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.

Decline and Fall

It all started out so harmlessly, peruse an old tome about an ancient empire before falling asleep, edifying and soporific—that’s how Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ended up at the top of the bookpile next to my bed.  A few nights of calm reading followed by lights out.  The editor’s cheerful preface gave no clear warning of what would follow.  When he mentioned finishing Decline and Fall in three months, his pace seemed a bit ambitious, but perhaps it was merely the sign of a bookish bent.

But I am here to tell you folks—it’s a slippery slope.

After a hundred pages, it’s hard to stop.  Before you know it you will go to sleep hoping that you will be awakened again at 3:00AM, so that you read more about what really happened to Commodus—never mind Gladiator.  Insomnia becomes your friend. 

Before you know, you’re reading Gibbons at breakfast, then you start neglecting breakfast.  Instead, you pour another coffee and keeping reading.  A three-day weekend arrives and you’re on the sofa until noon still nestling the book that a week ago you said was just a “night-cap.” 

Eventually you turn on your computer, but not to check your email or go back to that half-baked article you need to revise.  No, you start checking to see what Wikipedia says about Gibbons’ wicked emperors and sacked cities.  Was he making this stuff up?  Is he hopelessly biased and thus unreliable.  That might be a relief, put an end to your mania.  But, alas, no.  A morning of switching back and forth from laptop to tome has Gibbons ahead by miles.  The internet is no match for his synthetic narrative.  Not only does he use all the same sources any modern scholar would deploy, he pulls them all together in a compelling tale told with clubby irony and wit.   No understatement here, just a catalogue of immorality and power-grabbing that keeps you reading for more.

You sense that Gibbons has a political ax to grind.  Sure he was a loyal subject of the English empire, but he’s clearly also an Enlightened thinker.  Very open minded about Zoroasterians.  He thinks mob rule is insane, distrusts democratic institutions, while deriding tyranny and absolute power.  He keeps a running tab of all the abuses that absolute monarchs impose about their subjects, like Amnesty International.  Let’s you feel the full disaster of military dictatorship.  In the end, you’re not really sure where he stands, a monarchist perhaps and no fan of the French Revolution, presumably, but a very reasonable fellow.  More progressive than half the Whigs on Masterpiece Theater.

Before you know it, you are checking out colleagues’ books on the gothic wars in third-century Thrace.  But still Gibbons keeps ahead of the pack.  The internet just confirms what Gibbons wrote 240 years ago.  Modern scholars provide commentaries that after 35 pages agree with his zippy paragraphs.  In the end, you're grateful he's not all wrong, because that means you can keep going.

Soon you have lost all track of time, you’re online searching out English translations of Gibbons’ late Roman sources.  Before you know it, you’ll be learning Latin.