Echoes of the Milvian Bridge in the Ninth Century

I normally send out a new post every two weeks but today (Oct. 28th) is the anniversary of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD so I wanted to be “topical,” (or at least as topical as can be when it comes to an event that happened over 1700 years ago) and talk about how the Milvian Bridge and Constantine were viewed in the ninth century and a peculiar mention of the bridge in a late ninth century text. For those who may not be familiar, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge is famously the battle where the Roman Emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius and captured the city of Rome. It is before this battle that Constantine supposedly saw the Cross in the sky, should use it as his standard, and won victory thanks to God’s will. Constantine would become firmly enmeshed into the canon of Christian history as the “first” Christian emperor who began the process of creating a Christian empire.¹ This image of a Christian emperor would have a long, long, afterlife throughout the Middle Ages and down to the present.

La Vision de Constantin by Jacob Bunel

In the ninth century, 600 years later, Constantine was at times a model ruler for the Carolingians. Theodulf of Orléans relied on Constantine as a model to portray Charlemagne’s imperial and religious ambitions.² Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious reused a Roman sarcophagus that seems to have depicted Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge and likened him to Moses parting the Red Sea.³ Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea, had been a feature of Frechulf of Lisieux’s Histories for educating the young Charles the Bald.⁴ Yet Carolingian commentators could also use Constantine as an example of a bad ruler, in particular the uneasy status of his baptism by the Arian bishop Eusebius and his supposed transgressions against the church.⁵ The Frankish kings had used their Catholic Christianity as one way of distinguishing themselves from the surrounding Arian rulers (note this not Aryanism) so Arian baptism posed an issue for celebrating Constantine fully.

Late antique and early medieval authors believed that Constantine and his mother Helena had been responsible for finding the True Cross.⁶ We also know that Charles the Fat and Arnulf (did you think this piece wouldn’t feature him?) had a personal connection to Constantine: in 887 Charles the Fat sent a piece of the True Cross as part of a last ditch effort to convince Arnulf to call off the coup.⁷ This piece had been sent to Louis the German by the Byzantine emperor in 872.⁸

Beginning of the Vita sancti Silvestri, a text that sometimes includes the legend of the discovery of the True Cross. From the late ninth century St. Gall copy, St. Gall Stiftsbibliothek Cod. Sang. 568.

More than that, Arnulf had his own Constantinian battle for Rome in 896. Guy III, the duke of Spoleto, had declared himself king in 888 and then emperor in 891. Arnulf had already aided the duke of Friuli Berengar against Guy and had invaded in 894. In 896 Arnulf made it all the way to Rome, perhaps facilitated by Guy’s death in 894. When Arnulf arrived at Rome in 896 it was under the control of Guy’s widow Angeltrude, acting as regent for her young son Lambert II.⁹

Our main source for the siege, the Bavarian annalist who wrote a continuation of the Annals of Fulda, describes how after ordering a day of fasting Arnulf was riding around the walls when a fight broke out, leading to the storming of the city: “now with the day growing late by the providence of God the strongest and most noble city was stormed nobly with triumph, the pope and city being liberated from [their] enemies.”¹⁰ This description of the siege is curious for its own reasons, but it is the annalist’s next episode that is even more intriguing. The king is then met on the Milvian Bridge by “the entire senate of the Romans and the school of the Greeks with signs and crosses” while also singing “hymns and laudes.”¹¹ The annalist in effect name drops the Milvian Bridge in the text for us: pontem Malvium.

Yet other Carolingian kings had traveled to Rome and entered the city, so perhaps this was just a stock phrase applied to Carolingian kings on their way to coronation as emperor? The evidence we have suggests that the reference to the Milvian Bridge as an entry point for a Carolingian ruler was largely unknown outside one life in the Liber pontificalis, that of Leo III, which notes Charlemagne’s entry into Rome across the Milvian Bridge. Based on the surviving manuscripts of the Liber Pontificalis this vita was not particularly well known north of the Alps, so it is unlikely to be a model for the annalist.¹² If the annalist was not simply reproducing a stock narrative of how Carolingian rulers entered Rome, it suggests that the immediate association of an evokation of the Milvian Bridge would be Constantine. To a ninth century audience they may have also seen shades of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History in the annalist’s account.¹³ It is also important that no other Carolingian ruler really needed to attack Rome, and other contemporaries seem to make a big deal out of this fact.

