Episode 10: Getting Medieval on the Emperor by the Grace of God


His supporters satirize his opponents’ anxiety about the extent of his power by calling President Trump “God-Emperor,” but the taunt is only effective because Americans are not supposed to want kings, never mind emperors. And yet, how else would one define the West? Can there be civilization without hierarchy? Can there be peace without an emperor? Throughout the Middle Ages, European Christians looked to Charlemagne as the model for the emperor who would defend Christendom and bring back the glories of Rome. How much did Charlemagne himself contribute to this ideal? Would the Franks of the eighth and ninth centuries have recognized later representations of Charles as emperor and king?

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Without an Emperor, there will be, sooner or later, no more kings. When there are no more kings, there will be, sooner or later, no more nobility. When there is no more nobility, there will be, sooner or later, no more bourgeoisie or peasants. This is how one arrives at the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class hostile to the hierarchical principle, which latter, however, is the reflection of the divine order. This is why the proletariat professes atheism.
Europe is haunted by the shadow of the Emperor.
—Meditations on the Tarot 

References

 Texts 
People 

  • Charlemagne (d. 814), King of the Franks (from 768); King of the Lombards (from 774); Emperor (from 800)
  • Louis the Pious (d. 840), King of Aquitaine (from 781); Emperor (from 813)
  • Einhard (d. 840), biographer of Charlemagne
  • Valentin Tomberg (d. 1973), Russian convert to Roman Catholicism, author of Méditations sur les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot (second edition published 1984)
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