Historical Setting: River Tyne, 794 C.E.
Talking politics with Cloothar, I’d been wondering what makes King Charles great, and apparently, the easy answer for that is that he baptized the Saxons. He is Christianizing the world.
And I was thinking about the drastic change in baptism. In these times, war victory seems “cleaned up” by conquering an enemy on the battlefield. Now, rather than annihilating the remnants of wars, they are baptized.
Christianizing a people is how wars against pagans are righteously won, though the “win” in warfare is still preceded by the slaughter of many. But now victory is declared with a Christian sacrament.
It was the Roman nature of Christians to make the cross into a banner of victory — to turn that Roman torture tool used to crucify Jewish Jesus — into Christianity’s sacred logo; but the irony continued when Emperor Heraclius ousted Judaism from the empire by demanding baptism or death. Only a few hundred years after my sister and I were baptized in the Jordan river by John, repenting, turning away from the competitive warring ways of the world and back to the always love Jesus taught, then the instrument of Jesus’s death became the most celebrated icon. Baptism, at first, was a radical, personal choice to put love first.
But now in the eighth century, the king, not a bishop, performs baptism on the enemy to seal the win. King Charles is the great Charlemagne, who earned his stature on the battlefield against the Saxons and the Lombards.
Cloothar says, “Who needs a bishop when you have a king? You know, a King is just one square in the game of chess and not the whole diagonal.”
And I thought, from what I’d learned from Alcuin in Francia, that Charles was great because he valued education. He had the best scholar to teach him and his children, and the best architect, Odo, to renovate the ancient traditional palace at Aachen. Footnote It was all new wisdom built on old tradition. But now I learn the pragmatic purpose is imperialism — Christianizing the world. It all seems to be working very well for Francia and maybe for a new empire rising.
A commoner is not restricted from using a monastic library. Literacy is becoming more widely spread, escaping the walls of the clerics. Cloothar uses his own merchandise as an example of the rising quality of material things and he touts the benefit of a consistent ruler.
I still take my gratitude to God. Thank you, God.
Footnote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Aachen retrieved 6-14-25.
(Continues Tuesday, March 3, 2026)
Lazarus Ink 