"Anomalous Eras - Best Evidence: Best Theory"
Toronto Conference, June 28, 29, 30, 2005
The Invented Middle Ages
By Heribert Illig
The thesis of the "Invented Middle Ages" created quite a stir in the
German-speaking world. For years there has been an on-going discussion of this
thesis that keeps flaring up again and again, though it was really less of a
discussion than a determined attack by mainstream historians, an attempt to
eliminate that which must not be. At present, German medievalists, after several
failed attempts at refutation, are no longer willing to react to my arguments.
Nevertheless, despite their attempts to ignore me, the debate continues. Two of
my books have been translated into Hungarian. But although the general public
takes great interest in the subject, the scholars remain silent. For my
presentation here in Canada I decided on the following structure: I will present
the steps that led me to results that are totally different from all the
scholars who had previously dealt with this period.
How I arrived at my Thesis
A brief word on my credentials. I got my doctorate on the subject of the
Viennese cultural historian Egon Friedell, but I am not a historian in the
narrow sense of the word. I did study economics, mathematics, physics, some art
history and Egyptology. My interest in Egyptian culture brought me into contact
with Velikovsky's theses. Velikovsky's ideas showed me that the accepted time
line has holes like a sieve. In other words: many periods have left so
frighteningly little evidence that we must ask: did this particular period ever
exist or did it originate on the desks of scholars? A response to this question
was given in the book I cowrote with Gunnar Heinsohn, "Wann lebten die Pharaonen?"
(When Did the Pharaohs Live?) This brings me to (Slide I) the first and
essential point: Giving up an axiom, i.e. a supposition that nobody has ever
doubted. As an example of such an axiom, consider this statement: the accepted
time line is God-given and therefore does not need to be checked. In my study of
Ancient Egypt I learned that entire periods may be written up in books, even
though they have not left any traces on earth and, more importantly, in the
earth. I was thus forewarned when I started looking at the history ofthe Middle
Ages.
Which brings us to the next point:
Logic and experience of life - "Common Sense"
What started me off was a phone call from a friend. He was looking into
forgeries in the Middle Ages. In 1986 there had been a conference on this
subject in Munich, the results of which were reprinted in six volumes totaling
3,700 pages. The final talk was given by Prof Horst Fuhrmann, then president of
"Monumenta Germaniae Historica", the institution that prepares the critical
edition of the old and oldest German documents. Fuhrmann talked of "forgeries
with anticipatory character". I quote:
"Sylvester legend, Constantinian Donation, Symmachian Forgeries, Pseudo-Clemens letters, Pseudo-Isidorian Forgeries: let us stop at that list. All these forgeries have the characteristic that at the time they were written, they had hardly any effect. At the time of their creation, they had anticipatory character."
You can see on Slide 2 that after being created the individual forgeries had to
wait 250 to 550 years before they had an effect. This is an incredibly long
time. Can you imagine forging a document that will suddenly become effective
centuries later? How would it have to be written so that it will fit the daily
politics of a future era? And where do you keep such a forgery? How does anyone
remember that there was an ancient document that might be worthwhile fishing
out? Where were the safes that would protect it from mice and humidity and at
the same time provided an index in which it might be located? At that time I
told my friend: If the monk in his scriptorium wasn't a clairvoyant, then I can
provide only an ad-hoc explanation: The moment when this forgery was produced,
and the moment when the forgery had an effect were perhaps much closer to each
other than has been thought previously. However, in that case we would need to
shorten the time line. At this point in our discussion we reached the point of
testability: the mathematically comprehensible calendar calculation.
Whereas questions of ancient Egyptian chronology are not directly linked with
our present chronology, it's a different story with the Middle Ages. Today we
use the Gregorian Calendar, which was defined by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It
is an improved version of the calendar that Julius Caesar introduced in 45 BC.
