V. Aragorn as Renewer
The core of tradition that Aragorn carries ranges from Men’s first encounter with the Noldor, through the Second Age17, the rise of Arnor and Gondor (and the fall of the former) until the War of the Ring. It is the tradition to be renewed with the coronation of Aragorn Elessar: renew with the implication of something old fused with the new and not simply revitalizing old traditions. Aragorn’s renewal may include the following areas: governance, justice, cultural renewal and its core traditions. These qualities further express themselves in various aspects of Aragorn’s role as an ideal king.
As with Charlemagne, it is imperative for Aragorn’s unification and his cultural authority that a consensus exists regarding the coronation of emperor and king. In Charlemagne’s case, Einhard (1969, 81) tells us “He made it clear that he would not have entered the cathedral that day at all, although it was the greatest of all festivals of the church, if he had known in advance what the Pope was planning to do.18” Charlemagne is performing humilitas and it is critical for his legitimacy. Aragorn, too, makes clear his concern over the legitimacy of his claim:
‘Behold the Sun setting in a great fire! It is a sign of the ending fall of many things, and a change in the tides of the world. But this City and realm has rested in the charge of the Stewards for many long years, and I fear that if I enter it unbidden, then doubt and debate may arise, which should not be while this war is fought. I will not enter in, nor make any claim, until it be seen whether we or Mordor shall prevail. Men shall pitch my tents upon the field, and here I will await the welcome of the Lord of the City.’ (RK, V, viii, 137)
Both kings display similar concerns. In return, they also receive symbols that legitimacy is, indeed, theirs. One was brought by an embassy from the patriarch of Jerusalem: relics from the Holy Sepulcher (Becher 2003, 12). The other Elrond surrenders to Aragorn (RK, VI, v, 251). Legitimacy in both cases is further conferred by spiritual leaders, thereby imparting a holiness or religiosity upon their reigns. Charlemagne, of course, was crowned by Pope Leo III signifying the blessings and will of God. Alessandro Barbero (2004, 93-94) tells us that
By putting the crown on the new emperor’s head, the pope de facto claimed supremacy of papal authority over imperial authority… public acts that remained on everyone’s memory also had enormous political significance. The act of Leo III placing the imperial crown on the head of the kneeling king was of this kind. The implications of this gesture could not have escaped a politician of Charlemagne’s intelligence …
Compared to Aragorn’s coronation:
Then to the wonder of many Aragorn did not put the crown upon his head, but gave it back to Faramir, and said: ‘By the labour and valor of many I have come into my inheritance. In token of this I would have the Ring-bearer bring the crown to me and let Mithrandir set it upon my head, if he will; for he has been the mover of all that has been accomplished, and this is his victory.’ (RK, VI, v, 246)
Not only has Gandalf been the mover of all things, but as a Maia or angelic being he also fulfills a papal, even supernatural, role; “… Gandalf, as the emissary of the Valar, bestows the divine authorization of Aragon’s rule” (Honegger 2015, 13). Placing the crown on Aragorn’s head subjugates the realm and its king to the spiritual authority of Eru Ilúvatar.
Furthermore, Aragorn is displaying humilitas by acknowledging all those that made his inheritance possible, which is represented in Frodo bringing him the crown. He is also displaying humilitas by asking Mithrandir to place the crown on his head. The coronation is loaded with the symbolism of holy legitimacy, such as was Charlemagne’s.19
Aragorn’s methods of governance and administration are also vital to the new ethos and changes in the core tradition. For instance, Gandalf tells Aragorn “The Third Age of the world is ended, and the new age is begun; and it is your task to order its beginning and to preserve what may be preserved” (RK, VI, v, 249). Wilson (2007, 82), citing Edward Gibbon, writes “Europe dates a new era from the restoration of the Western empire.” That is the task for the king of a united West — as both Aragorn and Charlemagne are. Both kings unified a shattered world which carries a notion of the ‘West’. In our own history, this notion
went back to the later Roman Empire and accelerated dramatically with the barbarian invasions. But it is precisely for this reason that such importance has to be attached to the moment in which the ancient Roman provinces that suffered the disaster and for a few centuries underwent more or less independent histories were unified by a new political entity only formally linked to the ancient one. When we say that they were unified, we do not only mean that they obeyed the same emperor, which they only did for a few decades, but that the laws, governmental institutions, and economic rules developed in one of the provinces, Gaul, dominated by the Franks, were extended to Europe as a whole. (Barbero 2004, 114)
The ‘West’ in Middle-earth, carries a similar yet different significance than it did for Gaul, however. First and foremost because the Valar are in the ‘West’, the Elves sailed into the ‘West’, and Númenor was in the ‘West’. But also because the ‘West’ in continental Middle-earth means the domain of the Faithful and Dúnedain, the ‘Free Peoples of Middle-earth’ and other tribes. The ‘West’ is Gondor, devastated Arnor, and Rohan which resemble the remnant of an imperium wracked by war and in need of renewal.
