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EUROPE: CATASTROPHE ANO REVIVAL
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Part2
THE FIRST EUROPEAN
by
Paul William Kroll
In A.D. 800, Charlemagne was
crowned Roman emperor of a new
Europe. Some historians view this
crowning as perhaps the most
important single event ever to
occur in Europe. In this second
ins tallment, we examine the vital
importance of Charlemagne 's
crowning to European his tory.
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GREAT
and powerful Ro-
J.
~an
Empire was dead at age
1000 plus. And how men be–
wailed its disappearance!
World leaders, when they beheld
the splendor and glory of Rome, as–
sumed it would rule as long as men
existed. But in 476, the last vestige
of the empire in the West, the office
of emperor, was abolished.
Roman Rule Destroyed
Rome had already been sacked
severa! times. ltaly had been rav–
aged and subjugated. The Roman
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provinces located in Africa, the
Mediterranean area and Western
Europe were lost to Germanic bar–
barians.
The eastem half of the empire
was powerless to help, though in
one mighty reflex action, like the
spasmodic jerk of a dying man, the
eastem empire under Justinian re–
established imperial authority in
Italy and North Africa. But the vic–
tory was ephemeral; it was wiped
out in l ess th a n two d ecades
throughout most of l taly.
This mighty, world-ruling empire,
with its s trutting leg ions, was
through. Theologians had identified
the Roman Empire with the fourth
kingdom of Daniel: ".. . the fourth
kingdom shall be strong as iron: for–
asmuch as iron breaketh in pieces
and subdueth all things ... it [shall]
break in pieces and bruise" (Daniel
2:40). The empire was also that
"fourth·beast, dreadful and terrible,
and strong exceedingly; and it had
great iron teeth : it devoured and
brake in pieces... " (Daniel 7:7).
But now the mighty political and
military complex was dead.
Or was
it?
One leg, admittedly shriveled,
still stood in the East. The other leg,
in the West, had been temporarily
revived by Emperor Justinian. And
even though his exploits were soon
canceled out by a new barbarían
horde, the Lombards, Roman civ–
ilization and ideals were far from
dead in the West.
Out of the ashes of a destroyed
Europe, a new military and política!
power was ready to restore peace
and stability to Westem Europe.
That power was to be found among
the Germanic peoples ca ll e d
Franks.
They answered the call of the Ro–
man papacy, the only stabilizing in–
fluence left in much of what had
been the Western Roman Empire.
The papacy and the Franks joined
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forces to create a Roman-Christian
1i
:§
civilization of startling magnitude.
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Though it would be over three hun-
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