At that time, the lunar calendar of the Romans was in an utter muddle because
corrupt persons had bribed the responsible priests to add another month to the
tax year. Caesar solved the problem by inserting three months into the calendar-
this led to a year with 445 days -, by going over to a clear solar year as a
basis for the calendar year, and by introducing a clear intercalary rule: every
fourth year is an intercalary year with one additional day.
This proved to be an excellent system, but not forever because the year was not
exactly 365 days and 6 hours long (see Slide 3). From an astronomical point of
view, there were 674 seconds too many. This is not even a quarter of an hour per
year, but in 128 years this error adds up to a whole day. After 1,282 years,
therefore, there are 10 days too many. In 1582 Pope Gregory ordered precisely
ten days to be skipped in order to make the day count agree with the celestial
situation. In passing it should be mentioned that the Pope introduced an
improved intercalary rule which requires revision only every 2000years. What is
decisive for us is the following:
The ten days that were skipped in October 1582 corrected the mistake that had
accumulated in the Julian Calendar over the previous 1,282 years. However, if
you deduct these 1,282 years from 1582, you don't arrive in the year of Caesar's
calendar reform, 45 BC, but in the year AD 300! If he had gone all the way back
to Caesar, Pope Gregory would have had to skip 13 days. He did not do so, and
yet: the astronomical situation and the calendar agreed. His jump was too short,
yet he landed in the right place.
For some years now in Germany there has been a heated discussion of this strange
phenomenon. In the end, it was found that in searching for the truth, antique
tradition is no help: it has not left us any evidence of the spring equinox at
the time of Caesar nor the autumn equinox at the time of Augustus. But this
year, Werner Frank clarified that before 1582, several experts working on the
calendar reform demanded that 12, 13 or even 15 days should be skipped. The
Viennese Ordinary Fabricius demanded a jump of 13 days. Giorgio Caretti asked
for 14 days. The mathematician Giovanni Rastelli pleaded for 15 days, in order
to get to March 25, which Columella or Pliny had indicated as being the day of
the spring equinox in Caesar's time. But March 25 belongs to an alternative
calendar, which probably originates with the Mithras cult. Using the Greek
Eudoxos (408-355), Werner Frank calculated that in Caesar's time, the spring
equinox was on March 21.
All we need to know for our subject is that our calendar contains "slack" so
that the time
line could be shorter.
Now it was a question of making the first thesis plausible: Which period was
superfluous? At first glance it was obvious that the Roman imperial era was very
well documented. The Renaissance period before 1582 was also very well
documented. Even the Romanesque and Gothic eras - looked at from an art-history
perspective - are well documented, with thousands - even tens of thousands - of
buildings. So almost automaticallywe hit upon the Early Middle Ages. Only here
was there darkness. Only here did we find the technical term "Dark Ages". This
can be shown with a table (Slide 4).
In the literature, the term "Dark Ages" is used for various periods (Slide 4).
The author of a history of Byzantium, Frank ThieB, called the period from the
death of Justinian I till 741 "dark centuries". The Byzantinist Cyril Mango
considers events in Greece and sees "dark ages" there from 580 to the 10th
century. In the Frankish west, there is talk of a Merovingian Dark Age between
600 and 750. According to Peter Schreiner, a Byzantinist, there is no
contemporary historiography for the period from 600 to 800. And in Byzantine
architecture, for the period between 610 and at least 850 there is a large gap.
This has been described by Mango. (The first preserved building that is not
known from literature only is from the period shortly after 900.)
For the French medievalist Guy Bois, the century between 814 and 914 is one of
the most mysterious because it is the darkest of all. For the city of Rome, its
"biographer" Ferdinand Gregorovius noted in the 19th century that the period
between 825 and 925 was the darkest part of an already dark era. In the
Occident, it is striking that almost nothing was built between 850 and 950,
which has been noticed by architectural historians such as Zimmermann or Erwin
Panofsky. Incidentally, the first who talked of a dark century was Cardinal
Caesar Baronius, who died in 1607. In his Ecclesiastical Annals, he used this
term to describe the period between 900 and 1000.
