Charlemagne backs the Euro with Frankish troops

The FAZ reports that Jürgen Stark, a German economist on the board of the European Central Bank has resigned.
http://www.faz.net/artikel/S30638/ezb-chefvolkswirt-stark-tritt-zurueck-risiko-zentralbank-30683913.html

The Guardian explains that this sends "shock waves" through the markets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/09/stark-ecb-resignation-sends-markets-reeling

On the face of it, Stark's resignation shows that the ECB is divided on whether it should continue to buy government bonds of European nations that are in burden with debt.  The FAZ article reiterates an ancient North-South comparison, the idea that northern European nations, such as Germany foremostly, are obliged to financially obliged to support southern European nations, if they want the Euro to continue as a successful currency.

This North-South trope, whereby the South needs rescuing by the North, goes back centuries, it permeates European history from at least 800 AD onwards.  In the year 800, as students of German/European history know, Charlemagne was crowned emperor by a grateful Leo III, bishop of Rome and Pope.  Leo had had his eyes and tongue removed by a partisan Roman mob.  The presence of the Frankish army in the Eternal city reinforced, or rather rescued, his life and position.  The northern barbarians had been invited on the basis of a long standing, several generations-old policy, whereby various Popes had worked together with Charlemagne's forebearers for the sake of mutual political and from the Frankish side, military, support.

In today's financial market, there is no need to talk about Charlemagne as the founder of a unified Europe, but the old metaphors pervade.  Everyone in European politics knows them.  Sometimes these old comparisons are deliberately invoked, sometimes they pop up unexpectedly in the minds of journalists and readers, whether they are intended or not.

The markets are anxious presumably because the resignation of an important, conservative banker with long-connections to Germany's conservatives looks like a rehearsal for a larger resignation--a German pull out from continued support for the buying bonds from souther governments.  Like the emperor leaving the warm, lovely climes of Italy to head back north over the Alps to confront his own rebellious Dukes and Saxons.