Imperium in the Carolingian World

Abstract The Frankish imperium is usually conceived as an imitation or usurpation of the ancient and/or Byzantine empire, its recognition by the eastern emperor in 812 as a half-hearted concession. This chapter challenges this view by arguing that when the Franks planned to raise an empire under the aegis of Charlemagne, they did not intend to found a new imperium following Roman models but to revive western Roman emperorship as known until 480. The second point is that Charlemagne was fully recognized as emperor by the Byzantines. The idea that the Carolingian imperium belonged to the one and only empire was only abandoned in the ninth century after it proved unrealizable. The chapter first surveys ancient Roman and Byzantine concepts of imperium and emperorship, followed by a section on the Frankish creation of an empire, the underlying notions, and how both related to the eastern empire. A third section discusses how the Carolingian empire evolved until the late ninth century.