When we look at the different definitions, it can be roughly stated that in the
Byzantine Empire, a large, coherent period starting in 565, 580, or 600 and
lasting till the 10th century can be eliminated as a suspicious Dark Age. In the
West, however, there are two dark periods: one lasts from 600 to 750, the other
from 814 into the 10th century. Why? Because in the west, there is Charlemagne,
a luminous figure who is supposed to have reigned from 768 to 814 and who
supplies evidence for this period because of the Carolingian Renaissance he is
supposed to have initiated. However, he only illuminates this time, because
immediately before and after him all is dark. Gregorovius, in his "History of
the City of Rome in the Middle Ages," described it thus:
"The figure of the Great Charles can be compared to a flash of lightning who
came out of the night, illuminated the earth for a while, and then left night
behind him." Thus, in my search for "superfluous times" I had hit on the Early
Middle Ages, but I did not yet know whether there was one or two Dark Ages.
Therefore I had to look closely at a German national treasure, Charlemagne.
There are various methods for testing whether a period is real or fictitious.
First, written source will have to be held against written source. Then
architectural finds can be compared with architectural history. Above all, the
existing architecture will be compared with the existing written sources. With
certainty, the best method is the comparison of archaeological finds with
written sources. These are not new methods; yet they appear not to have been
used sufficiently until now. I would like to illustrate the different
possibilities.
Sources vs. Sources
This comparison is easy to illustrate using the reports on the life of
Charlemagne. Comparing all the biographies, I soon noticed that this ruler's
achievements would have required the lives of two, three, or four "normal men."
In 44 of the 46 years of his reign he goes to war. Like a Medici, he has a court
of scholars at Aachen that gathers the cleverest Europeans of his time.
Depending on whose calculation we use, during the course of his life he traveled
the equivalent of two or even three times around the globe. At the same time he
was a perfect lawmaker: he formulated more than a hundred decrees, he updated
jurisdiction by introducing the jury system; wherever he was he administered
justice.
But he was also active as a folklorist and mythologist, ordering old legends and
folk tales to be collected; he was a linguist both for German and for Latin; he
ordered - remember he was illiterate! - a cleaned-up version of the Bible for he
was obviously an exceptional theologian who even conducted ecclesiastical synods
himself. He was a grammarian, a founder of schools, of libraries and
universities - all of these long before the time when such institutions are
first mentioned in Europe. In my book I have collected more than a hundred of
the Great Charles' characteristics. This makes an extraordinary list: he was his
own minister of agriculture; he was the physical as well as the spiritual
ancestor of half of Europe; he was sole ruler to whom omniscience was ascribed;
he was a classical philologist, architect, astronomer, builder and so on.
The conclusion is simple: far too much is ascribed to this one person. How much
of it is true? The written sources cannot answer that question, though even
while he was alive and before he was crowned emperor they speak of the beacon of
Europe and the father of Europe. For the moment, let's leave aside the written
sources and consult the material evidence. For the item Architectural Findings
vs. Architectural History, the famous Aachen Palatine Chapel, today's Aachen
Cathedral, is the best example. For this structure, his most important palace,
Charlemagne was not only the patron but, according to some reports, also the
architect and building supervisor. Because this building has survived to our
time, we can study it thoroughly. In doing so, I found more than 24 building
details that - according to architectural history - are present here already in
perfection, before AD 800. But these architectural features have neither
predecessors nor direct successors. All these details had to be rediscovered
independently during the subsequent Romanesque Period. This is a riddle of a
complexity that does not occur elsewhere.
As an example, I would refer to the central dome.
The inner octagon at Aachen has, at a height of over 30 m, an octagonal dome 15
m in diameter. It is assembled from carefully hewn stone and at its weakest
points it is 83 cm thick (not quite 33 inches). This means that above every
visitor, a ton of stone is suspended. The enormous weight and the thrust it
produces need to be supported by the walls. This has been achieved perfectly,
otherwise the building would not have survived World War II. But where did its
builder learn to build so well?
