Story
The Visio relates an apocryphal story about Charlemagne, who was said to keep a lamp and writing utensils bedside, so that he might write down anything recollected from his dreams that was worth remembering. One night, in a dream, the emperor was approached by one bearing a sword. When asked about his identity the swordbearer only warned the emperor to heed the words engraved (litteris exarata) on the blade of the sword, for they were a prophecy that would come true. There were four words, seemingly of Germanic origin, engraved on the blade, from the hilt to the tip they were:, and . Charlemagne immediately recorded all of it on his tablets.
The next morning Charlemagne was discussing the dream with his befuddled advisors when one of them, "wiser than the others", Einhard, in fact Charlemagne's biographer, said that the one who had given the sword would explain its meaning. Charlemagne himself then begins to interpret it: the sword is the (military) power he has from God, meant abundance beyond what his parents enoyed, meant that his sons will share less abundance than he, meant that they will be greedy and oppressive towards the Church, and meant simply "the end".
The anonymous author asserts that he received the story from Rabanus Maurus, who told it widely after rising to the Archbishopric of Mainz. Rabanus was said to have heard it from Einhard, who had it from the mouth of Charlemagne. The author then explains how the prophecy of the sword has come true: during the reign of Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious the Bretons and Slavs revolted, after Louis's death the kingdom was torn by civil war as his sons Lothair, Pepin (actually a grandson), and Louis the German fought for support among the nobility, Pepin and Lothair usurped the property of monasteries in Aquitaine and Italy respectively, and the bishops of the Church had sent a letter with Witgar begging Louis to make peace throughout the realm. This letter, the author claims, is preserved in the church of Saint Martin in Mainz.
Read more about this topic: Visio Karoli Magni
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