Gondor is the last bastion of the ‘Men of the West’ which still maintains the traditional laws and governmental institutions. Ford (2005, 60) points out that ”there are a great many indications throughout The Lord of the Rings that Gondor represents the Roman Empire as viewed through late-ancient, early-medieval northern European eyes” to which Honegger (2011, 51) adds
“the situation towards the end of the Third Age, i.e. the time-frame for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, is comparable to the early European Middle Ages (i.e. between AD 500 to 750) rather than later centuries.”
To paraphrase Barbero above, Aragorn’s coronation consecrated the birth of a new political space.20
Both Aragorn and Charles, however, are not thinking in terms of territory in renewing their empires. Rather, they are thinking in terms of hegemony. For Charlemagne, he
[…] had no interest in creating a “thousand-year Reich.” His conquests had not been for the glory of the Carolingian dynasty; they had been for the glory of God. What he created in the West was an imperium Christianum, a civilization based on divine law … Within Charlemagne’s dominions there were numerous lands and tribes, he did not attempt the impossible task of merging their identities within a greater Francia. (Wilson 2007, 91-92)
Aragorn governs his imperium in a similar manner as Charlemagne, whereas Charlemagne established “an immediate authority whose task was to oversee local officials” as a “means of improving the administration of the empire” (Becher 2003, 108). Aragorn establishes Gondor’s hegemony simply through the delegation of his edicts: Rohan is left as an ally rather than a client-state. The Grey Wood, for example, clearly falls under Aragorn’s domain as shown by his right to issue an edict: ‘Behold, the King Elessar is come! The Forest of Drúadan he gives to Ghȃn-buri-ghȃn and to his folk, to be their own forever; and hereafter let no man enter it without their leave’ (RK, VI, vi, 254). To the Ents, he grants the valley of Orthanc (ibid., 258). The Shire, also remains under Elessar’s dominion,
‘For do not forget, Peregrin Took, that you are a knight of Gondor and I do not release you from your service. You are going now on leave, but I may recall you. And remember, dear friends of the Shire, that my realm lies also in the North, and I shall come there one day.’ (ibid., 260)
And he issues another edict: “that Men are not to enter the Shire, and he makes it a Free Land under the protection of the Northern Scepter” (ibid., Appendix A, 377). Bree too, is left to its own accord as Gandalf tells Barliman in Bree: “‘You will be let alone, Barliman, ‘ said Gandalf. ‘There is room enough for realms between Isen and Greyflood, or along the shorelands south of the Brandywine, without any one living within many days’ ride of Bree’” (RK, VI, vii, 272-73). Nevertheless, his edicts have the same effect as Charlemagne’s. Becher cites the Annals of Lorsch: “[Charlemagne] chose archbishops, and other bishops, and abbots, and dukes, and counts of his realm who had no need to take gifts from the innocent. And he sent them throughout the empire so that churches, widows, orphans, the poor, and all the people could have justice” (Becher 2003, 108). Aragorn is likewise establishing the new order of his empire through his authority as king, emissaries and Gondor’s hegemony.
Unlike Charlemagne, however, Aragorn does not conquer. His realm came to him not only through inheritance but also through a devastating defensive war and renewal after his victory.
