Celebrating victory in the “soup dish”

Emperor CharlemagneCelebrating victory in the “soup dish”

Aachen, 797 AD. The market square’s pulsating with excitement. Among the crowd: ambassadors from far-away countries and merchants from across the globe.

Charlemagne

took health cures in the hot springs
favourite court was Aachen
declared the city his imperial capital
was buried in Aachen cathedral

Imperial emissaries Lantfried and Sigismund and Jewish businessman/interpreter Isaak pick up their bags with some trepidation. Charlemagne (Karl der Große), the Frankish king, is despatching them to the Khalif of Baghdad. They’re setting off on a journey into the unknown, an odyssey only one of them will complete.

Five years later, and the good burghers of Aachen rub their eyes in disbelief. Isaak returns to a reception party thrown in his honour by Charlemagne in the Grand Hall, where the City Hall now stands. But Isaak’s not alone. He comes with a special guest – a treasured gift from Abul Abbas – the only real-life white elephant north of the Alps…

Charlemagne commissioned Aachen cathedral

Aachen’s a place where people tell a lot of stories, and most of them start with the word “Charlemagne”. The emperor who made the city the hub of his empire, who commissioned the central part of Aachen cathedral and brought the great and the good of all Europe to his court in Aachen, is ever-present to this very day. His signature etched into brass pavement studs leads the way through the city, and when there’s anything to celebrate he’s always at the heart of things. As Aacheners refer to themselves in the local vernacular, he’s a true “Öcher”. When the weather’s fine, school-leaving exams are passed, a new semester dawns or Alemannia Aachen win a football match, throngs of happy people congregate around Charlemagne’s fountain on Market Square – known to “Öchers” affectionately as Eäzekomp (the pea-soup dish) – and dress the great man up for the occasion with football scarves, the team strip or an academic mortarboard.

And all to the accompanying tones, played out by the City Hall glockenspiel, of the Charlemagne anthem (“Aachen, O royal city and first home of the realm”)…