From the Shelves of the Paco Library

For those interested in the Middle Ages, Seven Medieval Kings, by Joseph Dahmus, is an excellent survey of some of the leading figures of that historical epoch: Justinian, Harun al-Rashid, Charlemagne, Henry II, Frederick II, Louis IX and Louis XI. In a lucid, fast-paced prose style, Dahmus relates the careers of these sovereigns who did so much, for good or ill, to shape their world.

Charlemagne, whose reign went far toward unifying the fragmented Europe that had resulted from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, was truly a military marvel of the times:

Charlemagne’s military successes and the size of his empire aroused the wonder of his royal contemporaries, from the Anglo-Saxon kings of Britain to the caliph in faraway Baghdad. His was no mere Frankish kingdom. It was an empire that included Spaniards, Italians, Slavs and Avars. Einhard says Charlemagne more than doubled the territory he had inherited from his father (and brother). In the north he had added Saxony and Frisia, Bavaria to the east and the borderlands taken from the Slavs and Avars, to the southwest the littoral of the northern Adriatic with the exception of Venice, two thirds of Italy, Brittany in the west, and the Spanish march across the Pyrenees. Yet he conquered not merely to add to his empire. In his judgment two motives justified his wars: the defense of his people and the defense and spread of Christianity. The majority of his wars he waged against pagans to the east who menaced his frontiers and against Moslems in Spain.

Harun-al-Rashid, celebrated even in fiction as an important character in the Arabian Nights tales, was certainly one of the most illustrious and powerful of the caliphs, and the jewel of the Abbasid dynasty.

Harun, just twenty-five, inaugurated what tradition records as one of the most brilliant reigns in the history of kings. What kind of man was Harun? Was he the charming and princely caliph of the Arabian Nights whose enormous power was matched only by the fabulous wealth and whose harem was filled with girls as numerous as the stars and more ravishingly beautiful than the moon? Part of this picture is true. Contemporary poets and chroniclers extolled Harun’s might and munificence, and while no contemporary writer has left an exact number of the female population of his harem, it may have numbered a thousand. The court historians speak of his nocturnal revelries when, despite Koranic prohibitions, wine flowed freely to lighten the hearts of the dancers and the bowstrings of the musicians. The Arabian Nights introduce Djafar, the son of Yahya his adviser, as Harun’s favorite companion in these revels, and the probable truth of these stories is borne out by more prosaic sources. That Harun even disguised himself on occasion and roamed the streets and bazaars of Baghdad after nightfall is also true.

But as the author is quick to point out, there is much in Harun’s character and history that was repugnant:

Harun was guilty of acts of cruelty, even savagery. Perhaps his greatest cruelty was that of permitting his governors to fleece his subjects just so long as they handed over his share. Single acts of savagery mar the greater part of his reign. Particularly vicious was his last act. He ordered the innocent brother of a rebellious chieftain in Khurasan seized, called in a butcher, and then had him cut off the joints of his fingers and toes, then hands and feet, one by one, until the poor man expired. Harun witnessed this barbarity from his death bed.

As the saying goes, history is biography…or is it the other way around? In either event, there is plenty of both packed into the pages of this highly instructive volume; a thoroughly good read.