Nevertheless, it is a renewal (and also a change rooted in that renewal) of the Kingdoms of the (Númenórean) Faithful and its tradition reaches back even further. Honegger (forthcoming, 9) notes:
“[T]he destiny of Tolkien’s hero is to be king and, if we interpret his re-establishment of the old unity of the double-kingdom of Arnor and Gondor as modeled upon the achievement of Charlemagne as the renovator/restitutor imperii, he is indeed ‘all but emperor’.”
And yet the restoration carries within it the traces of the Germanic tradition, the core tradition that Aragorn inherently carries within himself.
“Aragorn’s restored Gondor was more a Germanic ideal than a Roman one because his kingdom incorporated the other peoples of the west, appropriate to both the point of view of Anglo-Saxon myth-makers and to a medieval perspective” (Ford 2005, 66)
To which one may add: it may be certainly more Germanic than Roman, but traces of the Roman are still there fused with the Germanic in a Romano-Anglo-Saxon tradition. Likewise, Aragorn fuses traces of the old traditions with his new ideal. His ideal is the most salient but the Germanic residue is still there.
Aragorn, his kingship and his new warrior ethos of the Fourth Age also conceptualizes a new judicial foundation. No more blasphemous oaths and acts of revenge. Aragorn, like his real-world exemplum (but, as noted, to greater extent), instead shows mercy, pity, forgiveness and justice. He takes on a tone of mild and gentle regency. We noted above that both the historical and legendary Charlemagne spared many of his conspiring enemies. Becher (2003, 141) notes further that “During the later Middle Ages, Charlemagne was regarded not only as a saint and crusader but, especially in Germany, as the ideal lawgiver …”. Aragorn, similarly, dispenses merciful judgements:
In the days that followed his crowning the King sat on his throne in the Hall of the Kings and pronounced judgements. And embassies came from many lands and peoples, from East and the South, and from the borders of Mirkwood, and from Dunland in the west. And the King pardoned the Easterlings that had given themselves up, and sent them away free, and he made peace with the peoples of Harad; and the slaves of Mordor he released and gave them all the lands about Lake Núrnen to be their own. (RK, VI, v, 246-47)
Indeed, Aragorn says to Beregond: ‘Beregond, by your sword blood was spilled in the Hallows, where it is forbidden. Also you left your post without leave of Lord or Captain. For these things, of old, death was the penalty. Now therefore I must pronounce your doom.’ (ibid., emphasis mine). Tacitus (Germ., 12) tells us that in the old Germanic jurisprudence “[P]enalties are distinguished according to the offense. Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees …”. Aragorn, however, pardons Beregond for saving Faramir’s life. Aragorn is bridging the old law of the “Germanic” and dispensing justice much like Charlemagne. Notker (1969, 154-55) tells us in regards to Charlemagne’s first-born son, Pepin the Lame, and his supporters who rebelled (and would conceivably fall into the treason category) that the king exiled them to monastic life:
All the conspirators, who suspected nothing, were dealt with as they deserved before the third hour of the day, some being sent into exile and others being punished. Pepin himself, who was a dwarf and a hunchback, was given a sound whipping and was tonsured. As punishment he was sent for some time to the monastery of Saint Gall, that being among the poorest and most austere of all places in the far-flung Empire.
With consideration of mitigating circumstances, Aragorn mercifully “exiles” Beregond from the City of Minas Tirith. Simultaneously, he promotes Beregond to captain of Faramir’s honor guard in Ithilien. We may even consider this act of ‘creative exile’ as an honor dispensed under the auspices of upholding an ancient law.
While both the historical and legendary Charlemagne did, indeed, pardon many of his (and Pope Leo III’s) enemies, he is neither so lenient with pagans such as the Saxons nor with Ganelon and his family in Le Chanson de Roland. Aragorn, however, does not massacre pagans and Saxons, rather he pardons and frees Easterlings. Miryam Librán-Moreno (2011, 112) also notes: “[A]nother consequence that is apparent from Tolkien’s sifting of historical sources is an attempt to filter away, or at least tone down, some of the most cruel or unethical aspects that are evident in the historical material.”21
One final point related to governance is cultural renewal. Librán-Moreno (2011, 97) observes that Aragorn brings about a “cultural renaissance … by the presence and works of the stone-wrights of Erebor and the folk of Legolas…”, yet Tolkien does not spend much more time narrating the cultural renewal of Aragorn’s dominions. Nevertheless, it is there, and it is an important characteristic of a Renewal King. As the renewal of Gondor and Arnor is one of the main themes of the king’s return and we may safely assume cultural renaissance is also implied.