This Constantinian reference may not have been accidental. Just a year before, at Tribur, Arnulf had seemingly emulated Constantine’s own role at the Council of Nicaea by presiding over a synod. We can’t know for sure whether Arnulf actually went over the Milvian Bridge on his way into Rome, but it is possible the annalist is recording a narrative about the events in Rome in 896, meaning that the emphasis on the Milvian Bridge may not be the annalist’s invention, but is coming from a desire by the court to link Arnulf to Constantine. It is possible that some of this imagery was taken from the setting of Rome itself. Inscriptions praising Constantine survived over the triumphal arch inside Old St Peter’s.¹⁴ Formosus, the pope that crowned Arnulf emperor, may have restored some of the images inside St. Peter’s.¹⁵ Old St. Peter’s and St. Paul (where an oath was supposedly sworn to Arnulf as emperor) were both founded by Constantine.¹⁶ The physical setting of the coronation may have therefore given this Constantinian image further fuel.

Our sources are frustratingly laconic here, and Arnulf’s illness in 896 quickly derailed the plans he may have had in Italy. As usual with Arnulf and the late ninth century we have tantalizing glimpses but never the full picture. We can suggest that there may have been ideas connecting Arnulf and Constantine but we don’t have any clear cut evidence, only an impression. This is somewhat speculation on my part, but I think Constantine may have been a particularly relevant model to Arnulf, whose parents were not married, because Constantine was believed to have been born from a concubine.¹⁷ Arnulf would grant his first charter as emperor in Rome on February 27^th, 896 which, perhaps only by coincidence, was the birthday of Constantine.¹⁸

1. This is, of course, debated by historians who question just how deep his conversion to Christianity was but I am not a late Roman historian, so that is best left to others. On the creation of narratives surrounding the battle and problems of sources see R. van Dam, Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge (Cambridge, 2011).

2. J. Clauß, “Imports and Embargos of Imperial Concepts in the Frankish Kingdom. The Promotion of Charlemagne’s Imperial Coronation in Carolingian Courtly Culture,” in J. Clauß, C. Schnoll, and T. Gebhardt (eds), Transcultural Approaches to the Concept of Imperial Rule in the Middle Ages (Frankfurt, 2017), pp. 71-116 at pp. 104-106. See however, J. Emerick, “Charlemagne: a New Constantine?” in M. Shane Bjornlie (ed.), The Life and Legacy of Constantine: Traditions through the Ages (New York, 2017), pp. 132-161 which argues that the Carolingian court under Charlemagne was not terribly interested in this presentation. See also Y. Hen, “Specula principum carolingi e l'immagine di Costantino,” Encilopedia Constantiniana (2013): https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/specula-principum-carolingi-e-l-immagine-di-costantino_(Enciclopedia-Costantiniana)/

3. See G. Noga-Banai, “The Sarcophagus of Louis the Pious at Metz. A Roman Memory Reused,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 45 (2012 for 2011): 37-50.

4. See G. Ward, “Lessons in Leadership: Constantine and Theodosius in Frechulf of Lisieux’s Histories,” in C. Gantner, R. McKitterick, and S. Meeder (eds), The Resources of the Past in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 68-83, esp. pp. 70-83.

5. See R. Kramer, “Adopt, Adapt and Improve: Dealing with the Adoptionist Controversy at the Court of Charlemagne,” in R. Meens, D. van Espelo, B. van den Hoven van Genderen, J. Raajimakers, I. van Renswoude, and C. van Rhijn (eds), Religious Franks: Religion and Power in the Frankish Kingdoms: Studies in Honour of Mayke de Jong (Manchester, 2016), pp. 32-50, esp. pp. 34-47.

6. For instance Gregory of Tours, Historia, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison (eds), MGH Scriptores rerum Morevongicarum 1.1 (Hanover, 1951), I.36, p. 27. On the development of the legend in the fourth century see E.D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire AD 312–460 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 38-44. Eusebius does not mention the discovery of the cross at all: H.A. Drake, "Eusebius on the True Cross," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36, no. 1 (1985): 1-22; Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, ed. T. Mommsen, Eusebius Werke, vol. 2.1, X.7-8, pp. 969-971 adds an account of the finding of the cross in his continuation of Eusebius. Venantius Fortunatus wrote to the emperor Justin II and his wife Sophia about the piece of the True Cross they sent to Radegund, extolling Justin for his similarity to Constantine, see Venantius Fortunatus, “Ad Iustinum et Sophiam Augustos,” F. Leo (ed.), MGH Auctores antiquissimi 4, appendix 2 (Berlin, 1881), p. 277. Regino, Chronicon, s.a. 364-369 (408-423), p. 17 indicates the varying traditions around the finding of the True Cross. See also Ewig, “Das Bild Constantins,” pp. 21-22.