The Franks were builders in wood and did not have any larger buildings. Did the
knowledge come trom the Romans? The Romans had two techniques for building domes
and vaults. In Rome itself domes were made trom cast concrete. Concrete consists
of cement, water, and aggregate materials such as gravel or sand. The Romans had
the volcanic Pozzulan earth which sets just like cement. The most famous example
for this technology is the dome of the Pantheon. But no such dome was built
later than AD 400. There was no building tradition that could have transported
this knowledge to the Franks more than 400 years later.
In Byzantium, domes were made from tiles and other clay elements that were as
light as possible, such as amphorae. The most famous examples are the domes of
Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Here, too, there was no continued building activity
that could have transported the knowledge from Istanbul to Germany. However,
knowledge that is not written down requires oral transmission from generation to
generation. Thus, the Aachen Palatine Chapel appears to be a masterpiece without
a predecessor.
Neither does it have a successor, for there is no Carolingian building with a
dome after 820. The technology appears to have been totally forgotten. In the
Occident, buildings with domes started up again only around 970, but the first
domes had a span of only 3.5 meters (about 11 1/2 feet). From that point onward,
the span of the vaults was increased inch by inch. Around 1050, it was possible
to construct vaults over the aisle ofthe imperial cathedral at Speyer on the
Rhine: with 7.5 meters (approx. 25 feet) they were the largest vaults of their
time. Then started the building ofthe large Romanesque domes at Toulouse, Cluny,
Santiago de Compostela, and again in Speyer. Shortly after 1100, in that city,
the central nave and the transept were also given vaults. As in Aachen, the
transept is an octagonal dome with a diameter of around 15 meters (approx. 50
feet).
With regard to Speyer, everything is right: there are the indispensable
precursor buildings, there is the building evolution, and there are the
successor buildings. For Aachen nothing is right: Aachen stands as a masterpiece
with no precursor, no successor, as an erratic within the so-called Carolingian
Renaissance.
Since this debate began in Germany in 1996, this line of evidence has not been
refuted. On the contrary, one of the few who looked into it, Prof. Jan van der
Meulen, confirmed in writing that - despite what art histories tell us - the
Aachen dome is not Carolingian. It's either Gallo-Roman or Ottonian. Which means
that Prof. van der Meulen places it either in the period before 650 or in the
Ottonian period, which lasted from 918 to 1024.
In 2004, the architectural historian Volker Hoffinann, Berne (Switzerland) went
public with the suggestion that Aachen cathedral is to be placed historically in
the early 6th century. In favor of this idea is the "sister building" of San
Vitale in Ravenna, though the method of building the dome of San Vitale is
against the comparison because the Romans did not practice such building
techniques. The dome in San Vitale, like that of St. Gereon in Cologne, was
built with light clay elements.
From my point of view, Aachen was built at the same time as Speyer II, shortly
after 1100. Whichever view is accepted, Aachen loses its distinction as a
Carolingian building. This means that this period loses its best building, and
the most important city of the Frankish Empire loses its ecclesiastical heart.
With the loss of this dome alone, the tradition of Charlemagne's giant empire
crumbles to dust.
Or, in other words: Carolingian buildings do not fit into the history of the
arts as it is taught today.
Next point, Existing Architecture vs. Sources.
Written sources mention numerous Dark Age buildings in the Frankish region. It
has been calculated (not by me but by experts on the documents in question) that
there are 1,695 major buildings from the period between 476, the end of the West
Roman Empire, and 817, which is three years after the death of Charlemagne. The
scholars who came up with this number understood "major buildings" to mean
palaces, churches, and monasteries. When we check the actual number of preserved
buildings and ruins, we can be happy if more than 97 percent haven't
disappeared.