In contrast to Tolkien, both Notker and Einhard spend considerable amounts of time discussing the educational and renovation work of Charlemagne through various anecdotes. “However much energy Charlemagne may have expended in enlarging his realm and conquering foreign nations, and despite all the time which he devoted to this preoccupation, he nevertheless set in hand many projects which aimed at making his kingdom more attractive and at increasing public utility” (Einhard 1969, 71). The two biographers impress upon the reader that not only is the renovation work as important as Charlemagne’s military prowess and piety, but that it is inherently woven into the fabric of Charlemagne’s achievements. It is clear that for both of these monarchs “… kingship means much more than mere military power…” (Honegger forthcoming, 9). It means cultural authority.
VI. Aragorn’s Epiphany: The Sapling of Nimloth the Fair
Aragorn, however, has his doubts. As his uncertainty gnaws at him, he experiences an epiphany and both the narrative and poetic symbolism of Romance moves to what Frye calls the comic area. Gandalf led Aragorn outside the City by night. In Frye’s terms, this is an angelic Prospero-figure leading the Renewal King from the ‘mineral’ world of the city into the divine world of the gods.
Mount Mindolluin is full of imagery: lofty peaks and the alpine pastures of the idyllic ‘vegetable’ world. There the king surveys his realm as far as he can see. Doubt lingers within him of his task and his destiny for the new millennium, ‘The Third Age is ended, and the new age is begun: and it is your task to order its beginning and to preserve what may be preserved’ says Gandalf (RK, VI, v, 249). This scene is almost a Fürstenspiegel, or ‘Mirror of Princes’. That is, a genre “dealing with the moral instruction of princes,” which, appropriately for our discussion, “originated in the early ninth century at the Carolingian court” (Scanlon 1994, 82). While a separate genre than exempla, the Fürstenspiegel still has rhetorical similarities which illustrate a kingly exemplum. Aragorn, while doubtful at this moment, portrays an example of kingly humilitas that allows Gandalf to instruct him further in divine matters.
‘But I shall die,’ continues Aragorn. ‘For I am a mortal man … And who shall govern Gondor and those who look to this City as their queen, if my desire be not granted? The Tree in the Court of the Fountain is still withered and barren. When shall I see a sign that it will ever be otherwise?’ (RK, VI, v, 249)
The king still doubts, and the imagery of the king juxtaposed with “withered and barren” suggests the land-and-king-are-one mythological metaphor.
Perhaps Aragorn feels that the core of tradition, all those cultural artifacts and ethos, are barren and withered as well. That the land (or rather its representation in the White Tree — another symbol of Aragorn’s legitimacy) is withered is cause for Aragorn’s doubt and tinge of deathly despair.
But Gandalf urges Aragorn to look away from the green land of his earthly realm and look exactly where all seems barren and cold. There he sees a small, new sapling which “already it had put forth young leaves long and shapely, dark above and silver beneath, and upon its slender crown it bore one small cluster of flowers whose white petals shone like the sunlit snow” (ibid., 250). The sapling is descended from Nimloth, the White Tree of Númenor.22 The White Tree not only represents the king and the land, but it is also apocalyptic in the original sense of a revelation. Frye suggests that
this is the symbolic presentation of the point at which the undisplaced apocalyptic world and the cyclical world of nature come into alignment, and which we propose to call the point of epiphany. It’s most common settings are the mountaintop, [etc.]. (Frye 2000, 203)
Aragorn has received his sign. His epiphany may be seen as divine as it, in the context of re-newal, recalls the Golden Age of Men when they first set eyes “upon the faces that beheld the Light of Valinor” (S, 173). It is a divine confirmation of Aragorn fulfilling his destiny as the Renewal King; of renewing the ancient as well as the new Golden Age within the historical framework of the new millennium. Furthermore, the epiphany seems to erase any lingering seed of (Morgoth’s inspired) despair that poisoned Men’s willingness to choose Ilúvatar’s Gift of death. Following this episode, Aragorn returns to the ‘green world’ of Romantic Summer, to his comedic wedding … on Midsummer’s Day.
