Economics and Human Biology 8 (2010) 289290

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Economics and Human Biology

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Short communication

Charlemagne was very tall, but not robust

Frank J. Ruhli a,*, Bernhard Blumich b, Maciej Henneberg c
a

Institute of Anatomy, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland Department for Macromolecular Chemistry, RWTH Aachen, Worringerweg 1, 52056 Aachen, Germany c Anatomical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Frome Road, 5005 Adelaide, Australia
b

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Computed tomography History Medieval Stature

The left tibia of Charlemagne, the Medieval Father of Europe has been X-rayed and CT scanned to determine his still highly debated stature. We found the healthy bone to be long (430 mm) but rather not robust (total mid-shaft cross-sectional area 473 mm2, cortical area 352 mm2). Reconstructed stature of 1.84 m falls at about 99% of Medieval heights, which would be ca. 1.95 m in present-day Europe. Thus, tall stature indeed could have contributed to the success of Charles the Great as a king emperor and soldier. 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Charlemagne (ca. 747814 CE; Fig. 1) or Carolus Magnus meaning Charles the Big as well as Charles the Great is one of the most important historical personalities. Being son of Pippin the Short (714768 CE), his physique is only known from historical descriptions, which may be biased by his political greatness reected in his title of Pater Europae. His friend and courtier Einhard (ca. 770 840 CE) described him as a large and strong person, being lofty but not disproportionally tall, and measuring exactly seven times the length of his own foot (Einhard, 1880). Charlemagnes earthly remains are inaccessible since he was canonised in 1165 CE and as sacrosanct his bones are sealed in the sarcophagus at the Aachen cathedral in Germany. However, the left tibia (Fig. 1) exhibited in the cathedrals treasury was made available for our study by Church authorities. The tibia was well preserved and no pathologies could be found on external observation and radiological examination. Based on computed tomography scan data (Department of Diagnostic Radiology, RWTH Aachen) measurements of maximum length (430 mm; Tibia Martin (1928) 1) and medial length (421 mm; Tibia Martin

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 446355315; fax: +41 446355702. E-mail address: frank.ruhli@anatom.uzh.ch (F.J. Ruhli). 1570-677X/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2009.12.005

(1928) 1b) were obtained, producing stature estimates by various methods (Breitinger, 1937; Dupertuis and Hadden, 1951; Manouvrier, 1892; Pearson, 1899; Rollet, 1889; Telkka, 1950; Topinard, 1885; Trotter and Gleser, 1952; Table 1) averaging 1.84 m. Average contemporary male height was ca. 1.69 m (Frayer, 1984; Wurm, 1982), thus putting Charlemagnes stature around 99th percentile assuming standard deviation of ca. 0.06 m. By the present-day European standards a person around 99th percentile is about 1.95 m tall. Width measurements of the tibia (Fig. 1) and skeletal robusticity indices (Pearson, 2000) suggest a not robust skeletal frame: 14.2% diaphysis (=bone shaft), 17.7% proximal and 22.7% distal epiphyses (=growth zones). All three values of indices fall below averages for modern US males (Pearson, 2000). Estimated from CT mid-shaft cross-section area (473 mm2) and cortical area (352 mm2) agree with suggestion of gracility. Body weight estimated from height (Henneberg et al., 1989) was approximately 78 kg. With the gracility of the skeleton, the actual weight could be lower, producing a body mass index around 22 kg/m2 (Henneberg and Henneberg, 1998; Henneberg et al., 1992). Although our stature estimation has a range or error, being based on one bone only, it is evident that the physical appearance of Charlemagne was highly notable for the Middle Ages and thus it may have contributed to his socio-political achievements, since tall stature is even

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Acknowledgements We thank Swiss National Science Foundation and Research Fund, University of Zurich for nancial support, G. Minkenberg, Domkapitel Aachen, Germany, for provid ing access to Charlemagnes tibia, Prof. Dr. R. Gunther, University Clinics of Diagnostic Radiology, RWTH Aachen University for the CT investigation, and Prof. KW. Alt, Institute of Anthropology, University for Mainz, Germany, for providing Dahlheim sample data. References
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Fig. 1. Relative contemporary bone robusticity of Charlemagne: the relationship between the sum of the mid-shaft antero-posterior (AP) and mesio-lateral (ML) diameters (Note: the sum of diameters indicates the width of the bone) and maximum tibial length of Charlemagne (large dot) against a sample of Medieval males from Dalheim, NW Germany (N = 20). Inserted are the AP (upper left) and mid-shaft cross-sectional (lower right) CT scan images of tibia of Charlemagne. The placement of Charlemagnes tibia on the scatter shows that it is amongst the longest but not the widest, thus this illustrates his rather delicate build.

Table 1 Stature of Charlemagne as estimated by various reconstruction methods (based on tibia length; standard deviation: 0.048). Estimated stature (m) 1.79 1.79 1.82 1.83 1.84 1.85 1.88 1.92 Method Breitinger (1937) Pearson (1899) Telkka (1950) Manouvrier (1892) Dupertuis and Hadden (1951) Trotter and Gleser (1952) Topinard (1885) Rollet (1889)

nowadays well correlated with decreased mortality and morbidity and increased individual socio-economic success (Engeland et al., 2003; Herpin, 2005; Heineck, 2002; Rashad, 2008; Deaton and Arora, 2009).