Qualla: Palace of Aachen

Palace of Aachen: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Traveler100, CC BY-SA 3.0. For most of European history before 800, kings were itinerant. The court moved with the seasons, eating its way through the kingdom, because there was no efficient way to ship food long distances and a stationary court would have starved its own territory. Then Charlemagne, in his sixties, ageing and tired of war, simply decided to stop. After 806 he barely left Aachen at all. He picked the spot because it had hot springs his back needed, forests he could hunt in, and a location in the Carolingian heartland of Austrasia close enough to monitor the long Saxon war. He commissioned a palace from an architect named Odo of Metz, who designed a chapel so geometrically perfect, so encoded with sacred numbers from the Book of Revelation, that twelve centuries later it is still standing as the rotunda of Aachen Cathedral.

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Image: Traveler100 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Palace of Aachen: The Roman Bones Beneath

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Romans had been here first. They called the site Aquae Granni and built fifty acres of thermae over its thermal springs in the first century. The bathing complex stayed in use until the fourth century, when barbarian invasions destroyed the city. Clovis made Paris the Frankis...

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Image: Unknown | CC BY-SA 3.0

Palace of Aachen: 144 Cubits and the Heavenly Jerusalem

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Velvet, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Palatine Chapel, the part that has survived, is a sermon in stone. Odo of Metz was a cleric trained in the liberal arts, almost certainly familiar with Vitruvius, and he built Christian symbolism directly into the geometry of the dome. The octagonal cupola measures 144 Caroli...

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Image: Velvet | CC BY-SA 3.0

Palace of Aachen: Columns from Ravenna

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GK tramrunner RU, CC BY-SA 4.0. The chapel was decorated with what would now be called architectural spoliation. Charlemagne wanted marble columns to support his arcades, and he wanted them quickly. The Pope gave him permission to take columns from buildings in Ravenna and Rome, the old imperial capitals of the...

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Image: GK tramrunner RU | CC BY-SA 4.0

Palace of Aachen: The City the Court Grew

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit vincde 15, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the court arrived, the city followed. Craftsmen and traders settled near the palace because that was where the money was. Charlemagne's advisors, including Eginhard and Angilbert, built houses for themselves in the new urban center. The chancellery employed scribes and notar...

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Image: vincde 15 | CC BY-SA 3.0