Lastly, Aragorn’s death ad exemplum, defines his character and the new heroism and at the same time reestablishes (or re-news) an ancient tradition. Harald Haferland (2010, 208) describes the demise of the Germanic hero thusly:
Germanic heroic poetry – like all heroic poetry – tells of conflict and hostility, but its hero, oddly enough, is not a victorious one. On the contrary, he often must accept his own demise and the death of those close to him, and his heroism displays itself with decidedly greater clarity in demise than in victory.
Fëanor initiated the Germanic narrative through his freedom of choice and he performed according to its heroic ethos. Aptly, Fëanor was not victorious: he was encircled, beaten down and mutilated by Balrogs and in his death Fëanor’s corpse burst into flame. He died a powerfully defiant and heroic death. Aragorn, on the other hand freely chooses his time to die and lays down to endless sleep; it is noble and full of grace, but not heroic in the Germanic sense: it is, rather, an ethical and moral victory.
It is the correct choice and use of gifts according to the divine plan. Most importantly, his death is vital to renewal. Not simply essential for renewing Gondor to its former glory, or even renewing some semblance of the Númenórean sacred kings. Rather, his death holds a significance for the restoration of a golden age of Men in the Fourth Age. Although his deathbed is “strikingly devoid of the sacraments, of Extreme Unction, of the consolation of religion” (Shippey 2005, 229) it does attempt to restore the innocence of the Men of the First Age: Men, who were an idyllic Naturvolk in communion with the Powers in the world.
Their tradition of choosing death reached all the way back to the Stammvater, Bëor the Old, when he “at the last had relinquished his life willingly and passed in peace…”(S, 173). And the Elves stood in amazement at Eru Ilúvatar’s Gift to Men.
VII. Conclusion
At the end of the ‘Tragic Autumn’ and its ubi sunt sentiment, a new heroic ethos arises in the absence of heroic Elvendom, its wyrd, and its tradition of Northern courage. It is an ethos defined by proto-chivalric virtues such as caritas and humilitas – and most importantly hope – rather than fatalistic defiance. A new ethos that imparts an emotional significance of the waxing ‘Romantic Summer.’ The agency of this Renewal King is instrumental in renewing the virtuous norms and values of the old traditions, while at the same time, fusing them with new traditions. This fusion allows the narrative to plausibly shift into a new direction by illustratively narrating the great deeds and ethos of Aragorn ad bonum exemplum and a new dianoia, or theme, underlying the heroic ethos. By doing so, Tolkien follows a pattern that the Old Saxon Heliand poet also followed by forming a new Germanic-Christian synthesis of the ideal man: a composite of personal strength and interior gentleness, a “heroic chest with a kind heart inside” (Murphy 1995, 86-87). Absent only are the outwardly and explicit Christian accoutrements.
This is the “career pattern” of the Renewal King that we also associate with the ideal kings in our own historical and literary works, such as Charlemagne. Illustrating the exemplum of renewal are the modes in which both Aragorn and Charlemagne administer and renew their realms by their cultural authority, which differ only in the details while the larger patterns remain recognizably the same.
While Aragorn carries the pedigree and core traditions of his kingly destiny, his sudden appearance upon the scene in Middle-earth makes it is necessary for Aragorn to rightly use them, as the traditions not only define his identity (and by extension his people and other peoples who join their group), but they also give him legitimacy and authority to accomplish renewal. Subsequently, the core-tradition is altered. Part of that core of tradition are the symbols that represent it, such as Barahir’s Ring and Andúril. While another part of that core tradition are the norms and customs (the heroic code) which govern actions and define the actor or actors by illustrative and exemplary deeds. We witness the heroic deeds of Men at the beginning of this tradition in the ancient battle of the Dagor Bragollach and we see it again at the Battle at the Black Gate. But this time, it differs in that Aragorn’s treatment of his less heroic subjects and soldiers. It explicitly shows the fusion, or transition, of Northern courage into a new proto-chivalric heroic ethos.
