Abstract
“The temple of the Christian world, the church of the Resurrection, was demolished to its foundation; the luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane labor was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock which properly constitutes the holy Sepulchre.”1 So Edward Gibbon described the destruction of the central church of Christendom in 1009 by the Fatimid caliph al-Hākim. At the center of the present chapter is this event that many in the West viewed as indicative of the beginning of the Last Days. The apocalyptic dimensions of this figure and this event merit much more attention than they have yet received.
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Notes
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. H. H. Milman, vol. 5 (New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1851), p. 532.
For Gibbon’s early interest in Islam see David Womersley, Gibbon and the ‘Watchmen of the Holy City:’ The Historian and His Reputation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), pp. 147–72.
Another perspective on Gibbon and Islam appears in Peter Ghosh, “The Conception of Gibbon’s History,” in Edward Gibbon and Empire, ed. Rosamond McKitterick and Roland Quinault (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 271–316. Material in this chapter appeared in papers delivered at the annual Sewanee conference at the University of the South in the spring of 2000 and a meeting of the Haskins Society at Cornell University in October of 2003. I wish to express my gratitude to the organizers of these programs.
On the attraction of Jerusalem in this period, see Daniel F. Callahan, “Jerusalem in the Monastic Imaginations of the Early Eleventh Century,” Haskins Society Journal 6 (1994): 119–127.
Still basic for the general background is Richard W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953).
See also Adriaan Bredero, Christendom and Christianity in the Middle Ages, trans. R. Bruinsma (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 79–104.
For a different view on the Western reaction, see John France, “The Destruction of Jerusalem and the First Crusade,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47 (1996): 1–17.
Ademar of Chabannes, Chronicon, ed. Richard Landes and Georges Pon, CCCM 129 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999).
An excellent bibliography of writings about Ademar is found in Richard Landes, Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 989–1034 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Subsequently, in addition to the writings of Richard Landes and myself, James Grier has written extensively on Ademar and music and Michael Frassetto has a number of pieces on Ademar and heresy, most recently Michael Frassetto, “Pagans, Heretics, Saracens, and Jews in the Sermons of Ademar of Chabannes,” in Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work of R. I. Moore, ed. M. Frassetto (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 73–91.
Ademar, Chronicon, III, 47, pp. 166–7. “Ipso anno sepulchrum Domini Hierosolimis confractum est a Judeis et Sarracenis. … Nam Judei occidentales et Sarraceni Hispanie miserunt epistolas in Orientem, accusantes Christianos et mandantes exercitus Francorum super Sarracenos orientales commotos esse. Tunc Nabuchodonosor Babilonie, quem vocant Admiratum, concitatus suasu paganorum in iram, afflictionem non parvam in Christianos exercuit, deditque legem ut quicumque christiani de sua potestate nollent fieri Sarraceni, aut confiscarentur aut interficerentur. Unde factum est ut innumerabiles christianorum converterentur ad legem Sarracenam, et nemo pro Christo morte dignus fuit preter patriarcham Jherosolimorum, qui variis supplicis occisus est, et duos adolescentes germanos in Egipto, qui decollati sunt et multis claruerunt miraculis. Nam ecclesia Sancti Georgii, que actenus a nullo Sarracenorum potuit violari, tunc destructa est cum aliis multis ecclesiis sanctorum, et peccatis nostris promerentibus, basilica sepulchri Domini usque ad solum diruta. Lapidem monumenti cum nullatenus possent comminuere, ignem copiosum superadiciunt, sed quasi adamans immobilis mansit et solidus.” See also Ademar’s similar description of the destruction and later rebuilding in Commemoratio Abbatum Lemovicensium Basilice s. Marcialis Apostoli, in Chroniques de Saint-Martial de Limoges, ed. Henri Duplès-Agier (Paris: Mme. Ve. J. Renouard, 1874), pp. 7–8.
Rodulfus Glaber, Historiarum Libri Quinque, ed. and trans. John France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). The English translations are those of John France unless otherwise noted.
This matter is considered in greater depth in my essay “The Cross, the Jews and the Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Writings of Ademar of Chabannes” in Christian Attitudes toward the Jews in the Middle Ages: A Casebook, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 15–23.
