«Oc?» «Oc.»
«Strange. But do go on.»
«I will. I saw all of Italy, new lands and new faces, dress I’d never seen before, damasks, embroidery, golden cloaks, swords, armor; I heard voices that I strained to imitate day after day. I remember only vaguely when Frederick received Italy’s iron crown in Pavia, then the descent towards what they called Italia citeriore, the long journey along the Francigene way, the emperor meeting Pope Hadrian at Sutri, the coronation in Rome…»
«But this basileus of yours, this emperor, as you call him, was he crowned in Pavia or in Rome? And why in Italy, if he’s the basileus of the Alamans?»
«One thing at a time, Master Niketas. For us Latins things aren’t as simple as they are for you Romei. In your country someone gouges out the eyes of the current basileus, and he becomes basileus himself, everybody agrees, and even the patriarch of Constantinople does what the new basileus tells him, otherwise the basileus gouges out his eyes too.»
«Now don’t exaggerate.»
«Exaggerate? Me? When I got here they told me right away that the basileus, Alexis III, ascended the throne because he’d blinded the legitimate ruler, his brother Isaac.»
«Doesn’t anybody ever eliminate his predecessor and seize the throne in your country?»
«Yes, but they kill him in battle, or with some poison, or with a dagger.» «You see? You people are barbarians. You can’t imagine a less bloody way of managing questions of government. And besides, Isaac was Alexis’s brother. Brother doesn’t kill brother.»
«I understand. It was an act of benevolence. That’s how we do things. The emperor of the Latins—who hasn’t been a Latin himself since the days of Charlemagne—is the successor of the Roman emperors—the ones of Rome, I mean, not those of Constantinople. But to make sure he’s emperor, he has to be crowned by the pope, because the law of Christ has swept away the false law, the law of liars. To be crowned by the pope, the emperor also has to be recognized by the cities of Italy, and each of them kind of goes its own way, so he has to be crowned king of Italy—provided, naturally, that the Teutonic princes have elected him. Is that clear?»
Niketas had long since learned that the Latins, though they were barbarians, were extremely complicated, hopeless when it came to fine points and subtleties if a theological question was at stake, but capable of splitting a hair four ways on matters of law. So for all the centuries that the Romei of Byzantium had devoted to fruitful discussions bent on defining the nature of Our Lord, while never questioning the power that still came directly from Constantinople, the Occidentals had left theology to the priests of Rome and had spent their time poisoning one another and trading hatchet blows to decide if there was still an emperor and who he was, achieving the admirable result of never having a genuine emperor again. «So then, Frederick had to have a coronation in Rome.
It must have been a solemn occasion….»
«Only up to a point. First, because Saint Peter’s in Rome, compared to Saint Sophia, is a hut, and a rather run-down hut at that. Second, because the situation in Rome was very confused; in those days the pope was sealed up in his castle, close to Saint Peter’s, and on the other side of the river, the Romans seemed to be the masters of the city. Third, because it wasn’t clear whether the pope was spiting the emperor, or vice versa.»
«What do you mean?»
«I mean that if I listened to the princes and bishops of our court, they were furious at the way the pope was treating the emperor. The coronation was supposed to take place on a Sunday, and they held it on Saturday. The emperor was supposed to be anointed at the main altar, and Frederick was anointed at a side altar, and not on the head, as they had done in the past, but between his arms and shoulder blades, not with the chrism but with the oil of the catechumens.
Perhaps you don’t understand the difference—nor did I in those days—but at court they were all glowering. I was expecting Frederick, too, to be mad as a bull, but instead he was all deference towards the pope, while the pope’s face was grim, as if he had sealed a bad bargain. I asked Frederick straight out why the barons grumbled and he didn’t, and he told me I had to understand the value of liturgical symbols, where a mere nothing can change everything.
He needed to have a coronation, and it had to be complete with the pope, but it shouldn’t be too solemn, otherwise it would mean he was emperor only thanks to the pope, whereas he was
already emperor by the will of the Germanic princes. I told him he was sly as a weasel, because it was as if he had said: See here, Pope, you’re merely the notary, but I’ve already signed papers with the Almighty.
He burst out laughing and slapped my head, saying smart boy, you always find the right way to express things. Then he asked me what I had been doing in Rome those days, because he had been so taken up with the ceremonies he’d lost sight of me. I saw the ceremonies you were taken up with, I said. The fact is that the Romans—the Romans of Rome, that is—didn’t like that business of the coronation in Saint Peter’s, because the Roman senate wanted to be more important than the pope, and they wanted to crown Frederick on the Capitoline.
He refused, because if he then went around saying he had been crowned by the people, not only the Germanic princes but also the kings of France and England would say: Fine anointment this, by the holy rabble. Whereas if he could say he was anointed by the pope, they would all take him seriously. But the matter was even more complicated, and I realized that only later. For some time the Germanic princes had been talking about the translatio imperii, which was like saying that the hereditary line of the Roman emperors had passed to them.
Now if Frederick had himself crowned by the pope it was like saying that his right was recognized also by the vicar of Christ on earth, and he would be what he was even if he lived, so to speak, in Edessa or Ratisbon. If he had himself crowned by the senate and by the Roman populusque, it was like saying the empire was still there, without any translatio.
Smart thinking, as my father Gagliaudo used to say.
At that point, surely, the emperor wasn’t going to put up with it. That’s why, as the great coronation banquet was taking place, the Romans in a fury crossed the Tiber and killed not only a few priests, which was everyday stuff, but also two or three imperials. Frederick flew into a rage, interrupted the banquet, and had them all killed then and there, after which there were more corpses than fish in the Tiber, and by nightfall the Romans understood who was master. To be sure, as festivities go, it wasn’t a great festivity.
This was what caused Frederick’s bad humor towards those communes of Italia citeriore, and that’s why when he arrived before Spoleto at the end of July, he demanded they pay for his sojourn there, and the Spoletini made a fuss. Frederick got even madder than he had in Rome, and carried out a massacre that makes this one in Constantinople seem like child’s play…. You have to understand, Master Niketas, an emperor has to act like an emperor and forget about feelings….
I learned many things in those months; after Spoleto there was the meeting with the envoys of Byzantium at Ancona, then the return to ulterior Italy, to the foot of the Alps, which Otto called the Pyrenees, and that was the first time I saw the tops of mountains covered with snow. Meanwhile, day after day, Canon Rahewin introduced me to the art of writing.»
«A hard introduction, for a boy.»
«No, not hard. It’s true that, if I didn’t understand something, Canon Rahewin would hit my head with his fist, but that had no effect on me, not after the blows of my father. For the rest, everyone hung on my lips. If I felt like saying I had seen a sea siren—after the emperor had brought me there as one who saw saints—they all believed me and said good boy, good boy.» «This must have taught you to weigh your words.»
«On the contrary, it taught me not to weigh them. After all, I thought, whatever I say is true because I said it…. When we were heading for Rome, a priest by the name of Corrado told me about the mirabilia of that urbs, the seven automata of the Lateran, which stood for the individual days of the week, each of them with a bell that announced a revolt in a province of the empire; and about the bronze statues that moved on their own, and about a place filled with enchanted mirrors…. Then we arrived in Rome, and that day, when they were killing each other along the Tiber, I took to my legs and wandered through the city.
As I walked, I saw only flocks of sheep among ancient ruins, and under the arcades some poor people who spoke the language of Jews and sold fish. As for mirabilia, not a sign, except for a statue of a man and a horse in the Lateran, and even that
