December 15, 2024

Signs in the Sky and Fears about the End of Empire

On comets, drones, and fears manifested in looking at the night sky

Modern Medieval

by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele

From Chapter 6 of our new book Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers that Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe (out now and on sale!):

In the middle of the Easter celebration at Aachen in 835, no more than a year after Louis the Pious’s restoration as emperor of the Franks, a bright streak of light blazed through the night sky. Indeed, it must have been awesome; in a world before electric light, the heavens at night would have been a canopy of stars visible from horizon to horizon. Now a glorious traveler wound its way through
the constellations.

Evidently, that spectacular event put Louis into a meditative mood. Before retiring one night, after the comet’s disappearance from the night sky, the emperor summoned—as told to us by the Astronomer—“A certain person . . . namely me.” Louis was worried that the comet meant “a great change in the realm, and the death of a prince.” The Astronomer tried to soothe the ruler’s mind, but Louis was not fooled; he knew the celestial wonder was a sign. It did not have to be a prediction of disaster but rather, Louis hoped, was a warning to “do everything we can and know how to do, so that we do not find ourselves unworthy of the mercy we have already asked for.” It was time, he seemed to think, to finish putting the empire back into order and prepare for the next generation.

That night, Louis the Pious “indulged in a little wine” and stood guard on his balcony, watching the heavens for more signs. At dawn, he prayed fervently, then distributed alms to the poor and needy. He ordered that Masses be said for himself and the good of all the Franks. And things turned out well. His hunt shortly afterward was bountiful and rich, “and everything that pleased him at that time turned out to have a happy end.” Not long after his hunt, he began organizing another great assembly at which he would gird his youngest son, Charles, with a sword, the weapon of a man, a sign of his
adulthood, and grant that same son a large section of the empire, Neustria, in the northwest. Louis must have thought himself, in that moment, to have been a better reader of God’s will than his astronomical adviser was. The emperor was beginning the work, marked by a sign from Heaven, of setting things to right.

In the passage above, the story of Halley’s Comet that Louis saw comes just after the Emperor Louis the Pious has weathered the 2nd of 2 very serious coup attempts (both launched by his sons!). He’s back on the throne, gazing up at the starts, wondering what the future will hold and worried about what will become of his empire and his family.

We were reminded of this bit specifically due to the mass panic about “unusual” lights in the night skies over the US eastern seaboard. As reported, this mass panic was sparked by viral reports of “drones” (not drones) in the sky over New Jersey. This has become now a cause célèbre for the political right now, with even people such as the former governor of Maryland (Larry Hogan) worried about these strange lights he saw.

But as many have pointed out, what people are really seeing is the vastness of the heavens. They’re seeing planes and even, as Gov. Hogan did, the simple stars in the sky.

In other words, what seems to be happening is: people are looking up, when they haven’t looked up before. Staring at the night sky has always been meditative, but that very act - that moment of quiet solitude - is often interrupted when something we don’t expect punctures our field of view. That doesn’t mean it’s abnormal, but in a world in which so much seems uncertain, we often just want it to mean something.

In the 830s, when Louis the Pious looked at the night sky he projected his anxiety upwards and it manifested in the vigorous activity of governance, of reasserting his power to cover his lack thereof. In 2024, the people looking at the night sky are doing much the same but here they see behind every shadow a cabal, a government that they think doesn’t work for them, a corporate world that’s always spying, etc.

And in both cases, medieval and modern, those fears are grounded here on earth but seem to be manifested in the stars above.

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