End-of-the-World and the Second Coming of Christ. But since the great Anti-Christ had not appeared and the world went on living, then that must mean that the Roman Empire lived on.

Tenuously, it could be maintained that the Roman Empire lived on in the “New Rome” of Constantinople to the East. Also, the residence of the Popes in Rome gave the Roman Pontiffs the stature of spiritual Emperors of the West. But it was the coronation of Charlemagne which made the continuation of the Roman Empire a concrete fact. Here at last was a Roman Emperor who realized the political unity of Christendom and who in his person actually acted to further the spread of the Gospel and more deeply Christianize the people under his sceptre’s rule. Charlemagne fit the role of a true Christian Emperor far better than Constantine ever had in the 4th Century A.D.

We might consider this work of Charlemagne from various aspects, but let us focus on this one: his love for the Church’s sacred music as it was practiced in Rome. He decreed that all of the clergy of his vast Empire should learn the Cantus Romanus. 

“The sons of nobles of his empire and of his vassals were expected, by imperial command, to be instructed in grammar, music, and arithmetic, while the boys in the public schools were taught music and how to sing, especially the Psalms. The Emperor’s agents and representatives were everywhere ordered to watch over the faithful carrying out of his orders regarding music. He not only caused liturgical music to flourish in his time throughout his vast domain, but he laid the foundations for musical culture, which are still potent today.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, “Charlemagne And Church Music”, A.D. 1908)

So much did he love the Gregorian chant that Charlemagne himself would participate in the chanting of the choir (although, as his biographer says, “in a subdued voice”.)

Another picture of him left by his contemporaries is the happiness he found in being with his children, joining in their sports, particularly in his own favorite sport of swimming.

When we think of how much the traditions which have come down to us from the Age of Christendom have to do with the gold-standard of a righteous and just King whose reign was a golden age of justice, honor, piety where the royal might would vindicate the good and punish the bad, and how much the return of that golden age is longed for in later evil days, then we can appreciate better the magnitude of Charlemagne’s influence on the whole of our civilizational ideals across the centuries. We might think, for example, as a point of comparison, of J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece of story-telling, the Lord of the Rings.

Charlemagne died on January 28th, on the Second Feast of St. Agnes, in 814. He was in his 72nd year. He was buried in the octagonal Byzantine-Romanesque church at Aachen (French: Aix-la-Chapelle) which he had had built and decorated with marble columns from Rome and Ravenna.

In the great Jubilee year of 1000 A.D., 186 years after Charlemagne’s death, Otto III, who then wore the imperial crown, had Charlemagne’s tomb opened. There, they were struck by an awesome sight. Charlemagne was found as he had been buried, “sitting on a marble throne, robed and crowned as in life, the Book of the Gospels open on his knees.”