The ~ame applies to the period of Charlemagne. He was supposed to have built 65
palaces, and altogether 313 major buildings. Of the palaces, a maximum of five
have been preserved. Of the monasteries, not a single foundation exists. We only
know the famous monastery plan of St. Gallen but for an architectural drawing
this is centuries too early. Of this number, too, about 97 percent of the
buildings have disappeared. The percentage is probably even higher, since
besides the Aachen Palatine Chapel there is hardly a building that is ascribed
exclusively to the Carolingians.
The situation is even more dramatic with regard to the most important point:
Archaeology vs. Sources.
In this area, there are gaps without number. For example, one might wonder where
Carolingian graves might be found. But the relevant part of the most important
building, St. Denis cathedral, today in Paris, was destroyed a long time ago.
Everywhere graves have been faked, as archaeologists have been able to show,
such as that for King Carloman at AltOtting in Bavaria.
In the Frankish Empire, it is claimed, there were numerous destructions by
Vikings, Saracens, or Avars and Huns. But archaeologists cannot show any
evidence for these destructions. This is most strikingly the case for the
well-researched Viking raids. What looks so plausible in the sources - Vikings
come up all major rivers such as the Rhine, the Seine, Loire or Guadalquivir,
and pillage all the cities - cannot be shown to have occurred in these cities.
It cannot be shown that churches were destroyed or that city walls were
demolished. There are no Viking objects to be found in these cities, and there
are no Viking graves on the Continent.
Because this is the central point ofthe Thesis of the Phantom Era - what is
there to prove the Dark Centuries existed? - together with a friend, Gerhard
Anwander I carried out a large-scale study of Bavaria. In a comprehensive
search, which has since been published in two volumes, we checked the 70,000
square kilometers of this region which is not only our home, it is
representative of Central Europe, if not of more than half of Europe. About half
of Bavaria was Roman, the other half Germanic; the Limes - the line of
fortifications that divided the two populations - can still be seen. The
population is composed of Germanic, Slav, and Romanic peoples; there are also
interspersions of steppe peoples.
First, we collected places named in written documents. We found 2,200 places we
called "document places". But when we started looking carefully for
archaeological evidence, we discovered something strange: in only 88 of these
document places have archaeologists discovered any remains at all that they
ascribe to the Carolingians or to the early Bavarians, called the Agilolfing
dukes and their time. So, here, too, in 96 percent of all possible cases there
is nothing to report! It needs to be emphasized: archaeological finds are almost
never forged, because nobody secretly puts a foundation in the ground to pretend
an old building existed.
On the other hand, the number of forged documents is constantly growing. With
each new investigation, new forgeries are discovered. The number of genuine
documents diminishes all the time. In fact, it's moving toward zero. If this
trend continues, Medieval Studies, an important branch of the historical
sciences that puts its trust almost entirely in documents, will soon have lost
its reason to exist. Most medieval scholars don't think much of my thesis, and
it's not hard to see why. If I am right, then the number of genuine documents
from the Phantom Era must be zero. For Bavaria, we were able to show that in all
88 questionable cases a later dating for these finds can be better justified
than a Carolingian or Agilolfingian one. The same applies to those 58 finds that
come from places for which there are no old documents to supply evidence.
The main problem can be summarized as follows: buildings, finds, and written
documents from the Early Middle Ages are in a fundamental contradiction to each
other, a conflict that cannot be resolved within conventional chronology.
Another example of missing finds. One might assume that at Aachen, the central
palace of the Frankish empire, there ought to be numerous finds from that period
in the museum. Yet there is not even an early medieval museum. In 1999, Prof.
Matthias Untermann explained why this is so:
"Amazingly, there has not been an archeological dig or review of a building site
within and outside the old city of Aachen that produced clear settlement remains
of the Carolingian era, though the historical tradition points to the presence
of merchants and numerous inhabitants as well as the existence of high-ranking
noblemen and their courts, of whose buildings and physical remains there ought
to be quite a lot in the ground. Everything that has so far been said about the
road system, the structure of the settlement and its extent rests exclusively on
written sources and theoretical considerations."