Aragorn’s renewal of Gondor’s hegemony consists of many aspects of governance, as is suitable for a king, but only four are treated here. Both Aragorn and Charlemagne show the same pattern in how their legitimacy is acknowledged; how their governance and administration enacts policies within the paradigm of the new ethos; how they dispense justice in accordance with the virtues of the new ethos; and the cultural renewal that allows for implementing cultural change (i.e. a change in the core tradition) for the new millennium. The Lord of the Rings is a heroic romance in which the mythological dimension is closely tied to kingship. Aragorn’s epiphany confirms his legitimacy, both divinely and symbolically to himself and his realm. It prepares Gondor for a New Golden Age. It is the Stoff of myth.
Finally, Aragorn’s death realizes a renewal in the wise and correct use of Ilúvatar’s Gift to Men. Not only renewing a core traditional aspect of the ancient Númenóreans, but reaching further back to the idyllic when the first recorded incident of freely choosing the Gift of Ilúvatar was performed. Not coincidentally, it was performed by Aragorn’s ‘Stammvater’ Bëor the Old, who, by his exemplary act, inspired awe and wonder in the Eldar and set a model for Men to follow. It seems now that we have returned full circle as the lands of the West lay snugly under the King’s Peace. Aragorn Elessar dies with grace and renews the realm full of piety and goodness.
We find ourselves at the end of story in a happily-ever-after state. Until, of course, there is another Fall, and the history of Middle-earth again becomes ‘storial’. That story,23 however, will never come and we may enjoy the satisfaction of the Romantic Summer happily-ever-after.
17 The Akallabêth actually shows the first time the core-tradition shift away from the Germanic heroic ethos, which would require a separate, albeit interesting, discussion. So far as this discussion is concerned, the group of persecuted Númenóreans known as ‘The Faithful’ who were persecuted precisely because they would not abandon the core tradition inherited from the Edain. See Akallabêth (S, 309-338).
18 This account is, of course, not without scholarly contention. Barbero points out that “[…] it may be that Einhard, modeling himself on Suetonius, merely wished to emphasize Charles’s modesty, in the same way that Claudius had not considered himself worthy of the imperial title and had to be invested by force.” Yet this strengthens the myth of legendary Charlemagne’s humilitas and further illuminates Aragorn’s humilitas. Alessandro Barbero, Charlemagne: Father of a Continent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 92-93.
19 For further discussion, see Thomas Honegger, 2018. "‘We don’t need another hero’ — Problematic heroes and their Function in Some of Tolkien’s Works." In the Proceeding of the ‘J. R. R. Tolkien: Individual, Community, Society’ 5th International Conference on Tolkien in Hungary (2015).
20 For further relevant discussion of Gondor and the Holy Roman Empire, see Miryam Librán-Moreno, “Byzantium, New Rome!” In Tolkien and the Study of His Sources, ed. Jason Fisher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 84-115.
21 Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle-Earth. Revised Edition (London: Harper Collins, 2005), 232, 319. Shippey has previously noted this as have I in regard to Fëanor’s deeds as a Germanic hero (personal citation, 117).
22 “And a seedling they [the Eldar] brought of Celeborn, theWhite Tree that grew in the midst of Eressëa; and that was in its turn a seedling of Galathilion the Tree of Túna, the image of Telperion that Yavanna gave to the Eldar in the Blessed realm. And the tree grew and blossomed in the courts of the King in Armenelos; Nimloth it was named, and flowered in the evening, and the shadows of night it filled with fragrance.” (S, 314)
23 Tolkien started a sequel to Lord of the Rings that he called The New Shadow. However, he soon abandoned the project considering it nothing more than “cheap thriller.” See The Peoples of Middle-earth XII, Chapter XVI, in The History of Middle-earth III. London: Harper Collins 2002. pp. 410-421. 24
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About the Author
Jeff Dem holds a BA in Russian and Eastern European Studies and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan (Residential College), a MA in Germanic Languages and Literatures from the University of Virginia, and a Dr. phil. (magna cum laude) from the Philosophische Fakultät of the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena in Anglistische Mediävistik. His dissertation 'The Germanic Narrative of the Eldar in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Legendarium: Northern Courage, Wyrd and Redemption' is soon to be submitted as a book.
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