We can see the concept of the sacrificing king in Asser’s King Alfred, who works day and night to deal ‘with the cares of the royal office at home and abroad, and also with the invasions of pagans by land and sea’ ( Life of Alfred cap. The Old Testament offered another model of the sleepless ruler in King David, weeping that ‘I am weary with my groaning all the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my tears’. Elsewhere David says ‘I have slept and have taken my rest: and I have risen up, because the Lord hath protected me’. As the Psalms promised ‘He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep’. In the figure of Christ they had perhaps the perfect example of the ever vigilant king. Nor were Classical models the sole source for early medieval biographers. Given this continuity between the ancient and the modern worlds, it is unsurprising that the model of the watchful ruler can be found in the early medieval period. While earlier rulers defend their people at night, modern restless leaders are celebrated out for their discipline and dedication. While there are plenty of people who might wish that both had got a bit more sleep before making some of their decisions, these stories add to the mystique of both, as indefatigable leaders endlessly working for the good of their peoples. So too, it is rumoured, does Vladimir Putin.
Napoleon declared that the number of hours’ sleep required was ‘Six for a man, seven for a woman, eight for a fool.’ Margaret Thatcher famously got by on four hours of sleep a night as Prime Minister. Nor is the model of the vigilant guardian alien to the modern age. These rulers stay awake in order to safeguard their subjects. The Harun al-Rashid of the Arabian Nights also fits this pattern, as the sleepless Caliph wanders his city in disguise in order to right wrongs and protect his people. In his Anabasis Arrian describes Alexander reproaching his mutinous troops ‘I wake before you and watch so that you might sleep properly’. Seneca said of Claudius that ‘the watchfulness of Caesar guards the sleep of everyone’. However, a more positive interpretation of sleepless kings was available. The Emperor’s insomnia is presented as a mark of the Satanic:Īnd how could this man fail to be some wicked demon, he who never had a sufficiency of food or drink or sleep, but taking a taste at haphazard of that which was set before him, walked about the Palace at unseasonable hours of the night, though he was passionately devoted to the joys of Aphrodite?Īs with Macbeth, the inability of these Emperors to sleep demonstrates monarchs at odds with the natural order of things. Was especially tormented with sleeplessness for he never rested more than three hours at night…weary of lying in bed wide awake during the greater part of the night, he would…wander through the long colonnades, crying out from time to time for daylight and longing for its coming.Ī similar flavour of the unnatural appears in Procopius’ description of Justinian in the Secret History. In Suetonius’ portraits of the early Roman Emperors, an inability to sleep could be a sign of a fundamental disorder in the individual’s mind. Suetonius’ Augustus ‘ often suffered from want of sleep’. Einhard drew upon Suetonius’ description of Augustus in this, right down to the afternoon nap. In his biography of Charlemagne, Einhard provides us with a possible explanation for Charlemagne’s long slumber, informing us that ‘he was in the habit of awaking and rising from bed four or five times during the night’, supplementing this limited rest with a short siesta in the afternoon. This issue seems particularly strange if we consult Alcuin, who in a poem describes Charlemagne leaping out of bed in the mornings. Given that Charlemagne has managed to sleep undisturbed through the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War and the Second World War, we might ask ourselves exactly how large a crisis would be necessary to wake him. If we share his scepticism we must face a major problem. In his Chronicle, Abbot Ekkehard of Aura noted fabulous stories of Charlemagne returning for the First Crusade.
Quite when this will happen is a little unclear. Some magnificent bed hair on display in the Stuttgart Psalter, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Bibl.
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