Which means that of this extremely important palace beside the Palatine Chapel
and its
attendant buildings nothing has been preserved: neither its foundations with the
streets, nor its
size, nor the houses of the clergy, nor those of the merchants, nor those of the
foreign
emissaries and so on and so forth. Even small objects are missing. There is no
clearer
indication that there are no finds for this period, that it is a phantom era, a
fictitious period.
In the meantime, the search for evidence of the period in question, as well as
for agreement between archaeological and architectural finds and written
documents, has advanced quite a long way, as is shown by this list of articles
and books:
Germany:
(Charlemagne exhibition at Paderborn) Heribert Illig (1999)
Bavaria: Anwander/Illig (2002)
Dortmund: Fabian Fritzsche (2002)
Frankfurt: Hans-Ulrich Niemitz (1993)
Ingelheim: GUnter Lelarge/H.I. (2001)
Saxony: Gerald Schmidt (2002)
Thuringia: Klaus Weissgerber (1999)
Viking conquests: F. Fritzsche (2004)
Europe:
Bulgaria: K. Weissgerber (2001)
Byzantium: H.I. (1997), F. Fritzsche (2003)
France: Auvergne: Gerhard Anwander (2004)
Alsace: Andreas Birken (2003)
Italy:
Lombardy H. I. (1993)
Rom H.I. (1996)
Sicily Gunnar Heinsohn (2003)
Croatia: H.I. (2003)
London: H.-U. Niemitz (1993)
Poland and the Delta of the River Vistula: G. Heinsohn (2001/02)
Russia: K. Weissgerber (2001)
Sweden: G. Anwander/H.I. (2004)
Spain: Ilya Topper (1994), H.I. (1995), G. Heinsohn (2005)
Peoples of the Steppes: Manfred Zeller (1993)
Tyrol (Austria and Italy, + Switzerland): Alfred Tamerl (2003)
Hungary: M. Zeller (1996), K. Weissgerber (2002; book)
Zurich: John Spillmann (2004)
Asia:
Armenia: G. Heinsohn (1996)
Ceylon: Claus D. Rade (1999)
China: K. Weissgerber (2002), M. Zeller (2002)
Georgia: K. Weissgerber (2000)
India: C.D. Rade (1997), K. Weissgerber (2004)
Indonesia: C. Rade (1998)
Iran: M. Zeller (1993)
Islam: various papers
Israel (Jerusalem - Synagogues): G. Heinsohn (2000)
Japan: K. Weissgerber (2002)
Yemen: U. Topper (1994)
Korea: K. Weissgerber (2002)
Parsees: U. Topper (1994)
Central Asia: M. Zeller (1993)
Africa:
Ethiopia: I. Topper (1994), Weissgerber (2003)
Berber kingdoms: U. Topper (1994)
Copts: I. Topper (1994)
To sum up: archaeological testimony clearly contradicts the documents of that
period. Since our calendar shows "slack", it is permitted to state: Charlemagne
has no historical background. He is an invented figure. This conclusion is
compelled by the lack of finds, to which I would add that there would be an
absolute absence of finds if scholars did not strive so hard to attribute any
available works of art or objects of daily use to the Carolingian era.
So:
The Protagonists
Needless to say, someone must have carried out this artificial and deliberate
interpolation. I have shown that there was a small window of opportunity between
990 and 1009 during which the three most important powers of the occident - the
Byzantine emperor, the German emperor, and the Pope - were able to cooperate. I
therefore designated Emperors Constantine VII and Otto III and Pope Sylvester II
as the authors of this interpolation. The motive, at least in the west, was
apparently an eschatological one: Otto III felt that he was Christ's
representative and vicar on earth, who would ring in the last 1000 years on
earth. For according to early Christian belief, in analogy to the seven days of
creation, there would be seven days of the world of 1000 years each. And the
seventh day of the world would begin according to the calculation of the day
with the year 1000. The pope, as the wisest scholar of his time, had assisted
the emperor, since at the time the clergy were the only ones able to read and
write. When a rough dynastic structure had been designed for temporal and
spiritual rulers, this structure was clothed with more and more detail in the
course of time. Some details important for Charlemagne were added only under the
rule of Frederick I Barbarossa,
in the second half of the 12th century. This was the century during which,
according to the latest research, the greatest number of documents of the Early
Middle Ages were forged. The trigger here was the justification of property
owned by the church after the Worms Concordat of 1122.
