prophet, transferred the capital from Damascus to Baghdad and ushered in one of the golden ages of Islamic history.
Under Abbasid rule, Baghdad was to become a wonder of the early medieval world, a circular city of science and poetry, famous for its bookshops and bathhouses, its chess games and secret cabarets. One observer calculated that it had ‘no equal on earth either in the Orient or the Occident, it is the most extensive city in area, in importance, in prosperity, in abundance of water, and in healthful climate’. Merchandise flooded in from as far away as India, China and Tibet, and one might imagine that ‘all the goods of the earth are sent there, all the treasures of the world gathered there, and all the blessings of the universe concentrated there’. The water was sweet, the trees flourished, the fruit was of perfect quality, and the people were all blessed with bright countenances and open intelligences. No one was ‘better educated than their scholars…more solid in their syntax than their grammarians, more supple than their singers…more eloquent than their preachers, more artistic than their poets’. The only possible conclusion was that ‘Iraq is indeed the centre of the world.’8
Harun al-Rashid (reigned 786–809) was the most famous of the Abbasid caliphs, his opulent court familiar to history through the pages of The Thousand and One Arabian Nights. A ruthless politician, patron of the arts, builder of magnificent palaces, Harun was an expert diplomatist.
During the reign of the Byzantine empress Irene, he had marched his troops to within sight of Constantinople and demanded the payment of a handsome yearly tribute in exchange for not attacking the city. Irene had acquiesced but her successor, Nicephorus I, thought it far below Byzantium’s dignity to humble itself before a Muslim ruler. In 802 he despatched an envoy to Iraq with a strongly worded letter, replete with an analogy to the game of chess that any Abbasid caliph was certain to appreciate: ‘The queen who reigned before me gave you the position of the tower and placed herself in the position of a simple pawn. She paid the tribute that was once imposed upon you…This was the result of the frailty and foolishness of women. When you receive my letter, send back the money that you have received from her, and ransom yourself by paying the sums that are incumbent on you. Otherwise, the sword will decide between us.’ For added emphasis, the Byzantine envoys then threw swords at the caliph’s feet. A furious Harun took up his sabre, smashed the swords to pieces and then penned the tersest of replies. ‘From Harun, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog: I have read your letter, son of an infidel woman. You will not hear my reply but will see it with your own eyes.’ Sure enough, Harun marched his army northwards and to halt his progress the emperor, distracted by other affairs, agreed to recommence tribute payments. But even before Harun had returned to Raqqa (his new capital), he learned that Nicephorus had reneged on his promise. Having lost all patience, Harun led his troops towards the Black Sea coast where he besieged and conquered the Byzantine city of Heraclea.9
Happily, some of Harun’s other dealings with Christianity were more polite. In 801, Charlemagne’s ambassador Isaac the Jew returned from a diplomatic mission to Iraq with an elephant named Abu’l Abbas, after the founder of the Abbasid dynasty. It was a present from Harun to Charlemagne, king of the Franks.
The caliph was eager to recruit allies against rival Muslim rulers in Spain, Charlemagne hoped to make travel safer for Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, and both rulers shared a mighty rival in the Byzantine Empire. Crossing the Alps so late in the year was impractical, but after wintering at Pisa the ambassador escorted the elephant to Charlemagne’s capital at Aachen. The Emperor would dote on Abu’l Abbas for years to come, regularly taking him along on military expeditions. The creature would die in 810 while crossing into Saxony, although his bones would be preserved at Lippenheim until the eighteenth century.
At other times Harun would send Charlemagne ivory chessmen, water-clocks and perfumes, but Abu’l Abbas was his most precious diplomatic gift, exchanged between two of the greatest powers in the ninth-century world. Harun referred to himself as the shadow of God on earth, but he did not underestimate the talents of his compeer in the west.
ii. Aachen
He was broad and strong in the form of his body and exceptionally tall without, however, exceeding an appropriate measure. As is well known, his height was equal to seven of his feet. The top of his head was round, his eyes were large and lively. His nose was somewhat larger than usual. He had attractive grey hair, and a friendly, cheerful face. His appearance was impressive whether he was sitting or standing, despite having a neck that was fat and too short, and a large belly. The symmetry of his other limbs obscured these points. He had a firm gait, a thoroughly manly manner of holding himself, and a high voice which did not really correspond to the rest of his body.
Einhard’s description of Charlemagne10
In April 799, Pope Leo III approached the Flaminian Gate in Rome. An armed band descended upon him, threw him to the ground and, after trying to pluck out his tongue and eyes, left him bleeding in the street. His assailants, supporters of the previous pope, had hoped to disfigure Leo so severely that he would be unable to continue in his papal duties. They failed and, after recuperating at a nearby monastery, Leo travelled north, to Paderborn, to recruit the help of Charles the Great, king of the Franks. A few months later the pope returned to Rome in the company of an armed escort. It was not the first time that Charlemagne had served as guardian and protector of a vulnerable papacy.
The Franks, however temporarily and belatedly, had filled the political vacuum left by the demise of the western Roman Empire. Between ad 370 and ad 470, Asiatic Huns, perhaps the descendants of the Hsiung-nu that had so troubled Han China, pushed westwards, forcing Germanic tribes into Roman territory. Over the following decades these tribes spread across Europe – the Visigoths into Spain, the Ostrogoths into Italy, the Vandals as far as North Africa.
Rome sought to establish workable relations with these newcomers, even allowing them to settle on lands within the empire. Diplomacy and accommodation had their limits; however, and by 410 the German chieftain Alaric was sacking Rome. The empire, now based in Ravenna, tottered on, but by 476 the last Roman emperor in the West, the sixteen-year-old Romulus Augustulus, had been forced to abdicate and begin his premature retirement in the Bay of Naples. The barbarian Odoacer was now the king of Italy and the future of Roman civilization lay in the east, in the city founded by the emperor Constantine on the Bosporus: the capital of the new Byzantine Empire.
There were many beneficiaries of this dramatic shift in Western politics, among them the Franks who, under Clovis, moved into the territories of Gaul. In the eighth century the Merovingian dynasty established by Clovis was displaced by the Frankish aristocrat-turned usurper, Pippin the Short. The centre of Frankish power now moved 300 miles to the east, from Paris to the Carolingian capital of Aachen, in present-day Germany. Pippin’s son, Charlemagne, proved to be the greatest of all Frankish rulers. Through a combination of military might and subtle diplomacy he outflanked his immediate neighbours – the Bavarian, Breton and Aquitanian tribes of northern Germany – and waged successful campaigns against more distant opponents, among them the Saxons of Germany and the Avars of Hungary. At its height, Charlemagne’s empire stretched from the Spanish border and central Italy in the south, to Saxony in the north, as far as Bavaria in the east.
He also rescued the papacy from the intrusions of the Lombard kings of northern Italy, conquering Lombard possessions from the German border to the lands south of Rome. The Holy See had a new champion: Charlemagne, the mightiest king in Western Europe. On Christmas Day 800, in the church of St Peter in Rome, Leo III crowned Charlemagne as emperor, heir to the Caesars. The pope, in keeping with tradition, prostrated himself before the new emperor’s feet and the crowds let up a shout. ‘Life and victory to Charles the most pious Augustus,’ they chanted three