7. MacLean, Kingship, pp 129-134 and pp. 161-178.

8. AF, s.a. 872, p. 75.

9. Guy’s dead is recorded in AF (B), s.a. 894, p. 125. On Angelrude controlling Rome see AF (B), s.a. 896, p. 127. In contrast see Regino, Chronicon, s.a. 896, p. 144 which suggests that she fled before Arnulf took the city. Liudprand, Antapodosis I, c. 26-27, pp. 21-22 offers another scenario for Arnulf storming the city, with his entry being denied not by Angeltrude but by the “Romans.”

10. AF (B), s.a. 896, p. 128: Sicque Dei providentia firmissima et nobilissima urbs...iam vesperascente die nobiliter cum triumpho expugnata est, apostolico et urbe de inimicis liberato. See also AF (B), s.a. 900, p. 135 which also has similarities to the “noble” storming of Rome.

11. AF (B), s.a. 896, p. 128: Omnis namque senatus Romanorum necnon Grecorum scola cum vexillis et crucibus ad pontem Malvium venientes regem honorifice cum ymnis et laudibus. See in comparison, ARF, s.a. 800, p. 110 on pope Leo coming out of Rome to meet Charlemagne before his coronation as emperor.

12. On the lack of reception of the later lives see F. Bougard, “Composition, diffusion et réception des parties tardives du Liber pontificalis romain (viiie-ixe siècles),” in F. Bougard and M. Sot (eds), Liber, Gesta, histoire: Ecrire l’histoire des évêques et des papes, de l’Antiquité au XXIe siècle (Paris, 2009), pp. 127-152 esp. pp. 143-145.

13. This post is already getting a bit long so read the chapter in my dissertation!

14. See Liverani, “Saint Peter’s,” pp. 155-161 and R. Krautheimer, “The Building Inscriptions and the Dates of Construction of Old St. Peter’s: A Reconsideration,” Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 25 (1989): 1-23. The chronology remains an issue: R. Gem, “From Constantine to Constans: the Chronology of the Construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica,” in R. McKitterick, J. Osborne, C. M. Richardson, and J. Story (eds), Old Saint Peter’s, Rome (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 35-64. The inscriptions still existed in the ninth century and are recorded in Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 326 (1076), fol. 68r: Quod duce te mundus surrexit in astra triumphans/ hanc constantinus victor tibi condidit aulam. This is noted as the “arch of St. Peter” (in arcu sancti petri) indicating it’s location inside the church.

15. This is noted by the tenth century chronicler Benedict of Monte Soratte, Chronicon, ed. G. Zuchetti, Fonti per la storia d’Italia 55 (Rome, 1920), pp. 1–187 at p. 156. The idea that Formosus restored these murals lasted into the seventeenth century, see BAV Vat. Lat. 2733, fols. 107v-108r. On this see J. Osborne, Rome in the Ninth Century: a History in Art (Cambridge, 2023), pp. 260-261.

16. See St. Peter’s: LP.34.16, p. 176; St. Paul’s: LP.34.31, p. 178 and on how the LP presented these Constantinian foundations see McKitterick, Rome, pp. 101-116. There may also have been images of Constantine both inside and outside the church, the ones outside were seemingly restored between 827 and 844 under Gregory IV, see P. Liverani, “Saint Peter’s, Leo the Great and the Leprosy of Constantine,” Papers of the British School at Rome 76 (2008): 155-172 at 161.

17. This is noted in Jerome’s translation of Eusebius’, Chronicon, ed. R. Helm, Eusebius Werke 7 (Leipzig, 1956), p. 228: Constantinus ex concubina Helena procreatus; Orosius, Historae adversum Paganos, ed. C. Zangemeister (Leipzig, 1889), VII.25, p. 266: Constantinum filium ex concubina Helena creatum imperatorem Galliarum reliquit. It is later repeated in Bede, De Tempore Rationum, ed. C.W. Jones, CCSL 123 B (Turnhout, 1977), s.a. 4290, p. 509: Constantinus, Constantii ex concubina Helena filius, in Brittania creatus imperator; Regino himself notes this, Chronicon, s.a. 263-294 (306-337), p. 14. Both Jerome and Orosius were read in the early middle ages, for instance Gregory of Tours relied on them in his Historia, I.36, p. 27 and I.41, p. 28; See M. Allen, “Universal History 300-1000: Origins and Western Developments,” in D. Deliyannis (ed.), Historiography in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2003), 17-42.

18. See T. Mommsen (ed.), Corpus Inscriptorum Latinarum I (Berlin, 1893), pp. 255, 258, 259. It is also recorded in the Natales Caesarum section of the Calendar of 354, a copy was made of what remained of the (now lost) original in 1620, see Vat. Barb. Lat. 2154, pt.5, fol. 7r. On the difficult transmission of this text see M. Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1990), appendix 1, pp. 249-268.