Monarchism

The Roman Legacy

The idea of monarchism, or kingship, as it is perceived today was perhaps the strongest legacy bequeathed by the western Roman Empire, which fell when Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the warlord Odacer in 476 c.e. When Theodoric the Ostrogoth had Odacer killed, he quickly took on the trappings of the empire as the first true European king. Edward Gibbon wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire about “the visible peace and prosperity of a reign of thirty-three years, the unanimous esteem of his own times.” While the political institutions of western Europe were largely in shambles, the Christian Church, led by the pope in Rome, carried on an institutional and administrative heritage that dated, according to the New Testament Acts of the Apostles, from the time of Christ. For the new Germanic kings—many tribes like the Goths (Visigoths and Ostrogoths) could no longer be accurately typed as “barbarian”—the church was the only place they could seek that would give them legitimacy in their rule. This was needed not only against their rivals but also against the other tribes pressing upon them, such as the Vandals.

The new kings like Theodoric came from a warrior society that had raised its rulers up by acclamation of their warrior deeds. Julius Caesar wrote of one of these German tribes, the Suebi, in his Gallic Wars: “they draw every year a thousand men to be used as warriors fighting outside their frontiers.” However, such basic ideas of kingship relied upon the ruler's ability to keep his warlords and warriors happy with booty and plunder. Such a wealthy king was Hrothgar the Dane, whom the hero Beowulf helped to kill the monster Grendel. Norma Lorre Goodrich wrote of Hrothgar's palace, Heorot Hall, in The Medieval Myths: “the lofty gables and gleaming roof of Heorot Hall came into sight.” If such a king as Hrothgar grew unlucky in battle, he could easily be deposed and slain. The notion of a warlike king ruling through the strength of his sword endured in the story of the youthful Arthur, who proved himself worthy of the right to rule by being the only one who could withdraw the sword Excalibur from the stone at the village fair.

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