John Kelly

“But he who held the office of Patrician was not only a citizen of the actual city of Rome, as opposed to a citizen of the empire, but head of Rome’s nobility — in effect, the secular lord of the ancient city. Even a pope could not, of his own power, give this great dignity: the people of Rome themselves had assented to this glorification of a barbarian, praying that he would defend them in these increasingly perilous”
― E.R. Chamberlin, The Emperor Charlemagne

“The Roman regarded his spada simply as an instrument; for the Frank, however, the sword was not simply a token of his manhood but, after the triumph of Christianity, his religion. It was a common practice to include a saint’s relics physically in the hilt of the sword whose very shape reminded its owner of the origin of his religion. That veneration was passed on to all the descendants of the Franks so that the Germans and the French and the English all took the sword as the ultimate symbol of courage and of justice. It even had a personal identity and personal name: Charlemagne was supposed to have bestowed the slightly incongruous name of Joyeuse on his great blade and the sword of Roland would enter legend as Durendal.”
― E.R. Chamberlin, The Emperor Charlemagne

“The Lombards were part of the great Teutonic peoples, related both to Franks and to Goths. They were perhaps the most consummate horsemen of all those who erupted out of the east. Certainly, no other race had so many laws concerning horses written”
― E.R. Chamberlin, The Emperor Charlemagne

“Hadrian was the first Roman after a succession of devious Greeks and Sicilians upon the papal throne. He was a member of the Roman nobility and, as a member of the Roman clergy he was, in effect, the leader of a closed corporation within a closed corporation. The Roman clergy emphasized its distinctness, its uniqueness in every possible way. In their dress, in which they clung to privileges supposedly ensured to them by the spurious Donation of Constantine, they imitated the imperial senate using the mappula — a white, fringed saddlecloth when mounted (itself a senatorial privilege) — the campagna, or flat, black slippers and the udones or white stockings. To an outsider, these would seem almost tastelessly trivial privileges but in the highly structured, caste world of Rome they were vital points of difference. The clergy recruited itself from its own ranks, inducting boys at an early age. Indeed, the traditional minor orders known as doorkeeper, lector and exorcist had become meaningless in that they were increasingly bestowed on ever younger children. The candidate was presented personally to the pope by his nearest male relative or guardian and would later be examined for proficiency in reading. Ironically, the Latin spoken and written in Rome was far more corrupt and degraded than that used by the northern ‘barbarians’ as the ancient language gradually made its transition into Italian. His examination passed, the boy would receive the tonsure. Again, this was a device not simply to set them aside from the laity, as such, but from their own fellow citizens who wore their hair long and so adorned that a Frankish monk noted that they were called ‘in admiration or rather derision hypochoristicos or pretty things’. The desire of the Roman clergy to emphasize their uniqueness paradoxically included the liturgy.”
― E.R. Chamberlin, The Emperor Charlemagne