Ademar, Chronicon, III, 46, pp. 165–6. “Et supradictus monachus Ademarus, qui tunc cum avunculo suo inclito Rotgerio Lemovicas degebat in monasterio Sancti Martialis, experrectus in tempesta noctis, dum foris astra susciperet, vidit in austrum in altitudine celi magnum crucifixum quasi confixum in celo et Domini pendentem figuram in cruce, multo flumine lacrimarum plorantem. Qui autem haec vidit, attonitus, nichil aliud potuit agere quam lacrimas ab oculis profundere. Vidit vero tam ipsam crucem quam figuram Crucifixi colere igneo et nimis sanguineo totam per dimidiam noctis horam, quousque celo sese clauderet. Et quod vidit semper in corde celavit, quousque hic scripsit, testisque est Dominus quod haec vidit.” Ademar also left an illustration of Christ on the Cross in a manuscript that is now in Leiden, but the illustration does not begin to match the power of the written description of the figure of the crucified Christ in the heavens. On this drawing see Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, “Les dessins d’Adémar de Chabannes,” Bulletin du comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, n.s., 3 (1967): 199–200. See also on both the written passage and drawing Landes, Relics, Apocalypse, 87–9, 117–118, and 300–8.
On Ademar and the Tau Cross, see Daniel F. Callahan, “The Tau Cross in the Writings of Ademar of Chabannes,” in The Year 1000: Religious and Social Response to the Turning of the First Millennium, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 63–71.
On al-Hākim and the destruction of the church of the Holy Sepulcher, Marius Canard, “La destruction de l’église de la Résurrection par le calife Hākim et l’histoire de la descente du feu sacré,” Byzantion 35 (1965): 16–43.
Ademar, Chronicon. “Mox e vestigio super omnem terram Sarracenorum fames incanduit per tres annos, et innumerabilis eorum multitudo fame mortua est, ita ut plateae et deserta cadaveribus replerentur, et fierent homines cibum et sepultura feris et avibus. Secuta est eos gladii vastitas. Nam gentes Arabiae super terram eorum diffuse sunt, et qui remanserant fame, gladiis interierunt. Captus est ab eis rex Babilonius, qui se contra Deum erexerat in superbiam, et vivus, ventro dissecto visceribusque extractis, impiam animam ad baratrum projecit. Venter ejus, lapidibus oppletus, consutus est, et cadaver, ligato plumbo ad collum, in mare demersum est.” Book 4, chapter 63 of the Chronicle of Fredegar, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM 2 (Hannover, 1888), p. 152 relates a similar end to the Byzantine emperor Phocas in 610 after his capture by the supporters of Heraclius, “manibus et pedibus truncatis, lapidem ad collum legatum, in mare proiciunt.”
A valuable work is Paul Ernest Walker, Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and Its Sources (London: I. B. Tauris, 2002).
Robert Betts, The Druze (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 4.
On a likely source of information for Ademar on Byzantine and Islamic development, see Robert L. Wolff, “How the News was brought from Byzantium to Angoulême; or, The Pursuit of a Hare in an Ox Cart,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4 (1978): 139–89.
Entitled Sermo ad Sinodum de Catholica Fide, it is filled with attacks on the Saracens in the context of the history of salvation. A portion of this piece appears in Léopold Delisle, “Notice sur les manuscrits originaux d’Adémar de Chabannes,” Notices et extraits de la B.N., 25, 1 (1896): 257–65.
Still an excellent place to begin to understand the treatment of the Saracens in the Oxford Roland is Norman Daniel, Heroes and Saracens: An Interpretation of the Chansons de Geste (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984).
See Penny J. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1991).
On the apocalyptic fears of Ademar, see my earlier writings and those of Richard Landes. On the prominence of apocalyptic images in the tenth and eleventh centuries, see the recent essays in The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change 950–1050, ed. Richard Landes, Andrew Gow, and David C. Van Meter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
and The Year 1000: Religious and Social Response to the Turning of the First Millennium, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).
On the continuing importance of the Last Emperor throughout the Middle Ages, see the selections in Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979).
On the evolution of the idea of the World Emperor, particularly in the early Middle Ages, Paul J. Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
Richard K. Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981), particularly Ch. 3 “The Life and Deeds of Antichrist.” See also Jay Rubenstein’s chapter in this volume.
Adso Dervensis, De Ortu et Tempore Antichristi, ed. D. Verhelst, CCCM 45 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1976), p. 26.
Stephen Nichols has noted the great importance of Ademar’s writings for the development of this tradition. Stephen Nichols, Jr., Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983).
See also the work of Matthew Gabriele, “Imperator Christianorum: Charlemagne and the East, 814–1100,” (Ph.D. Diss., History, University of California, Berkeley, 2005) for more recent studies on Carolus Redivivus.
For an overview of the structure and history of Charlemagne’s chapel, see Walter Maas, Der Aachener pom (Cologne: Greven Verlag, 1984).
Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, 31, ed. Friedrick Kurze, in Fontes ad Historiam Regni Francorum Aevi Karolini Illustrandum, vol. 1 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968), p. 202. “Corpus more sollemni lotum et curatum et maximo totius populi luctu ecclesiae inlatum atque humatum est. Dubitatum est primo, ubi reponi deberet, eo quod ipse vivus de hoc nihil praecepisset. Tandem omnium animis sedit nusquam eum honestius tumulari posse quam in ea basilica, quam ipse propter amorem Dei et domini nostri Jesu Christi et ob honorem sanctae et aeternae virginis, genetricis eius, proprio sumptu in eodem vico construxit. In hac sepultus est eadem die, qua defunctus est, arcusque supra tumulum deauratus cum imagine et titulo exstructus. Titulus ille hoc modo descriptus est: Sub hoc conditorio situm est corpus Karoli Magni atque orthodoxi imperatoris, qui regnum Francorum nobiliter ampliavit et per annos XLVII feliciter rexit. Decessit septuagenarius anno Domini DCCCXIIII, indictione VII, Kal. Febr.”
For some of the many gifts of the True Cross attributed to Charlemagne, see A. Frolow, La Relique de la Vraie Croix: Recherches sur le développement d’un culte (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1961), pp. 198–215.
See Celia Chazelle, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era: Theology and Art of Christ’s Passion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Ademar, Chronicon, III, 40, p. 161. “Denique hoc crucis lignum de cruce dominica extat quod Jherosolimorum patriarcha regi Magno Carolo direxerat, et idem imperator in eadem basilica, quam condidit Rotgerius comes Lemovicensis in honore Salvatoris, reposuit. Locus autem antiquo sermone Gallorum Carrofus vocitabatur propter carrorum confinia, idest veiculorum publicorum, et deinceps pro reverentia crucis Sanctum Carrofum appellari placuit.” For more on Charroux and Charlemagne, L.-A. Vigneras, “L’abbaye de Charroux et la légende du pèlerinage de Charlemagne,” Romanic Review 32 (1941): 121–8 and Gabriele, “Imperator Christianorum,” 160–72.
Also of value on the subject is Amy Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 77–81, 166–75.
See above, n. 45. On Otto and the year 1000 see Matthew Gabriele, “Otto III, Charlemagne, and Pentecost A.D. 1000: A Reconsideration Using Diplomatic Evidence,” in The Year 1000: Religious and Social Response to the Turning of the First Millennium, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 111–32.
Ademar drew a picture of the tomb of Charlemagne for one of his copies of the Chronicon. On this illustration, Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, “Un dessin de l’eglise d’Aix-la-Chapelle par Adémar de Chabannes dans un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Vaticane,” Cahiers archéologiques 14 (1964): 233–5.
It is important to note that Adso moves the site of the battle with antichrist to the Mount of Olives in place of Calvary. This transfer of place permits the Antichrist to seek to ascend to heaven and be killed there in the action. See Emmerson, Antichrist, 44–5 and 101–102. On Jerome as the source of the tradition, which Adso followed, that the Antichrist will seek to ascend to heaven from the Mount of Olives and there meet his end, see Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 75.
Daniel F. Callahan, “The Problem of the ‘Filioque’ and the Letter from the Pilgrim Monks of the Mount of Olives to Pope Leo III and Charlemagne: Is the Letter Another Forgery by Adémar of Chabannes?,” Revue Bénédictine 102 (1992): 75–134.
D.S. MS Lat. 1664, fol. 33r. On other insertions by Ademar in this manuscript into commentaries by Bede, Daniel F. Callahan, “Ademar of Chabannes and His Insertions into Bede’s Expositio Actuum Apostolorum,” Analecta Bollandiana 111 (1993): 385–400.
On the signs in the heaven, Ademar reported that there was in 1033 a darkening of the sun in which some claimed to see a human head. See Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1332, fol. 43v. For this, see Giulio d’Onofrio, Excerpta isagogarum et categoriarum, CCCM 120 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995), esp. pp. XLVIII–LVI, LXXXVI–XCV.
For Ademar’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Daniel F. Callahan, “Ademar of Chabannes, Charlemagne and the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem of 1033” in Medieval Monks and Their World, Ideas and Realities: Studies in Honor of Richard Sullivan, ed. David Blanks, Michael Frassetto, and Amy Livingstone (Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 71–80.
On the “crusade” of Pope Sergius IV, see Hans Martin Schaller, “Zur Kreuzzugsenzyklika Papst Sergius IV,” in Papsttum, Kirche, und Recht im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Horst Fuhrmann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Hubert Mordek (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1991), pp. 135–52.
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© 2008 Matthew Gabriele and Jace Stuckey
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Callahan, D.F. (2008). Al-Hākim, Charlemagne, and the Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in the Writings of Ademar of Chabannes. In: Gabriele, M., Stuckey, J. (eds) The Legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615441_3
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