The Ambassadors: From Ancient Greece to the Nation State. Jonathan Wright

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 times, ‘crowned by God, the great and pacific emperor.’¹¹

      The future kings and emperors of Western Europe would always dream of emulating Charlemagne’s achievement. Napoleon Bonaparte was no exception. Much like Charlemagne, Napoleon was always well supplied with detractors. One of them wrote a scurrilous, rather far-fetched account of Napoleon’s trip to Aachen, Charlemagne’s ancient capital. Napoleon summoned the entire French diplomatic corps to bear witness to this act of imperial pilgrimage. He apparently visited every spot where Charlemagne had walked, sat, slept, talked, eaten or prayed, dragging the foreign representatives behind him.

      Napoleon was apparently so intoxicated by the place that he allowed himself to be duped by local entrepreneurs who, in return for handsome rewards, offered up supposed relics of the great Frankish king – a stone on which Charlemagne had once kneeled, a document bearing his signature, a contemporary portrait, a ring he had worn, a crucifix he had used in his devotions.

      One German professor wrote to Napoleon, urging him to be less credulous and suggesting that the portrait was a drawing of this century; the diploma written in the last; the crucifix manufactured within fifty years, and the ring perhaps within ten. Napoleon was not amused and, upon reading the professor’s note, despatched officers to his rooms. They woke the professor, forced him to dress and then bundled him into a covered cart which carried him under escort to the left bank of the Rhine, where he was left with orders, under pain of death, never to return to the French Empire.¹²

      If the story was a fabrication or, at best, an exaggeration, it was one that hinted at just how long a shadow Charles the Great cast over European history. Perhaps only an Arthur or an Alexander bequeathed a more intoxicating legend.

      Charlemagne’s diplomatic acumen was certainly part of that legend, but the one thing that medieval Europe enjoyed even more than celebrating its heroes was denouncing Islam. The Song of Roland was the most famous of the medieval chansons de geste (songs of deeds) that flourished from the twelfth century and made such efficient work of denouncing Muslims as duplicitous, avaricious scoundrels. La Chanson de Roland would principally be remembered for its fanciful account of the murder of a heroic Frankish knight at the Pass of Roncesvalles, high in the Pyrenees. It also offered a typically unflattering portrayal of Muslim statecraft, and the Islamic penchant for subverting the protocols of diplomatic encounter. This would prove to be a staple of medieval European discourse. The elephant, sent from Islam to Christianity, was dismissed as an aberration. Muslim ambassadors managing to deceive as mighty an emperor as Charlemagne was surely more representative of Islamic treachery.

      At the beginning of the poem, Charlemagne and his armies have been ensconced in Spain for seven years. They have won endless victories, but the town of Saragossa still remains under Muslim control. On his blue marble throne, King Marsile calls forth his counsellors and asks if there is any way to avert military disaster. One of them proposes a devious plan. The king should pretend to submit to Charlemagne. He should reveal that he is willing to be baptized as a Christian in the emperor’s own kingdom, and promise to pay tribute, only to renege once his troops have departed.

      Charlemagne will doubtless require hostages as guarantors of payment, and he will likely execute them when he realizes that he has been deceived, but surely this is a price worth paying. Better that the hostages’ heads be shorn away than the Muslims lose the whole of Spain. Marsile chooses ambassadors from among his most cunning followers, and sends them off to Charlemagne on ten snow-white mules, bridled with gold and saddled in silver.

      Charlemagne is in high spirits when the Muslim ambassadors arrive. His catapults have recently battered down the walls at Cordoba and a mighty haul of plundered treasure has been secured. All pagans have been slain or made to convert to Christianity. He is relaxing in an orchard surrounded by his 15,000 followers. The older knights are lying on white carpets playing chequers, while the younger squires fence beneath an eglantine-embowered pine tree.

      The ambassadors approach him on foot and launch into a fawning address. Marsile will send him lavish gifts – lions, bears, greyhounds and seven hundred camels – provided Charlemagne returns to France.

      It is approaching sunset, so Charlemagne tells the ambassadors to tie up their mules and retire to the tents he has provided for them. The next morning, after hearing mass, Charlemagne summons his counsellors to a spot beneath a pine tree to discuss the events of the precious day. Opinion is divided. The knight Roland reminds Charlemagne of a worryingly similar situation seven years earlier, when Marsile had also sent ambassadors bearing olive branches. In reply, two imperial envoys were despatched to the king, only to have their heads severed from their bodies. The Christians have been fighting for seven years, Roland insists, and they should complete their campaign by besieging Saragossa. As Charlemagne clasps his chin and tugs at his beard, another of his advisers suggests that such ‘counsel of pride is wrong’. Receiving Marsile’s homage would be victory enough.

      Charlemagne is convinced, and all that remains is the selection of the ambassador to be sent to Marsile. Some are rejected because they would be too dearly missed; Roland is regarded as far too hot-headed for such delicate negotiations. However, he does succeed in nominating his stepfather, Ganelon, one of his harshest critics. Ganelon is far from happy with being chosen for such a treacherous mission. He asks Roland why he would be so wrathful as to nominate his own stepfather and promises that, should he return safely, ‘I’ll follow thee with such force of passion, that will endure so long as life may last thee.’ Roland offers to go in his stead, fully aware that Ganelon