This setting forward of the clock was taken over by others, especially the
Jewish and Islamic cultures, without having to be ordered to do so. They, too,
filled the invented time, which at first was empty. As far as Islam was
concerned, a great many events were added, with noticeably fewer events for the
Jews. This explains for the first time why in the 10th century the Byzantines,
the Christians in the west and the Jews, without saying a word, introduced new
calendars, an event that no one thus far has been able to explain. In fact, it
was a shift in the calendar point of reference. For if the point of reference is
shifted by centuries or millennia, nobody realizes that an additional,
fictitious period has been interpolated.
Thank you for your attention.
[Slide 1]
Steps in Researching the Early Middle Ages
[Slide 2]
[Slide 3]
Calendar Computation to the Minute and the Second
Astronomical Year Length: 365 d + 5 h 48 m 46 s
Caesar's Year Length: 365 h + 6 h
Difference: 11 m + 14 s =674 s
1 day = 86.400 s : 674 s = 128,2 [years], i.e. Caesar's error adds up in 128.2
years to 1 day In 1.282 years, this error amounts to 10 days
In 1582 Gregory XIII. corrects the error of 1.282 years by adding 10 days
AD 1582 - 1282 = AD 300
However, Caesar's Calendar Correction took place in 45 BC
Ergo: Though the error has not been corrected back to Caesar, astronomical sky
and calendar are again in agreement
h = hour m = minute s = second
[Slide 4]
Dark Centuries
565 -> 741 Byzantine Dark Age (F. Thien)
580-> 10th c. ark Ages in Greece (c. Mango)
600 -> 750 Merovingian Dark Age
600 -> 800 Byzantine Historiography (P. Schreiner)
610-> 850 Byzantine Architecture (C. Mango)
- 768 -814 Charlemagne
814 -> 914 Occident's most mysterious period (G. Bois)
825 -> 925 Dark Rome (F. Gregorovius)
850 -> 950 Architecture in Occident (Panofsky, Zimmermann)
900 -> 1000 Historiography in Occident (C. Baronius)
[Slide 5]
How Charlemagne's Coronation Date was calculated
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
7 days of creation
Since for God 1000 years are like one day, the world will exist for 6000 or 7000
years, depending on whether the Last Judgment will take place at the beginning
or the end of the Day of Rest.
Creation
End
1 1001 2001 3001 4001 5001 6001
Eusebius (AD 303) moved the birth of Christ from 5501 to 5201 after creation:
5001 a.Cr.
5201a.Cr.
6001 a. Cr.
Birth of Christ 801 AD 7th Day of the World Starts
Charlemagne was crowned on December 25, 800, which according to the new
calculation in
the Imperial Annals, was the first day of the year 801!
In the 10th c. (?):
5001 a. Cr.
6001 a. Cr.
Birth of Christ
801 AD 7th Day of the World Starts
Otto III - thus the legend - visits Charlemagne in his tomb in 1000 and takes
the insignia
of power from him.
Consequences:
Charlemagne's coronation is held precisely on the day specified in the
calculation
produced by Eusebius of Caesarea 497 years ago. It opens the Seventh day of the
World
because it continues the Imperium Romanum. Otherwise, according to an old
prophecy
the world would have ended.
Otto III also opens the Seventh Day of the World according to a new calculation
(moving
the Birth of Christ by 200 years). For the two critical years, 1000 and 1001 he
had
special seals made which show him to be the representative of Christ at the end
time.
Dr. Heribert lIIig, June 2005